by Imogene Nix
Marit removed their hands from the box and picked up the cloth carefully.
She opened the box. Her hands shook as she removed a hunk of rock. He wasn’t a geologist, but it appeared worthless as he studied her humble offering.
“Earth,” said the older man.
“Earth,” parroted his daughter.
They turned their attention to Ric.
“Earth?” he mumbled.
“From the dust of the Earth our ancestors took to the stars. Our ancient mother died, but her goddess sister offered us shelter. Daroo will soon follow the moonlight path into the kingdom of the dead to join our first mother. Take this piece of our ancient world into your home and remember the names of your ancestors. What dies is never gone if it is not forgotten.” The old man’s voice cracked as he finished. Marit’s wife made a sound that might have been a sob as she rushed from the room.
Ric shivered as his bride handed him the dark reminder. The stone’s cool weight seemed like it should be a heavier burden. This fragment existed as a testament to the fate of all planets. Soon his new wife’s world would be nothing but forgotten rock.
Wife.
The word sounded strange in his head. He still hadn’t seen the woman he’d just given away his soul to, and that terrified him. The Daroo didn’t believe in divorce. He’d heard the whispers of strange tales, but hadn’t given the stories credence. Watching his still companion standing beside him he couldn’t help wondering if the stories of supernatural telepathy were true.
“I have given you my daughter. I have nothing of greater value. Leave this place now, Aydric Julius, and disperse our names throughout the galaxy,” ordered Marit.
Kateri’s sobbing gasp gave him pause. He realized that was her father’s goodbye to both of them.
Her mother didn’t return. “Isn’t your wife going to say goodbye?” Ric queried feebly.
“Saying goodbye would be like saying we don’t trust the goddess. Some things are easier to say with our actions than with our words. If my daughter doesn’t understand that now, she will in time. Hurry, the levels of radiation have spiked recently, and I wouldn’t want any damage to come to your craft. You carry the soul of this planet and the spirit of my daughter. Thank you,” ended the emotionally distraught man. His face contorted with grief. He smiled lovingly at them, but physically shoved Ric toward the door. The girl trailed behind him.
The mother returned and rushed toward her child with a protective one-piece suit. Kateri grabbed her mother’s hands tightly as she handed over the gear. They stole a few seconds for a mute parting. So many heart-wrenching emotions played across the middle-aged woman’s face his heart broke.
Ric turned to Marit. “It’s not too late for you to change your mind. There’s room for both you and your wife on my ship.”
The old man’s eyes watered. He shook his head slowly. “This is where we part. Do not think of our end as death, but as the rebirth on Darina. Thank you, but no.”
Ric nodded morosely. The mother was helping Kateri into her panoply and he rushed to get back into his. Kateri pulled the large protective suit over her clothing. He noticed his bride’s mother managed to get the helmet on over Kateri’s veil. Even in his rush, Ric paused to marvel at how very proper these people were.
Marit went over to check a display on the wall. “Hurry,” he barked.
Ric noticed how warm the room suddenly seemed. He all but picked up the girl as he pulled her out of her mother’s arms and rushed toward the decontamination hatch his ship used to connect with the home’s entrance.
Ignoring the girl’s sobs, he hauled her into Steel Dragon’s interior. He reached up to depress the double door lock as he fumbled with his gloves. Ric glanced down at the fallen woman. There was no time for comfort.
“Strap in,” he demanded as he rushed to the controls. His ship was modern in many ways, but she was still a slow starter. He flipped everything to manual, because he knew skipping the preflight would be less dangerous than staying there. “I’m glad I sprang for the double insulated haul and the radiation deterring paint,” he muttered as the sound of the ship’s double class D engines whirled to life.
The girl blundered her seatbelt operation. He reached over and jerked it tight to her slender form as he pressed the button that would lock her in place during ascent. She glanced up at him, but didn’t say anything. Her sobbing had stopped, but the white-knuckled grip in which she held her seat’s arms told him she wasn’t calm.
Ric heard the wailing of his thruster and reached up to flip the switch that would bypass the legal four minute wait before engaging. He knew Steel Dragon could handle the abuse.
“Hold tight,” he said stiffly.
The girl quaked so violently that he spared a second to reach over and put his hand on her arm. Her head turned, and he hated not being able to see her expression.
“I know what I’m doing. You’ll be all right.”
Then he typed in the override codes on the panel in front of them. The force of the launch made his new bride scream as Steel Dragon hurled them into space and out of danger.
Chapter 2
One Year Later
The smell of the sea drifted across her face on the cold breeze. Kateri shivered under the heavy blanket. She shouldn’t have left the window open when she went to bed, but she loved the fresh air. Stretching with a loud yawn, she rolled over and snuggled deeper into the soft mattress. Contentment washed over her, and then reality had her sitting up in bed as if the house were on fire.
Aydric.
Her “husband” was returning today. Kateri swung her legs over the side of the bed. The cold stone under her feet chilled her as she made her way onto the balcony. The twin moons were just a shadow in the sky as the early morning sun sparked across the vast, azure blue Sea of Tears that lay under the cliffs of Aydric Julius’s ancestral home. She hadn’t seen him in over a year.
White drapes snapped in the breeze to tickle her bare arms. The sound of their violent protest against the northern sea-cooled air and the mournful cry of a carrion bird were the only sounds as she surveyed the vast loneliness below. She’d spent half her life in a fortress only to find herself imprisoned in another.
Metricia was known for its great cities of flamboyant excess. Yet, there she was trapped away on the edge of the world in a house crumbling into the ocean.
Husband.
This was no marriage. The man dishonored her by refusing to consecrate their vows. She’d removed her veils to hide her shame and blend, but she was yet a maiden.
The sound of the static woke her as the communication system emitted a long beep. They’d been flying for days. She’d cried so hard she’d exhausted herself. She turned so that the man, her husband, wouldn’t see her face as she wiped away her tears.
“Are you in orbit, Ric?” crackled the distorted male voice on the comm.
“Yeah, what’s the best route, Monte? I want to avoid trouble. No inspectors or ghosts, please, just a clear path home.”
“Thank the merciful spirits. Daroo melted down about an hour ago. Even the underground shelters won’t save those poor bastards now.”
Horror tore a cry from her throat, and the sound poured from her as a keening wail of misery.
“Fuck,” Ric swore. “I’ve got a passenger, my…ah…wife.”
“Wife? What have you done, my friend?”
“That’s a tale for another time. I have the cargo and this is big, really big. We’re going to have to sell them individually. They’re not just gems. They mean something. I won’t let someone buy them without the promise the names stay with the jewels. I have to do this myself, Monte. I’m going to sell each one myself. Fuck me, I can’t believe I’m doing this,” Ric bellowed.
He shook his head and stared at his reflection in the navigation screen. She watched the confusion and wonder play across his face. He didn’t know she was watching, and that made her feel as if she were doing something wrong.
Static cracked
again on the comm. “That’s a lot of work for one man. Are you sure about this?”
“I gave my word. Send the coordinates.”
“Done. And Ric, safe travels. I’m glad you didn’t die.”
Her new husband chuckled. A low tone signaled the end of the transmission.
Kateri stood up and moved to the co-pilot’s seat. She forced her sorrow down and locked it away. She couldn’t think about the loss, not yet, she had to make it through what was to come. Honoring her parents meant she not disgrace the man her father had chosen for her.
“Did you mean it? Will you see each name reaches someone who will honor the dead properly?” she asked softly.
He gazed at her, his head cocking to the side. Then he sat back and punched in some codes. A message displayed coordinates and he focused on his craft. She thought he didn’t hear her. She wasn’t as good with General as other people her age were because she’d spent so much time alone with her parents speaking only Dar. If she’d said it wrong, he might not have understood, so she opened her mouth to phrase the question more carefully.
“Take off your veil,” he ordered before she’d had the chance to utter a syllable.
She was glad for the covering because heat rose up her neck. Those were words she hadn’t expected him to say so soon after the devastating news, but if he wanted a consummation, she wouldn’t refuse him.
“I will not lie—I am afraid,” she whispered.
“I won’t hurt you, girl. Take off the headdress.”
“I thought that was your right? Is that not how married couples in your land do it when the sacrament of love seals the vows? Would you have me take everything off, sir?”
He spun toward her so quickly that his seat squeaked. She flinched.
“Of course not. What kind of a monster do you take me for?”
“I…uh…my General is not so good,” she feebly excused herself.
“It’s fine. You have a lovely accent. I am not well…versed…on your culture. Do you have to wear the veils until your husband…” His voice trailed away, and she was relieved he hadn’t said the words. She wasn’t ready for him to speak of the sacrament.
“Yes,” she muttered.
He swore so quietly she wasn’t sure if the words were only her imagination.
“You’ve had enough trauma for one day. Go lay back down and get some rest.”
“But it is my duty to honor my new husband.”
“Rest,” he interrupted her with the order.
She’d let her family down. Disgraced, she lay back down on the bench and wept until a fitful sleep claimed her.
When she’d awoken, he’d deposited her in his decaying home and left without so much as an explanation. Pushing the painful memory away, she went back inside. This was his room, but in the many months, that had turned into over a year, since she’d come she’d made herself at home.
A light rapping on the door made her grab her robe. She wrapped the decadent garment around her body.
Pushing open the heavy wooden slab, an elderly woman stepped into the room. Her long gray hair hung down her shoulder, braided in a girlish fashion. She wore a simple, soft green sweater with matching slacks. Her cheeks were ruddy with exertion.
Brae held a plate and glass, and she set the meal down on the small table on the balcony. For a moment, the motherly housekeeper stared at the waves below. When she spoke, she wasn’t looking at Kateri.
“I hope to set this table for you both in the morning. Give the boy a chance. You are so alone, but so is my boy,” the woman pleaded, and turned toward Kateri to embrace her. Kateri tightly hugged the woman who’d been such a solace.
“This is his room. He told me to sleep here, but I do not expect him to give up his place for me when he returns,” she explained.
Brae smiled with a sad little tilt of the right corner of her mouth. “Metricians used to marry more often than they do these days. When my grandparents were children, most folk took vows. Traditionally, couples never slept apart. My Ric is a traditional young man. Give him a chance to prove he deserves you. He could have torn this place down and moved to the city, but I’ve lived here longer than he’s been alive. He kept the manor for me. That kind of compassion is hard to find.”
“He may not even allow me to stay when he returns. We barely know each other,” Kateri countered.
“That’s not true. You speak daily. He contacts you each evening to check on your welfare. He sends you gifts from the exotic locations he’s traveled to on his quest to give your people peace.”
“And I am grateful for his diligence and concern, but those quick exchanges are not enough for me to assume I know anything about him. He has never even seen my face.”
She always wore the veils when she spoke to him, and that was the only time she put them on anymore. Her mother had always told her the day her soul-half saw her face would be a day she wouldn’t forget. She’d secretly read the ancient and explicit love poetry of her people and let it romanticize the unveiling and sexual consecration of marriage. She just couldn’t give up on the hope it was worth waiting for.
If Ric didn’t choose to release her from their commitment, she didn’t want to lose her chance for a proper marital unveiling. So much of her culture was dust now. She clung to her veils and dreams of a loving marriage. Her parents had been so in love. She wanted that for herself.
“That has been your choice, and a wise one. A woman without mystery is a woman who doesn’t understand why the gods built her the way they did. He has asked me often how you look, and each time I refuse to tell him.” Brae’s jovial tone belied the importance of her words.
Kateri filed away that bit of information.
“Your situation isn’t ideal, not at all, but there are many different kinds of love. Sometimes it strikes like lightning, but take the word of someone older than you, the best love creeps up on us when we aren’t looking for it.”
Kateri rolled her eyes, but the quick, affectionate squeeze she gave Brae was her way to apologize. “He will be here before midday. I should dress for him.”
Brae grinned. “I washed your veils and the dress you arrived in. They were hung in the sea breeze during the heat of the afternoon yesterday. I’ve scented the fabric with a blend of flowers that are said to drive a man insane with lust. There’s a box in your room. I used the household account to order a few things for you. I hope you will not think me a presumptuous, foolish old woman.”
Kateri’s cheeks burned. Her tall, fair-haired husband appeared tired during their last communication. His task had worn on him. It bothered her how much she looked forward to his nightly comm transmissions. Ric’s blue eyes seemed to look past her veils until he saw straight into her soul. She shivered, imagining the first time he’d actually look into her eyes.
“You are wonderful. Thank you,” she muttered, because she knew the elderly caretaker meant well. “But I would rather not make him crazy.”
“He’s already intrigued. You’ll see that I’m right. Today will be the day you understand why your goddess sent Ric to your father.”
“You know I am not as spiritual as most of my race. After everything, I do not believe in the goddess,” she confessed.
“I understand, but that doesn’t mean your deity doesn’t believe in you,” Brae remarked in such a genuine tone the words moved Kateri.
“You are better than a hundred priestesses for my soul.”
Brae grinned. “There is a first for everything. Most folk would say I’m a bad influence.”
“I must be special.”
Brae grinned so widely her wrinkles stretched her sagging skin smooth, but then her expression took on a serious air. “You are very special. That’s why I’m so sure you are what my Ric needs. Now go make yourself pretty and then hide under your layers. I’ll be going to bed early tonight, and my hearing is not very good these days.”
Kateri nodded. The elderly woman didn’t bother to hide her glee over the conspiracy as she all but
skipped out of the room.
The door shut, and Kateri turned and gazed at her paling reflection in the mirror. This was it. He’d unveil her, as a proper husband did, or she’d demand he let her go. Her future came down to how curious he was about what lay under her coverings.
Chapter 3
Ric’s entire body ached from sitting so long in the captain’s chair. He rubbed his lower back and stretched. He’d flown more miles in sixteen months than he had in over a decade of piloting, and “home” sounded good...except for his marital dilemma.
He ran his hand through his hair and leaned back. Every gem was sold and every name known to the new owner. He’d fulfilled his duties to Marit save one. Kateri. He’d sent her a robe for her twenty-first birthday a few weeks earlier. His far too young wife, covered in her virginal shroud, awaited him.
“Fuck,” he muttered.
Static crackled on the comm.
“Radar contact, respond,” Monte’s voice demanded.
Ric sent his ship, Steel Dragon’s, identifying codes.
“Acknowledged. You comin’ home, Ric? I thought that was your fuel signature. How the hell have you been, my friend?” Monte asked.
“I’m done. I’ll be in touch. I owe you a few at Haze for all the research you did. I’d still be traveling if you hadn’t set up so many meetings for me. Do I orbit or come in? It’s been a long haul.”
“Have numbers. There’s a lot of traffic today, but I’ll have the short runner take a bounce. They can orbit a rotation so I can get you down. Cleared to land, the weather is damn near perfect right now in Air Harbor, but storms are coming in soon. What’s your ETA?”
“Fifteen, fuel remaining twenty-five. Twenty angels until I hit atmosphere, so ten if you want me to drop hot.”
“Can the Dragon handle hot?”
“Without a doubt.”
“Married men like you shouldn’t take risks. Fifteen is good. I’ll have the sky traffic clear and ready.”
“Affirmative. Thanks, Monte. Radio is open and ready for your transmission.”