by V. K. Ludwig
Love brought pain.
Love took it away.
Perhaps Jessica was right, and they were more similar than one might want them to be. Because I had no doubt that, if I loved Jessica for a thousand more suns, and thousands more after that, there would be more happy moments than miserable ones.
Another cramp in my chest.
By Mekara, I missed her so much.
My ears pricked at the cshh of sand and ash shifting beside me as Kam walked up with a bow in his hand, saying, “There’s something in the small forest beside the ravine.”
“Show me,” I said, and followed beside him toward the cliff. “What did you see?”
“Nothing. Only heard… I don’t know. Voices, maybe?” He clutched his bow tighter the closer we came to the ravine, and pulled an arrow from his quiver. “What if it’s freeraiders?”
“If you were a freeraider, would you approach from the ravine?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
He shrugged. “It’s too narrow to send enough warriors onto the plateau. We’d cut them down so easily, it would be stupid of them to come from there.”
“And haven’t we learned now that they are not as simple anymore as they used to be?” Pleased with his answer, I placed my hand onto his shoulder. “That doesn’t make it impossible, but at least improbable. What else could it be?”
“A beast.”
“What kind?” When he said nothing for a while, I added, “How far away is cold season?”
“Five moons.” He pouted up at me, the way his brain worked hard to come up with an explanation written across his face. “I don’t get it.”
“You’ll figure it out,” I said, and gestured him to squat down, so we could crawl the final stretch toward the edge of the cliff. “Point out the area where you heard the noise.”
He did so with his bow as we peeked down at the copse of trees, a narrow line of vegetation that ran along the plateau for half a sun’s ride or so. And there, underneath the leafy blades of ferns that covered much of the brush, their spines a fluorescent purple, crooned something. A sound similar to our hum, but so high-pitched at the end of each call it was almost a low whistle.
Kam crawled closer to the edge, but his grip on the rock was solid, his legs stretched out far for counterweight. “What is that?”
Of course he couldn’t know, considering I’d usually left him with Mother when I’d gone on patrol. Something I’d promised myself would change this time around. If Kam wanted to make it through the warlord’s trial after my death, he needed to be prepared. I’d avoided it this far, but I couldn’t do that any longer. Not if I wanted him to come out of it alive.
“What happens before cold season?” I asked.
His lips pressed together as he thought on it. “The plains calm. Less heat and solar flares. Plants go dormant, and leave the water from the rain in the ground for when the heat returns.”
“All true, but none of it will tell you what that is down there,” I said on a low chuckle. “What happens when the heat returns?”
He cocked his head, lifting an annoyed brow at me. “Adiii… why don’t you just tell me?”
“Someone who needs others to tell him these things shouldn’t be warlord. You listen to your advisors, but you weigh their opinion against your own experience and knowledge.”
He blew his cheeks out and stared back down, and he might have held his breath for a second before he rolled onto his back and groaned at the sky. “Beasts are mating.”
“Not quite,” I said, sensing a smile bunch against my cheeks. “That’s the croon of an usthi male trying to attract a female.”
His palm slapped against his forehead. “I’m so stupid.”
“Not at all. He needs to move and do that elsewhere, so it’s good you brought it to my attention. The last thing we need is him luring several females so close to our tree. Any idea how we could do that?”
“Killing him is wasteful since we have enough in the stores right now,” he said, quite happy with his answer as he smiled at the stars overhead. “Fire?”
I nodded. “We’ll simply smoke him out. Get him to find mates elsewhere.”
“Okay.” There was a long moment of silence, the plains nothing but a soothing background noise before he said, “When Jessica comes, she won’t stay, right?”
As much as I’d expected that he’d caught on to the tension, his blunt question still brought a lump to my throat. “I don’t think she will.”
His swallow gulped through the night. “Why not?”
“Because…” Because I’d fucked up the best thing that had come to my life in a long time. “Your adi is a coward, Kam.”
“No you’re not,” he blurted. “The entire tribe talks about how you fought those freeraiders. They got nothing on Warlord Katedo.”
“I lost many warriors.”
“They lost more.”
“I lost your mother to them.”
No sooner had it slipped my mouth, did I bite my tongue. I hadn’t meant to say that, and the silence which returned was perhaps the reason. It echoed with blame, guilt, and a renewed sense of failing.
But only until a small voice pushed through its chaos, stilling it all with a whispered, “It wasn’t your fault.”
Time stilled, as if neither past nor future existed.
Only this very moment as I turned my head and found those orange eyes, my voice thick. “You don’t blame me?”
He shook his head. “No.”
“Ever?”
“Never ever,” he said, and his little fingers came searching for mine. “There was nothing you could do. Amimi told me. Sevja told me. Everyone tells me still. They just… took her.”
However dark that void beneath my ribs, his words illuminated my core, making room for a single, sobering beat of my heart. No, I couldn’t have avoided it. But Jessica? That was my fault, because I’d allowed them to take her from me. Had allowed them to drive such fear into me, I’d retreated from the woman I loved. Had broken her heart, so afraid of losing her I hadn’t allowed myself to have her in the first place.
Had failed her because I hadn’t even tried.
Mother had warned me that guilt could never return the losses of our past, but instead steal the blessings of our future. Jessica was a blessing, her soul shaped similarly to mine, a bit blemished, a bit bruised.
Together, we were whole.
I stared at Kam’s orange eyes, and for the first time in solar cycles, the past didn’t stare back at me when I said, “I need to return to Noja.”
His fingers clasped mine tighter. “And I’m coming.”
“You better,” I said and rose, then pulled him onto his feet. “I might need your help.”
A lopsided smirk tugged on his lips. “Relentless begging.”
“Perhaps some groveling.”
And zovazay.
Because love and pain belonged together.
If I wanted one, then I had to open myself up to the other. Had to strip my soul bare, and connect with its perfect counterpart within Mekara. I hadn’t understood that yet when I’d stung Jessica. But I would when I stung her a second time, and hummed for her until she was so deeply intertwined with me, our blemishes and bruises would meld and mend.
In all his excitement, Kam left his arrow behind, but ignored it and kept skipping toward one of the many yuleshi enclosures. “I’ll get Dinale ready!”
“Bring me Pekira.” We split at the tents where young males unloaded the shimids’ tinctures and herbs from dunewalkers, and turned toward Mother.
But where I expected her busy over a stack of uri rods, she clasped her hands to her chest and hurried toward me, her face streaked with… tears? “Oh, Katedo, a scout arrived from Noja.”
Said scout bowed too deeply for comfort, which spiked the adrenaline in my blood until all I could do was shout at him, “By Mekara, speak! What happened?”
“The u-urizaya.” There was a pause and several gulps, each one rous
ing a need to strangle the words out of him. “She sustained a concussion, and—”
“What?” My mouth turned dry, my throat suddenly so parched each inhale burned at the back of it. “When?”
“The sun you left, my urizayo. She—”
“Why did nobody inform me?” I turned straight toward the yuleshi enclosure.
“My urizayo, we could not reach you over the satellite,” the scout mumbled and hurried behind me while Mother recited her prayers. “The healers didn’t know what to do because she’s not Jal’zar and… my urizayo, she is unconscious and won’t wake. I rode as fast as I could, but the storm—”
“Unconscious?” That word sent a mixture between dread and rage through me, and I sprinted toward Kam and where he stood with both saddled yuleshis. “We ride for Noja this instant. And you better make sure Dinale keeps up, because we’ll sprint until we see the gate.”
Twenty-Four
Katedo
Numb fingers brushed over the electrodes on Jessica’s forehead, her temple, right above her ear, then dug into black curls slippery with conductive paste. “How did this happen?”
Toagi, who’d ensured me he’d tested negative for the new ice-fever strain, leaned against the wall beside the many monitors displaying numbers and symbols that made no sense to me. Beeps. Beeps everywhere, spiking the adrenaline in my blood until my nostrils flared, each inhale sharp and biting from the astringent air.
“From what the warriors reported, she ran behind the tribe calling for you,” he said. “She slipped on the ramp, and hit her head.”
That numbness spread along my knuckles, up my arm and, once it reached my shoulders, invaded my entire body. She’d wanted me to take her. Why else would she have come after us? After all this back and forth, the deceit, how I’d hurt her… she might have been willing to give up the very thing I’d come to give her.
Dread squeezed the blood from my heart.
I was too late.
Life once more threw tragedy at me. Even worse, I’d helped in shaping it, and what a twisted mess it had become. For so many suns, I’d tried to stay away from Jessica, worried that being with her, loving her, would surely get her killed. None of that had happened. Instead, she’d injured herself the moment I brought distance between us, and in the most ironic way possible.
“You told me you could just slip on a puddle on the ground, hit your head, and fall into a coma,” I whispered into her ear and nuzzled her temple, a gesture that had become like a ritual between us. “I believed you then. No need to make a point. Do you hear me?” No reaction. Only an empty shell. “I should have taken you with me, Jessica. Contained those foolish idea of yours between my thighs.”
Kam sat by her feet on the medical bed, knees pulled against his chest, where he swayed back and forth. “Why doesn’t she wake up?”
“Her sleep is too deep.” I took her hand and squeezed. She didn’t squeeze back, her dark complexion almost pale beneath the bright lights. “How long has she been like this?”
Toagi sucked on his upper lip, digging his fangs into them before he said, “Too long. The wound at the back of her head required eleven staples, though we managed to keep the swelling under control. My healers as well as my shimid agree that this is dedozay.”
A lost soul, neither here nor there, undecided if it wanted to return to consciousness or remain with Mekara. Empire healers called it a coma but, no matter the name, no matter the technology, there was little we could do.
“What about the healers from Earth that are still here?” I asked. “Did they look at her?”
“They’re only that: healers. I contacted Torin himself, and he sent one of the best neurologists Earth has, but he’s still in transit and won’t arrive for another ten suns or so.”
Enough time for her soul to grow too estranged from its body. “That’s too long.”
“I agree.” Arms folded in front of his chest, he paced the length of the room, the surrounding palathium walls as bare as my nerves. “As regrettable as this incident is, it serves as a wake-up call. Neither Noja nor our tribes are equipped to tend to women.” He cleared his throat. “Ceangal is pregnant.”
“So I’ve heard. Congratulations.”
He gave a curt nod. “No shimid has ever delivered a hybrid, and the only female alive who has experience with it is on Earth. What if there are complications? Noja needs healers from Earth. Specialists. A midwife, perhaps. And permanently. Perhaps even one for each tribe.”
My brain spun inside my skull. “You’re right, but I can’t concern myself with that right this moment.”
“No, of course not. I’m sorry.” The tip of his black boot tapped against the bedframe, and his eyes sought out mine. “There’s something else you should know. When the healers ran the standard tests on her this morning, drew blood and all that, the results showed slightly elevated amounts of a hormone the Earth healers call hCG.”
I frowned at flakes of dried blood on Jessica’s pillow and brushed them away, then smoothed over her curls. “I don’t know what that is.”
“I was surprised when I heard that you took a woman as your urizaya. Can you imagine my confusion when I came to Noja, and found said urizaya at med bay, instead of by her warlord’s side? With no zovazay for my shimid to detect? However this came to pass isn’t my business but…” Toagi pulled a hover stool from the corner and slumped down on it. “Said hormone indicates that she might be with child.”
Nausea roiled my stomach as my legs gave out underneath me and I sunk to my knees beside the bed, my head shaking as if on reflex. “No, that’s… No. She was near her heat when we last mated, yes, but… no. It’s not possible.”
“Women are different,” he said, amplifying how acid licked around my gut. “Seed can remain inside them for suns, Ceangal told me, and catch once they ovulate. Like I said, the amounts were only slightly elevated, and almost went unnoticed even though the healers from Earth have special equipment for early detection. She likely came into full estrous a sun before your tribe left.”
And might have conceived our child the very moment I rode out of Noja and left her behind, her scent suppressed like I’d asked her to. An onslaught of emotions turned my stomach, joy warring against dread, the premise of a child so at odds with how its mother seemed void of life.
Lips trembling, I rose and pressed them against her cheek just as I let my hand slip underneath the large fur that covered her, cupping her belly. “Do you hear that, gam zahim? Is your womb receiving our child right now? Letting it settle to grow?”
“Adi, look.” Lips parted, Kam pointed at Jessica, at where a single tear ran down her cheek. “Is she happy? Is she waking up now?”
“Please wake up,” I whispered. “Come back to me. To us. Call me a bit of a jerk if you must, but just… come back?”
I held my breath.
I kissed her tear away.
Nothing happened.
A female who had to be a shimid limped up to us, and bowed slightly. “Urizayo Katedo.”
“This is Uresha,” Toagi said. “She tested negative. I assure you, nobody was allowed near the urizaya unless previously tested and deemed not a host.”
I bowed my head to her in respect. “Did you look upon her soul?”
“Many times,” she said, her skin speckled from age.
Toagi rose and gave the old female a gentle pat on the back. “Uresha has been looking after her for suns, chanting for argos, calling to her soul.”
“She can feel,” Uresha said. “She can hear.”
“I know.” Because I’d succumbed to dedozay for almost a moon when my zovazay severed, crying, blinking, sometimes grunting. Unable to reconnect soul and body, I’d floated, drifted. Instead of a soulbond, it was Kam’s cries that had guided me back. “We all know dedozay can have dire consequences if one doesn’t wake for more than six suns. What can I do to help her?”
“Her soul is a restless thing, wandering here and there as if not knowing where it belongs.” Ure
sha spun each wooden bead on her chest covering, wrinkles deepening the longer she frowned. “The woman cannot find her way.”
I want to belong.
My eyes snapped to Jessica’s lips, but they remained unmoving even though I heard her voice clearly in my head. Robbed of her family, raised in an orphanage, fooled by fate… no, she wouldn’t find her way back to us. Back to where she was cherished and loved.
Not unless I showed her.
Because just as love hurt and healed, zovazay was as much curse as it was blessing. Something I’d forgotten, so focused on the chaos it could leave behind, I had lost sight of the harmony and guidance souls could find within.
“I’ll show her where she belongs.” By my side as my urizaya, my kunazay, ami to that child likely growing beneath her heart.
When I pulled the soft ushti fur back that covered her, Uresha’s shaky hand took my wrist. “Urizayo, what are you doing?”
I draped my tail over Jessica, angling my claw a mere inch left from where I knew her wekhja rested underneath a simple cotton gown. “What I should have done the sun I brought her to my quarters.”
“I have never heard of a male stinging a female lost in dedozay. If you establish zovazay now, you will join in her pain, and whatever turmoil tortures her soul.”
“And help her burden it.” I wrapped my arms around her, carefully as not to mess with the cables and catheter, and slipped onto the bed before I positioned her head on my chest, claw hovering by her ribs. “Broken souls are stronger together.”
Kam scooted higher, squeezing himself into the space between my calves. “I’ll hum for her. She likes my hum, right?”
“So much, it’ll lure her soul straight back to us.” I looked at Toagi. “How long until you sensed your zovazay to Ceangal?”
“Instantly.” He smirked. “She was a bit more reluctant. Not necessarily not sensing it but… she didn’t understand what it was. If I could give you some advice?”
I nodded.
“Don’t hold back,” he said. “Show her the ugliest parts of your soul. Chances are she’ll come searching for the beauty in it.”
