Brihdë could hardly wait to get her feet back off the ground. She tugged at the neck of her tunic, heavy with the small planet’s gravity and the weight of strangers staring at the silver sigil delicately threaded into the dark blue.

She wasn’t Burning Sigil. She wasn’t born or made or married into earths and land. She was Singing Sigil and all she wanted now was to get these re-supplies from this miserly trader and get back onto the spinning deck of her beautiful ship.

“I’ll pay you twenty-one,” she counter-offered. “No more.”

Her accent was heavy with her own native tongue, Eleici, in the dialect of space-riders, but the wrinkly man understood well enough to demand twenty-eight standard cubes of elivium. The alloy was precious, available only from her clans. She also knew how precious they were and disagreed.

“I will visit the next market.”

The old man practically growled as she gathered up her case of trade metal. It was a missed opportunity, and all he’d get from someone else would be gold.

“Twenty-four,” he ground out.

She looked up, twitched an eyebrow.

“These are the finest quality,” the trader reminded her, with a slight return of the wheedle he’d sold her on coming over to his stand in the first place.

“Twenty-three and I’ll deal,” she told him.

He slapped his hand on the table. They dealt.

Ayevi, she wanted off the planet. Brihdë hefted her load in an anti-grav bag and shoved through the crowded market toward the small-ship landing pads. The market had built a three-story garage for them years ago, and she had to duck through a small doorway to reach the ramp heading toward the scout ship.

And there he was, leaning against the hull, small smile on his face, gaze fixed on hers from the moment their eyes met.

She’d met Yaden early into her window; he’d been with mixed company for three years and almost out of the safe period for bonding before she’d come along to learn mechanical medicine alongside him. Now, Brihdë couldn’t imagine being without his laugh, his hammering tools and clever fingers, the way he looked at her like there was nowhere else he’d rather be. She’d left the space station and orbit for him. She’d left the Turning Sigil of her birth and taken to the stars to where the space ships sang.

“Hey.” She dropped the supply bag next to the small hatch and bent over to work it open.

Yaden waited until she was finished loading it in before he caught her fingers in his and drew her close. She felt the threads of trust and love between them thicken and intensify, felt her Talent stir as his strength let her use the ability to sense electrical energy around them and manipulate it. She leaned her head against his and just felt him for a long moment.

The Eleici. The ones with special Talents who had to bond with someone else in order to use them. The clans of the Singing, Turning, and Burning Sigils. The ones whose love created a bond whether they wanted it or not.

She wanted it.

She pulled out of his arms only reluctantly and tugged him along behind her into the ship, unwilling to release his hand. He was her heart, beating outside of her body. She had no intention of ever letting him go.

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