Page 194 of The Space Between Stars

She gave him a hard look. “You were sent to capture somebody, weren’t you? Why do you think?”

Either he wanted Niklaus killed, or he would risk Niklaus’s life for the unlikely chance he did capture Calver. “Sounds like your friend’s placing his own bets.”

“He’s been known to take his chances.”

Night fell on the second day. When the pinpricks of light shone in the distance from Steila’s wharf, Mefeeb pulled the boat into a beachless cove, tucked into the Thaligan cliffs. The boat knocked into the stone with the rise and fall of the waves.

“That’s as far as I go,” she said over the echo of ocean in the tight space.

“I don’t blame you,” Niklaus admitted.

Skeptical as he had been about the safety of the child-piloted skiff over the Casowhatan, climbing those looming cliffs, slick with seawater, into an enemy-occupied city hardly seemed the better option.

She squinted an eye at him. “You’re really doing this? Is it true then? Is there a war going on?”

Niklaus’s hand found the back of his neck. “I’m not really sure.”

“For your sake, I hope there ent.” Mefeeb hesitated, then held out a hand. Niklaus took it to shake and was surprised by the firmness of her small grip. “Preservation bless,” she said, tucking a wisp of raven hair back into her turban.

Niklaus lurched out of the skiff with the rise of the tide onto a rocky ledge, nearly losing his footing as he did so. He looked back at Mefeeb and lifted a hand. Her mouth twitched like she might say something else. Instead, she cast away and sailed south.

The wind pulled at Niklaus’s clothes and spray misted his salty skin as he watched the skiff grow smaller beneath the moonlight. Tomorrow was the first day of spring. The Red Wing would enter Steila by the next sunset. These might be his last hours left alive. That felt oddly satisfying. He hadn’t accomplished many things he’d hoped for, but he’d never given up on them. Sober and acting under no one’s authority but his own, if this was the way he went out, he was glad for it.

He checked his supplies: rations for another two days, Thyatira’s writ, and the Aetech lamp Calver had given him. Niklaus tossed the writ into the ocean. With the company he was about to keep, it wouldn’t make him any friends.

He crested the rocky cliffs lining the sea and looked out over the night into Steila.

Calver had been telling the truth all along. Thyatira had deceived them all. The city was under Tera’thian occupation. They were planning an ambush. An ambush the Red Wing wouldn’t survive if their forces were blown to pieces.

So close to certain death, Niklaus had never felt so alive.

By the time dawn crested on the first day of spring, Niklaus was dead tired and positive he wouldn’t live to see Steila. He had made it to the top of the cliffs, true, but the moment the sun hit their black basalt the heat threatened to cook him alive. Flies swarmed the coastline with the density of a rainstorm, catching in his nose, his mouth, his eyes. Each step along the coastline felt more precarious than the last, as rocks crumbled beneath his worn boots and tumbled hundreds of meters over the ledge. He spent more time finding his footing and surveying a route that wouldn’t send him back into the Casowhatan or careening down the eastern cliff face than he did progressing toward Steila.

Half a day had passed, Niklaus cursing his weak body and ever-present headache. In the distance, he could glimpse the spire of its central tower. That was where Calver had said he was headed. Niklaus never seemed to get any closer; it still looked like a stick stuck in the mud among the low adobe buildings surrounding it. After nearly twisting an already sore ankle, Niklaus sought refuge in a crevasse that tilted diagonally into the basalt. He groaned as his leadened legs hit the ground.

This was all that mute’s fault. If he’d just let Niklaus be, Niklaus could have just died of moss withdrawal. Or blissfully blown apart in the encampment when the distortion plates failed. Instead, Niklaus had had to get it in his head that he, too, should act valiantly. As if that had ever gotten him anywhere.

Rock crunched from deep in the crevasse behind Niklaus. His limbs lit with fiery alarm and his neck snapped toward the sound. A shadow huddled in the rock.

“Don’t come closer. I’m armed,” came a ragged voice.

Niklaus raised his hands. “I’m not. I’m with the Red Wing. I mean you no harm.”

“Where’s your unit? Where’s the rest of you?”

“Not yet arrived.”

“You’re a scout?”

“You could say that.”

“You’re too late.”

Niklaus sidled closer to the shadow. No weapon. No pack. Just sullied clothes on a body smeared with grime. A brown oval face. Disheveled dark hair. The man clutched at his elbows and choked out a sob.

Niklaus fell to his knees and opened his pack. He sipped from his last water skin and handed it to the man, who drained it wordlessly. Then Niklaus fished for his remaining rations and passed them as well.

“What happened?”