Matthew walked back through the Corvus toward the airlock, Kiva following close behind. Together, they went out onto the grass and kept walking. Their steps took them far into the plain, into a shapeless, unmarked place where neither the Corvus nor Kiva’s village were visible—and where it seemed, for a moment, that they might be the only two people alive in the entire universe.
Matthew fell a little behind Kiva and let himself watch the way her hips moved languidly back and forth beneath her dress. Then he glanced at her hands swinging at her sides and wondered what would happen if he were to walk up beside her and lace his fingers together with hers.
He shook his head and pushed the thought out of his mind.
“Say something,” Matthew said after a few more steps.
Kiva glanced back with a smile. “You don’t like the silence?”
Matthew shook his head. “It’s not that. I just like hearing your voice more.”
Kiva took her lower lip between her teeth as she thought.
“Let’s do this,” she said. “You ask me a question. One question. Then I’ll ask you a question. Then you ask another question, and so on. But we have to be completely honest. We have to tell the whole truth, without leaving anything out.”
“Okay,” Matthew said. “Um, let’s see. Here’s one: why does this place seem so familiar to me? Why do you seem so familiar?”
“That’s two questions. You’re already cheating.”
Matthew laughed. “Humor me anyway.”
Kiva squinted and studied Matthew. The smile left her face. “You still don’t remember?”
“Remember what?”
Kiva walked a few steps without answering. She nodded toward the horizon, in the direction of the village.
“Over those hills,” she said. “Near the village, there’s a spot just beyond the rise. It’s a little … a bump in the plain. A bump with a tiny cleft in it, where a person can lie down and feel like the ground is cradling them. Like Gle’ah is holding you in the palm of its hand. That’s where we met for the first time.”
Matthew looked toward the horizon, then back at Kiva, uncomprehending.
“I loved that spot when I was younger,” Kiva continued. “I used to go there at nightfall and nestle myself right in the little crevice. Then I’d look up and wait for the sky to go dark, for the moons and stars to come out. And it was on one of those nights that I had my first vision. When I first saw you and your shipmates, and knew that you were coming to this planet.”
“I was in your first vision?”
Kiva shook her head. “I didn’t know it was you. Not at first. I didn’t understand the vision fully. I needed the Ancestors to tell me more.”
“And did they?”
“They took a while, but yes. It was only a few days ago. I was lying there, in the same spot, and I dreamed that you came over the horizon.” She nodded into the distance. “You came over the hill and saw me. You looked right into my eyes.”
Matthew shook his head to himself. “But that was just a vision. A dream. Something in your mind. You don’t actually think—”
Kiva snapped her head toward Matthew, hurt and anger painted clearly across her face. He took a step back, shrinking from the accusation in her eyes.
“Kiva, I’m sorry, I—”
“You were there,” Kiva said. “You can’t remember, and that’s okay. But you were there. You were in the dream with me. That’s why Gle’ah seems so familiar to you. That’s why I seem so familiar to you. Because we’ve met before. The Ancestors wanted us to. They wanted us to be connected. All that time, ever since my first vision. All that time, they were preparing me to meet you.”
“Okay.” Matthew put his hands out and grabbed hold of Kiva’s arms just below her shoulders. “I’m sorry I can’t remember. But I believe you.”
Kiva glanced away. Matthew bent to look straight into her eyes.
“Hey,” he said. “Look at me. I believe you, okay?”
Kiva returned Matthew’s gaze for a moment, then looked away again. She shrugged Matthew’s hands off her arms and walked a few steps, her back turned.
“Ask me a question,” Matthew said.
“What?”
“Ask me a question. It’s your turn.”
Kiva was silent a moment. “I want to know what you thought when you first saw me. The first time you remember, anyway. What was the first thing that went through your mind?”
“You know what I thought.”
Kiva’s jaw stiffened. She held her neck straight, her head angled up toward him, and her chin pointed out into the air between them. “I want to hear you say it.”
“I thought you were beautiful.”
“And now? What do you think now?”
Matthew forced his mouth into a smirk. “Now you’re cheating.”
“I don’t care. Answer me anyway. What do you think of me now?”
Matthew tried to swallow. His mouth and throat felt dry.
“I still think you’re beautiful,” he croaked.
“That’s all?”
Matthew shook his head. “No. That’s not all.”
“What, then?”
“Just give me a second,” Matthew snapped, his voice suddenly hoarse.
Kiva’s mouth closed with a click. She waited.
Matthew looked off to the side as he searched his mind for the right words to describe how he felt about Kiva. He realized that his hands were trembling and tried to still them by wringing them together, massaging the palm of one hand between the fingers and thumb of the other. After a long silence, he spoke.
“It’s just … strange, you know? I mean, you’re different from anyone I’ve ever met. You’ve lived your whole life on a completely different planet. The things I don’t know about you could stretch from here to the other end of the galaxy. But when I look at you …” Matthew’s voice caught in his chest, but he forced himself to go on. “When I look at you, and talk to you, it doesn’t feel foreign. It doesn’t feel alien.”
“What does it feel like?” Kiva asked, her voice barely a whisper on the still air.
Matthew pressed his lips together and raised his shoulders in a helpless shrug. “It feels like home.”
As he spoke, Matthew couldn’t bring himself to look directly at Kiva’s face. He was afraid of what he’d see there. Once, back home, he’d told a girl at school that he had feelings for her and a look of disappointment or pity had flashed across her face. He didn’t think he could bear to see that look from Kiva.
But finally, after a long, awkward silence, he dragged his eyes up to look at her. She returned his gaze without blinking or looking away, and Matthew knew at once that she felt the same way he did. A wave of joy and relief tingled over the entire surface of his skin. But it didn’t last long. Because even though Matthew could tell by the way Kiva looked at him that she returned his feelings, he also saw a deep sadness written plainly across her face—and he knew immediately what that look meant.
It meant that for them, things would never be that simple. Even love—if that’s what it was—wouldn’t be enough. Not by a long shot.
“Kiva, I—,” he began, taking a step toward her, but she stopped him from saying more by putting a hand on his cheek.
“Don’t,” she said, shaking her head. “Not yet.”
“But it’s all so complicated—the Vagri, the Ancestors, my mission. I don’t know what—”
“Stop,” she said. “Let’s enjoy this moment, okay? Let’s make it last. The rest can wait.”
Matthew was silent. He swallowed loudly. Then he nodded. He felt empty and helpless, both better and worse than he did before—as if by speaking he’d poured every bit of himself out onto the ground, like water from a glass.
“Ask me another question,” Kiva said. “It’s your turn.”
Matthew licked his lips. His mind moved quickly. His heart was beating wildly in his chest.
“Okay,” he said. “Here’s my question. Have you ever been kissed?”
“What?” Kiva said, turning her head to the side and trying to hide the deep gray blush that rose to her cheeks with a hand that darted up to tuck her hair behind her ears.
“You learned that you were going to be Vagra when you were thirteen, right? And I imagine you didn’t have much time for boys after that, surrounded by all those women in the center of the village.”
“It’s a silly question,” she said. “I’m not going to answer.”
Matthew put on a shocked look, his mouth opening in feigned outrage. “But you said we had to be honest! That we had to tell each other the whole truth, without leaving anything out. That’s what you said.”
Kiva narrowed her eyes at him. “I know what I said. But that’s not what you’re really asking.”
“Isn’t it?”
“No. You don’t want to know if I’ve ever been kissed before. You want to know if you can kiss me now.”
Matthew’s stomach fluttered, but he forced himself to smile. “Well?”
Kiva shrugged. “There’s only one way to find out.”
Matthew closed the distance between them in one stride and, in a single movement, slid an arm around Kiva’s waist while he lifted his other hand to the nape of her neck, lacing his fingers in her hair and setting his thumb lightly against the line of her jaw. He closed his eyes and pressed his lips against hers.
They kissed tentatively at first. Kiva’s mouth was shut tight, but Matthew opened his slightly, inviting her to do the same. When he felt her lips begin to part, felt her begin to press her body against his, a thrill rippled through his body like an electric current, and for a moment he thought of what Dunne had told him about the Ancestors—about photon energy transfer, about neural pathways, about synapses firing.
Then Kiva opened her lips wider and darted her tongue between his teeth, and every last thought of the Ancestors fled his mind until all he could think about was Kiva, Kiva, Kiva—about the taste of her mouth, about the weight of her body pressed against his, and about the way her warm flesh felt under his hands.