Total pages in book: 98
Estimated words: 91775 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 459(@200wpm)___ 367(@250wpm)___ 306(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91775 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 459(@200wpm)___ 367(@250wpm)___ 306(@300wpm)
The door flap slaps shut behind her, and then I am left alone with Tia. My sweet, lovely, fragile stranger. She stares at her hands in her lap, all the excitement from the loom gone. She does not speak.
“The sooner we leave, the sooner I will be able to understand you,” I tell her. “It is for the best.”
“Swut we hagreed on,” she says, voice gentle. Her hands twist in her lap. “S’fine.”
I do not need words to know what she is thinking. I know, because I am thinking the same. We agreed to this and yet…it feels too sudden, too soon. I want another handful of days of resonance. I want a handful of turns. I am not ready, either.
Yet I must do my duty. It is the job of the chief’s son.
I remind myself that the lives of many are worth more than the happiness of myself and of Tia. Returning is the right thing to do…and I am so tired of it all. For once, I want to do the wrong thing, the selfish thing.
“I am sorry, Tia.”
She looks up at me, and her eyes are shimmering with unshed tears. But she shakes her head and crawls across the floor toward me. “No, no. No sorry.” She slides into my lap and cups my face with her hands. “No sorry. Wegreed. S’our deel.”
“I wish I did not have my obligations to my people,” I tell her, a knot in my throat. How can I leave her behind? It will be like leaving half of myself behind. I cannot even think about the child we have made, or I will be utterly destroyed.
“S’our deel,” Tia repeats softly, and tilts my face down so she can kiss me. “No sorry.”
I wrap my arms around her and hold her tight. It does not matter if it was what we agreed upon or not. I still hate it. I hate it, and time feels as if it is sweeping away from us, like the water that sweeps back from the shore.
Far too aware of losing what time we have left, I kiss my mate hungrily, bearing her down into the furs. If we only have a few days left together, let all of them be full of touches and joy. I kiss her and kiss her, and ignore the knot in my throat that will not leave.
Chapter
Thirty
TIA
Our traveling party is a nicely distracting group. Just like Noj’me had mentioned, she’s brought along several people. Set’nef and Tal’nef are with us, but R’jaal and Rosalind opted to stay behind. Instead, we have Harlow and Rukh with us, and their two children. Colleen and Natalie from the group of clones are with us, and one of the gladiators (I refuse to call them taters) named Chalath who looks like he’s got some cat genes.
It all starts out decently, with Rukh and Harlow leading the way. Rukh pulls the two children along on a sled behind him, and the rest of us carry packs. Rukh and Harlow have been to the ship many times before, and they insisted upon coming along so we wouldn’t get lost. “Plus, I want to see if the computer is aware of Noj’me’s Oracle pod, and if so, if they’re able to contact one another,” Harlow adds. “If so, we might be able to set up a long-distance line of communication.”
I hope so. Maybe I can check in on Rem’eb when he returns underground. My heart hurts a little just thinking about it.
Rem’eb is quiet as we trek through the snow and into the mountains that encircle the beach cove. He insists upon carrying my pack on his strong, broad back and won’t hear otherwise. Chalath offers to carry the packs of both Colleen and Natalie in exchange for kisses, and both women make disgusted sounds and turn him down.
The brothers—Set’nef and Tal’nef—end up carrying the packs for the women and ask for no kisses. Something tells me they do it just to look better against Chalath’s selfishness. The two women walk with Noj’me, who keeps an endless stream of chatter up, as if it’s her personal responsibility to put us all in a good mood as we travel.
It’s a losing battle. Harlow’s kids are fussy because they’re bored, the brothers are stunned by the scenery around us, Chalath’s a dick, and Rem’eb and I are lost in our own personal misery. We walk behind the others, last in our straggling train across the snows.
“Hey, can we take a break soon?” Colleen calls out to Rukh and Harlow. “My boots are covered in ice.”
“It’s an ice planet,” Natalie points out, gesturing at the tall mountains around us that blot out the sunlight. It’s quite possibly the first time she’s spoken today. I also notice for the first time that she’s wearing her clothing inside-out, with the soft fur on the inside instead of the outside. Weird.