Epilogue
EVERYONE IN HANNA CITY ASSUMED THE TEENAGE BOY AND THE WOMAN WERE BROTHER AND SISTER. Although she was significantly older, they both carried themselves with the same hard-won grace, as if they’d both come through the same fire together. Something in their manner was humble, almost common, and when they traveled, as they did endlessly now, they had little trouble avoiding any difficulties with the Imperials.
The morning that they arrived on Chandrila, they spent hours walking through the planet’s rolling hills, along the shore of Lake Sah’ot. The air here was cool and almost supernaturally clear, crisp enough that they could smell the lush green land far in the distance. It was the kind of place that Trig Longo could imagine settling down in someday, and when he said that to Zahara Cody, she just smiled.
Along the eastern shore they came across a small community of local people, fishermen and farmers. They knew of the family that Zahara asked about, and it wasn’t hard to find the small ranch a kilometer away, perched at the edge of a pasture overlooking the water. When they got there, she approached the door and knocked.
The woman who answered was darkly beautiful, haunted and haunting at the same time, her eyes deeper than space. At her feet, three young children clung to the hem of her frock, gazing fearfully at the two strangers on her doorstep.
“Yes?” she said. “May I help you?”
“Are you Kai?” Zahara asked.
“Yes, that’s right.”
“My name’s Zahara Cody. I worked with your husband aboard the Prison Barge Purge.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand.” The woman stared at them nervously. “I already spoke to the Empire about this.”
“We’re not here as representatives of the Empire,” Trig said.
The woman didn’t say anything, but her look of wariness grew deeper.
“Your husband had something he meant to pass on to you,” Zahara said. “I just wanted to make sure that you got it.” Reaching into her pocket, she handed the woman a single tattered sheet of flimsi.
The children all gathered closer, craning their necks to watch as Kai opened it up. The smallest of them, too young to read, looked at up his mother. “What is it, Mommy?”
The woman didn’t answer for a long time. Her eyes moved back and forth across the page, and Trig saw tears glimmering there, rising up and spilling over. Then she looked back up at Zahara.
“Thank you.”
Zahara and Trig waited while she read it silently to herself a second time. By the time she finished, the tears were running down her cheeks. She didn’t bother wiping them away, and the oldest child had slipped his arm around her, as if he could somehow protect her from her own sadness.
“Thank you for this,” she said. “Would you … would you like to come inside? I was just making some tea.”
“That sounds good,” Zahara said, and she and Trig stepped inside to the clamor of children and the smell of tea.