Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-Six
VENNOX
"How terrifying that must have been to awaken surrounded by strangers." Quin's words lingered in the quiet between us.
The silk of her mane spread across my arm where she rested against me, her weight settled into the curve of my side. I could not read her expression from where I lay, but I did not need to.
Through the faint connection between our spirits, I felt the same conflict I had sensed growing within her for several suns-rises now.
She cared for me. Of that I no longer doubted.
Yet beneath that compassion lay an ache that reached far beyond this cave, beyond Valose itself.
Part of her still longed for the world she had lost.
The grief drifting from her spirit became an anchor for my own.
It steadied the instinct still urging me to claim what I had willingly denied only moments before.
Her heart needed understanding far more than my body demanded relief, and that truth made the choice easy.
My place was beside her, not pressing for more than she was ready to give.
A warm, salt-laden breeze swept through the cave's broad opening, carrying the twin suns' warmth and the faint scent of vernbury tea from our cooling cups. But I had long since stopped noticing anything in the cave that was not Quin.
“Who were they?” she asked, untangling her limbs from mine and rising from the cot. “The exiles. Marie mentioned them at dinner when Sakkar sat with us and said it was a long story, and you’ve mentioned them twice now, but I still don’t know what the story is.”
“It began before I was old enough to understand it,” I said quietly. “During the last war against the Nuttaki.”
Quin donned her undergarment and returned to the table, cradling her cup between both hands. By the time I joined her, she was watching me over the rim of her tea.
“Sia Emmar ruled Huren then. He had twin sons, Jakkar and Sakkar. Tradition dictated that only one would inherit the crown, but before Emmar fell in battle defending our settlement, he named them both Sia.” A faint smile tugged at my lips.
“He believed each son possessed strengths the other lacked. Jakkar was a warrior through and through. Sakkar possessed the mind of a scholar and a visionary. Together, they made Huren stronger than either could have alone.”
“So they ruled together?”
I nodded. “For many yerons. I was only a youngling, but I remember them standing together before our people. No one imagined they would one day stand on opposite sides.”
“What changed?”
“Sakkar became fascinated with the stars.” My gaze drifted toward the cave entrance, where sunlight shimmered across the Caspeen Sea.
“He convinced Hexxus to construct a vessel capable of leaving our world. The expedition returned carrying something no Valosian had ever encountered. A microscopic germ.”
Quin's expression sobered.
“It spread with terrifying speed. Our females had no immunity. Within weeks they began dying.” I swallowed against the memory. “By the time the sickness burned itself out, every female on Valose was gone.”
Silence settled between us.
“Jakkar blamed the expedition?”
“He believed the risk had been too great.” I looked down at the untouched bread in my hand. “He begged Sakkar never to leave Valose again. But Sakkar still believed exploration was our future. Even after losing every female, he intended to continue searching the stars.”
Quin frowned. “That's when they divided.”
“Yes.” I nodded once. “The Royal Council supported Sakkar. Jakkar opposed another expedition with everything he had. In the end, he was stripped of his authority and exiled. Many warriors believed he remained the rightful Sia and chose exile beside him.”
She absorbed the words in silence.
I rubbed my thumb along the edge of my cup. “That is how I remember it.”
My gaze lifted to hers.
“What I did not know then, but what Vallon explained to me last suns-fall, was that much of what happened afterward had been manipulated. While I lay unconscious beneath the palace for nearly a yeron, he learned the truth. The Gretolics had been influencing Huren long before the exile. Members of the Royal Council had fallen under their control. Even Sakkar had not been entirely acting of his own free will.”
Quin's eyes widened.
“The germ was not Sakkar’s doing,” I said, trying to make sense of it all. “The exiles discovered the truth. It was seeded into our atmosphere by a species called the Grites. They unleashed it to contain the Gretolics after their own creations rebelled against them.
“The rest... I only know because Vallon spent the previous dark hurs telling me everything I missed.” I looked down at the thin scars around my wrists where metal cuffs held me captive for Uri’s pleasure.
“My last clear memory is of carrying out an ordinary duty inside Huren. I had never laid eyes on a Gretolic. I had no warning that an enemy was already beneath my feet.” I swallowed hard.
“Then there was nothing until I woke aboard the Gorken vessel.”
The words settled heavily between us. I had never spoken of my captivity to another soul.
Not even to Vallon. Somehow, with Quin, the memories came easier.
Perhaps it was the quiet patience in her eyes, or the faint joining of our spirits, assuring me she would not judge what the Gorken queen had done to me.
Yet even as the burden eased, another settled in its place.
She had called me her silver slayer. Her protector. Yet beneath everything I felt through our connection remained the constant pull of another world.
Her feelings for me were no longer in doubt.
The doubt lay only in whether they would ever be enough to outweigh everything she had left behind on Earth.
If she still longed to leave despite the bond we shared, and despite calling me hers in that small, unguarded way, then I simply was not worthy enough to ask her to stay.
Not worthy enough to become the home she still searched for beyond the stars.
I simply wished that, somehow, I could have been enough to make leaving feel impossible.
“Hey,” Quin said, reaching across the table to clasp my hand while softly rubbing a tight circle over her shawra. “Stop ruminating. I can feel how unsettled you are.
“I don’t remember the Gretolics either, only what the girls told me after I woke up in a cage on a Xegnot craft. From what they described, maybe we’re better off not having any memory of them. Now, let’s not think about the past anymore and focus on the present.”
We finished our meal together and cleared the small table.
I packed the remaining food into the satchel I left while Quin wandered toward one of the broad openings overlooking the Caspeen Sea.
She stood at the edge of the cavern, her gaze following the endless expanse of deep blue water as waves crashed against the rocky shoreline far below.
The rhythmic sound echoed through the interconnected caverns while the salt breeze drifted lazily between the stone passages.
When everything had been stowed away, I retrieved my sword and crossed to her side. She looked over her shoulder as I approached, the suns’ light catching the dark waves of her hair.
I smiled and offered her my hand. "Come. Our date is not over yet."
Her eyes brightened instantly with eager curiosity. "You planned more?"
"Much more."
She slipped her hand into mine.
"You learned this dating thing awfully fast," she teased as we made our way back through the winding caverns. "Yesterday you didn't even know what a date was."
"I learn quickly."
She laughed. "Apparently."
We reached the summit, and the bubble craft waited exactly where I'd left it, invisible save for the two white stones marking its location. I pressed my palm against the cloaked hull, and the hatch slid silently open.
Moments later, we lifted from the island and turned inland, leaving the Caspeen Sea behind as the jungle spread beneath us in an endless sea of silver-barked trees and luminous blue canopy.
Before long, a sprawling field of floratraps appeared below.
Hundreds of the carnivorous plants blanketed the valley floor, some tightly furled into heavy green buds while others stood open beneath the twin suns, their thick, brightly colored petals surrounding deep, inviting throats that concealed powerful jaws capable of swallowing large prey.
I explained that the colony had spread over countless yerons, eventually forcing an entire Nuttaki horde to abandon the caves to the west. I promised Quin we would come back, and next time she could bring her bio-analyzer to satisfy the curiosity shining so brightly in her eyes.
I banked the bubble craft northward, leaving the floratrap valley behind.
Before long, a jagged scar broke the endless canopy below.
The black hull of a Gretolic vessel lay where it had torn through the treetops and buried itself among the jungle, twisted metal disappearing beneath vines and new growth that had slowly begun reclaiming it.
I guided the craft into a slow circle above the wreckage.
"Sia Jakkar saw it fall," I said. "He and the exiles came to investigate, believing another threat had arrived from the stars. Instead, they found frightened human females trapped inside."
Quin studied the shattered vessel below in silence.
"They must have been terrified," she murmured. "Abducted from Earth, then surviving a crash, and rescued by silver aliens speaking a language they couldn't understand." She shook her head slowly. "I was going to say I couldn't imagine, but I can actually imagine exactly that."
Her words settled heavily between us. I glanced at her, wishing she had never been forced to understand such terror firsthand. No one should have memories like those to compare.
"We have all endured our own ordeals," I said quietly.
I banked gently away from the wreckage, leaving the old scars of the crash behind as we continued deeper over the jungle.