Page 43

Roslyn

The apartment where I spent most of my life before enlisting with the Sol Alliance is nearly empty.

Most of the threadbare furniture that used to fill the place has been sold. The cupboards have been emptied. I haven’t done the best job of cleaning, but oh well. After today, it’s not my problem.

A single suitcase is all I’m taking with me. It’s all I have to take with me.

And maybe that’s not a surprise.

Did I ever have a life here?

Sure, I lived here and grew into an adult here, but I can’t say it was much of a life.

I survived.

I survived the harsh Severin suns and unrelenting heat. I survived meager rations that left us sick with hunger on more than one occasion. I survived until I was eighteen and could leave to try to make something better of this life I’ve been given.

I won’t examine too closely whether I’ve succeeded at that, but at least for today, I’m still surviving.

Savvie is surviving. Mom, well, who the hell knows if she’s still surviving, but she made her own choices.

And tomorrow, I’ll leave this place for good.

There’s a little plot of land waiting for me on a planet called Terra Spei, and a contract with a builder to construct a home. Something small and cozy, just enough, looking out over a brilliantly forested valley, if the photos the company sent are accurate.

God, I hope they’re accurate.

Because if everything I’ve heard and seen on the comms networks is true, then I’ll never have to suffer an environment like Severin again. I might find some peace, real peace, on this planet that looks so much like Earth it makes the backs of my eyes sting every time I flip through the images on my vidcomm device.

The plot of land I purchased is situated on the outskirts of a settlement that’s small, but growing, and populated mainly by humans.

And in that settlement, a store. One of the few that have been built in anticipation of the people who will move there over the next few years. It’s in a row of other shopfronts, with a yard out back that’s just big enough for a greenhouse or two.

It’s a start. A dream.

A dream that still feels impossible when I think about it too long or too hard, like it might just be snatched away from me before I can board the shuttle off Severin tomorrow and start my journey.

Alone in the empty apartment, I sink into a kitchen chair, one of the few pieces of furniture left. I’ll spend tonight bunked down on a bedroll in the living room, and then I’ll never have to see this place again. I’ll start what’s left of the rest of my life.

Better. It will be better.

Once I get to Terra Spei, everything will be better.

My accounts are flush with the million credits I earned on Mate Match, which the moving and settlement expenses have only made a small dent in.

Never mind the fact that I haven’t had a good night’s sleep since I left Eritin.

Never mind that I can’t stop playing every detail over in my head. Can’t stop seeing Savvie disappear around the bend in the river. Can’t stop seeing that terrible, grief-stricken look on Zan’s face when I walked away from him.

The conviction I felt at the Choosing hasn’t fled entirely, but sometimes, in the darkest hours of the Severin night when I’m listening to my neighbors shouting or blaster fire from down the street, it’s hard to remember.

A knock at the door draws my attention from those cheerful thoughts.

The landlord who reigns over this little kingdom of rundown units is supposed to stop by today to make his final inspection ahead of my move-out. With a sigh of intermingled relief that I’ll never have to deal with him again after this, and irritation at seeing his pointy, miserable face one last time, I cross the room and open the door.

Only, it’s not the landlord standing there.

For a few perplexed, reality-bending moments, I can’t make sense of what I’m seeing.

Even though she’s not out of place here, having walked through this same door thousands of times over the years, my brain won’t compute, won’t accept what I’m seeing.

It’s impossible. Utterly impossible.

Some half-baked delusion my brain cooked up from stress and lack of sleep.

Absolutely, positively not real.

“Well,” Savvie says, crossing her arms over her chest and resting a shoulder on the doorframe. “Going to invite me in?”