Chapter 38 Ruby-Red Seeds #2
“Widespread use of nova-lights has been draining us dry,” Tae explains. “The industry is keeping it quiet, but data analysts predict we’re destined for a global energy crisis within the next three decades.”
Rumors of an energy shortage have been circulating ever since the Blackouts.
New York was hit the worst, but Shanghai and Rio have had similar malfunctions.
And NovaCorp has launched a hundred new products since then, insisting they’re the only thing keeping people safe from the Dark—no wonder the world is heading into a crisis.
“What you’re describing in Itkalin,” Tae goes on, “sounds like an issue of thermal energy. With further study of each other’s energy sources, we could solve both problems.”
“Nature,” Danny pipes up a second later.
“Climate change was slowly decimating our world even before we met the Dark. Air and water pollution, floods, droughts, storms. But my most recent study on Darkalgae reveals that it consumes waste in water, and there’s another xenobotanist in Colombia who just discovered a specific genome of Darkrosewood that produces triple the oxygen most trees do. ”
Instantly, Sascia’s mind jumps to another kind of nature, also at risk. “When we were looking at the vines in my room in the tunnels,” she tells Nugau, “you said that they only grow to saplings in your world. But in ours, they flourish.”
The prince nods, tight and unhappy. “Kilorn, my other parent, believed that at the rate it is going, Itkalin will become inhospitable to life in a few centuries.”
“We can change it,” Sascia breathes. “We can fix everything. We can ask Carr to set up a meeting with Chapter XI. We can explain everything and help them draw up a peace treaty, filled with every way our world can help yours and yours can help ours…” She can’t go on, because her voice has gotten all husky again.
Moths perch on furniture and walls, dots of vibrant color in the low-lit room. Mooch stands out among them, four times their size and brave enough to perch right in the middle of the table, near the candlelight.
“This is what you wanted, isn’t it?” Sascia whispers. “This is how we save each other.”
She expects a single tap on the wood, a yes, but instead, the moth flies at her, straight for her nose, and boops it once, twice, three times over, stopping only when she shields her face with her arm and laughs into her elbow, and in moments, everyone else joins in too, relieved and grateful and full of hope.
When Sascia opens the door, Professor Carr blinks at her as though his brain has short-circuited.
He takes her in for a long moment—the leather trousers of her warrior’s uniform, the bandages around her shoulder, the Darkmoths perched on her arms—then his gaze glides past her to the Umbra cohort gathered in the living room and the aesin prince sitting among them.
“Miss Petrou,” he says, in his usual colorless tone. “You have returned. And brought along guests, I see.”
He slips past her into the room and takes a seat in an armchair. Sascia trails after him, feeling a little dazed. They all watch in tense silence as he takes out a handkerchief and wipes his glasses before restoring them to his nose.
“I trust your friends have mentioned that you’re somewhat of a celebrity now, Miss Petrou,” Carr says. “The xenoscience prodigy that carried out illegal fishing tours. The Umbra funders didn’t much enjoy that one, I’m afraid.”
God, barely a minute in his presence and Sascia’s already annoyed. “You cut my stipend, sir, then you enrolled me in six different remedial courses at Columbia. I had to pay for them somehow.”
“Precisely what I have argued to both our funders and the Chapter,” he says, to her astonishment.
“But they are not too keen to trust a girl who so blatantly disrespects the law. It certainly hasn’t helped the credibility of your theory.
Nonlinear timelines and a special, ancient moth guiding you.
An obsession taking root and, finally, an irrational decision. ”
Laid out like that, in his measured tone and unembellished prose, it really does sound far, far, far from rational.
She jumped into the freaking Maw, terrified her friends and family, and upended her life because of some hunch.
Except that now she has proof, dusted on her arms in wings of glittering onyx.
“I knew what I was doing,” she tells Carr. “A war is coming, sir, and it will devastate both our world and theirs—”
Professor Carr’s hand reaches out and folds around her fingers, the touch so unusual it stuns her into silence. The rest of the cohort are staring with wide eyes, as shocked as she feels.
Her mentor examines her with steady, unblinking eyes. “I believe you.”
Three simple words.
“I believe the Dark sees something in you,” he goes on.
“I believe there is a reason you are the only human Darkmoths choose to appear to. I believe you are destined for great, unfathomable things that none of us can fully comprehend. And I, Miss Petrou, will not stand in your way as you achieve them.” He studies the rest of his students, one by one, until his eyes land on Nugau. “Tell me what you need.”
Sascia breaks.
The torrent of a lifetime of pent-up self-doubt unleashes from her chest, like a pomegranate cracked open to spill its ruby-red seeds.
Her shoulders hunch over and her rib cage aches with barely constrained sobs.
Around her, the moths flutter their wings in comfort.
The very words she has sought since she crawled out of that frozen pond in her soggy black velvet dress, spoken by the person she thought understood her the least and hated her the most. It is doubly rewarding, a thousand times more comforting; because if Professor Carr believes her, if he understands, if he chooses not to oppose her, then the rest of the world will follow suit.
They will stand not against her but by her side.
She nods at Nugau, and the prince begins speaking, forging the first ingots of a true alliance.