19

The sky lightens from indigo to violet, the light of the new day being coaxed from the shadows. My tunic sticks to my sweaty skin, and I pluck at its neckline to cool down. Olivia and Philia share a sleeping bag—both snoring so heavily they may not wake up until next week. Jadon isn’t resting where I saw him last. He has moved to sit on a moss-covered log about twenty paces away. He strikes a lonely figure, sitting there, and something inside me tugs.

Lonely. Alone. Just like me. We can be alone together.

I groan, my muscles stiff and sore, then grab two honeycakes from his food bag. I push my borrowed blanket off my legs, and cold air brings immediate relief.

High above the poplar grove, clouds shaped like blowfish drift across the face of the nightstar. This meadow with its crickets and mosquitos is nothing like Maford. There’s green, soft grass here. The trees have leaves, and their bark is free of knots and holes. Fresh water must be close—it’s saturating the earth enough to grow these wildflowers and form this mist. Gophers can dig through earth supple enough for tunnels.

Jadon perches, cross-legged, on that log. His head is bowed as his gaze shifts between his hands and those far-off purple mountains.

He makes me forget that my back aches. I whisper, “Hey.”

“Hey.” His voice is soft thunder in this predawn quiet.

I sit at the other end of the log. “Couldn’t sleep?”

He peeps over at me, and his eyes shine like the last blinks of candlelight. “You heard that cardinal, didn’t you?”

I chew the inside of my cheek. “I was hoping that I was imagining it. But then I saw it.”

“You didn’t say anything,” he says.

“You didn’t, either.”

He shakes his head, then says, “This isn’t the way it was supposed to go.”

“For you.” I place one of the honeycakes in the center of the log. “I don’t even know what your ‘this’ is, but it can be applied to anything that’s happened since I landed here.” My mind swims as I nibble my snack. “Talk about an unforgettable experience.”

“Yep.” Jadon reaches between us for his cake. “You’ll never forget how I made you feel warm and fuzzy inside.”

“Really?” I ask, already warm and fuzzy inside.

“I see it on your face.” His grin is playful and cocky. “You can’t wait to have memories of me.”

“I’ve been exposed,” I say, the back of my hand pressed against my forehead. “And every time I have a memory of you, I’m gonna write a sonnet, and one of those sonnets will be a recollection of that time we sat together on a log in the middle of wherever we are. People will cry at the tender urgency of my poetry.”

He chuckles, then sighs. “Oh, Kai.”

I blush, then say, “Oh, Jadon.” I take a nibble of honeycake, letting the sweetness roll over my tongue before sneaking another glance at Jadon. What would it be like to kiss this man? Would his kisses be slow and deliberate? Urgent and wonderfully chaotic? Does he even like kissing? The times I’ve caught him studying my lips make me think… Yes, he does.

We pick away at pieces of cake, but mine no longer tastes as sweet—I want a new favorite thing.

A star shoots across the sky, a lavender snake across the unknown. Jadon closes his eyes. I close mine.

“What are you wishing?” His voice is deep and rich.

I keep my eyes closed, tipsy from his attention. “I’m wishing that my mind would hurry up and work again so that I can start reconciling the old version of me with the version that gets the warm fuzzies and thinks of writing long poems about someone sitting a reach away from me.

“And I wish that I could remember if I’ve dreamed of having nights like this with him.” I open my eyes and stare straight ahead.

I want to ask about his wish, but then again, maybe I don’t. I just hope it involves me.

Jadon pokes his tongue at his cheek. “What if the old you hated nights like this with someone like me?” His gaze flits to the sky, then back to me, back to my lips. “What if you were already in love before waking up in Maford? What if someone’s waiting for you?”

“What if,” I counter, “no one loves me back at home and no one’s waiting?” My eyes sting with tears. Fuck.

“What is your heart telling you?” he asks.

My throat tightens, and I whisper, “It’s telling me, ‘No, there’s no one waiting for me.’”

His eyebrows crumple. “That’s sad, Kai. Why not?”

I shrug, but that’s a lie. She’ll turn on you just like she’s turned on her family. I blink rapidly, my heart twisting. “Wouldn’t a heart remember that kind of love? Wouldn’t it be like walking? Wouldn’t it be unforgettable?”

He says nothing and returns his gaze to the sky. “This is fucked up.”

“You told me something,” I say, leveling my head, pushing away sorrow. “I don’t remember if it was today or yesterday, but you said, ‘Not knowing your past may be better than having an awful one.’” I shift to face him. “That was a very wise thought.”

“I’m a very wise man,” he says, his smile crooked. That smile pins me to this log like a moth in a cherished collection of one.

I eat pieces of honeycake to tamp down my urge to close the distance between us. “I know why I’m sad right now, but why are you? And I’m not talking about Maford burning down. Your past—what happened for you to be so…melancholy?”

Jadon startles, and his spine straightens. “I’m not…” He bites the inside of his cheek, then nods, accepting the word. “Been thinking about my family, about my father. He resented me. Felt that I was… thrust upon him. That kind of rejection would make anyone melancholy, right? He eventually found me useful, but…”

He peers at the sky, but I can tell that he doesn’t really see it. “My tutor, General Stery, made me feel worthy of love. He’s the one who taught me to fight, and after fighting beside him in a few skirmishes, I got good at it.”

I scoff, admiration now overtaking desire. “I’ve seen you fight, Jadon. You’re more than good at it.”

He tries to smile. “General Stery convinced me that I’d make a great knight and a wise and brilliant tactician. I’d command armies one day. Take his place and even be renowned.”

“How did you end up back in dusty little Maford, running a forge in the back of town?”

“Well…” Jadon swallows, then his lips twitch downward. “General Stery died, and his replacement felt threatened by me. He had my father’s ear and told him that I wasn’t loyal enough to be a knight or to lead a battalion. That made my father find even less value in me. My mother wanted to step in, but she hadn’t stepped in all this time, so why start now? It was bad before, but with General Stery gone, I had no safe place—emotionally, at least—so…”

“You left the battlefield and returned to the crappy burg of Maford.”

“More or less.”

My heart wobbles as I hug my knees to my chest. “The entire realm could love you, but it doesn’t matter if one person you love—your father—has rejected you.”

He thinks about it and admits to the sky, “Yeah.”

I bump my chin against my knees a few times, then say, “Hey.”

Jadon says, “Hmm?” He’s sitting so still.

I lay my warm cheek across my knees to gaze at this man who steals my breath. “Don’t let his rejection make you become someone you weren’t supposed to become. You’re a better warrior than they say you are, and you are more cherished and respected than you think.

“Scorch his world by simply believing you are worthy of being loved by a person who will love you always. Your father may be the daystar, but the nightstar creates the tides of the seas that sustain life. The nightstar provides light in the darkness, relief from unbearable heat; it slows the realm and allows life to flourish.

“Let him enjoy his time as the daystar. Hot and dangerous causes forests to catch fire and waters to dry up. Be the nightstar, Jadon.” I point up to it now as care and concern twist through me. “Beautiful, right?”

But he doesn’t turn away from me to look at the celestial body hanging above us. “Beautiful. Absolutely.”

We sit there, unmoving, as the veil between us lifts. Our eyes fix on each other, and even though our bodies haven’t moved, some part of us reaches across to touch and wonder.

Cheer-cheer-cheer.

Elyn’s sentinel has returned.

I’m the first to look away—but I will not look for that taunting cardinal. No, I bite into my cake, closing my eyes not to enjoy the taste but to staunch the dueling swells of longing and loathing .

“One moment,” Jadon thinks. “Can we just have one moment?”

After a moment, I swallow and open my eyes to find Jadon studying me, defiance in his soft gaze.

“I worried about you back in Maford,” he says, picking at a loose string unraveling from his bandage. “I feared you’d get seriously hurt fighting those soldiers and then the otherworldly.”

The embers from earlier warm deep in my body. He’s sitting way over there. And I’m sitting way over here. What are we gonna do about that?

“And I worried about you,” I reply.

We hold each other’s gaze for a moment, then look up to the sky together.

No cardinal.

Even covered with soot, ash, and the blood of others, Jadon is so… beautiful. Yes, his hard jaw and lovely eyes. Yes, his thick hair and strong arms. But there’s his courage. His honesty and loyalty. His wisdom and ability to listen. All of this adds to a beauty that is so… otherworldly.

“You’ll discover your truth, Kai,” he says gently. “I know you will.”

Way up high, those stars continue to race across the realm. Way up high, other worlds are being born—or at least I hope so. There must be, there has to be, a place better than this.