by Presley Hall
I never really wanted to go there, but after seeing what kinds of dangers this planet holds, the idea of joining forces with the Voxerans is starting to sound pretty damn good.
Besides, Jaro has proved himself to be more brave and honorable than I ever expected. He’s surprised me at almost every turn, and I feel bad for my initial dislike of him.
I judged him based on the behavior of humans I knew back on Earth, but the fact of the matter is, he’s not human.
He’s different than anyone I’ve ever known, in more ways than just his physical appearance.
He’s… good.
Squinting a little, Jaro looks up at the sky, seeming to make some kind of calculation in his head. Then he lifts an arm, pointing. “I believe my village is that way.”
My eyebrows shoot up. “How do you know that? Is there some kind of smoke signal or something?”
A small smile tugs at his lips. “No. But the ring that circles this planet creates an easy guidepost to determine direction.”
I glance upward, shivering a little at the sight of the ring arcing through the sky. I wasn’t awake for it, still locked in cryo sleep, but from what I’ve heard, that ring is the reason our ship landed on Nuthora in two pieces. We still have no idea if anyone from the back half of the ship survived. The pieces separated high in the atmosphere and crashed far apart on the planet’s surface.
Maybe I’m glad I slept through that part.
“How does it work?” I ask. “Using it to tell direction, I mean.”
Jaro cocks a brow at me. “You truly want to know?”
“Hey, this planet is my home now too.” I shoot him a grin, even though there’s not really anything funny about my words. I feel a little giddy, still buzzing with wild relief that I didn’t die. “We’re all stuck here just like you guys are, so I might as well start learning how to get around.”
Jaro’s lips curve up a little more. It’s not quite a smile—actually, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen him smile—but there’s a gleam of amusement in his eye.
“Very well.” His expression turns serious for a moment. “But if I teach you how to navigate by the ring, it still won’t be safe for you to venture into the wilderness on your own. Even my people usually hunt in pairs for safety.”
I laugh, the giddy feeling still bubbling in my chest. “Trust me, you don’t have to convince me this place is dangerous.”
Another hint of a smile plays at Jaro’s lips, and he nods. Then he comes to stand behind me, placing his hands on my shoulders as he angles my body a little to the left. His bicep stretches out beside my head as he points, directing my gaze toward a spot in the distance.
“Do you see that point? Where the arc of the ring meets the horizon?”
I nod, struggling to focus on his lesson. He’s almost as close to me as he was when I woke up this morning, and feeling the heat of his body at my back brings back memories of that strange sense of contentment that filled me as my eyes blinked open.
When I draw in a deep breath to steady myself, the scent of his skin tickles my nostrils. It’s warm and vaguely spicy, and for some reason, it makes me want to turn around and burrow deeper into his embrace.
“Yes. I see it.” My voice sounds a little hoarse, and I hope he doesn’t notice.
“That’s where Pascia is. In that direction. But our village”—he turns me about ninety degrees to the left, using his other hand to point this time—“is that way.”
He shows me a few more techniques he has for gauging where he is and what direction he’s facing, and I do my best to absorb what he’s teaching me. When he finally steps back, satisfied with his lesson, I can’t tell if I’m relieved or disappointed that there’s more space between us.
To keep myself from having to answer that question, I squint into the distance, gazing in the direction of the Voxeran settlement. “How far away from your village are we?”
Jaro grunts. “I can’t say for sure. We were a few days’ journey from it when we were separated from the others, and the river carried us even farther away. It will also depend on what kind of terrain we encounter. If we have to modify our course as we did because of the storm, it could take even longer.” He pauses for a moment, then adds, “I’m sorry, Sadie.”
I blink in surprise, turning to look up at him. “You don’t have anything to be sorry for. I’m the one who fell off that damn log, and if you hadn’t jumped into the river after me, I would’ve died yesterday.” I hesitate, biting my lip. “Jaro… why did you do that?”
It’s the same question I asked him after I woke up, but there’s no edge to my voice this time. There’s no suspicion or mistrust. Just a quiet curiosity.
He doesn’t answer for a moment. I think I offended him when I asked this morning, but now he looks like he’s truly considering his answer, looking inside himself for the truth.
It’s strange how much has changed in such a short time. It’s as if climbing up that wall put us on completely new footing. Everything seems different now, and although it’s slightly terrifying, it also feels nice.
“I don’t know,” he says finally, his brows pulling together a little as he gazes at me. “My people value honor very highly, and Droth assured you all that we would do everything in our power to keep you safe. But that’s not what I was thinking of when I dove into the river after you.”
“What were you thinking of?” I ask quietly.
A bemused half-smile crosses his face, and he shakes his head. “Nothing. There wasn’t a single thought in my head. I saw you go into the water, and I was already moving, as if there was a string that ran from you to me, pulling me after you. I didn’t think about it. I just didn’t want you to die.”
“Well, I’m glad,” I whisper. “And I owe you.”
Our gazes are locked, and I know he can see too much in my eyes—too many of my emotions, too many of my thoughts. I can’t seem to shield myself around him like I normally do with people, keeping my walls up and only revealing what I want to.
His intense green eyes seem to burn from within as he steps toward me, coming to stand so close that I have to crane my neck a little to look at him.
“You do not owe me for saving you,” he murmurs. “Not yesterday, and not on the rock wall just now. I did it of my own free will, and I’ll do it again if necessary. I promise you, Sadie. I vow on my life that I will keep you safe. I will defend you, no matter what comes our way.”
His words are quiet, spoken with calm certainty rather than harsh force. But they knock the wind out of me anyway.
I’ve never had someone vow anything to me before, much less make a vow to protect me at all costs. I can tell he absolutely means it, and the conviction in his voice makes my heart beat harder.
I don’t know what to say. I don’t have any idea how to respond. But before I can come up with anything, he gives a sharp, satisfied nod, then turns and begins walking in the direction of his village.
“We should get moving,” he says over his shoulder. “It won’t be safe to travel at night, so we should make the most of the daylight hours.”
“Oh.” I blink, swallowing hard. “Right.”
Drawing a deep breath, I follow after him.
10
Jaro
We travel in silence for a while, making our way through the thick underbrush of the forest. The terrain here isn’t quite as lush as it is near my village, and I mentally bemoan the lack of cover it provides.
As we walk, my words to Sadie play over and over in my head.
I don’t know quite where that oath came from, or what prompted the words to spill from my lips. I never make vows lightly. When I told Sadie that my people value honor, I wasn’t lying. But for me, it’s more than that. I spent years living as a slave on Ybretti, and during that time, when everything else was taken from me, my honor was the one thing no one could ever touch.
I’ve only sworn two oaths before in my life. The most recent time was after Droth and his men took me into their villag
e after my arrival on Nuthora. They found me nearly dead, having been attacked by a band of raiders and left to bleed out. Although they didn’t know me and had no reason to trust me, they brought me back to their settlement and tended to my wounds, bringing me back from the brink of death.
When I woke from feverish dreams, I was nearly mad with bloodlust, convinced that every single one of them was my enemy. But even then, they didn’t attack me. They restrained me so that I wouldn’t be a danger to myself or to others, then continued to nurse my wounds until I was fully healed. Once I awoke again in a more coherent state, Droth asked to know my story, and after I told him, he said I was welcome to stay with him and the others for as long as I liked.
That was the moment I made a vow to protect and defend them, to dedicate my life to repaying the debt I owed.
And the vow I made before that?
That oath was the reason I was sent to this prison planet.
Pushing aside dark thoughts of the past, I glance over at Sadie. She looks exhausted, but she’s keeping pace with me well, and I’m reminded all over again just how tenacious and strong-willed she can be. I’m sure she wants nothing more than to lie down and go to sleep, but she knows as well as I do how important it is to keep moving.
So she is.
A swell of pride rises in my chest, along with an unexpected rush of tenderness. I wish that I could make all of this easier somehow, that I could undo the events that stranded us out here. But since I can’t, I do the next best thing. I divert my course slightly when the sound of trickling water meets my ears, leading her to a stream nearby and watching as her face lights up.
She crouches on the bank and splashes water on her face before glancing over her shoulder at me. “Can I…?”
“It’s safe to drink, yes.”
At that, she scoops up several large handfuls, bringing her cupped hands to her lips and closing her eyes as she sips. She looks both beautiful and uninhibited like this, and I find myself smiling at the sight. But I quickly pull my gaze away from her, not wanting to make her self-conscious.
I kneel beside her and drink my fill, then clean the wound at the side of my head. The lump is already fading slightly, and although it’s tender to the touch, there’s only a small cut above the bruise. With water dripping from my hair, I forage for nuts and edible fruit in the landscape and present some to Sadie.
Once our bellies are full, we set out again, and I’m pleased to see more energy in her step. Her color looks better too, her cheeks a pleasing shade of pink. I find myself glancing over at her often as we walk, my gaze drawn to her like it always is—like it was even before we were separated from the others. But now, I don’t struggle against it. I don’t work so hard to restrain my curiosity about her.
She must feel my gaze burning her skin, because she turns to look at me as she ducks under a low-hanging branch. “What?”
I almost grin. Her eyes are narrowed as if in suspicion, but there’s a light behind them that I’ve never seen before. I like it. “I was just thinking you could show some of the youngbloods back at the village what it means to be a warrior.”
She flushes, the pink of her cheeks darkening a few shades. “Sure. Just don’t mention that I fell off a log and almost fell off a wall too.”
“But you kept going,” I say gently. “You didn’t let your fear stop you. That’s the mark of a true warrior.”
Her gaze darts to mine, a startled expression on her face. She opens her mouth as if to speak, then closes it again.
I can’t guess what she was about to say, but I find that I don’t want her to stop talking. I wonder if this is how she felt while we were scaling the canyon wall—although in this case, I’m not looking for a distraction from a terrifying height. I just want to hear more of her voice.
“Is it true that you and the other women weren’t sent here as prisoners?” I ask. “That your arrival on our planet was an accident?”
“Yes.” She runs her fingers through the ends of her golden hair, tugging lightly at the tangles. There are reddish tones to her locks that I never noticed before, and they glint like fire in the light streaming down through the leaves. “I didn’t even know I was on a spaceship until I woke up after the crash. I was abducted by my own government, stolen from Earth and sent into space to be sold in exchange for who-knows-what.”
There’s a bitterness in her voice that makes my chest ache. I know the pain she’s feeling very well.
If the alternative for her and the rest of the women was to end up at a slave auction, perhaps it was good luck that they were thrown off course and crashed on Nuthora. This place may be a prison planet, but they’re still more free here than they would be as slaves. I can understand better now why Droth was so adamant about the women coming to live with us.
“What is Terra like?” I ask.
Sadie’s gaze goes unfocused for a moment as she seems to get lost in memories. She purses her lips, tugging them to one side as she considers her answer.
“Earth? It was nice. Not as dangerous as this place, but—” She breaks off suddenly, then huffs a small laugh. “Actually, I’m not sure that’s true. It was plenty dangerous, just in different ways.”
Her words are loaded with meaning and memory, and I want to ask her more. I want to know what she’s thinking of when she speaks of the dangers on her home planet. But almost as if she can sense my curiosity and doesn’t want to reveal anything else, she moves on quickly.
“There are definitely fewer tentacled things that try to kill you,” she says with a small smile. “It’s still so crazy sometimes to think that I’m on an entirely different planet now, light years away from Earth.” She laughs, her face lighting up. “I was in a sci-fi movie once. It had a big budget, a great props and set department, and a bunch of amazing designers—and they still got everything wrong. It was nothing like this.”
“Movie?” I roll the word around in my mouth, but I can’t assign any meaning to it. It’s not a term I’ve ever heard before.
“Yeah.” She cocks her head, looking up at me as we walk. “Movies are… they’re made up stories that people act out. They’re recorded on film, and then people watch them later. I was an actor back on Earth, a long time ago. I started out in TV, on a popular sitcom called Dear Sister, then I did several movies after the sitcom ended.”
So few of the words she just said make sense to me that for a moment, I wonder if her translator chip is malfunctioning. I shake my head, latching on to the word she used to describe herself. “Actor?”
“Uh huh.” She grins. “The screenwriter makes up a story, and then the actors sort of bring it to life. We make it seem real.”
I scratch my head, wincing as my fingertips brush over the bruise on my skull. I’ve been too distracted to focus on the pain, although it still throbs dully. “But you said the story isn’t real. So you… lie?”
Sadie laughs. She seems genuinely amused by my confusion, and instead of being annoyed by her reaction, I find myself grinning back at her. I like seeing her like this, softer and more carefree than she ever seemed back at the wreckage of the ship.
“Well, I guess you could say that, in a way. But it’s not the same as lying to someone outright. I… pretend. And the audience knows it’s pretend, but if I do a really good job, they forget that for a little while. They get invested in the characters and the story, and even though it’s all made up, it feels real to them.”
My footsteps slow, and I nod my head as I listen, intrigued by her words. This sounds similar to the holos I’ve heard of before, but I’ve never had much opportunity to watch those. As a slave, I was never permitted any such simple pleasures, and although I’m sure there are establishments in Pascia where people can view holos, I’ve been more focused on other things since my arrival here.
Intrigued, I stop walking and turn to face Sadie. “Would you act for me now? I want to see it.”
She blushes again, although amusement still dances in her eyes. “Well, normally I ha
ve a script. A character. Something like that.”
I shrug. “I don’t mind if you do it without those things.”
A soft laugh falls from her lips, and she considers for a moment before she nods. “Okay. I can show you the basics, I guess. But it won’t be anything amazing, so don’t get your hopes up. And I haven’t done this in a while, so…” She blows out a breath. “All right. Here goes. Pretend you just told me something really amazing. The best news ever—something I’ve been waiting my whole life to hear.”
I hesitate, unsure if I’m supposed to actually speak the words, and even less sure of what I should say. But before I can ask Sadie what she meant, her entire face transforms. Joy and excitement and hope bloom across her features as a slow smile spreads across her face. Her posture changes too. She stands taller, her shoulders drawing back as her eyes seem to dance with happiness.
The effect is breathtaking. She looks truly radiant like this, as if every one of her worries and fears has fallen away. Now I desperately want to know what the imaginary good news was, because I want to make whatever it was real. I want to say words that will make her beam like this all the time.
After a moment, her features relax. She wrinkles up her nose, lacing her fingers together as she meets my gaze. “Something like that.”
“Do it again,” I murmur. “Another.”
“Okay.” She gives me a look like she’s trying to gauge my reaction, then shrugs and unlaces her hands. “We’ll do the opposite. This time, imagine you told me something awful, something that would break my heart.”
I’m about to tell her I would never do such a thing, but before I can offer that reassurance, her features change again. For a moment, her face is almost blank. Then something in her expression cracks, and her lips quiver at the corners. A flush of color appears high on her cheeks as she draws in a shaky breath. Her eyes shimmer, water gathering in them until a single droplet spills over her lower lid and trails down her face.