Page 119 of Shadows of Stardust

Outside, thunder rolls and lightning flashes bright and violent against the window panes, but we might be the only two beings in the universe here, alone, together. I didn’t have time to turn on the lights, and the darkness between each lightning strike cocoons us, pulls close and wraps us both in its embrace.

Roslyn and I stay that way for a long, long time.

Until her sobs grow quiet, and her ragged breathing evens out. Until she might almost be sleeping with how silent and still she is. And still we sit, holding vigil, and still I don’t know how to make it better.

Am I making it better?

Is this what she needs?

I hope it is. I hope she finds some comfort here.

She eventually falls asleep against me—a light, uneasy doze, and likely not very comfortable with the way she’s still curled into a tight ball on my lap.

Taking great care not to jostle her, I carry her into the bedroom and ease her down onto the sheets. I’m about to leave her there, to retreat and give her the space she likely needs, when her hand catches mine.

“Stay.”

She gives the command in a voice that’s still raw with tears. I join her there, keeping her hand clasped firmly in mine, held tight, the only comfort I can offer in a universe filled with unknowable, unspeakable heartache. A universe that so very rarely offers any justice or comfort of its own.

34

Roslyn

When I was injured in the Merixir System, I thought I’d never experience any pain more severe.

The agony of the flames spreading across my back and shoulder, the bones broken beneath the ceiling’s weight, the horrid scent of my own burning flesh in my nose. There couldn’t be anything worse than that.

But, as I sink into a shallow, tormented sleep—still half-delirious from all the sobbing I’ve done—it turns out I might be wrong.

All night long, I dream of Savvie.

I dream of the last hazy memories I have of the two of us on Earth.

Green trees and rainy skies. A bedroom we shared in a shoebox apartment. A flickering television set in the living room one night when I crept out after I was supposed to be asleep. Warnings on the screen, newscasters announcing the imminent evacuation of Earth.

The memories bleed into the Bravo. Into the long lines at the space station when the resettlement agents told us where we were headed. Into long hot days on Severin and the surrealityof being thrust into the heart of intergalactic society on a world further from home than my mind could ever truly fathom.

The memories and the years flicker in and out like antique film reels, but one thing stays the same.

Savvie.

Laughing beneath the trees. Sleeping in the apartment. Sitting next to me on the Bravo and holding my hand in the long resettlement queue. Huddled close to my side in the bed we shared in our first home on Severin. Waving goodbye the day I boarded the ship that would take me half-way across the sector to the Sol Alliance’s training facility for new recruits.

Savvie.

With a hand cradling her belly, poised right on the edge of a life I’ll never be a part of.

Savvie.

Holding me so tight I can still feel the imprint of her arms around me.

Savvie.

Disappearing through the towering Eritin jungle. The last glimpse I’ll ever have of her.

Just before dawn, the dreams break and I snap awake in bed. The pain coursing through me is different from the flames, different from the broken thing my body once was, but it seeps into every pore, every fiber, every inch of me. Bone-deep and unrelenting, what I already know will be a wound I’ll carry for the rest of my life.

Zan is beside me, hand resting over mine. Close, but giving me space. His touch an anchor to keep me tethered through the nightmares and the memories and all of that pain.

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