Out of the Ashes

by L. A. Casey

  I focused backed on Ealra. “It looks like Earth, just more colourful.”

  “Ealra is three times bigger than Earth. Out of every planet we have visited, Earth is the closest in detail to my original home world. We have all the same elements and many more that your world does not. We have water, but it’s all fresh, not salted like on Earth. The main reason we took humans, aside from being reproductively capable, was because you inhale and exhale the same gases to keep you alive as Maji do on Ealra. Once we knew you could survive here, everything else would be figured out in time."

  A bright beam from my left caught my attention, and I couldn’t look directly at it. I knew it was the sun, but not the sun I was used to. For starters, it was enormous, bigger than Ealra… and blue.

  “Is that your sun?” I questioned.

  “Yes, but we call a blue star. It functions the same way your sun did in the Milky Way.”

  “It’s beautiful is what it is… but seriously, it’s fucking blue!”

  Kol laughed, and we both turned our heads when the door to the bridge opened.

  “Surkah,” I beamed when I saw my sister-in-mate.

  She perked up when she saw me and walked towards me with a spring to her step. It shocked me how much I had come to care for Surkah in such a short amount of time, but I was so grateful for her. She was my dearest friend.

  If I do the mate kiss thing to her, I said to Kol, will she be okay with it?

  The admiration I felt from Kol for me warmed my heart.

  She will never forget it, shiva.

  I continued to smile at Surkah as she approached us. She did her arm on chest bow thing to her brother, and when she focused on me, I stepped forward and gestured for her to bend down. She furrowed her brows in confusion but leaned down to me, a question in her eyes. I placed my hands on her shoulders and watched said eyes widen when I placed the tip of my nose to hers, ran it up the bridge and stopped between her eyes. I replaced my nose with my lips and pressed a gentle kiss to the spot. With a smile, I pulled back, but that smile was instantly wiped away when I saw tears now streaked Surkah’s face.

  “Almighty.” I choked. “I’m terribly sorry. Please, don’t cry!”

  I wrapped my arms around a bawling Surkah and practically screamed at Kol in my mind.

  She’s sobbing, Kol!

  With joy, shiva. You only share a mate kiss with Maji whom you truly love and care for. It is sacred.

  That relaxed me, and unlike when I thought of love with Kol, I wasn’t scared because it was different with Surkah. She was my sister-in-mate and had quickly taken up the long vacant role of cherished best friend. I had only known her for six days, but I felt like we went way back.

  “Surkah.” I frowned as I hugged her. “Please, I’ll cry too if you don’t stop and none of us would like that.”

  “No, we would not,” Kol agreed, “because we know I’ll do anything to stop the tears, and that means Thane will reach the edge if another engine stalls.”

  That made me and Surkah laugh.

  Kol and Mikoh both moved over to a couple of crew members to discuss the plan to disembark the humans from the Ebony. I hadn’t heard much of the conversation, but I knew Kol would fill me in later when I asked him.

  “What do you think?” Surkah asked as she wiped her face free of tears. “Isn’t Ealra something to behold?”

  I turned back to the viewing pane.

  “It most certainly is,” I agreed. “I can’t believe there are so many different colours.”

  “Everything that is not purple is land,” Surkah offered.

  I gasped. “The purple is… water?”

  “Yes.” Surkah nodded. “Why is that a surprise?”

  “It’s … purple.”

  “Yes, was water on Earth not purple?”

  “No,” I replied. “It’s clear.”

  “How do you see it then?” she asked with a brow raised.

  I laughed because I didn’t know how to answer the question.

  “It’s complicated,” I eventually said.

  Surkah’s lips quirked. “I imagine it is.”

  “From space, our water sources appear blue, but in person it’s clear.”

  “Very strange,” Surkah commented.

  I chuckled and glanced at Kol when I felt tension pour from him in waves. It looked like he was having a heated discussion with a few members of his crew, Nero and Mikoh.

  “What are they saying?” I asked Surkah.

  “Mikoh is relaying a report to Kol about the Earth’s Officials.”

  Say what?

  I turned my full attention to Surkah.

  “What about them?” I quizzed.

  She looked at her brother then back at me and said, “Maybe you should ask Kol about that.”

  I did exactly that.

  “Okay,” I said to her then focused on her brother.

  Why is Mikoh talking to you about Earth’s Officials?

  I heard his growl from across the room.

  “Surkah!” he snapped, spinning to face us. “This conversation is not for Nova’s ears or yours!”

  Surkah didn’t even flinch.

  “I told you I wasn’t going to be dishonest to my sister-in-mate when she asks me a question,” she said firmly. “If you don’t like that, then that is your problem. Not mine.”

  I looked at Surkah. “You go, female.”

  “Go where?” she asked.

  I burst into laughter.

  “Nowhere.” I cackled. “It’s just a bit of praise for standing up to Kol.”

  “Oh.” She smiled. “Thank you.”

  Kol scowled at her, but when she switched his gaze to mine, it softened.

  In private, I will discuss it.

  I raised a brow. Do you need to be here to land the craft?

  No, he hesitated, my crew can do it if I give the order.

  Give the order then, because we’re going to discuss this. Now.

  I turned to Surkah. “I’m going to discuss this with him in private.”

  I hugged her and walked towards the exit of the bridge, noting Kol angrily gave out the orders I asked him to. I made it about twenty feet down the hallway outside the bridge before I felt him behind me.

  “You’re not to walk alone without myself, Mikoh, or Nero to escort you, Nova.”

  I rolled my eyes, glad he couldn’t see the action.

  “Nova,” Kol growled. “Are you listening to me?”

  “Yes. I just don’t want to talk to you until we’re in our room.”

  “Fine,” he clipped.

  The tension between us was thick, so by the time we reached our room, I felt like I could breathe again, and I was glad of it.

  “We’re in private,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest as the door to our quarters closed. “Start talking.”

  Kol scowled and began to pace from left to right in front of me.

  “Kol,” I prompted.

  He growled. “I am trying to think of a way to word it, so you don’t get angry.”

  I raised a brow. “Is there a reason for me to be angry?”

  “No, but you’ll still manage to find a way to be angry.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “You aren’t helping your case to keep me calm when you say shit like that.”

  “I apologise,” he said and continued to pace from left to right.

  I had to look away from him after a few moments because he was making me dizzy.

  “Okay,” he finally said, coming to a stop before me. “Two days ago, spacecrafts belonging to Earth’s Officials were in range of us, and Mikoh was just confirming the course they took with coordinates brought them away from Ealra.”

  “Earth’s Officials?” I repeated. “They were in range?”

  “Before they changed course, yes.”

  I frowned. “How did you know they were Earth’s Officials, though?”

  “We tagged their vessels when they took off from Earth.”

  A flashback of the night I
snuck close to the WBO surged through my mind. When the compound lit up next to the WBO, before I focused on the Ebony, I had noticed a bunch of smaller crafts take off from the surface.

  “The crafts,” I murmured. “The smaller crafts I saw take off from the surface before the watchmen found me. The ones you gave the coordinates to for the unnamed planet. Those were the WBO’s officials? They truly abandoned us?”

  “Yes.” Kol nodded. “We told them why we were there, and they said they would fully surrender Earth’s females to us if we gave them credits and coordinates.”

  I didn’t know why I felt hurt, but I did.

  “The cowardly bastards,” I spat.

  Kol nodded slowly, his eyes watching me carefully.

  “Did you tell them that the Earth would implode quicker than we thought?” I questioned.

  Kol nodded again. “It’s why they wanted credits to get to—”

  I narrowed my eyes at him when he cut himself off.

  “To get to where?” I questioned. “The unnamed planet?”

  “Before I tell you, remember how humans have treated you all your life, okay?”

  As if I could forget.

  “Okay,” I said, my teeth grinding together.

  “You mentioned once that your human royals lived off the planet, but you didn’t know which planet or galaxy they fled to.”

  I nodded.

  “Well, we know where they went.” Kol dropped his gaze. “I hid this information from you before our mating. The name of the planet they fled to is called Terra, and it is the planet I referred to as the unnamed planet.”

  Kol’s father traded with the species on the unnamed planet. I processed this for a moment then gasped.

  “The species your father trades with are… human?”

  Kol nodded, his eyes watching me carefully.

  “The royal humans?” I asked, gobsmacked.

  “Yes,” Kol said. “As leader of our people, he met with your human King, and they devised a trading agreement and a truce between our species.”

  I couldn’t speak.

  “We have known for a long time of the existence of humans on Terra, but part of the trading agreement between the Kings was that it be kept a secret until humans could grow and defend themselves and their new planet because they would be vulnerable to attacks otherwise. Maji and Vaneer are the only species to know that humans have relocated from Earth to Terra.”

  Still, I could not speak.

  “We keep track of planets within our galaxy and in the bordering galaxies, and Terra is inside our galaxy, only seven hundred million miles away from Ealra. Your humans don’t have the space travel we have, so it takes them considerably longer to get to where they are going, but they’re close to us, considering how quick we can reach them, so we keep an eye on them.”

  “I can’t believe this.” I eventually whispered.

  Kol tensed. “I am being truthful.”

  I looked at him. “I don’t mean you’re lying. I just mean it’s hard to believe that they’re on a new planet and left us on Earth to die.”

  Kol relaxed.

  “Terra is the name of their new planet?”

  Kol nodded. “Yes, it is twice the size of Earth, but virtually identical with its elements and natural gases. Terra and Ealra are two planets in many light years that humans can survive on. You can breathe the air on either just as you once did on Earth. Before humans, no intelligent life lived there.”

  “Almighty,” I rasped. “They have a new home, and no one ever knew.”

  “Your royal humans,” Kol began, “are on Terra at least eleven of your Earth years. Their numbers are greater than that of Maji but fewer than the humans on Earth… but they are rebuilding your race. You breed far quicker than Maji.”

  I stared at Kol, my mouth agape.

  “Why didn’t you tell me any this?” I whispered, wrapping my arms around my midsection.

  Thoughts were running through my mind a mile a minute.

  “I… I wasn’t sure you would stay with us,” he admitted, his shoulders slumping. “You were so sure you were being kidnapped and used, and when you met Sera, you demanded to leave. I feared you would refuse to mate me if you knew, and that you would jump at the opportunity to go and be with your own people if you knew about their plans to rebuild your race. We had not bonded. I didn’t want you to leave me. I… I was scared you would.”

  My heart slammed against my chest, and my ears felt like they were burning. This was the break I had been looking for since I woke up on the Ebony. Things had certainly changed since I plotted ways to escape the craft, but in a way, they hadn’t. The Maji were still withholding vital information from me.

  “You lied to me,” I said, my voice husky. “Again.”

  “Forgive me,” Kol pleaded.

  I didn’t answer him.

  “My people really have a new planet?” I asked, my voice sounding distant to my ears.

  “Yes,” Kol said tentatively. “Only humans with enough credits were able to gain admittance. They have a toll in operation around the planet. The only humans there who did not pay the toll were taken as workers to join the workforce for building their new world. Your human royals have done away with slavery; they’re trying to establish a peaceful equality between all humans.”

  I didn’t believe that shit for a second. Humans could never be equal. There would always be people who looked down on others.

  “We Maji have done many missions over the decades and obtained a lot of credits. We gave your officials many of these credits in exchange for approaching and taking willing humans females with us back to Ealra. They didn’t stick around once they got the credits and the coordinates… that’s when you saw them taking off. They set course for Terra. It will take them at least three months to reach the planet. Their crafts don’t have the warp power that the Ebony does.”

  I felt the blood rush to my head as a pounding took up residence in my temples.

  “The other w-women aboard,” I stammered. “Were they aware of this?”

  Kol was silent for a moment then he said, “Yes, it was part of the briefing we gave them, but they either didn’t want to go to Terra or had no credits to get there. All aboard took their chances with us because they didn’t believe humans could ever be equal. They still feared other humans… like you did.”

  Did.

  He assumed because I had talked to a few human women during breakfast in the mess hall over the past few days that I wasn’t terrified of them. For someone who stared at me all the time, he didn’t exactly see me.

  Every time I was in a human presence, I was observing them, waiting for them to attack me, to do something to me. I knew Kol thought it was foolish, but I couldn’t just change my way of thinking because he wanted me too.

  “You need us humans a lot more than we need you… don’t you?”

  Kol chewed on his inner cheek then he nodded in response.

  “I feel sick,” I told him. “I want to lie down for a while.”

  Panic flashed in his violet eyes.

  “Let me carry you to the be—”

  “No,” I cut him off. “I can walk to the bed just fine on my own, thank you.”

  He didn’t speak.

  “I want to be on my own if you don’t mind.”

  “I do mind,” he instantly replied.

  His response didn’t surprise me, but I also wasn’t going to deal with it. I shook my head, turned, and walked over to the huge bed we shared.

  “Go oversee the landing of the Ebony,” I told him as I climbed onto the bed, lay on my back, and closed my eyes. “I just want to think about everything you’ve said. I need this alone time. Give me a moment to have my thoughts to myself. Please.”

  I felt his worry and indecisiveness, but when I heard the door open and close, I knew he’d granted my wish.

  He lied to me.

  Kol knew my people had a new planet, a new plan of order, new hope that we could be a whole race again… a
nd he kept that from me. Part of me was angry because of that, but another part of me understood. Kol had wanted me to be his mate at that point, and he feared that if he told me, I’d want to leave him. I knew with certainty that if I knew about Terra and our royal humans’ intentions of rebuilding our race on a new world when I encountered Sera, then I would have demanded to go to Terra where I’d take any chances at survival. I had no bond with Kol when I’d met the augmented woman, and I’d have hightailed it towards Terra without a backwards glance just to get away from her.

  And I knew that Kol knew that.

  I hated that he kept Terra and the lost human faction from me, and I was already going through what I wanted to say to him in my head to make it clear to him that lying was not going to work for me in our relationship. If he wasn’t going to level with me one hundred percent, then things weren’t going to work between us. Period. Since we were already mated, I knew the threat to leave him would prompt him into heeding my warning.

  It seemed cruel to me to mess with Kol’s emotions and use my bond with him as a bargaining chip, but I couldn’t be a part of something wrapped in layers of lies. I just couldn’t do it. He needed to understand how serious lying was, especially when it involved something as huge as my race not going extinct.

  I wasn’t sure how long I had been lost in thought, but Kol’s voice suddenly sounded in our room, and it took my focus.

  “Crew, human females,” he began, his deep and shiver-inducing voice surrounded the room. “Welcome to Ealra.”

  “Nova?”

  I lowered my hand from brushing my hair and smiled at Surkah as she entered my room… alone.

  “Hey… where is Mikoh?” I asked, shocked that he wasn’t three steps behind her like he always was.