Chapter 15 #3
"He was always reading. Didn't matter where we were – middle of a briefing, back of a transport, waiting in line for chow.
He had a paperback on him at all times." The memory surfaces with an ache that's almost sweet.
"He used to make notes in the margins. Then lend you the book after, so you'd get his commentary with the story.
" A breath of laughter escapes me. "It sometimes felt like peeking into his brain. "
A'Vanti listens. Her hand stays on my chest.
"He should've been a writer. That's what I always told him.
He had this way of seeing things." I stare at the shelter ceiling.
"He died. It was before the Cerastean alliance.
Before any of this. Just a regular deployment, the kind of op we'd done a hundred times.
Nothing about it felt different going in. "
A'Vanti doesn't interrupt. She gives me the silence to find my way.
"Danny was ground team. I was the pilot." I let out a slow breath. "Danny always took point on breaches. He said he liked being first through the door, knowing everyone else was behind him. And I was two hundred yards away in the cockpit, listening, and waiting for them to come out."
I close my eyes.
"It was hot that day. Brutally hot. I was annoyed and just wanted to get back to base." My voice goes flat. "That's the thing I remember most clearly. Being annoyed. And then Danny called in the all-clear. Said the package was secure, they were coming to me."
I have to force the rest of the story past reluctant lips.
"And then something went wrong. There was noise on the comms, shouting and shots fired, and then Danny's voice again, but wrong this time.
He said my name, and then he said he was hit, and then there was nothing.
" My hands tighten on the blanket. "I sat there with the engines running and that goddamn fly buzzing around my head, and I listened to dead air where my friend's voice had been three seconds earlier.
And there was nothing I could do. My job was to stay in that seat and be ready, and I did my job, and Danny didn't come back. "
I open my eyes and stare unseeing at the tent above me.
The cave is quiet. The mineral springs murmur somewhere in the distance, and the lantern flickers, and A'Vanti's hand rises and falls with my breathing.
"When the assignment to the Cerastean alliance came up, I volunteered the same day," I say.
"Everyone thought I was excited about the opportunity.
And I was… I mean, who wouldn't be? To have the opportunity to fly alien ships and be a part of something bigger than myself?
But the truth is, I needed to get away."
A'Vanti is silent for a long time.
"You came to the stars to outrun a ghost," she says. Not a question.
"Yeah." I swallow.
"Cody." Her voice is gentle but unflinching. "You cannot outrun grief. It is patient."
"I'm starting to figure that out."
She lifts herself on one elbow and looks down at me. Her expression is fierce and tender at the same time.
"I will be here to help you face it," she says. "The way you were here when I faced mine."
No promise to fix it. No pity. Just I will be here.
I reach up and tuck a strand of golden hair behind her ear, and my hand is almost steady.
"I have his book," I say. "One of them. I took it from his bunk after. A battered paperback with his notes in the margins. I've been carrying it with me since it happened."
"Good," she says. "I bet he would like that."
"I know he would."
She settles back down against me, her head finding its place on my chest, and I wrap my arms around her. My heart has slowed and the sweat is cooling on my skin. The cave feels less like a cell and more like a shelter.
"Thank you," I tell her.
"Of course." She presses her lips to my collarbone. "I've got you."
Sometime later, I sleep again. The dream doesn't come back.
I wake to silence.
Not the muffled, pressurized silence of a storm bearing down on tons of rock. Real silence. The kind that means the air above has gone still.
I sit up carefully, easing A'Vanti's head off my chest and onto a pillow. She stirs but doesn't wake, curling into the warm spot I've left behind.
I check the comm.
"D'Rett, this is Cody. You there?"
The response is almost immediate and crystal clear.
"Goober. The storm has broken. You're clear to fly back whenever you're ready."
Relief and reluctance war inside me. "Copy that. We'll pack up and head out within the hour."
"Good. Everyone's eager to have you back. And Goober?"
"Yeah?"
"Chelsea has a pool going on what happened in that cave. Just so you're warned."
I laugh. "Noted. Goober out."
When I turn back to the shelter, A'Vanti is sitting up, watching me. Her hair is a golden mess, her clothes are wrinkled, and there's a crease from the pillow across one cheek.
She is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.
"Storm's over," I say.
She nods. "I heard."
Neither of us moves for a moment.
"We should go," she says, but there's no urgency in her voice. Her eyes drift around our little shelter, to the rumpled blankets, the empty ration wrappers, the lanterns that have kept us company through these nights in the belly of the earth. "But I will miss this place."
"We'll come back."
"Promise?"
"Promise."
We pack up efficiently, folding blankets and stowing gear quickly. A'Vanti pauses at the edge of the main pool one last time, squatting at the water's edge, she trails her hand through the water.
She's silent for a long moment, her expression distant. Then she touches her wet fingers to her forehead, a gesture I haven't seen before, but it carries the unmistakable weight of ritual.
She rises without explanation, and I don't ask for one. Some things belong only to her.
We make our way up through the tunnels, the air growing drier as we climb toward the surface.
The ship sits where we left it, just inside the cave mouth.
Sand has drifted halfway up the landing gear where the storm blew it in.
The hull is coated in a fine golden layer, but otherwise the ship looks intact.
Beyond it, the sunlight is blinding. The twin suns blaze in a sky that's been scoured clean, with not a cloud in sight.
I step past the ship and out onto the slope, shielding my eyes.
The landscape has changed. Sand has shifted and reshaped itself, dunes relocated, surfaces scoured smooth.
In the settlement below, a few buildings are half-buried in fresh drifts, and the plaza is barely recognizable.
But the community center still stands, its curved roofline rising above the sand like a ship cresting a wave.
Built to withstand the harshest storm, just like its architect.
A'Vanti steps up beside me and sees it too. Her spine straightens, her chin lifts, and I see the professional pride settle over her like armor. Her building survived. Through abandonment and neglect and a sandstorm that reshapes the land itself, her work endures.
We clear the sand from around the shuttle's ramp and thrusters. It's a quick job, ten minutes at most. Then I run diagnostics while A'Vanti stows our gear. Everything comes back green.
"Ready?" I ask, settling into the pilot's seat.
A'Vanti takes the co-pilot's chair. Her hand finds mine on the armrest between us.
"Ready."
We lift off into the clear Cerastean sky, leaving Brishar behind.
The settlement shrinks beneath us. The community center, the plaza, and the cave mouth leading down to our underground sanctuary gets smaller and smaller until it blends into the desert.
I bank the shuttle westward, toward the capital.
The flight is smooth and easy, the air clean and calm in the storm's aftermath. Spire Mountain rises ahead of us, its jagged peaks sharp against the sky. A'Vanti watches it pass in silence, one hand resting on the viewport glass.
The peace of this moment settles into me. A'Vanti beside me, and Brishar shrinking behind us, and nothing ahead but home.
I think about the cave. About telling her things I'd never told anyone. About the way she listened to my grief and sorrow without flinching, without fixing. Just held it alongside me.
And then, because the door is open now and I'm tired of letting it swing shut again, I think about Danny.
The thought of him doesn't hit the way it usually does.
Not the choked static, not the guilt that I'm alive when he's not.
I think about his face. And the dog-eared paperback I have tucked away in my footlocker, the margins filled with Danny's neat handwriting.
And I realize I haven't truly dealt with my pain. I've just perfected not looking at it.
When we get back, I think, I'm calling Dr. Singh.
Not because I have to. But because I want to be the best mate – the best vel'shar I can be. And that means taking care of my mind with the same care I give my body.
I bring A'Vanti's other hand to my lips and press a kiss to her knuckles.
"Mate," I murmur into her skin.
She turns to me, and the smile on her face is brighter than both suns combined.
"Mate," she says back.
The capital rises ahead of us, its towers catching the morning light.
I thread the ship through the now familiar gaps between buildings, the empty streets passing beneath us, until the military base comes into view on the city's edge.
Through the viewport, I can see a handful of familiar figures waiting near the hangar bay doors.
I spot Chelsea's compact form bouncing on her toes, D'Rett's solid silhouette beside her, L'Tarne's tall frame on her other side.
L'Zaen and Ally wait inside the hangar's wide entrance.
"They're all out there," I say. "Welcoming committee."
A'Vanti squeezes my hand. "Good. I want them to see."
"See what?"
She looks at me, and there's no wall, no mask, no ice queen armor. Just A'Vanti – open and certain and radiant.
"Us," I supply, suddenly understanding her meaning.
I set the shuttle down in the hangar, smooth as glass. The engines cycle down, and the ramp begins to lower.
A'Vanti stands, straightens her rumpled clothes, lifts her chin with that regal bearing that's as natural to her as breathing. Then she reaches down and takes my hand.
We walk down the ramp together, side by side, fingers laced, into the golden Cerastean light.
Chelsea's shriek of delight echoes off the hangar walls for what feels like a solid five minutes.