Free Stardawn by Phoebe North Page A

you’ll understand, too. After all, you were the one who hit someone. Who am I to talk about tempers? I’ve never even been in a fight before. Does that surprise you? I know when we were little, Eitan said I was all snails and puppy-dog tails, hardly a girl at all. I was always restless, eager to run out into the dome and join the boys in kick-the-can rather than sit around and listen to the grown-ups talk after dinner, like you. But the truth is, I’m soft inside, Benjamin. It’s what I always liked about you, what I thought we had in common. A kind heart.
    Is your heart still kind? Or has it hardened? Is that what happened when you turned sixteen and became a man? I’ll be a full citizen soon, too, but I hope that doesn’t mean I’ll lose myself. That’s the last thing I ever want.
    Yours,
    Alyana

45th Day of Spring, 22 Years Till Landing
    Benjamin,
    I got your letter. I don’t know how you reckoned which tree was mine, but there that scrap of paper was, tied to one of the branches with a red ribbon like the gifts we all get at school on our Birthing Day. But there was only one package last night—one just for me. I can almost imagine what you looked like as you sat, strong legs straddling either side of the branch, your hands clumsily making a bow. Maybe that’s not fair. Your work in the library is probably careful, precise—sewing new signatures for books, gluing down the spines. And I know that you were an unusually patient boy once. But your hands have always seemed to be your mother’s hands, broad and strong. Meant for baking, for kneading and pounding.
    Is that why you hit him? Because your fingers are thick and your hands restless?
    What you said in your letter—I don’t understand it, Benny. It makes no sense at all to me. What does it matter if Mazdin’s parents are part of the Council? I’m surprised that you, of all people, care about what color threads run through someone’s rank cord. So what if the Raffertys wear gold, and you white, and your parents green? We all support the same journey, don’t we? Tikkun olam . Zehava. I know you probably think that these are only the words of a naive girl. But I’ll be getting my vocation in just a few weeks, and then I’ll turn sixteen and I’ll be a woman. And someday, my children will live to see the arrival of dawn on a new world. Who cares if Mazdin’s children are Council children or common-born? They’ll all have to work together if they’re going to survive.
    So call me naive. Call me idealistic. But I don’t think that slamming your fists into Mazdin Rafferty fixes a damn thing. We’re in the same class in school, you know, Mazdin and me. I know how obnoxious he can be—smug and cloying, a real brownnoser when he’s trying to get what he wants. But nobody deserves to be hurt, to be broken, by bullies bigger and stronger than you. Even Mazdin deserves kindness. Or else what sort of man will he someday be, when he sits on the Council and decides all of our fates?
    That’s all I ask of you. Kindness. Oh, I know I have no right. We hardly know each other, not like we did when we were children, hiding under the galley table, full of giggles while the grown-ups talked and talked. But I see it in you: potential to be better than the other young men. Better than Mazdin. Better, even, than me.
    Yours,
    Alyana

46th Day of Spring, 22 Years Till Landing
    Benjamin,
    I saw you there, up in the tree. I know that you spotted me—I could see the change in your face, how your eyebrows lifted and your lips lifted too, showing that chip in your tooth from when you tripped and fell on the concrete steps when you were nine and I was seven. I know that you saw me as I turned on my heels and sped away down the path. I’m not really sure why I pretended otherwise, like you were a stranger, or worse. Like you were someone I don’t like.
    Because it’s not true. I do like you, no matter the bad blood between our mothers. I always have, ever since we were