Page 228 of Starside

“It’s something—it’s something someone used to say to me. He said you rise, always. Sometimes I have to remind myself why. Because sometimes rising is hard.”

He looks deep in thought.

I start to make my way out of the clearing, but his voice stops me.

“Aris,” he says. And for once—for once, he says my name like a plea.

Slowly, I turn to face him.

He’s right there. And he says the last thing I would ever expect: “I remember you.”

I tense. My pulse stutters. No. I wouldn’t believe him if I couldn’t see his face, if he hadn’t lowered his hood, as if to show me. To show me what he shows no one else.

He’s towering over me, just like he did that day as he keeps going. “I told them to throw you onto the streets. Not into the prisons.” Anger flashes in his eyes, hard and blazing, before disappearing. “I didn’t know they disobeyed. I didn’t know … I didn’t know they—”

“Carved their names into my back with rusted blades?” I say, my voice quivering. Tears sting my eyes, but I don’t let them fall. I won’t waste more of them on those worthless guards.

His eyes shudder, for a moment. And for that moment, I see a flash of true emotion. Hurt. Fury. Conviction.

“I should have known. I should have stopped it.” His gaze sears into mine as he says, “I’m sorry.”

All the words I was about to say die in my throat.

Because never in a thousand years would I think Harlan Raker would be apologizing to me.

I open my mouth. Close it. In the end, I just shake my head, and say, “It doesn’t matter.”

I make to keep walking, but his hand catches my wrist. That one touch. That one touch sends fire through my blood. I turn to look at him, and his eyes are blazing into mine. Shining, glorious gray, like clouds before a storm.

“It matters, Aris,” he says. “You—you matter.”

I don’t know why those simple words go right into the center of me. I don’t know why they make my eyes burn. I’ve blamed myself and hated myself for so long that anyone seeing past the worst I’ve done … anyone caring about me at all …

“I don’t,” I say, meaning it. “You said before that you are nothing beyond your rage and vengeance. I’m … I’m the same, Raker. Maybe I was someone, once. But that person is gone. I have one last thing I want to do. One last thing worth fighting for. And then … and then there’s nothing left for me.”

His eyes harden. He looks angry. “So what? You’ll just let yourself die?”

I shake my head. “No. But I’ve known from the beginning what I signed up for. That … that most likely, the end of this journey is the end of me. And … I’ve made my peace with that. I’m willing to die for this.”

He searches my gaze for something. Weakness? Anything short of pure conviction? What he finds has him scowling. “And how do you plan to kill these gods, Aris?”

I lift a shoulder. “With my sword. I’ve learned it’s a good one.”

“The one you don’t know how to use?” he sneers, and I see right through him. He’s trying to get me to doubt myself. He’s trying to get me to change my mind.

“I do,” I say. “You trained me.”

His nostrils flare. I can almost feel the words between us, the ones he doesn’t say. We stare each other down.

I turn away again, and his fingers fall from my wrist, as he lets me go.

We walk for miles without stopping, until the ground becomes so dry, there are cracks in the dirt.

“We’re about to reach the desert,” I say.

Raker nods like he knows.

We reach the last spring that’s marked on the map. We drink from the running water and fill our pouches. It might be the last water we see for a while.