Chapter 23 #2
Bella stared at Vala for a long moment. The fire that usually danced in her whiskey-colored eyes had dimmed, leaving only stunned disbelief. She brushed a loose strand of mahogany hair behind one ear, released a slow breath, and leaned back against the bench.
"Well... crap."
Beside her, Holly lowered her eyes to the untouched stew before her.
Her dark brown almond-shaped eyes fixed on the bowl while her fingers tightened around her spork until her knuckles whitened.
Against her sun-kissed complexion, the sadness on her face was impossible to miss.
She blinked several times, as though willing away tears she refused to let fall.
"So..." Holly whispered. "Now that the Moktian craft is no longer available, home isn't really an option anymore."
"No, I am afraid not." He looked from Holly to Bella before continuing.
"The Moktian craft's cloaking system made it the only vessel capable of reaching Earth without being detected. The Star Chaser possesses no such cloaking tech, and it’s stolen, so they will be looking for it.
Any ship approaching your world openly would be intercepted long before it reached the surface. "
The hope went out of Holly’s face like a light.
The weight of Vala's words settled over the table like a gathering storm. Any attempt to reach Earth was gone the moment the Moktian craft crashed on the anomaly world.
I waited for the crushing despair I had imagined for so many weeks. For panic. For the desperate ache that had driven me since the day I woke on that impossible planet.
It never came. The realization unsettled me far more than Vala's words.
Only days ago, I would have given anything for another chance to return home. Now the thought that it might never happen hurt... but not in the all-consuming way I expected. The grief was softer somehow, tangled with emotions I wasn't ready to examine.
No one spoke for several long moments. The truth Vala had laid before us seemed to settle into each of us differently.
Then, little by little, the heaviness began to lift.
Someone at the far end of the table changed the subject.
A quiet laugh answered. Bowls scraped softly against the tabletop as everyone returned to their meals, conversation finding its footing again one voice at a time.
Amy leaned toward Elise. “Where’s your mate tonight?”
Elise's expression brightened as her hands moved through a familiar series of signs, Vallon is with Vennox. They've been catching up since he returned.
The moment I saw Vennox's name spelled out, my pulse stumbled, then quickened.
The familiar knot that had taken up residence beneath my sternum tightened until it ached.
The sudden, overwhelming need to see him stole the breath from my lungs.
I couldn't explain it, not to them, and certainly not to myself.
Before I could think better of it, my own hands were already moving. Do you know where they are right now?
Vallon swore me to secrecy about their exact location, she signed, with the delicate precision of someone choosing words the way you choose footing on uncertain ground.
Then her expression shifted into more deliberate.
But I know where Vennox’s hut is. I can take you there. If you want to wait for him.
The offer sat in front of me, simple and clear, and I am fairly certain I answered it half a second faster than someone uninterested would have.
“Sure,” I said. “Thanks.”
After dinner, I followed Elise out of the palace.
The air beneath the dome remained balmy despite the fading light of the twin suns.
It was not the living warmth of an evening breeze, but something captured and held.
The translucent shielding seemed to absorb the heat of the suns and trap it within Huren along with the motionless air, giving the city the enclosed feeling of a vast terrarium.
The attack damaged much of Huren, Elise signed, pausing beside a section of pale stonework. Many buildings had to be rebuilt.
Only because she pointed it out did I notice the difference.
Fresh stone blended almost seamlessly with the older walls, the repairs obvious only in the cleaner mortar and sharper edges.
Children chased one another along the pathways as though nothing terrible had ever happened here.
Warriors strolled unhurriedly. Laughter drifted from open doorways.
The city had healed, even if the scars remained.
My attention drifted to the fist-sized stones set at regular intervals along the pathways. Each glowed with a cool bluish light that softened the coming darkness without the harshness of electric lamps.
“What are these rocks?” I asked.
Solaris rocks. Elise smiled and briefly touched one with her fingertips as we passed. They're a little like your glow-in-the-dark stuff on Earth. They soak up light from the twin suns during the day, then slowly give it back after suns-fall.
“Phosphorescence.” I nodded. “That explains all the rocks in the sconces inside.”
I looked farther down the winding path. Hundreds of softly glowing solaris rocks stretched through the city, bathing Huren in a peaceful blue radiance that felt strangely natural, as though the light itself belonged to the night rather than pushing it away.
The Yulineons damaged this section during the attack, Elise pointed out. Their weapons burned through the dome in several places. Huts were destroyed, the leatherworker’s hut was nearly lost, and part of the palace was struck.
My gaze lifted automatically toward the crystalline structure behind us. I could not identify where it had been damaged. Whatever section had splintered beneath the attack had been restored so carefully that the palace appeared whole.
All three clans helped rebuild, Elise signed. There was too much damage for Huren to repair alone.
The simple statement carried more weight than her expression revealed. She told me how not long ago, those clans had been divided by generations of suspicion and bloodshed. Now all three clans lived under the same dome, setting aside old border rivalries to battle their common enemies.
As if to prove what she said was true, two warriors passed us going in the opposite direction. One wore a Huren kiltus. The other wore the breechcloth of Clan Trisess. Their conversation remained relaxed as they disappeared toward the palace.