“Completely shut down, leaving us to the mercy of the elements? Yes, yes it did,” Dex said. “Godstars, I hate Solera. I managed to deploy the backup shields so our landing wouldn’t damage the ship too badly, but I guess it didn’t help much.”

That explained why the air smelled like burned metal. He didn’t want to imagine what the exterior of the ship looked like. Varillium was supposedly impenetrable, but how many times could they crash-land the ship and have it remain so?

“Thank you,” Andi said suddenly.

Dex stared at her in shock, his eyes widening. “Did you just...thank me?”

Maybe he was dead after all.

“Don’t get too cocky.”

Still dazed, he said, “I should crash the ship more often.”

Andi glared at him. “Don’t push your luck, Dextro.”

He laughed, then winced at the ache in his head.

Lon gasped from across the bridge. They turned to see him glued to the small window on the starboard side of the ship.

“What’s wrong?” Andi asked.

The window fogged up as Lon spoke. “It’s so beautiful,” he said in a daze, making Dex wonder if he was okay. “I’ve never seen snow before.”

It took a moment for his statement to register. “Never?” Dex asked, stunned.

“Never,” Lon confirmed, wiping at the clouded window. “It doesn’t snow back on Adhira, and until we went to Arcardius, I’d never once left home. My job was to protect Adhira, not leave it. All the Sentinels made vows to my aunt Alara, to protect the Mountain of Rhymore.”

“A soldier’s vow,” Andi aknowledged with a curt nod. “Something I broke long ago.”

“Looks like we’re all deserters,” Dex said, thinking of how he’d lost his Guardian status years before, too. General Cortas had promised to reinstate him after he and Andi had retrieved Valen from Lunamere, but the general’s manipulations and untimely death had prevented him from fulfilling his end of the bargain to Dex.

Lon looked down at his boots. “How far we’ve fallen.”

“You didn’t break your vow to Alara,” Andi told him. “You served her and Adhira faithfully, until her death. Now you can serve whomever you wish.”

Dex nodded in agreement. He’d been just a few months old when he left Tenebris for the first time. Although he didn’t remember the journey, he knew it must’ve been the first time he’d bonded with the stars. Ever since, he’d longed to be among them, traveling to the deepest corners of the galaxy. That bond was what had initially connected him to Andi. They both saw an opportunity out there, in the spaces between the stars—a place where they could live out the wildest parts of their dreams.