After a while, they fell silent. They no longer needed to talk and kiss in every moment; not now when their time was not stolen, when they knew they could fall asleep and wake up together, night after night, day after day.
Juliet thought of those nights and those days, and she thought of what would come after. At last she sighed, and came to a decision.
“There is something I must tell you,” she said.
Romeo waited, his dark eyes attentive, and she loved him more than ever.
“When I bargained with Death, she said I could have you back. But there was a condition: that you would die before the hair was white on my head. She swore that no power in the world could change that fate. I brought you back anyway, but I—I thought you should know.”
“Is that all?” he asked her, after a moment.
“All?” she echoed.
He smiled faintly. “Didn’t we always know that you were stronger?”
It wasn’t a matter of strength, she wanted to tell him. And in all the ways that were not to do with swords, he was already stronger. He had loved her when she was nothing but the weapon of his enemies, and that was a grace that she never could have had.
“I’m sorry,” said Romeo. “I was selfish, and now you’re the one who has to pay, and that’s not fair.”
“It’s not fair that you’re going to die young,” she said.
He shrugged. “Keep your looks, and I could live a few decades still.”
Then gently, reverently, he touched her stomach. He said, “At least I have a chance to see our children.”
Children. A future. It was a terrifying thought. Juliet didn’t know what they were going to find on the far shore of the world that now lay empty. She didn’t know if both their clans would leave Viyara, and how they would balance the duties they both now bore. She did not even know if they could keep the peace they had bought with so much suffering.
All Juliet knew was this: she had one husband and several friends, and none of them were willing to abandon each other, or forsake their peoples yet.
“But you,” Romeo asked gently, “will you be all right? I know you’re strong enough to live without me, but . . . I can’t bear to think . . .”
His voice trailed away, but she knew what he was asking. She remembered the dry, hopeless shadow that lay on her heart, in those first days when she had thought that he was dead.
She remembered darkness and despair and the infinite, lonely dust at the heart of death.
She remembered the light singing underneath.
First she kissed him, slowly and reverently: her miracle, her Romeo, who stole her name and gave it back to her.
Then she took his hands. “Journeys end in lovers meeting,” she whispered, pressing her forehead to his. “Every wise man’s son doth know.”
Acknowledgments
By the time you’re writing acknowledgments for your fourth book, you start to feel like you’re a repetitious bore—but some people always have to be mentioned. So: Megan Lorance and Sasha Decker are the lights of my life. Hannah Bowman is a fantastic agent, and Kristin Rens is a supremely patient editor.
Bethany Powell and Rebecca Anderson are not only excellent beta readers but A+ friends. I don’t know if I could have finished this novel without them.
I also want to thank everyone who read Bright Smoke, Cold Fire, and especially every person who took the time to tell me that they loved it. Stories are meant to be heard, and your willingness to listen means the world to me.
I’ve wanted to write my own katabasis for a very long time. In constructing my land of the dead, I drew inspiration from a huge variety of sources, but I must particularly acknowledge: Dante’s Divine Comedy, “When I Watch the Living Meet” by A. E. Housman, “The Garden of Proserpine” by Algernon Charles Swinburn, The Farthest Shore by Ursula K. Le Guin, Abhorsen by Garth Nix, Passage by Connie Willis, the ballads “Thomas Rhymer” and “The Unquiet Grave,” and the legend of Savitri and Satyavan.
Finally—as always—I am forever thankful to William Shakespeare.
About the Author
Photo credit Janelle Bighinatti
ROSAMUND HODGE grew up as a homeschooler in Los Angeles, where she spent her time reading everything she could get her hands on but especially fantasy and mythology. She received a BA in English from the University of Dallas and an MSt in medieval English from Oxford. She now lives in Seattle, Washington, with seven toy cats and a plush Cthulhu. She is also the author of the New York Times bestseller Cruel Beauty; Gilded Ashes, a Cruel Beauty novella; Crimson Bound; and Bright Smoke, Cold Fire. Visit her online at www.rosamundhodge.net.
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Books by Rosamund Hodge
Cruel Beauty
Gilded Ashes: A Cruel Beauty Novella
Crimson Bound
Bright Smoke, Cold Fire
Endless Water, Starless Sky
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Copyright
Balzer + Bray is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
ENDLESS WATER, STARLESS SKY. Copyright © 2018 by Rosamund Hodge. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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Cover art by Colin Anderson
Cover design and lettering by Jenna Stempel-Lobell
* * *
Digital Edition JULY 2018 ISBN: 978-0-06-236946-8
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-236944-4
* * *
1819202122 PC/LSCH10987654321
FIRST EDITION
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Rosamund Hodge, Endless Water, Starless Sky
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