Sifa’s troubled look gave way to a smile. “Yes, we are together now.”
Now. For just a breath, he was sure, but it was something. Cisi rested her head on Akos’s shoulder, and their mom smiled at him. He could almost hear the feathergrass scratching at their house’s windows in the wind. But he still couldn’t quite smile back.
The renegade ship arced away from Thuvhe. Up ahead he saw the cloudy pulse of the current making a path through the galaxy. It bound all the planets together, and though it didn’t seem to move, every person could feel it singing in their blood. The Shotet even thought it gave them their language, like a tune only they knew, and they had a point. He was proof of that.
But he still felt—heard—only silence, otherwise.
He put his arm across Cisi’s shoulders, and caught sight of his marks, turned out toward the light. Maybe they were marks of loss, like Cyra said, but standing there with his family, he realized something else. You could get things back.