Chapter 12 NADINE #2
My chest heaved as I finally stopped talking.
The silence rang loud in my ears. "Because if Earth is on that map," I added quietly, the weight of it settling in, "then whatever is happening didn't start with the Cryons.
And it didn't start with me." I lifted my gaze to his, eyes blazing with equal parts terror and resolve.
"So start talking, Dravok. Arkhevari spymaster, god, whatever you are. "
I caught the way his gaze lingered on my naked skin—just for a fraction of a second—before his attention snapped back to my face. I looked down. Right, naked. The sight of a glowing alien constellation had momentarily distracted me. "Oh for—" I groaned. "You pervert. Get over it."
His brow lifted, offended. "I wasn't—"
"My eyes are here," I snapped, pointing at my face. "If you're going to stare, at least be honest about it."
A corner of his mouth twitched. Infuriating.
"Now," I demanded, planting my hands on my hips, "spill."
"Spill?" He frowned. "Is that a command?"
I rolled my eyes so hard it almost hurt. "So now you don't know human words either. Great. Go ahead, poke around in my head, figure it out."
He stiffened. "I am not—"
"Relax," I cut in. "I'm being sarcastic. In the meantime, tell me what you do know."
That got his attention. He leaned back against the counter, arms folding, expression shifting from defensive to… careful. The spymaster resurfaced slowly. "Ella found something in the Hall of Knowledge. Through an artifact. A memory-stone."
"O-kayyy," I dragged the word out. "Who is Ella, and what did she say?"
"Ella is Zapharos' Aelyth. An archeologist. She said two names, Ashera and Caelor."
I blinked. "And who are they?"
He opened his mouth to explain, and I picked up my sheet from where I dropped it earlier and covered myself again.
I wasn't showing him mercy, I told myself.
I just felt a chill. He explained about the First Collapse, the Dark Abyss, when it had not yet been hunger, but silence.
How the Arkhevari had been drawn to it, one by one, lured by knowledge without limit. How most had succumbed to the call.
"All but two," he said.
"Ashera and Caelor," I murmured.
"They fled," he confirmed. "Turned away from the Abyss. Vanished into the Living Veil. Never to be seen again."
I started pacing, barefoot on cold flooring, my mind racing. "And now," I deduced slowly, "Arkhevari are finding their… Aelyth."
"With humans," he confirmed. "Not just Arkhevari. Darlams, Space Guardians, Pandraxians…"
I stopped pacing. We looked at each other.
"…It stands to reason," I ventured carefully, "that if they ran—if they hid—Earth would be as good as any place."
He watched me closely. "I agree."
"Logically? Yes. Emotionally? I hate it."
Not that I could exactly put my finger on it, but something bothered me about it.
Too coincidental, maybe? For all I knew, I could be species X standing here from planet Y asking the same questions.
But it didn't feel like that. I shuddered at the word.
All my life, I had shrunk away from it. It had just never…
fit. Feelings were… raw, illogical, unintentional; they defied reason, rationality.
Numbers were true. 1+1=2. But if you added emotions to it, then the answer could be three or four, without having to explain why.
Why a plane that should have exploded in a movie during a certain maneuver didn't. That was emotion. Make believe.
Great, now my head was hurting again.
I paced. Dravok gave me space. Time. Like he was sensing…
I stilled. No, he wasn't in my head. Then I stopped again.
Because… somehow, I seemed to have accepted his hypothetical ability to be in my head as a fact.
I sighed. Focus, Nadine. All this crashing down on me made it easy to get lost in the current, letting it choose which fork in the river to carry me down.
But dammit, I had a destination in mind right now, and I was steering for it.
Okay, back to Earth. Why did Ashera and Caelor flee to Earth out of all the other planets in the universe?
Additionally, according to Dravok, the starmaps had been on their skin before they fled to Earth.
Ergo, they had known about it before. Remembered it.
Gone there. For a reason. A specific reason.
Yes. That was something my mind could accept.
"I'm not a historian," I muttered, resuming my pacing. "I deal in data, not myths."
"No," he agreed. "But Ella is."
I glanced at him. "Ella, the archeologist?"
He gave me a brief summary of Ella being Zapharos' Aelyth, the first Aelyth in eons. She was a human and, like me, a scientist… in a way… a historian…
"And she mentioned something about human gods. Ashera… Asherah? And El?" He added.
I shrugged. "Like I said. I'm not a historian. I should've paid better attention in undergrad. Or—" I scoffed, "—I wish I still had Google."
He frowned. "I have no idea what that is."
"Of course you don't."
Then his eyes sharpened. "But Ella said the Pandraxians uploaded everything. Earth history. Records. Myths. Data. All of it. Integrated it into their archives."
I stopped pacing so abruptly, my heel skidded.
"Perfect. Where?" My expression shifted from panic to purpose.
"Access. I need access," I demanded, meeting his gaze with familiar focus.
This was what I was good at. Researching.
Forming logical conclusions. Because, dammit.
There had to be one. "If my planet is on your skin—and mine—then someone knew exactly what they were doing. "
I was done being the last one to understand it.