16. Are You Cold, Stargazer?
Are You Cold, Stargazer?
Like a bowstring snapping, Griffon was already moving. Launching forward, he swept the legs out from under the man closest to him. Then he swung back in one fluid motion, knocking the blade from the figure coming up out of the sand behind him.
Two down. Maybe we actually had a chance—
But he didn’t have the strength or the speed to take on the other four that emerged and surrounded us. He stopped, breathing hard and realizing the same thing as he eyed the many scimitars pointed in our direction. Their curved blades left us with nowhere to go.
One of them pulled his goggles up onto the top of his head and pulled down the fabric over his mouth.
It revealed a brown, weathered face with thick black brows lowered over harsh, distrusting eyes.
A line of raised dots marked the curve of both cheekbones, standing out pale against his weathered skin.
Some sort of scars or brands, but definitely deliberately placed.
“One more move and we will kill you,” he growled at Griffon.
Griffon glared at the man. Even in the fading light, I could see how pale he’d become. The grayish tinge beneath his tan hadn’t been there an hour ago. The two men he had attacked got to their feet and resumed their positions surrounding us.
“I will not hesitate, Volanti,” the man continued. “The girl is worth three times as much as you.”
Their eyes all landed on me, including Griffon’s. There seemed to be an apology in his, but there was nothing he could have done. They had us surrounded.
My shoulders dropped. It's always nice to have your monetary value announced like you’re prize livestock at market. Really makes a girl feel special.
Two men approached Griffon. One placed a sword dangerously close to his jugular, and the other removed all of his weapons and holsters, even his compass.
Griffon winced when the bandit jarred his injured arm yanking the dagger from his belt.
The petticoat bandage had darkened with dried blood, and fresh red had seeped through again.
They shoved me from behind to move closer as they tied his hands.
A low humming began. First by the man binding the knots and then echoed by another. After a moment, the rest joined in, humming the same haunting melody in eerie harmony.
After securing Griffon’s knots, they ran the rope over to me and did the same.
As the rope bit into my wrists, I could suddenly feel everything at once.
Pulse throbbing. Cold sweat. Shifting sand beneath my feet.
The fibers dug in, snagging something buried deep.
A blade flashing. Bloody knuckles. Then the lick of the flame.
But more than anything—the water. It’s always the water.
No, you’re not there.
The rope tightened again as the bandit adjusted his grip. Another wave of memories crashed over me. Dunes wavered at the edges of my vision. Breathe. You’re in a desert. There’s no water any—
Without warning, the man with the end of the rope tugged me forward, breaking my thoughts and almost taking me off my feet. “Move!”
Steading myself, I measured my breaths and pushed the memories back. Stay grounded! We had to find a way out of this.
I wanted to ask them where they were taking us. Demand that they let us go. Try to run. Anything. I met Griffon’s eyes. The dark circles under them were so apparent, even in the fading light. He gave me a subtle shake of his head. Right. Not a good idea.
The world’s saddest parade began moving toward the setting sun, the man with the rope yanking me to follow.
We moved along the mountains but got no nearer to any kind of shelter.
The air cooled as we traveled, and unfortunately, the blanket had been abandoned somewhere back in the chaos of the capture.
I listened to Griffon’s ragged inhales behind me. His footsteps had lost their usual sure-footed grace. With every slight stumble, I prayed to the gods above that he wouldn’t pass out.
The sun had all but disappeared below the horizon when we came upon harder sand and a small fire. Two men with a pile of gear greeted our captors in a strange language and then directed us to sit at the edge of their camp.
Griffon collapsed into the dirt as the deep violet and indigo of falling twilight draped around us. He was exhausted in a way I’d never seen from him—even after days on that sailboat.
The mounds of sand were gone, replaced with rocky, dry soil and even some shrubs. The man tied our rope to a stark, long-dead tree lying on its side.
They settled by the fire, speaking in their own tongue. Food sizzled. In the firelight, the curved dots on their cheekbones glimmered. And then the humming started again.
I turned to Griffon. “Are you okay?”
“I will be. Just need some rest.” Translation: I feel terrible, but I’m going to pretend otherwise because I’m ridiculously stubborn.
A full waterskin landed on the ground next to us. It was the man who threatened Griffon when we were first captured.
“Drink. You are of no value to us dead.”
And then he tossed us a chunk of bread and returned to the fire.
“Such gracious hosts.”
The humming finally faded. But now it was too quiet. At least it had given me something to focus on. Now all I could hear was the crackle of the fire, and all I could feel was the cold biting back. The heat reached toward us, but not close enough.
My dress was barely holding itself together. I huddled into a ball.
Griffon shifted closer. “You’re cold.”
“I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not.” He moved closer still, his arm draping over my shoulder.
“You don’t have to—”
“I know,” he said with finality.
Despite his harsh words, he remained curled against my back. His arm grew heavy, his breathing gradually evening out.
Sleep didn’t come easily for me, even though all my energy had long since drained into the sand. Even after crashing in a foreign kingdom and being captured by slave-traders, I found my silver lining.
Excellent stargazing conditions.
The night sky took my breath away. A waning crescent hung bright overhead, but the night was clear—clearer than any sky I'd seen over the Citadel.
Above us, the galaxy arced from one horizon to the other.
Hundreds of billions of stars reduced by distance to a single smudge of mottled light, beautiful in the way that incomprehensible things sometimes are.
Back home, ambient light had always drowned out the interstellar dust and shadowy nebulas. Out here, nothing did.
The view made me feel dizzy and small. And oddly alive.
Polaris gleamed at the tip of Ursa Minor in the northern sky like a familiar face I hadn’t realized I missed.
Not far away, Kochab and Pherkad glared down from their post at the end of the Little Dipper’s cup.
Over the years, I’ve followed their slow march around the brightest star.
Like tireless celestial sentries, circling and circling.
Skipping over the subtle glow of Lynx, my eyes caught Gemini. My breath caught. Finally, the old gods—Castor and Pollux, two bright sparks waiting so patiently for their little asteroid Alauda to return. I hadn’t seen them since leaving the Citadel.
Hello again, old friends. Bet you didn't expect to see me out here, tied to a tree in the middle of nowhere.
The Sideri never feared Gemini’s judgement, or whatever Abyss might wait below. Death wasn’t an end. It was more like a return. To the stars, if you were Sideri. To the earth, if not. They believed every evil had its counterpart.
Balanced in all things.
Castor pulled north, bright and insistent.
Pollux drifted south, patient and shadowed.
Castor was fire. Pollux was water. Male, female.
Order and disorder. Opposites and yet together—they called it one god: Gemini.
I don’t understand it, but I could feel its pull in my bones.
Half a twin myself, I knew the emptiness of missing half of yourself.
But here, under their watch, I felt… a little less incomplete.
Did they know I was down here thinking of them? Was Gemini watching over me? Did they know how lost one of their Sideri had become? I was halfway across the continent, lying in a cold desert with an injured man, and stewing on the knowledge that I would be sold as a slave when the sun rose.
It might have been a good time to pray... if only I knew how.
I learned about the Volanti’s worship of the sky and the ancient Gemini gods of the Sideri.
But at the Citadel, we didn’t worship. No one taught us how.
Knowing about prayer and actually knowing how to pray are two very different things.
Like understanding the theory of flight versus actually sprouting wings.
The Empyrean monks were all that remained of the old Sideri faith, though even that felt like a stretch. They didn’t pray. They watched. Measured. Calculated.
They tracked Alauda, charted Gemini through their telescopes, and ran the numbers again and again to predict the alignment and when embered children would be born. No invocations. No signs from the gods. Just precision.
Whatever faith they had left, they’d given it over to certainty.
But could science explain everything? What if a higher power had a hand in orchestrating what seemed like chance?
Maybe the monks had it backwards. Maybe faith and science weren't opposites at all.
And they were more like Castor and Pollux: two sides of the same cosmic coin, balancing denial with belief, chance with intent.
The celebrations on alignment days were long gone and most likely forgotten. As a child of Gemini, should I be the one to revive the old faith?
I scoffed. How wonderfully ironic that it would be me—the one Sideri without the very thing that defined us. I doubted Gemini would be impressed. The thought sent a shiver up my spine and left a hollow ache in my chest.
“Are you still cold, stargazer?” Griffon whispered next to my ear, startling me.
“No,” I murmured, “just… thinking too much.” As usual. It’s basically my primary skill.
“I’ll get us out of this.” The words carried determination, but I heard the weariness underneath. And noticed the way his hand shook slightly before he steadied it.
Sweet of him, and completely unrealistic given our current situation.
What could I offer a world that valued embers when I had none? I thought back to the cranes and wondered if they were trying to tell me something I already feared.
I rolled away from him. Slavery seemed like a fitting destiny for someone like me.
His body stilled behind me. “Sorry,” he breathed. “Looks like we’re stuck with each other longer than we planned.”
“I’m sorry, too,” I murmured, closing my eyes. Sleep couldn’t come fast enough to carry me away. Somewhere I didn’t feel like dead weight in someone else’s escape.