Chapter 20
A’Vanti
The last morning on Ceraste begins the way all desert mornings do – with light.
The larger sun crests the horizon first, spilling gold across the empty streets of Najara like honey poured from an enormous jar.
I stand at the window of our quarters in the military base and watch it happen, the way I have watched it almost every morning since we arrived.
The familiar alchemy of dawn on my homeworld.
The gradual warming of stone, the way the shadows retreat and the sand begins to shimmer, the smaller sun rising an hour behind its companion to add its own softer glow.
I will never tire of this. No matter how many mornings I am granted.
Behind me, Cody sleeps. He is sprawled across the narrow bunk in a configuration that defies both comfort and anatomy, one arm flung across the space where I was lying, as if he reached for me even in sleep and found only empty sheets.
His face is relaxed and boyish in sleep.
A lock of brown hair has fallen across his forehead.
I watch him for a moment, this human who crossed an ocean of stars to find me and claim my heart.
Then I turn back to the window and let the dawn finish its work.
Later, I find Sator in the medical bay.
He is sitting with Drev and Joln and the other recovered Ostium survivors.
The search teams found three more facilities along the ridgeline.
All of them were long abandoned, but the teams swept the desert in search of survivors.
There were eleven in total. It is a smaller number than anyone had hoped, but Ceraste is a brutal world even for those who grew up on it.
For city-dwelling Ostium, stranded without power, water, or food, the desert had been merciless.
Sator speaks to the survivors in low, steady Ostium. He has spent every available hour at their bedsides since arriving. I am not surprised. This is who he is. This is who he has always been – the man who sits on the floor beside you and reminds you that hope exists.
He looks up when I enter, and his expression gentles.
"You are leaving today," he says.
"Yes." I pull a chair beside him and sit. For a moment, we are quiet together. The way we used to be quiet in my cell, when words had been exhausted, and only companionship remained.
"They will recover," he says, nodding toward the survivors. "The queen has arranged transport to bring them home. Their families have been notified."
"Joln?"
"Joln spoke this morning." Sator’s luxen brighten. "Just one word. But it was a word."
I close my eyes and feel a knot loosen in my chest.
"Sator." I open my eyes and face him fully.
There are words I have carried since the day I was freed, and I have never been able to find the right moment or the right way to say them.
Perhaps there is no right way. Perhaps you simply have to open your mouth and let the imperfect ones fall out.
"In the cell, when I told you no one was coming – when I told you to stop hoping – you refused.
You sat with me day after day, and you refused to let me disappear. Thank you for your faith."
His silver eyes are bright. His luxen pulse with deep, luminous violet. A color I have learned means love, in the Ostium spectrum.
"I could not let you go," he states. "You reminded me too much of Ameela. Fierce and stubborn and so full of light, even when you could not see it in yourself."
I take his hands. His fingers are solid and steady in mine.
"I am here now," I tell him. "Because of you."
He squeezes my hands once, firmly, and then releases them.
"Go," he says. "Go build your world, A’Vanti. And bring that human of yours back to visit me. I want to learn more about this creature who makes you smile like he does."
I laugh, and the sound surprises me with its fullness. "I will. I promise."
I stand, and I look at this man. This quiet, brave, impossibly kind male. I incline my head with the deepest respect I know how to show.
He inclines his back.
I turn and walk out of the medical bay, and I do not look back, because if I do, I will cry.
Cody is waiting at the transport.
He is leaning against the hull with his arms crossed, squinting from the sun, and when he sees me approaching, his face does that thing it does – the slow, helpless break into a smile that makes his eyes crinkle and his whole posture ease.
As if seeing me walk toward him is somehow surprising, even now. Even after everything.
"Ready?" he asks.
"Almost." I stop in front of him and study his face. The sharp line of his jaw. The scar through his eyebrow. The blue of his eyes, so vivid against his sun-darkened skin. "There is one more thing I would like to do."
"Name it."
"I want to take you somewhere. Before we leave. Please."
He does not ask where. He merely straightens, brushes his hand down the front of his flight suit, and follows me.
I lead him through the base, through the gates, and out into the streets of Najara.
We walk through the empty capital, past silent towers and sand-swept courtyards, through the heart of my ruined, beautiful city.
Neither of us speaks. The sounds of our footsteps echo between the buildings, and I think about all the feet that walked these paths before us.
All the lives that once filled these streets.
They will fill them again. That is the promise of this expedition, and I intend to keep it.
I stop at the edge of a wide plaza near the city center.
At its heart stands a structure I know well – the Presentation Hall, where bonding ceremonies were held for generations.
It is smaller than the community center in Brishar, but older.
More significant. The architecture is ancient, the stonework carved with the same knotwork patterns we found in the springs.
The doors are open. Sand has drifted across the threshold but not deep inside. The interior is shadowed and cool.
"What is this place?" Cody asks, though I think he already knows.
"It is where my parents were mated," I say. "And their parents before them." I turn to face him. "I told you I wanted you to be my mate formally. Before others. I meant it."
His eyes widen. "A’Vanti, are you— right now? Here?"
"No. Not the full ceremony. That requires preparation and witnesses and traditions I want to honor properly." I take his hands. "But I wanted to stand with you in this place. I hope that we come back here once it is functional again. I want to…"
I trail off, because the words I need do not exist in any language I speak. I want to tell him that bringing him here is an act of faith. That showing him the place where my ancestors pledged themselves is my way of saying: I am not afraid of the future. Not anymore. Not with you.
Cody lifts my hands and presses them to his chest, over his heart. I feel it beating beneath my palms, strong and steady.
"A’Vanti." His voice is rough but certain. "I don’t need a ceremony to know what you are to me. But if you want one – here, with your people’s traditions and your ancestors’ blessing – then yes. I would be honored."
He releases one of my hands and reaches into his breast pocket. When he withdraws his hand, the small carved gho’ba rests in his palm, the one I gave him aboard the ship. It feels like a lifetime ago. He has carried it over his heart every day since.
"I know this isn’t a val’ari or mating cuffs or whatever the proper Cerastean thing would be," he says, turning it over in his fingers. "But this is the first gift you ever gave me. That’s when I knew. Maybe not in words yet. But I knew."
He places it in my palm and closes my fingers around it.
"Keep it," he says. "Until we come back. And then you can give it to me again, in front of everyone, and I’ll carry it for the rest of my life."
My vision blurs.
I rise on my toes and kiss him in the doorway of the Presentation Hall, with sunlight spilling around us and the ancient walls bearing witness, and it feels like a beginning.
"My fa’ren," I whisper against his lips.
"My fa’ren," he replies.