IN A COLD, BLANK room in Pitha’s capital, Akos gave up on sleep. He and Cyra had never slept without a door between them before, so Akos hadn’t known that she ground her teeth, or that she dreamt all the time, moaning and muttering. He’d spent most of the night with eyes open, waiting for her to settle, only it never happened. He was still too sore to get comfortable anyway.
He had never been in a room so bare. Gray floors gave way to pale walls. The beds had white sheets and no frames. At least there was a window. In the early morning hours, as light came back to the world, he could just barely make out a maze of scaffolding underwater, green slime and supple yellow vines wrapped around it. Holding up the city.
Well, that was something the Pithar and the Thuvhesit had in common, he thought—they lived in places that ought not to exist.
In those early hours, Akos was swallowed up in the question that wouldn’t leave him be: Why hadn’t he pulled away when Cyra kissed him? It wasn’t like she had surprised him—she had leaned in, slow, her hand warm on his chest and pressing, almost like she was pushing him away. But he hadn’t moved a muscle. He’d gone over it in his mind again and again.
Maybe, he thought, as he stuck his head under the bathroom faucet to wet his hair, I even liked it.
But he was scared to even entertain the notion. It meant the fate that worried at him, the fate that tugged at the strings connecting his heart to Thuvhe and home, was suddenly izits away from his face.
“You’re quiet,” Cyra said as they made their way to the landing bay side by side. “Did that engine grease you drank last night get to you?”
“No,” he said. Somehow it felt wrong to tease her about talking in her sleep, when he knew the kinds of things that likely haunted her. No trifles there. “Just . . . new place, that’s all.”
“Right, well, I keep burping up sour, so.” She pulled a face. “I am not enamored with Pitha, I have to say.”
“Except—” he started, about to add something about the concert the night before.
She interrupted him with, “The music. Yes.”
His knuckles brushed hers. He jerked away. He was too aware of every touch, now, even though Cyra had promised she wouldn’t make another move, and hadn’t talked about it since.
They reached the breezeway—not the word Akos would have picked, but there was a sign over the doorway saying what it was—where some of the others were putting on waterproof jumpsuits and boots. Ryzek, Yma, Vas, Suzao, and Eijeh weren’t there, but Vakrez and Malan were, Malan sorting through boots to find the right size. He was a small, thin man, with a beard that was just a shadow under his jaw, and bright eyes. An unequal match for Vakrez, the cold military commander who had seen to Akos’s Shotet education.
“Cyra,” Malan said, nodding as Vakrez eyed Akos. Akos stood up straighter, lifting his chin. He could still hear Vakrez’s relentless voice scolding him for slouching, for dragging his feet, for uttering so much as a curse in Thuvhesit.
“Kereseth,” Vakrez said. “You look bigger.”
“That’s because I actually feed him, unlike your barracks kitchen.” Cyra thrust a bright green jumpsuit into Akos’s arms that was marked L. When he unfolded it, it looked nearly as wide as it was tall, but no reason to complain, as long as he didn’t get water in his boots.
“Right you are,” Malan said in his reedy voice.
“You used to eat there without complaining,” Vakrez said, elbowing him.
“Only because I was trying to get you to notice me,” Malan said. “Notice I haven’t been back there since.”
Akos watched Cyra put on her suit to see how she did it. It looked so easy for her that he wondered if she’d been to Pitha before, but he felt odd, asking her questions—acting at all normal—with Vakrez right there. She stepped into the suit and pulled straps he hadn’t noticed before tight around her ankles, binding the fabric to her body. She did the same with hidden straps at her wrists, then fastened the suit up to her throat. Hers was as shapeless as his own, built for a person not made spare by the hard life of a Shotet.
“We were planning to join one of the platoons for the scavenge,” Vakrez said to Cyra. “But if you prefer that we go out on a separate vessel—”
“No,” Cyra said. “I’d rather try to blend in with your soldiers.”
No “thank you,” no niceties. It was Cyra’s way.
Once they were all in suits and strapped into their boots, they walked the covered tunnel to a ship. Not the one they’d flown in the day before, but a smaller floater, round, with a domed roof so the water would slide off as it flew.