Page 36 of River Dragon’s Song

“And Ms. Valente?”

“Yes?”

“You’ve done remarkably well to survive this long on six protein bars and a patch of ice,” he said pleasantly. “Remarkably well. I look forward to hearing all about it.”

The line clicked and went dead.

She hadn’t told him how many bars she had. He had gone and looked up the contents of her emergency pack. She sat on the rock with the beacon in her lap and didn’t move for a long time.

She was shaking badly, and she couldn’t seem to stop. Her hands were trembling and her knees were trembling. There was a cold, sick feeling in the pit of her stomach that wouldn’t go away. The tears had dried on her cheeks behind the mask, but her eyes still stung.

She had lied. She had deliberately looked straight at the river and told GenCon it didn’t exist.

And Bentley knew, or at least suspected. She had heard it in that last pleasant, careful sentence. Special Projects didn’t take over a rescue for no reason. Ethan’s team had reported wet rock in a lava tube, and somebody at GenCon had gone looking for where it came from. Now they were drilling towards her. In four or five days they would break through, and she would have to look them in the eye and keep lying.

She had just thrown away the only certainty she had ever had.

A shadow fell over her as Korrak crouched down in front of her, slowly, the way he had that first time by the channel. He didn’t say anything. Instead he reached out and took her trembling hands in his and held them, warm and steady, until she looked up at him.

“I just lied,” she whispered. “I’ve never done that before. Not ever. I told them there was nothing down here.” Her voice cracked. “I just lied to the people who pay me. For you.”

He looked at her, his thumbs moving gently over the backs of her hands. And then he shook his head.

“For us,” he said quietly.

She stared at him. For us. For him, yes, but also for the river and the gardens and the carvings on the dome. For the map of a world that had been kept alive by people like him for longer than anyone could remember. For the song he had sung to her in the shallows that he didn’t know how to finish. For whatever this was, between them.

She had been the odd one out her entire life, the one who didn’t fit, who wouldn’t bend, who stood on the other side of every argument. She had always thought it was something that happened to her. Something she had to put up with. This time, she had chosen it.

The cold, sick feeling in her stomach eased, just a little. It didn’t go away entirely, and she didn’t think it would, not for a long time. But something warm and steady settled in beside it, and when she took a breath, it didn’t shake quite so badly.

“For us,” she repeated softly.

He drew her into his arms, and she let him. She pressed her face against his chest and held on tight, and she listened to the slow, steady beat of his heart. And far above them, the drill kept pounding, closer every hour.

They went back down to the gardens that night, because she couldn’t bear to stay near the drill. She lay awake for a long time in the moss hollow, with Korrak behind her and his arm heavy across her waist. She had left the beacon in her pack on the other side of the hollow. It still seemed to sit on her chest like a stone.

She thought uneasily about what was waiting for her up there. There was her temporary room in Iron Ridge, with its narrow bed and its little window that looked out on red dust. There were her tools in their battered case, and a tablet full of reports that nobody had ever wanted to read. There was coffee, the terrible kind from the dispenser in the canteen. There was her next job, wherever GenCon decided to send her, and the next team that would roll their eyes when she opened her mouth.

She tried very hard to miss it. She lay there in the green dark and made herself picture each piece of it clearly, and waited to feel something. She felt a little homesick for the coffee, and that was all.

What is wrong with me? She had nearly died down here. Any sane person would be counting the hours until that drill broke through. But when she thought about it, all she could see was Korrak’s face in the hollow yesterday, calm and careful, telling her that she could go home.

It is right, he had said, as if it was already decided.

“You are awake,” he murmured behind her.

“So are you.”

His arm tightened around her waist. He didn’t say anything else, and after a moment she rolled over to face him. In the faint glow she could just make out his eyes, dark and watchful.

“When you told me they were coming,” she said, “you said I could go home. You said it was right.”

“Yes.”

“You never asked me what I wanted.”

He was quiet for a moment. “You want your people. Your window.”