I don’t know how much longer I can believe
It almost sounds like poetry, and I wonder again if I will ever be able to finish that poem for Ky. If I will know the right words to say when I finally see him. If he and I will ever have time for more than beginnings.
I want to ask Indie for another blue tablet from my pack, but before I can say anything I remember once again how Grandfather told me that I was strong enough not to take the tablets.
But, Grandfather, I think, I didn’t understand you as well as I thought I did. The poems. I thought I knew what you intended. But which one did you want me to believe?
I remember the words Grandfather said when I took the paper from him that last time. “Cassia,” he whispered, “I am giving you something you won’t understand, yet. But I think you will someday. You, more than the rest.”
A thought flitters into my mind like one of the mourning cloaks, the butterflies that string their cocoons along the twigs both here and back in Oria. It’s a thought I’ve almost had before but I haven’t let myself finish it until now.
Grandfather, were you once the Pilot?
And then another thought comes, one light and fast and that I don’t grasp completely, leaving me with another impression of gently moving wings.
“I don’t need them anymore,” I say to myself. The tablets, the Society. I don’t know if it’s true. But it seems that it should be.
And then I see it. A compass, made of stone, sitting on a ledge exactly at eye level.
I pick it up, although I’ve dropped everything else.
I hold it in my hand as we walk even though it weighs more than many of the things I have let fall to the ground. I think, This is good, even though it’s heavy. I think, This is good, because it will hold me to the earth.
CHAPTER 21
KY
“Say the words,” Eli tells me.
My hands shake with exhaustion from the hours of work. The sky grows dark beyond us. “I can’t, Eli. They don’t mean anything.”
“Say them,” Eli commands, tears coming again. “Do it.”
“I can’t,” I tell him, and I put the sandstone fish down on top of Vick’s grave.
“You have to say them,” Eli says. “You have to do this for Vick.”
“I already did what I could for Vick,” I say. “We both did. We tried to save the stream. Now it’s time to go. He would do the same.”
“We can’t cross the plain now,” Eli says.
“We’ll stay by the trees,” I say. “It’s not night yet. Let’s get as far as we can.”
We go back and gather our things at the camp near the mouth of the canyon. As we wrap up the smoked fish, they leave silver scales on our hands and clothes. Eli and I divide up the food from Vick’s pack. “Do you want any of these?” I ask Eli when I find the pamphlets Vick brought.
“No,” he says. “I like what I chose better.”
I slide one into my pack and leave the rest. It’s not worth carrying them all.
Eli and I start across the plain walking side by side in the dusk.
Then Eli stops and looks back. A mistake.
“We have to keep going, Eli.”
“Wait,” he says. “Stop.”
“I’m not going to stop,” I tell him.
“Ky,” he says. “Look back.”
I turn and in the last of the evening light I see her.
Cassia.
Even far away, I know it’s her by the way her dark hair tangles with the wind and how she stands on the red rocks of the Carving. She’s more beautiful than snow.
Is this real?
She points to the sky.
CHAPTER 22
CASSIA
We’re almost to the top; we can almost look out over the plain.
“Cassia, stop,” Indie says as I start to climb an outcropping of rocks.
“We’re almost there,” I say. “I have to see.” Over the last few hours I’ve felt strong again, clearheaded. I want to stand on the highest point so I can try to see Ky. The wind is cold and clean. It feels good rushing over me.
I climb on top of the highest rock.
“Don’t,” Indie says from below. “You’re going to fall.”
“Oh,” I say. There is so much to see. Orange rocks and a brown-grassed plain and water and blue mountains. Darkening sky, deep clouds, red sun, and a few small cold flakes of white snow coming down.
Two little dark figures, looking up.
Are they looking at me?
Is it him?
This far away, there’s only one way to know.
I point to the sky.
For a moment, nothing happens. The figure stands still and I stand cold and alive and—
He starts to run.
I make my way down the rocks, slipping, sliding, trying to get to the plain. I wish, I think, my feet clumsy, moving too fast, not fast enough, I wish I could run, I wish I’d written a whole poem, I wish I kept the compass—
And then I reach the plain and wish for nothing but what I have.
Ky. Running toward me.
I have never seen him run like this, fast, free, strong, wild. He looks so beautiful, his body moves so right.
He stops just close enough for me to see the blue of his eyes and forget the red on my hands and the green I wish I wore.
“You’re here,” he says, breathing hard and hungry. Sweat and dirt cover his face, and he looks at me as though I’m the only thing he ever needed to see.
I open my mouth to say yes. But I only have time to breathe in before he closes the last of the distance. All I know is the kiss.
CHAPTER 23
KY
“Our poem,” she whispers. “Will you say it to me?”
I put my face close to her ear. My lips brush against her neck. Her hair smells like sage. Her skin smells like home.
But I can’t speak.
She is the first to remember that we are not alone. “Ky,” she whispers.
We both pull back a little. In the fading light I see the tangles in her hair and the tan on her skin. Her beauty always makes me ache. “Cassia,” I say, my voice hoarse, “this is Eli.” When she turns to him and her face lights up I know that I didn’t imagine his resemblance to Bram.
“This is Indie,” she says, gesturing to the girl who came with her. Indie folds her arms across her chest.
A pause. Eli and I glance at each other. I know we both think of Vick. This should be the moment we introduce him to them but he’s gone.
Just last night Vick was alive. This morning he stood next to the stream, watching the trout as it swam. He thought of Laney while the colors flashed and the sun shone down.
Then he died.
I gesture at Eli, who stands very straight. “There were three of us this morning,” I say.
“What happened?” Cassia asks. Her hand tightens on mine and I squeeze back gently, trying to be careful of the cuts I feel carved into her skin. What has she been through to find me?
“Someone came,” I tell her. “They killed our friend Vick. The river, too.”
Suddenly I’m aware of how we must look from above. We’re standing here on the plain out in the open for anyone to see. “Let’s get inside the Carving,” I say. In the west beyond the mountains the sun slides low — almost gone — on a day of dark and light. Vick gone. Cassia here.
“How did you do it?” I ask, drawing closer to her as we slip into the Carving. She turns to answer me, her breath hot on my cheek. We come together to kiss again, our hands and lips gentle and greedy with each other. Against her warm skin I whisper, “How did you find us?”