Page 33 of Prima
She returns a minute later with the round-bellied jar and two tiny teacups. He breaks the seal and pours the teacups full. She raises her cup.
“Thank you for that blessing. For you, I wish you—and the ones you love—all the freedom you yearn for. And when you have achieved that, all the safety in the world in which to enjoy that freedom.”
He clinks his cup with hers and tips back its entire content. She does likewise. They show each other their empty cups.
They have sealed those beautiful wishes. Now it only remains to be seen what the universe thinks of their audacity.
ChapterTen
Ten years ago
In the tropics, twilight is fleeting and darkness descends quickly after sunset. By the time they have cleared up everything from dinner, the constellations are already out. The girl spends a few minutes on her raft to brush her teeth and think about the decision she has made.
When she returns to the beach, the boy has spread open a blanket on the sand. His weight braced on his hands, he leans back a few degrees and gazes up at the sky.
“What do you think about when you look at the stars?” she asks, tracing the edge of his blanket with her toes.
“Depending on the night, I guess. The droids on Titan—whether they’re still waiting for human settlers to arrive. Or Proxima Centauri—we were this close to sending that swarm of probes. Proxima dodged a bullet.”
She was thinking of Proxima Centauri only last night. It’s a sign, isn’t it?
She sits down a few feet from him, wraps her arms around her knees, and inhales deeply. “When we say our goodbyes tomorrow, it doesn’t have to be farewell. You’re plotting your mother and sister’s escape anyway. Come to New Ryukyu. I can help the three of you get settled.”
There. She’s put her cards face-up on the table. If he believes her to be the future Sea Witch, then her promise must hold some weight.
He turns toward her, starlight a glimmer across his features. But then he tilts his face up to the unreachable universe again.
She digs her heel into the sand and studies the faint silver sheen on the surface of the sea. Has her offer been unceremoniously rejected or is he waiting for her to elaborate? She bites the inside of her lips and asks, “You said it wouldn’t be long now before they must escape?”
His gaze remains skyward. “They have trackers installed on them.”
She has just dug beneath the surface of the sand to the damp layer underneath. It feels cold against her sole.
“They’re crude devices, the trackers,” he continues, his tone grim, “but they’re installed in such a way that to remove them would cause extreme neural pain, enough to kill someone with compromised health and maim strong individuals.”
Shock spikes into her. A moment later, anger radiates outward. She clenches her fist. “Then how will they get away?”
“I can take their pain—that is my concurrent ability.”
She allows herself a minute to digest that. “What is the cost of your concurrent ability?”
Sea Sense is a gift from the universe, to make up for the near eradication of humankind, perhaps. Concurrent abilities, however, carry a price that must be paid. She, for her power to sense malice, can never hear music—it will always be just noise to her. She prays that his cost is likewise tolerable.
“It erases my memories. Not all, obviously, but people and events leading up to the time I exercise my ability. When I was six somebody tampered with my mother’s tracker, to make it look like she tried to escape. According to her I must have taken her pain when she fell unconscious. When she woke up, I was unconscious. And whenIwoke up, days later, I not only couldn’t tell her what happened, I was confused about her and kept asking her why she looked different.”
“But you didn’t forget her.”
“She thinks I did, but believes that we were able to become mother-and-son again because she was at my side all the time while I was losing my prior memories of her.”
The gears in her head churn. Assuming she has correctly understood the logic of its cost, if he doesn’t exercise his concurrent ability before they part ways—and she sees no reason why he should—then his memories of her just might survive this amnestic curse.
As if he heard her trying to find a lucky escape, he says, “And then it takes away something else, something unrelated to the central event.”
She can no longer feel the temperature of the sand beneath her toes. She can’t seem to feel anything. “Such as?”
“After I took my mother’s pain, I could no longer read.”
“What?!” Now shecanfeel something—her nails digging into the center of her palm.
