Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 83946 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 420(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83946 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 420(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
“What is … How can this be?” she questions softly.
Instead of answering, I take her along the riverbanks, over green grass that calls for me to ground myself in it, to come home. I wish I could. With my mate at my side. Where the river begins to empty into the ocean and nestle into a shelf of a mountain where I could make it part of the land, there is my home. A trip away from the palace and its bustling court, nestled behind low hanging trees, making the area around it an oasis of sorts. I show her the days I have laid on the grass there, staring up at the pink clouds electrified with light and life, wondering what my mate was doing, and nights looking at twinkling stars, wishing she was by my side.
Her eyes come to me, then, and I can see, she’s starting to get it. What she means to me. Who she is to me. How long I have yearned for her. But she still doesn’t fully understand.
I go through memories of my parents hugging, my brother and me racing down a hill that we knew was far too steep. We ended up rolling down the hill by the end. Her lips curve up as she watches it all play out where Halun and I find our sister at the very bottom of the hill, ready to tattle on us. I take her back through the years, showing brief moments of my childhood as I get younger and younger, until I get to one of the very first memories my father showed me, my crista ceremony.
When all Hallans are born, we are brought to the Mina. She buries the child in the rich soil of our planet until all but its face is covered. I chuckle as I see the alarm on Selina’s face as she watches this. I think I can safely assume they have no such ritual here. After the infant is covered, she places a finger to its forehead and closes her eyes. All that will ever be for the child plays out in her mind, and she speaks the words to the family gathered there, who wait to hear the fate of the newborn baby.
I play the last part for Selina. Because my family is one of the longest living on Hallalah, we are a special kind, and my crista was quite large. The memory is spoken in Hallan tongue, but because the translator sees our sharing of memories as conversation, I hear the Mina say my fate for the first time in Selina’s language. A way, at the moment, we can both understand even if the translator is not in her ear.
His mate will be a female with an eye of green, and one of blue. Not born of here, but when she arrives, oh, how she will change everything.
Tears gather in Selina’s eyes, and for a moment, I worry that I’ve shown her too much, too soon. But then, her lips are lifting, a small smile making her face that much more beautiful.
“Mate,” she whispers. It’s so low again that I strain to hear, but I do.
“Zawla,” I repeat in my language.
She understands now.
“You have waited … For all this time?”
I’m confused by her awe at that. I would have waited for eternity for her. If only to have the moment we’re having right now. Her hands in mine, her knees against my own, her eyes alight and her smile growing.
I try to answer in her language the best I can. “Always … waiting … you. Only … you.”
“Zawla,” she says then nods. “Zawla.”
*
I am, all at once, overwhelmed and calm. Two very conflicting emotions, and yet they both feel right. Sitting here with Bothaki’s hands under mine, his memories playing out in my mind in a way that everything I have learned tells me isn’t possible. But there they are. His beautiful planet, his family, his fate being told to him, and me being at the very center of it in his own heart throughout his life. I can feel the way he’s longed for me, and it makes me smile. That someone could want me so much. Could feel so incomplete without me.
Me.
A soul he didn’t even know.
Finally, I know what Zawla means. And it feels like one simple word has changed everything. He has a planet to go back to, a home he desperately wants to share with me. I could leave here. I could … be free. I could go with him. Immediately, I understand all these unspoken things between us and I don’t know where to begin. Quite frankly, I don’t think he’s going anywhere without me. But how could he escape this prison? How could he get back to his planet? How did he even get here?