They were silent again for a while as Valen worked. As Andi allowed herself to simply sit for a time. To rest in the moment.
“Do you want to see something neat?” Valen asked suddenly, his gaze now fixed on hers. There was a fleck of red paint on his cheek. It reminded Andi of the Valen she’d once known, before everything changed. “That is, if it’s still there... I could use a break.” He looked at his paint-stained hands.
“Sure, I guess so.” Andi shrugged her shoulders. She smiled as she added, “As long as it’s not Jumping Mud.”
Valen laughed. “I’m still not sorry about that.”
Years ago, Valen had brought Andi and Kalee to a garden similar to this one and talked the girls into touching a pile of brackish sludge. It turned out the sludge was nicknamed Jumping Mud by the local kids because some microorganism within caused it to explode in their faces. The two girls had marched back to Kalee’s room covered in filth, fuming as they traded fantasies about getting revenge on her older brother.
Hesitantly, Andi agreed, and she followed Valen to the opposite side of the pond.
A small, floating staircase led to the top of the gravarock.
“Kalee used to wish she could climb up to one of the rocks instead of being flown there,” Valen explained. “In a weird way, this is for her.” He looked over his shoulder at Andi as he began to climb. “Come on.”
The stairs stopped at the top of the rock, and Valen led the way onto its surface. A soft layer of glowing green moss had grown there, soft as a blanket. Valen and Andi settled down on it, side by side.
“This used to be the only place I wanted to spend my days,” Valen said.
Andi let her gaze drift over the view before her. It was enchanting. Everything was glowing, fields of light from the garden below mixing with the blue and red of the moons above. It all melted into a soft purple.
“I’ve missed this,” Andi admitted.
“Me, too. While I was in Lunamere, I almost forgot what this place looked like.”
Andi had, too. The years she’d spent away from home had stolen many of her good memories of Arcardius.
“Do you think you’ll ever be the same?” Andi asked.
Valen toyed with the moss between them. He lifted a brow as he turned to her. “Do you?”
“No,” she said. “And I don’t know that I want to be.”
“I learned something, in my time away,” he said, leaning back, arms crossed behind his head.
Andi leaned back, too.
The stars stared down at them. The nebula seemed to loose a sigh as it swam far above their heads, sparkling as if it were made of dancing glitter.
“We’ve been through darkness, Andi,” Valen said. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t still live in the light.”
He closed his eyes, and Andi was left to ponder how much his words echoed her own thoughts from earlier, about the balance between the light and the dark.
They stayed there for a time, silence threading between them.
“Hey...Andi?” Valen said as he lifted himself on an arm and turned to her. “This may be overstepping, and I completely understand if you say no...”
His words trailed off, and she nodded her head in encouragement for him to continue.
“Tomorrow is the Summit, and after that is the Ucatoria Ball. Even though I just got back, my father expects me to make an appearance. I know it’s safe here, that everything will be fine, but...I think I’d feel better if, perhaps, you and your crew came with me.”
Andi couldn’t bring herself to tell him about his father’s demand. That she and the girls and Dex would already be there, forced to remain until General Cortas decided he would release them.
So she nodded, still staring up at the sky.
“Yes, Valen, we’ll be there.”
From the corner of her eye, she could see him still watching her. She turned to face him.
“Was there something else?” Andi asked.
Valen’s face paled. “I’m required to dance.”
Andi laughed at that. Every year, the Summit took place on a different planet. The Ucatoria Ball was always opened by that planet’s future successor dancing with a partner, a tradition that had lasted since the first official Summit fifteen years ago.
“I’m not interested in dancing with a girl,” Valen said. “So...I thought...maybe I could dance with you?”
Andi let out a single laugh. “I’m a girl, Valen. In case you’d forgotten.”
He cursed. “That’s not what I meant!” Then he sighed. “I just meant that, at these things, normally, one dances with a romantic interest, and...I’d rather just dance with a friend.”
A friend.
He said the word as if he really meant it. As if, somehow, despite what they’d been through, the horrors they’d shared, Valen had begun to think of Andi as a friend.
Other than her crew, she hadn’t had one in years.
A smile, tentative at first, grew on her lips.
“So?” Valen asked. “Do you think...would you want... I’d ask one of your crewmates, but quite frankly, they terrify me.”
Andi laughed again. “It’s alright, Valen,” she said, sitting up and facing him. “I’ll dance with you.”
The relief on his face was palpable. He smiled, a real, genuine one this time.
“My father won’t be pleased,” he said.
“Good,” Andi said. “Neither will mine.”
They shared a soft laugh.
“Let’s go back down,” Valen said. “I want to finish the painting.”
She nodded and glanced one last time at the view before her as she stood. It was breathtaking, rivaling all the places Andi had seen on other planets far from here.
Friends, she thought.
She followed him down the stairs, back into the garden below.
Chapter Seventy-Four
* * *
ANDROMA
EXHAUSTION SWEPT OVER Andi like a blanket as she made her way through the winding halls of the estate to the guest quarters.
The hallways at this time of night had more traffic going through them than was normal. The household servants were working hard day and night to make the estate look even more extravagant than it already was. To Andi they seemed to be wasting time by shining already spotless mirrors and windows, and she wouldn’t be surprised to see one of them picking up microscopic lint from the carpet.
“That horrid horned fellibrag is going to be the death of me,” a woman muttered as she picked up the tattered remains of a shredded rug. Andi smothered a laugh and hurried past.
Just as she was about to turn into the corridor where the crew’s rooms were located, a commotion stopped her.
“I don’t know what happened, madam,” one of the servant droids was explaining to the head maid, his antenna wobbling from side to side.
Andi crept closer, curious, as she watched a group of droids and maids hauling away bits of torn metal and glass, large scraps of computerized bits and wires. They dumped them into a large wheeled bin, sighing as they went about their work.
“The general won’t be pleased,” the head maid said, tapping something onto a holoscreen in her hands. “He’s grown rather fond of that AI.”
Andi’s stomach sank.
Her curiosity was strong enough to draw her around the corner. “What happened?”