Free In Heaven and Earth by Amy Rae Durreson Page B

there was something less graceful
about him out here. Glancing across, Reuben could see the red
patches where his skin hadn’t quite healed from the cold. His hair
was a little tangled, his cheek a little rougher, and it made him
more strange rather than less.
    “ That’s not who
I am,” he said. “I’m not a knight, or anything like it. I’m just a
man.”
    “ Yes,” Vairya
said. “I rather liked the fierce knight who invaded my garden, but
I think I prefer your real face. You look kinder than your imagined
self.”
    Reuben stopped dead.
“Kind? I’m not—”
    “ I think you
might be,” Vairya said and reached out to tug at his arm. “Kind
enough not to make me walk around in this for much
longer.”
    “ Why are you
wearing that?” Reuben grumbled, not pulling his arm
free.
    “ We were
rehearsing,” Vairya said, and all his sadness was back. “Once a
year, we put on a play in the city gardens, and we were
midrehearsal when the ship arrived.”
    “ You
act?”
    “ Why not? I
have no trouble remembering the lines.”
    “ I suppose
not,” Reuben said. “Are you any good?”
    Vairya laughed, and it
wasn’t as light as his laugh in the garden, but there was a
different warmth in it. “Modesty forbids.”
    Reuben snorted at that,
and opened a hatch. “Down here.”
    It felt strange having
someone else in his space, and he had to remind himself that he had
trespassed inside Vairya’s mind first. He had no right to feel
self-conscious about his plain sheets and undecorated walls. He had
never felt the need to fill his space with meaningless clutter. All
he needed was something to read on and access to the ship’s
library.
    It wasn’t until the hatch
closed behind them that it occurred to him that he could just have
taken Vairya to one of the sickbays and found him some
scrubs.
    “ How long do
you think it will take them to record their messages?” Vairya
asked, stopping in the tiny square of open floor between the ladder
and the end of the bed.
    “ Depends on the
message,” Reuben said, scrambling onto the bed so he could reach
the overhead lockers. “Why?”
    “ I was
wondering how long we have got,” Vairya said, and there was an odd
note in his voice, something which would never have belonged in the
rose garden.
    “ Depends when
Chanthavy cuts Eskil off,” Reuben said, pulling out a change of
clothes and turning round. “At least an hour.”
    “ Not long
enough,” Vairya murmured, looking up at him. He held out his hand.
“Reuben.”
    No mock title this time,
and something about the honesty of his name in that soft voice made
Reuben shudder, suddenly aware that he was alone with this man, who
was attractive and infuriating and appealing in a way no one had
been since he was a teenager trying to prove himself to his adult
classmates. Uncertain, he dropped the clothes onto the edge of the
bed and leaned forwards, taking Vairya’s offered hand.
“Yes.”
    “ Tomorrow we
die.”
    “ Tomorrow we
fight.”
    “ No,” Vairya
said, and his hand twitched a little in Reuben’s. “There’s no
coming back from this. We’re just choosing how to die. Tomorrow, it
ends. Everything ends.”
    His eyes were wide, and
Reuben could hear the effort he was making to keep his voice
steady. Two hundred years old, and he’d probably never had to
consider his own mortality before. Strange, that this was another
thing Reuben understood better. Carefully, he stepped off the bed
and put his arms around Vairya. “Don’t be afraid.”
    He had meant to keep his
embrace loose and comforting, but Vairya seized hold of him
tightly, pressing warm skin and cooler metal against Reuben. “Why
ever not?”
    Reuben shrugged but
tightened his hold. “It doesn’t help. Just keep living until our
time runs out.”
    Vairya pressed his cheek
against Reuben’s shoulder and let out a rough laugh. “Believe it or
not, that was where I was trying to go with this. I didn’t mean
to—” His voice caught.
    He was