Page 6 of The Space Between Stars

Don’t act desperate. His hands flew. That was definitely desperate.

For some reason, Raimee’s cheeks had deepened in color. “No, I-I’m fine.”

“No. In fact, they helped me through my remission.”

Remission?

“They did, but they’ve been civil. I didn’t tell them anything. I kept my word. I’ve been trying to get away from that counterfeit commander and back to you ever since.”

Well, there went everything he thought about anything.

The idea of ‘security’ this deep in the desert was laughable, were he the type to laugh, but he was sure command wouldn’t have let her wander out after him. They’d certainly told him not to go near her. Come to think of it, he hadn’t even heard her approach until she was nearly on top of him.

Her smile pulled the speckles across her face in a way that made his stomach float. “There are layers to that answer. It only seems fair to admit now. I can usually tell where you are. At least, when you’re… Well. Most of the time.”

That was problematic, considering her proximity to him was now a multifaceted death warrant. And it sounded too similar to the ability possessed by Cul’Mon—commander of Tera’thu’s legions and the master he’d run from for the last eight years—to locate him.

“But Cal, something’s changed. I’ve changed. I’m distorting, and I’m positive it has everything to do with you—”

“Well, yes, but that’s not what I mean.” The casual admittance that he was enervating her and she was perfectly fine with that might just kill him if everything else didn’t. “I—I can’t really show you much right now, because every time I do, it takes a toll.” That wasn’t how it was supposed to work. A Ruxian—Seraphinden’s lost ruling class, somewhere between history and fable—was supposed to have infinite power. “But...”

Raimee’s brow furrowed, and she stared down. A sheen of dirt floated from the ground between them, then trickled into a stream that reflected silver moonlight. It spun into a ball over her palm. She’d taken dirt and made it beautiful. He watched, awestruck, until he noticed the way her face paled, her fingers trembled.

He swatted the sand from her palm.

“But that’s how I got away. And that’s what’s going to get us out of here.”

Shifting sand?

“Look, I’ve not been at this long. I’m distorting energy now. I just can’t figure out a way to distort… not my energy.” Raimee dove into a long-winded explanation on distortion principles and the theoretical translation of energy from potential realities. Calver couldn’t hear it past the beating of his heart against his eardrums. When he’d met her, she had no knowledge—and less control—of her power. What was happening?

He tugged the hood of her cloak farther around her hair, her eyes. Her mouth pinched shut.

he signaled, glancing first toward the Red Wing encampment and then over his shoulder into the Jiradesh. He cupped her elbow and pulled her toward the encampment.

Raimee’s eyes narrowed. “I didn’t ask to be chaperoned through this fated place by the army I was actively avoiding.” She wrestled her arm from him. Wisps of silver escaped from beneath her hood and lifted in the breeze. “We have to go. We have to find Methu’su.”

Before they were captured in Chira’na, they’d been searching for the traitor—or perhaps the sage—Methu’su: the thread that wove together his past and her future. It had felt like destiny. Returning to that journey together felt like a dream. It turned into a nightmare as Calver imagined General Prime Thyatira slicing through her throat for this very interaction, then imagined Raimee tripping, catching his hand mid-fall, and withering into a skeleton.

he repeated.

Raimee stared flatly, as though his hand signals were nonsense. She gestured toward the desert. “It’s the only chance we’ve got before we get too far inland.”

They already were.

Her mouth dropped open. She tested her words, speaking slowly. “But you can… With you I can.”

It took all of his will to avert his gaze.

“What if there was another way for us to get to the coast? A faster way? Because Cal, I can—”