Page 73 of The Garnet Daughter
My heart sinks again. The spell book is lost inside, filled with sediment and crushed metal. I can’t fold to retrieve it. I would not survive.
“What is lost to the sand is lost forever,” Sav whispers like a prayer.
The path we take is like a dead birthlands version of Frith. I am used to the incline, to uneven ground, the massive boulders and fallen trees. But here the heat radiates from below. The sand resists my every step, breaking me out in a layer of sticky sweat and restricting my lungs with its grittiness.
I try to keep up with Sav as she weaves through the harsh terrain. She never checks to make sure I am following, moving with confidence and a knowing of this land that makes me homesick for mine.
As we cross the valley, I can see the trail has turned into a full-on billowing storm of black smoke. But now that we climbthe slope of a small mountain, it is no longer visible, and for some reason, that is scarier than being able to smell the faint odor of metal burning, now blocked by a wall of compressed sand and rocky ground.
Sav wants the scrap from the escape capsule. I remind myself of that whenever my mind starts to think of August still being aboard the ship when it crashed. We are headed to the pod, where August landed safely, I repeat to myself.
I stumble over a rock when a flash of the chaos inside the cockpit shoots to the front of my mind, the scene of violence I saw just before I escaped.
He’s alive. He has to be.
“How long after my pod landed did you see the second?”
“Do not brush against that kind of tree, has thorns. You will drop dead. It wants fertilizer.” She ends each sentence with a labored huff and glances back. “Does it matter how long?”
“Yes, it matters.” Maybe I can grasp at some hope in the details. I step widely around the tree she pointed to, noticing the thin, dark thorns dotting each dry branch.
“I was already close to you when I noticed the other one. The ship was low and smoking.”
“Was it already on fire?” I panic at the new detail she did not mention before.
“We know that it is now,” she deadpans, her voice straining slightly as she jumps from one boulder to another.
She would not be so determined to get to the next pod if there was nothing to salvage. My eyes line with water, unsure whether it’s from the dry air or picturing August crashing into the birthlands or being swallowed up by sinksand like mine was, except he would not be able to fold out of it.
I wasted so much time overthinking how I feel about him and talking myself out of his feelings for me, even when he told me outright he did not see me as a friend. The truth is, I can’t seehim as a friend either. I should have kissed him when I had the chance. I wanted to, but I would not allow myself, and now he could be dead. Even the thought of that makes me want to fall to my knees and let the sob that’s fighting to be set free spill forth.
“You are not tired?” Sav asks me suspiciously.
“No.” I wipe my eyes. Even if I were, I would push myself. I would not stop until I found him.
We finally crest the ridge, a sharp top connecting clusters of boulders all around with many more rocky mountains in the distance. The drones were leading us here. It’s the terrain we were searching for. Behind us is as vast and empty as the space between worlds, but here the entire landscape is speckled with rock formations jutting into the sky.
We climb over the peak and then weave down until the large boulders nestled into the ground block some of our view of the other hills. The valley below is shaded in the deep purple of the immense terrain around it.
“There,” Sav says and scrambles to gain purchase on the crumbly path.
An escape pod blinks with faint exterior lights on the next ridge, jammed into rock and sand. I sprint toward it and can’t help the fold my body makes the rest of the way to reach it.
I press my hands against the dirty windows, desperate to look in and see his face. The outside surface is charred and damaged by the harsh landing, but the structure seems intact.
“Please, please,” I chant and skim across to the other side.
The hatch is open, blown off from the inside like mine was.
I can’t help but prematurely celebrate just a little knowing he made it out safely, that we are both alive.
“August? I’m here.”
But when I look inside, it’s empty.
I step back and look around. Maybe he left when the hatch opened and he’s looking for me.
“August!”
