It was Roxy.
The new resonance didn’t come from the datpad speaker but from the rock itself. Light shimmered within the crystal matrix, and like a prism of sound, refractions of the tones rippled outward to bathe the haze of collected molecules.
Striations separated within the slowly churning dust, the pebbles rearranging within that. Larger flecks spun and collided, converging then breaking apart, finding their place as smaller specks followed their dance—a miniature galaxy forming, all dusty and drab but unifying.
Kinsley clutched at Sil in amazement. “It’s coming together.”
“Into what? I don’t know how to control it.”
“Why do you have to? Just let it be.”
“What if… What if it’s nothing?”
“Well, it was nothing before too.”
The vibration from the orc beside her and Roxy’s energy was a pressure wave building around them. Sil’s hand tightened on hers, hard enough to hurt, but she just squeezed him back. He flared his carapace, unfurling the delicate wings hidden within.
Kinsley held back a gasp. In the aftermath of the pirate attack on theDeepWander, she’d seen the security replay showing Teq’s wings when he’d glided Adeline out of danger, but Adeline had only laughed about it later, saying Teq was a little shy about his wings being “too pretty for a crusher.”
On Sil, they were perfect, with threads of silvery veins pulsing through the rainbow glints. The inner membranes seemed too expansive for the hard outer shell, and the translucent colors twinkled like dragonfly wings. When he vibrated them too, the reverberation shimmered at the base of her skull, sending a delicious quiver down her spine and outward along every bone, flowing to each nerve ending—a symphony of longing.
But would it hold together? Or, when he and Roxy fell silent, would the dust fall to the floor, just another failure and memory lost?
“It’s not just hope,” she whispered. “It’s all the work you put into it too, studying and trying, even when you fail. You kept going, like theDeepWandersalvaging scrap into life.”
“Not much of a life.” When he said it, the song wavered.
And so did the dust.
“But it got you here,” she reminded him. “And from here, there’s a universe, right?”
That had never been enough for her before, but suddenly she believed it, with her whole heart. Every moment was a new moment.
Another moment she had with Sil.
She boosted up to her tiptoes to kiss him.
The echoing sensation of the stone song was all around them, but the kiss was even more, a moment and a universe becoming one.
He held her against his torso, his mouth slanting fiercely over hers. And it didn’t matter what happened next because this, for now, was enough.
Chapter 12
As the sonoscry faded, breathless and dazed, Sil lifted his head, gazing down at Kinsley. Her mouth was bright and swollen. Even his own tusks felt bruised from the intensity of their kiss. And the i’lva pulsed in him, most tender of all.
The story she had told of her past—and the parts she hadn’t said that he’d somehow heard anyway—hinted at all she’d taken and lost. But this he could give her, freely and with a joyful heart.
Still holding her, he reached one free hand for the small cloud of cosmic dust. Beneath his tough orc hide, it was soft, almost insubstantial. He held it out to her.
Her brows furrowed, her smoky eyes shadowing, she matched his gesture with an open palm. “Oh. Oh no. Did it not…”
As he poured the handful of dust toward her half-curled fingers, the remnants congealed and separated, as if tearing apart one last time…
And fell into her palm in a delicate filigreed ring.
She blinked, then darted a glance up at him, the first hint of a delighted smile flickering on the lips he’d kissed to a high gloss. “Sil. Is this…?”
“For you. We did it.”