Chapter Thirteen
Thirteen
Aesira
Aesira stood outside Stone’s cabin.
Nora had gone to bed, riddled with guilt from her and Patch’s fuck up, which meant it was Stone and Aesira’s turn to be on watch. She raised her hand again. This time she would knock. She would not be a coward and she would–
The door flew open and her fist collided with Stone’s chest.
“Ouch.” He laughed, rubbing his chest.
“Sorry.” She drew her hand away and tucked it behind her back.
“Commander,” he said, opening the door wider. “Did you want to come in?”
Did she?
No.
Of course not.
“It’s our turn on deck,” she said. Simple. To the point. Stone nodded, slipping on his worn, leather flight jacket and joined her in the hall. “I meant to thank you earlier,” Aesira said.
Stone’s gaze shifted to her as they made their way above deck. He pulled his goggles from his back pocket and slipped them around his neck.
“For what?”
Aesira wasn’t one to admit she was wrong.
In fact, it was her biggest vice according to her siblings.
Pride, she argued it was. Ego, more likely.
“I wanted to thank you for letting me join you with Vic, and for getting the maps verified.” It was a detail she hadn’t thought of and as much as it ate her up, she was grateful for Stone’s quick thinking.
Stone shrugged. “Han owed me a favor, so really it was nothing.”
She puffed her cheeks then let out a long breath. “Are you always so nice? It makes not liking you very difficult.”
Stone flashed her a quick grin which made his scar tighten. He gripped the wheel, turning them slightly left as she found an empty crate to sit on. “Would you prefer I be mean?” He shot her a look before focusing again on the horizon. “I thought we were friends, Commander.”
She could feel his grin without looking at him, feel how his eyes watched her, burning an outline of her face. “I’m not as gracious as you, but I’m trying.”
Stone laughed, steering them to the left. “Maybe don’t try so hard.” She turned to him then, because he had no idea what he’d said to her.
Don’t try so hard.
As if she had any other way of existing.
Try harder.
Work faster.
Be better.
Words of her childhood etched into her like they were carved in stone.
Permanent.
When she arrived at the Order, she was twelve years old. Her father had had enough of her animated spirit. Her sharp tongue and restless limbs.
“Sit still, Aesira.”
“Try harder.”
“Why aren’t you more like your sister? A princess should be poised on a chair, not dirty and perched in a tree.”
They sent her away to break her spirit, to eliminate all the untamed energy that was constantly bubbling up inside of her.
They cut the wildness out of her chest, where it grew like thorny vines, and replaced it with heavy rock.
Something to hold her steady. Keep her still.
Keep her theirs. So she couldn’t do anything but try hard, because anything less than perfection was met with punishment.
Under the light of the moon, Stone’s eyes glistened. Like water from Piscis Spring. Blue and endless. “How long until the next outpost?”
Stone rubbed a hand over his jaw. “Two days if we don’t stop.”
“And Dire will have astra reservoirs?” Aesira pulled the small blade from Kamari from her pocket and used the edge to pick sand from under her nails.
The ship sailed smoothly above the desert, the light from the moon and stars guiding their way.
She ignored the distant screeching. The faint sound of her name being called.
If the crawlers wanted to come back for her, this time she’d be more than ready.
“Not much,” Stone said, “but they’ll have enough to get us home. Plus, this close to Naming Day, their reservoirs will be refilled in a few weeks.” His fingers tightened around the wheel. “So, if we don’t run into any more problems, it should be smooth sailing.”
Aesira tucked the knife away. “More problems like running out of fuel before we get there? Because it seems like a big one to risk.”
“It’ll be close,” Stone said. “But what choice do we have?”
To that, she couldn’t argue. Her name drifted on the wind again like phantom nails raking down her spine. “And what about crawlers?”
Stone propped the wheel, dragging a hand through his auburn hair. “Crawlers are always a possibility. Serpents, storms, Vic, all things we’ll need to be ready for.”
“I thought you said Vic couldn’t catch up?”
“I said it was unlikely, not impossible.”
Aesira was learning that Stone spoke in such a calculated way that oftentimes his version of the truth was a stretched one. She was torn between being annoyed and impressed with his ability to skirt around the truth. He pushed his glasses up onto his nose and she smiled. “You do that a lot.”
“Hm?”
“Push your glasses up.”
He tipped his head down, smiling at her. “I’m flattered, you noticed, Commander.”
“I didn’t–” She shook her head. “My job is in the details. I get paid to notice things.”
“I see.” He adjusted the prop to keep them flying straight then joined her on the crate. “Is that why you came? To make sure I’m doing what I’m meant to?”
She straightened to match his posture. “Yes.” There was no sense in lying. Not when they’d come this far with so much farther to go. She didn’t care if he knew she and Nora were here to oversee him and the rest of the Odegas. To ensure they weren’t planning to steal her sister’s money and run.
She and Stone had been in more than one unfortunate situation since they left Vargah. First with the crawlers, then with Vic. He was starting to prove his loyalty to the job and so she wanted to prove hers back by telling him why she really came.
“I appreciate your directness,” he said through a laugh. “Do you want a drink?” He stood and went to a small crate tethered to the ship. Unlatching it with a key he pulled out a small bottle and two cups.
“I shouldn’t, the Order doesn’t allow–”
“The Order isn’t here,” he said over his shoulder, holding up a glass. “I’m asking you, not them.”
Her breath caught in her throat. It would be easy to say no and let that be it, but something about having the choice, about someone asking her what she wanted made a light spark in her stomach.
So she simply nodded and he got busy preparing their drinks.
“You’re not upset that my sister doesn’t trust you? ”
That I don’t trust you.
He laughed again, the deep rumble filling the open air between them.
“She is the queen and I am a reformed criminal. I would expect nothing less.” He popped the cork off the bottle and filled two cups until they were each half full.
“Here.” He handed one to Aesira. “Now that we’re being honest with each other, a drink. ”
She tapped her glass with his and took a sip. It burned down her throat and sat warm in her belly. The taste not nearly as good as the satisfaction that she made the decision to defy an ironclad rule she typically swore by.
“Drug smuggling isn’t the worst of things.” Aesira took another sip. “I’ve met far more deranged criminals.”
“In the honor of transparency and honesty,” he said raising his glass as if to toast, “you should know I didn’t just smuggle durgi.” He tipped his glass back and emptied it. “I helped make it.”
Realization sunk its teeth into Aesira’s chest making it difficult to breathe. “That would mean you’re–”
“A chemist,” Stone finished for her. She slammed her mouth shut.
“So maybe I am just as bad as the other delinquents you’ve arrested.
” He tipped back his cup, only to realize it was empty.
When he stood to pour more, Aesira turned her focus to the moon and to the inky dark that had swept over the desert.
She focused on the slight movement of the ship. Focused anywhere but on him.
A chemist.
To smuggle drugs was one thing, to make it was a crime that was tried on the same parallel as murder and somehow, Stone had managed to pull off the facade that he was just a smuggler. Maybe he was a better liar than she thought.
“I’m not proud of the work I did for Vic, if that helps,” he said, retaking his seat next to her.
“I’ve spent a long time hating myself for what I created.
” He held his cup to his lips but didn’t take a sip.
“I wish I could say I’m different now but that doesn’t seem fair.
Besides, I think no matter how much we change there are parts of our pasts we can’t escape.
” He swirled the drink in his cup. “Maybe I don’t want to.
Maybe I keep the reminders of who I was as punishment for being able to move on when so many can’t. ”
He took another sip but grimaced as he swallowed.
Like it was difficult to enjoy now that the truth was out there.
Despite their differences, she could understand what it meant to live with shame.
The feeling of despair that your life could keep moving even when someone else’s ends. “Do we still get to be friends?”
Aesira swallowed hard, then finished her drink.
“I don’t...” She set her cup down. Other than Nora and Nev, she didn’t have friends.
Kamari, she supposed. But making friends while in the Order was almost impossible.
She and her squadron were reassigned to different areas of the country every few months.
There was never time for any sort of relationships to take root.
Never time for somewhere to feel like home.
She glanced at him and in the rigidness of his shoulders and pinch of his mouth. Maybe he wasn’t proud of his past either, and that was something she could relate to.
“I don’t like what you did,” she said, “but it seems like you don’t like what you did either and that matters.”
His shoulders relaxed, like he had been holding his breath waiting for her answer.
She had seen firsthand the lasting effects of all manner of drugs created by chemists.
Had seen how they ravaged Novaria like a plague.
Seen them change people into unrecognizable versions of themselves. Destroy lives. Reputations. Families.
She also arrested many smugglers of the drug who showed very little remorse. They were nothing like Stone. They wouldn’t sit here with bated breath confessing their sins. “Does you being a chemist have something to do with why Vic was so angry with you?”
“Ah, that.” He smiled over the top of his glass.
“Birdie, Bee, and Patch had been running under Vic for a few years before I showed up. They took me under their wing, made sure I had a place to stay, food to eat. I was ten, I think.” He frowned into his cup.
“Anyway, we ran together for two decades and Vic would keep us running until there was nothing left of us, if we didn’t get out.
We saved up, stole a ship, and took off, leaving his well-oiled drug routes suddenly without four runners. That’s why he’s pissed at me.”
She swallowed the last dregs of her wine, savoring the sour taste on her tongue. “Yet you took a chance to meet with him knowing how angry he’d be.”
“I wasn’t worried about Vic. He puts on a good show, but he’s an old man. I knew we’d be fine.”
“Your confidence precedes you, Odega.”
“Something else you’ve noticed about me, Commander?”
She didn’t hide her smile this time. “Anyway,” she said in an attempt to steer the conversation away from the list of things she’d noticed about Stone Odega.
She watched Stone, his eyes shining from the moonlight or the drink.
His flushed cheeks and clenched hands. The scar that ran alongside his face.
The cluster of stars inked on the side of his neck.
The alcohol numbed her fingertips and the tip of her tongue. She forced a smile before glancing back to the desert as the ship sailed silently above the ground. “I’m not perfect either, you know.”
Stone gasped. “The great Commander Zeliath has flaws?” He bumped her shoulder with his and all of the blood in her body came rushing to her cheeks. “I’m not convinced.”
Was that a compliment? More likely the alcohol.
“I’m not so great, as you put it.” The crawler's dead eyes and haunting words flashed behind her eyes. “I’ve hurt people in ways I’ll never forget.” She could hear them now, their screeching voices tugging at her ears, but Stone sat unphased and she ignored them the best she could.
“Maybe the two of us,” Stone said, bumping her shoulder again, “have more in common than we thought.”
There was something comforting about that. About finding someone who could not be more opposite from her; in their upbringing, in their professions, and still finding commonality. It made the world seem less big. Less overwhelming.
“We’re human, after all,” he said. “We’re made of mistakes and regrets and even if there’s nothing else about us that’s the same, it’s a relief knowing that at the end of the day, we as humans bear the same burden.”
She tilted her head to the side and pretended not to study the lines of his face or the way his scar traveled to his lips. “What burden?”
He smiled and she would later blame the wine but in that moment Aesira could admit to herself that maybe Stone Odega was a little bit handsome and maybe he’d gotten under her skin more than she liked to admit.
“The burden of maintaining our humanity when the world makes it so easy not to.”