His head snapped around, surprise blasting her senses as he hurriedly stood. “Lancer Tal!”

  “I thought we discussed this. I’m your bondsister. You can call me Andira.”

  Herot Opah shook his head. “Not in here, I don’t think.” Suspicion colored the air. “Are you the reason—”

  “No. You asked me not to interfere and I respected that.” She held up both hands. “Your sentence was reduced because you earned it. Congratulations, Herot.”

  He met her palms, sensed her sincerity, and relaxed with a wide grin. “Thank you. I’m still shocked. You could have knocked me over with a horten leaf when the administrator came this morning and told me to pack my things. Five moons early!”

  “I was surprised, too. It’s not only the prisoners they don’t tell when they’re considering early release.”

  “It makes sense, though. They don’t tell us because it would be cruel to raise our hopes and then kill them if it doesn’t happen. Family and friends would suffer just the same.”

  That he considered the well-being of others was a clear indicator of his growth. The Herot she had first known thought only of himself.

  “But I was sure they’d have told you,” he continued. “You’re the Lancer.”

  “I did get the first notification. And, ah, I didn’t tell your family.”

  “Why not?”

  She indicated the bag next to his chair. “Is that everything?”

  “More than I came in with.” He shouldered it and patted the side. “Twenty-one moons of my life, right here. Why didn’t you tell them?”

  “Come on, we’ll talk on the way. Salomen has been working herself into the ground,” she began, leading him out the door. “Both at Hol-Opah and with the divine tyrees. We’re having a party at Hol-Opah this afternoon to celebrate how much the tyrees have accomplished in their training.”

  “Let me guess. She decided she had to organize that, too.”

  “You know her well. At least I convinced her to accept State House kitchen staff. Had I told her you were free, she would have insisted on coming here to get you. So would Shikal, Nikin, and Jaros. It would have been a frantic scramble before the party. I chose to eliminate that stress and replace it with a wonderful surprise and time to enjoy it.”

  They passed into the lobby, where Herot’s emotional signature glowed with anticipation at the sight of the double doors. “It’s nice to think I could be a wonderful surprise.”

  “You’ve been surprising us all along.” She stood aside. “Go ahead.”

  He grasped the nearest handle, a smile spreading across his face. “I’ve dreamed of this moment.”

  The door opened with a mechanical sigh. He stepped through and stopped, turning his face up to the sun. A small breeze ruffled his hair, bringing with it the distant calls and clacking sounds of a group stave practice.

  “Thank you, Fahla,” he breathed.

  Tal absorbed his elation and worried that she had made the wrong choice. But the Opahs would have spent eighty ticks in transit at the worst possible time. This way, they could relax with Herot before the guests arrived.

  And they would be there when he set foot on Opah land for the first time in twenty-one moons. That, she thought, would mean far more to him than walking out of the detention center he had occupied for a hantick. Herot had spent his morning packing up, taking leave of friends made in prison, and being transported here for the tedious process of formal release. This was merely one more step on the path.

  Her guess was confirmed when he turned to her, eyes sparkling. “I’m ready to go home.”

  It was a quiet flight. Herot was absorbed in the scenery, and Tal found peace in flying her transport, isolated from the myriad voices needing something from her. Herot needed nothing, not even conversation.

  A tentick out from Hol-Opah, she called Vellmar, who was already at the holding with her Guards.

  “I’m bringing a surprise for the Opahs. Will you ask them to meet me? Tell them I’ll need all their help to unload it.”

  “Of course,” Vellmar said. “Time to arrival?”

  “We’re almost to the Silverrun. Less than ten ticks.”

  “We?”

  “Shek.” Tal laughed at herself. “Don’t tell them that part.”

  “What are you plotting, Lancer Tal?”

  “Something that will make them very happy. Go round them up.” She ended the call and activated the privacy glass. “There. They won’t know it’s you until you step out.”

  Herot grinned at her. “This is the best day ever. I can’t wait to see their faces.”

  His joy filled the transport when they crossed the Silverrun River, so abundant that Tal’s skin tingled with it.

  “There they are!” He stabbed a finger toward the round house atop the hill. From this distance, the figures on the back deck were barely more than specks, but Herot’s breath was short. “Fahla, Goddess above,” he whispered.

  Tal brought the transport to a hover over the grassy yard behind the house and began her descent. Jaros was already running down the wooden steps, eager to help, while Salomen descended at a more sedate pace. Nikin and Shikal followed.

  Jaros danced from foot to foot, waiting anxiously for the transport to land and the engines to power down. He had been subjected to too many lectures about approaching an active transport to risk another, but the delay never grew easier. Behind him, Salomen rested a hand on his shoulder and watched with rising curiosity.

  Tal opened her door and called, “It’s on the passenger side.” She stepped onto the soft turf as Jaros ran around the nose of her transport.

  “Andira, what is going on? You’re blocking our view for a reason.” Salomen stopped in her tracks when Jaros let out a screech.

  “Herot!”

  Herot barely had time to exit the transport before his arms were full. “Jaros! Oh, I’ve missed you!” He twirled them around, laughing.

  Shocked to her core, Salomen simply stared at them. “Is he . . . ?”

  “He’s home.”

  “Home! My son!” Shikal hurried past, Nikin at his heels.

  Rooted to the ground, Salomen looked from Tal to her brother and back again. “Did you do this?”

  She shook her head. “I had nothing to do with it. He earned an early release.”

  The tears came then, along with an explosion of euphoria as Salomen allowed herself to believe. She raced around the transport to join the laughing, crying group and met Herot in a double palm touch as soon as he turned. “Welcome home!”

  “Thank you. I can’t tell you how great this feels.” He leaned in and kissed her cheek. “You look good. Tired, but good.”

  “You look wonderful. And I’m not tired at all.” She beamed at him, her happiness so blinding that Tal’s senses were dazzled.

  Vellmar appeared next to her, grinning as she watched the scene. “Nice surprise,” she said. “I hope you don’t mind being relegated to the shadows at this party.”

  “I don’t mind.” Tal could not take her eyes off Salomen, luminous in her joy. “Great Mother, look at her.”

  “Her family is whole again,” Vellmar said quietly. “She’s been missing a piece of it for as long as I’ve known her.”

  Tal nodded. “She once said she could never forgive him. Half a cycle ago, she said she would forgive him someday.”

  “And now?”

  “She forgave him the moment she realized he was home.”

  The creak of wood woke Salomen from a dreamless sleep.

  She rolled onto her back, listening for the out-of-place sound. It was hanticks before dawn, and Hol-Opah was silent but for the leafthrum singing from a nearby tree. Its buzzing call rang out every few pipticks, advertising its readiness to mate. After the third call, she heard the creak again.

  Someone was walking on the back deck and trying to be quiet about it. She reached out with her senses, confident in what she would find.

  She was no longer intimately familiar with Herot’s emotional signature. He had matured in prison, and his signature had changed with him. The presence she brushed against on the deck bore only a tangential resemblance to the Herot whose resentful anger was always just under the surface, waiting for an excuse to boil out.

  Before he committed the act that nearly destroyed their family, she had avoided sensing him when she could. In her untrained days, she had little control over how deeply a skim impacted her. Touching his emotions had rubbed her raw, like clenching her fist around a sallgreen branch with its stiff, spiky leaves.

  Now she brushed against him and felt the peace and wonder she had sensed in him all day. He still could not believe he was home.

  She glanced at Andira sleeping beside her and slipped from the bed.

  Two ticks later, she was settling a shawl around her shoulders while tiptoeing down the back stairs. As the dining room windows came into view, she saw Herot by the railing, gazing at the moonlit mountains.

  The sound of the opening door brought his head around. “Why are you awake?” he asked when she reached him.

  She rested her forearms on the top railing and set one foot on the bottom, her habitual stance. “I heard you. Then I sensed you.”

  “And that brought you out of bed?”

  “I hate lying awake in bed. Coming out here seemed a better option than waking Andira. Why are you awake?”

  “It won’t stop whirling.” He tapped the side of his head before turning back to the view. “I forgot how beautiful they are.”

  His prison had been in the foothills southeast of Blacksun Base. Salomen had found its forested environment surprisingly pleasant, but there were no views of the mountains.

  “Do you remember the day you and Father came to see me in the Blacksun Base detention center?” he asked.

  “That would be difficult to forget.”

  “Remember how tiny that cell was?”

  She nodded.

  “That’s what I thought prison would be like. We all know about the Pit, and there I was in that little cell, thinking I was doomed to cycles of that. It was miserable. When they processed me out to Lakefall after my hearing, I nearly fainted with relief. I had a room with a window. There were caste houses and a library, and trails to walk on. It wasn’t what I thought prison would be. Except everywhere I walked, I’d eventually hit a fence. And I never saw the mountains.”

  “I don’t recall you spending much time looking at them before,” she said.

  “I took a lot of things for granted. This view. Family meals. Driving a skimmer. You.”

  “Me?”

  “Fahla, look at the moons. I could only see them when they were overhead.” He inhaled with visible satisfaction. “And the air never smelled right.”

  “I like the forest scent,” she said. “But I understand. It’s not Hol-Opah.”

  “Nothing is Hol-Opah.”

  “On that, we can devoutly agree.”

  His lips twitched. “I’m sorry I couldn’t stay for your party.”

  “Herot, no one expected you to walk out of prison and straight into a party with thirty people you didn’t know. I was surprised you came at all. In your place, I’d have been roaming all over our land, reacquainting myself.”

  “That’s what I’m doing tomorrow.” He hugged himself, grinning at the thought. “A whole day of going where I want, when I want. Unbelievable.”

  “Where will you go first?”

  “First? Mornmeal with my family. I can’t tell you how long I’ve looked forward to that. And then . . .” He shrugged. “I think I might go to the Silverrun and sit on the bank for a few hanticks.”

  “That sounds delightful.”

  “You could come with me.”

  “I—” She had been about to say she couldn’t; there was too much to do. But this was her brother, newly returned from prison. “I could use a break, come to think of it. It’s been a hard few ninedays.”

  “So I’ve heard.” He turned to face her, one arm braced on the railing. “I also heard you accepted Rahel Sayana’s oath a few days ago. For real this time.”

  “I did,” she said warily.

  “She’s the reason I got an early release.”

  “What did she have to do with that?”

  He looked down, rubbing his other hand along his thigh. “I want to tell you something, but you have to promise not to get angry.”

  “Herot—” She stopped at his pleading look, though he would not say the words. “I cannot promise that. But I promise to listen.”

  “And not interrupt?”

  “When do I interrupt? It’s ill-bred.”

  His emotional signature swelled with affection. “I even missed your righteousness.”

  “That should last about a day.”

  “No,” he said solemnly. “Much longer than that. There was so much I didn’t value. So much I didn’t know how to value until it was gone. The way you tried to parent me after we lost Mother—I hated it. Then you weren’t there to parent me anymore, and I missed it. I missed you.”

  “We missed you, too. You left a hole in this family.” She plucked a bit of bark from his shoulder and crumbled it between her fingers, catching an unmistakable scent. “Where have you been that you have cinnoralis bark on your shirt?”

  “Out walking.”

  He was smiling at her with quiet delight, and she dusted off her hands in sudden awareness of her unconscious gesture. “What did you want to tell me?”

  The smile slipped, replaced by a surge of determination. “Remember when you came to talk to me about Rahel? And asked me not to file charges?”

  “Of course.”

  “I said yes, but after you left and I was alone again, I got angry.” He held up a hand. “You promised not to interrupt.”

  She pressed her lips together and nodded, dreading where this would lead.

  “It hurt. I was in prison, and it felt like you left me there while you were trying to help her. She kidnapped me. Sure, she never raised a hand to me, but she also didn’t step in and stop the others. And you wanted to save her. All I could think was, why weren’t you saving me? Goddess above, I was jealous of her.”

  He turned again, setting both arms on the railing and watching the thin wisps of moonlit clouds drift over the mountaintops. “But then I realized. You did try to save me. You tried for moons, and I never listened. I was angry with you for trying. I ruined everything and almost got you killed.”

  In twenty-one moons, Herot had never spoken openly of that terrible time. Salomen kept silent, listening with what she hoped was a nonjudgmental expression.

  “You can’t stop yourself, can you? You saw someone else in trouble, and you couldn’t walk away. The way you talked about her—I wished you’d talk about me that way. But I lost my chance. And I thought maybe I could fix it, somehow, by giving you what you asked for. So when those forms came, I signed them.”

  “Herot,” she murmured.

  “Let me finish.”

  Silently, she rested her hand atop his wrist. Though he did not look, his hand covered hers.

  “I told my counselor about it. How it was so unfair that I was in prison and she was going to walk away free. He said, if it was that unfair, why did I enable it? I said because you asked me to. He told me to look deeper. I spent a nineday thinking about it, and when I went back for my next session, I had an answer.”

  His grip tightened, affection pouring through their skin contact.

  “I told him I couldn’t let you fail a second time. You failed with me, and you were trying again with her. You needed to save her.”

  She leaned her head against his shoulder. There was no longer any danger of interrupting; she was speechless at this revelation.

  “Yesterday, when the administrator told me I was being released, she gave me a letter. It’s in my bag right now. It’s a recommendation for early release from my counselor. He listed that session as the moment when I was put on the release track. He said I had committed a selfless act, that I was learning to empathize and think beyond my own interests. There were a number of other events along the way, but that was the start.”

  Salomen listened to the leafthrum call twice before speaking. “I’m not interrupting now, am I?”

  “No.”

  She turned her head and waited until he met her eyes. “You said Rahel was the reason you were given an early release. That’s not true. You did it, Herot. She was only an agent of change. You made the choice.”

  “It was the right choice, wasn’t it?” He smiled, happy and hopeful, and she blinked away her tears.

  “It was. I’m proud of you. Why did you think I’d be angry?”

  “I never told you the real reason I signed. Or that I was such a dokker’s ass at first. Seven moons in prison by then, and I still hadn’t learned a damn thing.”

  “I disagree. You just proved how much you had learned. You simply didn’t know how to recognize it then.”

  He craned his neck, looking up at the stars. “I’m still jealous of her. Just not for the same reasons. You tried to help me, and I turned my back and made a miserable mess of my life. She was so much smarter. She took your help, and look where she is now. Up there, doing extraordinary things. And you love her.”

  “She’s easy to love.” Salomen would not apologize for the most hard-earned friendship of her life.

  “I’m not,” he said without a trace of self-pity. “But I’m hoping you still do.”

  “You know I do.”

  He stared at their hands, the truth of skin contact making her statement incontrovertible. “You’ll come with me to the Silverrun tomorrow?”

  “With a picnic,” she agreed. “We have a pile of leftovers in our cooling unit.”

  “We’ll have to pack some of the mallowfish. Those were delicious. And a bottle of the spirits you were serving. I wish it were high summer,” he added wistfully. “I’d love to go swimming at the waterfall.”

  She scoffed. “Did prison make you soft? Who cares if the water is cold? It only hurts until you can breathe again. I’m going swimming.”

  He grinned, a flash of the old Herot showing through. “I bet you can’t go in without shrieking.”

  “I bet I go in faster than you.”