Free Among the Nameless Stars by Diana Peterfreund Page A

bone in his body broken.”
    Kai didn’t move until he was sure they were gone. He wasn’t entirely sure he could. At last, when he could stand his twisted position no more, he dragged himself into the paltry shadow of a rock. With shaking hands, he evaluated his injuries. They were numerous, and serious, and he was trapped at the bottom of a ravine in the fire fields, all alone.
    By the next morning, Kai had grown worried. The pain in his leg had mutated in the night, growing from sharp and stinging into a blunt and bitter agony. His head had stopped bleeding, as had the cuts and scrapes on his arms. He had deep gashes on his hands, at least one broken finger, and a few cracked ribs, but they concerned him less at this moment. Who needed fingers if you were going to die at the bottom of a fire field canyon? He had no material for a splint or a crutch, and crawling only netted him a few meters out of the ravine, even after hours of fighting the slide of dust and gravel.
    The next day, he felt no better. He also ran out of water. That night, he had fever dreams.
    Dreams where Elliot came to him, and laid a cool hand on his burning face, and gave him water to drink, and kissed his battered face, and let the ends of her silky dark hair brush over his dusty skin. He reached for her with broken, bloody fingers, but she slipped through his hands like mist.

    Among the Nameless Stars by Diana Peterfreund
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    He’d left her there, on the North Estate. He’d gotten her letter, and instead of storming her big fancy house, instead of barging through the rooms he’d never walked through, breaking down the door he’d never seen, marching into the bedroom he’d never entered, and demanding the answers he needed, he’d turned his back on her—on the only friend he’d ever had—and walked away from everything he’d ever known. He’d walked away from Elliot.
    And now he’d never see her again.

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    Two

    To Elliot North of the North Estate,

    Dear Elliot,
    If you’re reading this, it means I’m dead. I’m sorry. I left for a better life, but now it turns out I’ll have no life at all. I’m glad, now, that you aren’t here. I’m glad that you haven’t been dragged with me to the bottom of this awful ravine. I’m glad that I don’t have to look you in the eyes when it turns out all your fears were well-founded.
    I hope this letter will somehow find its way back to you. I hope you know that I’ve always lo—

    “You there!”
    Kai looked up from the page toward the lip of the ravine. There, silhouetted against the sun, stood a man leading a mule.
    “You write?”
    That was not what he’d expected the man to say.
    Kai raised his hand weakly. “Please,” he begged. “Help me.” Kai didn’t care if this man was another kidnapper. Better to be enslaved than die here. He’d been born a slave. It didn’t have to be permanent.
    The man half walked, half slid down the scree, and when he got to the bottom, he remained a few feet away from Kai, his expression at once wary and calculating. “You look terrible.”
    “Please,” Kai said. “I’ve hurt my leg. I can’t move. Can you help me?”

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    “Might.” The guy jerked his chin at the page in Kai’s hand. “That real writing?”
    Kai nodded, baffled. The guy leaned over and picked up Kai’s knapsack, then slipped his hands under Kai’s arms and hauled him to his feet. They made their slow, huffing way up the side of the ravine, and then the man threw him like a sack of grain on the back of the mule.
    “Thought you was Reduced at first, looking so beat-up,” the man said. “They come out here sometimes, wandering away to die like animals.”
    Kai wasn’t sure how to respond to that. “My name’s Kai.”
    The man grunted. “Teb.” He said nothing else, and Kai did his best to stay upright and conscious as the man led him into who knows what.
    Eventually,