They dressed in silence afterwards, not meeting each other’s eyes. Matthew pulled his shirt over his head and then stole a glance at Kiva as he pushed his arms through the sleeves. Fully dressed, she’d turned her back to him and was running her hands through her hair, pulling out tangles and bits of grass that had lodged between the strands.
After she was done, she stood and walked away, leaving Matthew behind on the ground.
“Wait!” he shouted after her, then scrambled to his feet to follow. “What are you doing? Where are you going?”
She kept on walking without answering. Matthew grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her around to face him. She tried to pull away, her shoulders rising protectively toward her ears as if his touch were causing her pain.
“Just let me go,” she said quietly, not looking at him. “Let me go. Please.”
“What’s going on? Just a minute ago, you—”
“Don’t,” she said, then loosened her shoulders and looked up at him. Her eyes were wide and wounded, and Matthew bit at his lower lip, realizing for the first time the depth of the betrayal he was about to commit. Kiva would never forgive him. After he returned to the Corvus and called Earth to tell the truth at last, things between them would never be the same.
“Don’t make this harder than it has to be,” Kiva said. “Go back to your ship. Do what you need to do. This was …” Her gaze drifted down to the spot where they’d been lying together just a few moments earlier.
“This was what?” Matthew prodded.
Kiva smiled, but there was pain in her eyes. “We were just pretending, remember?” Her voice trembled. “Pretending that I wasn’t the Vagra, pretending that you weren’t a Stranger.”
Matthew’s jaw tightened. “I wasn’t pretending anything. And neither were you. I know you weren’t. Why can’t we be together, the way we really are—no pretending?”
Kiva shook her head. “It’s not that simple—you know it’s not. You told me the same thing yesterday. I have my people, and you have yours. I have my responsibilities as Vagra, and you have your mission. You’ve made your choice. Now let me make mine. Let me go.”
Matthew released Kiva’s arm. She turned and hiked up the rise. Matthew stood and watched her as she disappeared over the other side, into the village, then stayed there a few minutes more, halfhoping that she’d come back and he’d get one more look at her.
After a while, he turned away from the rise and pointed his steps toward the Corvus.
Halfway between the village and the ship, the roar of an engine cut the air. Matthew lifted his head. A few seconds later, Dunne came rocketing over the far hill on the speeder. She cut the thrusters and the speeder slowed. It came to a halt not far from Matthew. Dunne swung her leg over and dropped to the ground.
“I was just walking back to the ship,” Matthew said. “I’m going to call Mission Control. I’m going to tell them—”
“I found something,” Dunne cut in, as breathless as if she’d been running across the plain to intercept him. “You have to come see.”
“But what about Earth?” Matthew protested. “They have my mother and sister. Your grandson.”
Dunne shook her head. “They can wait. This is important. I need your help.”
Matthew glanced at the speeder. The levitation couplings on the underside of the speeder glowed blue as the thrusters at the back cooled, giving off a thin stream of smoke into the evening air.
“Okay,” he said, looking back at Dunne. “Let’s go.”
Dunne leapt back on the speeder and Matthew straddled the seat behind her.
“Hold on,” she said, and Matthew put his hands on her waist just in time, a split second before she fired the thrusters and sent them rocketing toward the sunset.
Regret flooded over Kiva as soon as she came over the top of the rise and began descending into the village. At the bottom of the hill, she paused and looked back, thought about running over to the other side to see Matthew one more time.
But no. She continued toward the hut at the edge of the village where she’d grown up, and shook her head to herself. Best to keep moving. What was done was done. She forced her steps forward and picked her way slowly through the cluster of huts toward the center of the village.
Back on the plain, a fierce anger had risen up inside her as she’d gotten dressed, bubbling up into her throat from her stomach like bile. It wasn’t Matthew she was angry at, not really. What was happening wasn’t his fault. But he was the only person there, the only possible object to absorb her fury at the unfairness of it all. What they had together was real. But now, before it really started, it had to end.
Kiva thought about her options as she walked through the village. She could do what Kyne had been arguing for all along—go to the Forsaken and have them kill Matthew and the other Strangers before they called their people to Gle’ah. She’d have to move quickly; Matthew would probably bring the humans to Gle’ah as soon as he got back to his ship. But she couldn’t bring herself to do it. She couldn’t have him killed—not after everything they’d shared.
Her only other choice was to tell the truth, then spend the rest of her life preparing the Vagri for the day when the humans brought their millions, their billions, to Gle’ah. The humans had already destroyed one planet, but perhaps with Kiva’s leadership, the Vagri could guide them toward a new way of living—a way of living in peace and harmony with the land, guided by the Ancestors.
It would be difficult—perhaps even impossible. If Kiva had learned anything, it was that violence, fighting, and conflict were always the easier choices when two peoples collided. If tensions erupted between her people and Matthew’s, the Vagri would almost certainly be destroyed.
But Kiva didn’t see that she had any other choice.
She had to call the Sisters together and tell them the truth about what was happening. That was the first step.
In the Sisters’ camp, Kiva went to Rehal’s hut. Pausing for a moment just outside the door, she heard her friend’s voice, pitched at a volume that was unusual for the quiet girl.
“… can’t betray her! I won’t! We must stay loyal to—”
“Loyal to who?” Kiva asked, walking inside.
Rehal’s head snapped up. Thruss was inside the tent with her.
“Vagra,” Rehal said. “I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you there. I thought you were still with …” She paused, swallowed, and started again. “I thought you were still gone.”
“I’m back now,” Kiva said, looking from Rehal’s face to Thruss’s, which was flushed deep gray. “And it seems that something has been happening while I was away.”
“The village is quiet,” Thruss said. “Quieter than normal. You can see for yourself. People are afraid to leave their homes. When you brought the Forsaken and the Strangers here, it … it disturbed them. There have been rumblings.”
“About me?” Kiva asked, then went on without waiting for Thruss or Rehal to answer. “Kyne’s rebellion isn’t over, then.”
“Forgive us, Vagra,” Rehal said. “We’re sorry to be the ones to tell you, it’s just that you’ve been so busy with the Strangers, and the Forsaken, and that boy, that—”
“Enough,” Kiva said. “I’m not busy with the Strangers now, am I? With the Forsaken? The boy—do you see him here?” Kiva made a show of looking around the hut.
“Go,” she said. “Both of you. Gather the Sisters. Tell them that I wish to speak with them. Tell them we meet at nightfall.”