There All Along

by Dane, Lauren

  “She’s a beauty, Pao. Even you have to admit that.” He ran his hand along the hull. “And I can sell it for more than I spent on it, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  His father glared. “What I’m worried about is the time you wasted on this project. Time you could’ve spent in training. And now what are you going to do with it? Because for all your bragging about how much you could sell it for, I can see you’ve no plans to do so.”

  “Not right away. I’m going to enjoy her first.” Grinning, he hopped over the railing to stand on the deck. Looking up at the suns, he calculated how long he had until nightfall. Plenty of time to get out onto the open sea.

  And from there . . . freedom.

  “You don’t even know anything about the sea!”

  Those were the last words his father had said to him, and they’d been the truth. Now he was in the middle of the Sea of Sand, the largest sea on all of Sheira. But what was there to know? The cruiser had been built with an autopilot and needed no more than occasional intervention. He had enough supplies to last him for a year if he ate amply and for much longer than that if he were meager in his consumption. And as for company, well . . . the world was a big place. He was sure there’d be plenty of people to meet.

  Then came the storms, a series of small ones. The cloud coverage was just enough to require a few hours of supplemental power from the storage cells every day. Nothing that should’ve mattered much, if he’d known there was a break in the circuitry that was draining the supplementals all the time. To save some power while he worked on the repairs, he let the ship go wherever the sea took it. Far off the course he’d set, the tides and winds took him. And there, the biggest storm hit.

  His cruiser was lost, but he was found.

  16

  Teila found Jodah crouched on the floor below his window, the heels of his hands pressed to his temples. When she knelt in front of him, he startled, pushing her away. She grabbed a handful of his robe to keep herself from falling and didn’t let it go, even when he grabbed her arm hard enough to bruise.

  He stared at her with wild eyes. “Where am I?”

  Her heart sunk, but she kept her voice steady despite its desire to shake. “You’re in the lighthouse at Apheera, on the edge of the Sea of Sand.”

  “Have I been here before?” His grip relaxed, and blinking, he let himself slide down the wall to sit against it.

  Her mouth opened and closed on the reply. She cursed the Rav Aluf. How could she answer that question without risking Jodah’s mind?

  Outside, the wind howled. The lights dimmed and went out. Teila looked automatically toward the window to watch for the lamp’s sweeping circle of light—it was still on. In a minute or so, if Vikus or Billis didn’t get there first, she’d go downstairs and switch the rest of the lighthouse’s power over to the supplementals. Without the sunslight, the cold would quickly permeate even the lighthouse’s thick stone walls. They needed working heat.

  He stared at her steadily now. “Teila. Keeper of the light.”

  “Yes,” she said. “Jodah.”

  “That’s not my name either, and you know it. Don’t you?”

  She drew in a slow breath. “It’s not anyone’s real name forever.”

  With a grunt, he doubled over in pain, hands pressed to his head. She put her arm around him, feeling the heat coming off him like he was his own sun. He didn’t fight her off, though at her touch he definitely straightened his spine.

  “Let me help you into bed.”

  “I don’t need you.”

  That stung, though she tried not to let it. “I know you don’t want to. Let me help you anyway.”

  “I don’t need to go to bed!” His cry echoed.

  She got to her feet. “Fine. I’ll leave.”

  He snagged her by the elbow and forced her to kneel again in front of him. “Have I been here before?”

  “Do you feel like you’ve been here before?”

  “That’s not an answer. Would I be asking if I didn’t feel it?”

  The lamp’s sweep lit his face through the windows. Shadow. Light. Shadow. Light. She wanted to cradle his face in her hands and kiss away the anger and fear in his eyes, lit so briefly. Then darkness. It might’ve been easier in darkness.

  Instead, she didn’t touch him. They knelt in front of each other, only the heat and brush of breath connecting them. If she listened hard enough, could she hear his heartbeat?

  “Where was I before I came here?”

  “In a military medica.” That, she could tell him. Only the parts of his life that had happened before the SDF rescued him from the Wirtheran war ship could set off the nanotriggers.

  “I don’t remember that.”

  “You were sedated,” she said.

  Another sweep of light. His gaze met hers without flinching. She found it harder to do the same.

  “Before that . . . I was somewhere else. Captured. The Wirthera.”

  She refused to allow herself hope. “Yes. That’s what they told me.”

  “How long?”

  “I don’t know,” she answered honestly. “Long enough, I should guess.”

  Silence, then, but for the sound of his breathing. In the next sweep of light she could see him pressing the heels of his hands to his eyes. She ached for him.

  “Before that, I was on a ship. I was the Rav Gadol. I remember that much, at least I think I do. Was it true?”

  “Yes.” Teila inched closer, still not touching but well within his grasp if he wanted to reach for her.

  “What did they do to me?”

  “I don’t know, sweetheart.” The endearment slipped out, bittersweet.

  She felt him shudder and reached for him, unable to stop herself. He let her pull him closer until his head rested on her breasts. She ran her fingers through his hair, over and over. They sat that way for a long time in silence marked by the constant sweep of the lamp.

  Slowly she became aware of the delicate caress of his fingertips on the inside of her knee. Then a little higher. The muscles of her thigh leaped under his touch when he made small circles there on the tender skin.

  She gasped at his mouth on hers, then moaned at the slide of his tongue inside. Her hands threaded through his hair, pulling him closer. He covered her with his body, the heat rising even higher as he unlaced the front of her robe.

  His mouth found her breasts and then her nipples, sucking gently. Teila arched under his touch. When his lips moved lower, his hands pushed her legs apart so he could get to her clit.

  When he touched her, it was like fire. It had always been that way, from the first time he’d kissed her. And this . . . this was more like it used to be between them. Tender, sweet, almost too gentle. Teasing.

  It took a long time for her to get to the edge, but any time she tried to move or shift to get at him, those big hands held her in place, until at last she simply gave in and let him have his way. She drifted on the pleasure until she couldn’t stand it anymore.

  His name, his real name, rose to her lips before she could help it. It was swallowed in her cries of pleasure and became no more than a moan, but even in her ecstasy how close she’d come to slipping frightened her. Shaking, she settled into the afterglow, her heartbeat slowing.

  She waited for him to enter her, but he didn’t. He kissed her thighs softly, then her belly. Her hipbones. Over her ribs, her breasts, and at last again to her mouth where he brushed the taste of her over her own lips. They lay together in the dark and quiet through three passes of the lamplight before he spoke.

  “You’re real.”

  “Yes,” she told him.

  He cleared his throat roughly. “I . . . took you. Before.”

  A small smile tugged at her lips, but she did her best to keep it from her voice. “Yes. You did.”

  “I’m sorry
,” he told her in a stiff, formal voice. “I shouldn’t have.”

  She gathered her robes in front of her, holding them closed as she rolled to face him. “You think I couldn’t have stopped you, if I wanted?”

  “You couldn’t have.” In the next pass of light, she saw that he was staring at the ceiling, one arm behind his head.

  “No. You’re right. But you didn’t force me, if that’s what you were thinking.”

  He was silent for a moment. “Still. I shouldn’t have . . .”

  “Did you do what you just did as an apology?” Teila pushed herself up on one elbow, wishing she could see his face. The sound of the wind had gone quieter, though the occasional spatter of sand against the window told her the storm hadn’t yet died.

  He said nothing.

  Stunned, moved, touched, her heart full, she leaned to kiss him. “You didn’t make me do anything I didn’t want to do.”

  The lights came back on. At the look on his face, awkward and clearly uncomfortable, Teila sat up and moved away. Giving him space.

  Kason—because that was how she thought of him now—sat up too. “I’m a stranger to you.”

  It was her turn to stay quiet.

  Frowning, he gave her a long, steady look. “You fuck a lot of strangers, Teila?”

  Her chin went up, though his tone wasn’t accusatory as much as merely curious. “No.”

  “It’s not your habit, then?”

  “No,” she repeated and got to her feet. Her fingers fumbled with her laces as she closed her robes.

  She felt it when he got up behind her. Waited for him to turn her. He didn’t touch her, at least not with his hands. He didn’t have to. She felt him all over her anyway.

  “Teila.”

  She wouldn’t look at him. Couldn’t. She half-turned to give him the illusion of it, but cut her gaze from his.

  “Have I been here before?”

  Teila kept her words careful. “Do you think you have been?”

  “Curse it! Answer me!”

  She braced herself for his grip. His fists clenched, but he didn’t touch her. Her throat dried even as her eyes burned; she closed them against the tears and his look.

  “Am I a stranger to you?”

  Her breath hitched inward, choking. She backed up a few steps, her head spinning, the Rav Aluf’s warnings echoing in her head. Don’t tell him anything. Don’t lead him. Above everything else, do not trigger him.

  “You’ve been here long enough,” she said, thinking desperately of how to tell him something, anything, that would open the locked door between the present and the past. “No. You’re not a stranger.”

  “But when I came here? Was I a stranger then?”

  “Did you . . .” She had to swallow hard. “Did you feel like a stranger?”

  Kason’s back straightened. His eyes narrowed. “Yes. I did. All of this felt new to me. But now . . .”

  “Yes?” Teila couldn’t stop herself from hoping.

  “Now, I doubt.”

  Everything inside her began to shake—joy or terror, she couldn’t be sure. “It will take time for you—”

  “Did you know me?” His tone brooked no more confabulation. Without waiting for her to answer, he did it for her. “You did. I can see it in your eyes. You knew me, Teila. Before I came here this way, you knew me.”

  So close, so close, but she couldn’t risk it. Not for any reason. “Do you remember me?”

  “No.” He shook his head, fingertips working at his temples again. “I don’t, and I don’t remember knowing you. But I did.”

  She couldn’t say yes. But she could not say no. She let her silence answer, and that wasn’t good enough for him.

  Kason let out a low, angry growl. That was the only way to describe it. It was a sound of animal fury, culminating in a roar that had her cowering. With one swift motion, he swept the nearby table clean of the glass vase and tray. Both shattered on the floor. The table was next, toppled and broken.

  Was this it, Teila wondered, terrified. Had he been triggered? Was he gone over?

  When he turned on her, she stood her ground. Not from any bravery, but because she had no time to move before he had her in his arms. She’d been in just this place so many times before, sometimes with love or lust and a few times, lately, in anger. All she could do was look up at him and beg the Three Mothers to let him see her for who she was.

  His fury drained as she watched. His grip loosened, though he didn’t let her go. He leaned in, and she thought he might kiss her. Instead, he closed his eyes and took a long, slow breath. His nose traced a line up her throat to her jaw, the heat of his breath not quite a caress.

  When he looked at her again, his gaze was flat. “You knew me. But you won’t tell me how. Or who I am.”

  I can’t. But even that was too much to say. All she could do was stare.

  Kason put her from him so firmly it was as painful as a slap. He gave her his back. “Get out.”

  “Everything takes time—”

  “Get out,” he repeated. Softer this time, but far more dangerous.

  The man she’d married would never have turned his back on her that way, no matter how angry. Perhaps it was time to admit it, Teila thought as she left the room. He was no longer the man she’d married.

  17

  This was a dream, but a real one. Knowing it gave him no more control over it than he’d had during any of the hallucinations, but that was all right. This dream wasn’t full of sex or gluttony.

  It was filled with flowers.

  A field of them, red and blue and yellow, on a carpet of lush green. That’s what had tipped him off to knowing this wasn’t really happening. Sheira was a planet of dust and sand, its foliage gray and brown and dry. The only time he’d ever seen plants like this had been in his mother’s greenhouse, grown at great effort and expense, or on the Sheirran sister planet of Asdara. That world had all the green Sheira lacked. He’d only been there for a short time during his training.

  Training.

  For the Sheirran Defense Force.

  He remembered that.

  His time as a soldier had been so much a part of him he’d never lost it, no matter what the Wirthera had ever done to him. Just as he’d never lost the Wirthera themselves. He could’ve gone without remembering them forever.

  He wasn’t training, now. He was in uniform, his hair shorn, his feet weighted with the heavy boots he remembered that had been so hard to get used to after wearing sandals for his entire life. He was alone, though, not paired with his training partner who’d never leave his side until one of them got promoted or died.

  He’d been promoted, he remembered that. But only after his partner, Leora, had been killed during one of their initial missions. A Wirtheran hornet had launched a laser missile, catching a stupidly vulnerable section of the scouting craft they’d been in.

  Leora. She was not a dream, even if this was, and he’d forgotten her until just now. He looked around, expecting to see her—after all, the dead did come back in dreams, didn’t they? But there was still nobody. Just him and the field of green and red and blue and yellow. And the blue sky. Brown earth. But she had been real. He knew it and clung to that memory even though it tried to slip away and become fantasy.

  Here, at least, he didn’t suffer the constant stream of scrolling data in the corners of his vision or the pain that went along with trying to constantly suppress it. The relief of it set him to laughing. Then running. Leaping. Turning handsprings, backflips, athletic feats he’d have been hard-pressed to manage in the waking world even with all his enhancements.

  If he tried hard enough, he thought, maybe he could even fly.

  A soft breeze tossed the flowers. He drew in their scent, heady and rich and unlike anything he’d ever known. He wanted to throw himself down into them and roll ar
ound, and with that thought he was in the thick of them, the sweet stink all over him. Then, as is the way of dreams, he heard his name being called.

  Rather, he heard a voice calling and he knew it was calling for him, but the name was muffled as though whomever it belonged to had covered her mouth with a scarf or filled it with stones. He strained to listen for it.

  Far in the distance was a woman. Her long hair blew in the breeze and covered her face. He couldn’t see the color of it, or of her dress. Not a dress. Robes, long robes. She didn’t move toward him, and he couldn’t move toward her, but she kept getting closer. She stopped an arm’s length away. He should’ve been able to see the curve of her features but all he could make out was the faint shadow of eyes and mouth. Her murmuring rose above the wind, but the words remained unclear.

  “Who are you?”

  She didn’t answer.

  Everything began to turn dark. The sky. The ground. The soft breeze grew no fiercer, but the sound of it became something else—the chittering, terrifying sound of the Wirthera.

  He ran, but there was no escaping it. The sound was everywhere. The air grew thick as syrup, and he fought against it though his fists punched nothing but empty space. He went to his knees, crouching, his hands over his ears. Still the furious chattering stabbed at his ears. He couldn’t see them, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there.

  He fell to the ground in the softness of the flowers, though now instead of bright colors they’d all gone black and gray. Their tendrils bound him, holding him tighter the harder he struggled. The woman came closer. Her soft murmuring, still incomprehensible, nevertheless blocked out the relentless, grating sound of Wirtheran voices.

  Calming, he looked up at her. “Do you know me?” The gripping vines released him so that he could get up, but no matter how many steps he took toward her, he could get no closer. “Do you know who I am? What is my name? What’s my name?”

  He woke with the question shouting from his mouth, so loud he thought at first someone else had asked it. Breathing hard, he collapsed back onto the bed, the delicious scent of the flowers fading fast. But something had remained, captured from the dream and imported into that cursed fucking scrolling data stream.