Chapter Nineteen
Elaina
I watched Drazien disappear into the crowd before letting out a slow breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding.
He wasn’t abandoning me. He'd only be gone a few minutes.
Probably.
He'd squeezed my hand before leaving as if that somehow made leaving me in the middle of hundreds of strangers acceptable, and then simply vanished into the sea of moving bodies. I should have been annoyed, but instead, I found myself tempted to laugh.
He looked almost guilty as he walked away.
The realization was strangely satisfying. If someone had told me two weeks ago that the terrifying alien from the gala would one day feel guilty for leaving me alone long enough to buy food, I'd have assumed they'd escaped from a psychiatric ward.
Now...
Now I almost wanted to tease him about it when he came back.
I turned toward the Morraki who others were gathering around. The elderly male standing atop the raised platform didn’t carry weapons or wear a uniform, but he didn’t need those when his voice boomed loud enough to drown out the noise from the crowd.
No matter the language, storytellers all seemed to possess the same hypnotic quality in their tone.
Something that pulled you in and didn’t let you go, dragging you along as if you were the one they spoke of.
I couldn't understand every word, but I recognized enough to follow the main point of the tale.
“...Shaevrin...”
“...Khorr...”
“...eth...”
“...rhae...”
The Eternal Winds.
Flame.
Soul.
All.
He moved with sweeping gestures, painting pictures in the air as adults and children alike leaned forward, utterly captivated.
I understood perhaps one sentence for every five he spoke. A week ago it would have frustrated me, but I could tell how far I had come with Drazien’s help. Every conversation around me had begun sounding less like meaningless noise and more like a puzzle I could actually solve.
A burst of laughter erupted behind me, and I glanced over my shoulder.
Another performance had begun several stalls away.
Something similar to jugglers from what I could see, except it was long staffs spinning through the air, their ends burning with blue fire that left shimmering trails against the darkening sky.
Khavren truly was unlike anything I'd ever experienced. Not because it was filled with aliens, but because it felt so alive. People weren't simply attending the festival. They were part of it. Interacting, performing, buying and selling. None of it would have been the same without the rest.
I realized I wasn't merely observing another culture anymore. I was experiencing it, and I wanted to understand it. The desire to leave had faded to a distant thing, and I caught myself wondering about what would be different next Khavren, next season, or around the next turn.
I knew it was dangerous to think that way, but what reason did I really have to leave? My career was gone, my apartment was gone, I had no idea what had happened to my car, and I’d lost my true family when my mother died.
Wanting to understand something was usually the first step toward loving it, and I was already well along that path. And somehow, despite my initial misgivings, Drazien had insinuated himself into the things I wanted to understand.
A gust of wind tugged at my thavren, and I tightened the fabric as I moved deeper into the shadows between the two stalls where Drazien had left me. Vorrashan may not have seemed as bright as Earth’s Sun, but it was still starting to sap my energy after being in it for so long.
Footsteps crunched behind me, but I ignored them, closing my eyes as I listened to the storyteller and tried to keep up with his words. The heat beat at me and my stomach churned, but the soothing rhythm of a story had always been something I enjoyed.
I could hear the crowd in front of me shifting, people moving on or coming to listen, and then voices began to drift from behind me, pulling me out of the trance the storyteller’s words had wrought.
They were so low I wouldn’t have been able to hear them if they weren’t close, and I looked around, but there was no one in my hiding spot.
The only possibility was that they were behind the tents.
The voices were male and sounded annoyed, and I moved towards the main pathway until I caught the word, “...Human...”
I froze, curiosity sparking alongside suspicion. I knew it was unlikely every Morraki was okay with Humans integrating into their world, and their tones certainly didn’t seem welcoming, so I sank back to where I had been, breathing slowly to catch every word I could.
Another voice answered the first, going too fast for me to understand more than “…alpha…” and then a few more partial words.
“Hk’kor Torvashek korravalryn rhekk vorrash. Vokesh zhal’kai.”
I frowned, trying to piece the meaning together.
I didn’t know the first word, but the second was Drazien’s title, and korravalryn was what he’d said I was, that was similar to fiancé.
Rhekk had too many meanings for me to be certain of the one being used, but I was sure vorrash was night, and kai was a negative.
My eyes widened as I stared at the people across from me, standing unaware a plot was forming behind the vendor’s tents.
Or were they? How many had anti-Human sentiments? I hadn’t noticed anyone who seemed hostile towards me, but maybe they were faking.
The two kept going but it was too much, even though I was sure they were talking about me. My heart fluttered in my throat as I scanned the people passing by, hoping to spot Drazien, but the crunch of sand told me it was already too late.
My mind whirled with the possibilities, but the pieces refused to fit any innocent explanation. If I'd misunderstood and told Drazien I thought I overheard someone planning something, I'd embarrass myself, but if I didn’t say anything and something did happen, it would be partially my fault.
The thought sent a chill through me and I swallowed. It was only a moment later when a dark form blocked my view of the festival, and a squeak of fear escaped before I realized it was Drazien.
He balanced two trays in one hand, his expression harsh as he glanced around the small space surrounding me before focusing on my face.
“What happened?”
Licking my lips, I swallowed again before forcing myself to speak.
“I think...”
I glanced over his shoulder then moved closer, dropping my voice so low it shouldn’t have been able to carry even with Morraki hearing.
“I think I overheard something.”
He set the trays on the ground without taking his eyes off me, a crease between his brows. The barest flicker of blue crept across his kethra, but the silver glow of mine drowned it out.
“What?”
“I heard two voices, males, behind me. Behind the tent.”
His posture shifted, shoulders stiffening.
“They were speaking Morraki, so I didn’t understand it all, but it sounded like…”
I paused, not wanting to sound hysterical, but my heart still pounded. I closed my eyes to calm myself and replayed the fragments I’d heard.
“The word Human was what caught my attention. And I understood alpha.”
I swallowed, doing my best to remember the exact inflections they’d used.
“Then something like huck-ore, followed by your title and korravalryn. Wreck—no, rhekk vorrash.”
Opening my eyes, I met his as I finished.
“Vokesh zhal’kai.”
Silence stretched between us as his gaze swept over my face then the fabric walls behind me.
“They sounded angry, Drazien. I—I think they were planning something.”
Reaching out, he pressed a hand to my shoulder and stepped around me.
The walls grew closer together, forcing him to turn sideways to slip between them, but somehow he managed to force his way through and disappear beyond the place where they met.
There was no crash or yelling from inside, so I assumed he did it without knocking over the wares on the other side of the tent wall, but I didn’t trust myself to be able to do the same, so I remained where I was.
The minutes dragged as I waited for him to reappear, watching the fabric shifting in the wind. When he did return, a hand dropping onto my shoulder startled a scream from me before I could stop it.
One dark brow arched before Drazien scanned the area once more. His gaze lingered on a few of the alphas passing by, but eventually he shrugged.
“There was no one there.”
I nodded.
“I know. They left right before you came back.”
He stared at me for a long moment before reaching down for the trays he’d left on the ground. Passing me one of the cups, he finally said, “Perhaps you misheard.”
I clutched the cup, brows rising when he didn’t say anything else.
“That's it?”
He shrugged again, lifting his own cup and taking a long drink.
“It’s the most likely explanation.”
Frustration tightened my chest and I shook my head.
“No. I know I heard Torvashek korravalryn, and vokesh zhal’kai.”
Drazien’s tail lashed before he looked away.
“You heard fragments and misinterpreted words.”
I squeezed the cup so hard my fingers hurt, but without proof, there was no way to make him believe me.
“I know they spoke of night.”
His huff was a punch to my chest.
“Because night comes. Many wish to avoid the wind.”
My jaw tightened, but I couldn’t let it go. My gut said what I’d heard was important.
“They were irritated. Speaking in quiet tones so they wouldn’t be overheard. They were hiding behind the tents.”
Drazien sighed before reaching for my face, but I jerked away before he connected. His kethra flashed but he let his hand drop, straightening to look down at me.
“Elaina.”
A growl ripped from my chest, startling me just as much as it seemed to surprise Drazien.
“No. Don’t Elaina me. I heard something.”
He was quiet for a long moment before giving a short nod.
“You have learned a lot. Maybe you did hear something. We can head home.”
I wasn’t sure I believed him. I knew he wasn't dismissing me because he thought I was lying, but he thought I simply didn't understand enough Morraki yet.
And maybe he was right.
The possibility gnawed at me and my shoulders sank. I'd only been able to hear the language spoken for a handful of days. A lot of their words sounded similar, and the message depended on context clues.
Was I overreacting?
I looked out toward the people passing by. The story had ended. Laughter drifted through the air, overlaying the music drifting in the wind. The festival continued as though nothing had happened.
Yet the uneasy feeling still swirled in my gut.
“I don’t want to leave.”
I slipped my hand into Drazien's almost without thinking. He looked down at it before curling his fingers around mine, and as much as I wanted to deny it, the touch was comforting.
I realized something that should have shocked me far more than the whispered conversation.
If those males had been talking about us, planned to do something to us, the thought of Drazien being hurt trying to protect me was scarier than having to face them myself.
And I had meant I didn’t want to leave more than just the festival.
I stared at our joined hands, trying to breathe through the emotions clogging my throat. At some point, without noticing when it had happened, Drazien had stopped feeling like the enemy who had caused my life to implode. Korvashan had stopped feeling like a place I was simply studying.
And that frightened me almost as much as the voices hidden behind the stalls.