Flux

way to remove the collar.”
    Ennek nodded again. “All right. You’re a wise man, Mine.”
    Miner laughed. “Me? I couldn’t even read when you found me, remember? I was never anything but a very mediocre Guard.”
    “You are hardly mediocre, and I didn’t say you were educated, I said you were wise.”
    “Wise enough to fall in love with the Chief’s son and destroy myself?”
    “You couldn’t help it. The heart wants what it does, and you have a big heart.”
    Miner knew he could have helped it. Could have kept himself from acting on his feelings, in any case. But he didn’t say so. Instead he adjusted the bag behind him and stretched out his legs so that his bare feet were resting against Ennek’s. Even that bit of contact was lovely.

Chapter Fifteen
    h

    M iner wished he had his drawing things. A pencil would have been nice, but paints would have been even better. He wanted to capture the way Ennek looked as he steered their little stolen boat. Ennek’s shirt was still torn from his misadventures in Donghe. Miner could see the scar on Ennek’s stomach, which now looked as if it had been there for years. Ennek’s curls were wild again and his eyes were squinting in the bright sun, but he had a broad grin on his face and his movements were sure and easy. He was quite literally in his element. Miner wondered if, even had he the proper materials, he would have the skill to accurately show how breathtaking Ennek was.
    When the sun set, Ennek furled the sail and squished down on the bottom of the boat beside Miner. He prepared them some more drinking water and they sat there and nibbled on their hard and chewy rations. However modest their meal, it certainly felt good to Miner to have the aching emptiness in his belly chased away.
    Their dinner completed, they lay down using the bag and Miner’s sweater as a pillow, and Ennek pulled the blanket up over them.
    “Are you sure it’s safe for us to just…drift like this?” Miner asked, his lips inches from Ennek’s ear.
    “Safe as in a mother’s arms. I can navigate by the stars, you know, so we wouldn’t get lost. We’re not that far from land anyway. And if I want, I can always have the water carry us wherever we choose. I’d rather not use my magic just now and I like steering the ordinary way, but one way or the other, I’ll get us there.”
    “I know you will.”
    Ennek wiggled around so that he was facing Miner. In the pale moonlight Miner could make out little more than his lover’s white teeth and shining eyes. “You always have such faith in me, Mine. Why?”
    Miner had to think about that. How could he explain why he believed in Ennek? It was an instinct more than anything, backed up by the fact that Ennek had rescued him several times already under impossible circumstances. He threaded his fingers through Ennek’s hair. “I thought about you, you know. Well, as much as I could think while I was in Stasis. It was really more just flashes, like when lightning lets you see into a dark night for a split second. For very brief moments I’d gather my thoughts enough to be something other than simply terrified, and I’d remember you. I didn’t know your name. You were just a boy with big eyes and untamed hair who…who looked at me as if I were a person.”
    Ennek blinked at him. “That’s horrible.”
    “Of course it was horrible. It was meant to be. But you were my one tiny crumb of comfort. Not because I expected you to bring me out from Under—I couldn’t have mustered such a complicated expectation anyway. But just your existence, that was something, just that you had looked at me kindly.”
    “Kindly? I was scared to death!”
    “Of course you were. You were only a child and it was a scary place. I must have looked—”
    “You looked ethereal.” Ennek sighed. “I dreamt about you, but I never quite remembered those dreams. Not until I grew up. Not even then—it took me almost two decades to find my way back down to you.”
    “But you did. And that’s one of the reasons I have faith in you.”
    Ennek seemed satisfied with that answer, if not convinced of the truth behind it. He sighed again and the boat rocked them gently through the night.

    ***

    The beach where they had initially come ashore looked exactly as they had left it. In fact, the jollyboat was still where Miner had dragged it up past high tide. Miner and Ennek greeted the plain little craft like an old friend. It had saved them both and provided them