Phoebe North - Starbreak

“Terra, wait!”

I stopped, turned back. Van’s wife was hardly any older than he was. Her black curls were thick and lustrous, her eyes bright with a keen intelligence. I’d never thought of her as a rebel before—only collateral damage in the love between Koen and Van. But now, for whatever reason, she was willing to join us. To join me.

“Of course we’ll come to the meeting tonight. The library?”

My gaze flickered toward Van, then back again. “No. The school. Nineteen o’clock.”

“Thank you, Terra,” she said. She reached over and picked up the mug of coffee she’d poured, letting the heat steam her face. Then she glanced up again.

“Koen,” she commanded sharply, “go with her. The districts aren’t safe to walk alone. Not anymore.”

The air was so thick, you could slice it like meat from a bone. Koen dropped Corban into his father’s arms while Van pushed his lower lip out in a sulk. He watched as Koen wound his scarf around his neck and buttoned his coat tight.

“Thanks, Nina,” I said, turning back to nod at her before we slipped out through the door. She smiled up over the steam, saluting me so briefly, I wasn’t really sure it had happened at all.

“Go in health,” she said.  And, with that, we did.

We hustled through the districts together, our hands stuffed down into our pockets to keep them from the biting cold. Just like in the old days, before we were to be wed, our words stuck and froze before they could burst through our lips. The first lights of dawn made the panels overhead glow a feeble blue. In their illumination the angles of his face were as sharp as the edge of a shard of ice.

In the old days, when we made our plans for marriage, it always seemed like he was holding something back.  A joke.  A secret.  A hidden pain. His long spine had often been slumped—his shoulders hunched up from nerves. He walked differently now, taking wide, confident steps. Even as he glanced around him, mindful of the sound of footsteps in the distance, of the children who roamed the alleyways, liberated from the chains of formal schooling, he walked proudly. It was as if he’d somehow grown into his own skin.

I wanted to tell him that I was happy for him. He’d found his place in Van’s home, even if it wasn’t the normal, perfect life the Council had once planned for us. But it didn’t feel right, not quite. Koen clearly didn’t need my approval.

But that didn’t stop him from beaming at me.

“You’ve changed,” was what he said.

“Changed?” I asked carefully. With Rachel I’d been quick to agree. But Koen and I had never had the same kind of friendship that Rachel and I had enjoyed. And even Rachel hadn’t taken my news well. What if he drew back in disgust at my love and the way it had transformed me?

He blew hot air into the cup of his palms, letting out a burst of laughter. “It’s true. You have. You can’t hide it from me , Terra!”

I stopped beneath the flickering illumination of a streetlamp. “I—” I began, groping for words.

But I didn’t need to stammer and mumble. I didn’t even need to explain. Koen’s chestnut-colored eyes were filled with a warm amber light.

“You’ve fallen in love, haven’t you? I’m so happy for you!” And just like that, I was buried in a hug—warm and full and wonderfully real, so different from the strange, stiff embraces we’d shared when we were going to be married and our lives were full of lies.

He still smelled the same, though. Cedar boards and dust. I breathed it in, laughing too. “You are?”

“Of course I am.” He rocked me in his arms. The words seemed to echo inside his chest, right through his corduroy jacket. “I always wanted you to be happy. I’m sorry I couldn’t love you like you needed.”

“Oh, Koen, no,” I said, pulling away from his embrace. “Don’t apologize. You were doing your best.”

“It wasn’t good enough—”

“For who? My father? The Council?” I held his cool fingers in my fingers. He gave my hands a weak squeeze.

“Well, yeah!” he exclaimed. I shook my head.

“Maybe our mistake was trying to live by their rules,” I began, holding his fingers firm. “The Council gave us rules to live, but they couldn’t see the light of your love. There were no words in their vocabulary for it. You tried to live a good life, but how could you? Your very nature fractures their world. That doesn’t mean that you’re wrong, Koen. That means they are.”

Koen let out a loose titter of laughter as he pulled away, running those long fingers through his hair. “I’m glad you’re not angry with me.”

“I couldn’t stay mad. Not now.”

He arched an eyebrow, examining me for a long time in the growing rosy light. “Terra, who is it that you’ve fallen for?”

The cold was back again, ruddying my knuckles. I drew in an icy breath of air. “He’s . . . different, Koen. Really different. If I have my way, we’ll be back on that planet soon. And you’ll get to meet him—to see for yourself.”

Now both eyebrows lifted. Not in dismay—Koen wasn’t Rachel, and despite the place he had stolen in my heart, he never would be. But he was surprised. His mouth formed an O .

But before he could respond, something happened. Something terrible. Something that had never happened before, not in all my years on the ship.

The lights went out. The world around us was black, pitch black. In the distance, in the dome, I could see a thin line of purple illumination. But otherwise the universe was blackness, shadows, and the distant barking of someone’s dog. The creature yelped over and over again, assuring us that he was just as afraid as we were.

Koen’s icy fingers found mine. I heard my breath, my heart. I was just about to say something, to remind myself that I was still here, still alive, in all this darkness, when there was a great whir. The lights came on again, one at a time, revealing Koen and how his brow wrinkled in worry.

“It’s been happening for days,” he said. I watched the light flicker against the planes of his face. “The ship’s just falling apart. And all we can do is wait and watch while it does.”

I shook my head. Someone had to do something—find us a place on the planet and restore peace to our people before our whole world crumbled before our eyes.

That someone was me. But as the lights blinked out again, then winked back to life, I had no idea how I would do it. The problem was so much bigger than me, than Koen, than all of us.

“We’d better go,” I said, still clutching his hand in mine, holding on more tightly than I’d ever held on to anything else in my whole life, as I gave his arm a tug and dragged him toward the safety of my brother’s home.

Lunch, then supper, with my brother and his wife and daughter. We listened to the steady thump thump thump of rocks against his front door, watched the lights overhead flicker on then off then on. And we talked about none of it, pretending that this was normal. I guess after a lifetime of ducking the flat of my father’s hand, my brother and I could ignore almost anything. Not Hannah, though. Every time another stone rattled the windows, she jumped, clapping her hands over her daughter’s ears.

“Not again!” she cried, rising to her feet after a particularly raucous crack . She lifted the curtain back, glimpsing with a scowl the long fissure that ran from one end of the window frame to the other. “Why doesn’t anyone do something about them? Get those children under control!”

Ronen gazed at me, his eyebrows lifting mildly. “That’s a good question,” he said.

I pushed my chair away from the table and hustled up toward the guest room, ignoring the heat behind his gaze.