The next part is far more difficult, and my breath hitches. “I won’t ask you to wait for me.”
When his lips brush mine, the touch is fleeting, a farewell.
For however long it takes.
The Paradise Valley is well named. It stretches for miles, a rolling plain in the bowl of the mountains. The rivers and lakes are pristine and strange, unlike any place I’ve ever seen before. Not to mention the wildlife. No wonder Davidson sent us here for a little peace and quiet. It seems untouched, removed from the rest of the world.
We walk the path at dawn, careful to keep away from the red-hot geyser fields running the length of the clearing. Most of the watery pools are still and flat, but they spiral in a rainbow of colors. Beautiful but deadly, able to cook a person in a matter of seconds. Or so I’ve been told. In the distance, one of them spits boiling water and clouds of steam high into the hazy purple sky. The stars fade one by one. It’s cold, and I pull the heavy wool shawl tighter around my shoulders. Our footsteps echo against the wooden walkway beneath us, built up and over the rust-colored basin floor.
I glance at Gisa sidelong, watching her keep stride. She’s more willowy these days, and her dark red hair hangs in a long braid. The breakfast basket dangles in her hand, swinging idly. She wanted to watch the sun rise over the big spring, and who am I to deny my little sister anything?
“Look at the colors,” she murmurs as we reach our destination. Indeed, the big hot spring looks like something out of a dream. Ringed in red, then yellow, then bright green, and finally the deepest, purest blue, it doesn’t seem real.
We were well warned, and in spite of the urge, neither of us dips a finger in the waters below. I don’t fancy boiling the skin off my bones. Instead Gisa sits down on the walkway, her legs folded beneath herself. She pulls out a tiny notebook and starts to sketch, occasionally scribbling notes.
I wonder what this place might inspire in her.
I’m more inclined to eat, and I fish through the basket, pulling out a pair of still-warm breakfast rolls. Mom made sure we were well provisioned before we set off for the morning.
“Do you miss him?” she says suddenly, not looking up.
The question catches me off guard, especially the vagueness. She could be talking about anybody. “Kilorn is fine. He’s back in Ascendant, and Cameron will be there in a few days.”
Gisa doesn’t mind the thought of someone else with Kilorn. She cares more for the pretty shopgirl back in the city, these days.
“I don’t mean Kilorn,” she says pointedly, annoyed with my dodging.
“Oh?” I ask, raising an eyebrow dramatically.
She doesn’t seem amused.
“Of course I miss him.”
I mean Cal. I mean Shade. I mean Maven, even in the smallest of pieces.
Gisa doesn’t press me further.
The silence feeds me as much as the breakfast. It’s easy to forget out here. To feel lost in another time. I relish the detachment, even with the usual worries clinging to the corners of my mind. What happens now? I still haven’t figured that out.
And, for a little while, I don’t have to.
“Bison,” Gisa says softly, raising a hand to point across the geyser basin.
I tense up, ready to spring. If one of those beasts gets too close, it’ll be my responsibility to get Gisa out of here safely. My lightning prickles beneath my skin, ready to unleash. It feels almost unfamiliar these days. I haven’t been training or sparring, not since we returned to Montfort. I keep telling myself I need the rest. Bree and Tramy keep telling me I’m lazy.
The bison are far off, fifty yards at least, and lumbering slowly in the opposite direction. The herd is small but impressive, a dozen at least, all shaggy and dark brown, moving with surprising grace for things so big and heavy. I remember my last encounter with a bison. It wasn’t exactly peaceful.
Gisa returns to her sketch, thoughtful. “Davidson’s guide told me something interesting.” The premier was good enough to send an escort with us into the valley.
“Oh, what’s that?” I ask, not taking my eyes off the herd. If they bolt, I’ll be ready.
My sister continues to chatter, oblivious to the possible threat currently picking its way across the basin. I’m quietly happy that she doesn’t know enough to be afraid. “She said that once, the bison were almost gone. Thousands upon thousands hunted and killed, maybe millions, until only a few were left on the entire continent.”
“That’s impossible,” I scoff. “They’re all over Paradise, and the plains.”
“Well, that’s what the guide said,” Gisa replies, sounding annoyed by my dismissal. “And it’s her job to know what goes on up here.”
“Fine,” I sigh. “So what happened?”
“They came back. Slowly, but they came back.”
My brow furrows, confused by the simplicity of her answer. “How?”
“People,” she says bluntly.
“I thought the people killed them—”
“They did, but something changed,” she replied, her voice sharpening. Now I think she despairs of my comprehension. “Something big enough to . . . change course.”
I don’t know why, but I’m reminded of something Julian taught me once, long ago.
We destroy. It’s the constant of our kind.
I’ve seen that firsthand. In Archeon, in Harbor Bay, on every battlefield. In the way Reds were treated and are still treated across the continent.
But that world is changing.
We destroy, but we also rebuild.
The bison move off, slowly disappearing into the trees on the horizon. Seeking new grasslands, oblivious to two small girls sitting at the edge of the water.
They returned from slaughter. So will we.
As we make our way back to the cabin, now sweating beneath the heat of the rising sun, Gisa chatters on about everything she’s learned in the past week. She likes the guide, and I think Bree does too, in more ways than one.
My mind wanders, as it usually does in these small moments. Drifting back through memory, and forward too. We’ll return to the Montfort capital in a few weeks. I wonder how different the world will be by then. It was already unrecognizable when we left. Evangeline Samos, of all people, was living in Ascendant, last I heard, as an honored guest of the premier. Part of me still hates her, and her family, for all they took from us. But I’m learning to live with the anger, to keep it close without letting it eat me alive.
Slowly, I touch the stones pierced along my ear, naming each one in turn. They ground me. Pink, red, purple, green. Bree, Tramy, Shade, Kilorn.
I couldn’t stay, I think again, for the thousandth time. I still don’t know if he’ll wait for me.
But maybe, when I go back . . .
My fingers brush the last earring, the newest. It’s another red gem, red as fire, red as my blood.
I will go back.