25 Penny #2
Before I could finish, Naan waved at one of the sentinels by the door and with a nod, he began pulling it open.
I looked back to see Thilar still standing in the hall with Yuros.
As soon as we made eye contact, I felt my muscles rest. Naan returned to her place on the dais as Thilar reentered the room and stood beside me, immediately surrounding me with his heat and soothing my stiff spine.
As if he could tell I needed grounding, he reached down, taking my hand in his and stepping in close, hiding them behind our bodies.
Naan and Kora both turned to face us again.
“Penelope,” Naan said. “You may leave.”
I looked up at Thilar, my nerves shaking anxiously as I peeled my hand from his and forced myself to step away.
God, don’t let this be the last time I see him, I begged silently, walking rigidly out of the room through the giant open doors and into the hall where Yuros and Sunhai were waiting.
Neither of them had anything to say to me. The doors closed behind me and all I could do was worry that the clerics were going to send Thilar away and send me in the opposite direction.
After a while, Yuros stepped toward me and said something in his own tongue that I couldn’t understand.
“He wants you to follow him,” Sunhai translated.
In a bit of a daze, I did. I walked with him through the hall toward a small turn that led to another round room, but that one was not being guarded nor did it have two clerics inside who wanted to peel my brain apart.
Instead, two familiar figures stood talking quietly amongst each other.
One was tall and wore a sleek, black suit with familiar blue veins stretching down the arms and legs, but unlike every other time I’d seen him when we did business together on the Nexus, Vahko did not have his biohelmet on.
His face was out and on display, looking as ethereal as I imagined.
An almost translucent, pale violet complexion made him both beautiful and handsome with a crown like every other valerian I’d seen.
A long, neatly braided queue ran down his back and eyes like tiny nebulas graced me with a glance.
And beside him stood a woman dawning a similar black suit with white veins.
Long, blue hair was tied into a tight bun on the top of her head, but otherwise, she looked the same.
“Innifer?” I said.
She smiled and immediately rushed toward me, wrapping me in her arms like we were old friends who’d finally been reunited.
“Oh my god,” she said. “I can’t believe you’re alive!”
Shocked, I barely hugged her back. She was the first human I had seen since I disappeared and I still didn’t even know how long ago that was.
She didn’t look any older than I remembered, which I hoped was a good sign.
When she stepped back, she was still beaming, looking over me like she didn’t think I was really there.
“What happened?” she said. “After the freighter, I mean.”
“I don’t really know,” I said. “I woke up somewhere alien and… now I’m here,” I shrugged. “How long have I been gone?”
“Two years?” she said, raising a brow like she was partly guessing. “Hard to tell time the same out here.”
I choked a little at that.
Then she raised her wrist, showing her Buddy to me. “These stop working when you’re far enough in space, but Vahko calibrated his ship to function with my Buddy so it can use it’s signal.” She glanced at my Buddy. “I take it yours stopped receiving signal wherever you were?”
“I didn’t have it half the time, but yeah, it hasn’t been the most useful thing away from the Nexus. I have access to files and data, but nothing live. No comms.” Looking past her, I gave Vahko a curt nod. “Nice to see you without a helmet.”
He approached, standing proud like he always had. “Nice to see you alive.”
“So? You guys are here to meet with the clerics?”
Vahko nodded. “The gek have been more active and without the numbers, the valerians are growing a bit nervous. Humans aren’t ready for the kind of fight I think is coming, so we are here to discuss the development of a monrian outpost near Sylos.”
“I heard as much. Did anyone else from the freighter survive?”
“Sam did,” Innifer said. “You might not remember her, but she survived. Went back to Earth. Studied plants, and then… well… long story short, she’s married and pregnant.” She looked at Vahko again, clearing her throat. “To Saleuk. Vahko’s second.”
I glitched, blinking profusely at the news. “Are you serious?”
“Yeah. Things are moving a little fast. Sam is being monitored closely. No one really knows how this whole thing works. A valerian hybrid, I mean. But it will be the first. And that’s beyond huge.
We’ve been looking for other survivors and found a lead on Quinn a while back, but nothing came of it.
So far, you’re the first that’s turned up since then. ”
I nodded slowly in disbelief. When my thoughts found their way back to Thilar, Innifer could see it and she silently took my arm, pulling me aside.
“Hey,” she said. “I would love to know what you’ve been through, but I have a hunch your mind is on something else, and you look like you need to talk, girl-to-girl.”
I’d never been a “girl-to-girl” kind of person, but when she said that, I nearly fell apart.
Finally, I was seeing a familiar face. A familiar species.
All of my worries and reservations hit me like a bus, and I could hardly hold myself together.
I looked up at Innifer and I shook my head, unsure what to do.
“Innifer,” I whispered. “What if they don’t let me see him again?”
“Who?”
“Thilar.”
She shook her head, confused, which told me they didn’t have much information about where I’d been or who I’d been with. Feeling a little unstable on my feet, I walked to the corner, far from the others, and sat down on a bench against the wall. Innifer sat next to me, holding my hand.
“Who is Thilar?” she asked.
“He’s the monrian in the other room talking to the clerics and there is a pretty good chance that I won’t see him again after today.
” I glanced up at Vahko as he stepped in to talk with Yuros and I envied the fact that he and Innifer were traversing space together, going on missions, and existing as a couple the galaxy approved of.
“You and him,” I said. “I never would have thought.”
“It was a lot.”
“You love him?”
Innifer smiled and nodded. “Yeah.”
“I love Thilar,” I admitted for the second time. “But these monrian customs… I’m pretty sure we’re about to be separated.”
“Does Thilar want that?”
“No, but what choice do we have? I just spoke to two women with so much power in their hands and I have nothing. I’m just a human and I’m finally realizing how small I am.
And Thilar is in the same position as we speak, probably being told what a failure he is for having feelings for me.
” I leaned forward, burying my face in my hands.
“God, I never thought I could be like this, fawning over a man, but I can’t stop.
I think I would lose my mind if someone came in here now and told me it was done.
We were never going to see each other again. God, that hurts.”
Innifer’s smile flattened and she glanced up at Vahko for a moment. After some thought, she took a deep breath and stood.
“Stay here and just relax for a bit.”
I nodded, raking my fingers through my hair and hanging my head.
I had already left everything on the table and I didn’t care that I’d just come off as a love-struck schoolgirl to what was essentially a former employee.
The Penny from two years ago seemed long gone.
Now, I was just staring at the pieces of myself, trying to figure out how they all fit together.
In the middle of the room, Innifer pulled Vahko aside and started to speak with him. His attention focused on her like a laser as they discussed something and all the while, my brain was exploding with doubts and questions about what would happen when I left that place.