FOR THE ACADEMY cadets, the next two and a half years seemed both to last forever and to rush by in a blur. As the exams grew more demanding, the flying more difficult, and the discipline more exacting, the bunks began to empty out. The lineups tightened formation again and again. The corridors seemed less crowded as more and more students flunked out or simply gave up.

Both Thane Kyrell and Ciena Ree were too tough for that. They still both aimed for the top slot in the class, every term—which meant they clashed with each other time and time again.

In Core Worlds Classical Culture: “Who here can tell me which opera the composer Igern is best known for?”

Ciena’s hand shot up, and when the professor nodded at her, she answered, “Chalice and Altar.”

“Very good, Cadet Ree. And can you tell me the themes for which this opera is famed?”

Uh-oh. She could hum several melodies from Chalice and Altar, but she didn’t enjoy opera music. That made it difficult for her to connect music to plot.

After only a moment’s pause, the professor turned away. “Memorizing by rote, Cadet Ree? Unfortunate. Does anyone else know?”

The sound of Thane’s voice from behind her pierced her like a knife between the shoulder blades. He said, “The opera deals with the morality of self-sacrifice and the repression of desire.”

“Excellent, Cadet Kyrell.”

It was like Ciena could feel Thane’s smug smile burning through her back. She gritted her teeth and resolved to listen to opera every single night until the next Culture exam. Kendy and Jude could just deal with it.

In Destroyer-Level Craft Operations: “All other efforts have failed,” intoned the professor from the mock captain’s chair of the Star Destroyer simulator. “Our vessel has been boarded, battles rage on every level, and we cannot let our enemies take the ship. Therefore we must self-destruct. Which of the three methods of self-destruct should we choose?”

Thane swiveled around in his console chair. “We should set the automatic self-destruct, using the codes given to the three top officers. The automatic gives us the longest time to detonation, which means more of our troops will be able to make it to escape pods.”

The professor steepled his hands in front of him. “An interesting choice. Does anyone see any problems with Cadet Kyrell’s scenario?”

Ciena lifted her head from her viewscreen. “Yes, sir. If the ship has been so thoroughly infiltrated by the enemy, there is no guarantee that the three top officers will all be on the bridge, or even alive. Also, the extra time to detonation will only give our enemies a greater chance to escape, as well.”

“Very good, Cadet Ree. What would you suggest instead?”

“Not the core engine method, which would require us to have easy access to the engine room—again, not guaranteed during intraship combat. Instead we should go for the captain’s-word method. The captain signals for all to abandon ship, seals herself on the bridge with a specific password or phrase known only to her, and remains within to fire weapons at enemy vessels and provide cover for escape pods. She then pilots the ship into the nearest planetary object, star, or singularity.” Ciena lifted her chin in thinly concealed pride.

“That means the captain must die with her ship,” the instructor said.

“Yes, sir,” Ciena replied. “But all Imperial officers should be prepared to sacrifice their lives to do their duty.”

“Excellent, Cadet Ree.” The instructor smiled at her. That old creep never smiled at anybody. “Your answer is the one I find ideal in a tactical sense—and a moral sense, as well.”

Thane clenched his hands around the edges of the control panel to keep himself from making a gesture recognized on most worlds as extremely rude.

Moral. What was moral about blowing yourself up, when you could just as easily escape with your life and come back to fight another day? Thane fumed over that the rest of the afternoon, including in Hand-to-Hand Combat, where his temper fueled his punches until he hit Ved too hard. That meant he not only got a demerit but also had to promise Ved all his dessert credits for a week to make amends.

Screwing up in Hand-to-Hand was his own fault, and Thane knew it. But he couldn’t help feeling like it was yet another mess he’d gotten into because of Ciena.

Maybe she still bought in to the idea of the Empire as the perfect state, every single planet’s population singing its praises nonstop. Thane had learned better. Although the official information channels spoke of building projects, successful trade negotiations, and endless economic prosperity, he knew that shine was mostly gloss. The Empire built new bases to solidify its control. Its “trade negotiations” always seemed to result in the Empire’s getting everything it wanted on terms that couldn’t possibly have benefited the planet in question. And as for the mood of the populace, even the official information channels had begun spitting venom about a small group of terrorists who plotted evil and called themselves rebels.

Thane had nothing but contempt for terrorists, but he also understood that such dissident factions rarely came out of nowhere. They were a reaction to the Empire’s increasing control—an overreaction, definitely, but proof that not everybody accepted the Emperor’s rule.

Despite his disenchantment, Thane had no plans to leave Imperial service. How else would he get to fly the greatest ships in the galaxy? Smaller employers could also be corrupt, and the work would be less certain. With the Imperial fleet, Thane was guaranteed decent pay, access to top-of-the-line ships, and regular promotions. Best of all, he’d never have to live on Jelucan again.

So it was without envy that he saw Ciena Ree assigned to command track. His own track—elite flight—suited him far better. He even welcomed the fact that he and Ciena shared fewer classes after they divided into tracks. Thane felt relieved that he didn’t have to see her every day any longer. Sometimes even looking at her hurt—

No. It irritated him. Angered him. It didn’t hurt.

Or so he told himself. All Thane knew was that since their rift over the fake sabotage incident more than two years prior, he and Ciena had never been able to patch things up completely. The humiliation he’d felt when she brought up his father—that she would suggest anything he did came from his father—it still stung every time he saw Jude Edivon. (Jude had always been extra nice to him since that day, which only made things worse.) Ciena had stopped confiding in him, which felt cold and strange; he wondered if she’d become so fanatical about her Imperial duty that she took his distrust of the academy’s methods as a personal insult. How stupid would that be? Nor could he forget that she’d refused to challenge their superior officers, leaving his class rank severely damaged.

It wasn’t as if he hated Ciena or anything, and he didn’t think she hated him, either. But neither of them cheered for the other in races any longer, or offered congratulations after a tournament win. They didn’t hang out during the scant free time academy rigor allowed.

But occasionally—at the least convenient moments—the enduring connection between them would make itself known. Ashes would become embers.

One day, only a few months before graduation, Thane headed back to the uniform dispensary, a trip he’d made at least once each term. He’d finally stopped growing, which was a relief, because he topped out as the third-tallest member of their class, only a hair beneath Nash. But his body was now adding muscle to bone, broadening his chest and shoulders, which meant new uniform jackets. He was only thinking how tight and uncomfortable his current jacket was when he turned the corner and saw Ciena standing farther down the corridor, still in her loose black shorts and gray tank from E&A class. Instead of her usual proud bearing, she leaned against the wall and held one hand to her face. Even without glimpsing her expression, Thane knew she was upset.

In that instant, he suddenly remembered something he hadn’t thought of in years—the day he’d met Ciena so long before. When the other boys had mocked her as she stood in the hangar in her plain brown dress, Thane had thought of her as an autumn leaf, fallen and fragile.

He’d learned Ciena Ree was anything but fragile. Yet he thought of the autumn leaf now.

“Hey,” he said. After a moment’s hesitation, he stepped toward her. “Are you all right?”

Ciena startled, straightening up as she tried to compose herself. She hadn’t been weeping, but Thane could see the glimmer of unshed tears in her eyes. “I’m fine,” she said hoarsely. “Thanks.”

You checked on her. She’s good. Duty done. Get out of here. Thane hesitated, on the verge of turning to go, but then he couldn’t. “You don’t look fine.”

She made a strange sound—half laugh, half sob. “It’s stupid.”

“What?”

“…I got a holo from my parents. The muunyak died.”

“The one you used to ride up to the Fortress sometimes, when we were little?” Thane had not spoken of the Fortress in years.

Ciena nodded. “Yeah. Him. He was pretty old, and I knew when I came here I’d probably never see him again—but still.” She rolled her eyes, mocking her own emotions. “Stupid to get upset, huh?”

“It’s not stupid. That muunyak was great.” Thane had ridden him a couple of times, too. He remembered being a child and sitting on the beast’s broad furry back, his arms looped around Ciena’s waist, both of them laughing in mingled delight and terror as the muunyak nimbly walked a narrow ridge alongside the mountain.

She smiled. It had been a long time since Thane had seen her smile at him and mean it. “He was, wasn’t he?”

“Yeah.”

Their eyes met, and for a moment, it was as if the past couple of years had fallen away—

But then Ciena’s expression dimmed. Her posture became more rigid, and she said, formally, “Thank you for your concern. If you’ll excuse me, I need to change for my Amphibious Battle Tactics study group.”

Thane held his hands in front of him, a push-back motion. “You’re excused.”

She always did that—went cold and shut him out again. He told himself he was used to it, that he’d long since stopped caring. Still, the entire way to the dispensary, Thane couldn’t stop thinking of the Fortress they’d created together and how he used to sit up there, waiting for his one true friend.

He always did that—acted nice just long enough for Ciena to forget how he’d lashed out at her. She’d start confiding in him the way she used to, then catch herself as she remembered how thoroughly Thane had shut her out.

As she sat in her study group, watching holos of real amphibious invasions from history, Ciena brooded on that odd, fractured encounter with Thane. She wished she hadn’t gone so cold—but it seemed like every time she tried to be herself with him, he turned away.

What had she done that was so wrong? He was the one who had gone crazy after the stupid cannon project two and a half years before, assuming there was some mass conspiracy at work. He was the one who would have dragged them into an administrative hearing based on no evidence, which would have resulted in their immediate expulsion. And sometimes he seemed so offended when she beat him on tests or challenges that Ciena felt like he couldn’t believe that someone so inferior had bested him. Did he still consider her nothing but a little valley waif?

Maybe he’d always seen their friendship as an act of charity. All those practice flights, all those study sessions with CZ-1—maybe they hadn’t shared those experiences as friends; maybe instead they’d been gifts from the rich boy to the little girl he expected to worship him in return.

That was too much, and Ciena knew it. She and Thane had truly been friends and on some level still were—but it was a level she could no longer reach.

Her study group leader kept talking. Ciena sat there, hearing but not listening, remembering the way she and Thane had sat in the Fortress for hours, sharing their secrets and dreaming about the stars.

A few weeks before graduation, the commandant announced that a handful of top cadets would attend a reception and ball at the Imperial Palace. The thought of it took Ciena’s breath away. Of course there was little chance the Emperor himself would preside over the gathering. Yet the Imperial Palace was one of the grandest and most elegant structures on the entire planet; apparently it had once been a temple of some kind. Hundreds of senior military officers would be there, not to mention many members of the Imperial Senate. Any cadets invited to a gathering such as that were being noted for more than mere good grades; it was a sign of favor, an investment in those future officers. Their introductions to powerful people in the military and in politics could change the course of their careers.

So when Ciena saw her own name on the list, she felt like cheering out loud. Only much later did she realize who else would be in attendance.

“Thane Kyrell and Ved Foslo,” she said, flopping back on her bunk. “Of all the guys in our class, those two had to be invited?”

“Any logical analysis of class performance would suggest them as likely candidates.” Jude never looked up from her computer console, her fingers dancing on the screen as she finished her latest Longform Computer Operations project. “Their invitations, like ours, were all but inevitable.”

“You’re just rubbing it in,” Kendy said from her bunk, good-naturedly. This close to graduation—with their future assignments all but guaranteed—a sense of calm had settled over the academy. With the ruthless competition at an end, people could…not relax, precisely, but stop worrying about the here and now and start looking avidly toward the future. “Just tell me you’re not going to wear your uniforms.”

Ciena hesitated. “I—well—dress uniforms are appropriate for all formal occasions.”

“However, they are not required at nonmilitary functions such as the ball,” Jude said briskly. “Undoubtedly you wish to wear a dress uniform because you do not have adequate credits for appropriate civilian attire.”

Thank goodness her skin tone was dark enough that nobody could see her blush. Ciena tried to sound firm. “The uniform’s fine.”

Jude sighed as she finally looked up at Ciena. “Your pride is usually a strong motivator, but there are times when it only gets in the way. Please allow me to purchase your attire for the event.”

“I couldn’t,” Ciena protested, hackles rising. Her valley upbringing had taught her to be prouder of her rags than the second-wavers were of their silks—even when she had thought the silks were pretty.

More softly, Jude said, “We’re friends. You’ve helped me tremendously during our time here. My mother holds patents on numerous devices used in Bespin’s cloud-mining technology. As such, our personal wealth is more than adequate to our needs. Why shouldn’t I get you a dress?”

“My culture doesn’t—”

Uncharacteristically, Jude interrupted. “I have a culture, too. We value generosity and the graceful acceptance of gifts.”

Ciena searched for the words to object, but—if it was part of Jude’s culture. “Well…”

Jude looked hopeful.

“I don’t need to own a dress, but—maybe you could help me rent one?”

So she found herself arriving at the grand ball in the only formal dress she’d ever worn. Surely vanity fueled the happiness bubbling within her, but she couldn’t help it. The soft violet-blue fabric sparkled subtly, and both the short cape and the long skirt flowed around her as if in an unseen breeze.

Many of the women in attendance—and not a few of the men—wore finery much grander, such as thickly jeweled bracelets or headbands, or outfits made of embroidered silk and velvet. Yet Ciena knew she looked as elegant as anyone else there. Instead of resorting to tight braids as usual, she’d freed her curls, softening them slightly with light fragrant oil. Kendy had loaned her iridescent combs made of shells from Iloh, to hold her hair back at the temples, and simple pearl earrings. Ciena looked right for the occasion, and yet she also felt like herself—not like an impostor, the way she would have in one of the grand, wide-skirted, elaborate dresses and robes she saw.

“There you are,” Jude said. Ciena turned to greet her—then stared.

Since Jude hadn’t said a word about her own dress, Ciena had assumed her friend’s practicality would govern her choice of gown: something gray or ivory, perhaps, simply tailored, appropriate for all occasions. Instead, Jude stood there in tight-fitting orange fabric—at least, apart from a few strategic cutouts that showed her flat belly and willowy back. Her military-short hair had been gelled into spikes, and her gold earrings dangled all the way down her long neck to brush her shoulders in a way that was, frankly, sexy.

As Ciena gaped, Jude frowned in what looked like genuine confusion. “What is it?”

“I—you look great.”

Jude beamed. “As do you, Ciena.”

They flowed with the elegant crowd into an interior hall, surely one of the grandest public spaces within the entire Imperial Palace. The vast corridor stretched seemingly into infinity, with massive columns lining either side. Brilliant red banners hung from the ceiling, their hems weighted so they would remain motionless, never fluttering in any slight breeze. Shiny, well-polished droids rolled along with trays of drinks and hors d’oeuvres; they swerved easily through the throng. The air itself had been perfumed, though the heavy scent made Ciena cough a little at first. Brilliant crystalline sculptures stood on pedestals, shifting shape fluidly from abstract forms into perfect Imperial symbols. Lights had been trained on the sculptures so they would sparkle brightest at the exact moment of the transformation.

“This is astonishing,” Jude said. “Think of the trouble this must have taken.”

“And the money,” Ciena replied. What had been spent on this evening alone probably could have rebuilt an ore refinery on Jelucan.…

But there she went thinking like a provincial again. Each world had to rebuild itself. Yes, the Empire was there to help and to govern, but in the end, Jelucan and worlds like it needed to become strong on their own.

Ciena meant to say as much to Jude, but that was when she caught sight of Ved and Thane.

Ved had taken advantage of the occasion to wear Coruscant fashion—a long cape, silky shirt wide cut at the chest, and so on. Yet Ciena thought it was impossible for anyone to look at Ved while Thane stood nearby. He wore his dress uniform, like at least another two hundred men in attendance, yet the rest seemed to…fade, next to him. And even though she’d spent the past two years watching Thane grow older and taller, only then did she see him as a man.

Her reaction confused her, but not nearly as much as the moment when Thane recognized her and she realized the sight of her had hit him with equal power. The way his eyes seemed to drink her in—

“Look,” Jude whispered, pulling Ciena aside at what was either the best or worst possible time. “It’s the junior senator from Alderaan—Leia Organa, the princess!”

Ciena stood on tiptoe, eager to see someone so famous. She got a single glimpse of the princess, who was wearing a slim white gown, her long hair intricately braided. Then the crowds closed around Senator Organa again, hiding her from their sight.

“Can you believe it?” Jude said as they joined the procession into the ballroom.

“It makes sense that she’d be here.” Yet Ciena found it intimidating that a girl almost exactly her age could already hold a place in the Imperial Senate, could be so poised, sophisticated, important.

“I meant it’s surprising that she came to any official function, given her speech in the Senate yesterday.”

Ciena remembered then: Princess Leia had announced, on her father’s behalf, impending “mercy missions” to planets the Organas claimed to be negatively affected by Imperial policies. “That was ridiculous,” she muttered. “Pure grandstanding. Missions like that can’t be necessary; the Empire would help the people on its own. That’s what the Empire is for!”

Jude nodded in agreement but said, “We should be generous. Even if the Organas are misguided, they’re probably acting out of a spirit of kindness.”

Maybe so, but Ciena couldn’t resist shaking her head at the arrogance of anyone who thought she knew better than the whole Empire.

Dancing with partners was one of those habits Ciena had thought of as second-waver decadence before she came to Coruscant. Oh, they danced in the valleys, but dances were for the entire group as part of certain key rituals. Yet Core Worlds Culture had taught her to think of the practice as civilized—even between couples, for no purpose other than pleasure. She was grateful for that now, even more grateful that the class had also taught her the steps of the most commonly performed formal dances. The glittering assembly in that huge, ornately tiled and mirrored hall did not intimidate her; she walked confidently across the floor to her position and awaited whichever partner the computers would assign to her first.

Of course, it would have to be Thane.

He stood in front of her, amid the shifting and settling couples all around, not quite meeting her eyes. “I guess they wanted the cadets to begin together,” he said shortly.

“Guess so.” Ciena turned her head, trying to look anywhere else—but what she glimpsed made her smile. “Believe it or not, we’re the lucky ones.”

Next to them, Ved scowled up at Jude, who stood more than a head taller than him. Jude attempted to look dignified, but Ciena knew her well enough to tell that she was stifling a laugh.

Thane must have seen what she’d seen, because she heard him laugh slightly. “You have a point.”

Then the orchestra played the opening measures—a calenada, Ciena thought, recognizing the dance. She knew the correct position to begin and even held her hands up, but that didn’t prepare her for the moment when Thane’s broad hand curved around her waist.

Their eyes met, and the dance began.

The thousand people in the hall all knew the correct steps; they moved in unison, brilliant spinning colors, ever changing but always in set patterns, like the bits of glass in a kaleidoscope. Nobody set one toe out of place. Ciena imagined them as jewels gleaming in their settings, clasped tightly in metal that was all but invisible behind the shine.

Thane said, “I thought you considered dancing—what was it—licentious? Risqué? A prelude to sin?”

She had once, before Core Worlds Culture had taught her to be less small-minded. Now it only annoyed Ciena that he would remind her of her provincial ways. “In your dreams.”

That made him laugh—but from contempt or surprise? “You seem sure of yourself.”

“I am.”

It had been banter, not quite an argument. But something shifted in that moment. Ciena had not realized until she spoke that she was in effect declaring her own beauty and attractiveness. That gave Thane an opening to be not merely irritating but cruel.

Instead he said, quietly, “You should be.”

Their eyes met again, and Ciena became newly, vividly aware of the warmth of Thane’s hand clasping hers, the feel of his fingers braced against her back. They hadn’t been this close to each other in a very long time. Every move in the calenada required him to lead, her to follow, which added another layer to the intimacy of the moment. The gaudy swirl of the dancers around them faded until it felt as if the two of them were alone.

Ciena parted her lips to speak, though she still didn’t know what to say—but then, with a flourish, the song ended. She and Thane stopped on the beat, but they remained standing there, hands clasped, for a few moments after everyone else had begun to applaud. Then it was time to switch partners, and Thane stepped away without another word.

For the next hour, Ciena continued to play her role in the dance, to laugh and smile along with the rest of the crowd, but she couldn’t have repeated anything anyone said to her. She couldn’t have said which dances she performed, to which songs, or who her partners were. Her thoughts raced as she went over and over the rift between her and Thane, trying to somehow make sense of it.

Finally, during a break in the dancing, Ciena hurried toward a server droid. She reached past the many glasses of wine to grab a tumbler of cool water. As she gulped it down, she heard, “There you are.”

Ciena didn’t turn to face Thane. She could tell he stood very close. “Here I am.”

“Listen, we should’ve talked about this a long time ago, and maybe this isn’t the time or place—”

She wheeled around then. “Are you going to apologize?”

“Apologize?” Thane’s eyes could burn gas-flame blue. “For what? Standing up for myself?”

“For shutting me out!”

“You’re the one who—”

Then someone stumbled between them: Ved Foslo, already sloppy drunk. He laughed out loud. “You guys are so stupid.”

“Excuse me?” Ciena wrinkled her nose as she stepped back. Ved stank of Corellian brandy, which wasn’t even being served at this party; he must have hidden a flask within the pocket of his cape.

“Stupid. You. Thane. Both of you. So stupid.” Ved shook his finger at them, as if they were wayward children. “You keep arguing about that laser cannon thing. Who cares about the laser cannon thing? And you both got it upside down anyway.”

At first the words didn’t make sense. Then realization flooded over Ciena in an almost dizzying rush of shock and anger. “It was you?”

That only widened Ved’s grin. “No! Me? Why would it be me? You still don’t get it, do you? Bumpkins from a rock on the edge of the galaxy—of course you don’t know how the academy and the Imperial fleet really work—”

Thane put one broad hand against Ved’s chest. Although it could look like a sober man helping his drunk friend to remain upright, Ciena sensed the veiled threat. Judging by the way Ved’s smile faded, he got it, too. In a low voice, Thane said, “Why don’t you explain it to us?”

Ved took a couple of steps back, out of Thane’s reach, before he replied. “We attend the academy to become citizens of the Empire. The instructors don’t like it when cadets from the same homeworld stay close to each other—it strengthens your ties to your own world. It weakens your commitment to the Empire.”

“No, it doesn’t!” Ciena protested, but he wasn’t going to listen.

“They set you up.” Ved laughed again. “They set you up so you’d hate each other, and you swallowed the bait.”

Thane’s eyes narrowed. “When we both were marked down on that assignment—you moved up to number one. At least, until Jude Edivon overtook you two weeks later.”

“You still think I did it? No way. I can’t hack like that. Even Jude can’t. Only the instructors have that kind of power. And if I were going to frame somebody for anything, the last people I’d go after would be the Office of Student Outcomes. My father told me all about them.” Ved’s smile was both sloppy and smug. “The fact that they were able to boost the rank of a general’s son? I’m sure that was an extra incentive. But they did it mostly to make sure the two of you would stop clinging to each other. And you Jelucani idiots reacted exactly the way they thought you would—except you made it worse. They probably only meant for you two to bicker about it. Not get all—” Ved’s hand made a wavy motion in the air. “You didn’t just get angry. You practically started hating each other. So I guess that makes you two the perfect academy cadets. Again.”

He seemed to lose interest then, lurching off toward the server droid to grab his next drink. Ciena felt as if all the shame Ved should have felt saying such things had settled on her instead.

But she deserved to feel ashamed. She had lashed out at Thane for thinking the academy was responsible—and he’d been right all along. The academy’s motives had differed, but, still, he’d understood the basics. And she had let that drive her away from the last person she ever should’ve let go.

Thane didn’t know where to begin. “Ciena—”

She shook her head, though he didn’t know what she was saying no to: Ved’s story, the academy’s guilt, Thane being the first to speak, anything. He put one hand on her shoulder, but she winced as if his touch hurt. What could he say or do?

So then of course the damned orchestra started tuning up again, and Ciena swiftly walked away to her next place in the dance. She never once looked back at Thane.

He had little choice but to join in, but throughout the rest of the ball, Thane could think of nothing else. Sometimes he wanted to go back to the academy, go through every single corridor on every single floor until he found that Office of Student Outcomes, then look whoever worked there in the eyes and punch them in their faces, hard. Other times he felt more like locating a time machine so he could go back and tell his younger self not to be such a total idiot. He even considered what such a ploy on the academy’s part said about the Empire and the way it treated its officers.

More than anything, though, he wanted to talk with Ciena alone.

When the ball finally ended, Thane pushed through the crowds, looking for Ciena’s dark cloud of hair or the unique blue-violet shade of her dress. It was hard to see through all the fawning diplomats, laughing courtiers, and black-garbed military officers—and why was it so strange to remember that he was one of them?

He saw Jude first. She was a head taller than most people in the room, and her vibrant orange gown stood out. As Thane walked closer, he could hear Jude saying, “As we have no curfew tonight or assigned duty tomorrow, this is an ideal occasion to explore the famous nightlife in this area of Coruscant. I’ve always been quite interested in the clubs here, especially the Crescent Star.…”

Only Jude Edivon could make a night of partying sound like a science experiment. Thane had to smile at the thought—but then he saw Ciena and everything else in his mind faded. “Actually, Jude,” he said, seizing his chance, “I was hoping Ciena and I might, ah, spend some time catching up.”

Jude looked back and forth between the two of them, one eyebrow raised.

Ciena took a deep breath. “Thane and I should talk. If you don’t mind, Jude.”

“Not at all. I’ll be with the others.” Jude gestured toward a group of younger officers, several guys and a few girls, who seemed to be waiting on her.

After Jude was out of earshot, Thane said, “Which one of them is she leaving with?”

“Possibly all of them.” Ciena turned to face him, her hands clasped in front of her in a gesture Thane recognized from the valleys; he wasn’t sure of its significance, but he knew it was formal, and important. “Thane, I didn’t believe the academy to be responsible and argued with you about it and in effect challenged your honor. Such a transgression—”

“No. You don’t get to do that. This isn’t on you, Ciena, at least not any more than it’s on me. I guess we were both idiots together. But the real blame belongs to whatever monster at Student Outcomes did this to us.”

She blinked, as if in shock. “They didn’t intend for it to get this bad between us. We did that to ourselves.”

Galling as it was to admit, Ciena was right.

“Besides, think about it, Thane,” she continued. “General Foslo probably bribed someone to do it and Ved’s lying to cover for his father.”

That…seemed possible, though Thane wasn’t convinced. At the moment it was irrelevant. “Either way, you were right about confronting the academy instructors.” It stung to confess how wrong he’d been, but this knowledge had crept up on Thane over the past few years, and it was past time for him to admit it both to Ciena and to himself. “We would’ve been expelled for sure. I shouldn’t have lashed out at you about it.”

“I should have understood you were upset.”

Ciena was so determined to apologize. Thane didn’t want to hear it. “My point is, neither of us did anything wrong. I’m so tired of being angry with you. Can’t we finally let it go?”

She stood up, straight and formal again. “I’m willing to restore our friendship.”

That statement sounded like it should be followed by some elaborate valley ritual of reconciliation, but Thane neither knew nor cared what that might be. “Can’t we just—talk? Come on, Ciena. I don’t care who should’ve known better or why the academy did it or any of that. I just want my friend back. The rest doesn’t matter.”

It wasn’t as easy for her to let it go, he knew, but he also saw the shadow of her smile when he talked about having her back. “Where do we start?”

“We start with tonight.”

Going out to nightclubs would mean shouting over dance music, not to mention shaking off the countless guys who seemed likely to approach Ciena while she was in that dress. Returning to the academy was no way to spend a free night. Neither Thane nor Ciena had any other ideas about what was available in the area, and rather than search, they wound up sitting on the terrace nearest the ballroom, on a low stone bench by the fountain, talking for hours as the cleaning droids whirred and buzzed around them.

They did in fact start by talking about the ball itself, who and what they’d seen. Thane got to brag, “I even danced with the princess from Alderaan. Nash is going to choke when he hears that. He’s had a crush on her since he was nine.”

“Princess Leia? What was she like?”

“Even shorter than you,” Thane replied, which got him a not-very-hard kick to the shin. He mimed pain even as he continued, more seriously: “I don’t know. It was only a dance, and she wasn’t even paying that much attention. She wasn’t being rude; it was more like she was distracted. I guess someone like her must have a lot on her mind.”

Ciena opened up more when they talked about their future assignments. “Command track is an honor. Sometimes I think about having a ship of my own someday, and I just—” She shivered, and not only for show; Thane noticed the goose pimples on her arms. “But that means I’m not going to spend much time in single-pilot fighters, not after the first few years, anyway.”

“Which is criminal,” Thane said. Nearby, a golden server droid used its five arms to vacuum the broken shards of a dropped glass. “You’re a phenomenal pilot, Ciena. You should always be in the sky.”

He’d forgotten how sly her smile could be. “I will be. Only in a bigger ship.”

By the time it was nearly dawn, they were confiding in each other completely again. Ciena showed him how she kept, in a small pouch, the leather bracelet that still bound her to her sister. “I always wondered,” he said quietly, looking at the soft worn braid. “It wasn’t regulation, and you’d never break regulation—but I knew you’d never get rid of it, either.”

“No.” Ciena’s fingers closed softly around the small pouch; its rough-woven fabric made Thane believe she might have fashioned it from a scrap of cloth taken from home. “Never.”

By then the sky had begun to turn pink. The rush of sky traffic had never ceased throughout the night, but the ships came thicker and faster. Ciena’s bare feet rested on the stone bench; her sparkly shoes lay empty on the terrace tiles. The server droids had given them final glasses of wine before settling into their night recharging stations, and as Thane drank the last swallow of his, he watched Ciena yawn. As late as it was—as exhausted as they both were—she still looked beautiful.

He wasn’t going to act on that now. Maybe he wasn’t going to act on it ever, given that they might be assigned to opposite sides of the galaxy within a couple of months. Besides, their reunion was too new to ask for anything more. Later, Thane decided. Later he’d think about Ciena and their futures. That night was enough on its own.

“We should go to the transport,” he said, getting to his feet. “Come on.”

Once Ciena had stepped back into her shoes, Thane offered her his arm. She took it as she rose to her feet. Weary as they were, he expected nothing but small talk about how much sleep they would, or wouldn’t, be able to get. Instead, Ciena said, very softly, “I’m so glad to have you back.”

Later, he reminded himself, more forcefully. “Me too.”