Chapter 52
Later that night, after Elegy returned and ate; after Hela made half a dozen sly jokes about their augur revelations; after they drank the rest of the liquor in the jug on the study table, they all go into the communal bathroom to get ready for sleep.
It’s intimate to brush your teeth in front of someone for the first time. Theren watches Elegy rise up onto her toes to poke at a spot on her face, and braid her hair over one shoulder, and their eyes meet in her mirror.
Hela disappears into one of the rooms, and before Theren can go into the third, Elegy catches his hand.
“If you want to join me, you’re welcome to,” she says. “Just—-for sleep, I mean.”
Their fingers twist together and he lets her pull him toward her room, where the blankets are still creased from before. More intimacies: the choreography of pouring water for each bedside table, the negotiation of who gets what side of the bed, and the shy unlacing of boots.
He hesitates before climbing in next to her, and Elegy, already buried in blankets and pillows, sits up to look at him.
“What is it?” she says.
As with so many things in his past, it’s difficult to give words to.
He and Fenn were together for only a short time, and the Crucible was no place for bed--sharing, only for quick fumbles in the dark.
And with Rava, there was only ever vigilant half sleep, and shame that locked up his insides every morning.
“I’ve just . . . never done this before.” At her confused look, he adds: “Not when I wanted to.”
It’s a heavier admission than he was expecting it to be.
She reaches for him, twisting her fingers around his. She doesn’t say anything—-maybe there’s nothing to say. But many people in his life, even the ones who were kind to him, have been uncomfortable around his pain. All he feels in her is a sympathetic ache.
They sleep curled away from each other, their backs touching.
In the morning, he sits on the edge of the bed a little too long, his body rigid with tension, trying to come back to himself. And without needing to be asked, she just holds out a shirt for him to slide his arms into, and waits for him to surface.
The others arrive just after breakfast the next morning, when the sun is still coming up. The Sparrow winks in the sun as it lands, kicking up a cloud of salt. Elegy, Theren, and Hela board as soon as the hatch opens. Now that Cedre Station is vulnerable, there’s no time to waste.
Once aboard the Sparrow, Theren moves to the back of the ship to greet Isre with a tousle of his hair. Isre is behind the nav panel, guiding them from landing to takeoff; he slaps Theren’s hand away from his head.
“Glad you’re all right,” Isre says.
“And you,” Theren says.
They all brace for takeoff, though Isre’s flying is smoother than Parekh’s, and once they’re at a comfortable drift—-low to the ground and slow, as Theren instructed, to better avoid attracting Valla’s attention—-he opens the bag Arias packed for him to change his clothes.
Elegy is already in a state of undress, uncaring as she strips off her pants to replace them with darker, sturdier ones.
He guides his eyes away from her bare legs, and sorts through the shirts Arias packed for him to find the right one.
The goal is to look passably Talusar from a distance, which means plain fabric, not skintight, easy to move in.
The others are busy distributing sheaths and holsters and all the other gear they’ll likely need for their journey through the forest—-and for infiltrating the monastery.
“Arias, did you bring that package I asked you about?” Elegy says, and Arias points just above Elegy’s head, at a black box roughly the size of a toolbox strapped down to one of the shelves. She reaches for it and, finding it a little too high for her, nudges Theren with her elbow to help her.
He undoes the straps and takes the box down. It’s much lighter than he expected it to be.
“Open it,” Elegy says, with a quirk of her mouth.
He sets it down on one of the jump seats, and unlatches it.
Nestled in a bed of foam inside are two vambraces made of polished febra—-simple sheaths with faint, delicate etching.
On the left is the symbol of the Fever, which is the symbol of the Talusar—-three interlinked circles—-with part of a quote beneath it.
Do not ask how many times he falls
On the right is the symbol of Cedre: the planet below, the station above, and a line connecting them. And beneath it, the end of the quote.
But how many times he rises.
He runs his fingers over the words.
“Volyn,” he says, a little weakly.
“Your favorite, I hear,” Elegy says. “The quote made me think of you.”
“You had these made?”
Her expression is guarded, almost defensive. As if it reveals too much about her that she would do something so thoughtful.
“From that armor you wore during the Naarm attack. It was too small for you, so I thought you could use these instead. You said you trained with vambraces.” She clears her throat, her green eyes skipping away from his. “Let’s make sure they fit.”
He rolls up his sleeve, and offers his left forearm to her.
She loosens the straps on the underside of the vambrace, slides it over his arm, and tightens it.
It’s the right length for his forearm; he wonders how she guessed it so well.
He holds out his right arm for the other one, and he feels the febra hum all the way down his fingers.
“Seems right,” Elegy says.
He reaches for her, laying his hands on her cheeks, lightly, and drawing his forehead down to touch hers. He notices the others have gone quiet around them, but it’s too late to take it back. Her fingers slide around his wrists, but she doesn’t push him away, holding his gaze instead.
“Don’t thank me,” she says, in Talusar.
Their noses brush together.
“Yes, Your Grace,” he says.
He doesn’t kiss her, just pulls back, his cheeks warm.
It’s as good as a profession of love.
“We’ve caught their attention,” Isre announces, an hour later. “Ship incoming, but we’re not in view of them yet.”
He sounds strained, like he’s trying to disguise his panic. Theren can feel it in the sudden uptick of his own heartbeat, like Isre’s body has temporarily taken control of his own.
Elegy unbuckles herself, and staggers across the ship to stand behind the captain’s seat.
“It’s all right,” she says. “We’re going to do exactly what we practiced.”
“The whoopsie daisy,” Arias says, with a grin.
Elegy makes a face. “Isre. Go low, hover for two minutes as we disembark, and then fly as high as you can, as fast as you can. Okay?”
Isre nods.
Above the nav panel, Theren can see rippling green land resolving into sharp white peaks. The monastery is in the valley just beneath them, and they’ll approach from the north, moving through forest cover around the base of the mountain.
“Everybody get ready. We need to descend fast,” Elegy says. “Gloves on. Arias first; I’m last.”
Theren takes his gloves out of his pocket and pulls them on. They’re too small for his hands, but they’ll protect his palms from the rope. Across from him, Arias unbuckles and crouches next to the hatch door with the coiled rope in his hands.
“Why do you call it that, anyway?” Hela asks Arias. “ ‘Whoopsie daisy,’ I mean.”
“Because it scares the shit out of me,” Arias says. “And I find it a lot less intimidating when it’s called a ‘whoopsie daisy.’ ”
They drop so low Theren’s ears pop, and all he can see out of the windshield is green.
Hela moves to stand behind the hatch door, and when Elegy shouts, “Now!” Parekh slams her fist into the emergency eject button.
The hatch door opens, and Arias throws the rope out.
Almost in the same movement, he grabs it in both hands, swings his body over the edge, and disappears.
Hela goes next, her face so pale her lips are colorless, followed by Parekh, who lets out a “whoop!” as she goes down. It’s Theren’s turn.
He sits on the edge of the open hatch, and before he can think about it, lets himself fall. He catches the rope between his feet and drops—-he barely registers the weightless feeling before his boots are on the dirt.
He steps away to watch Elegy descend. She slides down fast, her face placid as she lands. She tugs sharply on the rope, twice, and it retracts into the ship just as Isre pulls away from the ground. Together, they watch the Sparrow climb, fast, and disappear.
“Tree cover,” Elegy says.
She leads the way into the dense forest, where the Talusar won’t be able to see them from above.
Theren ducks under a branch, and draws a deep breath of cedar and wet earth and pollen.
He lays a hand on the trunk of a tree. They all crouch, and wait, and though he’s supposed to be listening for Talusar patrol ships, instead he listens to the sounds of the birds and the wind through the trees.
The Talusar patrol ship emits a low hum even from far off. He tenses as it grows louder and louder, and then it’s on top of them, the engines creating wind even at a distance. He resists the urge to look up. Then the humming gets quieter, and quieter, until it disappears.
“Will they double back?” Elegy asks him.
“Not likely. They would land right here, right now, if they saw something.”
“Good. Then let’s get moving.”
They move in pairs, Arias and Hela at the front, since they’re both good navigators, Parekh in the middle, and Elegy and Theren at the back.
There are no paths in this forest, so their pace is slow, with Hela cutting through undergrowth when it’s too dense and Theren always turning, looking, listening.
They don’t talk except to point out hazards—-a stream, a ridge, a stretch of mud. But when they stop for water, Parekh looks up at the tree canopy and sighs.
“They’ve taken so much of this planet from us,” she says.
For a long time, no one responds.
“So let’s take some of it back,” Elegy says, and she passes Parekh her canteen.
“A rousing speech from the Hope of Cedre,” Parekh replies, laughing. “You really think we can do that?”
Elegy looks pensive. Above them, a squirrel leaps from branch to branch.
“I’m starting to,” she says.