Page 71 of Cage of Starlight
“Don’t make trouble.” Tory’s voice is thoughtful, and Sena grimaces. He doesn’t need Tory’s pity. “My mom had rules like that. She was afraid, too.”
Sena rasps out a laugh that echoes with a gong of pain in his chest, and he stops to catch his breath.
Tory must notice something. “Are you . . .?”
“Fine,” Sena breathes, straightening.
Afraid. It’s such a flimsy, laughable word for the horror that’s carved Sena hollow for years, so sharp the agony of the NOVA came almost as a relief at times: at least he didn’t have to keep waiting for it.Conveniently, they come upon a creek, and Sena buys time by kneeling to fill his canteen. He uses the excuse of his busy hands as he twists it closed and secures it to his belt so he doesn’t have to look at Tory when he finally decides on, “It wasn’t your fault.”
“What?”
“In the tent. The NOVA. Kirlov would have found another reason, if not that. You apologized back then, but it wasn’t your fault. It was at least in part because I allowed the Arlunian non-combatants to ’port away.”
“I wondered if that was on purpose.”
Sena shrugs. “When I can do something . . . I try. Sometimes it doesn’t work. That day you arrived—with the scalpel—I meant to let the rebel infiltrators escape unharmed, but one of them went for my gun. You were right that I’m a coward, that I only give others advice to prevent their own pain.”
Tory swallows audibly. “I didn’t say you were a coward.”
“You didn’t have to.”
They walk, on and on and up, until Tory finally says, “Ownership.”
Sena blinks. “I’m sorry?”
“The tattoo. You asked, right? It’s—it’s like the Core. It’s not something I want, not something Ichose. Someone put it on me to show I don’t belong to myself. Peoplesee itand think they know me, think they—” He stops, like maybe he can stuff the words back inside himself.
Sena knows the feeling. He gets it now, though. Warmth fills him. How strange, that they can be so different and think so alike.
Tory’s looking down, shoulders up to bracket his ears, like he’s bracing himself for a blow. Sena says, quietly, “I’ve misunderstood you.”
Tory’s wide eyes find Sena, tension going out of his shoulders. His gaze is a question, so Sena makes himself answer. “There’s noshame in survival. Your tattoos”—his scars, Sena’s scars, so many other things—“aren’t ugly. Other people make them ugly.”
“You’re not wrong.” Tory trudges up a hill behind Sena, humming under his breath. Finally, he says, “You know, I fuckinghatepeople.”
The suddenness of it shocks a grin from Sena. “Yes.”
He doesn’t interrogate the warm feeling that fills him at the brilliant smile Tory offers in response. They sink into silence, and for the first time, it’s comfortable.
The sun sets fast. They find a defensible resting place before the last of the light leaves—a nook in a jagged wall of rock that creates a right angle, leaving only the front exposed—and Sena sets to work making a small fire. Discovery is a concern but dehydration, illness, and hypothermia are equally dangerous. Sena leaves his wet gloves on.
Tory dries his socks in front of the fire while Sena boils the water from the creek. They feast on some of the dried rations in one of the large pockets on their jackets and save the rest for later. Sena keeps his handgun but gives Tory a knife, just in case.
When Tory’s clothes are mostly dry, he falls asleep sitting up, and Sena gently prods him into lying on his side. It’s been a long day. Sena should sleep, too.
But it’s not bad, like this. The cold, open air. The heat of the fire. Tory curled like a crescent moon toward Sena, close enough to touch.
The sky above goes on forever, and Sena really should sleep, but instead he counts the stars and whispers their names and feeds brush into the fire to keep it bright. He’ll enjoy this freedom, every moment of it, for as long as he’s allowed to keep it.
*
Tory wakes at first light. The fire has died down, but the embers still burn bright. Tory frowns. Sena hasn’t been asleep long, then.
He waits until the light sifts full and bright through the trees overhead before he wakes him. Sena barely stirs at the first nudge. Tory tries again, shaking his shoulder, and Sena jolts awake, taking in the state of the light. “You should have woken me hours ago,” he rasps, and immediately tries to stand.
He fails, making a ragged, shallow gasp as he crumples.
Tory should have noticed it earlier. “When we fell . . .?”
