A younger Solari watcher offers a gentle smile, holds out his hand. “You’re doing fine.”
“Doing fine is the shape of a broken blade,” I mutter and walk off.
Tayani is watching me from the vines. She tilts her head. “You must live well enough to deserve its return.”
I don’t answer. I just keep walking. At the edge of the vineyards, a fence line of low posts marks the boundary between the cultivated vines and the wild of whispergrass and whisperwind beyond. I climb over the last post and stand on the worm-soft earth. The sky reaches out wide. Stars… not yet visible. Too early. Sun sinking.
I stare upward. Nothing moves. The emptiness echoes.
I hear my own heart. I smell the hay and wind-metal fragrance of the tower behind me. My hands close into fists at my sides and my knuckles go white.
“Lost something,” I hear someone behind me say.
I turn. Tayani standing in the shadow of the building, vines curling near her feet. “Yes.”
“What?”
I rub the back of my neck. “I lost something.”
Her shadow reaches me. She lays a hand on my shoulder. “Then you must live well enough to deserve its return.”
Cold. Firm. Minimal. The kind of consolation that sits like a rock.
I nod. “Yeah.”
She smiles like sorrow and wisdom intertwined. Then she steps back and disappears into the vineyard dusk.
I stay where I am. Night comes. The suns set. The heavens shift and the first stars prick open. I watch them. My eyes strain. I wait.
Every night I do this. Sometimes I swear I see her face. Liora’s face. Her hair loose, blowing in an alien wind. Her eyes bright silver in my mind. Her voice whispering, “Gyon…”
My body jolts. I grind my teeth. The sky just stares back.
I climb down, head heavy, and sit next to the firepit by the dome. The coals are glowing red. The smell of char and wood rising. I pick one of the smooth stones I carved earlier, hold it in my lap. The carvings—her name, the clan glyphs—my fingers tracing them.
“Papa?” A child voice.
I look up. A little girl stands across the fire. The moonlight (or one of the twin moons) catches her hair. I can’t tell yet if I recognize her. But she smiles at me.
“Want story?”
“No,” I say. “Go inside.”
She shakes her head. “Please.”
I stand. “Fine. But this is the last one.”
She’s crouched now next to me, hands on her knees. “Tell me about the crash.” Her eyes curious. Silver? No—they’re brown in the dull lamps of the dome. But I know.
I grip a stone and set it aside. I open my mouth. I haven’t done this in years.
“Okay,” I say. The wind picks up. The grass rustles. “We were in the Maze. The corridors collapsed. Light went white. She—He—” I pause. “Liora was beside me. We ran. I told her to run. She said: ‘I’m staying.’”
She closes her eyes. A slow breeze cools my hair. The smell of smoke from the earlier firepit floats. “What happened?”
I stare at her small face. Calm. Open. I can’t answer. Not yet. Instead I push the stone into her hands and say, “Your name.”
She tilts her head. “It’s Pepper.”
