Trey had never seen the sky before yesterday. After Alishia’s fall he had returned to her, calmed his own panic, and then he sat and watched the sky all night. Darkness was his age-old companion, but he had never known it so deep. He had stared for hours, awed by the stars, amazed that so many dead could still show themselves as points of brilliant light. There must have been millions up there, and he scanned the sky from horizon to horizon many times, searching for his mother.

The life moon bathed the south, silvered like a smudge of hope forever promised by the sky. The death moon appeared as Trey sat watching, emerging from behind the mountains to the east as if raising itself on the souls of all those dead miners. Its pale yellow glow spilled across the landscape. He had heard about the moons so often down in the dark, where they were talked about in the same hushed tones as wide-open meadows, sunlight on skin, birds making the sky seem so high. Now that he was up here and he could see them, it all seemed so unfair. Why should he be the one who survived?

But guilt could not crush down his sense of wonder. He watched the skies change color as dawn came, bitterly awed, and when the sunlight finally touched her face, Alishia woke up.

HER HEAD ACHED. Blood had run from her scalp, caked her hair and dried on her face, and now that whole side of her head felt stiff and heavy. She flexed her jaw and turned gently, testing her neck. The skin of blood crackled as it broke.

Dawn was here, and the sunlight hurt her eyes. There were no clouds, but it was already cold, a cool breeze breathing down from the north. Alishia was in pain, yet she felt like laughing out loud.

“You came back,” she said. Trey was a silhouette against the rising sun, and she saw him nod. “Last thing I remember was the horse going mad.”

“It stumbled in the dark,” he said. “I saw the hole clear as light, but the horse either didn’t have such good eyesight, or it was more panicked than me. I thought the Nax were coming. I don’t know why the horse ran. Dumb creature.”

“They’re actually quite intelligent,” she said, trying to hold back a smile. “Where is it now?”

“Back where it fell. It’s leg is broken. The bone’s sticking out.”

“Oh damn,” Alishia said, feeling sorry for the animal. It had carried her this far this quickly, only to be left lying lame in the dark. She felt suddenly guilty, imagining what Erv would have said.

His name inspired thought. Where he lived, what he did, how he looked. Whether he spoke any strange words, knew languages she did not. Whether he could do things other people could not do.