Chapter 53
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
NORA
From the top of the shelter stairs where she sat, Nora’s head swiveled, following Airik as he paced the perimeter of the park. She patted Lucky’s head resting in her lap. He made a sad little moan, affected by whatever emotion had overwhelmed Airik.
Their morning had been fine—a wonderful dream that lingered even after she woke because Airik, who now knew the worst parts of her life, still held her while she slept.
He had kissed her on the nose and redone her braid.
They’d gone to the far corner of the park to brush their teeth, the closest they could get to domesticity here.
After squeezing more of the brown sludge for Lucky to eat—he preferred it to her food—they’d opened one more of Joe’s rations and split it, leaving only two more.
Airik had stared at each bite as he’d brought it to his mouth, and ultimately he’d eaten only half of his portion, tucking the rest in their respective pouches.
She hadn’t asked about the call box, hoping he’d forget all about it, too.
But now the suns beat down on them from above, and Airik was on his fourth circuit around the park, throwing increasingly agitated glances at the video of the walking alien species on the building walls. The chances of him forgetting about the box were low.
As he came up the stairs, each of his steps thundered on the stone foundation, rattling the floor they sat upon.
“Um…is everything okay?” She rose, her stomach tightening with anxiety.
He stood in the middle of the shelter, arms crossed, staring at the floor. “There is no more food.”
The two bags of ready-to-eat rations lay beside one another in the corner of their shelter, forming a meager pile. “We have food,” she said, confused. “Plus, we still have the brown stuff. We can split the rest in half. Or I should take a third because you’re so much bigger, or I can—”
“We are out of food,” Airik said, his voice firm.
“I will not continue to feed you a half or a third. I do not want you to eat the brown stuff. Lucky is not healing as he should. Every moment I am here and no one comes means something worse when we are found.” He turned back to face the sky. “Something is wrong.”
He stepped around the words on the floor, his head turning from right to left, his lips moving as he read.
Instructions. It looked like he was reading the instructions, processing what they told him to do. Suddenly she realized exactly what this shelter was.
Nora’s heart plummeted as she realized their “little while” had gone on long enough. He’d known all along that the call box was beneath him. And he’d given them this. Time.
She wanted more.
Forcing her chin up, she said, “One more day won’t kill us. Lucky is all right.” A happy yelp came from Lucky in confirmation, though Airik didn’t react. “Please—I just want a little bit longer. Don’t we…deserve that?”
Her legs went weak as he looked up, his brows drawn together.
“My beautiful demon eyes, I want forever with you. Here. But I’ve waited too long.
Taken too much of you. And I…still am what I am.
” Airik looked down at the ground. “I don’t know how I will keep you, but I will.
” He scrubbed a hand through his hair so roughly that she shrank back.
“I cannot be branded—if I’m weakened, I know you will be taken from me.
I must do this. To remain strong. In control.
I’ve seen what happens when a man takes too much.
I won’t allow that to happen to us—to you.
I am sorry, but we cannot have more time. ”
His declaration burrowed into her chest. She was going to lose him. She had known it under the bridge all those nights ago. The brand punished a soldier already conditioned to suffer. Every moment he’d given her was at the risk of destroying his body and possibly losing his life.
He didn’t wait for a response, returning to circling the carved words on the floor.
Abruptly, he stopped. She heard him repeat something under his breath, a phrase of three words. He turned to her then, a turbulent tremor in the glow of his eyes.
“Nora.” His hand closed on the handle of his sword behind his back. “Take Lucky and go to the fountain.”
“But—”
“Do not make me ask twice.”
A powerful urge struck to grab Lucky and run.
Out of the city. Away from here. It would take hours to reach the city’s borders, but she knew Airik would follow her.
They could just…live here. The three of them.
She’d learn to hunt so that he never had to kill again.
It would be all right—she could do it if it were to help them survive.
But the way his expression hardened, glaring at her as he ripped his sword from his harness, said there was no more room for dreaming.
Nora heaved Lucky up into her arms, ignoring his protests and twisting body, and hurried to the fountain.
A loud drone echoed off the buildings’ walls. A strange smell—like ozone—slammed into her. Something brushed her ankles. Beneath her bare feet, blades of grass rippled away from the shelter.
Just as she reached the fountain, a loud crash forced her to turn.
Airik held the handle of his sword, plunged halfway into the ground. A crater broke around him, chunks of rock cracking, sinking, taking him with it.
She screamed as his legs went beneath the surface, and then his hips. He grimaced as he forced the sword deeper, straining to shatter solid ground. There wasn’t any soil—just layers and layers of rock and metal.
With a groan, his right arm shook violently as he fought the forces of his sword and of the planet. The tips of his hair drew toward the sword, and she realized his body was both pushing down and fighting the pull to the sharp edge of the blade.
An odd sensation buzzed across Nora’s skin, and she lifted her arm. The tiny hairs on her skin pointed toward Airik. Spray from the fountain’s water behind her grazed her cheeks.
Breath went scarce. Witnessing Airik’s strength confirmed the stories she’d heard on Loretta’s conspiracy shows: His kind were the ancient gods that humans had once worshipped. Almost human but not quite, with the power to bend gravity and maybe more she hadn’t seen.
Though she saw it now with her own eyes, understanding didn’t follow. How could someone bear such power in a body and still manage to touch her as gently as he did?
Falling to his knees, the ground gave way more, the stairs collapsing into the hole. Sweat dripped down his chest, falling away and toward the sword’s edge—she could see it sparkle with the sword’s light.
Looking up, he found her hiding behind the fountain wall. He smiled at her, his mouth moving to form a word. Then he flexed his entire body, pushing the sword down. With an ear-splitting crack, the ground of the shelter collapsed, taking Airik with it. The roof crumbled on top of him.
No noise—not even from a breath—came. Not hers or Lucky’s. The pounding in her chest ramped up, reminding her she was alive and…Airik—
Leaping up, her ankle twinging, she ran toward the shelter. There was no chance a man could survive thousands of pounds of rock collapsing on his head.
But he is not a man—he is so much more.
“Stay!” Airik’s voice came from beneath the pile.
Nora froze, midway in the grass field.
A few throaty coughs came from under the rubble. “I am okay,” he said. “Stop coming for me—I know you are.”
Making an embarrassing sound, somewhere between a laugh and a sob, she dropped down onto the grass.
The pile of rocks began to arc away from the ground, as if a force field beneath pushed them out of the way. Her eyes slammed shut as blue light flashed with blinding intensity. A low rumbling shook the ground.
When she opened her eyes, broken rocks and crumpled metal ringed the crater. Airik’s sword flew out, landing on the grass, followed by a small black box.
One hand came over the lip of the hole, then another, as Airik hoisted himself out. Deciding whatever danger he tried to shield him from was over, Nora rushed to him.
“Nora,” he gasped, taking her into his arms. His eyes were bloodshot, and his cheeks looked puffed as if blood had rushed to the surface too quickly. He held her to his chest, stroking her hair, swaying on shaky legs. “I am sorry,” Airik said. “I was not honest. It was here. All this time.”
“It’s okay.” She kissed him as close to his heart as she could reach, which was nowhere near high enough. “Are you going to make a space call now?” She smiled into his skin, or else she’d cry.
He gave her a playful tug on her braid before retrieving his sword and box and returning to them.
Lucky crawled back into Nora’s lap, dramatically holding up his back leg. “Don’t look at me all betrayed,” she chided. “You were left behind for your own good.” He huffed, accepting it, and dropped his head onto her arm.
Airik swiped his blade, altering the symbols on it. He cut one end of the box, letting it fall to the grass.
Curious, Nora grabbed it. It was much heavier than she anticipated. “Do most people have magic swords like yours?” she asked.
“Only a morazir carries this sword.”
She turned to the shelter’s destruction, all to cover a mechanism meant to summon help. “What use is this call box if no one can reach it without a sword?”
“Only a morazir can say if more help is needed.”
“But even you needed a sword to get in. What if you lost it? Don’t you think you’d need even more help if you lost your sword?”
He paused. “If a morazir has lost their blade, then they are either already dead or will be dead soon.”
“Oh.” Nora felt herself tense. Yet another observation confirming that the Veynari weren’t as honorable as the man who served them.
Airik slipped the tip of his sword into a slot at the box’s bottom. Lights came on, and a string of writing projected above it. He tapped some things on the panel, his expression darkening.
“Is something wrong?”
Airik pulled the sword out and thrust it back in with force. The script flickered, then shifted to something else. He muttered something in his own language, pressing the panel. The script didn’t change. After multiple attempts, he dropped the box, and the sword dislodged and fell beside it.
“Is everything okay?” Nora asked again, wishing he would look at her.
Moments passed, and his frown deepened. Lucky slithered his tail, wrapping it around Airik’s ankle.
“It’s not working,” Airik said, eyes fixed on the box.
A bot whirred past them, stopped, yanked the metal plate out of Nora’s hand, and incinerated it before carrying on.
“Like the call isn’t…connecting or something?”
“No. Like words have been stopped from reaching the other side. It says there is no connection to the Veynari and to wait for more instructions.” He looked up at the sky.
“I don’t know for who. This planet should be broken, not here.
No one should be on the ground except me, and that would have been only for a few minutes to start breaking the planet. ”
Breaking the planet might not have been a mistranslation, Nora realized. Only when Lucky yipped did she notice how hard she’d been petting him. She stopped instantly, hugging him close to her chest.
Clearing her throat, she said, “Maybe it’s an error message—I would get lots of those on the Abeona.” She laughed nervously. “Or maybe—” She winced at the very real possibility that this was her fault. “My shuttle crashed into a communication satellite.”
“That is not how this works.” He absently looked past her shoulder toward the pile that had been their shelter. “These connect directly to the Veynari. Nothing blocks their calls. And they do not use kudra, so their power hasn’t broken. This one tells me it has changed. Not lost. Not blocked.”
“Maybe since they knew no one should be here, they turned it off—”
“I am here.” He dropped his head, suddenly grasping the thick scar on his arm. Remaining quiet, Nora placed a hand on top of his.
He shook his head, then helped Nora to a stand. “I am here,” he said more calmly. “They knew that it would be me who would be here. I…feel strange. Like…the answer is in front of me. That there is something happening, but I can’t see it.”
Turning to her, his gaze fixed on her mouth. “I am having trouble finding anything else that matters more than this.” He thumbed her lip, dragging it down while licking his own. “I want to eat now, demon eyes. Let’s eat our last meals. I can think better when full on you.”