Chapter 22
Jasmine
That night, by the fire, a celebration began.
Things were different since the boy, Mess, had been rescued.
I mean, not only had Ekkire figured out the “I love you” part of a relationship completely on his own, he stuck to my side like glue.
Yet at the same time, it didn’t feel like I was being smothered.
I liked the way his tail kept searching me out, touching me. It just felt like love.
Other changes were in the way the females gazed at me and the way the males now treated me. That was because Ilesekh, the male who’d led the charge before against humans, had now clearly changed his mind. Saving his son had done that, but I would have done it whether it changed his mind or not.
Dove and Hunter were guests of honor, supplied with the best and tastiest bits of meat throughout the evening.
It hadn’t been missed by anyone that they’d played a pivotal role in rescuing so many of their people.
Too many had still perished, but with their bodies recovered, they could be given a proper send-off.
Even more miraculously, none of the settlement’s young had been lost in the end. It was worth celebrating.
An exhausted, pale, but smiling Ish thanked us for our help as he brought over cups of a potent alcoholic drink the naga liked to make.
“Abseal? As a healer, I cannot recommend it, but it is tasty anyway,” he said, holding the wooden cups out to us like they were precious.
I took mine and inhaled the fragrance, fruity and tangy.
It came surprisingly close to wine, but carried a very serious kick.
I’d only tried it once, when Haven’s own brewer of the stuff, Iave, handed it out.
The naga males were not nearly as affected by it as humans were, but today I was willing to risk a little lowering of the inhibitions. Ekkire had my back.
“Thank you, my friend,” Ekkire said. The two bent their heads together to talk about the condition of Ish’s various patients.
Ekkire was all glittering emerald, while Ish was as bright and sunny as a canary—yellow glittering like white gold at the edges, especially across the firm, wide arches of his cheeks.
Gah, now I was beginning to realize how nice the guys were on this planet, and I was feeling extra mushy because I was pretty sure the nicest one was mine.
Ekkire might not like company, or so he said, but he was meticulous about inquiring after the health and fate of everyone here.
“Oh, does your friend have a communicator? Could he reach one of the other Shamans, like Artek or Haven?” I asked.
It had suddenly occurred to me that hoping a message on a kite had been found was enough to assure Haven’s hunters—and Jolene—that I was fine was a little silly.
Sure, we had not had a huge amount of choice in the path we’d taken.
Those Thunder Rock warriors had blocked our path, but it would be an immense relief to Jolene if she knew I was truly fine.
I wasn’t used to having anyone else care about my well-being.
The Shaman’s apprentice and healer did have such an object, though he had never tried to reach Haven with it before.
After some fiddling, the best we discovered we could do was route a message through the Sun Fang Shaman, Keir.
He could pass it on to the Shaman Council, and they could, in turn, reach Corin at Haven.
Now we just had to hope the message of our survival and mating wasn’t lost in translation somewhere.
Keir had been the surliest naga I’d ever heard speak, his narrow-eyed glare aimed at me, making it clear he shared Ilesekh’s sentiment about humans.
Just as that business was concluded, someone took up an instrument and people began dancing, some pairing off with their mates and disappearing into the dark.
Ekkire was not a dancer, but when I pulled him into a slow dance, he quickly changed his mind, his body curling around me as the two of us swayed slowly to the music.
Younglings were also coming alive, bouncing back from the disaster with laughter and play.
It might be nightfall, but nobody was sleeping yet.
Instead, the kids were playing a game of tag with Hunter, who kept teasing them until they chased him around.
Dove sat huddled on a throne of twigs, many of them found and brought to her by the settlement’s children.
Her current favorite—an already recovered Mess, the child I’d saved—had been brought to her with shy reverence and an encouraging nod from his previously hostile father.
The father, Ilesekh, found us an hour later, after he’d tucked the boy tenderly into a nearby nest with plenty of furs to stay warm.
“I think I need to share something important with you, both of you,” he said as he approached.
He drew us away from the festivities, and we went quietly to a spot that offered some privacy from prying ears.
The change from hostile to accepting had started with the change in Ilesekh’s behavior.
Since saving his son, his change of heart about me was obvious, and it had made even the females here act curious but distant.
Perhaps it helped that I went armed everywhere, and I’d been invited to compete in some of the archery competitions earlier that evening, at the start of the festivities.
I might not have won, but I definitely hadn’t done badly either.
Human and small, I was not without fangs, as Ekkire had said.
“What is it?” Ekkire demanded when he deemed we’d gone far enough.
He crossed his arms over his chest, hiding the clench of his fist that seemed to indicate he was ready to reach for his trident.
Ekkire had a harder time letting go of his anger over the way Ilesekh had treated me.
The Sun Fang hunter seemed to take it in stride, perhaps even expecting it.
“I lost my mate due to a piece of the skyship that carried all those humans here…” he said as he flicked his eyes from Ekkire’s tight fist to my face.
The orange that marked his brow ridges made any expression look dramatic on his otherwise deep brown face.
It caught the distant light of the bonfire and flickered back like flames.
“It made me furious, hostile to the newcomers, and… I rashly blamed her death on the sky beings. I see now that was wrong. Ishmakah told me you were victims too, drawn to Serant by powers beyond our understanding…”
I nodded, agreeing even though I knew the truth was more nuanced and would be less to his liking if he knew.
If he thought we were convicts, outcasts condemned by our own people, he would not consider our arrival so innocent.
That I was sure of. Guiltily, I realized I had not told Ekkire about it either, but of him I had no doubt he wouldn’t care.
I could tell him everything, and he’d still believe in me and our future together.
That certainty made me smile, even though Ilesekh’s next words were much grimmer.
“After word reached us that Sun Fang assisted Haven in protecting the sky beings last winter… I set out to avenge my mate. I mustered a party of males at Sun Fang’s main settlement with Shaman Keir’s help, then I left Mess here at the outpost with a friend.
We met up with Thunder Rock to raze the sky wreck.
” He paused and looked away, toward the fire and the nest where his small son was sleeping peacefully.
“Msera leads them, and he’s a fanatic. He even dug up a relic from an ancestral cave he believes will ensure the wreck’s total destruction. ”
Cold dismay settled into my gut as I considered what kind of relic he could be talking about.
A bomb? Was there such a thing just lying around?
The more I thought about it, the more I considered it was likely.
Hadn’t they still been digging up the occasional World War bomb from cities and forests in old Europe nearly a millennium later?
Ilesekh lowered his chin horn to his vulnerable throat and dipped into what could only be called a bow in front of me.
“I am very sorry it took me so long to see the value in having new neighbors, in sharing this world with sky beings such as you, Jasmine. I believe Msera might succeed with this relic. I saw it once; it was big and had glowing lights, indicating it still worked…”
Oh God, that sounded bad. It could still be nothing, but if Thunder Rock really had a bomb, and they planned to use it to blow up the crashed ship?
We had to warn them. “You are certain?” Ekkire asked for me, his hand reaching out to snap to Ilesekh’s shoulder and pin him in place.
“Where did they plan to set it off? Do we have time to get there to warn them?”
“I…” Ilesekh seemed to brace himself, then shook his head.
“I don’t know. Perhaps? Msera and his group were in much more disarray than we were after the earthquake.
They were only a dozen, and he tried to convince me to stay.
So perhaps they were banking on our numbers to help deliver it?
” No doubt Ilesekh had been trying to get back to this outpost as quickly as possible, knowing his son was here.
It made me think back, what little I remembered of it, and realize he’d been much more patient than I would have been when they paused so Ish could heal me.
“We must go right away. Can you spare any rations for the journey?” Ekkire said, his hand dropping from the Sun Fang warrior to find mine and gently squeeze.
I was relieved it was not even a question to my sweet, loyal guy.
He really had the biggest heart, always rushing off to help people or animals.
I squeezed back, my heart overflowing and clashing with the horrible fear that we’d be too late to warn anyone.