Haven 6

by Aubrie Dionne

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Just One Dance

  Striver and Eri emerged from the hut prop­ping his mother between them. She grasped each of their arms with bony hands. The vil­la­gers had gathered be­low, and all heads turned up as they reached the rail­ing. The crowd began to chant Striver’s name. Al­though it pleased his mother, he hoped Weaver couldn’t hear them over the drums.

  “Let go of me, please,” she whispered. “I can stand on my own.”

  “It’s too soon, Mother.” He didn’t want her to fall in front of every­one in this tri­umphant mo­ment. Eri had warned the heal­ing pro­cess would take time.

  She squeezed his arm. “Trust me.”

  As the chant grew louder, she pulled away from him and Eri and held her arms up to the sky where the ship hovered over all of their heads. Nu­tura shouted, “I am healed!”

  The crowd roared in ap­plause. Voices rang out. “It’s a good omen!”

  The drums in­creased in pace, and a bone flute en­twined in and out of the rhythm, the shrill tones dan­cing in the air. Trot­ters sizzled above the fire, the smell wa­ter­ing Striver’s mouth. Carven stood, turn­ing the sil­ver-white fish with a wooden spat­ula. He signaled a wave of en­cour­age­ment to Striver as people called out for a speech.

  Striver glanced over at Eri and she nod­ded. She stood within arm’s reach, but she felt a world away. If only I could speak with her alone. The glory of this mo­ment was all be­cause of her, and he wanted to show her his thanks; he wanted to tell her how much she meant to him, to hold her tight against him and show his feel­ings in a way he’d never done be­fore.

  Striver shoved his feel­ings away. It would all have to wait. His vil­lage stood be­fore him, await­ing the speech of the cen­tury, words that would change the his­tory of Refuge.

  He’d thought on his de­cision for a long time, and the way he felt about Eri along with his mother’s heal­ing had sealed the deal.

  Striver held up his hands and the shout­ing quieted. The mu­sic lulled to a low os­tinato. He took a deep breath. “My fel­low vil­la­gers, I present our new­est friends, Erid­ani Smith and her team, Mars and Litus, des­cen­ded from the ship in the sky.”

  Litus and Mars stood from the group be­low him, wav­ing to the crowd. Eri climbed down the rope lad­der to join them. His heart tore to see her leave, but she had to take her place for the fest­iv­it­ies. She wasn’t a mem­ber of his tribe. Yet.

  “We must wel­come them.”

  The mu­sic faded. People shif­ted un­eas­ily, their ex­pres­sions hard to read. Nervous anxi­ety jol­ted through Striver. Would they listen?

  He raised his voice. “A new age is upon us, and we must em­brace change. These vis­it­ors brought tech­no­logy with them. I know we’ve shunned any ad­vances for hun­dreds of years, be­liev­ing tech­no­logy to be the ul­ti­mate down­fall of hu­man­kind on Old Earth. But tech­no­logy can heal as well as des­troy.”

  He held up his arm, point­ing to his mother. “My mother is proof. These vis­it­ors have lived peace­fully, in har­mony with tech­no­logy, for hun­dreds of years. Their lives de­pended on it. I be­lieve, with the vis­it­ors’ help, we can learn to ac­cept their tech­no­logy, in­teg­rate it into our so­ci­ety, and in turn, ac­cept them.”

  The crowd shif­ted rest­lessly, weigh­ing his words. Striver kept a straight face. Hope­fully they’ll un­der­stand. The al­tern­at­ive, to live in the jungle apart from this new colony, would only di­vide them more. He trus­ted Eri, and through that trust he’d build a whole new world.

  No one ar­gued with him, so he con­tin­ued. “Law­less con­tinue to mul­tiply. We lose people to their ranks every year.” He pushed Weaver away from his thoughts. Not now. Mem­bers of the coun­cil stood with their arms crossed, frowns weigh­ing down their faces. Striver knew he couldn’t con­vince them alone. He had to drive the is­sue home where they’d un­der­stand the full im­plic­a­tions.

  “I’m not ask­ing you to de­cide to­night. I’m ask­ing you to think about it. Speak with the coun­cil mem­bers at this cel­eb­ra­tion. Tell them how you feel. We can live in the dark while these col­on­izers des­cend and live in the light, or we can in­teg­rate both our so­ci­et­ies, provid­ing a united front against the Law­less.”

  Si­lence rang out after the echo of his fi­nal words died away, clutch­ing his throat un­til he could no longer breath. Striver hoped he was right. He needed to provide a se­cure front for his people, but doubts lingered in the back of his mind.

  A single clap broke the spell. Striver scanned the crowd. Carven had dropped the spat­ula, and he brought his hands to­gether faster and faster un­til a little girl be­side him joined in. Soon, the en­tire vil­lage roared with ap­plause. The mu­sic began again in a lively jig with a boy shak­ing a tam­bour­ine.

  His mother put a hand on his shoulder. “Well done, Striver.”

  He turned to­ward her and muttered un­der his breath, “We’ll see if it works.”

  “They’ll fol­low you any­where.” As his mother settled into a seat on the bal­cony, Striver searched for Eri. She talked with Litus be­hind a line of people wait­ing with empty plates for trot­ter. Oth­ers danced in the cen­ter square. He’d never liked dan­cing, but to­night his legs itched to move, and he had just the per­son in mind to ask.

  He kissed his mother’s cheek. “I’ll bring you some trot­ter.”

  She nod­ded, bob­bing her head to the beat. Color had come back to her face, and her gaze shone bright and clear without pain. He hadn’t seen her so lively since she’d first got­ten sick.

  Striver des­cen­ded the rope lad­der two rungs at a time and leaped the re­main­ing half a meter to the ground. With his mother healed, and the re­la­tions between the vis­it­ors strengthened, part of the weight on his shoulders had lif­ted, even with Weaver in­car­cer­ated. At least he’s home. He’d deal with his brother later, when Weaver had cooled off. Maybe real­ity would fi­nally set in and he’d real­ize Jolt wouldn’t take him back.

  Now to ask Eri to dance.

  A hand grabbed his arm, snak­ing through it with sur­pris­ing strength to pull him in the op­pos­ite dir­ec­tion. “I’ve been wait­ing for you.”

  Striver turned, meet­ing Riptide’s golden gaze. She pulled him un­der the bal­cony in the shad­ows, press­ing her body against his. She was al­most as tall as he was, and he found it hard to wiggle away without blatantly shov­ing her away. “You prom­ised me a dance, re­mem­ber?”

  He glanced back, mak­ing sure Eri hadn’t seen Riptide steal him away. Eri still talked with Litus, her back to him. See­ing him stand­ing in the shad­ows with her was one thing, but to dance out in the square in front of every­one? He couldn’t do it. Not when such strong feel­ings for Eri thrived in­side him, want­ing to break free.

  “Riptide, I need to tell you some­thing.”

  Her eyes glowed in the dark­ness as if her dream had fi­nally come true. “Yes?”

  Striver ran a hand over his hair. Holy Refuge, can I bring my­self to tell her?

  One look back at Eri ce­men­ted his de­cision. “We’ve been friends for a long time.”

  She put her hand on his chest, her fin­gers twirl­ing in the ties of his shirt. “Since child­hood.”

  They were prac­tic­ally destined to be to­gether, al­most like the lifemates on Eri’s ship. The thought made his stom­ach cringe. He cleared his throat. “You’ve grown into such a well-re­spec­ted mem­ber of this vil­lage and a strik­ing young wo­man.”

  She hung on his every word, eye­lashes flut­ter­ing. “Yes?”

  He ex­haled and shook his head. “I can’t keep you wait­ing for some­thing that’s not go­ing to hap­pen.”

  Her eye­brows creased. Be­hind them, the mu­sic took a mel­an­choly turn. “What do you mean?”

  Striver forced him­self to meet her gaze. “At first, I kept my dis­tance be­cause I knew Weaver had fee
l­ings for you.”

  Riptide scoffed and tapped her slender fin­gers on his chest. “Yes, but we both know I don’t like Weaver.” Her eyes grew wild and in­tense as her hands traveled up his arms. “I want you.”

  He stiffened un­der her touch, res­ist­ing the urge to re­coil. He’d al­ways thought of her as a so­cial climber, want­ing him for who he em­bod­ied and not for who he really was. But how do you tell a per­son her shal­low­ness turns you off?

  “Now I have a real reason.” He took her hands and brought them down between them. “Riptide, I have feel­ings for someone else. Feel­ings I can’t ig­nore.”

  Her flaw­less face cracked into a spite­ful frown. Her hands turned to ice un­der his touch. He wished he could warm them and make everything okay, but she’d have to find someone else.

  “I don’t un­der­stand.” A tear ran down her cheek.

  “It’s not your fault. You did everything right. It’s just…this was un­ex­pec­ted.”

  “Un­ex­pec­ted is right.” Her tone turned sour and she yanked her hands away, her stone ring scratch­ing his skin.

  “I’m sorry.” Striver felt help­less, guilty, but also free. Why had he waited so long to tell her? He had enough cour­age to hunt a boar, fly over the wall, battle the Law­less, but not enough to tell her the truth. Be­cause hurt­ing Riptide would have angered Weaver even more.

  “Yeah, I am, too. Sorry I wasted so much time.” Riptide whirled away and dis­ap­peared into the crowd.

  …

  “I talked with the com­mander while you were heal­ing Striver’s mother.” Litus pulled Eri aside as the crowd cheered around them. Eri’s heart thumped against her ribs, yearn­ing to find Striver, but she couldn’t blow off this con­ver­sa­tion. She fol­lowed him to the back of the cel­eb­ra­tion, far enough from eaves­drop­pers but close enough to avoid sus­pi­cion, even Carven’s.

  “What did she say?”

  Litus had an anxious twitch in the vein in his neck. He shif­ted like a snake was slither­ing over his shoulders. “She ap­poin­ted me first lieu­ten­ant.”

  “No way. That’s the dir­ect po­s­i­tion un­der­neath her on the ship, right?”

  A little boy burst from the crowd and shot between them, stum­bling and laugh­ing. Litus smiled at the boy and waited for him to scamper off be­fore he ac­know­ledged her ques­tion with a nod.

  Eri shook her head, speech­less un­til she real­ized say­ing noth­ing would dis­respect him. “Con­grat­u­la­tions, Litus. You just won the most coveted job on the Her­it­age.”

  “Just be­cause I’m in the right place at the right time. The com­mander wants more power down here on Haven 6, and it’s the only way to see her or­ders are car­ried out. I’m sup­posed to su­per­vise everything that hap­pens on the planet and re­port back to her.”

  “That’s be­cause I wasn’t do­ing my job. I haven’t been re­port­ing any­thing, Litus. I can’t give her in­form­a­tion that she could use against these people. But you have real power as a first lieu­ten­ant. You can make a dif­fer­ence, bring our peoples to­gether.”

  Litus shook his head. “I’m not as power­ful as you may think. She still has the ul­ti­mate say.” Be­hind them, the mu­sic slowed to a minor waltz, the tune haunt­ing her like a ref­er­ence to the fu­ture.

  “Did she men­tion any at­tack?”

  “No, but the ques­tions she asked lead me to be­lieve she’s plan­ning one soon.”

  “Cy­ber­hell.” Eri threw her hands up and turned away, watch­ing the vil­la­gers cel­eb­rate their im­min­ent doom like na­ive chil­dren. “How can we stop it?”

  His blue eyes were cold as ice. “I don’t think we can.”

  She poin­ted her fin­ger into his chest, push­ing him back des­pite his tower­ing stature. “That’s not good enough.”

  He held up both hands in an apo­logy. “Eri, I did my best. I’ve steered her away from our cur­rent co­ordin­ates for now. If they’re go­ing to at­tack, it will start in the Law­less’s lands.”

  Eri crossed her arms and flicked her eye­brows up. “Yes, but for how long?”

  “De­pends on the suc­cess of the at­tack on the Law­less, I’d as­sume.”

  “Can the Law­less fight them off?”

  “With their cur­rent weapons along with the lasers they seized? No. I don’t think so. Al­though the Law­less have sheer num­bers, the Her­it­age has far more ad­vanced weaponry. And with my ad­vice, they’ll be bet­ter pre­pared this time.”

  Eri stared at him open mouthed. “How could you?”

  Wip­ing sweat from his fore­head, Litus glanced at the ship in the sky. “Eri, those are our people up there. You don’t want more of them to die, do you?”

  Eri glanced down, un­able to bring her gaze to where the com­mander’s brain floated in the con­trol room. “No. I don’t want any­one to die. That’s what I’m try­ing to pre­vent.”

  He jerked his thumb back to the shad­ows in the forest be­side them. “It’s bet­ter them than us. You saw for your­self how sav­age those Law­less can be.”

  “But after the com­mander con­quers the Law­less, what then? Will she con­tinue her con­quest to this vil­lage?”

  “I don’t know. All I can do is in­form her of their value, of how they can help us with their know­ledge of Haven 6. Only she can de­cide.”

  Litus’s loy­alty to the com­mander made ire boil in Eri’s stom­ach. She tried to calm her an­ger be­fore she spit out some­thing she’d re­gret. She had to give him credit for sway­ing the com­mander to at­tack the other side—at least he was try­ing to think for him­self. Was it enough to grab Aquaria’s at­ten­tion? Prob­ably not. Her sis­ter would never agree with this plan. If only Litus had con­sul­ted Aquaria about it…

  “Have you heard from Aquaria? The com­mander blocked all my com­mu­nic­a­tion through my locater, ex­cept to her.”

  “I’m wait­ing to hear—” Litus’s gaze moved above her head to the crowd be­hind them as his words trailed off. Eri turned, ready to glare at who­ever spied on their con­ver­sa­tion.

  Striver broke through the last row of twirl­ing dan­cers. The ur­gency in his steps piqued her in­terest. His lips broke into an eager smile as his eyes met hers. Fire­light danced across his chest, mak­ing his skin shine like gold. Her heart jumped to her throat and she gulped it down.

  Brush­ing back a few strands of dark hair tied to a white feather, he offered her his hand. “May I have the next dance?”

  It took Eri a mo­ment to real­ize what Striver was ask­ing. All the talk of war filled her head with clut­ter and weighed down her heart. She al­most felt guilty in­dul­ging dur­ing such a dire time. “I don’t know.”

  He brushed back a curl, pla­cing it gently be­hind her ear. “Please?”

  Eri needed this more than any­thing. She glanced at Litus and he waved her away as if they had been dis­cuss­ing the weather and noth­ing more. “Go.” Litus grinned. “Have fun.”

  What is the harm in one dance? She’d danced nu­mer­ous times at lifemate pair­ing ce­re­mon­ies. How dif­fer­ent could this be? Eri slid her hand into his. “As long as you don’t make me dizzy.”

  After say­ing it, she knew it was already too late. Her head swam with his prox­im­ity as he pulled her against his hard chest and they broke into the dan­cing ring. Low drums beat in her stom­ach, eli­cit­ing a primal need for re­lease. The bone flute trilled and sailed on a high note and she burst into un­con­trol­lable laughter as Striver twirled her around.

  He brought her back to him and his arms wrapped around her un­til she could feel every muscle in his chest. They didn’t dance like this on the Her­it­age.

  Holy mother of a black hole, we’ve been miss­ing out.

  Eri’s hands moved up his shoulder blades to his neck. His pony­tail tickled the back of her palms. She threaded her fin­gers through his silky hair and pulled his head down close to
hers. Between the laughter, the shouts, and the mu­sic, it was im­possible to tell him how she felt. In­stead, she pressed her lips against his. He tasted wild and sweet, like everything in the jungle she wanted but couldn’t have. She closed her eyes as he re­acted to her kiss, his hands cup­ping her chin to pro­long their em­brace.

  Blood poun­ded in her ears as heat rushed from her lips to her toes. Her whole life on the ship seemed only a dream, and for the first time, she awoke, her body en­er­gized. In all the lifemate ce­re­mon­ies, she’d never seen a couple kiss with such pas­sion.

  This is real. Is it love? It flowed through her veins un­til all she cared about was melt­ing into him. Be­com­ing one.

  Only after her hands had ex­plored his chest and his hands roamed through her hair did she real­ize they’d stopped dan­cing. The crowd blurred around them. They were the only two pil­lars of con­stancy in a chan­ging world. Gaz­ing into his eyes was like peer­ing into a forest only meant for her steps. His strength, his in­tens­ity per­suaded her that to­gether they could con­quer both worlds.

  “My sis­ter isn’t good enough for you, but this space girl is?” Ri­ley broke through the crowd reek­ing of sickly sweet sweat. His shirt was pulled half out of his pants and his hair stood up on one side.

  Eri grabbed Striver’s arm. “What’s wrong with Ri­ley?”

  Striver shiel­ded her with his arm. “Don’t get too close. He’s had too much pearl-berry ale.”

  “Sure, blame it on the ale and we’ll see just how trust­worthy these vis­it­ors really are.” Ri­ley stared at her, spittle fly­ing from his lips with his words. “Go ahead. Tell him why you’re really here.”

  Eri’s in­sides clamped up un­til she felt like she’d hurl worse than Mars. She stepped back into the crowd and shook her head. “I’m try­ing to help.”

  “Leave her alone,” Striver shouted, push­ing his face right up into Ri­ley’s. “Your ar­gu­ment is with me.”

  “My sis­ter has been wait­ing for you for al­most a dec­ade, and you go after the first vis­itor you meet. What kind of a leader chooses an en­emy over one of his own people?”