42. The Last Night
The Last Night
I’m excited to be with Cosmer. Happy that this day, which was the worst day of my life, has ended up being the start of our lives together.
But the closer we get to our cabin, the more it sinks in how much we lost today.
“Cosmer. In the sky, earlier. Did you see what happened to—”
“Riss? Yes. I was right behind the other ship remember.”
Just the sound of her name sends a wave of emotion through me. If I’m mourning her like this, how must he be feeling? They were best friends.
I stare at his profile. His expression is devoid of any emotion at all – which isn’t like him.
I wrap my arm around him. “I’m so, so sorry, Cosmer. I was trying to protect you both – it’s what made the magic work in the first place. I wish it had worked a second sooner—”
“Can we not talk about it right now?”
I’m frowning. “I thought you’d want to talk about her. About everyone. We can think of a way to remember – honour them. We can grieve—”
“I’m not going to do that,” he says. “Yet.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m grieving in my own way.”
I’m disappointed. I so wanted to comfort him.
So wanted him to comfort me.
“But…” I trail off. I have no idea how to voice what I’m feeling.
“I’m sorry Ara, but I’m not ready to have that conversation. Mother and Riss were the two most important people to me – like, I suppose, Eric and Old Mother were to you.”
“They were.”
“So, can you see how I can’t deal with this today? What I’ve gone through, on top of – I thought – losing you, and almost losing you again.”
He finally wraps his own arm around me. Interlocked, we walk slowly – and I don’t mind. We have time. We have so much time, if this is the first day of forever.
“It doesn’t feel real yet, and I’d like to keep it that way, for a little longer.” He kisses my neck. “Only you feel real right now. And I want to enjoy you. My last good thing.”
I’m barely through the cabin door when he’s pushing me up against it, kissing me deeply and messily. He’s pulling my hair with one hand. Grabbing my waist and pressing me against him with the other. There’s a hunger in him I’ve never seen before.
I expected this. I got his meaning, earlier. Bed rest. I’m even responding, meeting his kisses as best I can.
But the longer he does this…
Abruptly, I separate my lips from his. Go under his arm to face him from his other side.
“Maybe we shouldn’t,” I tell him.
His eyes, and the room itself, seem to dim. “Why?”
The word needles me. Is he that clueless about my emotions right now?
“Because I’m sad,” I stress. “And you are, too.” I smooth my hair, which he’s messed up. “And I think that’s why you’re doing this. Like this.”
“I just want you.”
“You want oblivion. And sex means more to me than that.”
He looks irritated. “Ara—”
“Just lie with me,” I suggest. “And talk to me. Like we did on the beach.”
“I don’t want to grieve with you, Ara!” He’s practically growling. Like he’s a different person entirely. His words fill every corner of this tiny room.
Silence.
Until I say, “You already are.”
“I’m not,” he insists.
I hug him around his middle. “It’s okay,” I say, from his chest. He smells like the cold wind outside and starch and leather and metal and home.
He doesn’t react for a second.
Then he squeezes me tightly, tucking my head under his chin.
“Cosmos. I’m fucked. I’m—”
“It’s okay,” I repeat.
Then I lead him over to his bed.
Once he’s lying down, his boots off, I take off mine and curl up into him.
The light goes off, and the dark and the silence are comforting, and we are alive and we shouldn’t be because others aren’t and things could have been done differently, and we’re grieving but we don’t need to talk about it and neither of us are crying – but if we started to, at any point, ever, it would be okay.
For now, we just listen to each other’s breaths.
It’s enough.
In the bed – later, much later – he presents me with my ribbon. He’d secured it around his belt, which he must have taken back from Meg’s cabin before he got locked out. I sit up, and he kneels behind me to tie my hair with it, fixing it into its usual ponytail over my shoulder.
“I have something else for you,” he says at my ear. “I was waiting for a good time for us to share them.”
Intrigued, I watch him as he clambers off the bed, feels under his mattress, and slots his fingers into a loose seam he locates under it.
I’m tutting. “Is that contraband? That’s going to be one strike...”
“I get hungry.”
And I know it’s a joke, but it stings me. Because I know exactly how hungry he was getting, for me.
He shows me what he’s just pulled out from inside the mattress. A small tin can.
“These are tinned peaches. Have you ever had them?”
I shake my head. “I haven’t even had a normal peach.”
“They’re the best,” he insists. With a tiny screwdriver he’d also produced, which he tells me he stole off an engineer once, he skilfully prises the can open by getting under the rim of it.
We find my spoons and sit back on the bed.
He feeds me, and I feed him.
The sharp sweetness fills my mouth.
It really is the best thing I’ve ever tasted.
I think another hour or so must pass while we’re still curled on the bed. We’ve finished the peaches. Even taken turns sipping the golden juices out of the tin. I laughed when he got some down his chin. I kissed it right off.
Then we feel it. The sudden stopping of the ship.
We’re swaying. The bed squeaks as it rocks, and we grab each other to keep steady.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
“I’ll go and find out.”
He rushes out of the room before I can stop him.
Every second I wait for him kills me.
But he barrels back in a few moments later. “It’s all right,” he says quickly. “It’s just dinner.”
“Dinner?”
“Dezeeves wants us all together for a final meal on the ship.”
I’m already settling back into the bed. “We’re not going to go to that. Let’s just stay here. Where we’re safe.”
“We can’t survive on tinned peaches and each other, Ara.”
If only we could.
“Come on,” Cosmer says. “We’ll go for the food, and we’ll get out of there as soon as we can.”
He makes it sound so reasonable.
There are only enough of us remaining on the ship to fill one of the long oval tables in the Wardroom. In many ways the scene reminds me of the Captain’s Dinner. The table has been done up similarly with napkins, silver spoons and small plates. No rum or flowers this time.
The Rhavnans have again dressed in their best. Dezeeves looks out of place among us with his Hevallan features and captain’s uniform.
And so does Cosmer.
The thought makes me uneasy.
But he doesn’t seem to mind. He leads me confidently right over to the opposite end of the table, away from Dezeeves, Drake, Meg, and Rike.
And I’m glad he does. It’s better this way. Safer.
I can’t help thinking this is going to be one more test. With Dezeeves, it’s difficult to imagine it could be anything else.
And I decide I don’t like the way Drake has been seated between Dezeeves and Meg. As if, tonight, he is the guest of honour, and the guest of honour alone.
Two soldiers come around the table with coarse bread rolls.
“Please eat,” Dezeeves says to us. As we are all gathered around the one table, he doesn’t even need to stand. “I will make a short speech at the end.”
People pick at their rolls, talking amongst themselves.
I’m drawn to the sound of Meg’s voice across the table. She sounds agitated.
And I see she’s not talking to a person. Her radio is in her hand, and she’s repeating a single name into it.
“Ephraine,” she says. “Ephraine. Come in, Ephraine.”
It’s attracted Dezeeves’ attention, too. Leaning over Drake, he states, “Meg. Perhaps we can leave the radio, while we are all dining?”
She gives him a look like she could bite him. “We do not know where he is. He has not been answering me for almost twenty-four hours. He could be in distress—”
“He is on a mission. His ship is out. That is all.”
“A mission he told no one about?”
“Meg. Please.”
She places the radio on the table. But keeps staring at it.
The next course is served in bowls. Lamb and vegetable stew with doughy dumplings.
Cosmer eats like it’s the best meal he’s ever had.
I take a few spoonfuls, but hardly taste it.
I just want this over.
Drake isn’t looking this way. He’s engaged in a pleasant-looking conversation with Dezeeves. As if Dezeeves is not our enemy, but our good friend. As if he has no plans to kill him at all.
The sight of him like that is blood-boiling.
What are you playing at, Drake?
I’m glad I didn’t agree to a truce.
But I can’t understand why it takes such effort to drag my eyes away from him.
Once most have finished their food and spoons are clattering into empty bowls, Dezeeves gets our attention with a firm clap of his hands.
“Now, I know many of us should be returning to The Bridge for the last leg of our journey. But I wanted to share an announcement. Just a couple of hours ago, we received the news that Hevalla, seeing our weapon in action, and with its own wounds to now tend to on the ground…” He pauses, as if just for effect, then says, in a voice that seems to resound around the room, “Has surrendered.”
The effect is instantaneous. Everyone seems to either cheer, or clap, or both.
The war… is over?
I thought I would never hear those words.
“It’s the news we have been waiting for,” Dezeeves says leisurely.
“But I’d like to say a few more words on this, our final night.
” He pauses, glimpsing us all. “I wanted to thank you, once again, for putting your trust in me. As FIs on my ship, you endured at times situations that may have been uncomfortable. Humiliating, even. Some of you fought against fellow Rhavnans in battle. But your patience has brought forth reward. In Rhavna, we will be welcomed into the Queen’s court, for our loyalty and sacrifice.
Those of you who were already part of the court will receive stations of highest honour.
” Here, he glances pointedly at Meg and Rike.