Cress (The Lunar Chronicles #3) - Marissa Meyer Page 0,54

as a cane. Cress tried her best to mimic the way he’d covered himself before confirming that it was. “Good. Your skin is going to crisp up like bacon soon enough. This will help for a little while at least.”

She fidgeted with the cumbersome sheet while trying to guide Thorne up the slope they’d camped on. She was still exhausted and half numb from walking. Every limb throbbed.

They hadn’t traversed four dunes before Cress stumbled, landing on her knees. Thorne dug his heels into the ground for purchase. “Cress?”

“I’m fine,” she said, pulling herself up and rubbing the sand from her shins. “Just a little drained. I’m not used to all this exercise.”

Thorne’s hands were hanging in midair, like he’d meant to help pull her to her feet, but she noticed it too late. Slowly, they sank to his sides. “Can you keep going?”

“Yes. I just need to get into a rhythm again.” She hoped it was true and that her legs wouldn’t be loose cables all day long.

“We’ll walk until it gets too hot, then rest. We don’t want to exert ourselves too much, especially under full sun.”

Cress started down the dune again, counting their steps to bide the time.

Ten steps.

Twenty-five.

Fifty.

The sand grew hot, singeing the soles of her feet through the towels. The sun climbed.

Her imagination circled through her favorite fantasies, anything to keep herself distracted. She was a shipwrecked pirate from the second era. She was an athlete training for a cross-country journey. She was an android, who had no sense of exhaustion, who could march on and on and on.…

But the dreams became more and more fleeting, reality pushing them aside with pain and discomfort and thirst.

She began to hope that Thorne would let them stop and relax, but he didn’t. They trudged on. Thorne was right about the sheets, which kept the merciless sun from scorching her, and she became grateful for the dampness of her own sweat keeping her cool. She began counting again as sweat dripped down the backs of her knees, and though she felt awful for thinking it, part of her was glad Thorne couldn’t see her in this state.

Not that he was immune to the trials of the desert. His face was red, his hair messed from rubbing against his makeshift hood, and dirt streaked down his cheeks where there was a shadow of facial hair.

As it grew hotter, Thorne encouraged Cress to finish off the water they’d opened in the morning, which she drank with relish, only afterward realizing that Thorne hadn’t taken any for himself. She was still thirsty, but the day was stretching on in front of them and they had only one more bottle. Though Thorne had told her they shouldn’t ration it, she couldn’t bring herself to ask for more if he wasn’t drinking also.

She began to sing to herself to pass the time, humming all the pretty songs she could recall from her music collection on the satellite. She let the familiar melodies distract her. Walking became easier for a time.

“That one’s pretty.”

She paused, and it took a moment for her to realize Thorne was talking about the song she was singing, and it took another moment for her to remember which one it had been. “Thank you,” she said uncertainly. She’d never sang in front of anyone—never been complimented on it. “It’s a popular lullaby on Luna. I used to think that I’d been named for it, before I realized what a common name ‘Crescent’ is.” She sang through the first verse again. “Sweet crescent moon, up in the sky. You sing your song so sweetly after sunshine passes by.…”

When she glanced back at Thorne, he had a faint smile on his lips. “Your mom sang you a lot of lullabies?”

“Oh, no. They can tell you’re a shell right when you’re born, so I was only a few days when my parents gave me up to be killed. I don’t remember them at all.”

His smile disappeared, and after a long silence, he said, “You probably shouldn’t be singing, now that I think of it. You’ll lose moisture through your mouth.”

“Oh.” Pressing her lips tight together, Cress placed her fingertips against Thorne’s arm, the signal that had come to mean they were starting down a slope, and slogged on. Her skin had been scraped raw by the heat, despite the shelter of her makeshift robe, but she was propelled on by the thought that it was nearly midday. And while midday would bring about