Chapter Thirty-One
He lay on the cot in his tent, staring at the canvas ceiling above him. The lamp’s light flickered low, throwing long shadows across the tent walls. His body felt hollow, every limb heavy as stone, every breath a raw scrape against his ribs.
He’d failed her.
Christian flung an arm over his eyes and cried until his ears filled with tears.
He’d been tortured by Paulo, hunted on the surface of Reva, and beaten in the ring until he couldn’t see, and yet none of that pain compared to the loss of the woman he loved.
The woman who’d softened his heart and saved him from himself.
His body ached from the fight, from grief, from crying, from holding himself rigid.
But he still couldn’t bring himself to sleep.
Every time he tried, he pictured her laughing in the mess tent when Hawk said something funny or brushing her hair from her face when she was trying to hide a smile.
The way she’d frown when she was thinking too hard, or the way her brow creased in concentration like she could carry the weight of the galaxy if she tried hard enough.
He’d hear her whisper his name in the dark.
“I’m so sorry, Gemma,” he whispered into the empty quiet that felt far too vast without Gemma by his side.
The flap of his tent opened, and he cracked open his eyes just enough to see Hawk, Imara, and Lysa step inside.
“We didn’t want you to be alone,” Lysa said as she lay next to him on the cot, just like she had the night their mother died.
The silence pressed heavy.
“You should sleep,” Lysa whispered, voice raw. “Just for a little while.”
He let out a humorless laugh, more a crack in his throat than a sound. “If I close my eyes, I’ll see her. And then I’ll lose her all over again.”
Silence fell again, thick as the canvas walls.
Imara and Hawk sat on the thermal mats, near the foot of his cot, and their quiet breathing was almost oppressive. He wanted to be alone, to curse Illari, to scream and break things and think about walking into the desert until he found Gemma on the other side.
But then Lysa slipped her hand into his, and Imara began to speak.
“I keep thinking about the first time I met her.” Her voice was soft, almost contemplative.
“She actually stopped to pick my sorry ass off the ground when we first left Perileos. She took the time to wrap my wrist, risking falling too far behind to make it to Zion. I thought she was reckless, maybe even stupid.” She snorted, though the sound was twinged with pain.
“Fuck, I wouldn’t have stopped to help myself.
She earned my respect that day. And stars help me, I wish I’d told her that. ”
“I may have only just gotten to know her,” Lysa said, “but I’ve never seen a group as close as you guys. And she wasn’t stupid. I’m sure she knew.”
“Then she knew I loved her too,” Hawk said softly. “Not in the way you did, Christian, of course. But like a sister. I hope she knew.”
The words tore another fissure in Christian’s chest. How was he supposed to move forward after all of this? With Gemma, he’d found so much joy and love only to watch her be ripped away from him in the blink of an eye.
Christian’s throat tightened. He forced a breath past it, tasting salt on his lips. Maybe it was a good thing his friends were here, because he didn’t think he could survive the night knowing that the only heartbeat within these tent walls was his own.
Eventually, his eyes slipped closed against his will, and sleep dragged him under, heavy and merciless.
“Nadine, come quick!”
The shout tore him out of sleep. He jerked upright, lungs dragging in a sharp breath. For one desperate, impossible heartbeat, he thought of Gemma—he had to shield her, get her out of danger before the crowd turned again.
But when he reached for her, it was his sister’s arm he found.
Memory slammed back into him like a hammer, grief rising hot and thick in his throat.
She’s gone.
Some part of him had forgotten, like his body hadn’t caught up to the truth his heart already knew. He couldn’t stop the sob that broke free.
Imara and Hawk both stirred from where they’d dozed on the thermal mat.
Lysa, still next to him on the cot, sat up and wrapped an arm around him.
Nadine yelled his name from outside his tent. “You need to see this!”
Lysa dropped her arm, and Christian forced himself to get off his cot. Each step he took felt like wading through stone. His chest felt hollow and raw as he pushed aside the tent flap. Grief roiled in his gut, heavy and restless, a storm with no outlet.
Then he froze.
Near the scorched ground where Gemma had died, the air shimmered. The ash that had once settled, black and lifeless, was spiraling upward in slow, deliberate currents. They moved like smoke, twisting toward the ceiling as though pulled by some invisible force.
The few Dissent members who had gathered stood back in stunned silence, their eyes fixed on the impossible. Nadine stood at the edge of the blackened ground, hand clamped over her mouth.
Christian barely felt his feet beneath him as he stumbled forward, grief and terror twisting his gut until he could hardly breathe.
His pulse thundered in his ears, matching the rhythm of the spiraling ash—strands of glistening violet threading through the gray.
Hope clawed at him, savage and merciless.
“Gemma?” he whispered, his voice breaking. He reached out a hand as though he could touch the threads, afraid that if he blinked, they would scatter and be gone forever. His chest heaved as he edged closer, every muscle in his body taut with longing and dread.
Christian snatched his hand away when the ash thickened, curling in on itself. It shivered in the faint lamps’ light, caught between dissolving into nothing and solidifying into something more.
He stepped back, nails biting into his palms. Half of his mind screamed this was madness, a cruel trick of his grief. But the other half clawed with desperate hope.
The spirals gathered. Shapes teased in and out of existence before dissolving back into dust. The purple threads pulsed as they knit themselves with the ash and bound it.
A silhouette, thin as smoke, shimmered as the strands of violet light weaved tighter.
Christian staggered back a step, breath tearing in and out of him. He’d seen her burn. He’d held her ashes in the space where she’d been. Yet he would know that outline anywhere. He knew it the way he knew the sound of her voice, the curve of her smile, the feel of her hand in his.
Gemma.
His heart slammed against his ribs so hard that it hurt. His legs wanted to carry him closer, but fear rooted him in place. If he moved too soon, if he reached out and broke the fragile thing that was happening . . .
The silhouette swayed as the ash coiled tighter, creating features from where there was no form. Features that were unmistakably hers. Light sparkled inside the column of ash, faint and pulsing like a heartbeat.
He held his breath. He dared not blink, terrified the moment would slip as soon as his eyes closed. Then the fragile violet threads gave way to the suggestion of flesh, of shape, of her.
Her hair rippled into existence, long and dark, tumbling down her shoulders in waves, in a cascade of shadow and light. They shifted as though caught by an invisible current, each strand threaded with splendor, more halo than hair.
Her face followed as if an unseen artist sketched her features stroke by careful stroke—the curve of her cheekbone, the sweep of her jaw, the bow of her lips.
And she was brilliant.
Radiance bled through her veins, her tattoos no longer just markings but rivers of molten violet cutting across her skin. They lit her from within, spilling across her arms, her chest, her legs. An entire constellation mapped onto her body.
Christian sank to the ground. His chest convulsed with a breath that tore through his spine.
Her delicate hands reached for something unseen, the air around her shimmering, bending as though the space itself was in awe.
Each pulse of light steadied her outline further, knitting the gaps, filling the hollow places with grandeur.
And with a sudden, blinding flare, her being locked into place.
Christian’s fist flew to his mouth as a sob broke free. Her name poured out of him raw, his chest heaving. Lysa was at his side in the next heartbeat, holding his hand, her own cheeks stained with tears.
The ash that had spun around her fell away, drifting like dying embers toward the surface below, until only she remained. Ethereal and terrifyingly beautiful.
The familiar, unmistakable woman he loved.
For one terrible heartbeat, Christian couldn’t move, too afraid that if he reached, she would vanish again. But then her eyes opened and her lips parted, and he saw her chest rise with a breath—real, sharp, and alive.
A sob tore from him so raw it bent him forward. His hands braced on the ground, his tears falling against stone.