by Phoebe North
“Who’s that?” Silvan asked. Mordecai gazed at him sternly.
“Our ally. Our friend,” my old teacher said.
Vadix ran toward me. I knew it hurt, in this cold, to make his limbs move this fast, to push himself closer and closer to me across the length of the foggy pier. I could feel it, splintering the cells in his arms and legs. But Vadix didn’t care. I was here, and I brought with me hope—hope for the future he never believed would come to fruition. Hope for a new city on Zehava.
“Terra,” he said when he finally reached me, “you have painted your face. You are a clever hunter.”
Before I could answer, he swept me up in his long arms. His body may not have been warm, but it shielded me from the world beyond. I pressed my face to the soft, sweet plane of his neck, leaving a trail of kisses along his earslit. His arms enveloped my lower back, as tight as a vine as he lifted my feet straight off the pier. I thought my heart would burst through my chest. I thought I might cry at the way that his body fit mine, like we had been made for this. I thought I had never felt such joy in my life as seeing him again.
“Her lover,” Mara Stone added at last, her tone teasing as Vadix bent me in a kiss. There was no reply at first, only the whistle of the wind and the sound of the waves breaking against the pier. Then, as Vadix’s mouth met mine, as I tasted the sweet truth of him, the wild smell faint in the impending winter, came Silvan’s grunted answer.
“Oh,” he said. “I see.”
• • •
We gathered in the senate antechamber that afternoon to plan our approach. While the senators milled about below, Vadix sat at the head of the round stone table, explaining our situation:
“Tomorrow morning they are convening on several matters of local import. Terra must come forward to speak to them before their interest begins to wane. Each representative will be eager to have his or her voice heard on problems pertaining to his or her constituency. We must be fast. We must be direct.”
“What are these local matters?” Mordecai asked, his hand flat on the stone table. They’d piled it high with food for us—burned beast legs, as thick as tree trunks and sliced into blackened disks. But no one had touched it.
“Zoning,” Vadix replied without hesitation. “Water treatment. Funding for new crèches. The usual politics.”
Beside me Silvan flinched. My bashert turned to him, looking more like a curious bird than a plant. “What is the problem, Mar Rafferty?”
“We have a ship full of waiting citizens,” he said as he leaned forward in his seat. “People who traveled five hundred years to reach this planet. And you’re telling me that your government is more concerned about issues of water treatment?”
I felt my stomach clench at the anger that underscored his voice. But Vadix was patient. He lifted up his fingers, pointing them toward the sky.
“I tried to dissuade the senate from disregarding your problems so hastily. But to them what remains is only a technicality. They believe they have already dispensed with ‘the human problem’—that soon you will be only a memory, consigned to the darkness of space. We must understand that this is just a small disruption of their normal daily lives. And they have little room in them for . . .” He trailed off. His brow furrowed with worry.
“Aliens,” he concluded at last.
“Aliens.” Silvan’s lip curled. “We’re not aliens. We’re people. You can’t just throw us away.”
Vadix looked at me. His black eyes were calm as he considered. “I agree. I don’t intend to throw you away. Tell us what your ship would need, Mar Rafferty, so that if my mate settles here, she can live in peace.”
My cheeks warmed under his gaze. Silvan, watching, lifted his lips in a slow smirk.
“We can split the library,” he said. “Rachel has plans to curate a collection of religious texts. And as for the hatchery—” He hesitated. That’s when I realized how well the Council’s secrets had been kept.
“They don’t need it,” I said, feeling the blood drain from my cheeks. “Or at least, not all of it. The Council boys haven’t been sterilized.”
When Mordecai drew in a breath, Silvan only pressed his lips together. Nodded. “Not the last dozen clutches. And those older than that have already had their children. Only those common-born citizens who join us will need the eggs, and even then, not many. If we stop sterilizing our boys, we should be able to survive without the hatchery within a generation. We’ll need to be fruitful to have the ship back up to working capacity, but we can do it. Rachel says—”
Before we could find out what Rachel said, Mara Stone threw her hands up into the air. “Of course. Rachel says. I’m sure you boys are fertile enough, eh?”
Silvan didn’t blush. He only angled his chin up in proud assuredness.
“Yes,” he said. “I’m sure we are.”
Mara rolled her eyes, then turned the conversation back to more pressing matters. “We’ll need land enough for a small hatchery of our own, then. And space to build a library as well. Labs. A school. Living quarters. Fields for our crops.”
Vadix pulled out a long scroll of paper from his robe. It had handles carved in the shapes of wild beasts, each one so real-looking I thought they might walk across the table as he unraveled it. Ahadizhi work, surely. As he pulled them apart, he revealed continents. White-licked seas. Zehava. Or Aur Evez, depending on how you looked at it. He pointed to an area in the south close to the wide central ocean, a long peninsula of dark vegetation and apparently little else. But because I knew Vadix, I knew that there were dangers waiting there for us. The native Ahadizhi. The beasts. The long ravages of winter.
“We call this place Zeddak Alaz. The lost land. I will ask the senate to give you this place,” he said, and then his black eyes flitted up at me. Once I would have called them unreadable, but now I knew the passions—the fear, the hope, the intensity—that lurked behind them. “But the decision is up to them.”
• • •
We plotted well into the evening, long after all the senators had returned to their homes for the night. Vadix explained the intricacies of senate procedure, and detailed, with a flourish, the contentious relationship between the Ahadizhi of the southern continent and their northern counterparts. Though Ahadizhi learned language far faster than any Xollu—a facility I’d seen myself over my days in Raza Ait—those in the south were ascetics. They saw no need for the lavish city dwellings of their northern counterparts and so had no reason to speak to the Xollu, either. And no Xollu had broken the language barrier that stood like a wall between them. For thousands of years they’d been at a stalemate. No new Guardians, and none willing to cross the wild sea, straying far from their sprouted fields. So no new cities, either.
“You will have to recruit northern Ahadizhi,” Vadix said. “And have them train you in the role of Guardian before your departure for the southern continent. Perhaps someday the southern Ahadizhi could be persuaded to join the thirteenth city, but this would take time and skill. Diplomacy.”
It would be easier if we had you there to translate for us, I thought. Then, when Vadix looked sharply at me, I clamped a hand down over my mouth. Of course, he was the only one who had heard. The others merely gazed at me, puzzled. Mara let out a tired sigh.
“I’m sure we’ll manage,” she said. Vadix rose to his feet.
“I believe we have planned all we can for this evening. Terra must speak to the senate early tomorrow, and we all need our rest,” Vadix said. Did I imagine it, or had his reedy voice gone cold at my rejoinder? But it was late. Maybe he was only tired. I definitely was. My neck and back ached against the stone chair.
“Yes,” Silvan said, a little too loudly. When the conversation had turned away from the ship’s resources, he’d stopped trying to feign the slightest interest. “Show us to our accommodations.”
“Very well,” Vadix said.
He led us into the hall of the empty, echoing senate building, then down the wide steps to the mosaic-dotted pavilion below.
It was strange seeing this space so empty, as if the life had been drained right out of it. The night was cool, as fragrant as spring as we walked out into the city. Peaceful. I was glad we hadn’t brought a guard.
“It’s emptier than it was a few days ago,” Mara said, stepping quickly down the stone staircase. She was right—fewer Xollu pairs now strolled arm in arm, though the Ahadizhi still loitered and lazed outside each residential building. The pungent smell of meat hung heavily in the air. I suspected that would only get worse as winter wore on and the hunt began in earnest.
“Some of the crèches have already gone to the winter caves,” Vadix said. “And the elderly as well. As the cold sets in, the urge to sleep overtakes us. Soon all but the most necessary Xollu will sleep. And then we all will.”
“Well,” Mordecai said, “we appreciate that you’ve stayed behind for us.”
“You have no idea,” I murmured, and though they all gazed at me strangely as we headed beneath a curving overpass, I ducked my head and didn’t answer.
Maybe I should have taken his hand in my hand, savoring every precious moment we still had together. But as Vadix led us through a cluster of commercial buildings, toward the enclave of round houses at the city’s heart, I couldn’t help but be aware of how every step we took brought me closer to his ultimate end. Not just winter, not merely sleep, but death. If all went according to plan, our safety would soon be assured. He’d depart for the funerary fields knowing that he’d done his part for me, helping me to establish this home for my people on Aur Evez. He’d rend his flesh, destroy himself, just to be with Velsa—and he would rest well too, knowing he’d helped me, knowing he’d secured my fate, just as promised. In the grove the boughs had all begun to curl up, shielding themselves from the cold. I wished that I could do the same, staving off this future. But I couldn’t. If my people’s settlement was to be secured, I’d have to risk losing him. I knew it in my gut. There was no use in hiding.
He took us all to his own house. As they saw the walls, which were dark and sparkling in the moonless night, and the delicate, curving shape of the architecture, even Silvan had to draw in a breath.
“Lavatory,” Vadix said, pointing to a slender door. “Kitchen. Do not drink from the golden spigot. I’m not certain it’s safe. I have placed cooked meat for you there on ice in a small refrigeration unit. You will sleep here.” He led us toward the sitting room, where he gathered blankets and small, round pillows from beneath the seats. As the others began to make their beds, I started to trail after Vadix, away from the round room.
“Terra,” Silvan called, flopping his body down against the circular sofa, “aren’t you going to sleep?”
Vadix stood, halfway to his bedroom, his tired shoulders squared.
“She’s to sleep with me,” he announced. I hesitated, standing in the door between the two worlds. Then I took one look into Vadix’s black, sad eyes and shook my head at Silvan.
“I’ll see you all in the morning,” I said. I saw Mara arch an eyebrow, heard Mordecai and Silvan share a snicker. But what did that matter? Hastily I closed the door behind me.
“I hear your thoughts,” he said as he sat down at the edge of his round bed. The clouds seemed to be bright silver through two layers of glass. Even with the lights off, the thread in his robes caught the light and scattered it.
Do you? I replied. But when I did, he gave a wince. He was so, so sad. I could feel it in every cell. He lifted two fingers and pressed them to his mouth.
“Speak like this,” he said.
But I was tired. Sad, too.
Taot? I said.
For a long time he didn’t answer. Instead he bent over, taking his cloth slippers off his feet. His long blue toes flexed against the floor. I could feel how they wanted to be rooted there, to make themselves permanent. He set his shoes in a line at the end of his bed, rose, and began to unknot the belt of his robe. But he didn’t watch the progress of his own hands as he did. He watched me.
“Because it hurts too much right now,” he said as the cloth slipped off his shoulders, revealing his body, as gnarled as an old dome tree that had been marked by the thoughts and wishes of too many long-dead lovers. I wanted to go to him, to slip my arms under his and press my face to the cool surface of his chest. But it didn’t seem right.
“I am not angry,” he said. “You think I am angry, but I am not angry.”
“What, then?” I asked as I edged closer, finally sitting on the edge of the bed myself. I glanced down at my own robe and slippers. They were too big on me, meant for him. He let out a baleful hum.
“Sad. You want me with you. I understand this. But Velsa—”
“I’ve never asked you not to do it,” I cut in. In response, silence stretched on long, too long. He just looked at me as he stood there, the darkness spilling over the steep curve of his shoulder. So I added, “I never would. Love isn’t something you lock up in chains. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt. Maybe I’ll never miss you like you miss Velsa. But I’ll still miss you, Vadix.”
After another moment’s pause he came and sat down beside me. Both of us sat with our hands on our knees. His were dark as night—mine, white as bone.
“I know,” he said. “I know you have never asked. You have been fair. I know I will hurt you. Perhaps if I had done my duty to Velsa, then your life would be easier. With less pain.”
“No!” I said. Our eyes locked. His were so wide in his face that he reminded me of a doe. Gentle, delicate. Fragile. “I’m glad I know you. Without you my life would have been just one dark day after another. You know what I told you, about hope? You gave me that. No one’s ever loved me before you, not like this. I didn’t—I didn’t know that I was someone who could be loved. I didn’t think I was worthy.”
I felt his cool fingers slip around mine and squeeze tight.
“Of course you are worthy,” he said. His voice had gone husky, coarse with emotion. “You are bright. Brave. Fighting for your people and your people’s place on a new world.”
“I wasn’t always like this.” I closed my eyes, remembering, even as I clutched his cool hand. “I was afraid once. Angry, too. I hurt people. Mazdin, but not only him. My friends. People who got in my way. Selfish. I was selfish.”
“But you learned to be strong,” he said. “The senate will see that. And then you’ll have a city all your own.”
“Your city,” I said, leaning my head against his shoulder. For a moment he stiffened against the contact. But then his body softened, leaning back into mine. “The one you hoped for, all your life. All your training and sacrifice. It was for this dream, Vadix. And you gave it to me.”
So much for strong. My throat was tight, aching with tears. He wrapped his arms around me, holding me. But he didn’t speak.
I’m grateful, I said in his mind. I’m so grateful. But that doesn’t mean I won’t miss you. I’ll always miss you. If the senate agrees, this will be a victory. But it will be bittersweet. We’re not only talking about hibernation. I know you still want to join her, Vadix. Not in sleep—in death.
He rocked me in his arms. Xollu children never knew their parents. I wondered how he knew how to do that, whether it was instinct or some buried memory that he’d plucked from my mind.
Come, he said. Rest beside me. We have much to do tomorrow.
I angled my face to his. His lips were soft, and gently smiling. I kissed them. But the sad thoughts were too close. I couldn’t chase them away.
“Will this be our last night together?” I asked. He pressed his soft, printless thumb against the center of my lip, touching the wetness there.
I will not rest until you and your people are safe.
He drew his hand away. I could still taste his skin, his sap.
Promise?
Of course. Now, zeze, lie with me. The night is long and we are together and that’s reason enough for joy.
I kissed him again and let him wrap his arms around me. As we lay back in his bed, we pretend
ed that the world outside was nothing—that we were the only creatures left in the whole wild world.
28
Golden morning. We were up at dawn, before the sky had even begun to green through the glass over Raza Ait. Vadix lent me his finest robe, an opalescent length of sea-green cloth embroidered with purple vines at the hems. I folded the flaps over my chest, then began to knot the belt—when he stopped me, reached his fingers around my waist, and began to elaborately interlace the tasseled ends.
“There,” he said, standing back. His soft lips parted to show the sharp edges of his teeth. “Now you look like an ezzu.”
“ ‘Ezzu’?” I asked, looking down to examine the flat knot that sat against my left hip. It matched the one on his perfectly.
“A thinking creature. Like Xollu or Ahadizhi.”
I bit my lip, holding in my smile. “What did you call us before?”
He hesitated.
“What?”
“Okka,” he said slowly, drawing away. “Okka.”
“Taot?” I demanded, then, grinning, added: “What means this?”
He was halfway down the hall when he answered shyly, shamefully. “Beasts, zeze. We called you beasts.”
• • •
They’d called us beasts because that’s what they thought of us. To them we were feral, hopeless creatures, barely capable of conscious thought, much less worth their regard. That’s why they’d packed us into that quarantine camp, why they’d experimented on us, and why they’d been so quick to banish us from their land. They thought we were animals, and we’d acted like it too. Striking out against them, tempestuous. Violent.
On that pale morning the wind was high and cold even beneath the glass cupola. The senators streamed into the magnificent senate building as they had every day the senate was in session for thousands of years. They thought our future was already decided; I was determined to change their minds.