That evening, Ferral took Lethia out to eat.
Despite its apparent emptiness, people still lived in Reefedge. They were trying to pick up the pieces of their wrecked lives, and running their businesses was one way of doing that.
Lethia and Ferral had their choice of the outdoor dining tables. They selected one at the edge of the shaded veranda, where they could see across the town to the mountains beyond, where the sun was setting behind the atmospheric mists.
"Today was a beginning," Ferral told her. "Everyone I talked to was interested in negotiating for buying out a business. It's going to take months, though. Thank the Light for Delsaran. He tells me what to do so I don't come off as a complete idiot."
"Months," Lethia mused. "Do you ever worry about the Vanguard coming after you? Medical leave doesn't last forever. I'm not stationed here forever, either."
Ferral toyed with his fork for a long moment. "I've been thinking about that. Once the dust settles, I want to open the compound to Guardians as a base of operations. Give them one friendly spot out here in the Reef. We'd need to be permanently stationed here."
Lethia's blue-green eyes brightened. "That's a good idea! As much blood as we've shed out here, I think the Vanguard has earned a foothold in the Reef." She smiled mischievously. "Do you want me to handle the negotiations?"
Ferral laughed. It was easier to laugh, ever since she had attacked the Dark thing tormenting him. The crushing sadness had lightened, if not completely vanished.
"Go right ahead," he told her.
They watched the sun paint the misty sky in fiery bands of orange and magenta. The many small moons of the asteroid field began to shine in the darkening sky.
The pair paid for their meal and walked back to the compound, taking a roundabout route. Ferral took Lethia to one of his favorite overlooks. A short, steep climb up a rocky hillside soon gave way to a small, flat summit overlooking the city and the forests beyond. In the twilight, the trees were a mysterious violet, with clouds lapping them, like the sea.
The Guardians sat on the rock and let their ghosts out to enjoy the view.
"Reminds me of the ocean," Banner said dreamily. "The ocean on a fine evening in late summer."
"But quieter," Niki said. "There's no gulls."
Lethia leaned against Ferral and put an arm around his waist. His arm encircled her, and they sat there together, watching the dusk slowly turn to night.
Ferral said quietly, "Have you thought about ... you know ... the standing proposal?"
"Yes," Lethia whispered. "Often."
"Do you have an answer, yet?" Ferral's heart beat faster.
Lethia didn't answer for a while. She rubbed his back and gazed at the brilliant stars and tiny moons.
"I want to marry you," she said at last. "I just don't know if there's any officials left who can perform the ceremony."
His arm tightened around her in relief. "I know of one. I'm just happy you didn't turn me down cold. I did leave you that option. I'm not exactly in the best health at this point."
"You'll recover," she said, sitting up and looking into his face. Her eyes glowed brilliantly in the darkness. "Niki said, back when I first found you, that I might as well marry you, because I'd be taking care of you for years. And he was so right."
Ferral grinned at Niki, who looked bashful.
"Well," Ferral said, "I wanted to add that this relationship isn't one way. I'm going to take care of you, too, Leth. You never complain, even when you're working yourself to death. I'll make sure you rest. And ... I'll do my best to make you happy."
Her glowing eyes illuminated her sudden tears. She bit her lip and looked down. "This," she choked. "This is why I have to marry you. You're so kind to me, even when I treated you like scum. I'll be making it up to you the rest of my life."
He drew her close and kissed her cheek. Her words touched that unhealed wound inside him - the Dasa part, where he was snubbed and disrespected by the remnants of his family.
"Nobody ever wanted me before," he murmured. "I've been reading my father and brothers' documents. I was the oldest son, but ... somehow, I was a disappointment. When I ran off to work under the Prince, they were glad to see me go. Now I'm a Guardian, they wanted me even less. And ... they're gone. The only reason Delsaran brought me here was for legal reasons. Nobody values me as a person. I'm just a thing. A tool. Or a weapon. You and Banner are the only ones who care."
Lethia stroked his cheek, her eyes teary, yet burning like the Light, itself. "Ferral. You and Niki have the same problem. You want to be wanted."
Niki glanced at them self-consciously.
"Maybe he's right," Ferral murmured. "He just wants to be loved. Look how much love he's given you in return."
"I've had to learn how to return love," Lethia said, stroking Niki with a fingertip. "It's not easy."
They sat in silence for a while, watching the clouds drift across the stars.
Lethia said, "I was thinking. You know, I followed the Dasa gossip for years. Crushing on the Dasa boys was part of Reefedge culture. Do you know why they didn't like you?"
He hadn't expected her to know anything about him. A little dread shivered through him.
"Because," she went on, "you told them the truth: that they were a bunch of greedy assholes who were strangling the Reef's development. I wasn't sure if that was you, or another son, back then. But as far as I can figure out, only one son was estranged and left the clan. And that was you."
Ferral gazed at the stone beneath them. Even in his past life, he had tried to do the right thing. And it had bitten him in the butt then, too.
"Ban," he said to his ghost, "did you know that when you resurrected me?"
"No," Banner replied. "But I saw your spark, all full of kindness and humor. And you've been the best Guardian a ghost could ever want. I don't need to know your past to understand that you're a good man."
Ferral didn't know how to reply to that. Instead, he patted Banner's shell, and hugged Lethia against his side.
"You'll have a new family from now on," Lethia told him. "One that values you for you."
He kissed her forehead. "And you're the cornerstone of that family, Leth."
They sat there a little longer, holding each other, basking in the glow of mutual happiness and contentment. A deep relief pervaded Ferral's being. He'd had the fear, however small, that Lethia might break their engagement. As her letters had arrived, he'd hesitated before opening each one, nervous that this might be the last. Even now, he could hardly believe that she really did love him.
For the first time in either of his lives, someone beside his ghost valued him as a person. He still barely believed it. But it had awoken in him a deep desire to care for this woman, cherish her, and protect her. Sitting there with his arm around her, Ferral felt a fierceness inside him he'd never noticed before. If she valued him, he prized her. Nothing in the universe was more precious to him than Lethia, except maybe Banner.
After a while, they picked their way down the hill in the dark, their ghosts lighting the way, and walked back to the compound.
The two Fallen guards had shadowed them the whole way, and accompanied them in the walk in.
"This is Yarniks and Creviks," Lethia told Ferral. "We talked earlier."
Ferral glanced at the aliens, then at Lethia, trying to hide his surprise. "You did?"
"I speak Eliksni," she said.
This simple statement flabbergasted Ferral. A Guardian who spoke Eliksni? He couldn't grasp it. "How?" he stammered.
"There were a lot of little ones around when I was a kid," Lethia said, as if this was commonplace. "We all played together, and we didn't think it was weird until years later. I don't know if I could ever fight Eliksni from the House of Wolves. Too many good memories."
She was aware of the guards signing to each other behind them. She glanced back and caught the words, "... Reefedge, this is truth."
She smiled and pretended to ignore them.
Ferral gave her a look of respect. "You keep finding new ways to be amazing."
Lethia squeezed his hand in response, beaming.
Awoken marriage customs were simple and logical. The couple registered with their local territory overseer. He walked them through the covenant oath they swore to each other. Then they signed a legal contract that they would remain exclusive and loyal to each other until death freed one or both of them.
As they left the law building, Ferral remarked, "I never knew it was that easy to get married."
"Neither did I," Lethia laughed. "Since we're Guardians, we'll be together a long time. I wonder what the record is?"
"The Traveler's been around for seven hundred years," Ferral pointed out. "So somewhere around there."
Lethia held his hand as they walked back to where they had left their sparrows, at the foot of a little rocky hill. Happiness swirled through her, and a little nervousness at how quickly her life had changed. Niki's spark purred to hers from phase, joyful and contented. Of all things - she had married one of the dreamy Dasa boys. Her friends were all dead or Taken, and she had nobody to brag to. It was a lonely feeling.
On the other hand, she had Ferral, now. She could kiss him freely and sleep with him without guilt. She'd help him with business, see the Reef rebuilt, and maybe ... maybe even have children of their own, assuming Guardians could reproduce. Her cheeks grew warm at the thought.
"Race you home," Ferral said, mounting his sparrow.
"You're on," Lethia laughed, climbing aboard her own. "My sparrow has better acceleration and - "
A rifle cracked from the trees uphill.
A bullet hit Lethia in the side, under the arm. The impact jolted her sideways. Pain exploded through her. The air left her lungs in a sharp cry.
She fell off her sparrow and hit the ground. What was happening? Who had shot her? Then the pain submerged all thought.
The Eliksni bodyguards sprang out of their semi-concealed positions behind a tree and bounded uphill on all fours, running with animal swiftness.
Then Ferral was there, kneeling over her, his face drawn in panic. "Lethia! It was that same weapon! Niki, get her up!"
Lethia wanted to reply that she'd had worse, that being shot was normal for Guardians. But the nightmare pain went on and on. The breath rattled in her chest. Blackness encroached at the corners of her vision. Niki's healing Light swept her again and again, but it barely touched the wound.
Banner appeared beside Ferral and added his Light to Niki's.
"Pull the projectile out," Niki exclaimed. "It's blocking our Light."
Lethia looked down. Amid the bloody remains of her shirt, a black spike protruded from her side. Ferral grasped it and pulled it out. Six inches of it emerged, gleaming black, like a vicious thorn.
At once, the ghosts healed her, mending the damaged bones and organs. Lethia sat up, drawing deep breaths into her repaired lungs. "I'm up," she gasped to Ferral. "I'm all right. I'm up."
He rose to his feet, teeth bared. "Banner, transmat my rifle."
The weapon appeared in his hands in a shimmer of Light.
"You're not wearing any armor," Lethia panted.
Ferral's attention was focused on the trees up the hill, teeth clenched. "That won't matter in a minute."
"Niki," Lethia thought. "My auto rifle, please."
As Ferral charged up the hill, Lethia received her rifle and followed him.
"Guardian," Niki said in her head. "I feel ... really strange."
Lethia did, too. The hill was so steep, she had trouble bending her knees properly. Her rifle grew heavier and heavier. She slowed to a walk, still gasping for breath. Her Void Light felt so small and weak inside her. She grasped at it, trying to build it back up. She should be furious, blazing with Light, ready to kill her attacker.
Instead, she felt cold, sad, slow. The wound was gone, but the same poison that had sickened Ferral now crawled through her.
"Niki," she thought, "is it Darkness?"
"I think it is," he replied. "It's making me ... so sleepy ..."
Lethia's feet stumbled to a halt. She simply sat on the hillside, using her rifle as a crutch, struggling against the growing sad cloud that was overshadowing her Light.
Gunshots rang out in the trees above her. Two, three, five reports. Then silence.
A moment later, footsteps crunched in the grass behind her. "He escaped," Ferral said. He sat down beside her, teeth clenched, his yellow eyes burning like a cat's. "The bastard had a vehicle. He was gone before we got there."
"What did the Eliksni find out?" Lethia forced herself to say. Forming words was tiring.
Ferral frowned. "They missed, too."
"They track by feel," Lethia said. "I asked them to identify the attacker if they came around. I guess it doesn't matter, now."
He took her hand and studied her face. "It's the same, isn't it? The depression. And you know it's not you."
Lethia knew what he meant. The sadness was not hers. She was glad Ferral was unhurt, and, somewhere, furious about being shot on her wedding day. But the sadness came from elsewhere and sat on her emotions like a blanket. She hated it.
Suddenly, Ferral said, "What's it doing to your ghost?"
She hadn't noticed Niki floating at her shoulder. He gradually dipped lower and lower until he dropped into the grass beside her, his eye full of static. She picked him up. "Niki?"
"Sleepy," he said, his voice heavily modulated.
Ferral groaned. "You're both Void-locked. You're operating on a third of the Light that I have." He cursed under his breath, running his hands through his hair. "What do I do, what do I do? You're the healer, Lethia! I'm a Hunter, I can't heal anybody. That's warlock stuff."
"I want to go home," Lethia said. It was an effort to even think it.
Ferral helped her down the hill. She didn't need his help, not physically. Her arms and legs worked fine. She mounted her sparrow and rode it back to the compound, traveling at a subdued pace that matched the sadness inside her.
All the while, the logical side of her brain chewed on the problem. Logic didn't care whether she was happy or sad. Logic despised the depression with cold hatred. Whatever that black spike had been, it had poisoned her Light. Maybe it would have let the Darkness Take her, had she been a plain Awoken. But as a Guardian, it couldn't quite strangle her the way it wanted.
But she was also Void-locked, and that was a problem. She and Niki were vulnerable to the Darkness, especially Niki. She had fed him Arc Light back on Earth, so theoretically, he should be capable of using it. But neither of them had ever touched Solar, the final Light branch.
Ferral used Void Light, too. How could she get enough Solar to save her ghost and herself?