Chapter 15 #2
"Morning," I call from the shelter.
She turns, and the smile she gives me is sunrise over the desert. Bright and golden and full of promise. "Good morning, mate."
The word hits me like a shot of espresso to the heart. I grin so wide it hurts.
"You're doing that on purpose now."
"I have no idea what you're talking about." She rises gracefully and crosses to our rations. "I was simply greeting my mate. A perfectly normal thing for a Cerastean female to do."
"Uh huh."
"It is not my fault that the word has a particular effect on you."
"On me? You're the one who dragged me bodily across a cave yesterday when I said it."
"That was a biological response. Entirely involuntary." She says, giving the tent I'm making of our blanket a pointed glance while handing me a protein bar. "What is your excuse?"
I have no comeback for this. She wins. I'm starting to suspect this is what my life looks like now, and I'm absolutely fine with it.
As we eat breakfast, I try the comm again. I get D'Rett on the second attempt, the connection clearer than yesterday.
"Goober. Status?"
"We're good. More than good. The cave is well-protected, and we've got plenty of rations. How's it looking up there?"
"The storm's beginning to weaken. L'Zaen's latest projections show it should break by late morning tomorrow. Can you hold out?"
"Absolutely. No issues here."
A brief pause. Then, Chelsea's voice in the background: "Ask him about A'Vanti! Are they okay? Tell him I need details—"
Scuffling sounds, like D'Rett is physically shielding the comm. "Everyone here is safe and accounted for. We've been using the downtime to process data from the surveys. L'Zaen has made significant progress on the power grid analysis."
"Good. We'll be ready to fly back as soon as it's clear."
"Copy that. Maintain comm schedule. D'Rett out."
The connection cuts, and I pocket the comm.
"Late morning tomorrow," I tell A'Vanti.
"Then we have a full day." She's already pulling on her boots. "I want to explore the eastern passages. There may be more carvings."
We spend the morning like spelunking tourists. The eastern tunnels are narrower than the ones we explored yesterday, and in places we have to duck or turn sideways to squeeze through, which I don't love but endure because A'Vanti is so excited to discover more.
I carry the flashlights and the supplies and try not to bash my head on low-hanging stalactites. My role as pack mule in this endeavor is clear, and I'm content with it.
We discover another small chamber, this one featuring a shallow pool barely wide enough for two people, surrounded by formations that look like frozen waves of milk glass.
The ceiling is low enough to touch and is covered in a dense carpet of tiny drenati crystals.
Not the massive spires we found yesterday.
These are small, barely longer than my thumbnail, packed so tightly together they form a glittering fuzz across the stone like iridescent shag carpet.
"It looks like stars," I say when I play my flashlight across the ceiling's surface.
A'Vanti leans against me, her head on my shoulder. "It does."
We stay there for a while, sitting in the dark, watching the crystal stars.
The afternoon settles into something lazy and unhurried. We return to the cascading pools and lounge again, taking our time in the warmest basin. A'Vanti teaches me a few Cerastean words.
"What's the word for beautiful?" I ask, caressing her shoulder.
She glances at me from beneath her lashes, almost looking shy. "Ilara."
"Ilara," I repeat, mangling the pronunciation badly enough to make her wince.
"No. Il-AH-ra. The emphasis is on the second syllable."
"Il-AH-ra."
"Better. But your vowels are too flat. Cerastean vowels resonate from the back of the throat."
I try again. It sounds like I'm gargling. A'Vanti presses her lips together in a valiant effort not to laugh, but her eyes are dancing.
"Perhaps we should start with something simpler," she suggests diplomatically.
"Probably wise." I pull her closer in the water. "What about mate? How do you say mate in Cerastean?"
"Fa'ren."
"Fa'ren." The word feels musical on my tongue, smoother than most Cerastean words I've attempted. "Did I get that one right?"
A'Vanti goes very still. Her eyes search my face, and then that flush spreads across her throat again. The one that means I've triggered a deep primal instinct.
"Yes," she says, her voice slightly rough. "You got that one right."
"A'Vanti. My fa'ren."
The sound she makes is not even remotely dignified. She's out of the pool and pulling me after her before I've finished the sentence, water streaming off both of us, and I'm laughing as she hauls me back toward the shelter with single-minded determination.
"That was an accident!" I protest, laughing and stumbling after her. "I wasn't trying to abuse the cheat code, I swear—"
"Accident or not." She shoves me through the shelter opening. "You said it. Now face the consequences."
Much later, we lie in the cozy cocoon of our shelter, her head on my chest, my hand once again making slow passes through her hair. The lantern casts amber light across the rock walls, and the distant sound of the storm has faded to a low murmur. Weaker than before. It's losing its grip.
"Cody."
"Yeah?"
"When we return." She traces a pattern on my chest, the same knotwork symbol we saw in the ancient carvings, I realize. "I would like you to be my mate. Formally. Before the others."
My hand stills in her hair. "You mean like a ceremony?"
"Not immediately. There will be time for formal traditions later. But I want them to know. L'Zaen and D'Rett and Chelsea. I want to walk off that shuttle beside you and have there be no question about what we are to each other."
Joy fills my chest, so large it barely fits inside my ribs.
"A'Vanti." I tilt her chin up so I can see her face. "I would walk through a hundred sandstorms to stand beside you. In front of anyone. Anywhere."
Her eyes shine in the lantern light. She presses a kiss to my chest, right over my heart, and settles back against me with a sigh that sounds like every good thing in the universe distilled into a single breath.
We fall asleep tangled together, her head on my chest, my arms around her. It is the most content I have ever been.
That's probably why it happens.
There's a theory about nightmares – I read it somewhere, maybe one of the articles Dr. Singh sent around – that they come hardest when the body finally feels safe enough to let its guard down. That trauma waits for the one quiet moment when you stop bracing, and then it rushes in through the gap.
I don't know if that's true. But I know that I fall asleep on the best night of my life, and I wake up in a memory.
The dream starts the way it always does.
Not at the beginning, but dropped right into the middle, because that's how memory works.
I'm in the bird, engines running, holding position at the extraction point.
The sun is hammering down on the canopy, and the cockpit is an oven even with the vents going.
There's a fly buzzing somewhere near my left ear, and I can't swat it because my hands are on the controls.
The air smells like exhaust and hot metal and dust. Beyond the windscreen, the building sits low and flat against the scrubby terrain, and I can see the door that the ground team went through eleven minutes ago.
Comms are steady. I'm listening to the status updates and watching that door and doing what I always do on extraction runs: keeping the bird hot, ready to go, and counting the minutes until they come out.
Danny's voice pipes up in my ear, easy and clear. "Goober, package is secure. We're coming to you."
"Copy that, Books," I hear myself say. "Ready when you are."
And then a burst of noise on the comms, a combination of shouts and gunfire. Then Danny's voice cuts through.
"Goober, I'm hit— I'm—"
Then static. Just static.
In real life, I stayed in my seat. That's the job.
You don't leave the aircraft. But in the dream, I do what I couldn't do that day.
I unbuckle my harness and climb out and start running toward the building.
But it still doesn't matter. The ground stretches under my boots like it's made of something liquid, and the door keeps receding no matter how fast I move.
I can hear the engines behind me, still turning because I left them running, and the fly is still buzzing in my ear, and the static fills my brain until I can't breathe—
"Cody."
A hand on my face. Warm and solid.
"Cody. You are safe. It is A'Vanti. You are in the caves at Brishar."
I come back in pieces. The dream breaks apart, and the tent reassembles around me. My sight is filled with warm lantern light, and A'Vanti's face above mine, her amber eyes steady and near. Her palm rests against my cheek.
My heart is slamming. I'm covered in a sheen of sweat. And my hands, when I look down at them, are shaking.
"You are on Ceraste," she says, her voice low and calm. "You are in the springs at Brishar. It is just us. You are safe."
She says exactly what I said to her. The irony nearly makes me laugh.
"Well," I manage, and my voice sounds like gravel. "That's embarrassing."
"It is not."
"It's a little embarrassing."
"Cody, you called out a name." Her thumb traces the line of my cheekbone. "Who is Danny?"
She shifts so she's lying beside me, close enough that I can feel the warmth of her, but not so close that I feel pinned. She rests her hand on my chest, over my racing heart.
I swallow, trying to find the right words to say. "He was my friend. His name was Danny Reeves. He was a fellow soldier. We called him Books."
"Tell me about him," she says.
So I do. Not the death, just the man.