Cael’s face was a mix of amusement and confusion as he turned the phone back round to examine the picture again.
“So it is,” he said. “Why are you a frog?”
“Because I got turned in to one by the witch,” Asha said, her tone teasing. “But it’s okay. Mikey said I could live in his sock drawer.”
“Of course,” Cael said, laughing. “He’s quite the artist.”
“He is,” Asha said, pride filling her.
Cael’s expression suddenly turned serious.
“Was he born blind?” he said, and though he asked the question gently, his words still struck like knives. “Or did that happen later?”
Chapter 12
HER EYES SHIMMERED AS SHE LOOKED across the table at him, and for a moment, Cael thought she wasn’t going to answer. But then, she pushed her hand through her hair, taking a steady breath before she started talking.
“He has this rare genetic disorder that caused his sight to start degrading,” she said. “It affects everybody who has it differently, but the doctors said Mikey’s case was quite extreme. By the time they figured out what was happening, he’d already lost a lot of his vision. They guessed he had a couple of years at most before the rest of it went. There’s no treatment, nothing that isn’t experimental anyway. And the experimental ones only slow it down, they don’t cure it. Nell was devastated.”
“I can imagine,” Cael said, voice catching a little. “This is why you owe Crastor money, isn’t it? To pay for the biomechanical eye replacements?”
She nodded, dabbing at her eyes with her sleeve again. “How could you tell? They’re so good, even I can’t see it half the time.”
Cael offered her a small smile. “Well, in my experience, four year old Humans don’t have eyes that drastically change colour from one photograph to the next.”
He turned the phone to her, scanning back and forth between the last picture and the one before it. In the first, Mikey had green eyes. In the older photo, his eyes were a piercing blue.
Asha nodded, a small laugh escaping her. “He says he’s going to get them changed every time he goes for a check up. He wanted to have them purple, but Nell put her foot down. Said he had to stick to regular Human colours until he was older.” She looked back up at him. “There are only a few doctors in the country that can do the operation, they don’t offer it on the NHS.”
“I know,” he said.
He’d been there for that negotiation, trying to convince the decision makers for the UK’s National Health Service to offer the operation. But no one wanted the risk - an untested procedure, couldn’t possibly offer it out to everyone. So they’d agreed certain doctors could train and offer it privately. That way, if people wanted to take the risk it was at their own cost. Cael had agreed in the end, working on the principle that it was better than nothing, and when the Humans grew to trust the medical advancements the Intergalactic Community offered, maybe they would make them available to all.
But maybes weren’t enough when it was someone you cared about needing the treatment.
“They charged ridiculous consulting fees, but we could manage that between us, just about. But the actual operation…Fifteen thousand,” she said. “Nell... She would have done anything for Mikey to help him live a normal life. But she’s a single parent, working part time in a restaurant while she finishes her degree. There wasn’t a single bank that would touch her. So I tried. But I’m twenty-three, no fixed address, cash in hand job... no one would give me the loan either.”
She traced a finger around the edge of the candle tin, her eyes focused on the softly flickering flame.
“So you went to Crastor?” Cael said, reaching for her hand and enclosing it in his own. Asha glanced down at it, before looking back up at him with something close to a smile.
“Marta found him,” she said. “She’s got a network of contacts. She put some feelers out and someone she trusts told her he was a piece of dirt, but an unimaginative one. As long as I paid the money back on time and in full, they thought I wouldn’t have a problem.” Asha shook her head. “Unfortunately, he got imaginative. And here we are.”
“You couldn’t have asked Mal for help?”
Not while I’ve got my girls to look out for, Mal had said. Cael felt sure the man would have done everything in his power to help.
“There’s only one way that Mal could have raised fifteen grand that quickly,” Asha said, grimacing. “He used to do the whole chop shop thing when he was younger, but he got out of it years ago. Said he got too old to go to prison. I couldn’t ask him to risk his freedom getting in to all that again.”
“So you took the risk yourself?”
“What else could I do?” she shrugged.
“I don’t know,” Cael said. “I should think I’d have done exactly the same in your position.”
She gave him a searching look, as if she didn’t quite trust that he was being honest. Cael held her gaze, letting her study him. After a moment, she looked down, something a little lost, a little uncertain, flashing through her eyes as she did so.
“I know he’s not my kid,” she said. “But I love him so much, it hurts. I’d do it all again, all of it, including all the insanity of today. In a heartbeat.” She swiped at her face again, her eyes watery. “And I swear I’m not normally this much of a wreck.”
Cael scooted round so he was sitting next to her, brushing away her tears with the backs of his fingers before settling his hand at her neck.
“Don’t ever apologise for getting emotional about family,” he said, toying absently with the hair at the nape of her neck. She was so soft - her skin, her hair, her smile. But inside, she had such strength, a core of iron that had got them through this awful day unscathed. That had helped her to survive the burden of paying back all that debt. “And you are not, by any standard I can think to measure you against, a wreck.”
Her lips parted a little as she met his gaze, and stars he wanted to kiss her. But to do so would have felt… improper. Like he was taking advantage. He wanted - needed - to kiss her soon, but he also needed to be sure it was what she wanted from him. Not just a comfort she would have sought from anybody after a terrible day.
With reluctance, he drew back, knitting his fingers together in his lap to keep himself from reaching for her, even as his blood sang with need to touch her again, the Imorna racing in his veins.
“You know, most Human guys run a mile when a girl starts getting emotional,” Asha said, her voice a little throaty.
“I have something of a cultural advantage over Humans,” Cael said, the Imorna stilling, quieting. “My people, the Allortasians, are adept at misery. Feeling it, living with it.”
She gave him a curious look, but he shook his head.
“I shouldn’t go on,” he said. “It doesn’t make for a good bedtime story.”
But, impossibly, she took his hand.
“You’ve listened to my sob stories. I think it’s only fair I listen to yours,” she said, drawing his hand into her lap, her fingers absently tracing over the back of it. He stared at their hands a moment, surprised and delighted that she’d instigated such contact for the first time. He didn’t want to scare her off with the story of Allortasia’s tragic decline, but it was also something she needed to understand. After all, it was the life he was inviting her in to by being her Match.
“A hundred and fifty Earth years ago, we were one of, if not the most advanced civilisation in the universe,” he said. “Technologically and culturally, we were highly advanced, at the centre of the Intergalactic Community. A shining example of a society.”
He pictured the magnificent halls of his palatial home - the art work, the grand architecture, the seamless integration of technology. And almost all of it empty. Echoing and cavernous.
“The difficulty with being highly advanced is that after a while there ceases to be any real problem to solve. We had no poverty, limited sickness, excellent education and prospects for everyone. But whe
n you’ve already achieved everything… Well. People got bored, I suspect. We started looking for more and more outlandish ways to stretch ourselves further. Taller buildings, bigger events, more spectacular creations. And then, perfection of the body itself.”
He sighed. “There is a more complicated explanation, but I’m not a scientist, so I’ll stick to the simple version. A group seeking to perfect our genome made a mistake. A virus they were using to introduce genetic changes into test subjects mutated. I don’t know if it was because it was made unstable by the scientists’ tinkering, or if it was one of those freak natural occurrences, but it started spreading like wildfire among the population, irreparably damaging the DNA of anyone who caught it. It had something like an eighty percent fatality rate, and those who didn’t die were left forever weakened.”
“Eighty percent?” Asha said, horror in her eyes.
“Yes,” Cael said. “Our leaders at the time were powerless to stop it, and it became a race against time. Would we be able to find a cure before it took the whole planet?”
“But you must have,” Asha said. “Otherwise we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
Cael nodded. “It was less a cure, more a countermeasure. A means of neutralising the virus. There’s a species of mammal on Allortasia that has a symbiotic relationship with a microorganism. The sections of the population carrying this microorganism flourish more so than their non-carrier relatives. It had long been known among the scientific community that the microorganism had the capability to neutralise viruses. We’d even been studying it for medical applications. It was deemed too dangerous. They didn’t know what impact introducing it into the Allortasian population could have.”
“But I suppose they had nothing else to lose?” Asha said.
“Not by this point. It was wait for the virus to spread and almost certainly die, or take a chance on the microorganism. The Imorna.”
“And it worked?”
“It did. The scientists were able to adjust the DNA of the Imorna so it would survive in an Allortasian host, and then they infected everyone healthy with it. Then it was just a waiting game. I can’t even begin to imagine how awful it must have been for people. But, after a few weeks, it became clear that people had caught the virus but it wasn’t doing anything. The Imorna had successfully neutralised it. It had other physiological effects - the hair-” he gestured to his own unruly locks, “-the eyes…”
“Magical glowing eyes and moving hair doesn’t seem like too bad a deal,” Asha said.
Cael hesitated. He could end the story there, spare her the remainder of the tragedy til another time. But she needed to know, needed to understand her part in all of it.
“Unfortunately,” he said, “the Imorna became so well adapted to the host’s DNA that it couldn’t survive in any other. We found we weren’t able to pass it on to our children.”
The horror was back in her eyes, but deeper this time. The deaths of eighty percent of the population was terrible but distant. The loss of their ability to have children struck her in a far more personal place.
“But your niece,” she said, worry clear in her eyes.
“Is absolutely fine and will continue to be.” Cael drew out the picture he always kept on his person. “This is a bit old, it’s not quite as obvious as it is now, but you can just about tell that her hair is starting to turn green at the ends, like her mother’s.”
Asha scrutinised the image, tracing her finger over the flow of Sassi’s dark hair.
“It’s lighter at the bottom,” she said, glancing up at him. “So she has Imorna. But...”
“Sassi was born to my sister and her perfect DNA Match,” Cael said.
He waited for this piece of information to sink in, her brows knitting together at first, before her eyes widened. Those unusual grey eyes - filling with understanding.
“That’s what the Match test is for,” she said.
“Yes. My people invented it. Some of those first generation of survivors were able to find their perfect Match by chance, but there were too few of us left to rely on it, so the Match test was created. We thought at first it would only be for our own benefit, but one of our neighbouring worlds - Parshan - decided they wanted to see if it would work for them. They’re an unusual people - highly technologically advanced, but also very spiritual. They have a mating instinct, they recognise their ‘true mates’ when they meet them. They believe that their ‘mates’ are gifted to them by their gods, but they’re also not afraid to help their gods along by meeting as many people as they possibly can to maximise their chances. When they heard about our Match test, they thought it might increase their chances further.”
“And I’m guessing it worked,” Asha said.
“Yes. And between the success of the Allortasians and the Iparshana, it got the rest of the Intergalactic Community interested.”
“And now you’re here.”
“And now we’re here.”
He itched to keep speaking, to talk around everything again and again. To try to soften the edges of it somehow. But there was no way to soften the message. She was the only person in the universe he would be able to have a family with. Even if he wasn’t a prince, heir to the throne of a kingdom rescued from the brink, it was a lot to put on someone’s shoulders.
Asha sat with his words for a long time. Cael might have been more anxious about her reaction, but for the fact that she kept her hand in his, her fingers still drawing patterns across his skin. He focused on that continued touch, letting it sooth him.
“That must have been very lonely,” she said, eventually. “Taking the test and finding you had no Match.”
It wasn’t anywhere close to what he was expecting her to say. His surprise must have shown, for she dipped her head a little, a slightly embarrassed look crossing her face.
“I was just thinking... I’ve always wanted a family. If we’re... perfect Matches-” she said it like she still had a little trouble accepting it “-then that must be true for you, too. Only, if I want a child, I could get pretty much anyone to do the job, it wouldn’t matter. You... That must have been hard.”
Cael could so easily recall the acute disappointment he’d felt, finding he had no Match. At first, barely of age and blessed with the youthful ability to think everything would all turn out okay, regardless of the facts, he’d been able to convince himself it was only a matter of time. His Match was simply also his age, just a bit younger, not yet registered. It was true that a lot of young people weren’t Matched immediately, so he wasn’t entirely misguided to think it, but the longer it went, the more years that ticked by, the less likely it looked that he would find his Match without going looking. It was why he’d signed up to be an ambassador in the first place.
Ordinarily, someone of his station would have been encouraged to remain where he was - to serve his people and continue training for the office that would one day be his. But Cael knew he would need the distraction of a challenge, to feel like he was doing something, or his Unmatched status would have caused him misery. His parents had agreed, fearing that his lack of a Match would make his life difficult. That the burden of rule would be too much for him to bear alone.
“It’s something most of the Intergalactic Community look forwards to - taking the test,” he said. “To be Unmatched… It’s the one bad thing about the program - the fact that people are left without Matches. Before the test, if you hadn’t met someone, there was always hope. You just hadn’t met the right person yet. But when the database includes the entire population of the Intergalactic Community… That’s the equivalent of meeting an awful lot of people. And excepting missions like this one, there’s not a lot you can do about it. You just have to wait. Try to find a way of keeping a spark of hope.”
“How did you keep that spark?”
“Honestly,” he said. “Sometimes, I didn’t.”
She considered him for a long time, grey eyes impossible to read.
“Do you believe in fate?
” she said, eventually.
He arched an eyebrow. “Fate?”
“I was just thinking,” she said, shuffling a little closer to him. “Me and Nell were going to take Mikey to the tea party at Buckingham Palace. He’s been obsessed with the Intergalactic Community ever since he got his new eyes. We were going to try to get him close enough to see, well, you.” She glanced up at him. “So, even if Crastor hadn’t decided to make me take the Match test, I was always going to be in that park. You said before you could sense me, even before you knew I was there. Do you think you would have recognised me as your Match, even if you hadn’t known I was coming?”
Cael thought back to the way his body had responded to her, the urge to turn round, and then the way time seemed to freeze when he did see her.
“I know I would have,” he said.
“So we always would have met today.” She smirked. “If I’d been any help in getting Mikey out of the house on time, anyway.”
“Ah, well, he is under the age of five. I understand getting children that age to do anything in a timely manner is complicated.”
“Mm, perhaps it is best that Crastor intervened on our behalf, then,” she said, shuffling ever closer.
She’d moved his hand to her thigh. Cael’s pulse started to race as she shifted, leaning in so close that it would only have taken a tiny movement for him to breach the gap, kiss her. His blood rushed, the Imorna responding to her, recognising her as a perfect Match. A perfect host.
“Asha, if this is out of any sense of obligation…”
His worst fear. That in telling her everything, she’d feel trapped.
“It’s not,” she said, hovering just short of his mouth. “It’s because of the way you smiled when you saw Mikey’s picture. It’s because of the way you held me when I was scared. It’s because we nearly died today and that has a way of making you realise what you really want. And I want you.”
Then her lips pressed to his and he lost the ability to think about protesting. Her hand cupped his cheek, slipping in to his hair as she moved her mouth against his, a soft, questioning touch that made him yearn for more. He wrapped his arms around her, drawing her in, kissing her back with as much passion as he dared, delighting as she responded in kind, heat building between them.
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