"The moon is my favorite thing in the whole world,” Jade said, at last.
Hesper slid off the bed and sat on the floor beside her. Jade put her arm around Hesper. "You’re crying.”
Hesper smiled. "Am I?” She wiped her eyes. "Do you always make everything wonderful?”
"No.” Jade giggled. “The moon does that. Anything is better dipped in silver. It nourishes the good in me.”
Silver, not gray, silver.
Jade rested her head on Hesper’s shoulder then fit their fingers together, placing their hands in Hesper’s lap.
“Tell me about your home,” Jade said.
After a long time of talking about life and experiences, Jade fell asleep relaying the story of her first kiss. David gave it to her when she was ready for it—only when she said she was.
“A gift wrapped in a smile and arm-ribbons. A comfortable, hot, sweet kiss, like a mugful of drinking chocolate made with cream.”
Which made sense to Hesper without much thought, even though she had never experienced a kiss or drinking chocolate herself. Just the idea and sound of the words reminded her of David.
Hesper stroked Jade’s short, blazing hair and admired her freckled shoulders awhile before waking and helping her into her bed.
The streets would be abandoned now, and David was asleep. The odds might be in her favor if she chose to flee, but she did not have the desire to do it. Besides the fear of David losing his temper, what about Jade and her baby? That alone made her chest ache.
David had said Hesper had to be spoken for within two weeks, perhaps she stood a chance of convincing Jade to leave before she ran out of time.
Fourteen | Post-Conquest: 232
Hesper slid the token over her head and deposited it in one of the envelopes David had given her. Adahy’s dear name condemned her, scratched across the envelope in black ink. She held it to her chest and wept in her hand.
No more of this nonsense.
She slid her sleeve under her nose and swiped her eyes with her hands. This people, their god, their laws, and her loss must be faced with dignity and strength—beginning with Cole. He might reject the idea altogether, but she would face him as an equal in her mind.
If she could escape with Jade, she would. Until then, it was time to make peace with the moment, while maintaining hope for Meros humanity and Adahy’s courage and loyalty. It was the only way to stay alive. While giving up the token might be a piddly symbolic gesture to bolster her strength, if it worked, it was worth it.
* * *
The hallway to Cole’s room glowed with diffused moonlight from the long window on the right. The door at the end of the hallway was open, and the room was dark. Perhaps she could just leave the note? No. She needed to talk to him. Darkness did not have to mean he was not there. She lived in moderate darkness much of her life, after all.
Moonlight shone through a glass wall, dimly illuminating ceiling-high shelves of shadowy, blue-tinted books. A dark doorway gaped at her from the right. Furs, strewn across Cole’s bed, testified to his Unified interests. The hunter bag resting against it, however, spoke of darker, deeper connections.
Bead poppies on the flap. Unmistakable bright red, even in the moonlight.
It could not be, though it had to be. With a quick glance over her shoulder, she tip-toed to the bag and knelt, setting her envelope aside. Hot with rage, she opened the bag, shoved her hand in, and dug out the bottle of bug repellent. The snake! She pulled the cork and dumped the bottle’s lemongrass and geranium contents on the floor.
I hope every tick and mosquito in the forest finds you and drains the blood from your body!
She did not mean it.
Yes, she did.
Not truly.
Her head. Her lungs. Her stomach. Her insides all bunched up.
A light from the hallway cast her shadow on the floor, followed by quiet footsteps. Petrified, she took a sharp breath and willed her leaden feet to move. Legs and arms trembled in the struggle against her terror as she half staggered to the gaping black doorway at her right. Just as she plunged into the darkness and tucked herself behind the wall, the quick, quiet steps emerged from the hallway. The room she had been in lit up and threw a swath of light several feet into her hiding area. Fortunately, the wall and its shadow concealed her.
Loud steps followed the quiet ones.
David spoke first. "All right. What is it you want to talk about? Can we resolve this, or are you going to beat around the bush again?” He paused. "You smell something sweet and lemony?”
A book slid out of its shelf. Skin whispered on paper, pages fanned and flipped.
"Your new Gentle . . .” Adahy’s voice. Cole’s voice.
The book clapped shut.
"Yeah, I figured that’s what this was. It’s all you can think about.”
"I th—”
"What?”
The book slid back into its place with a gentle thunk.
On the day they kidnapped her, the terrible boom knocked Hesper to the ground. Cracking tree branches and rolling thunder startled her from time to time, but the rustling of the envelope exceeded them all. She left it on the floor by the bag!
Cole’s voice wobbled. "What have you told her, David?”
"Told her? About what? What is that?”
Stern, Cole’s voice came closer to Hesper’s door. "About my mission. About me.”
"Nothing. Absolutely nothing you didn’t hear me say. I swear it. Why?”
"This has been the worst day of my life,” Cole muttered.
David spoke too quietly this time. Hesper directed her ear toward the room and struck something with her shoulder. Such a little thing to cause so much chaos. The lights came on, wolves howled in her mind, and sweat dampened her skin. She gasped and scrambled to find the traitorous . . . what? Bumped thing?
Someone was looking at her.
Tears came, regardless of her attempts to breathe them away and cover them up. Quiet ones, at least. What was the use in not looking? She faced the problem behind her with shoulders back and weakness dripping from her eyes.
David stood there, brow knit with sympathy, amusement crinkling the corners of his eyes. Unable to look him in the face, Hesper pulled her shoulders back and lifted her chin.
"C’mon out, Hesper,” he whispered. "It’s okay.”
She took his offered hand, and he led her into the open, where Cole had his back to them.
"Will you leave us alone for a few moments, Dave?”
David sighed. "What’s going on, Cole?”
"Give us a moment,” Cole barked.
"I’m not going to ditch her with you.”
"She and I need to discuss Gentle topics.” He shook the envelope.
"Top secret as all that?”
"Yes.”
David’s eyebrows shot upward in surprise. He took Hesper’s shoulders. "Do you understand why he wants to talk to you alone?”
"Maybe.”
"Are you okay with this?”
When she did not answer, he held her shoulders a little tighter.
Cole would not hurt her, and she had no reason to fear his words anymore. "Ye—yes. I am okay with it.”
One of David’s eyes twitched. Still looking at Hesper, he said to Cole, "Listen, you and I know you’re harmless, but you be nice—kindness might be too much to ask.” He faced his brother and scowled. "Don’t scare her.”
Cole clicked his tongue and assumed an expression of snarky boredom as he put his hands out. "She’s as sacred as the Book of Light.”
David squeezed and released her hand, then walked away.
Immediately, Cole’s voice crawled out of a deep, dark hole. "Why are you in my room?” he asked, removing his coat and laying it over the back of a large, soft chair a few feet away.
"I hoped you would deliver that to my community for a hunter I know.” She paused. "Your coming startled me, and I did not think things through, so I hid. I am not here to do anything wrong.”
&nb
sp; Except to dump out his repellent. What a waste.
With the envelope in one hand and the token in the other, Cole wavered between kindness and pride. The deliberation passed between his jaw and eyes. A flicker of tenderness, then a twitch of his jaw.
A flicker.
A twitch.
A flicker—
The twitch of his jaw.
"Do you think my years of hard work and schooling have brought me to the prestigious career of a delivery boy?”
He removed his hat and tossed it to the side. What had appeared to be very short hair, was long hair tied up on top of his head.
Hesper’s mouth went dry. "No. No, sir. I hoped you would do me this favor when it is convenient for you. I would appreciate it, though I know you do not like me.” She looked up. "Or do you? You still look familiar.”
"You’re seeing things.”
The truth. The horrible truth.
"Yes, I am,” she whispered, choking on her words. "Strange things that make my heart pound. Impossible things.”
Cole snickered. "I know what you’re doing, you realize. You hope that the fellow this belongs to will take it as a message and come to rescue you.”
Twisting his mouth as with a bitter taste, he said, "I’ll deliver it. Only because I know this hunter quite well, believe it or not. He told me, just yesterday, of his impending marriage and described the virtue and charm of the young lady. His praise was not without merit, I see.” A lifeless smile curled up on his face. "I’m sorry we took you from him. It will grieve him to know you’re with us. Are you sure you want to return this?” He held the coin out. His tone, cold and hard, pressed on Hesper’s courage. “I assume it’s a betrothal token.”
"Yes. Return it. He will need it again someday.”
Cole shook his head. "Knowing him and what he said of you, that’s not likely.”
Hesper choked a sob back. "Return it. It is just another lie.”
All the cold hardness melted away with his long, quiet sigh. "Are we understanding each other, Hesper?”
She clutched her chest. The sobs would not come out. Only in.
"Will you allow me to explain?” He stepped forward.
She stepped backward. "You lied to me. To all of us. When I saw you at my door to take me to dinner, I could not believe Adahy would do this. You acted so stiffly Meros, it gave me enough doubt. I refused to accept that you were a traitor and a spy. Poetry about you prevented me from accepting obvious facts.”
Adahy was only a pervert looking to try an authentic milk-face before buying one at an auction. A liar with no affection for her, duping her, making a fool of her.
But she had felt his love.
She had felt his love?
Yes, she did.
She did.
"I hate poetry!” she cried. "It is the only way to explain things anymore!”
"Hesper, please sit before you hurt yourself. I’m still the man you have known all these years.”
"I will not hurt myself! This dress does not make me weak!” she shouted. "Faithfulness to your personality cannot atone for this any more than a dagger through the heart can heal the wound simply because the dagger is pretty.” She spat on the floor. "I want to say horrible things to you. Things I would be ashamed to say. I cannot. But I am thinking them.”
Cole put his hands in his pockets and said, quiet and steady, "I welcome your thoughts.”
"I cannot mean them, though I want to. I want light. I just want the darkness to go away.”
"Say words you do mean, Hesper. No matter what they are or how wise or foolish you think they sound. Sometimes the truth gives us light. Light doesn’t ride only on kind words.”
Fine. He asked for it.
"I feel an ache in my body”—she grasped at her chest—"when I think I would have married, given children to, and offered myself to a stranger. You’re a wolf who lurked about, waiting patiently for a little deer to grow, fatten, and fall upon your teeth.” She covered her mouth. This was crude, inappropriate, and bitter.
"Go on, Hesper.”
"Wolves have no regret,” she whispered, “because they are wolves, and they do what is natural to them. Like you, Meros.”
"Those are words you mean?”
Did she? Did she mean them?
She stood in his house, expressing painful words and weeping in his presence. He allowed her to berate and accuse him without retaliating, even though he could. Both were vulnerable in their own way. It spoke well of him.
"Hesper, I respect you and your feelings about this.”
Affection and repulsion mixed together in her mind. She only loved his memory, not him. Like the body of a dead loved one.
Like her own character.
He was not the only traitor in the room.
"I must address my own weaknesses,” she said. "I have been untrue to Adahy. Since you are Adahy, I must tell you, even though I am so angry I would sooner strike you.” She wiped her tears, as angry with them as she was with him. "I allowed myself to be touched and to have feelings that are new to me. Hardly gone for a day and I show my lack of integrity. In this way, I do not deserve Adahy.”
With as much humble pride as she could muster, she lowered herself to the ground to take his feet. "My plea is for forgiveness that I do not deserve. I am no better than a stig. If you grant me your forgiveness, I am at your mercy.”
He seated himself by her head, leaving his feet under her hands. "You must feel this guilt strongly, Hesper,” he said, "to believe that you have done something so awful that the plea seemed appropriate when asking for forgiveness. My God, why would you be asking me for forgiveness, my friend?
"If I say I forgive you and touch your head, you will get up and run away when I want you to hear me.” A deep breath. "Listen, I kept your people alive. I went from community to community, learning of you and reporting to the Kyrios on your strength. My research may have been the only thing keeping them from wiping you out. They want you gone for religious and economic reasons.
"And the Earth People are becoming such a problem, the Kyrios were going to put an end to it all, which they could, because this base contains a mere fraction of the Meros army. There are more Meros soldiers than civilians. Well-trained, with weapons your people don’t know anything about.
"The Kyrios see what I see, and I saw a dangerous force with unexpected weaponry and excellent intercommunal communication. That made you far more mysterious than they were willing to chance. Especially knowing how effectively your people have warded off the rogue attacks of armed civilians. My action bought time for the Unified.” He slid his feet out from under Hesper’s hands and rested his head beside hers.
"I am not a stranger,” he said. "Becoming your husband was precious to me. My love for you is sincere. Once I determined to marry you, I refused to even shake hands with a woman. I have been completely yours here as much as there, and I need your forgiveness for lying and putting you through this.”
He was not the same. This could never be what she had hoped it would be.
He placed his hand near hers. "You have done nothing wrong. I am open to you, Hesper, for anything you need or want.” He touched the back of her head. "As I’ve always been, with or without the plea.”
Hesper and Cole sat upright as David strode in and lurched to a halt. Hands in his pockets, David bounced on the balls of his feet. "Ah.” A twist of the jaw. “Should I be troubled?”
"No, no.” Cole stood and faced him. "A Gentle custom. That’s all.”
Hesper rose and turned away to wipe her face.
David grunted. "Uh-huh. I’m familiar with it. They try to use it when they get arrested sometimes. I see someone’s been spitting. I’m pretty sure I know who it was.” His eyes flickered toward Hesper.
"I am well, sir.” Hesper bowed her head to Cole out of respect, and Cole returned the gesture. She charged toward the door, her vision blurring, sobs rising, and she almost made it out of the room before crying. Instead, she broke down agai
nst the wall and let David hold her.
Cole could die for all she cared.
Oh, but the memory of Adahy. She cared. She cared.
Fifteen | Post-Conquest: 232
Twenty minutes under a screaming-hot shower and David was finally considering getting out. He was up to work out before sunrise, as usual, but his mind hadn’t been in it. Trinity called to demand he get "his Gentle” to the doctor and to summon him to a mid-morning meeting concerning a natural disaster in his jurisdiction. He couldn’t focus after that. At least he worked up a sweat and went through the motions. That was worth something. Right? Right.
His life had never been free of drama, but since Hesper arrived, the illusion of peace had all but disappeared. Jade was acting strange, his cold war with Evelyn turned hot, his own conscience started shooting brimstone and ash all over the place, and small as it was, his tattoos were itching and burning these days. Just one more thing to deal with.
It was a strange comparison, but Hesper’s coming kind of felt like the old days when he wasn’t legally permitted to have sex because he was a teenager. He’d find a hiding place and take his girl of choice there, and a senior officer or some other individual with a blasted flashlight would find them in flagrante delicto and send them running like a pair of yowling alley cats. He ran home yanking his pants up more times than he could count. Hesper was a flashlight that washed out his boldness. Those eyes saw everything, it seemed. She never closed them even when she closed them.
He turned off the water and yanked his towel down from the shower door to dry himself. With the towel wrapped around his waist, he stepped out of the warm stall and onto the cold tile floor. In front of the mirror, he inspected the in-shower shaving job, twitched his pecs, flexed his arms, then twisted his torso to look at the tiny, itchy chapati tattooed at the base of his neck. He got it at the same time as the lotus on his arm and couldn’t remember the act of getting either one. When he first saw it, he thought it was a moon, but the colors weren’t right. Chapati was delicious, so chapati it was.
Only a drunk would get a friggin’ flatbread tattoo.
He used to laugh when he thought of it. As he got older, it bothered him a little more for some reason.
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