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I’ve put it off for long enough. But not any longer. This is where I can lead a battle against my father’s tyranny.
For Lara.
For the endless fight.
For the next dawn.
I settle on the ground, remnants of ethera pulsing around me, and for a moment I wonder if that’s how the world actually died. Withering with each passing day as we watched it happen.
I won’t let this greenhouse become ashes and sand like the rest of the world. Not when it cost us so much. Not with everything we’ve lost.
Taking a deep breath, I channel my energy into the garden. I don’t stop when pain erupts at my temples, nor when my breath hitches, and not even when blood runs down my chin.
I stop when I can no longer hold myself upright and slump down onto the earth.
Days blend together as I channel every last bit of my ethera into the garden, and it grows wildly around me. Ravenous after draining myself, I’ve gone through the provisions Numair has brought in less than a week, but even with my stomach churning with hunger, I can taste victory on my tongue. Bean plants and tomato shrubs have already sprouted flowers, but I don’t let myself take a break. Not when the void of pain and grief hovers so close I can feel it clinging to my skin, trying to make its way back into my heart.
It’s only when I slump down into a dreamless sleep and wake up with the morning sun kissing my skin with rays of mismatched colors and my stomach gnawing on itself with three-days of hunger, that I know I have no other choice but to plan a trip back to The Broken Sands. At least for a day.
The world spins when I sit up, and I have to rub the remnants of sleep from my face. The greenhouse has enough water in the form of mist Damen had created for the plants to survive, but I don’t remember the last time I drank anything.
A moment, that’s all it takes. I blink. Once and then again, until I’m sure the energy brimming with light from the garden is not something conjured by my imagination.
I stand up slowly, stumble to the plants, and can’t stop myself from touching the silky red tomatoes hanging from the branches. All around me, plants have ripened with fruits and vegetables. Even my tree leans heavily with lemons tugging on its branches.
Chewing on a crisp radish, I dash to the kitchen and pick the biggest crate I can find. I fill it with fresh fruit, tenderly wrapping each one, until I’m sure a journey home won’t damage them. One crate isn’t enough. Nor is two, or three, or even seven. I abandon my harvest when I wrap my brain around the fact that I won’t be able to fit everything into the caravan.
It’s only when I lodge the last crate between overhanging tools and stashed boxes that I wonder how I’ll go anywhere if there’s no fuel in the caravan. Climbing into the driver’s seat, I realize Valdus has made sure I had a way to come back whenever I felt ready. The tenderness of such a simple gesture chokes me with tears I’m not ready to shed, so I start the engine.
The smoke from the factory curling in the sky even when no roof peeks over the high dunes guides me back to The Broken Sands.
A single light filters through the heavy curtains when I bring the caravan to a halt, but by the time I cross the sheltered backyard with a crate in my hands, I find every habitant of the house with red-chipped paint waiting for me in the kitchen. Valdus must have awakened Inara as she hovers next to the counter with her hair down, spilling in heavy waves over the loose shirt. Lines of worry disappear as soon as she sees me and wraps me in a hug that stifles air from my lungs.
“You came back,” she mutters in my hair.
I nod, unable to utter a word through the tightness in my chest that has nothing to do with her embrace. I don’t let the fact that Valdus doesn’t say a thing, as he leans on a counter with his arms crossed over his chest, chase me back into the desert.
I untangle myself from Inara’s arms and put down the crate on the table.
“What is it?” Inara asks, a glimmer in her eyes telling me she already knows.
“Open it.”
Her only reaction is a muffled gasp. Picking up a tomato, she brings it up to her nose and inhales its savory scent as if to make sure it’s real.
“It worked,” she says.
I nod.
“I have to let Numair know.”
She’s out of the house before I know it, and I’m left alone with Valdus.
Silence stretches between us and rises back up walls we’ve left in shambles long ago. He pulls away from the counter, crossing the kitchen toward the table and looks down into the crate, rubbing his bottom lip with his thumb.
“Are you coming back for good?” His voice is filled with gravel and he’s yet to give me even a cursory glance. “Or is this just a run for supplies?”
“You don’t seem to be overly fond of the idea of me staying,” I mutter, my cheeks blazing with uncertainty and shame.
