“We’re leaving,” Kiva said when she came back toward Matthew—toward Quint’s dead body.
“What?” Matthew asked.
“We’re leaving,” Kiva said again. “They’re banishing me. I can’t live here anymore.”
“Why? You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“It doesn’t matter. It just—it doesn’t matter.”
Matthew put his lips together and swallowed. A sick feeling washed over his body. Why should Kiva be punished for what Sam and Po had done?
But Kiva herself seemed calm, emotionless—empty, even. Her face was dazed; her eyes, as she looked at him, were distant and detached.
“Okay,” Matthew said. “Do you want to get anything before we go? Anything you want to take with you?”
“No,” Kiva said firmly, shaking her head. “Only her.”
She nodded toward her sister’s corpse.
Just then, Dunne walked into the clearing with her medical kit tucked under her arm.
“Most of the wounded were beyond saving,” Dunne said, “but I managed to patch up a few—”
Dunne stopped talking when her eyes fell on the carnage in the clearing: on Quint’s body, and Sam’s.
Matthew explained to her what had happened. Together, they gathered up Sam’s guns, then went to retrieve the speeder from where Matthew had crashed it. They managed to get it hovering again—but its thrusters wouldn’t fire. Matthew cradled Quint’s body onto the seat, and they pushed it to the edge of the village.
They walked back to the Corvus like that, Matthew pushing Quint’s body on the hovering speeder, Kiva and Dunne walking behind. When they reached the ship, Matthew went inside, got the transceiver, and brought it back out to Dunne and Kiva.
“What are you going to do?” Dunne asked.
Matthew didn’t answer. He pushed the button on the side and spoke into the transceiver.
“Come in, Control,” he said. “This is Corvus.”
“Copy, Corvus. We read you loud and clear. What’s your report?”
“Sam’s dead. He was killed by …” Matthew paused and looked at Dunne and Kiva, thinking of all the damage that had been done as a result of three humans landing on Gle’ah—all the violence, all the death, all the pain and grief. How much more damage could a thousand, a million, a billion humans do?
“The radiation killed him,” Matthew said at last.
The transceiver was silent for a few moments before crackling back into life.
“Roger, Corvus,” Alison said. “Are you telling us that H-240 is a negative planetary match?”
“That’s right, Control.”
“And what about you and Dunne?”
“We’re sick too. We don’t have much longer. We’re going to take the suicide pills. This will be our last communication.”
There was no response.
“Tell our families … ,” Matthew began, meeting Dunne’s gaze as he spoke. “My mother and my sister. Dunne’s grandson. Tell them we’re sorry. Tell them we wish we could’ve found a place where we all could’ve been together again. More than anything. But it just wasn’t meant to be.”
Dunne nodded slowly.
“We’ll tell them, Matthew,” Alison said. “I promise. I’m sorry it had to end this way. Good luck and Godsp—”
Matthew put the transceiver on the ground and stomped it under his boot until he felt it smash to bits. Every time he brought his foot down he felt a ripping pain inside himself, as if the transceiver were a part of his body. He thought of his mother, of his sister—he’d never see them again, never hear their voices.
After what had happened in the village, after what Sam had done, smashing the transceiver felt like the right thing to do. But it still hurt.
When Matthew raised his head, his eyes were blurry with tears. He blinked them away and saw Kiva.
She faced away from him, standing on the crest of a small hill and looking into the far distance. She’d stayed quiet since leaving the village; on the walk to the Corvus she’d trailed behind Matthew and Dunne, looking at her feet as she trudged through the grass. She seemed to have retreated inside herself—and looking at her now, Matthew wondered if the real Kiva would ever come back out. If perhaps part of her had died with her sister in the village.
He walked up behind her and gingerly put a hand on her shoulder.
“Kiva?” he said.
She turned.
“Are you—are you going to be all right?”
“We have to go,” Kiva said as if she hadn’t heard Matthew’s question. She pointed to the horizon—away from the village, away from the Corvus, away even from the place where the Forsaken camp and the city of Ilia lay.
Matthew looked to where she was pointing. The grass stretched out as far as he could see.
“Where?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Kiva answered. “I’ll know when we get there.”
Something in her voice told Matthew not to question her any further.
They walked through the night and into the morning, and as they trudged through the grass—Matthew and Dunne on either side of the speeder while Kiva strode out ahead—the sick feeling that had come over Matthew in the village got worse and worse. He glanced down at the body of the dead girl on the speeder, her spine balanced on the seat as her arms hung limply to either side.
It should have been me.
The thought came from nowhere, but he felt immediately that it must be right. It should be his dead body on that speeder. If it weren’t for him—if Kiva hadn’t saved him—then maybe Quint would still be alive. If only they’d never come to Gle’ah—
“Matthew,” Kiva said a few steps in front of him.
Matthew raised his eyes. Kiva looked back.
“Come up here,” she said. “Come walk with me.”
Matthew looked at Dunne. She nodded at him across the speeder—she could push it on her own for a while. Matthew ran forward and drew up beside Kiva.
“What is it?” he asked.
“You can’t let yourself think that,” she said.
“Think what?”
“That it was your fault.”
Matthew sighed and looked ahead.
“But it is my fault,” he said. “If I’d never come here, then Quint would still be alive. You’d still be Vagra.”
Matthew felt Kiva slip her hand into his. Her fingers laced between his, she tugged at his arm, pulled him back to her. He turned his head.
“But if you’d never come, I’d never have met you,” she said.
Matthew felt as though something in his chest were breaking.
“Is that enough, though?” he asked. “Enough to make up for everything else?”
“I don’t know,” Kiva said, and smiled the saddest smile Matthew had ever seen. “It will have to be enough. We’ll have to make it enough.”
They walked on in silence for a few more steps, then came to the top of a hill—and Kiva stopped and said, “We’re here.”
Matthew looked down. They’d come to a long, low place in the prairie, bordered at one end by the hill they stood on and at the other end by a gentle ridge. At the edge of the ridge was a single jagged tree reaching up into the sky—leafless and dry.
Kiva reached out her arm and pointed at the tree.
“There,” she said.
“There what?” Matthew asked.
“There is where we’re going to bury Quint.”