I mourned that girl who didn’t exist.
I would’ve liked her very much. A girl like her would’ve been perfect for someone like Sian.
Not me.
“I’m fine,” I whispered, dropping his hand. If he looked disappointed, I decided not to notice as I kept my hands firmly on the rock face, feeling the smooth stone beneath my fingertips, and waited for him to descend. “But I’d like to hear the story.”
So he led me down the ravine and told the story.
Thousands of years ago, this planet was inhabited by a people his mentor called the Elderels. Not muchwas known about them—their great libraries were burned, their records scattered—but of the few facts that remained, his mentor knew that they were a fierce and protective species who excelled in the arts—
“Watch your step,” he added, motioning to a gap in the path, and helped me over it. His fingers brushed the small of my back, featherlight.
I let go of his hand again, though I didn’t want to. The farther down we went, toward the calm aquamarine river below, the darker the stone walls became.
He told me the Elderels excelled in music. They spoke in songs, but not like the ones we knew. They communicated through some sort of aeolian notes.
“Aeolian?”
“It’s the sound you hear when the wind whispers across the rocks, over the sands, through the trees—my mentor said it was the sound of the galaxy in motion.”
“I always thought the galaxy sounded like the hum of a ship,” I mused.
He glanced over his shoulder at me. “You really did grow up on that ship, didn’t you.”
I shrugged. “What does the galaxy sound like to you?”
He gave it some thought while helping me down the last switchback that led to the bottom of the ravine. Beside the rushing water was a small path that snaked into an alcove that couldn’t be seen from the top of thecliff, hidden away. Secret. “I don’t think I remember thinking it sounded like anything. Silence, probably. Yeah, a lot of silence.”
“That sounds lonely.”
“So does the galaxy sounding like a ship,” he replied, and then winced. “Sorry—sorry. The flowers…that was rude.”
“True though,” I admitted. It wasn’t like he waswrong.
He helped me down the last bit of rock, hand in mine, but when our feet were on solid ground, I decided not to let go again. I folded my fingers through his, as if to tell him that I wasn’t alone now, and neither was he. He squeezed my hand back.
My heart did a funny flip in my chest.
“What happened to the Elderels?” I asked, trying to ignore the feeling as he angled his head toward the alcove.
“Why don’t we see for ourselves?”
Cut into the rock was a temple of swirling stone chiseled to look like waves of water or waves of hair—I couldn’t quite tell. The pillars stretched twenty meters high, framing a stone door that had cracked centuries ago and was now broken on the ground. There were patterns carved into the door, but they were so faded I couldn’t tell what they’d once been.
Sian led me to them and into the temple ruins.
The air inside was cooler and strangely dry. But stranger still, the sweet scent of the flowers was gone. I felt like I could finally breathe again.
And lie again, I thought, though that meant he could, too. I didn’t realize how comfortable I’d gotten simply telling the truth.
I’d spent so much of the past few years lying—small lies, about how I was feeling, what I wanted in life, being satisfied on theStarfarer, happy on theStarfarer, enough on theStarfarer—
I wasn’t at all.
The salt from the river must have absorbed the smell, and it didn’t look like the flowers could grow in darkness—they had only been in the shafts of light in the research facility—so it made sense that there weren’t any down here.
Then Sian inclined his head, and we walked on.
