Page 8 of They Call Me Blue

So much silence.

Each name pounds against my chest like a war drum, made all the worse by the sound of Fenris’s scribbling. Slowly, that numbness inside of me transforms into guilt. The letter burns white hot in my back pocket as Alysa’s words repeat.

I don’t hear the rest of the roll. It isn’t until Fenris pockets the scroll and straightens that I realize it’s over. Effortlessly, he hops from the top of the root, water spraying as he lands. “We’ll discuss elections and relocation at sunrise. You’re all dismissed.”

An elf shoulder checks me as they leave. I don’t see their face.

“Hey—”

Another elf does the same. And then Alysa steps in front of me and shoves me into the swamp.

My butt sinks into muck. For a minute, no one says anything, no one does anything as algae and water scorch my nostrils, soaking into everything I own.

Nirissa glances between Fenris and me, as if waiting for him to defend me, to help me.

He hesitates before offering his hand.

Sleep doesn’t come easy. Everything is strange out here. The trees are narrower. The canopy is sparse. Silver starlight gleams through diamond-shaped leaves that are too thin, too shiny, and too blue.

I’m so freaking sick of that color.

Somewhere above me, Nirissa snores loudly in her hammock, the cloth so dark it blends into the bark.

I keep rolling in mine, knotted cords squeaking with each turn.

The tossing has been endless. Whenever I close my eyes, I see Lyrick, the Butcher, Mom, that stupid letter.

So, I stop closing them. Instead, I stare at the starlight, tracing an invisible line through the planets bright enough to see.

Corova —a red giant shrouded in swirling gray mist.

Sarinya —purple and small with a corona of darkness around it.

Precipi —this ugly green thing full of craters, surrounded by ring rocks and dust clouds.

From this distance, without my dad’s telescope, they all look like white dots, but almost everyone knows how to find the Great Three. Sighing, I imagine there’s an elf on one of them, looking at the same stars as me, fortunate enough to have never met an elgrew.

The elders say our people once colonized the universe—through what means, I have no idea. It’s likely a fairy tale, but it’s comforting nevertheless to imagine that not all of our people are living in this nightmare. Some of us must be happy . . . somewhere.

Twigs snap below me, and I bolt upright.

Peering over the edges of my hammock, I watch a shadowy figure climb the tree—not like an elgrew but like an elf, with their lamellae extended.

Fenris’s goggled face emerges from the darkness and relief washes over me.

As he nears my hammock, he pulls the goggles down around his neck and crawls beside me, eyes as black as the night sky.

The cords groan as he settles in. The frame rocks in the humid breeze while I readjust my body to accommodate him.

For a moment, we exist in total silence, both of us sitting crisscross, close enough our knees touch.

His body is so warm, I have to twist my hair into a bun to alleviate the heat, peeling sweat-soaked tendrils from my neck.

I don’t know what to say to him—or why he’s here—but it’s nice to not be so alone.

Fenris wipes the moisture from his brow and clears his throat. “I should have defended you back there. I'm sorry.”

I bite my bottom lip. I didn’t expect an apology—I’m not sure I deserve one. Reaching into my back pocket, I withdraw the worn letter and pass it to him, staring at my lap while he reads it over. “Do you think it’s my fault?” I ask.

“I don’t think you deserve the way they’re treating you.”

“That isn’t an answer.”

Fenris refolds the letter and returns it to me. Then, he takes my gloved hand in his, the way he has so many times before, through so many funerals, so many deaths. “My parents chose to take you in, knowing the risks,” he says, staring at me with those depthless eyes. “They wanted you here.”

“And you?”

“I always want you by my side.” Fenris squeezes my hand and I wince. His brows draw together when he notices the twisty scars and blue scabs that climb up my fingertips. “What happened to your hand? Can I look?”

“The fires,” I say. “It looks worse than it is.”

Gently, he peels the glove back, exposing a wound I’ve spent the better part of three days ignoring.

The skin is bright blue and swollen, so thin it could be pierced by grabbing bark the wrong way.

The darkness is too thick for me to see the details properly, but not Fenris.

His expanded pupils allow him to take everything in.

My best friend stiffens beside me. “How did you get this?”

More twigs snap.

I pull the glove down, cringing when the leather scrapes my scabs, and peer out into the moonlit forest. A team of masked spotters surround the bottom of the tree. “Elgrew sighting a mile north,” one of them says. “The canopy is too thin to hide us here. We’re taking shelter in the caves.”

On reflex, I reach for my go-bag a branch up and flex my lamellae, but Fenris places his palm on my shoulder, stopping my ascent toward Nirissa.

“Arden—”

“What?” I snap. “We don’t have time for this.”

He recoils, the words dying on his tongue as he slips his hand away.

“What is it?” I try again, gentler this time, softer. “What’s wrong?”

His mouth opens, but the spotter’s voice cuts him off, making both of us jump. “Get your asses down here. Now! ”