Chapter Two — The Pulse

The commander's mouth opened, then closed, then opened again. He looked like a fish that had just been handed a resignation letter.

Kaelen watched, through the window, as a pale gold ponytail bobbed past the commander's shoulder and into the cell. No hazmat suit. No visor. No trembling hands. The woman righted a toppled succulent — knocked over by yesterday's evacuation, which no one had dared fix — settled it back into its spot, dusted her hands, and looked up at him with a small smile.

"Good morning, Mr. Vesso. I'm your new attending healer. Laila Thorne."

Kaelen stared at her for a long, long time. Long enough that the commander behind her began soundlessly mouthing should we sound the second alarm?

"I've gone through eleven attending healers," he said. His voice came out low, like sandpaper on ice. "Average survival time: two weeks."

"Then congratulations." Laila flipped open her clipboard. "You're about to set a record."

Kaelen: "…"

The commander: "…?"

In the control room, no one was breathing.

"Sir," the junior analyst whispered, staring at the feed where a young woman in a linen shirt was reading a soil-moisture meter in the Dark-Eyed Child's cell, "she's — she's just — she's watering his plant."

Commander Reyes, who had not slept through a single night of the past four years without checking the 7-Ω feed, watched the screen with the expression of a man watching a mouse stroll into a lion's cage and offer it a manicure.

"She touched him," someone said, faintly. "She's TOUCHING him. His wrist. Sir, she touched his —"

"I can see, Petrov."

"— and he didn't do anything. He's just standing there. Sir, his ears are red."

On the feed, the most feared being in Eria was now stammering, "I am not — I don't have — I'm not socially anxious," while a woman with a clipboard wrote something in a column labeled emotional state.

The junior analyst updated his chart. Under days survived, he wrote: seven and counting.

Reyes put his head in his hands. "We are all going to need therapy."

She actually started working. Temperature. Psychic fluctuation readings. A check of the soil moisture in the potted plant on the sill — she even watered it, and said to it, in all seriousness, "You look better than the rumors."

Kaelen stood three feet away, rigid, having absolutely no idea how to handle a person. Especially when she reached out and took his wrist to check his pulse.

The instant her fingers touched his skin, his pupils blew wide.

The darkness that had crouched inside him for twenty-four years — went quiet.

Like a beast that had paced its cage for a lifetime, someone had stroked the ridge of its spine, and it made a low, contented sound, and lay down. Seventeen years he'd carried the void, since the night he was seven, and it had never once been still. It surged with every lonely hour, every swallowed rage, every night spent eating itself alive.

Now it was asleep.

Kaelen's fingers were shaking. He stared down at the woman calmly studying her clipboard and had one clear, terrible thought:

Who are you?

"Your pulse is racing." Laila looked up, amber eyes curving. "Nervous?"

"…No."

"Liar." She flipped a page, utterly unbothered. "Your ears are red."

Kaelen: "!"

"Tall, dark, and socially anxious." She wrote something in the emotional state column, pen scratching. "Relax. I've met patients scarier than you. You're a mild case. We'll fix it."

The commander had gone fully catatonic. He was watching the fabled Dark-Eyed Child — the one whose glare was supposed to unmake worlds — stand there with red ears and produce, after a long silence, the single least threatening sentence of his entire life:

"…I am not — I don't have — I'm not socially anxious."

"Mhm." Laila nodded distractedly. "You're just a man who can spin a puzzle cube under forty-seven cameras but stutters when someone takes his pulse. Medically speaking —"

"Stop talking."

"Yes, Mr. Vesso."

She ducked her head to hide the smile. On the sill, the succulent and the dying plant sat side by side. Sunlight fell through the window and landed in her pale gold hair.

At the threshold she paused and glanced back at the sill. "That plant," she said. "I'll water it for you from now on."

Kaelen said nothing. Then, just as she was turning away, he spoke — so low the air conditioning almost ate it:

"…You're not afraid of me?"

Laila stood in the doorway, backlit, and looked over her shoulder.

"Afraid of what?" She nodded at the succulent. "You righted a plant for me."

She left. The door closed. The cell went quiet. Forty-seven cameras turned back to him.

Kaelen Vesso stood perfectly still for a long time, until his heartbeat finally steadied. Then he looked down at his own shaking fingertips.

For the first time in twenty-four years, the darkness inside me went to sleep.

And the thing that terrified him more than that — was how much he wanted it to stay asleep.

I'm not afraid of the dark. I'm afraid that I want to be near her.

He looked out at the clean sky. Not one bird. Three thousand four hundred and thirteen birds, and none of them had ever landed.

But for the first time in his life, he thought maybe — maybe — one might.