Chapter 27
TWENTY-SEVEN
CYAN
Elaina’s dark hair was damp when she opened the cabin door the next evening, her smile a little more formal than he’d been used to as she motioned for him to enter.
Cyan stepped inside, clearing his throat. “So… Priad’s back in my cabin. Didn’t think it was fair to drag him along while we talk.”
Elaina raised an eyebrow. “And you thought you were ready to be dragged along?”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“I know.” Her smile softened as she motioned him to the small sofa in the corner. His cabin didn’t have one of those. Didn’t even have space for one.
He looked around, taking in the simple but cozy furnishings, and the considerably larger bed. “Your cabin’s fancier than mine.”
“Perks of patching the station and all. You pull enough all-nighters, they get you a fancy cabin.”
“Do you do many of those? All-nighters?”
“Did one last night actually,” Elaina yawned into her fist. “But the critical stuff’s pretty stable now, I think. I got the okay to sleep in at least, unless there’s an emergency. ”
She sat on the far end of the sofa.
Cyan sighed and took a seat on the other end, giving her the space she clearly wanted. He removed the sword from his hip and splayed it across his lap.
“I’m sorry about earlier. I didn’t mean to disappear on you like that.” How much could he tell her that wouldn’t just sound like an excuse? “This thing does something to my perception of time. I’ll think an hour has passed, but it’s really been half the day. It’s not an excuse, I know. But it’s… an explanation.”
It wasn’t the whole story, of course, and she deserved one. But if he told her the truth, he might lose her forever. And he wasn’t ready for that just yet.
“The sword muddies your sense of time?” She frowned.
It’s still true.
“I get wrapped up in what I’m doing and the next thing I know I’ve dropped off the grid without realizing it.”
“So you’re temporal glitched,” she said matter-of-factly.
“I’m what?”
“We say that when someone is prone to losing track of time. Something about your internal chronometer being a bit off-axis and prioritizing other things.” She shrugged. His brow furrowed at her clinical description of what he knew was hurting her.
Elaina pursed her lips, chewing the inside of her cheek as she looked down at the blade in his lap.
“I just need to know where I stand,” she said finally, uncertainty and a hard-earned resolve in her eyes. “I don’t need pretty songs if I’m just going to get radio silence the next sol. It’s confusing. And I hate being confused.”
“I know you do. Thank you for telling me before you begin to drift away.”
The look in her eyes told him maybe she had already drifted. And he realized he wasn’t ready to let that happen. What had he been so worried about anyway? Why couldn’t it all work out? In that moment, with her there in front of him, all the problems in his head had begun to seem so trivial.
“I care about you, Elaina,” he said. “I want to know you. A part of me feels like I’ve known you for a thousand years, and… and I want to see where this goes.”
Her expression softened, something in his words breaking through, thank fucking gods. “I want to know you too. So tell me more about that sword. You never finished yesterday. You said you found it in that big forest, and you said it wanted to show you something, but then…”
“We got distracted,” Cyan smiled. “I remember.”
He enjoyed the hint of a blush that colored her cheeks. He wanted her closer, but sensed she may not be ready for that yet.
“The sword is ancient,” Cyan said. “Older than I am. Probably older than Gaia itself, though at some point it must have been forged by someone. I’m bound to it. My job is to keep the balance.”
“The balance?” Elaina asked, leaning forward.
“Order. The sword makes sure I know where I need to be, what I need to do, but it’s… vague. Only a calling that I cannot logically decipher. Sometimes I don’t even know why I’m being called somewhere until I’m already in the middle of it.”
“So when you say you’re bound to it…”
“I mean it chose me. I don’t know why. I don’t know if I was supposed to be chosen or if it was just chance that I stumbled across it in those woods. But I’ve been carrying this responsibility for a long time, and I do not know when it will let me go. I feel it may be when I…” He hesitated.
“When what?” Her voice was barely a whisper .
He didn’t want to make things awkward, or plant a seed in her mind that may never get a chance to grow.
“When I find a home.” That was the crux of it anyway.
He’d said the words before, to others. Several others. Maybe it was different this time. He glanced at Elaina. She felt like something he could possibly hold on to. Maybe he wanted to try.
“Can I?” She had moved closer, her hand outstretched toward the blade in his lap. She looked up at him for permission.
He took her hand in his and guided it gently to the flat of the blade. When he pressed her palm to the cool surface, it sent a flash of heat through him that made him flinch.
Cyan blinked, staring down at their hands. Had she felt that too? He couldn’t tell by the look on her face. Some things the sword revealed only to him.
The sword hummed faintly under her touch. His breath hitched as bright crimson luminescence trailed along the vein beneath her fingers.
“That vein,” Cyan said to her. “I see it glowing. I suppose you don’t.”
Elaina narrowed her eyes and leaned forward, but shook her head. “No, I don’t see it.”
“I promise it is there.”
“I don’t doubt it,” she said matter-of-factly. Cyan exhaled.
“I should tell you something else,” he said, pulling out his dataslate with his free hand. “Earlier, I found something suspicious in the transport logs.”
“What kind of suspicious?”
“Missing data. One minute it was there, the next an entry for a logged craft arrival had disappeared.”
Elaina perked up, glancing at the screen. “Let’s take a look.”