Frozen

They docked the ship by the green island, and Wes made his way to the coast. The air was cloudy with black smoke. Wes coughed. He thought he could see the drakon lumbering in the distance, but the sky was dark and his eyes were watering. The water was filled with wreckage from the battle, and those who survived were swimming to lifeboats.

From the shadows of the green forest, a few sylphs appeared. Like Liannan, they were clad in white raiment. They looked at Wes with somber faces.

“Where is she? Where’s Nat?” Wes asked.

“The drakonrydder was shot from the sky,” the nearest sylph replied. “She is gone.”

No way. No way. Wes kicked at the sand, unwilling to accept it. He knelt on the beach, his hands to his face, and stifled a scream of rage.

The waves lapped on the shore, and when he looked he saw a familiar-looking black boot.

He ran to the body and turned it over. It was Nat, still in her black coat and jeans.

In the distance, the drakon nodded its head. Wes wondered whether it had laid her down there for him to find.

“Nat! Wake up!” he yelled. Her flesh was cold from the icy water. Dark burns covered her skin. He laid his head down and put an ear to her mouth. She wasn’t breathing. He began to pump her heart, just as he had been taught. Three quick pumps, then he held her nose and breathed into her mouth. Nothing. He did it again and again. Nothing happened.

Liannan walked over the waves toward him. “I can help, please, bring her—follow me,” she said, leading Wes deeper into the island.

He lifted Nat in his arms and carried her, running after the fast-moving sylph as the crew followed behind him.

Liannan led them up the coast, over the burnt sand, and into the island’s interior. Wes looked around in wonder at a dense forest, with trees arching into the shape of a doorway. He had never seen trees before other than in pictures or on the nets, and these trees were like unlike anything he had ever seen. The branches curled with inch-long thorns, and roots reached up out of the soil. He laid Nat on the ground. He looked around in wonder at the green grass, the sky filled with life, birds chirping and fluttering, the buzz of insects, the smell of grass. The Blue was alive, alive as their world used to be.

The crew gathered around Nat’s still form.

Wes put his ear to her chest and listened for a heartbeat. There was none.

“We’re here, Nat. We’re here. We reached the Blue. Now wake up,” he ordered, his voice hoarse from crying.

He waited.

Finally Nat opened her eyes. She smiled at him.

Wes grinned. “You owe me ten thousand credits. Hand them over.”

52

NAT LAUGHED, SAT UP, AND LOOKED around. It was the Blue. Her home. Vallonis. There were no more clouds, no snow or fog. Just brilliant sunshine falling on her skin, warming her face. It felt like nourishment, as if the sun were giving her sustenance she’d been denied her entire life. Her ears filled with the sound of birdsong and the buzzing of insects. A soft, warm breeze fell on her face and tickled her cheek. The smell of blossoms, intoxicating and sweet, filled the air.

But nothing compared to the sky. The endless blue sky—there was no more gray, just a majestic blue. So this was why they called it the Blue. How could you name it anything else? She could feel the strength return to her body. The joy of breathing clean air. She was whole, she understood now, whatever rot had threatened to destroy her was expunged completely. She could return to New Vegas. She looked in wonder at the array of creatures passing through the doorway.

A dark-haired sylph was talking intently to Liannan, who was shaking her head sorrowfully.

Liannan returned to the group. “This doorway has been compromised; my people have no choice but to close it. It is too dangerous. We had hoped to leave it open for those of us who had been born in the gray land. But they must seek another way home.

“I must return to my task, to search for the source of the sickness. I have much more to do still, but the rest of you must cross before it closes,” she said.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Shakes said, taking her hand.

She smiled at him tenderly.

“What about you, boss?” Shakes asked.

Wes shook his head. “I can’t, you know I can’t. I’ve got to go back for my sister.” He stepped away from the green forest door and back toward the smoky beach. “Eliza needs me. She’s out there . . . somewhere. I have to find her.”

“Right.” Shakes nodded. “Don’t worry, boss, we will.”

“I can help; I think our goals may be linked in some way,” Liannan said. “If you’ll have me.”

“We will, too,” Roark said.

Brendon nodded. “We will help you find your family. You saved ours, and so we will do the same for you.”

Farouk was the last. “I’ll come, too—to earn your trust again.”

His team was assembled. This was his family now, his crew. There was just one person missing. Wes looked back at Nat, who stood alone by the doorway. “Nat?” he smiled, reaching out his hand for her to take.

She had said yes. They would be together. Always.

Nat felt tears coming to her eyes because she knew the answer she must give him. Drakon Mainas was in her head. You know you cannot go with him. We are pledged to Vallonis, we must protect what our enemies seek to control. This doorway will close, but they will return, and when they do, we must be ready. You and I are the last of our kind. We are all that is left. You cannot forsake me. She realized then that another cause for the drakon’s rage was its anger when it felt her falling for Wes. Falling in love was not part of the plan. Wes was a barrier to their reunion. The drakons and their riders did not love; they only served.

But she loved Wes. So much.

He was waiting for her to take her hand.

But she could not. She must not.

This was it.

The separation that could not be averted.

The ending she knew was coming.

This was the good-bye she had dreaded from the moment she had met him. She had fallen in love with him from the start, when he had stepped up to her blackjack table so long ago, in another lifetime, when they were strangers, a mercenary and his client, a runner and a dealer, a boy and girl.

“I can’t.” Nat shook her head. “I’m so sorry, Wes.” She had said yes before, but that was before she knew what she was . . . before she understood her place in the world . . . She had answered his question with a lie, a lovely lie. A lie that she had wanted to believe, that she had wanted to be real. But it was a dream. Fire and pain. Rage and sorrow. She was made of this, her cold heart of dread.

Wes nodded, holding his bluff, not letting her see what this was costing him, his blank poker face. “Well, good luck, then,” he said, holding out his hand.

“Good luck,” she said, and shaking his hand, placed the last two platinum chips in it.

The crew came to surround Nat, to hug and kiss her good-bye. Then it was time to go, and Wes turned back toward his ship.

Nat watched him walk away and then ran after him. Hot tears fell down her cheeks. “Ryan!”

When he heard her call his name, his face was so full of hope that it killed her to say what she needed to say. “I love you. I love you so much, but I can’t. I can’t. I love you but I can’t go with you.”