Phoebe North - Starbreak

“When I said it was time for bed,” she said, standing over the fire, her shadow long and dancing against the writhing foliage, “I meant you, too.”

I still held my gun across my knees—the metal was cold, as heavy as dead flesh. Useless. What did I know of guns?

“We shouldn’t go east,” I said. I couldn’t bear to look her in the eyes, only stared down at that stupid gun. “There are animals in the forests. If we head south, there’s a path. We can walk to Raza Ait—”

“Terra,” she said. She didn’t sound sneering, or vicious. Just tired, like she’d lost all patience for me. “Shut up.”

So I did.

“I don’t know what you thought you were doing when you took that shuttle,” she said. “A sixteen-year-old girl, head screwed on backward! You can’t even follow the simplest of orders, and you thought you could negotiate with the natives?”

I hadn’t thought that, actually. In my mind the path ahead had been simple: I’d find the boy, fall into his arms, and the world around us would fall away. But now, with Aleksandra standing over me, I could see how naive I had been. There was a whole ship up there, crumbling into chaos. And a whole world down here, dangerous and new. I winced but didn’t answer.

“I came down here to stop you from ruining our chances of settlement. Now you might be useful,” she said, speaking cautiously. “My mother said that Mara Stone was pleased with your progress in your vocation. But unless it’s about plants, I don’t want to hear a single word from you. You’re only a botanist—a talmid at that. You’re no diplomat. Do you hear me?”

Her small brown eyes bored into me. She wanted an answer, so numbly I nodded.

“I remember my mother talking about Alyana Fineberg,” she said, letting out a low sigh. “Common-born, but she always wanted to be a leader. Thought she could rise up the ranks through the Children of Abel, march us into glory. We all know how that ended.”

I’d never wanted to be a leader. In that moment I wanted nothing more than to be left alone. But Aleksandra took my silence for a protest. She spat on the ground, hard.

“Remember who’s in charge,” she said. I wasn’t about to forget it as I watched the dark shadow of her back disappear behind the flimsy fabric walls of the tent. My throat was dry. I clutched my rifle. There was no way I was going to follow her in there, lay my head down in a sleep sack only a few meters from her plotting, murderous hands.

I pulled the synthetic blankets out of my pack, then wadded up the bag beneath my head. Still dressed in my sweat-drenched flight suit, I squeezed my eyes shut. I was sure that I wouldn’t sleep that night, out in the open, the wind frigid and biting against my cheeks.

But from almost the moment my eyes closed, I was plunged into the world of turbulent dreams.

We sat in a patch of thorny brambles only a few meters apart. But it might as well have been kilometers. I clutched my arms around my naked body, shielding myself.

Come, he said, reaching a willowy arm out to me. I wanted to grasp his hand in mine, to furl my body around his, as tight as a fiddlehead. But I couldn’t. East. We were going east. Aleksandra had decided.

And yet he said it again. Come! If those black eyes reflected anything, it was the heat of his desire. But I couldn’t figure out how to bridge the gap between us. The ground was frozen, hard and slick. And netted with thorns.

Over the past two days—during our shuttle journey and our sojourn in the Zehavan wilderness—I’d kept one goal in mind: reaching him. And no wonder. Through hard month after hard month, he’d been my respite. His hands, preternaturally long, had graced my white belly. His mouth, soft and wet, had pressed against my throat. I hadn’t understood the passions that lurked beneath my flesh, but I knew that he made me happy. If there was one certainty, it had been that.

Now I hesitated. Maybe I’d made a mistake in coming to the planet. Maybe I was only a foolish girl, as Aleksandra said, sixteen and with a head stuffed full of dreams. After all, I’d been stupid enough to think myself in love before, but I’d been wrong about that. I remembered standing in front of Koen Maxwell, whom I’d hoped I would marry, waiting for him to make a move. I’d been starved for his kisses, for the steady pressure of his hard hands against my skin. And then, when Silvan came along?

I’d been so glad to lay my body down in the soggy leaves, to let him press his hands over my belly, my hips, my thighs. It didn’t matter what the Children of Abel wanted. It didn’t matter that there were times when I hated Silvan, despising those pretty lips and the words that tumbled from them. All that mattered was feeling: his body on top of mine, his fingers and tongue and lips and palms, the way his slender hips jutted out, and the fine fur over his belly. How was this any different? I’d endangered all of them—killed Mar Schneider too—just so that I could feel loved.

The boy reached for me. I saw his arms stretch out, long and blue. I felt his desire, how he wanted to fold me into his body. I knew that it would be better than what I’d shared with Silvan. Safer. Purer.

But I couldn’t. For sixteen years I’d convinced myself that everything I did was noble—right. When the truth was, I had no idea what “right” even meant. All I’d ever understood was desire. Anger. Emotions that I carried with me even now. For sixteen years I’d lived like a loaded gun.

I can’t , I told him as he laced spindly fingers through my hair. I can’t. I can’t.

His fingers froze at the nape of my neck. They were so cold. Sometimes I wondered if blood even ran beneath the surface of his jewel-toned skin. Maybe it didn’t. Maybe he had no heart, no mind. Maybe he didn’t exist.

He drew away from me, hugging his bandy legs to his body.

Come? he asked. Then he pointed out toward the sky above.

In that moment I couldn’t be sure if I were asleep or awake. The moons overhead were real, I knew that much. Akku shone down on me, the color of a just-ripe fruit. But Aire was far, far west. Who knew how long it had been since our group had last walked the path between them?

No. I can’t. Aleksandra is leading us east—

But the beasts! The beasts! He waved his fingers wildly, gesturing at something in the darkness, something I couldn’t quite see.

But I heard it. Something halfway between a click and a shudder, so loud that the trees all around us recoiled, tucking their branches under, hiding themselves away. The frozen ground beneath me shivered. I turned toward the boy. His bottomless eyes gaped back at me. He snatched up my hands, gripping them tight.

Promise me you won’t go any deeper. Promise me! I can’t lose you, too.

Too? I asked, but he didn’t answer. In the distance the shudder grew louder, and louder still—huge clouds of snow rising up in the distance. Fear rattled through him like an oncoming storm.

I promise! I promise! I said, just as the snow and ice swallowed up us both.

The sensation of falling wrenched me from my sleep. In my ears that animal racket echoed. But when I sat up, the forest around me was quiet, the sky the color of pale gold in the morning light. Strange, here, how there were no birds. It made everything seem lonely, half dead. Still shivering from the dream’s aftershock, I rose. My body felt stiff, aching at a thousand points where it had touched the ice-cold ground straight through my flight suit.

“Good morning,” Laurel called to me from across the cold, ash-spent logs. She swiftly rolled up our tent. Ettie, at her side, seemed to be doing more to impede her progress than to help. But Laurel didn’t seem to mind much. Under Aleksandra’s command, I guessed, Laurel had found new purpose. She tied the tent straps tightly around the bundle, then slipped it into her pack.