Page 145 of Shadows of Stardust

“Thank you, Zandrel,” Savannah murmurs. “For all of it.”

“You spoke to Roslyn? She’s still here?”

“She’s still here. But I think that’s probably something else you already knew.”

I shift from one foot to the other as she releases me.

Perhaps I’ve been monitoring the passenger manifests of shuttles leaving Thervor.

For the Aux, of course.

Just to make sure none of our criminal targets tried to hop off-world before they could be arrested. No other reason.

But I’m not interested in lying to Roslyn’s sister, so I just give her a brief nod and she grins.

“Thought so.”

She looks like she wants to say more, and I’ve got a hundred questions about how Roslyn is, what she said, whether Savannah thinks she’ll be glad to see me, but I don’t get to ask them.

With a none-too-subtle clearing of his throat, Arrik catches Savannah’s attention. She sighs, then wraps me in one last quick hug.

“Don’t mind Arrik,” she says. “Pregnant wife. People here who might want to kill me. All of that, you know? He’s just a little antsy, and we should probably get going.”

When I glance at the male in question, he’s got his eyes rolled heavenward and drags a hand down the side of his face, no doubt run just as ragged by his wife as I hope to be by Roslyn for the rest of my life.

“I’ll leave you to it, then,” I tell her and, with a parting smile, she saunters over and claims her husband’s hand.

They both climb into a small freighter, and after flicking open my holo to check my route one last time, I head out into the Severin evening.

46

Roslyn

I should call him.

The Severin suns have set over the tallest of the capital city’s buildings, leaving a stain of light on the far horizon and a rose-tinted glow to the sky.

Way up here on the roof, the tiles are still sun-warm. If memory serves, they’ll hold their heat for another hour before the desert night steals it away.

Soon enough, the creeping cold will chase me back inside. Severin only offers a few fleeting moments of mercy between the oppressive heat of day and the bone-rattling chill of night, and tonight I’m determined to enjoy them.

My thoughts drift from Savvie to Zan to Terra Spei and back again. Every impossible thing that’s happened in the last few hours and every unknown I’ll be facing tomorrow swirls and blurs and bleeds together until I have absolutely no idea what the right thing to do in this situation is.

Regardless, I should call him.

The thought almost makes me want to laugh.

Call him? Like this is some casual thing, and it makes total sense to just give him a ring through comms?

No, what I should really do is figure out where exactly the Aux has him stationed and hitch a ride across galaxies. I should find him, kiss the hell out of him, and refuse to leave his side until he sees the light. Until he realizes we should be together, damn the rest of the universe and whatever it wants from us.

Only… I can’t do that, can I?

What he did for Savvie was wonderful, and kind, and unbelievably selfless.

Maybe it was meant to be a parting gift.

One last bit of kindness to make up for the way we left things.

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