She moved to the foot of the ’tank, where her belongings were kept. She pressed her hand to the scanner, and it beeped as it read her DNA signature. The drawer popped open with a hiss as the tech’stasis seal was broken. The compartment was the size of a standard suitcase—large enough for all the trinkets and ’bands and memories too precious to be parted from—and Andra had filled it to the brim with tablets and pre-books and clothes and the blanket she’d slept with until she was twelve. She’d filled it with home.
She reached in, her fingers grasping for the blanket, but instead, they met nothing but air. No ’band, no tablet filled with pics and music and books. No dress she was going to wear on her first day on Holymyth. Everything was gone.
“Looking for this?”
Andra whipped around to find Zhade had returned. His hand was held out, and dangling from his fingers was her holocket.
The faux-gold chain glinted in the dying light, ending in a star-shaped charm. It was stupid and pointless and sentimental, and Andra snatched it from Zhade’s hands, hanging it around her neck with a sigh of strange relief.
It was a child’s toy. Outdated years before she got it. So obsolete, even if her ’implant had been working, it couldn’t have communicated with the ’locket. Cheap tech and even cheaper metal. There was no way it still worked.
“Where’s the rest of my stuff?” Andra snapped. She thought about her security blanket and the first-edition pre-book copy of I Think I Speak for Everyone and the purple holo’band she’d gotten for her sixteenth birthday.
“That was all there was,” Zhade said, his expression so disarmingly earnest, she actually believed him.
“Oh,” she said. “Thanks.”
He nodded. “Firm. Does it import?”
“Yeah,” she said, her fist clenched around the ’locket.
She’d kept it because Oz had given it to her. He’d won it at a raffle at school when he was five, and even then, he was enamored with outdated tech. He’d carried that thing around for weeks, agonizing over how to use the memory slots. One day, Andra was upset about something—she didn’t even remember what—but Oz had sneaked into her room, where she was curled up in a ball, crying silently, and he slipped the ’locket into her hand.
She didn’t have the heart to tell him it was next to useless. ’Bands could store hundreds of petabytes. The ’locket had space for six single-gig memories. But she’d taken it from him, because she could tell he was proud of himself for his generosity. She’d used the memory slots to record random moments. They’d seemed mundane at the time, but now they were all she had of her past. Precious. Cruz was in there. And Briella and Rhin. Oz. Her family.
The wind picked up, almost a cool breeze. Zhade squinted into the sun, his hands in his pockets.
“I reck what it’s like,” he said, “to lose fam. To lose everyone.” His eyes met hers. “Sorries. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.”
Andra pursed her lips, swallowing her grief. Zhade nodded once, something serious and reassuring in his gaze, and then, without another word, he sauntered away, humming to himself as he descended the dune.
She turned to watch the sunlight fade to gray across the desert, ’locket clutched to her chest. It wasn’t until her namesake disappeared below the horizon that Andromeda made her way down the hill.
FOUR
THE SOLDIER
Zhade hated the Wastes. At least in Rocco, or any of the other desert villages he’d visited, he could pretend he was somewhere else—some obscure part of Eerensed where nothing grew and everything was falling apart—but once he left the shelter of civilization, it was glaringish obvi he was mereish a small speck in a vast sky of sand. Oceans of sand, the First had called the Wastes. Zhade tried to imagine all the sand replaced with water, but it seemed impossible.
Fishes and wishes, the Eerensedians would say. Meaning, You might as well wish for the ocean.
Zhade didn’t believe the ocean had ever existed.
The desert spread out ahead of them, barren and endless. Nothing for miles except the road they followed, marked by a yellow line in the sand. Heat waves wafted in the distance. Zhade huddled in the back of their (borrowed) cart with the Goddess, while Wead led the (stolen) horse (don’t you dare tell the Goddess, Wead) at an infuriatingish slow pace. Up and down dunes. Bell after bell. A dense fog of dust billowed ahead. Sandclouds. They were prominent in this part of the Wastes. Not dangerful, but not a piece of cuppins either.
It was a fault of his upbringing that he’d been full unprepped for the Wastes when he was exiled. He’d never been outside of the city til he suddenish was. He was clever, resourceful, a survivor. But navigating the streets and politics of Eerensed hadn’t prepped him for making his march through the Wastes. There was no one to charm food out of, nothing to trade for protection, and nothing—full nothing—he could do to hide from the pockets. He was powerless.
He didn’t like being powerless.
Most of his kidhood had been spent in hiding, tossed from cave to cave at the whim of others. His mam’s whims, mostish. It was full rare he’d had any say in the meteor. She determined where he went and with whom and when. For your own good, she’d said. Zhade had yet to see this “good” of his she convoed. Still, he was following her whims, though she was dead and sunk into stardust. It was habit.
Take this, she’d said, giving him the icepick dagger, and he’d taken it. It still hung in a thin sheath at his side.
Find the Third, she’d said, and he’d spent his full banishment searching.
Don’t let Maret have the crown, she’d said, and there Zhade had failed.
Maret already had the throne, and the best Zhade could do now was overthrow him.
Fishes and wishes.
At least he had found the Third—a nearish impossible task considering his searching radius was anywhere in the world. The Eerensedians would have called it fate. Zhade wanted to laugh at that. He had his own thoughts bout fate.
The cart rocked beneath them as Zhade looked over at the Goddess—Andra, she kept insisting. She’d salted him with questions, almost nonstop, since they’d peaced. Why hadn’t she woken earlier? Why did people worship her? Who stole her from Eerensed? What are the other goddesses like? She got frustrated when he couldn’t—or wouldn’t—answer, stewing with her arms crossed and brow furrowed.
The Goddess had lain in the Yard for most of Zhade’s kidhood—and for hundreds of years before he was born. He had memories of visiting her agrave, seeing her blurred shape through frosted glass, listening to the prayers and chants of the other visitors—the ones who believed in her and hoped she would wake soon to save them.