I purse my lips. With Gal at a distance, it’s tempting—too tempting—to let Wen know how much I understand her. How much we’ve lived along similar lines.
And she must sense it right away, because she averts her eyes and asks, “How long?”
My breath catches, and my eyes fix on the rail. Better there than on Gal, which will make the gulf between us feel wider, or on Wen, who’s already too close for comfort. “Two years. The war rolled through when I was ten and took my parents with it. Finally got taken in and cleaned up by a charity program at twelve.”
Wen lets out a low whistle. “What took them so long?”
“Reconstruction. Regime changes don’t happen overnight, especially not in bombarded cities. Social work was out the window until they wrung out Trost and let the war dry off it. The Umber Empire’s efficient about conquest, but they’re not that efficient. They couldn’t pull me out of that hell any sooner.” I break off, frowning. For five solid years, I thought I didn’t have the words to talk about this stuff. But the words came flooding out like I had them locked and loaded this entire time.
For Wen.
She reaches out, patting my arm like she’s not quite sure how to make it comforting. I close my eyes, haul in a deep breath, and release it with a deeper sigh. I don’t want her pity, but we don’t always want the things we need, and I can’t deny that something about letting even that little bit of information out has made my chest feel a thousand times lighter. It’s a scarcer luxury than any imperial metal or stone, feeling understood.
It hits me like boltfire—I’m glad she’s here. I went to that shipyard for a way off this planet, and instead I found a mirror with a half-burned face. Someone who knows what it’s like to have your life pulled out from underneath you, to scrape yourself together from what’s left and keep surviving. “Understood” is only part of it—I was alone before and never realized how much that hurt.
We hold the same burden between us, and I can’t believe how freeing it is to share the load.
“Train should be here in a few minutes,” Gal says, and my eyes snap open. He perches himself on the bench between us, handing us each a scrap of paper. My stomach twists as I see the name of our destination, something heavy and low thudding inside me like a mallet on a drum.
Henrietta Base.
They named it after our fallen empress.
I choke back my emotion before either of them can pick up on it.
* * *
—
I don’t relax until the monorail’s cleared the suburbs and broken out into the open far beyond Isla’s city limits. I lean my forehead against the window, watching as the greenery blurs past me and trying to soothe the unsettling feeling of traveling so fast so smoothly on a rail. Gal naps against my shoulder, and Wen’s folded in on herself in the seat across from us, pulling the strings of the hoodie so tight that nothing but her half-burned nose is visible through the opening.
I doze, but don’t sleep. Even though I’m bruised and battered, even though the only people in this car are a little old man and a mother with a baby strapped to her chest, even though I probably need it far more than either Gal or Wen. My brain keeps on churning, and the smooth hum of the monorail isn’t soothing it.
Two and a half years. Two and a half years we’ve known each other, and he’s never known the part of me that Wen was able to extract with one day and two words.
And I thought I knew Gal too. I mean, Gal loves rainy days more than sunny ones, because the noise drowns out the world around him, and it helps him clear his head. And also because he doesn’t have to fly on rainy days—the academy never wants to risk Vipers in uncertain weather. I used to be so proud, knowing that about him. That I could look to the sky when I woke up and know what he was thinking.
I thought knowing him in that way would be enough.
Now I know that the heir to the largest galactic empire history has ever seen brushed his teeth in a convenience store bathroom’s scum-ridden sink this morning. I know the storm that brews in his eyes as he dismantles his enemies. And I know that he’s never going to understand what it’s like to live on the streets. He might claim to after last night, but it’s not the same thing in the slightest. Gal’s always had a safety net. We had a plan, gear, food, clean clothes, weapons—even if one of those weapons is a suspiciously sturdy umbrella. We’re well-off, and it kills me a little knowing this is probably the most destitute Gal emp-Umber will ever be.
The more I turn it over, the more I realize that I cracked open in an instant for Wen because one look at her tells me she’s been through the same kind of hell. When I tell her that I spent two years sifting through the ashes of Trost, she doesn’t have to imagine what that might entail. She knows about the cold nights, the hard choices, the moments you have to cover your ears or close your eyes or tighten your fist around that rock and swing harder. I don’t have to worry about her judgment. I’m terrified of Gal’s.
Is it enough to make me want to push him away?
No, I decide before the thought has a chance to settle. No, I have to fight through this. Gal and I only have so much time left, and if there’s anything the streets of Trost taught me, it’s that the worlds are cruel and friends are fleeting and you’ve got to hold on to the good things as tight as you can. Maybe if I keep talking to Wen, keep working on it, I’ll figure out how to stop hiding this part of myself from Gal before we’re out of time.
Our paths were always destined to diverge, and diverge they will. Sooner rather than later.
The monorail hits a wide turn that pushes my forehead into the window and Gal into my shoulder. I shift my arm around him without looking, my gaze fixed on the line of the tracks as they carve through the landscape, speeding us closer to the moment when I lose him for good.
* * *
—
When the automated voice announces our arrival at the base station, Wen snaps awake all at once, clawing the hood off her face as she rolls off the seat and onto the train’s floor. Gal jerks up at the thump, blinking. “Already?”
He casts a curious glance at the arm I’ve draped around his shoulders, and I withdraw it sheepishly, bolting to my feet in time for the train to brake and nearly send me hurtling into Wen’s seat before I can grab a handhold.
We’re here, and I have no idea what we’re supposed to say to the resistance to bring them over to our side. This movement is born of the same resentment that sparked the Archon loyalists within our academy into an assassination attempt that we barely escaped. These are patriots devoted to the resurrection of an empire seven years dead.
These are my people. They made it out safe, abandoning me to a hungry ruin. They’ve had the luxury of sticking to their convictions. But the fact remains—they kept their cause alive. I let mine wither and die.