Page 82 of Stars
Humming over a fire, sprinkling herbs into a pungent flame. A wry smile in falling snow, the sound of reindeer snorting as their footfalls fractured the icy lunar landscape spreading in every direction.
A face looking down at him, a soft smile curving gentle lips. A hand on his cheek. I have been waiting for you, Sasha Alexanderovich Andreyev.
A million stars burning around them, the sky falling to the ground, pines climbing higher than the moon.
Sasha hadn’t ever been certain what was real and what was only in his mind, but he was certain that—through it all—he’d hadhimby his side, always right next to him, as close as his skin and bones. In Sasha’s entire life, only Sergey had been closer to him than this man had been. Inside his mind. Inside his soul.
Sasha frantically tugged and tore at his blue utility pants and his T-shirt, trying to get to his skin. It had happened, it had all happened. He had a tattoo to prove it—
His bear tattoo, his spirit guide Kilaqqi had inked on his hip, shone from his pale flesh.
It was there. Kilaqqi was alive.
Then how had he just seen Kilaqqi’s corpse?
“Sasha?” Mark grabbed his hands, lifting them away from his hip. “I didn’t know you had a tattoo.”
He gulped, starving for oxygen like the snow from the dead lands was pouring down his throat. His heart clenched, ice burning the insides of his lungs, scraping down his ribs. “My—”Myaminmi. My father.“Someone close to me gave it to me. It’s… religious.”
Mark tried to keep him talking. “You’ll have to tell me about it. You’ve never spoken about your faith before. Ever.”
Sasha squeezed his eyes closed.Bear has found you worthy. We are in the highest heaven. On top of the stars. Beneath time.
“Sasha. Sasha, breathe!”
Someone grabbed his arm. Something wet rubbed over his shoulder, his delt, and then there was a pinch, a prick. He opened his eyes.
Phillipa floated next to him, biting down on a needle sheath. She finished pushing the last of the syringe into his arm. Slowly, she pulled the needle out and pushed back, clear of his reach. Behind her, Sarah stared.
“I’m okay,” he choked out. “I’m okay.” Sedative poured through his muscles and soaked his veins. He exhaled hard, and then again, trying to push the image of Kilaqqi’s mummified face out of his mind.
Paper-thin lips pressed to his forehead, the ghost of a father’s kiss. Myhutechi.
“Talk to me, Andreyev,” Mark said. His voice was hard, full of steel.
“I know that man,” Sasha choked out.You have the power of the tundra within you, Sasha. You have the blood of Bear in your veins.“The corpse.” He jerked his chin to the tablet tumbling free in the module. The dead face appeared and disappeared like an orbiting star winking in and out of view. There and gone, hisaminmi’s face, the second-most-important man in his entire life. The love he had for Kilaqqi was different than the love he had for Sergey, but it was not less. Watching the dead face of the only father he’d ever known spin in the fluorescent hum of the ISS made his soul feel scooped raw, like Bear had taken her claws to his insides again, carved him up and left him empty, nothing but broken bones and blood.
“Who is he?”
Tears pulsed at the corners of his eyes, bubbling on his eyelashes like diamonds. He blinked, and a sparkling shimmer sailed throughHarmony, shooting stars weeping from him. The sedative pulled on him, made his body and mind heavy, slowed his thoughts. He slumped into Mark’s hold, his gaze still fixed on the tumbling tablet.Kilaqqi. Where are you?
Death is familiar to you.
“He’s my father.”
* * *
23
Siberia
Russia
“Well, now what?”Jack asked.
He braced himself against the hood of their probably stolen SUV, pulled off the side of the highway in the middle of the Siberian forest. Though “highway” was being generous. The road outside Tomsk had turned from asphalt to packed earth quickly, and beneath the forest cover, snowdrifts turned the world into an unbroken moonscape. For miles, all they had seen was snow and pines, the road extending eastward in an unbroken line. The wilderness was stark and untamed, the single road their only path, the only hint of human presence.
While Ethan spread out his map, Welby filled up the gas tank with one of the portable fuel cans they’d purchased on the way out of Tomsk. They had enough gas to go a thousand miles. Anywhere else, that would be enough to get them somewhere. In Siberia, it was a stone’s throw across the expanse. In the back seat, Pete and Blake were slumped over their backpacks, mouths open, snoring.
