by V. K. Ludwig
Strip myself bare.
No secrets.
No lies.
No more doubts.
I took a deep breath.
I exhaled on a hum.
Then I drove my claw between the ribs of a body that neither flinched nor jerked. Jessica remained limp in my arms, the only movement how blood dripped onto my skin and trickled down along my waist in warm rivulets.
Pain followed instantly.
Something stabbed into my core, stinging beneath my sternum, weaving through my ribs with such force they wanted to splinter. Back-arching pain radiated from it, infesting every cell of my being until my toes curled and my lungs stalled.
“Breathe, urizayo Katedo,” a voice said.
I couldn’t.
Black hollows, bright swirls, brutal vibrations… everything tangled inside my chest at once, twirling, knotting, coiling together, overwhelming me with pain that spread its roots into my core, choking, suffocating, strangling until—
A burst of light.
It resonated my core, little vibrations that strung together into zovazay. I saw its brightness, heard its hum, and sensed its warmth spread beneath my sternum. But the deeper it reached the dimmer it became, as if nothing waited on the other side but gaping, empty space.
I sucked in a sharp breath, filling my lungs with air only to exhale on a pained, “I cannot sense her.”
Uresha’s purple eyes stared down at me, the room behind her little more than fading outlines. “Do you feel zovazay?”
“Yes. But she is nowhere.”
A weak smile rounded her lips. “If there is zovazay, then she is at the other end of it.”
“There’s no end. Only darkness.”
“Zovazay is not to be seen, but to be sensed,” Uresha said. “Feel her, urizayo.”
I closed my eyes and focused on our soulbond. It was all there, the feeling as if someone squeezed her ribcage, the urge to flee yet everything on her was frozen. By Mekara, she was so terrified, it stilled the blood in my own veins.
My next inhale seared along a parched throat. “She’s scared.”
“Dedozay is like a dream that refuses to end, bringing us face to face with horrid memories and grim fears, none of which she can escape. But what is darkness but a path that can lead toward light? Show her the path.” She glanced back at Toagi. “My urizayo, perhaps we should leave. There are things to be said that are not for us to hear.”
“Good luck,” Toagi said and, with a curt nod, turned away and left with his shimid.
“Come.” I waved Kam toward me, and he snuggled up against me, his head propped against my shoulder. “We’re not giving up yet, are we?”
His hair crunched with how violently he shook his head. “No. I’ll keep humming for her.”
“Hum for me instead, while I go searching deeper. Can you do that for me?”
“Until it hurts my throat.”
“You’ll be my guide like you’ve once been.” I turned my head, and pressed my forehead against his. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
His words caressed my heart. “I’ll bring her back to us.”
Eyes closed, I allowed the darkness to swallow my mind, to devour me into its blackness. A blackness that resonated with my son’s hum. It mingled with that quiver of energy, little pulsations that could barely be heard but I sensed them in me, around me… within Mekara.
“You belong.” My whisper brushed along zovazay, letting it thrum as if I’d struck a chord. “You belong on Rogon’s back, around our fires, inside the waters of a yoni, at the edge of a cliff overlooking the plains. But most of all, you belong in my nabu, in my arms, in my heart. Come back to us, kunazay.”
Nothing.
No answer.
I deepened my focus, imagining how I opened a vault deep within me that held the darkest ugliest truths of me. “Mekara knows I put you through a lot. I was scared and made terrible mistakes. I deceived you, pushed you away, all while you showed me so much patience. If you come back, I’ll spend the rest of my life making up for it, Jessica, I swear. And whenever I mess up, you’ll call me out on my bullshit. You should start right now. Come on. Wake up and call me a jerk.”
Not a single movement.
Not a single word spoken.
Instead, zovazay began chirping, vibrating so strongly it shifted the darkness, infusing it with little flickers of light. And right beneath my sternum, something… tugged.
Twenty-Five
Jessica
Each time the sun peeked out from behind the clouds, it cast a sparkle across the green sequins on the plush dino, beckoning me toward it. White batting guts oozed out of a hole on its orange belly, pouring onto the bricks and concrete pieces piling beneath it. How badly I wanted to push them back in.
My scuffed knees pressed into the moss where I hid behind some sort of boulder, but I could neither feel its moisture against my skin nor smell the smoke that wafted through the abandoned streets across. Maman was there but, with how I trained my eyes on the dino, I could only sense her.
No matter how hard I tried to turn my head, to look at her, my entire body remained stiff, paralyzed. Stuck in this moment, the only motion was the anxiousness pumping through my veins. I didn’t like this place. It scared me.
“Whatever you see, Jessica, it’s not real,” a voice came from everywhere, deep and familiar. “You’re at the Noja medical bay. Don’t be scared. It’s just a dream, and you can walk away from it. Follow my voice and come back to me. We’re waiting for you.”
Clouds lifted.
The sequins blinded me.
My eyes burned.
“She’s keeping them open for longer periods now,” another voice said. Female. I didn’t recognize it. “Pupil reflexes are improving.”
“It’s been suns,” the familiar voice said, and its sigh breathed around me, into me, within me, shifting something at my core. “Kam drew you this. It’s him on Dinale, you on Rogon, and me on Pekira. I don’t know what that is supposed to be. Maybe a tendetu? I have no idea but… anyway, I’ll hang it right here so you can see it once you open your eyes again.”
Something moved in my periphery.
Against the rigor in my eyes, I strained them away from the dino and toward the left. Toward the building where large black cats stood between barricaded windows, their bodies nothing but doodles as if a kid had dragged a massive black crayon across the blood-smeared wall.
Something tugged.
Not at me but inside me.
Right beneath my sternum.
My eyes flicked back to the dino, and the muscles in my legs tensed as if I wanted to sprint toward it. My fingers itched to pick it up and run my thumb across the sequins. Would they change color? We had needle and thread in the first aid kit. We could fix it.
“I don’t know what else to do, kunazay, and the specialist has another few suns of transit,” the voice said, tear-choked and sad. “I’m begging you, please come back. Wherever you are, you don’t belong there. You belong with us. Feel this…” Another tug beneath my sternum. “I know you can, because I feel you through our soulbond. Do you remember when I told you that zovazay requires just as much work? I can establish it. I can call for you through it. I can wait for you at the other end. But you need to follow it on your own.”
Follow how? Where?
Humming echoed through the ruins.
Deep and rich, calling to me, calming me.
Another glance at the building, where some sort of pink bird dangled upside down from a figure’s hand, just as a boy’s voice resonated the ruins. “That’s you with your first tendetu. Adi says his female doesn’t need to hunt but that’s old-fashioned. Don’t worry. I can gut it for you. It’s kinda gross. Once, I poked the gallbladder, and it ruined the meat.” There was a pause and then, “Don’t go to Mekara. Adi says we’re family, and you belong with us. Can you wake up now? Please?”
I wanted to.
Wanted to wake.
Wanted to belong.
But how if I couldn’t move?
With dino in front of me, drawings to my left, a boulder stashing me away, and nothingness around me, where was family? Where did I belong? Whatever I sensed around me was… odd. It changed as if it wasn’t real, the only constant a relentless tugging which strung around my sternum and dug deep into my core.
I couldn’t move my legs.
Could neither turn nor walk.
But I could close my eyes.
What if belonging wasn’t around me but within?
I shut my eyes and, where I expected to find darkness, I found… a string brimming with light. It vibrated and hummed, intensifying as I followed it toward grayness. Grayness that took on the shape of squares above me, like brushed metal, some with circles of lights set into their center.
Warmth enclosed me from both sides, and soft fur tickled along my chin. Colorful wires curled around my vision, giving my pupils something to focus on as someone shuffled in the background, the movements too quick, too much at once.
Nausea roiled in my stomach. Where was I? Was this a… hospital room? By the Three Suns, every bone in my body ached, my joints so stiff they crackled when I shifted.
“Fuck, you scared me,” a female said, followed by the swoosh of a door and a muffled, “Get Uresha and a healer! Right now!”
Like velvet, my tongue felt all wrong against my gums when I said, “Wh-appened?”
“You hit your head bad and were unconscious for almost a week.” Where I expected a Jal’zar, a woman with auburn hair smiled down at me, her face somehow… familiar as she wiggled her finger from left to right and back again. “They came right away and barely left your side ever since. Do you want me to wake them? Or do you need a moment, so you can…”
Her words crumbled into white noise at the back of my mind as I glanced around. I had no idea where I was. It didn’t matter, though, because I rested between Katedo on my left, and Kam on my right. Both asleep.
Kam lay on his tummy, one leg hanging off the bed as he drooled onto the mattress. Katedo held one arm propped underneath his head, his face paled into a much lighter gray. His other hand rested on my belly atop the furs, and faint little exhales blew from his parted lips. Why was he here? Why was I here?
Because I’d hit my head.
Somewhere between my racing thoughts, I vaguely remembered slipping. I’d run behind Katedo, wanting to tell him that I would come to the plains with him, with or without zovazay. Because we were good together, no soulbond needed, and this moment once more proved it. He’d come back for me. Right away, or so the woman had said, and he’d stayed with me all this time.
Love welled at my core, gushing across my entire being until it collected behind my eyes as tears. An overwhelming sensation, so violent in its ardor it roused my senses from a state of sluggishness.
With a suck of breath, Katedo startled awake, lowered his arm, and pressed his hand to his sternum. “What was that?”
He spun around so quickly the bed shook, and something twinged between my ribs. But only until his hum drove out the pain, and those midnight blue eyes sparkled like the ocean all over again.
“Oh… Jessica.” His pupils flicked across my face as if assessing me, and his hand reached for my cheek, tentatively at first before he cupped my face. “You’re looking at me, truly looking, and I see the spark of your soul at the depth of your irises. Do you hear what I say?”
“Yes.”
Another breathed oooh left his lips parted, trembling, lending his hum more resonance as he pressed his forehead against mine. “You came back to us. By Mekara, I was so afraid. Healer.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Ceangal, I need a healer. And Uresha.”
She nodded and, now that my thoughts cleared, I recognized her from the media. “Already on their way.”
My next swallow went down my throat like sand, and I swatted at all that stuff dangling from my head, accidentally putting strain on the IV stuck to my hand. “M’thirsty.”
Katedo grabbed behind him and brought a clay mug to my lips, wetting them first before he fed me tiny gulps of vasani tea. “You’ll have to take it slow, okay? We’ll have a healer and a shimid look at you.”
“I’ll go see where they are,” Ceangal said and left.
Katedo glanced at a still-sleeping Kam before he put the mug away, and took my hand into his. “You woke twice before and reacted to us, but you never stayed longer than a few seconds. Never spoke. How are you feeling?” When all I could produce was an incoherent stammer, he brushed his thumb over my bottom lip. “Shh, it’s okay.”
A Jal’zar female entered the room, smiling, her approach as slow as her voice was calm and gentle. “Nauseous?”
I nodded.
“Dizzy?”
I nodded again.
“It’ll go away within an argos, but we best make sure Kamenji remains asleep a while longer,” she said, and her golden eyes flicked to Katedo. “Speak slowly to her, urizayo. No rapid movements. No loud noises.”
She went about checking my vitals and, after some mute urging on my part, removed the IV. Injections were given, reaction times measured, and that stuff dangling from my head finally disappeared. She did all the things I would have done with a patient. Except for that mug of ushti scat she wafted around my nose, the scent so biting it cleared most of the remaining fog from my mind.
Katedo frowned at the blackish bruise on the back of my hand where my IV had been. He stayed beside me throughout the quiet procedure, holding me, stroking my hair, helping me lift this limb and that one.
“Cognitive functions seem to be improving quickly,” the healer said after I successfully put my right finger on my left earlobe. “Assuming she recovers at this speed, she could leave… mmmh… three suns, perhaps. The plains will do good to her.”
Katedo shook his head. “Not until the specialist from Earth sees her.”
A shimid who introduced herself as Uresha followed next, who smudged the air around me and painted symbols onto my forehead. With her thumb and spit. “Yeki, her soul has returned to stay.”
I shuddered at the wetness tingling across my forehead. “I’m just tired.”
“Speech seems nearly back to normal. A bit of a slur is to be expected.” With a curt nod, the healer excused herself and ushered Uresha to the door. “We’ll check back later. Try to keep her awake for as long as she can manage.”
Katedo waited until the door swooshed shut, then pressed a kiss to my cheek. “Thank you for coming back to us.”
My eyes caught on something.
On the metal arm that loomed above the bed, holding monitors, scanners… and a piece of paper taped to it. A drawing with three figures sitting astride three black yuleshis. Kam had made me dozens of similar drawings, but this one? The longer I stared at it the more familiar it seemed, sparking a flutter beneath my ribs that robbed me of breath.
“It tickles.” Smiling, Katedo pressed a hand to his sternum once more. “It’s odd, how I reminded myself of all the bad until I didn’t remember the good. This feels nice. Bright and… happy.”
My mind struggled to make sense of his words, but none of that mattered now. Against the pain in my muscles, I rolled onto my side and palmed his ashen face. I could see it in his half-lidded eyes, the many hours he’d spent at my bedside, the worries, the energy this must have cost him.
“Thank you for coming when you heard,” I said. “The very fact that you’re here when I need you…”
When my voice broke off, he propped himself onto his elbow, only so the tip of his nose would reach my temple, where he nuzzled me like he often did. “We were readying our yuleshis even before the scout arrived and told me what happened. I shouldn’t have left Noja without you.”
“I should have come,” I said, blinking away the warmth behind my eyes. “It hurt so bad to see you ride off because I love you so much it—” Something tugged so hard beneath my sternum it cut through my words and my next inhale all at once, radiatin
g such heat through the gap of my ribs I curled my chest as if on reflex. “By the Three Suns, what was in that shot she gave me?”
A smirk sneaked onto his lips. “No, you shouldn’t have come, Jessica. You made history, you know. The first urizaya to walk out on her warlord, calling him out on his bullshit for all to see. Five suns, I spent without you, and it was agonizing. Agonizing and eye-opening.”
That heat inside me seemed to bubble, all attempts at breathing it away impossible. “What do you mean?”
“You belong by my side, Jessica. I was… not thinking clearly after the battle at the plateau. I had allowed it to scare me into retreat, back into fear I no longer want in my life. I shouldn’t have deceived you but, most of all, I should have claimed you the very night we met. Should have given you zovazay—”
My fingers brushing over his mouth silenced him. “I was scared, too. You, Kam, Neshta… you were my family, and I was so afraid that I might lose it again without zovazay. Was so terrified I didn’t realize that what we have is good.” Beneath my fingertips, his lips thinned into a smile. “I don’t need zovazay, but I do need you.”
He chuckled into my hand before he removed it from his lips, something playful sitting at the corners of his eyes as he said, “Perhaps you don’t need it, but I sure hope you still wanted it because I cannot take it back.” His lips pressed against mine, kissing me slowly before he whispered, “Gam urizaya.” Another kiss. “Gam zahim.” He pressed his forehead against mine, letting our eyes connect. “Gam kunazay.”
My soulmate.
Thoughts slipped and tumbled inside my head, making no sense and too much at once. He’d never called me that before. Why would he now unless… unless…
Katedo’s eyes slipped to my side, to where a thin, white gown draped over my ribcage. Mine followed. And there, underneath the silk-like fabric, was a dark purple leaf that shone through the fibers. A covered wekhja?
Pure, undiluted energy coursed through my chest, spurting my heart into a faster pace until its beat joined the rhythm of that tug-tug-tugging right above it.
Zovazay.
