Phoenix in Flames

by Jaleta Clegg

  "I would have woken you up."

  She watched Tayvis sleep. Ginni was still perched on the arm of his couch, looking like a guardian angel watching over him. Beryn and Paltronis whispered to each other. Twyla sat near Darus, talking quietly with him. Lowell was still in his corner but he was sleeping now, curled up in a chair. She leaned against Clark's shoulder. He took her hand.

  "I met Roland," she said. "He came to visit while you were asleep. He's not what I expected."

  "From what I hear, he's not what anyone expects," Clark said.

  "He laughed when I asked him about sticker bushes. He told me to ask Dace."

  "Tayvis knows the story."

  "We'd have to torture him to get him to tell us," Jasyn said through a yawn.

  "Bribery might work," Clark suggested.

  "Did you ever just try asking?" Ginni spoke up.

  "Yes," Jasyn said. "On Serrimonia when we had nothing but time on our hands. He is very good at avoiding answering questions he doesn't want to answer."

  "Lowell trained him," Clark said. "What did you expect?"

  Jasyn yawned. She let her eyes close. Only for a moment, she told herself.

  She jerked awake when the inner door opened. The room was full of tension. She sat up, turning to look at the medic standing in the doorway. Everyone else was watching, all of their attention focused on the medic as she pulled her mask off.

  She looked exhausted. She looked around the room before singling out Jasyn.

  "She's stable, for now," the medic said. She smiled tiredly. "I think she'll make it. Give her another day or two and I'll be sure. She's one tough lady," she said, shaking her head.

  "What drug was it?" Clark asked.

  The medic shook her head. "Something worse than dreamdust. I just hope it never gets sold anywhere. It's bad news. Whatever your friend was taking, it should have killed her."

  "But it didn't," Ginni said.

  "Don't get your hopes up too high," the medic cautioned. "We still don't know what kind of damage it did to her."

  "But she's still alive," Ginni countered. "That has to count for something."

  "We'll keep her here a few more hours and if she's still stable, we'll transfer her to the medunit upstairs. If anything changes, you'll be the first to know." The medic smiled blandly as she went back inside.

  "Well," Clark said. "Maybe we should go check on our son."

  "But—" Jasyn watched the inner door, wanting more but not certain what.

  "They'll let us know when she's awake again," Clark said. He stood and tugged at her hand. "I'd rather sleep in a real bed."

  "They gave us rooms around the corner," Ginni piped up. "And Roland said if we wanted anything, we just had to ask."

  "Sounds like a good deal to me," Clark answered.

  Jasyn stood reluctantly. Clark put his good arm around her and walked her out of the waiting room. The others slowly followed.

  Chapter 54

  The beeping finally woke me. It was soft, steady, like a heart beating. It took me a while to realize it was my own heartbeat. I was oddly relieved by the sound. It meant I wasn't dead.

  I was drugged, though. I felt soft and warm and drowsy. I had to have been pumped clear full of pain meds. I was going to pay for it later, but for now I was going to enjoy not being in pain.

  The beeping kept intruding. I drifted towards consciousness. The darkness took on shape, like a very bad picture coming into focus. The black morphed into gray, then color, fuzzy and indistinct. I blinked lazily and wondered when the pain would hit.

  Someone stood in my room, his back to me as he studied the viewscreen on the wall. It showed stars, millions of them, glowing against the velvet darkness of space. The man's hair was brown with a large, circular bald spot right on top. I half expected Lowell because he'd been there most of the times I'd woken up in a hospital, but the man was too young. And Lowell had silver hair and no bald spot.

  The man turned around then grinned when he saw I was awake. I stared at him while my sluggish brain made connections.

  "Roland?" I croaked.

  "Good to see you're finally awake. They kept telling me it was going to be another three days." He stood over my bed with the lunatic grin I remembered from Dadilan.

  "What are you doing here? This must be another crazy dream. I'm going to wake up and none of it will be real."

  "Is that bad or good?"

  "Considering the last thing I remember, this is good." I sighed and licked my lips. They were dry and cracked.

  "This isn't a dream, Dace," Roland assured me. "Do you want some water?"

  "Please," I said, taking his word for it. I might as well squeeze what happiness I could from the hallucination. I knew it had to end soon. Bad things waited for me. They usually did.

  He held a cup where I could sip from the straw. Just moving my head that tiny bit left me weak and dizzy. I swallowed and closed my eyes.

  "Are you real?" I asked. I wasn't expecting an answer. I was expecting to wake up on the hard floor of Shomies' mansion.

  "More real than you are right now," Roland answered. I heard him set the cup down. The steady beeping continued, a quiet rhythm of life.

  I slept for a while. I woke again, startling out of sleep into the same quiet room. Roland was still there, sitting in a chair with a handcomp in front of him. He looked up and put the handcomp away.

  "You wouldn't believe the paperwork I have to deal with," he said.

  "For what?" I asked, genuinely puzzled. For some reason, I was half convinced I was on Dadilan. My dreams twisted with my memories. I wasn't sure what was real, if any of it was.

  "Running the Federation," he answered. "How much of that painkiller did they give you?"

  "I have no idea."

  When I woke again, a bit clearer, the room was empty. I blinked sleepily and watched the viewscreen. The stars didn't change. I shifted on the bed, waiting for pain when I moved. It didn't come. I shifted more, experimenting. I was tired and dizzy, but other than that I didn't feel any pain. Nothing appeared broken or bandaged.

  The door to the room slid open. I craned my neck to look. A young man with a medic's badge bounced in.

  "How are you feeling?" he asked as he straightened the blanket over me. He checked the instruments lined up on the wall above me.

  "Tired. Where am I?"

  "It used to be the Starfire Breeze." He adjusted something on the wall. The sound of my beeping heartbeat faded until it was barely audible. "Queen of the cruise lines. Now it's the capital of the Federation but they haven't got around to naming it something more dignified yet."

  He adjusted the bed, moving it more upright. He picked up a cup from a dispenser slot on the wall and handed it to me. I looked at the greenish liquid inside and tried to hand it back.

  "Drink it," he said. "It will help."

  "But will it taste good?"

  He laughed. "Try it and see." He watched me as I doubtfully poked it with the straw that came with the cup. "It's all you're going to get for a while so you may as well drink it."

  "And if I don't drink it, are you going to force feed me?"

  "If you want me to. But I don't think either of us would enjoy that. Just drink it, Dace." He turned his back on me, sorting through the lockers on the other side of the room.

  I wiggled my toes under the blanket. I wore a hospital gown, pale blue, washed until was soft and faded. I took a swallow of the drink. It tasted faintly like fruit, a blandly sweet taste. It wasn't bad. I drank another swallow.

  "If you finish it, I'll let some of your visitors in," the medic said. "If you're up to it," he added, looking over his shoulder as he pulled a stack of blankets out of the locker. He put them into a different one and adjusted a control on the door.

  "I have visitors?" I took another swallow. It was an effort to do anything.

  "They've been threatening to bust the door down since you woke up." He fluffed the pillow behind my head. "Do you want me to let them in?"

>   "Who are they?"

  He grinned at me. "Finish it and I'll let them in."

  "If they're wearing uniforms," I started and then frowned. The Patrol wouldn't be out here. Or would they? Was I still dreaming?

  "Of a sort," he answered.

  I took another swallow and handed him the cup. My stomach was protesting. I didn't dare drink more.

  "Do you want me to tell them to wait?" he asked. "Until you're more awake?"

  I tried to shake my head. The room spun. "I may as well get this over with."

  He pushed the cup into the disposal slot then tucked the blanket around me. He crossed behind me to the door. I closed my eyes, not sure I wanted to know who was going to visit me. Had I dreamed Roland? Was he coming back to talk to me? I wanted it to be a friendly face in the door, but I was afraid it wasn't going to be. I heard the door open and clenched suddenly nervous hands into fists.

  "Dace?" Quiet and timid and wary, but it was Jasyn's voice.

  My eyes flew open. She was there, her face lined with weariness, but as beautiful as I remembered. I struggled to sit.

  "Are you sure you should be doing that?" she asked, a worry line creasing her forehead.

  "I don't care," I said. She reached to help me sit. I slid off the bed and hugged her. I was dizzy, but I stood on my own two feet.

  I caught sight of the others behind her. I couldn't help the grin on my face. I hugged Clark and Ginni. Twyla was behind them. Darus squeezed into the room. Clark and Ginni moved back, trying to make space. It was a tiny room. They didn't seem to care. I didn't either. I hugged Darus. He gingerly hugged me back. Beryn and Paltronis were behind him. Paltronis winked at me. I saw them holding hands and grinned.

  "Welcome back," Paltronis said.

  "I said one at a time," my medic complained, standing in the doorway. No one paid any attention to him. He shook his head, but he was smiling, too. He stepped back.

  Lowell was next, standing in the doorway with his hands in his pockets.

  "I knew you'd find me," I said to him.

  "It wasn't me," he said. "It was Leon."

  "How ya doing?" Leon grinned around the doorframe. His face turned red when I planted a kiss on his cheek. Right then, I didn't care if he was a weasel in a bizarrely striped suit. He was on my side.

  "Doggo's here, somewhere," Jasyn told me. "He said he'd come by later to see you."

  "Doggo?" I looked back at her.

  "You remember? Spacer Chick?"

  "He's a fighter pilot now," Clark said.

  "Should I be scared?" I looked back to the doorway. The one person I wanted to see hadn't shown up yet. Had I dreamed Tayvis? Had he just been a hallucination? Much as I wanted to see them all, he was the one I was looking for.

  Leon looked down the hall outside then stepped back. Lowell turned away, his hands in his pockets.

  And then he was there, standing in the doorway. He looked the way I remembered, tall and strong, his dark hair just long enough to curl at the ends. Tayvis hesitated, his eyes searching my face. The look of uncertainty in them broke my heart.

  I was vaguely aware of the others moving back, giving me space. Nothing existed for me in that moment except him. I waited, unsure myself. There was a lot of pain between us. I wanted him to smile at me. He just studied my face, looking like a kicked puppy.

  I took one wobbly step towards him, and then another. I didn't hesitate. I wrapped my arms around him and just held him. He sighed and put his arms around me, holding me as if I were made of glass and would shatter under the slightest touch.

  "I think we're in the way now," Jasyn murmured. She squeezed my shoulder as she herded the others out of the room. "See you later, Dace," she whispered.

  The door slid shut behind her. I was alone with Tayvis. He was too hesitant. I shifted and he let go of me abruptly.

  "I wasn't dreaming you," I said, looking up at him.

  He reached out slowly and brushed a strand of hair behind my ear. It was too short, it wouldn't stay. His mouth twitched. It wasn't a smile, it was a look of pain. "Lowell told me what was going on, back on Linas-Drias. I was an idiot. Paltronis and Jasyn both told me repeatedly. Dace, I'm sorry."

  "So am I."

  He dropped his hand.

  The two feet between us felt like light years. Every second it seemed to grow deeper and wider. I didn't want this, but I didn't know how to bridge that gulf. He looked past me, over at the medunit. The silence between us was strained.

  "You asked me to marry you once," I said.

  "You want me to ask you again?"

  I tried to smile. It was more of a grimace. I kept hearing Vance's mother telling me every reason why I was unsuitable as a wife. I couldn't do that to Tayvis. He deserved better than the broken, scarred freak that was me. I shifted back a step, then another. The pain in his eyes grew deeper with each step.

  "It isn't your fault, Tayvis," I said, trying to explain and failing.

  "Then what is it?"

  "You should know some things about me." I looked at the floor, at the storage lockers, anywhere but at him. I didn't want to see the rejection I knew would be in his eyes when he learned the truth about me.

  He took a step towards me. I backed away. If he touched me, it would be impossible to say what I knew I had to. He stopped and waited, frozen in place.

  "I'm not human," I finally managed to say.

  "And what difference does that make? I know about the Hrissia'noru. I suspected it after I saw a few of Lowell's files on you."

  I shook my head. He didn't understand. I had to make him understand. "It's more than that. I'm not Hrissia'noru or anything. I'm a genetic freak."

  "And who told you that? Vance's mother?"

  He read the answer in my face. He shook his head. "According to her, ninety eight percent of the population of the Empire isn't human. Dace, it doesn't matter. You could be purple and have tentacles and breathe methane and I would still love you." He took a step towards me. "It might make life a bit difficult, but I'd still find a way."

  I had to back away. He still loved me? It made the rest of what I had to say that much more painful. I couldn't hide the pain in my eyes.

  He stopped. "There's more? Dace, I'm sorry for leaving. I understand now. I was blind where Vance was concerned."

  "It isn't you," I said again. My voice shook. This was the part that would destroy any hope of marriage and happiness I might have had. I heard Vance's mother's voice in my head.

  The duty of a wife is to bear her husband children. What other purpose is there in marriage? It certainly isn't about love.

  I couldn't give him that. Ever. Tears stung my eyes.

  "What, Dace?" he demanded.

  I shook my head, backing away until I was against the far wall. He followed me, stopping an arm's length away. Light years lay between us emotionally.

  "You think I'd hate you for letting Shomies addict you to drugs? Dace, I don't care how weak you think you are, that wasn't your fault."

  I shook my head, still trying to find the words.

  "Then what?" He waited, his face as still as stone.

  "I can't have children." I closed my eyes, unwilling to watch his face as he understood what I was saying. "They did it to me on Tivor, when I was barely twelve."

  "Then we'll just have to adopt." His voice was rough.

  I stared at him in shock as his words slowly sank in. "You still want to marry me?"

  He smiled, even if it was shrouded in pain. He reached out his hand towards my hair and stopped just shy of touching me.

  "If you still want me." The uncertain look was back in his eyes. I knew if I said the wrong thing, he'd walk out and I would never see him again.

  All of the pain between us was in the past, as far as I was concerned. I threw my arms around his neck and buried my face against his skin, breathing in the slightly spicy scent that was him.

  "I've never wanted anything more," I said.

  This time he held me like he meant it.
r />   I didn't want to let go. I tried to ignore the building pain shooting up my legs. I tried to ignore the trembling in my muscles. I wanted him to hold me until it all went away.

  The shaking got worse. I was going into convulsions again. I tried to will it to stop. It didn't work.

  "Dace?" Tayvis asked, concerned. He pushed me back. My muscles were in spasms. I couldn't answer.

  He picked me up and carried me to the bed. I shook, my legs jerking uncontrollably. I wanted to reassure him, but I couldn't talk. I couldn't even smile. He put me down, a panicked look in his eyes.

  The medic rushed in, his smile and easy manner gone. He was all business as he hooked me up to the machines. He slapped a patch onto my neck.

  "Code three," he spoke into the com unit.

  I heard feet rushing in the hall outside. The medic turned to Tayvis. He was standing helplessly next to the bed.

  "You're going to have to leave," the medic told him.

  "But," Tayvis objected.

  I tried to reach for his hand. My arm wouldn't move the way I wanted. It clenched, locking into a bent position.

  Two more medics rushed in.

  "It's just a seizure," the medic said, gently pushing Tayvis towards the door. "We need to calibrate the dosage of her medications. She'll be fine. We'll let you know when she's stable again."

  He pushed Tayvis out the door. The door slid shut on his frightened face.

  I closed my eyes, determined to fight. He wanted to marry me. He still loved me. I wasn't going to die. Not now.

  Chapter 55

  Tayvis backed away from the closed door. He finally sighed and turned around. They weren't going to let him in no matter what he said. He looked up to see Jasyn and Clark waiting down the hall.

  Jasyn gave him a worried frown. "What now?" she asked as he plodded towards them.

  "She had a seizure," Tayvis answered. "They said it wasn't serious."

  "Then why were they running?"

  "I don't know." He shoved his hands into his pockets. "Sorry."

  "Don't be," Jasyn said.

  "They said something about her meds needing to be calibrated. They promised to let me know." Tayvis let his voice trail off. "They promised me she'd be fine."