Page 99 of The Space Between Stars

He dipped beneath the wagon and shimmied onto his stomach beside her.

“Aaay indeed. How are you finding the desert? I can’t say I love it, but I’m sure I’m just seeing it under adverse circumstances, when it hasn’t rained in a while.”

“You—you what?” The woman pivoted to look at him, revealing a dotted face and silver irises.

He rolled to his back to stare at the wood of the wagon above him. Kretch. This hallucination was worse than any withdrawal had put him through before.

“You’re Meyernes? The match marshal, Trokus, told me I could find you here.”

Niklaus spewed a slew of curses, some which hadn’t graced his lips since his years at boarding school.

“Shh!” the Ruxian hissed. “I don’t want to be found here.”

Insanity. Niklaus rolled back to his stomach and glanced around. He wormed his way toward her on knees and elbows. “You want to find me, but don’t want to be found finding me. Ah. Why are you looking at me—ah—for me?” He was painfully aware of the slurring hitch in his words. “Your… highness?” It made sense to address an imaginary Ruxian properly.

The woman was slender, her face so speckled he wasn’t sure where to look.

“Are you…” Her nose, too broad for her narrow face, wrinkled. “Indisposed?” As though it was a shock a man could get himself inebriated in the middle of the day in the desert during a military drill. She waved the air between them as if wafting away his breath. “Nevermind. Trokus said you spend time with the man who won the last rally. I need you to give him a message.”

This could be a trick. A trap. Only… the light left her eyes when Niklaus hesitated.

“Do you know who I mean?” she asked.

“The mute?”

Her face broke into a smile. “Yes.”

His mouth twisted mischievously. “Why? What’s your interest in him?” She fell short of a response, cheeks growing dark. “I mean, besides the fact that he is scorching: mind-numbingly hot. Gorgeous man, honestly. If you’re into the strong, silent type.”

The Ruxian’s blush was on a mission to conquer any and all territory. Niklaus half expected the silver wisps of hair poking out from beneath her hood to turn maroon.

He raised his eyebrows. “And you think I’ve got problems.” He took another sip from his canteen.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“And yet you’ve told me everything I need to know.”

She scoffed. “Will you just pass on a message for me?”

“If I didn’t, wouldn’t that technically be treason?”

“You… you can’t tell anyone else about this.”

It wasn’t wise to speak about hallucinations. But in that moment of her distress, he noticed the ashen tone beneath her skin. The way her face pulled too tightly around her cheekbones.

“I have no one to tell,” he said truthfully.

The woman sucked a nervous breath through her teeth. She pulled a tiny, rolled slip of paper from an unseen pocket. “Give this to him.” She pressed it into his hand. Her fingers were dry and frail. “Tell him Killari’s been apprehended by command and they suspect external surveillance. I slipped the note from them. I don’t think they deciphered it. I set Killari free.”

“I… yes. Alright.”

Her forehead wrinkled. “You seem confused.”

“I am confused. And I think you could be confused as well.”

“How long have you been interacting with Calver?”

Calver? That sounded distinctly unlike ‘Dallard Friyal’. “A moon cycle.”