He was silent for a long moment. “She died in the plague?”
“Yes. Along with everyone else.”
“And Agammo’s father wants peace?”
She lifted a shoulder, her eyes staring through the grates of the floor at the darkened subfloor below, but she didn’t see. “That’s the first I’ve heard of peace.”
“Same here.”
Silence fell inside the gentle hum of the bridge, and she was left with a raging war in her mind. She needed to get back to Argentus, but not on her father’s terms.
Eventually, he pushed away from the console. “He’s a dick. Let’s go.”
And for some reason, that simple statement was oddly comforting, crude as it was. He’s a dick.
ONE ADVANTAGE OF TORUM’S crude company was how unconcerned he was with her feelings. Any normal person would have asked if she was okay. But not him. He didn’t give her a second glance after they left the ship behind to slog across the dust.
And she was grateful to be left alone with her miserable thoughts.
It was scorching. Blinding. The sun’s glare reflected off the powdery white dust on the planet’s surface. The sky stretched over them, pale and mercilessly empty of clouds.
They trudged across miles of dust and tiny blue blossoms that lost a bit of their charm under the weight of monotony and blinding heat.
Even her pearls felt hot, sticking sweatily to her neck.
She didn’t even bother asking what they were doing because it didn’t matter. At least for now, he seemed disinclined to abandon her here.
Torum had given her a pair of thick, dark glasses, sun lotion, and a broad-brimmed hat. Even without the dress, she was miserable. She stopped less than a mile in and rolled her stockings down her legs, peeling them off under Torum’s intense glare. She tucked them into a pocket of her dress.
No matter how hard she tried, her argument with her father crept across her mind, and every time she clamped down on the rising panic. What in the world was she going to do now?
It wasn’t the first time she wished her mother had survived the Plague of Days, and it wouldn’t be the last. Her mother would have loved her, and she would have helped her now.
It didn’t matter. She didn’t need her father anyway. He’s a dick. She repeated those words like a mantra. She needed no one but Agammo and the family they’d make together. A family of her own. Full of love and laughter. He’d been the only warm constant in her entire life.
Torum stopped frequently so they could drink water, handing it to her from the pack on his back. Every time her lips touched the rim, she remembered the feel of his lips against hers the night before, and the touch of his thumb that morning, his breath fluttering over her breasts.
Something strange happened in her belly every time. Like a hundred butterflies taking wing, fluttering across her insides.
After what felt like an entire day of drudgery, her feet were sore and raw along the seams of her slippers, and they arrived at a copse of lavender trees, beyond which the glittering thread of a river beckoned.
Torum didn’t stop until they were well inside the shade.
She couldn’t keep the breathless awe from her voice as she stared up at the canopy overhead. “It’s beautiful.”
Purple and gray, shimmering boughs raised skyward and then arched back down again, trailing shining fronds down to the soft, powdery terra.
Out of the sun, the temperature dropped. She pulled off her hat and glasses.
He’d pulled off his hat too, but he wasn’t looking around like she was; he was staring at the ground. Something in his posture warned her that they’d arrived at their destination.
She took a step back, even as her gaze lowered.
Someone lay in the dust.
A man.
A dead man.
5
A wallow and a splash
PART OF TOR had wondered how Klymeni would handle the sight of a dead body.
She didn’t disappoint. Jasto would have laughed. Her face turned the same pale shade as her dress, and her mouth flopped open like a fish, those gray eyes going wide enough to pop out of her head. Her hand came up to clutch at the pearls around her neck.
“This is Jasto.” He pointed at the body. “He was killed by Spiro’s brother and his rabid wife. Jasto, meet Klymeni, daughter of a dick.”
She gawped at him, backing up to the trunk of the tree as if Jasto himself had risen from the dead to stalk her.
Tor turned away and took a knee beside his friend’s body. He’d never known anyone who laughed as much as Jasto.
The universe was a lesser place without him.
Klymeni wrapped her arms around her middle, pressing back against the tree. It was as good a place as any for her to be. Her mouth did that flapping thing again, and she pointed at Jasto. “That’s a body. A-a-a d-dead body.”
“So it is.”
Jasto hadn’t fared too poorly, as far as bodies went. The planet’s population of killer birds followed sound patterns, so they hadn’t gotten a hold of him, and while it was hot, it was also arid on this planet. Whatever bacteria existed here on Araa-Ara, it hadn’t eaten away at him. His family would be able to have an open funeral.
It would mean a lot to them. Jasto hadn’t been a Prime, but he’d taken a humani wife, and they managed to have a child, a rarity in the Vestige world. He had a mother, and siblings, all of whom relied on him.
All Tor could do was return the body and see that they were set financially.
He grabbed his bag and pulled out a bottle. “Water?” he offered, just to see what she’d do.
She gagged, holding the back of her hand against her mouth.
He slugged water from the bottle and dug around in his pack for
