“Faith—throughout the eons—is believing without proof. I’d rather have certain beliefs to comfort me when things seem too dark than nothing at all to brighten the horizon.”
Part of me wanted to gape at Shade like he was a total stranger. The other part of me knew to respect other people’s choices in religion.
I thought about the handwritten text Susan, the bookshop owner on Albion 5, had given me. It purported that the Sky Mother had provided us with the Mornavail, a sort of second children to spread her light into the gathering darkness. Now, it seemed the Mornavail were like me—human, but with a more evolved immune system. I was basically a walking cure-all, with blood that could be chemically modified into enhancers. I’d yet to meet another like me, though—and most people who’d heard of the Mornavail thought they were a myth.
Good. Stay hidden.
The Overseer had sniffed me out, and I’d spent half my childhood strapped to a chair with needles shoved into my veins. The result was an entire floating space lab filled with super-soldier serum partially concocted from my blood.
Serum I’d stolen away from the Overseer and given to the rebel leaders.
Serum that had led me to Shade—and lost me Miko and Shiori.
Serum the Overseer could engineer again after I handed over six bags of my blood to his right-hand goon in just a few hours.
Shit. What a mess. At least we had more enhancers than he did.
But how many super soldiers had the Overseer already created?
“I could use a little Sky Mother help after all,” I muttered.
“What’s that?” Shade asked, glancing back at me.
“Nothing.” I scrambled up a steep, rocky incline, sweat gluing my clothes to me. “People pray and pray, and there’s zero concrete feedback. No proof, and not much reward, in my opinion. I don’t understand how you can maintain faith when you’ve lost everything.”
Shade held a finger to his lips instead of answering. He tilted his gaze upward, leading mine to the nearby branches. Small brown creatures with butter-yellow heads, liquid-dark eyes, tufty ears, and black button noses watched us, cocking their heads in curiosity and munching on things they held in their tiny humanlike hands with five fingers.
Awe burst inside me like fireworks. “Those are the cutest little things I’ve ever seen.”
“Ganokos,” Shade said softly.
Holding hands, we watched them in fascination until the pack moved on, looking for the next tree with fruit or nuts to nibble on. Once they were out of sight, I felt as though a piece of me went missing. I was beginning to understand Shade’s attachment to the jungle, how it got under your skin and became a part of you.
“Come on. I’ve got something even better to show you.” He led the way again, the hike getting steeper and more difficult by the minute. I didn’t press him for an answer about maintaining faith. It wasn’t a discussion we needed to have any more than it was an argument one of us needed to win. I just enjoyed hearing his perspective on things.
About a half hour later, Shade heaved himself onto a wide lip of rock that jutted out from the mountainside. Pivoting on his knees, he turned back to me with an outstretched hand and pulled me up to join him.
My jaw dropped in wonder as we stood together. Birds called, insects chirped, and the jungle rustled on a humid breeze that propelled me farther out onto the flat shelf suspended high above the Gano River. A waterfall cut down the cliffside beside us, crashing into a large pool and throwing rainbow spray through the air like ribbons. I reached out to touch the shimmering moisture. “Shade, this is amazing.”
“I love this swimming hole.” He crouched down and circled his fingers in water so transparent I could see every glistening stone on the pool’s bottom.
Big-leafed vegetation teemed with exotic birds all singing to different tunes and making a striking chorus. Warbling calls. Sharp chirps. Squawks from somewhere. Colorful blossoms grew from cracks in the slippery cliffside. Vines tumbled down from above, twisting and curling through the flowers. “I’ve never seen a place so…flamboyant.” I looked around, stunned and reverent.
Shade smiled at me, shaking drops of water from his fingertips. He stood again and turned to look out over the vista. There was something almost pained in his expression, as though this place stripped back layers of skin and arrowed straight into the heart of him.
The water called to me, if only to stick my feet in, but first, I joined Shade in admiring the view in the distance. The bungalows and manicured lawns of the Aisé Resort dotted the far bank like little pockets of civilization just daring enough to dip a toe into the wilderness. Beyond that, small from here despite their grandness, the five temples of the Holy Hollow formed a star around the inner gardens and main temple—the one where we would meet my uncle.
“Thank you.” Overwhelmed by everything we’d shared last night, this morning, and now this, I felt tears threaten.
Shade stood beside me, just our knuckles brushing. “This is my favorite place in the galaxy.”
The knot in my throat tightened, my eyes prickled, and I got the same feeling as when I rounded a corner on Starway 8 and suddenly came face-to-face with the bright, swirling colors of the Rafini Nebula. Reverence. Amazement. Fascination. And maybe, just possibly, the stirring of belief in something other.
“What we were talking about earlier? Faith?” Shade turned to me. “I’ve been thinking. I’ve lost things, but I haven’t lost everything.” His eyes met mine, his dark-amber gaze more open than I’d ever seen it. “And maybe, I’ve gained more than I ever thought possible.”
Emotion charred a pathway to my heart, incinerating all defenses. “I’ve never, ever been in a place that stirred me the way Starway 8 does. But this…” I trailed off on a shuddering breath. “Who would have thought that a jungle on Reaginine might reinvent me?”
A soft smile curved Shade’s lips as he looked out over the vista again, his eyes seeming fixed on the golden tip of the Grand Temple. At midsummer on this part of Reaginine, light from the Great Star pointed straight down through the hole in the top of the temple, lighting up Her image carved into the floor and kicking off the galaxy-wide festival of Emergence—the supposed birth of the celestial being. Believers across the eighteen Sectors took that day to rejoice, no matter the season where they were, or how seasonless their home in the Dark might be. I’d never bought into it, but right now, I couldn’t deny feeling something.
“I’ll never try to make you believe one thing or another, but I look around me”—Shade’s eyes lighted on the temples, the jungle, the waterfall and swimming hole—“especially here, and I can’t help thinking there’s something that makes all of this more than just random.”