Chapter 20 Sem
The heat radiating from her body was terrifying, but it kept me warm, her arms wrapped loosely around my neck like a thermal scarf.
“Put me down.” Her voice was a frail rasp. “I can walk.”
“I know you can. But you need to conserve your energy.” In truth, I didn’t think she could walk. She could barely keep her eyes open. “It’s okay. I’ve got you.”
I’d walked for what felt like hours already, thankful for the relatively low gravity on this rock.
Even so, my back and knees screamed with each step.
I’d have to stop soon, find somewhere to sleep for the night, make a fire, melt some snow to drink.
We needed shelter, but all I could see for miles was the same snowy plane I’d been trudging across all afternoon.
“Is the voice still there?” I asked. “Any chance it’s telling you that we’re getting close?”
She didn’t respond. She’d finally fallen asleep.
“That’s good.” I kissed her temple, her skin burning my lips. “Sleep. I’ll get you to him. I promise.”
The sun arched over our heads, diving south as the wind rushed after it, growing colder and harsher with each step. My cheeks were scoured raw, my lips chapped and cracked, fingers cramping. Still, I walked. One foot in front of the other. Telling Elanie stories I knew she couldn’t hear.
“The first time you came to my office, I thought for a split second that I could read you.” I smiled at the memory of her calculating stare, her tightly crossed arms. “I was wrong, of course. You just have very clear body language. You wear your emotions on your sleeve. It’s one of the things I love—” I stumbled a step, narrowly catching my balance, nearly falling to my knees and taking her with me.
Regaining my footing, I said, “I know most of your expressions by now. Like the way your nose crinkles when you’re frustrated, or how your lips purse and your nostrils flare when you’re trying not to laugh.
” The sun dipped below the horizon, a shroud of night rising at our backs.
“I know you play with your hair when you’re bored.
I know that even though it’s not easy to make you laugh, when you do, there is no better sound in all the worlds. ”
There was still no shelter in sight, nowhere to hide from the freezing wind. I didn’t know what to do other than to keep walking as darkness closed in like a fist around us.
“There’s something else,” I said, relieved that the hammering in my toes had finally faded, even though I knew it meant I’d have frostbite if we didn’t find warmth soon.
“It’s never quiet in my mind unless I’m alone.
There’s always something radiating off other beings: sadness, joy, pain, envy.
It’s never just quiet. Except when I’m with you.
I’ll be honest, it scared me at first. But now, it’s such a comfort, Elanie.
It’s peaceful. I didn’t realize how good it would feel.
I didn’t know what I’d been missing.” I laughed at myself, grateful she couldn’t hear me babbling.
Then my teeth clacked together, my jaw shuddering so violently I couldn’t get another word out.
Step after grueling step, thoughts came to me.
I thought of my mother, my father, my brothers and sister.
Family I hadn’t seen in years and would likely never see again.
I thought of Freddie and Sunny and the little secret they’d been keeping, of Captain and Co-Captain Jones, the rest of the crew, all probably worried sick about us.
I thought of the woman in my arms, of wasted opportunities, of missed moments.
Regret lodged itself firmly in my chest.
I should have kissed her. Just once.
Lights never appeared out of the darkness, no fire, no shelter. No one came for us. I was fading, freezing, my blood slowing in my veins. I couldn’t go on much longer.
Knowing it was our last chance, I pulled our pulse-flare out from where I’d tucked it into my waistband, pointed it up at the stars and pulled the trigger. The flare streaked across the night sky, and I traced its path back down to the snow where it lodged itself, useless and sizzling.
“Where are you?” I shouted into the frozen, empty night, feeling my sanity slipping. “She needs you! You said you’d make her better!” My voice cracked, pain searing my throat.
Only the wind responded, howling and indifferent.
I had to keep going. Five more steps, I promised myself. Then five more after that. Five steps, five breaths. Just five. Five seconds to rest my eyes, a long blink. Five minutes to sit down, to catch my breath. Five minutes…
Only darkness remained. Only cold. Only the heavy thud of my heart, slowing, fading, letting me know that I’d failed her.
Then there was a distant crunch of snow. Growing closer. A boot stopping by my head. A deep voice, rumbling like thunder.
“You almost made it, Portisan. Just a few more kilometers, and you would have found us.”
“Where’s—” I cleared my throat, the pain so intense I saw stars. “Where’s Elanie?”
A deep chuckle, almost a growl. “Where she belongs.”
Forcing my eyes open, I looked up and up and up. Fur and leather, shoulders so broad they spanned the horizon, green skin, shrewd eyes, an amused, pitying expression. “You’re Aquilinian?”
The giant’s laughter shook the ground. “In a past life.”
“Who are you?” I asked. But then I noticed it. Silence. Not a single thought or whisp of emotion. “Bionic?”
A massive hand landed on my chest, a fist clenching my shirt. He lifted me out of the snow, hoisting me over one of those impossibly broad shoulders like I was a doll. Or a puppet.
“You may call me Golgunda.” He started walking, his steps swallowing the distance to his snowglider. “Back to sleep now, Portisan. Your journey, I’m afraid, has only just begun.”
When I was eight years old, I fell out of a velipalm tree and hit my head on a rock. While I bobbed in and out of consciousness, I was convinced that I was underwater, sinking, drifting, still able to breathe like one of the Saints.
Emerging from the depths again as sunlight filtered through the water, I felt awareness return to me in sluggish, drowsy waves.
A gentle breeze ghosting over my skin, humid, almost tropical.
Soft voices murmuring in the distance. The sharp scent of lime and coconut swirling around me, mingling with something more familiar, cinnamon and vanilla.
And when I finally breached the surface, pain. So much pain.
Every part of my body ached. My back, hips, shoulders, fingers. But the bed underneath me was soft, and there was a warm and comforting weight on my chest. Slowly, I opened my eyes, then closed them again at the sight of her. Pressure swelled behind my lids, the hot sting of tears burning my nose.
She slept nestled against me, her hair flowing like silk across my arm, her hand resting on my chest. Her skin was cool, her breathing slow and steady.
“Saints be praised,” I whispered, pulling her close despite the agony that shot through my arm, my side. I’d take it. I’d take any pain the worlds could inflict on me as long as she was safe in my arms at the end.
I burrowed my nose into her hair, breathing deep, inhaling her into my lungs, holding her there while she stirred.
“You’re awake,” she said. She tried to sit up, but I held her in place.
“Don’t move. Everything hurts.” This wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t the whole truth either.
I couldn’t let her go yet. I needed to feel her chest rising and falling.
Needed the length of her body molded to mine just a little bit longer.
When she settled against me, the breath I’d been holding since we’d left the cave rushed out of me in a deep, grateful sigh. “Where are we?”
“A hidden community.” Her voice was soft but strong. “They call it Thura.”
Events came back to me like flashes from a dream: a deep voice, a fist grabbing my shirt, a man lifting me into the air… That memory, I could have done without. “The huge Aquilinian, he’s—”
“Golgunda. But everyone here calls him Gol.”
Beings milled about outside the bright and airy hut we’d been left to rest in, lots of them by the sound of it. Even so, I felt nothing. “What kind of community is this? I can’t read anyone.”
She turned her head to rest her chin on my chest, and the sight of her eyes, so bright and clear, knocked the wind out of me. “Bionics,” she explained with an exhilarated grin. “An entire village of them. Free bionics.”
That was a wild statement, and one I should probably have been more concerned about.
But my focus refused to stray from her pink lips, her flushed cheeks, her skin glowing in the sunlight that poured through the open windows.
Healthy. Vital. So beautiful that nothing I’d ever seen before could compare.
Nothing I’d ever see again would either.
Because we were here, because I could, because I needed to, I slid my fingers over her soft skin and cupped her cheek.
In the cave, I’d clung to the flimsy, professional line between doctor and patient to keep my needs in check.
Now, with her body half-covering mine, her eyes so close I could see the tiny nanofibers threaded through the golden brown of her irises, her heart beating against my chest, I couldn’t remember why.
Why had I thought this was wrong? Touching her?
Feeling her? There was nothing wrong about it. “You made it.”
Leaning into my palm, just like she’d done last night when I thought I might lose her, she closed her eyes. “You saved me.”
When she opened her eyes again, meeting my stare, regret surged through my veins, fueling me.
I should have kissed her.
Saints, I should have. But it wasn’t too late. We were being given a second chance. We were here and alive, and I wasn’t going to question this. I wasn’t going to squander another moment with her.
My hand dropped from her cheek, and I slid my fingers beneath the dark curtain of her hair to cradle her nape. “I thought I’d lost you.”