Matthew let out a sound that was half laugh, half sob. Kiva’s words burrowed under his skin and grew there, broadened and deepened inside him until they seemed to contain all the truth in the universe.
We saved each other.
“Kiva, I … ,” Matthew began, not quite knowing what it was he wanted to say but feeling the need to say something anyway, to give voice to all the ways Kiva had saved him.
“I know,” Kiva said, her voice thick in her throat. “Okay? I know.”
Matthew’s chin began to tremble. “I’m sorry. I almost threw it all away. I was so stupid.”
Kiva shook her head. “Come on. You think you can stand?”
Matthew swallowed, collected himself, and nodded silently.
Kiva helped him to his feet. Matthew clutched at her hand even after he found his balance.
Then he heard the sound of footsteps behind him.
He turned to see Po coming around the hut at the top of the triangle, a spear held overhand above his shoulder.
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Po threw the spear at almost the exact moment he came into view. Kiva had no time to raise the gun to her shoulder and fire.
Her next reaction was one of instinct. She didn’t think. She just moved.
“Down!” she shouted.
She grabbed Matthew by the shoulder and pulled him with her as she crouched low to the ground. They ducked quickly enough, but only barely—Kiva felt the spear whiz by above her in a rush of air that rustled the hair at the top of her head.
As she crouched, she turned—and as she turned she saw that Quint had come out of her hiding spot behind the hut and was right in the path of the hurtling spear.
“NO!”
The spear caught Quint square in the middle of her chest with a sickening thud. Her feet flew out from under her as she fell backward. She didn’t move.
Kiva ran toward Quint with a scream that felt as though it was being ripped from her body. She knelt down and reached her hands toward her sister, but couldn’t bring herself to touch her. Her hands hovered inches from Quint’s body, her fingers splayed and quivering—as though by laying her hands on Quint or the spear she might make things worse than they already were. Quint’s eyes were wide and glassy, her mouth hanging open as if in dull shock at what had happened to her.
For a moment, Kiva’s mind couldn’t fathom what she was seeing. This couldn’t be happening. Lying before her, Quint’s body seemed a foreign thing—it couldn’t really be her sister lying dead in front of her eyes, could it? There must be some mistake.
She closed her eyes, ground the heels of both hands against them, then opened them again. Nothing had changed. The scene was still the same. Quint was still on the ground with a spear through her chest.
Kiva seized the shaft of the spear with both hands and pulled at it, trying to yank it from Quint’s chest. At first, the girl’s body came a few inches off the ground with the rising spear, then fell back as the blade slid free of her flesh. After the spear had come out of her body, Quint’s black blood flowed fresh in the wound—so much blood. Panic bloomed in Kiva’s stomach as she saw the blood pool in the hole in her sister’s chest.
Frantically, Kiva turned the spear around and, holding it awkwardly near the tip, began slashing at her own hand with the blade.
“What are you doing?” Matthew asked from behind her.
Kiva ignored him and went on stabbing at the palm of her hand. When her blood began to run, she balled her hand into a fist above Quint’s body and watched as the blood dropped on the gaping wound. She searched Quint’s eyes for some sign of recognition, some sign of life as the Ancestors swarmed into the wound and brought healing to her sister’s young body—but Quint’s eyes only gazed lifelessly at the sky, catching the glint of the moons.
Kiva needed more blood. She turned the spear on herself again, now slashing indiscriminately at her hand, her fingers, her wrist.
“Don’t!” Matthew shouted. He went to his knees beside her and grabbed at her hands. “You’re hurting yourself.”
Matthew’s hands clamped around her wrists.
“No!” Kiva yelled, and tried to yank her hands free of his grip.
But Matthew was too strong. When she knew she couldn’t overpower him, she let her arms go limp. The spear fell from her fingers. Matthew grabbed it, threw it away, to where she couldn’t reach it, and seized her by the shoulders.
“It’s too late,” he said, turning her to face him. “She’s gone.”
Kiva let out a single dry sob as Matthew pulled her body toward his and squeezed her tight. Her back was stiff, resisting Matthew’s embrace—but after a few seconds she let her body soften and go limp.
She closed her eyes and wept. The sobs shook her body like convulsions, like a seizure—she’d never cried so hard in her entire life. Matthew just went on holding her. Tears slipped between her eyelids and ran down her cheek to her chin, then dropped onto Matthew’s shoulder.
Soon, Kiva’s eyes opened again. Still slumped in Matthew’s arms, she looked over his shoulder into the clearing. Her vision was wobbly as the tears cleared from her eyes—then it became clear, and she saw them.
Po. He was still, rooted to the spot where he stood.
And Kyne. She stood at the edge of the clearing, her face filled with shock at the scene she’d come upon, one hand lifted to her open mouth.
“You!” Kiva said, her anguish turning instantly into a fury that filled her whole body.
She pushed Matthew away and stood. She walked into the clearing, knelt to pick up the gun, then went toward Po and pressed the end against his chest.
Po made no move to run or push the gun away from his body. His face showed a despair that was even deeper, perhaps, than Kiva’s own.
Behind Po, another Forsaken man walked into the clearing. His shoulders were covered by an animal skin, and he held a spear in one hand. As he surveyed the scene in the clearing, his jaw hardened, his eyes taking on a steely look.
He met Kiva’s gaze, and though she’d never met him before, she knew immediately that she was looking at Xendr Chathe. He nodded at her.
“Do it,” he said. “Take your vengeance. I won’t stop you. This is not why we came here—to kill little girls. This is not our way.”
Kiva looked back to Po’s face and willed him to meet her gaze. She wanted to look into his eyes before she killed him.
But he wouldn’t look at her. Po wouldn’t meet her eyes—instead, he looked over her shoulder at Quint’s dead body. As Kiva looked into Po’s eyes looking glassily beyond her own, she knew that this image would be with him for the rest of his pitiful life: the image of the little girl he’d killed, a gaping hole in her chest from where he’d pierced her body with a spear.
Kiva tried to feel again the rage that had coursed through her body only moments before. But she couldn’t. It was bleeding away, replaced by something else.
“Go on,” Kyne said from the edge of the clearing. “Kill him. Get it over with.”
Kiva loosened her grip on the shotgun and let it fall to the ground.
“No,” she said. “Too many have died today.”
She turned and walked away from Po and Kyne and Xendr, back toward Matthew and Quint’s body.
“We will punish him,” Xendr’s voice said from behind her. “We will see that you have justice.”
Kiva turned back and shook her head at Xendr. “No justice can come of this,” she said. “Death is too good for him. The real punishment would be to let him live.”
Xendr didn’t say anything to that, but Kyne walked into the clearing and stepped between Po and Kiva.
“This is your fault, you know,” Kyne said. “Yours and that boy’s.” She nodded past Kiva toward Matthew. “If it weren’t for what you did, none of this would have happened.”
“No,” Kiva said, “it’s not. It’s his fault.” She nodded at Sam’s bloody corpse on the ground, then toward Po. “And his.”
She loo
ked at Kyne for a few moments, daring her to contradict her.
“And yours,” Kiva said. “This is your fault too. With your scheming, and your plotting. Dreaming up ways to undermine me, to make war with the Strangers. When all we did was try to imagine another way.”
Kyne’s lip curled. “Even so,” she said, “you can no longer live in this village. You can no longer be Vagra. Take your dead. Take your Stranger, if you want. We’ll let you go in peace. We owe you that much. But you must go.”
“But this is my home,” Kiva said. “These are my people.”
Kyne shook her head. “Not anymore. Not after this.”
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“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.”
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Matthew dug the grave at the foot of the tree while Kiva and Dunne looked on. Then he and Dunne laid Quint’s body in the hole and covered her with dirt.
They were on their knees, patting the soil smooth, when Kiva heard the rustling in the grass at the bottom of the hill.
“Who’s there?” she shouted, fear fluttering in her chest.
But when the grasses at the bottom of the hill parted, it was only Grath and Liana who came through and walked up toward the tree at the top of the ridge.
Kiva breathed out. “What are you doing here?” she asked.
Liana stepped forward. “We tracked you across the plain all night,” she said. “We couldn’t stay in the village. Not after what happened. Not after—”
Liana abruptly stopped talking as her eyes looked over Kiva’s shoulder to the freshly turned soil of Quint’s grave.
“Is that … ?”
Kiva nodded, then stepped aside as Liana walked toward the grave. Her mother sank to her knees beneath the jagged branches of the tree, then reached forward and put her hand flat on the dirt. Kiva couldn’t see her face, and Liana didn’t make any sound—but her shoulders quaked, and Kiva knew at once that she was crying.
Grath walked up behind Liana and put a hand over her shoulder, draping his fingers across the soft of her throat. Liana reached up and clasped his hand in both of hers, then leaned back into him.
Kiva had been numb since leaving the village—but now, watching her parents weep over her sister’s grave, her tears began to flow again.
The pain of losing Quint would hurt for a long time. It might never stop hurting.
Grath turned. “Vagra, will you say the words?”
Kiva shook her head. “I’m not the Vagra anymore. I’m Kiva again. Just Kiva.”
“Even so,” Grath said. “Someone should speak.”
Kiva’s eyes came closed for a long moment, then opened again. She bowed her head.
“Every death contains within it the seeds of a rebirth,” she began, squinting as the light of the Great Mother began to crest over the prairie. “Every end is a beginning.”
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