Chapter 13
It wasn’t a dream.
It was a nightmare.
Mariah was running down a darkened hallway, fleeing shadows.
No… Running toward the shadow. She had to reach it before—
Her head jerked up, and she winced. Massaging the stiffness in her neck, she leaned forward to check the monitor over Suvan’s bed. All the readings were…nominal.
She’d never said that word before today and she didn’t like it. She didn’t want nominal; she wanted the unwavering focus of his cracked quartz eyes, his lack of pretense and his pretending not to be funny. She wanted the magical mystery of his touch, soft and spiky and everything.
She wanted him to wake up so she could tell him all that.
Gently, she touched his cheek. The tiny, satiny scales felt too cool, so she raised the ambient temperature a few degrees.
“Wake up,” she whispered.
Instead, a quiet chime at the stateroom door announced Felicity. After quickly wiping her eyes, Mariah let the cruise director through.
Felicity deposited a carton on the kitchenette counter before settling in the chair on the other side of the bed. “How’s he doing?”
“No change.” Mariah slumped back in her seat.
“Fahrol said the med bay was able to do the tests and treatments he would’ve suggested.
I’m glad we have a physician aboard, but now we need to wait.
” She pressed the heel of one hand between her eyes to slow the seep of tears.
“We’re flying around galaxies in a spaceship, but they still haven’t found a way to heal a concussion? ”
It had been worse than that. She’d never forget the sound he’d made when the chunk of asteroid hit him.
Or her own scream. Or the gurgle of dark plum blood that had seeped from his battered suit as Griiek’s frantic wielding of the mechanical arm reeled in his floating body.
But he wasn’t dead.
Although he wasn’t waking up either.
“Be patient,” Felicity said. “Our chief engineer is tough and stubborn. And he’d never leave his engines.”
But he had left, because he had to, for all of them.
Sucking in a slow breath, Mariah settled her fingertips on his bandaged shoulder. “Is the ghostform holding? He’d want to know.”
“It’s exactly what we needed,” Felicity said.
“That pursuing ship backed off immediately—too fast for Delphine to get more than a cursory scan—when Ellix accelerated out of the asteroids straight at them. Chief, you’ll love the replay.
” She chuckled, although the sound was strained.
“They obviously had no idea what kind of monstrous space demon we were, and they weren’t sticking around long enough to find out. Thanks to you.”
She gave Mariah a watery smile. “Oh, and also, Chief, you should know, Ellix and a couple of the passengers with engineering-adjacent backgrounds including Anoushka are reviewing your notes on increasing our speed based on the resonark’s harmonic resonance when it first hijacked us.
Um, if there’s anything else you want us to know so we don’t break your engines zooming around the Zarnax Zone, please wake up. ”
When the cruise director pushed to her feet, her feelings button wavered between muted pastels. “So we’re back on course for that null cloud, but we really do need you with us, Chief.”
Then she gave Mariah a steadier look. “I left some things for you on the counter, but whatever else you need, message me. Fahrol will be by later too.”
Mariah nodded, her throat tight. “I don’t think Suvan voted. To continue or not. I think he didn’t care beyond being with his engines. And now…this.”
Felicity shook her head. “I think he cares very much. Ask him when he wakes up.”
When the door whispered shut again, Mariah bent her head to Suvan’s hand, lax on the covers.
What was the point of chasing the resonark’s dream if she lost this one?
Even thinking it terrified her, and she shoved away from the bed, as if the doubt might infect him. She wished she’d asked Felicity to stay for a while, but she knew there was too much to do elsewhere. They wouldn’t be truly safe until they were back in port.
“If I’d voted to go back, this wouldn’t have happened,” she whispered. “But if we’d gone back, you and I would never…” She clenched her doubled fists against her mouth, unwilling to give any breath to that path not taken.
Thrusting to her feet, she paced across the room. Felicity’s care package caught her eye, and she poked through it: snacks, including gulab jamun from Anoushka, a larger datpad, and a get-well-soon card signed by everyone—which would probably make Suvan stare in confused consternation.
If he would just wake up.
She hugged herself. Why did she still feel cold? She checked the room temp, but it was already within a supportive healing range for Szauralithyn, according to the med bay protocols. Maybe another blanket…
“Oh no. Lub.” Spinning on her heel, she reached for the datpad to contact Felicity. But, no, she couldn’t send anyone else to fetch the bitey goblhob.
“Stay right here,” she told Suvan.
Then she laughed, but she had to admit, she sounded a little hysterical.
Was it late? Or early? She’d lost track of time, but as she raced through the ship, she found it deserted and felt very alone. The darkened engine module was worst of all, a lonely mountain hollow made lonelier still without its gargoyle man.
She wasn’t sure she’d even be able to access the module without him. But for some reason, the closed portal unsealed at her touch.
Had he programmed the door for her and never said anything?
“Lub?”
The subsonic thrum of the engines vibrated through her. Like a growl. Or was that the goblhob?
A shadow flickered at the edge of her vision, and she spun to track it. Ducking around the disconnected capacitorus, she made her way to the far corner.
“There you are.”
Only the lure stuck out above the larf-hide blanket lumped at the end of Suvan’s bed, but the bioluminescence was dimmed.
Her heart cracked. “Oh, Lub. He didn’t leave you on purpose.” Crouching down, she held out her hand. “I won’t leave you. I promise.”
The goblhob emerged teeth first, and she almost cringed away.
But what were a few fingers compared to what he’d risked.
“Can we be best friends, Lub? For him.”
The orange glare fixed on her with steadfast suspicious.
Good thing she’d brought a treat. Rummaging in her pocket for the gulab jamun, she unwrapped the sticky doughballs. The fragrance of rosewater wreathed their tense standoff.
The goblhob sneezed.
Mariah held the treat at the tips of her fingers. “This has to be tastier than larfs.”
The lure popped a little higher, and when she tossed the milky donut in a shallow arc, Lub lunged out of the blanket to grab it.
Once that comfort zone was breached, it seemed the goblhob had no problem snuffling over for the rest of the dessert.
The leathery head butted under her hand, and Mariah gave it a tentative pat between the stubby devil horns. “Come on. Let’s go wake him up.”
She took the blanket too, and slipping back through the quiet ship, she felt like the saddest lost little girl with her blankie and ugly dog at her side.
They had to pass the Starlit Salon to get to the cabin corridor, and to her shock, Lub darted into the room.
Which was empty, luckily. Except for the resonark.
Lub paused beneath the glowing knotwork, craning its stubby neck to stare upward. Its bulbous orange eyes seemed to turn black, reflecting some wavelength Mariah couldn’t detect.
The resonark pulsed with that mesmerizing pattern of rainbow and darkness. The shadowlight, Suvan had called it.
Lub let out a keening sound, not musical in the slightest but somehow still matching the anomaly’s subtle subharmonics. Mariah clutched the blanket to her chest as the resonark flared, for a heartbeat.
Lub’s lure blinked on with the same shadowlight.
The first time Suvan had kissed her, he’d said he was afraid she’d been hypnotized by the resonark.
She was not going to kiss the goblhob.
Even as she took a step forward—because she was totally gonna kiss Suvan’s pet if she had to—Lub scampered back to her, toothy jaws agape. It bolted right past her into the corridor.
Bemused, she followed.
Lub tracked her path back to the extra stateroom they’d chosen for Suvan’s recovery. She wasn’t sure if the goblhob had smelled her earlier route or was homing in on its person, but Lub lumbered ahead of her to scratch at the door until she let it in.
“Don’t jump on him,” she warned, ready to intervene. “He’s hurt.”
Delicately, Lub anchored its front claws on the side of the bed and boosted higher—without jumping—to stare at Suvan. It whined again, very quietly, and its lure dipped.
The lingering shadowlight glowed on Suvan’s face, and Mariah held her breath…
But nothing happened.
She’d just wanted a little magic.
With a sigh, she coiled the blanket at the bottom corner of the bed and patted it. “Shall I boost you up?”
Lub’s rear end wriggled, which she took as a yes please.
Careful not to jostle Suvan, she levered the surprisingly dense goblhob to the blanket. Lub circled once with equal care and settled with its heavy jaw on Suvan’s foot.
The shadowlight lure still glowed.
She sank into the chair next to the bed, her tote of knitting abandoned on the floor, and watched him breathe.
+ + +
She’d gone to the kitchen counter to see if Felicity had left her any stimulants when Lub croaked out a happy sound.
Whirling, she raced back to the bedside. “Suvan?”
The tiny scales on his face rippled with tension, as if he weres trying to emerge from beneath a terrible weight. She eased down beside him and grasped his hand.
When his fingers twitched in hers, she held back a shout of elation. “We’re here,” she whispered. “And we haven’t blown up your engines yet.”
She patted the mattress next to his elbow. “Lub?”
Crawling up to nestle under his arm, the goblhob draped its lure across his chest. Mariah forced herself to sit back in her chair.