Muscles I’d never noticed before screamed at me as I slid into the transport next to Rey. The suns had set a few minutes earlier. Loken had dismissed us to spend the short darkness hours with our families.
Elis objected to not training all night. Ashara needs it, he’d said. But Loken insisted all of us needed sleep and time to unwind if we were to perform at our best.
I was really beginning to dislike Elis.
Rey flashed me his trademark lopsided grin. “So how was your first day as an Ethereal?”
I considered flinging an ether ball at his smug face. Sadly, I had no idea how to do that. So instead, I leaned back into the vehicle cushion. The leather sighed as it accepted my weight. “I’m the worst Ethereal ever.” The exhaustion that had chased me most of the day finally caught up. I let my eyes drift shut.
“But you are an Ethereal?” Excitement rang in his voice.
“That’s what they tell me.”
The smooth motion of the vehicle lulled me into something that resembled relaxation. It was hard to be completely at ease with my comm pressed against my waist. Its countdown clock ticked closer and closer to the end with each second that passed.
Rey shook me so hard I thought my brain would smash into my skull.
“What?” My eyes flew open and I shoved him away.
“Why aren’t you excited about this?”
“It’s not that I’m not excited.” I yawned and stretched my arms. The yawn went on longer than expected, and Rey stared at me with raised brows as he waited.
“Are you done?”
“Maybe. It’s just that I’m more tired than I am excited. Did you know you have to channel your own energy into elemental manipulations?”
He gave me a blank expression.
“Right, of course. You knew that. You’ve been a practitioner most of your life.” My gaze scanned up and down his body; his excited expression, the nervous drumming of his fingertips against the armrest. “How come you’re not exhausted?”
“You get used to it.”
Rey left me in peace when I shut my eyes this time. I awoke to find his face leaning over me, two inches from my nose.
“Hey!”
“We’re home.” Again, he flashed me that crooked smile. It was hard to be mad.
“You don’t have to look so cheery about it,” I muttered as I stumbled out of the vehicle. He grabbed my arm to keep me upright.
Rey practically flew through the wooden fence that surrounded our home cluster, while I trudged behind him. I waved goodbye and turned toward my house, expecting Rey to head toward the opposite side of the cluster. Instead, he fell into step beside me and slung an arm over my shoulders.
“You and your mom are coming over for dinner again?”
He nodded, adding a little skip to his step. I suspected he was taunting me with his boundless energy and continuous smiling. I didn’t appreciate it.
“She’s probably already at your place,” he said. “Mom’s really into the whole family-time thing lately.”
“Can you blame her?”
“Not at all.”
We walked the short trip to my house. Despite Rey’s annoyingly cheery demeanor, I allowed his arm to remain slung over my shoulder. And I resisted the urge to slap the happy expression off his face. After a few minutes, I caught myself smiling along with him. The boy was tough to resist.
I breathed in deeply when we turned onto the walkway to my front door. The house always smelled divine when Rey and his mother, Reesa, joined us for dinner. The scent of freshly baked bread floated out the front door, thanks to Reesa’s baking prowess. It mingled with the aroma of cooked meat, which my mother was fixing.
“Hey, you two.” My stepfather, Talin, sat in a rocking chair on the front lawn. His usual spot.
“Hi.” I kissed his forehead. He and Rey shook hands and patted each other on the back.
Sona leapt up from where she sat playing on the ground. She kissed me on the cheek and then propelled herself at Rey’s legs. “Rey!” He lifted her up. She threw her gangly arms around his neck and squeezed.
“Hey, Sonie.” Rey bounced her up and down until she squealed.
“Hello to you too,” I said.
“Hi, Asha.” She grinned at me, showing me the gap where her front two baby teeth had recently fallen out. “I just saw you last night. It’s been two whole days since I’ve seen Rey.” She turned to Rey again. “I like your hair.”
“It’s the same as it always is, Sona.” I hid my laughter behind my hand. Sona’s ongoing crush on him had gotten worse in the past few weeks.
She pulled the end of his ponytail forward so she could play with it. “I still like it.”
“So what’s for dinner?” Rey asked her.
She giggled and hid her face against his neck. “I didn’t cook.”
“You didn’t? But I’m hungry.” He tucked a stray lock of her blond hair behind her ear.
“Mom cooked! And your mom too.”
Leaving them to their love-fest, I made my way into the house. The smells of meat and bread overwhelmed my senses. My mouth watered.
My mother, Nesstra, stirred whatever was inside a large pot on the stove. Reesa sat at the kitchen table with Barte, her youngest son, Rey’s little brother. She chattered away at Mom. Her face lit up as she recapped the wonderful time she, Mom, Sona, and Barte had at the lake earlier today.
“Asha!” Reesa stood and gave me a hug. As usual, she smelled of bread and pies. I hoped she was cooking pie for dessert. It was the end of the world, after all. If any event called for pie, it was this.
One of the few things I liked about this whole end-of-the-world thing was that the number of hugs I got on a daily basis had increased dramatically since the Vision was announced. We appreciated one another more than we did before. If we all came out of this alive, we might be better for this crisis.
After the day I’d had, I appreciated the affection even more than I had yesterday. I squeezed Reesa tightly before releasing her.
Rey came inside and kissed both women on the cheek. He tore off a piece of the fresh bread sitting on the countertop. Reesa swiped her hand at him. He sidestepped it and stuffed the bread into his mouth, filling his cheeks with it. “Good bread, Mom.” Bits of food sprayed from his mouth. “I’ll help with the table.” He picked up two food platters and carried them to the outdoor dining area.
I pulled plates from the cupboard and followed Rey out.
My family and Rey’s ate a dinner of meat stew, fried fish, salad, vegetables, and bread. Sona spent most of the meal batting her eyelashes at Rey; never mind that he was her distant cousin and twelve years her senior. Most of the food had disappeared before the expected questions came.
“So, Asha,” said my mother, too loudly, so I knew she was faking casualness. “I haven’t seen you since last night. I thought we were going to spend the day together.”
“Uh-huh.” I stuffed a piece of bread into my mouth and made a show of chewing it.
“You didn’t tell her about your new assignment?” Rey asked.
I kicked him under the table. Everyone else stared at me expectantly. I chewed slowly. I didn’t want to answer questions about what I allegedly was. I didn’t have any of the answers. But I did have some questions on a related topic. So I forged ahead.
“I’m assigned to the Ethereal task force.”
“To the what?” Talin was up so fast that I flinched away from him, startled. “You’re not trained for that. What in the names of the gods are they thinking?”
Part of me wanted to tell him not to worry, but the other part agreed with his concerns. And he didn’t even know about the Mages yet. “Talin, please calm down. They’re training me. It’s perfectly safe,” I lied.
He ripped his comm from his pocket and pressed a few buttons.
“Who are you calling?” I asked, feeling like a small child whose parent was complaining to her teacher.
“Loken.”
“What? No!” I snatched at the comm, but Talin stepped smoothly away from me. The comm issued a beep as the call connected. In hindsight, I probably should have erased Loken’s contact information from Talin’s and Mom’s comms when we broke up.
“Loken, what in darkness and light is Ashara doing with the Ethereals?” Talin barked into the device. There was a pause before he spoke again. “And are you actually going to be able to protect her? . . . What? Don’t you hang up on me. Loken!” he shouted.
After a moment of tense silence, Talin slumped back into his seat. “I never liked that boy.”
“You loved him when we were dating,” I joked. Talin glared at me, and my grin withered.
“That was before I knew he would always put his job above his lady. Those Council members—you can never trust them.”
Mom shot Talin a pointed look. He clamped his mouth shut.
I couldn’t deny that Loken valued his job over me. I hadn’t known the real reason he broke up with me until the Vision was publicized three months ago. Then it became clear. The Council had waited to tell the public about the Vision, but Elder Seer had seen it all nine months ago. Loken broke up with me nine months ago. Not a coincidence.
Talin muttered to himself for several seconds, too quietly for me to make out his words. Tension thickened around the table. I caught myself twisting the edge of the tablecloth in my lap.
Reesa excused herself from the table and beckoned for Rey and Barte to do the same. Barte followed, shooting glances back over his shoulder. Rey averted his eyes and pretended he didn’t notice his mother’s less-than-subtle instruction to leave us alone.
“The Council’s not so bad,” Rey said. “My grandfather had friends who worked there—good, kind, ethical friends. They just want to make the world better.”
No one responded. Rey shrugged and left the table to join his mother and brother.
“Ness, we could just take the girls somewhere,” Talin said. He looked to my mother.
Throughout Talin’s outburst, she’d been pushing her remaining food around her plate, peeking at me occasionally. She gave up pretending she was eating and tossed the fork onto her plate. “You think the Council would let us leave? They have to think about the greater good.” Those last two words sounded bitter coming from her mouth.
“I don’t care about the greater good!” Talin shouted.
Mom sneaked another peek at me.
It was time to ask one of the many questions that had hung on my mind all day. “How is it even possible that I’m an Ethereal? Was my father a practitioner?”
Talin’s mouth snapped shut.
I wished I could call the words back. I’d asked about my father once before, when I was twelve. Mom told me she’d tell me all about him when I was older. But I hadn’t asked again, even though I thought about him. My family was more important than my curiosity. And Talin was my father in all the ways that mattered.
“Sorry,” I said. “Just . . . maybe it’s time we talked about him.”
Mom stared at her plate. The seconds ticked by.
“Forget it,” I said. When no one spoke, I turned to Sona. “Doesn’t Rey’s hair look nice?”
When I awoke, the world was still dark outside my window, which meant I hadn’t slept for long. During the Dutem season, nighttime was much shorter than in other seasons. I rolled toward the wall and prepared to go back to sleep. Sona’s soft whisper stopped me.
“Asha.”
“I’m sleeping,” I mumbled into my bedcovers.
“I can’t sleep. Tell me a story.”
With a sigh, I dragged myself out of bed and crawled into Sona’s. She sat up so I could squeeze between her small body and the headboard.
“You know I’m no good with stories.” I stroked her blond hair. “You want to hear about the journey from Earth-One again?”
“Gods, no. You’ve told me that one too many times already.”
My lips scrunched into a pout. “It’s the only good one I know.”
She didn’t speak for a while, and then said, “Are you going to die, Asha?”
“No,” I said, immediately. My chest tightened as the words flew out. I had no way of knowing if that were really true. But I also couldn’t sit here and let my sister worry about that when I could comfort her.
“Because I don’t want you to.”
“That’s not going to happen.”
“Pace didn’t think he was going to die either.” Her voice was so soft; I had to lean over and put my ear by her mouth to hear it. “Promise me.”
I tilted my head back against the headboard and stared upward. Shadows danced across the ceiling in the dim lights of the lamps on either side of the room. “I promise I’ll do my best to stay alive.” It was the best I could do as far as promises went.
She twisted around to look at me. Her eyes searched my face. She was too smart not to notice how carefully I’d worded my promise.
“Your very best?” she insisted.
I nodded. “My very best.”