Chapter 13 #2
Nora frowned. “You don’t sound too sure. Are they your employer or something? Are they nice? Because, I’m going to be honest, the Veynari sound evil if they control everything, and I don’t believe for a second that they’re interested in just watching—”
Airik stood, the abrupt movement cutting her off. He took the whole two strides to stand in front of her and grabbed her tray. “No matter if evil. Or good. The Veynari are. No choice for you. I am theirs. So will you. But for now, do not forget you are mine.”
She narrowed her eyes. “You can’t keep saying that, you know. I’m not yours. Or the Veynari’s.”
“I am saying it, Norashaw. You are mine. Part of my things.” He held out the pouch of now steaming soup. “Eat.” He let out a small sigh, his voice softening. “Please.”
At least he has enough vocabulary to be polite.
She decided someone so concerned with her well-being couldn’t be all that bad.
Someone who let her rest in his bed, even after she’d soiled it, and kept giving her water as if she were a stray he’d picked up.
And if he worked for the Veynari—intergalactic alliance, empire, or whatever it was—they couldn’t be so bad, either, if Airik was the result.
She gave a slight, genuine smile and took the cup. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ll eat.” She took a sip of the soup, cringing at its overly salty taste.
Airik sat on the floor in front of her, presumably saving himself a trip across the room in case she stopped eating and needed to be forced.
Unfortunately the medicine’s effects couldn’t dampen the embarrassment she felt as his head followed her hand as it moved across the tray to grab a cracker, then to her mouth as she ate.
“So…I take it you’ve never seen a human before.”
“No.”
“Oh.” She chuckled softly. “Well, sorry to underwhelm you.”
He didn’t respond.
Now that she thought about it, this was hell. His reluctance to talk gave her room to babble, and the sedative encouraged her to ramble on. “Why do you speak English, then, if you haven’t seen humans?”
He paused for a moment before answering. “Someone teaches me.” He held out his hand several feet off the floor. “When baby.”
The image of a tiny, suited boy formed in her mind—a toddler in costume. Fresh tears welled. Theo hadn’t even made it to Halloween—the first year he’d been old enough to have fun. He’d been into planes. They’d planned to dress him as a pilot.
Nora shoved a cracker into her mouth, then took several swigs of water. It felt like sand scraping down her throat.
“Do…do you understand my words? Or…wrong?” he asked.
She wiped her eyes. “They’re right. They’re good—great, actually. I understand. Thank you for explaining.” She drank more water, feeling it slosh in her belly. “Why do you speak English specifically? It’s one of hundreds of languages on our planet. Not one of the easiest, from what I understand.”
“The Veynari wants to ask questions of humans,” he said. “We are…shared life. Very old. We can’t remember when we left each other. English is most language of humans. But humans are…not ready. Don’t want to talk. Veynari needs more words to explain better. To make trade.”
“Oh,” she said. All the food on the tray looked like too much, and nausea rose again.
“Norashaw?” Airik’s voice was soft, careful.
“It’s just Nora,” she corrected, squeezing her eyes shut, trying to make the universe small again. “Just say Nora.”
“Nora,” he said, drawing out her name. In his accent, it sounded quite exotic and important. Instantly, her nerves calmed a little, a warmth unfurling low in her belly.
“Keep eating…Nora. Your heart hurts again.” He tapped the side of his helmet. “I hear it.”
He watched her eat, in no apparent hurry to leave again. At his hip sat a gun—unmistakable in its shape, which, she supposed, made sense for someone with five fingers.
“What work do you do? For the Veynari, I mean,” she asked.
“I am a morazir.”
“What does that mean?”
“I am the…strong for the Veynari,” Airik said. “I help them do what they need.”
A soldier.
“Why were you here? I thought you said this place is ‘dead causing.’”
“To break the planet.”
Nora processed what he said, then, without thinking, blurted out laughing.
She slapped a hand over her mouth, realizing—perhaps too late—that it wasn’t wise to insult someone who described their work as “breaking planets.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, horrified that she couldn’t stop laughing. “It’s just that…did you say you were breaking the planet?”
He sat cross-legged, his arms also crossed, back straight as if in meditation.
His ungloved hand squeezed his left bicep.
A compulsion, she realized. If any hand held power mythic enough to break apart planets, it would undoubtedly be his.
Strong and beautiful, as if it’d been made to teach art students about ideal form and anatomy.
She wasn’t worth responding to.
Her gaze dropped to the tray in her lap, more disgusted with herself than with the food she felt forced to eat to appease him.
In all likelihood, her uncle was dead, along with everyone else on the Abeona.
And all she could think about was who was under that helmet after he’d told her he destroyed entire worlds.
“But there are animals here,” she said.
“They’re broken. Changed. The planet has a poison. In not so old time, people died here. And others want it to kill more. I destroy the planet to stop from happening again.”
Nora sat rigid. “Then why are we still here? Why aren’t we leaving?”
“No leaving. The ship is broken.”
That word again—broken. “You have no wings to fly?” Not a question, but a repetition of something she must’ve said before.
He hesitated. “No,” he said. “Lost. Chasing you.”
“Oh.” Nora swallowed. “I’m sorry.” An unbearable tension tightened in her chest. She’d been here for less than a few hours, and she’d already fucked things up here, too.
She must’ve made a face because Airik ducked to see her. “No fear,” he said. “Another ship comes. When this ship died, it sent a cry for help. Not long. Maybe sleep, and when you wake, we will be gone.”