Page 27 of The Garnet Daughter (The Viridian Priestess #3)

Chapter

Twenty

H ours later, my thoughts are still of August. Even after a bout of restful sleep, I can barely read the spell book and form a plan of what I am going to do once we reach the rock formation.

Instead, I keep running through all the times I thought he was just being his flirty self with me, when his touch lingered and I dismissed it.

I’m also uncertain if the fact that I find him attractive will further complicate things or simplify them.

Yes, his green eyes are mesmerizing, and I can vividly picture the corded muscles in his forearms when he works.

But more than that, he is extremely protective of the people he loves, an attribute I thought I would hate because of my relationship with Selene.

But it’s different. It is not suffocating. It’s . . . peaceful. Safe.

He makes me laugh even when my mood is sour. Sometimes just being around him when I’m melancholy is enough.

It complicates things, I decide, and tuck those thoughts away.

I get dressed and pull my curls into a low tie and choose to head toward the cockpit, whether he is there or not. We have a job to do, and now that it is just the two of us, we need to be focused.

Except the moment I see him, my stomach feels like it has folded to Frith without me. He stands with his back to me, arms rested on one of the tabletop control stations. The screen in front of him is bright green with ridges of a map the way I have seen him use before.

“Morning.” I force a casual voice.

He glances over his shoulder, and I could swear his eyes light up just a little when I walk toward him.

“I was about to comm your room.” He crosses his arms. “Take a look, they’ve been hard at work.”

“Wow.” It is easy to see where the terrain is level and higher, and even down to the rocks on the ground is depicted. I notice a black area where the map is missing completely. “What is that?”

“One of the drones went dark before it finished, must have malfunctioned.”

“Poor thing.”

“They do that sometimes. At least it wasn’t in an area of interest.” He points to the opposite side. “But here, we start to get rocky, mountainous even.”

“Any rock formations?”

“Not yet, but that is the direction we will head to, then send them out again to do another scan.”

I can’t help but be discouraged that after hours of waiting, we don’t have much information. It seemed like such a good plan last night, but I’m worried we will have to scan the entirety of the birthlands.

He notes my gloomy mood. “It’s good news, I promise.”

“I know. It’s just . . .”

“Taking a long time?” He smiles.

“Yes. But I trust you.”

“There are no other good ideas on the table, so you don’t have a choice,” he leans in and teases softly.

“I could fold to that point and check it out.” I point to an elevated spot on the screen.

“I said good ideas.” He turns away and sits in his pilot’s chair. “All but the malfunctioned drone have returned, ready?”

“We can just leave it out there?” For some reason, I can’t help but be sentimental toward it, as if it were truly alive and not a flying metal egg.

“Normally, we would retrieve it, but considering our time constraint, we will have to do without. I will program them to sync with one less,” he says and juts his chin toward my chair for me to sit for takeoff.

It doesn’t take long to move the ship to the next spot.

August is fast and efficient, keeping a serious disposition, knowing that my patience and anxiety is growing as time passes.

For all that he is silly and charming, he knows exactly when to switch into a focused state that I greatly appreciate now.

We’re parked out in the open this time. The wind whips across the front windows, blowing tiny rust-colored particles across the glass.

I offer to help August place the drones outside, having not seen them launch the first time. However, he demands that I observe from within the cockpit. The compromise is easy after seeing how much grit is swirling around.

He carries both totes around to the front for me to watch and sends me a little wave when he spots me through the window. His movements are exaggerated at first, holding up the first drone dramatically and laughing to himself.

The silver egg floats down about knee-height off the ground and circles out near August, casting out larger rings until I see it disappear to the side of the ship.

He waves for my attention and then points to the side of the cockpit where the map of the previous spot was scanned.

A green portion expands, more terrain being logged.

With the first drone launched, it’s already filling in the space with its findings.

I watch for a while longer and notice other areas now being added, and when I peer out the windows again, August is activating the last drone.

This one zooms out into the desert farther than I can see.

August stays in the cockpit for most of the day, glued to the terrain map, making notes and zooming into specific sections.

I’m happy to pace around the rest of the ship, trying different options of Viathan food and flipping through the spell book and marking any pages that even mention the old gods.

Eventually, I make my way back up to the cockpit to join August. I’m hoping the drones are completed and we have the next task to move to because it’s becoming more difficult to avoid the nagging thoughts about how different it is between us since our last honest conversation.

Or the fact that we are alone together on this ship with nothing to do but wait.

“Any others malfunction?” I ask as I enter the front of the ship.

“No, they are looking good. Two directions seem promising, but I want to wait until they fill in the space more before we make a decision.” He finally takes his eyes off the screen and smiles. “Any luck finding a spell?”

“Some. Best I’ve come up with is to imprison it in its own temple with one of the binding spells.”

“You can do that?”

“I don’t know.” Doubt spreads across my nerves. I could not do the spell I intended to do in the temple, so why would I assume I could perform another without incident?

He must sense the shift in my mood because he redirects, pulling my attention away from the topic. “So! I had a thought.”

“What kind?” I glare at his suspicious tone.

“What do you think of learning to fly while we wait?”

“Like the ship?”

“Yes, like the ship.” He beckons me with his hand and crosses the room toward the pilot’s station.

I’m reluctant to follow. Even now I can see how many buttons are flashing. “I’ve never even considered it.”

“Might like being able to pick up and move whenever you want, have the freedom of moving between worlds but with a home base.” He sits in his chair and swivels it in my direction.

“Not as fast as folding, of course, but it’s a close second, and if you like it, we could find you your own ship . . . if you preferred.”

I can’t help but make a face at how much we have jumped from learning to fly to owning my own ship.

The longer I stay silent, the more he fidgets, then laces his fingers together to stop himself. “If it were up to me, I would fly you wherever you wanted to go, but if you had your own, you would be in control. If you wanted to be alone . . .”

Does he assume I don’t like staying on his ship now that he has told me how he feels? Maybe I stayed too busy today and he thinks I was avoiding him.

“You have put a lot of thought into this,” I state.

“Well, it’s also a good skill to have if the party you are with is down a pilot for whatever reason.”

It isn’t a bad notion, yet I am sad about how he reached this decision. “I don’t think I need my own ship.”

“Can you at least try it before you decide?”

I narrow my eyes at him. “Fine.”

He beams. “Alright, come here.” He waves his hand and turns his chair back around. “Stand here.”

“Here?” I ask, looking at the small space I am meant to stand, between his spread legs and the command station in front of me.

“Well, I’ll be doing the majority of the controls. It’s a crash course. Pilots don’t see a ship for months on Viathan, and even then it’s a simulator.” He scoots back as far as he can go in his seat.

“Can anyone learn? How do you become a pilot if you are not a Viathan?”

He turns my shoulders to face out the front windows. “First, we run through the takeoff protocols. And yes, but I enlisted as a contract pilot. Being a commander never suited me. I like taking jobs when I feel like it.”

“Can we leave if the drones are still out there?” I look back at him over my shoulder.

“We aren’t going anywhere, just straight up and down. Now relax. What does that screen there say?” He points.

“100 xc.”

“Perfect, and that one?”

“Same.”

“That is the landing gear. The feet the ship sits on when it’s rested on the ground. Make sure the buttons on the row in front of you are all green.”

“All but one.” I run my hand down the line of buttons with symbols I am not familiar with.

He presses a few controls on the arm of his chair. “Now?”

“All green.”

“If we left the ship again, there would be other things to check, but I’ve kept it flight ready in case we need to quickly depart.

” He leans forward, double-checking what I have confirmed.

The inside of his knee brushing against my leg makes me very aware of the position we are in for the sake of learning.

“Perfect, ready?”

“For what?”

He laughs. “Lift that bar very slowly. I will do the rest.”

“I thought I was doing this,” I tease.

“Oh, you are.”

I place my fingers under the cold metal bar and evenly lift upward. “Like that?”

“Just like that, Calliape.” I can hear him tapping away on the controls on the other end, making sure I don’t fling us upward into the space between. “Nice and slow.”

I hate that I’m smiling, but the sensation of lifting off the ground because I am commanding it is like nothing I have experienced before. It’s a control I could become addicted to.