Heart of the Colossus: A Steampunk Space Opera Adventure (A Holly Drake Job Book 3)

by Nicole Grotepas

  “So for all you know, you’ve caught the same fish many times?”

  He gave her a look. “I think I would know. Once I’ve grown to love something, I never forget it.”

  Holly returned his gaze, certain that he meant more than just fish. His declaration made her feel as though she’d been punched in the stomach. She turned and strolled across the small footbridge to avoid the accusation she saw in his eyes. There was a stone bench as well as a circular bed of sand with smooth volcanic stones arrayed in it, and a long-handled rake resting against the trunk of a red-leafed tree with undulating branches and serrated leaves that was a foot taller than Holly. “Is this how you meditate?” she asked, picking up the rake.

  “There are things from Earth that align well with Yasoan practices. That is one of them. I’ve mixed it with my own principles. It’s very syncretic.”

  “I can see that.”

  “Shall I show you?” He asked, holding out his hand for her to put the rake in.

  She obliged. His lavender eyes were slightly serious with a only a hint of humor in them.

  He stepped into the ring, rearranged the rocks at the edge of the circular bed, and placed one right in the center. Then he stood upon the rock he’d placed in the center, balanced, and raked concentric circles around himself, alternating foot to foot, balancing on one at a time, using the rake to turn his body. “Yaso believe the circle is the most harmonious shape. But, they also believe that it is only admirable to achieve balance in the midst of great stress. I test myself and my balance by making it harder. I lose myself in the creation of the concentric circles. Only then is true harmony arrived at.”

  His movements were smooth. What he was doing appeared easy, but she knew that was only because he’d practiced it.

  He finished with the circles, then leapt gracefully to the edge to stand beside Holly. “Would you like to try?” He offered her the rake.

  “I feel meditative from just watching you do it.”

  Elan gave her a small smile. “If you stay with me tonight, Holly, the only house rule is that you cannot sit out and watch. The home of Elan Zephyr is a place to strive to reach harmony with what cannot be changed, to align the self with the wishes of the Universe and to experience, above all else. Experience.”

  She laughed and looked back at the tracks he’d made in the sand. “Experience. I see. Any sort of experience?”

  “We were created to interact with the environment. You can choose the experiences you want to have.”

  She listened, and avoided his gaze. Her eyes sank into the nearby pond. She watched the fish swimming and wondered if Elan had always been this way or if he’d become this in response to something. She wasn’t egocentric enough to believe that it had been her. However, a tiny piece of her did wonder if it was over what had occurred with them. She would not ask him, however. That would show her cards. She’d already asked him why he hadn’t chosen to come see her during her trial and he hadn’t answered. That smarted. But she could let it be.

  I am here for the children. Nothing more. Elan would be an amazing addition to the team. He has a calming nature, and I want that for the children. They will need it after the shit they’ve been through. She had to keep reminding herself. The qualities she was drawn to in Odeon were also present in Elan, only Odeon had trained himself more towards being a warrior, embracing the rogue-like qualities in himself. At the moment Holly had a difficult time imagining Elan fighting.

  “I will do that,” she said quietly. She wasn’t ready to talk about her experiences or focus on picking what mattered to her at the moment. “Choose my experiences. Thank you.”

  Elan squinted up at the sun which was almost to its zenith. “Are you hungry?”

  A change of subject. Holly sighed in relief. “Yes. I would love to eat something.”

  “Let’s go inside and I’ll make you a meal.”

  She followed him along the path that meandered through his yard. Birds sang from boughs in the evergreens. The breeze roared softly overhead, moving the trees with its wide hands. The sound was like water rushing in a narrow gorge. The odor of pine and crisp dirt permeated the air.

  The place was so peaceful, Holly could see why Elan didn’t want to leave. She wondered if she would want to leave. The urge to run tickled her mind, but she knew that was due to the discomfort of all the unspoken things. Without them, there would be no resistance. She would stay forever.

  “Normally I make a sanshi rolls, a cross between the ssayeku grain from Yaso and sushi from Earth. Would you like that?”

  “That sounds amazing. No raw animals, however.”

  “Tofu? The human favorite alternative to meat?”

  “Tofu is perfect.”

  Inside the glass door off the patio, Elan stopped and looked at her. He took her hand in his and touched it to his cheek. With his eyes closed, he sighed. “It is nice to have someone here with me. You, Holly Drake.”

  The movement and confession took her by surprise. She stepped back when he let go of her hand, blinked, and stuttered.

  “Don’t say anything. It isn’t necessary. I only wanted you to know what I feel. Now, let me make you lunch. And then I have to go back out on the lake. You may join me for that if you wish.”

  ***

  After Elan rolled the vegetables, fruit, and tofu into the thin paper made from ssayeku, they sat at his kitchen counter and ate together. The things they didn’t say weighed over Holly. Was I just a fling? Was that why he never came back to see her? Why he avoided seeing her while he was in the city during her trial?

  And why couldn’t she just ask him?

  The reason was that she conducted the conversation with him in her head and finished it with a terrible pronouncement—yes, she was just a fling, and that was why she couldn’t bring herself to ask it. She felt certain that her extrapolations from his behavior were evidence of what he felt.

  But if she had just been a fling, why was he living in Rochers Deshiketes, fishing and living a monastic life?

  “You look troubled, Holly,” Elan said. He was done eating. They’d exhausted the conversation about what it was like to live in the small village. Holly now knew the local gossip—which people were using illegal bait (Consties), who was threatening to open a competing wharf cafe (a human) because the current owner (a Druiviin) refused to stock and sell tea, and the price wars that went on for those who sold fish to the southern settlements.

  “I am, a bit,” she admitted.

  “Well, you needn’t worry about it, if that’s your concern. My needs here are minimal. Even if I have to settle for a lower price, I’ll still be able to make ends meet.”

  “It isn’t that. Your life here looks perfect. I can see why you don’t want to leave. I wouldn’t want to leave either.” She pushed her plate aside. “That was amazing. Thank you for making it.”

  “Sharing a meal with you that I made is something I have dreamed of often, for a long time. What then, is bothering you? Will you tell me?”

  Hearing that, she knew that it couldn’t be her fear, then, that kept him away. She must not have been a fling. But what, then?

  “Elan,” she said softly, shaking her head, fighting against the questions that burned in her.

  “What?” He leaned close.

  “Why didn’t you come see me? What happened before between us—what was it to you? Was I just another lover in a long line of lovers?” If that was what she was, it would hurt to hear it. But at least she would know.

  “No. You weren’t. I haven’t been with anyone since.”

  “Prison, my trial? That was the second lowest point in my life. The first was when you left.”

  “You sent me away, you mean.” He blinked, his lavender eyes suddenly hard.

  “Because I was married to a monster. He had a gun. If he found out about you, he would have killed you.”

  “But you killed him,” Elan said, quietly.

  “Is that why you never came to see me during the trial? Becau
se I’m a murderer?”

  “Not a murderer, no. You saved yourself.”

  “Was that wrong?”

  He shifted and averted his gaze. “I still don’t know.”

  Holly leaned away from him, aghast. No one had expressed that sentiment to her. The only person who thought it, as far as she knew, was herself. Hearing it on Elan’s voice sucked the wind from her lungs. She couldn’t breathe.

  She stood and teetered away, the air crushed from her lungs. She went to his sofa and leaned on her arms against the back, trying to draw air into her lungs.

  “Holly? Holly?” Elan said, also rising and following her. He put his hand on her shoulder and began to hum, then drifted into song. He’d never done this for her. Her body responded with endorphins that coursed through her and calmed her response.

  “You think I’m a murderer,” she said, finally able to breathe. The calm clouded her. She couldn’t clarify what she thought, but she believed that she knew what he thought.

  “No. Not a murderer. I don’t think that,” he said, stopping the song. “It isn’t you specifically. It’s my beliefs about what is morally correct. The Centau and Yaso think they are better than everyone else. Something that I have always thought as well. But then I met you, Holly. And I fell in love with you. Knowing you the way I did changed me. You threw everything that I had previously believed into question. And then, when you sent me away, I was lost. I came here because I couldn’t live with the distractions of the City of Jade Spires, and I refused to sink myself entirely into what the Yaso do when they are troubled—the ritualistic cleansing, the music therapy, the reinvention. I took what I believe can help me from the traditional culture and pieces of human culture.”

  Holly turned to face him. “Why human? Maybe there is more to be had in the Centau or Constellation culture.”

  “Human, because I fell in love with a human. If I could love a human, there must be something right about humans that I hadn’t seen before.”

  His touch lingered on her shoulder. It was familiar. There was something in it—the past, the present, hope again.

  “You don’t think I’m a monster? For killing Graf?” She inhaled sharply hearing herself say it.

  “If there was someone monstrous, Holly, it was Graf.” His jaw clenched tight. “I have never wanted to kill. The only meat I partake of are fish. I sometimes set them free. But I wanted to kill Graf. I would see the bruises on your body. You know that I did. I wanted to heal you, to make you whole, to take you away from him. But you are free. And you believe the things that humans believe.”

  “What things are those?”

  He shrugged. He leaned his backside against the couch and removed his hand. She wondered if he did that because he knew that his touch artificially calmed her. “That you were obligated to the marriage. But in Yaso culture, if one person in a marriage is treated the way Graf treated you, the contract is void and they can leave without an explanation. Marriage is not about property.”

  “But marriage for humans hasn’t been about property for hundreds of years.”

  He cocked his head to one side. “Yet people like Graf exist. Did he not treat you like property?”

  “This doesn’t explain why you didn’t come to see me.”

  He rose and moved away from her. She followed him with her gaze. “I still wasn’t sure what I thought about the violence.”

  “Do you know now? Do you know what he did? Did you know why I did it? I need to know that you know what I faced the night it happened.” Here she was, standing before the man who had saved her from the misery that had been her life during her marriage to Graf. She could face the idea that her mother had been disappointed with her choice to marry Graf and then to stay with him, she could accept that her father never liked Graf, she could face it that Meg hadn’t been able to stop the corruption that led to her serving prison time. Holly felt that she could be a disappointment to all those people that had always played integral roles in her life.

  But not Elan. The desire to have his admiration, to feel his respect, to be a force that changed him, it overwhelmed her. This was why she’d come. Yes, she wanted his help with the rescue mission—which suddenly seemed so far away now—but now she realized that this unfinished business was making her life feel half-lived.

  He turned around. His gentle hands were crossed before him. There was an intensity in his eyes that she thought she knew. He came to stand in front of her and took her in his arms.

  “Tell me,” he said.

  TWENTY-ONE

  MORNING on the lake wrapped Holly in a blanket of invigorating breezes and fragrances and tossed her back out with a strange hope in her heart. She sat in a chair on the deck of the sailboat. Elan dropped anchor and they sat with lines in the water, watching the sun rise beyond the eastern ridge. The lake was dotted with the brilliant sails of the other boats vying for the best positions for fishing.

  Holly sipped hot tea from a special mug that Elan brought for the earlier hours. Coffee came later, and then kasé at noon. He showed her how to hook the bait, and then lower it into the water to reach the depths that the fish favored.

  As they waited for the lines to jerk and dip, Elan told her about the blade fly, which was what they used as bait. She listened, enjoying the relaxing morning.

  The first stage of the fly, Elan told her, was the eggs on the leaves of the evergreens that populated the mountain range. When the wind carried the eggs out over the water, they eventually sunk into the water and became larvae. The larvae lived for months in the water, little nymphs that fed on the tiny marine animals. After a while the nymphs hardened into a pupa. The pupa rose closer and closer to the surface until they emerged as flies. There were days when a billion flies hatched and rose above the lake in mating flights. They looked like swirling mists towering over the lake, mating in the air like dragons. Holly laughed when he said that. Dragons weren’t real. He told her that was debatable.

  Finally, the females flew to the trees and laid their eggs on the leaves around the lake and then the cycle repeated itself.

  “Beautiful,” Holly said. “The life cycle of a fly. Except you interrupt it and feed them to the fish.”

  “But that is part of the life cycle. For me and the fish,” he grinned. “If you saw the clouds of flies, Holly, you would know that the lake can spare a few to feed the fish.”

  “I would love to see it. When does it happen?”

  “In a few weeks. The eggs on the leaves survive through the winter.”

  “I didn’t know you cared so much about fish and flies, Elan.” She looked at him, admiring him. These things about him made him more interesting.

  The first hint of the sun’s body appeared over the horizon. Ixion was also in the sky, hovering like the giant that it was.

  “When I came here, I buried myself in research and learning about the environment so that I could become a part of it. In the city, I was just a part of the city. One of millions. But the city didn’t depend on anything I did. Here, what I do matters. The village is small enough that people know me, and I know them.”

  There was something about what he said that Holly loved and maybe even wanted for herself. “Would you have come here if not for what happened with us?”

  “No. You were the catalyst.”

  She smiled and looked out at an orange sailboat moving across the water like a skipping stone. The sail was swollen with the wind.

  “Do you like hearing that?” He asked.

  “I don’t know. I’m not glad to hear that I hurt you. But, you changed me. I let you in to my world. I became different because of you. Is it too much to wish that I changed your world? That what happened between us did more than graze the surface?”

  “We changed each other.”

  “Yes.”

  “I will come with you.”

  She glanced sharply at him. She nearly asked what he meant, then remembered. She cussed and pulled her communicator out of the pocket of the jacket she’d
worn to stay warm on the lake. It was still off. She switched it on.

  “What’s wrong?” Elan asked, eyeing her communicator suspiciously.

  Holly realized she hadn’t seen him with a communicator at all. “Do you have a communicator?”

  “No. I got rid of it after I left the city the second time.”

  Her communicator rang as soon as it was on. It was Charly.

  “Sorry, Elan. I have to answer—it’s my crew. Hello?”

  “What the hell? Where’ve you been? We’ve been worried to death about you.”

  “I’m sorry. I really am, Charly. I can explain everything later.”

  “Oh, there better be lots of explanations, Holly. Why your comm unit is off. Where on Kota you are—if you are on Kota—why you would run off without telling us where you are.”

  “I think Darius knew, Charly, honestly. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to worry you.”

  Elan touched her thigh in a gesture of reassurance. She’d spent some of the night telling him about her crew.

  “Darius knew?” Charly shouted. Darius could be heard in the background laughing and launching a defense of himself.

  “Look—once I’m back, we have all the pieces together to move on getting the keycodes. Everything else is taken care of.”

  “Really?” Charly said, sounding skeptical.

  “I mean it.”

  “Then get your ass back here. I have to go. Don’t be surprised if you hear from Odeon and Shiro.”

  Holly ended the call and gave Elan an apologetic look.

  “Time for you to go?” he asked.

  “Unfortunately. I have this thing weighing on me. I can’t run away from it.”

  “You don’t run from things, Holly. You never have.”

  “Can you come with me, now?”

  “I need to prepare my home for the time that I’ll be gone. That will take a day, and then I’ll be there.”

  “You can stay with me until we leave on the mission.”

  “I still have a place in the city. It’s small, but it will work.”

  “That will keep questions about who you are to a minimum. Thank you.” She still hadn’t told him about the run in with the Shadow Coalition thug on the train, and she probably wouldn’t. He had qualms about the violent nature of her life. Odeon would understand. Shiro would understand. Elan, she knew now, was a pacifist.