LITMIR.BIZ

      THE ASSEMBLY SHIP IS the size of a small planet, wide and round as a floater but so much bigger it’s downright alarming. It fills the windows of the little patrol ship that picked up our escape pod, made of glass and smooth, pale metal.

      “You’ve never seen it before?” Isae asks me.

      “Only images,” I say.

      Its clear glass panels reflect the currentstream where it burns pink, and emptiness where it doesn’t. Little red lights along the ship’s borders blink on and off like inhales and exhales. Its movements around the sun are so slight it looks still.

      “It’s different in images,” I say. “Much less impressive.”

      “I spent three seasons here as a child.” Isae’s knuckles skim the glass. “Learning how to be proper. I had that brim accent—they didn’t like that.”

      I smile. “You still do, sometimes, when you forget to care. I like it.”

      “You like it because the brim accent is so much like your Hessan one.” She pokes her fingertip into my dimple, and I smack it away.

      “Come on,” she says. “Time to dock.”

      The ship’s captain, a squat little man with sweat dotting his forehead, noses his little ship toward the massive Assembly one—to secure entrance B, I’d heard him say. The letter was painted above the doors, reflective. Two metal panels pull apart under the B, and an enclosed walkway reaches for our ship’s hatch. Hatch and walkway lock together with a hiss. Another crew member seals the connection with the pull of a lever.

      We all stand by the hatch doors as they open, making way for Isae to stand at the fore. It’s a skeleton patrol crew that picked us up, meant to cruise around the middle band of the solar system in case someone’s in trouble—or making it. There’s just a captain, a first officer, and two others on board with us, and they don’t talk much. Likely because their Othyrian isn’t strong—they sound like Trellans to me when they do speak.

      I skip ahead into the bright tunnel beyond the hatch doors to catch up to Isae. The glass walls are so clean. I feel like I’m floating in nothingness for a tick, but the floor holds firm.

      I just make it to Isae’s side when a group of official-looking people in pale gray uniforms greets us. At their sides are nonlethal channeling rods, designed to stun, not kill. The sight is reassuring. This is how things should be—controlled but not dangerous.

      The one in front, with a row of medals on his chest, bows to Isae.

      “Hello, Chancellor,” he says in crisp Othyrian. “I am Captain Morel. The Assembly Leader has been informed of your arrival, and your quarters have been prepared, as well as those of your … guest.”

      Isae smooths her sweater down like that’s going to get the folds out of it.

      “Thank you, Captain Morel,” she says, all traces of brim accent gone. “May I introduce Cisi Kereseth, a family friend from the nation-planet of Thuvhe.”

      “A pleasure,” Captain Morel says to me.

      I let my gift unfold right away. It’s just instinct, at this point. Most people react well when I think of my currentgift as a blanket falling over their shoulders, and Captain Morel is no exception—he relaxes right in front of me, and his smile softens, like he actually means it. I think it works on Isae, too, for the first time in days. She looks a little softer around the eyes.

      “Captain Morel,” I say. “Thank you for the welcome.”

      “Allow me to escort you to your quarters,” he says. “Thank you for delivering Chancellor Benesit safely here, sir,” he adds to the captain who brought us here.

      The man grunts a little, and nods at Isae and me as we turn to go.

      Captain Morel’s shoes snap when he walks, and when he turns corners, they slide a little as the balls of his feet twist into the floor. If he’s here, it’s because he was born into a rich family on whatever his home planet is, but doesn’t have the disposition—or the stomach—for actual military service. He’s just right for tasks like these, which require manners and diplomacy and polish.

      When the captain delivers me to my room—right next to Isae’s, for convenience—I sigh with relief. After the door shuts behind me, I let my jacket slide off my shoulders and fall to my feet.

      The rooms have been set for us, clearly. That’s the only explanation for the field of feathergrass, twitching in the wind, on the far wall. It’s footage of Thuvhe. Right in front of it is a narrow bed with a thick brown blanket tucked around the mattress.

      I put a hand on the touch panel near the door, flicking images and text forward until I find the one I want. Wall footage. I scroll until I find one of Hessa in the snow. The top of the hill sparkles red from the domed roof of the temple. I follow the bumps of house roofs all the way to the bottom of the hill, watching weather vanes spin as I do. All the buildings are hidden behind a white haze of snowflakes.

      Sometimes I forget how beautiful my home is.

      I see just the corner of the fields my dad farmed, and the image cuts off. Somewhere past them is the empty spot where we held Eijeh’s and Akos’s funerals. It wasn’t my idea—Mom was the one who stacked the wood and burnstones, who said the prayer and lit it up. I just stood close by in my kutyah coat, the face shield on so I could cry without anyone seeing.

      I hadn’t thought of Eijeh and Akos as lost, truly lost, until then. If Mom was burning the pyres, I thought, that must mean she knew they were dead, in the way only an oracle could know things. But she hadn’t known nearly as much as I thought.

      I fall to the bed and stare up at the snow.

      Maybe it wasn’t smart to come here, to contend with a chancellor instead of following my own family. I don’t know much about politics or government—I’m Hessa-born, so far out of my realm of knowledge it’s almost funny. But I know Thuvhe. I know people.

      And someone needs to look out for Isae before she loses herself in grief.

      Isae’s wall just looks like a window to space. Stars all glinting, little pricks of light, and the bend and swell of the currentstream. It reminds me of a fight we had, early on, before I knew her better.

      You know nothing about my planet and its people, I said to her then. It was after she had gone public as chancellor. She and Ori had shown up at my apartment at school, and she had been rude to me for being so familiar with her sister. And for some reason, my currentgift had let me be rude back. This is only your first season on its soil.

      The broken look she gave me then is a lot like the one she’s giving me now, as I walk into her quarters—twice the size of the ones given to me, but that’s not surprising. She sits on the end of her bed in an undershirt and underwear that’s really just a pair of shorts clinging to her long, skinny legs. It’s more casual than I’ve ever seen her before, and more vulnerable, somehow, like letting me see her right after waking ripped her open somehow.

      All my life I have loved this planet, more fervently than my family or my friends or even myself, she had replied back then. you have walked

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