I squeeze my eyes tight. I do not have the hydration to cry. I press the heels of my hands over my face, fighting the crushing wave of grief.
But when I open my eyes again, the beautiful little needle is still sitting there on the dark stone. Perfect. Useless. Waiting for empty hands.
We never gave her a funeral.
We stood numb in the cavern while Sorn held out the torn scrap of her shirt, and then we went directly back to surviving. We never stopped to let her go.
I find Mira first. Then Lucy. Then Pam. I don’t give a speech. I just walk up to each of them and say, “I want to do something for Hannah. Come with me.”
Nobody refuses.
The spotI choose is a flat stretch of shifting dust just outside the tunnel mouth that leads from the back of the cavern out into the dust. It’s slightly sheltered from the roaring wind by a large curve of rock.
It is a terrible place for a grave, and we don’t have a shovel.
We have our bare hands.
Six of us kneel in the burning dust. Mira uncurls her tight fist and silently hands me the torn scrap of Hannah’s fabric that she’s kept safe in the sick bay since Sorn returned from the wastes.
I take it from her, running my thumb over it for a moment. It’s so small.
With a breath, I fold the small piece of fabric and set it in the shallow depression we scraped into the hot sand. Mira silently places a piece of firebloom leaf directly on top of it. Pam just stares at the dust, gripping Lucy’s hand tightly enough that the bloodflow in both their hands is probably completely cut off.
“Should someone say something?” Lucy whispers, her voice breaking loudly over the wind.
I stare at the small piece of fabric, completely overwhelmed by how fragile we are on this brutal planet. The only reason Iam not being folded into the sand next to her is because of the Drakav. Because of Kol and his warriors. My body does a stupid throb just thinking about him, completely inappropriate for a funeral.
“Hannah liked yellow,” I say, clearing my throat to get myself back on track. The wind immediately rips the words from my mouth. “When the gravity failed on the transport, she was the one who held Tina’s hand.” Tina releases a sharp, broken sob from where she’s leaning against Trecia. “She paced that wreckage of a ship for days straight because she refused to just wait to die.” I swallow against the hot pressure in my throat. “She deserved to live.”
The women nod.
I reach my trembling hands out and start scraping the burning sand over the folded fabric.
That’s when the sun disappears.
Four overlapping shadows drop over the scorching sand.
I turn my head sharply.
Four Drakav warriors have silently surrounded the outcropping. Zan stands at the front, his amber eyes locked onto the shallow hole in the sand. I’m completely used to the Drakav staring, but this is different. And the other women notice too.
“What’s wrong with them?” Lucy whispers, terror leaking into her voice.
Zan drops from the rock outcropping, landing softly inside the funeral circle. His gaze locks onto the piece of fabric sitting in the loose sand, and a low rumble vibrates in his throat before his piercing eyes snap up to lock on mine.
It happens so suddenly, I almost flinch. It’s like suddenly looking into the eyes of a tiger and that tigerseesyou. He takes a sharp step forward, planting his massive body right between me and the shallow hole in the sand we just dug.
Lucy makes a tiny, terrified sound behind me. We all freeze. I have no idea what we just did wrong, but his entire posture is blocking us. Are we not allowed to bury her here?
Zan’s amber eyes flash with clear frustration when we just stare at him in paralyzed panic. He shifts his weight, his claws flexing continuously in the hot air as he tries to communicate in a way none of us can understand. None of us have access to the mindspace.
But when we still don’t step away from the hole, Zan finally forces out a harsh, guttural sequence of actual syllables.
My translator chirps flatly in my ear. “No. Under. No.”
I freeze on my knees, my hands still full of sand.
Zan drops to both knees directly in front of me. He reaches out and gently sweeps his broad hand over the loose sand we just scraped out, eyes focused on the hole. “Kah. Kah.” He turns and presses his open palm flat against the solid stone bordering the grave and rumbles a thick string of syllables.
