by Lisa Lace
“Right, but what about my marriage?”
“I wouldn’t worry too much about that. The bond will make you tell the truth when she asks you. Once everything is out in the open, you’ll just have to see what happens. But Jayne’s got a level head.”
I stared at him. “She saw me in agony and thought something was wrong with me. How is she going to want the same thing to happen to our children? Our women understood that flying was worth it, but the humans won’t. You remember what happened before, don’t you? They couldn’t get rid of us fast enough once they found out about it.”
“You’re underestimating the Earth women. They’re tougher than they look and can be more understanding than we give them credit for.”
“How do you know?” I gazed at my younger brother. For a moment, I forgot there was any difference in our ages. I had not realized he was this perceptive.
It seemed like he could read my mind as well. “What’s the problem? Can’t I have an opinion? I think the most important thing is for you to tell her everything. You can get it all out at once, and then say that you won’t ever screw up like this again.”
“Yes. That would be a starting point. Jayne was pretty upset.”
“If it works, you can see how she reacts. Ask her to wait before making any hasty decisions for a few days. That way she can think things through, and you’ll have a chance to talk to her some more.”
“Okay.” I started to feel like I was in control again.
“Then you’ll have time to convince her that the pain is worth it. Take her flying again and make her see. Unless Jayne believes the pain is insignificant, there’s no way she’s going to keep a secret like this from the other women. I don’t think she could even if she wanted to. She’ll feel morally obligated to tell them.”
“You have a good point.”
“You can always remind her that our people will go extinct if she doesn’t keep the secret. Show her pictures of Mom and us flying when we were younger. Try to make her believe our culture is worth preserving. We’ve visited too many planets. Earth is our last chance.”
JAYNE
It felt like I had been crying for hours. Ever since Arnon had left, I had curled up in a ball on the bed, sobbing.
He was still keeping secrets from me. First, it was the wings, and now it was something else. I hadn’t quite figured out what the something else was yet. My mind was so muddled that I couldn’t sort it out. But it was clear that he was hiding something. And I couldn’t handle him lying to me. The very idea of having secrets between us felt wrong in my soul.
Our relationship had no room for deception or keeping things from each other. Why wouldn’t Arnon tell me? Didn’t he trust me?
By the time he walked back into the room, I was devastated — an empty, broken shell of myself and barely capable of coherent thought.
“Jayne, listen to me.” He gently lifted my chin to make me look at him. “I’m going to tell you everything. There won’t be any more secrets between us.”
His voice sounded anguished, but I wondered if I imagined it, just like I had imagined that he loved me enough for complete trust. He came to the bed and pulled me into his lap, wrapping his strong arms around me. Normally, the gesture would be comforting. Now there seemed to be a vast chasm between us.
“Do you want me to tell you what I’ve been keeping to myself?” Something about his demeanor gave me the impression that he was hoping I would say no. What was the big deal here?
“Yes.” As soon as I said it, I started second-guessing myself. Maybe some secrets shouldn’t be told. He was looking at me like he was about to do the hardest thing in his life. I changed my mind almost immediately. “You know what? No. Don’t tell me if you don’t want to. I just want to know why you were in pain earlier.”
He gave a mirthless chuckle and dropped his eyes. “I’m afraid it doesn’t work that way. If you want the answer, then you have to hear everything. I have to tell you because of our bond.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“I can’t lie to you. It’s part of the bonding process. Keeping the secret was difficult, but as long as you didn’t ask me a direct question, I could handle everything. Things are different now.”
Something else clicked into place for me. “Is that why it feels so wrong that you were keeping something private?”
He nodded. “Probably. The bond is a mysterious thing. It makes two people closer than someone outside of the bond can imagine. But it also has the consequence of making us unable to lie or keep things from each other.”
“Isn’t that good?” I felt so confused at that moment that I wasn’t sure I would be able to tell someone my name. I had always thought honesty was a good trait. Could it be that sometimes too much truth could be a bad thing?
“Usually, it is. But we’re getting into the grayest of gray areas now.”
I put my finger to his lips to shush him. “I don’t think I want to know any more. Maybe you shouldn’t tell me anything.”
“It’s too late. There’s no going back now. It hurts for me to sit here without explaining everything to you.”
I noticed that he looked uncomfortable. His face was turning red, and perspiration covered his forehead.
“I wanted to start off with one thing. Please don’t hate me when you understand.” His eyes showed real fear and I wondered what kind of a secret he had. He was an alien, so it was possible for anything to be normal for him. I had opened a can of worms, and there was no putting them back inside.
“I won’t. At least, I’ll try not to.”
I could tell immediately that he didn’t believe me. But I didn’t think I would hate him when I knew whatever he thought was so important. My emotions weren’t that volatile.
“When the Great Race came to Auxem, they chose to colonize it because of its mineral deposits. We’re now wealthy because of those minerals, but there was biological life there, too. It was hard for my ancestors to survive. According to our history, we lost many groups of colonists to the beasts. We must have looked like dinner to them.”
I shivered and wrinkled my nose in distaste.
“The settlers finally figured out how to defend themselves and fight the wildlife, but the population was still decreasing every year. The children were particularly vulnerable. If things didn’t change, we would have been wiped out.”
“So you took to the air?”
“That’s right. We started working on a genetic adaptation that would protect our children. Wings. But there was a problem. The first recipients died, rejecting the modification. It took some time to sort everything out, but eventually we had the first generation of babies who would develop wings.”
“What do you mean, develop?”
“We aren’t born with them.”
“Okay. This is getting kind of weird. I’ve never thought about this before.” I made a face and shook my head.
“The wings come out when we’re adolescents, and it’s extremely painful.”
“Like what I saw in the bathroom?”
He shook his head.
“Not as bad as that?”
“No.” He shook his head sadly. “It’s worse.”
I swallowed, looking up at him from where he cradled me.
I sat up and moved off his lap onto the bed beside him, turning so we were facing each other. Sorrow filled his eyes. “Some of us can’t take it and decide to end the pain permanently.”
I held up my hand. “Stop. That sounds disgusting. I don’t want to hear it.”
“I can’t stop.” He looked like he wished he could. “The pain is terrible. It usually takes about six months for the wings to emerge completely. During that time, there’s persistent distress every moment we’re conscious.”
“But it gets better, right?”
“In a sense. Once they’ve emerged, the worst of the pain is gone. But every time we want to fly, we have to take them out and start the process over again.”
&nbs
p; He stopped talking and waited in silence while I thought. “Is there anything else that you’ve conveniently forgotten to tell me?”
“I don’t think so. That’s everything important. I don’t want there to be any more secrets between us.”
It sounded like he meant well, but there shouldn’t have been any secrets in the first place. “So what about our children?” I had to learn the truth. “Are you telling me that my son or daughter would have to go through the same agony? The pain that is so bad it can drive kids to commit suicide?”
He nodded, slowly, his eyes bleak. “That’s right. But it’s worth it, Jayne. Let me prove it to you.”
I shook my head. I had kept myself under control until this point, but there was a feeling of betrayal growing inside me. He had kept too many secrets while we fucked like rabbits, trying to make a baby that would have to go through unimaginable agony to become an adult.
I knew what I had to say.
“Arnon, I can’t bring that kind of punishment down onto an innocent child. I will stay married to you.” I paused before saying the words I knew would break his heart and were already breaking mine. “But we can never have children.”
Chapter Seventeen
ARNON
The next morning, Jayne vanished before I woke up. I had slept in late and missed my morning meeting. The couch in the living room was an uncomfortable bed.
I felt hopeless as I sat up and stretched, trying to coax some feeling into my aching back. Jayne’s reaction was reasonable. I couldn’t fault her for wanting to protect her offspring.
After I had made her promise to keep quiet for a few days, she had asked me to sleep on the couch. The separation hurt more than I had expected. She didn’t want me near her. She didn’t want me touching her. She didn’t want to have my baby anymore.
I felt hollow inside.
There was a knock on the door. When I opened it, Avren was standing in front of me. He put a hand on my shoulder. “Ayrie told me what happened.”
“It’s pretty bad.”
Avren was the quiet one in our family. While the rest of us could speak for hours, Avren was usually sitting in the corner and thinking. But when he finally said something, it was worth listening to.
“I’m sorry, Arnon.”
“We’ll all be sorry if I’ve accidentally doomed our planet.”
He nodded in quiet sympathy. “That’s not why I came here. We’ve discovered something about Jayne that I think you should know. We were checking the women’s records again. Jayne tested negative for H4T7.”
“Of course. All the women did. That’s why they were chosen to be part of the program.”
“They were supposed to be negative.” He looked like he didn’t want to be the bearer of bad news. “When we tested everyone yesterday to analyze the sickness, it turned out that there was an error.”
“That sounds ominous. What do you mean, exactly?”
“Jayne’s H4T7 positive. She carries the gene. You’re not supposed to be married to her. She doesn’t pass the most basic requirement to enter the program.”
“That’s not possible. You must have made a mistake.”
Avren had more to say. “It looks like she was hiding it.”
I felt like everything was crumbling around me. We had built our relationship on lies. How could anything we shared be real when we constructed it on the shifting sands of deception? I leaned back and covered my face with my hands.
“Arnon?” Avren’s quiet voice pierced my foggy mind. “I’m afraid Father knows. He wants to see you.”
“Now’s not the best time.”
“He was standing right next to me doing a routine observation when the technician learned the truth. The name caught Father’s ear, and he came over to see the results. I didn’t have time to conceal anything.”
Avren’s voice sounded so guilty that it brought me out of my haze. “It’s not your fault. I’m the screw-up here. Well, me and Jayne both. I’ve made mistakes. Now I have to pay the price.”
“I could have hidden it, and no one would have known.” He dropped onto the couch beside me.
“They would have known when the baby was born.” Acknowledging the child’s existence out loud felt strange. Our daughter might never enter the world.
“What will Father do? You were so happy with her.”
I tilted my head, looking at my brother. “Was I?”
He nodded. “I’ve never seen you ecstatic before. I was too young to remember Mom when she died. But I can’t forget the sadness I saw in you and Dad. I don’t remember you ever acting as you have during the last few weeks.”
“It’s not your fault. Someone would have discovered it eventually. In time, Father would have found out, too. The tech was the one who accidentally revealed sensitive information. You did me a favor by telling me before Father sprang it on me unexpectedly. That would have been a sticky situation. Now that I know, I’m sure everything’s going to be okay.”
Avren seemed convinced, but I wasn’t sure at all. I didn’t know if anything was ever going to be okay again.
“If you say so.” He rose to his feet. “I’m sorry about this, Arnon. I hope everything works out with Jayne.”
The sound of her name felt like a punch in the stomach. Had she hidden this from me? Why would she do that? Had she actually been after me for my family’s wealth? The idea seemed so far from what I knew of Jayne that it was laughable. But the fact that she had hidden something from me tainted all aspects of our relationship.
I suddenly felt like I didn’t know her at all. She had acted betrayed when I had told her my secret. In reality, she was hiding something just as big. What a hypocrite. I felt my heart hardening toward her.
Maybe our marriage wasn’t going to work after all. Secrets, lies, and deception were no foundation for a union.
Avren said it looked like she had hidden something. I hadn’t asked what he meant. I got up to follow him down the hall before he went too far away.
When I opened the door, my father stood in front of me, hand raised and about to knock. “My formerly steadfast and level-headed son. You’re just the person I wanted to see.”
“Hello, Father. Won’t you come in?”
He gazed at me. “I see that your brother’s told you already.”
“We talked before you arrived.” I hadn’t spoken to my Father since he had insulted Jayne and said that she wasn’t good enough for me. I wondered where our conversation was going to lead today.
“I assume you know that she’s a carrier of the gene.”
“Yes.”
“You won’t be able to divorce her, but there are other options. We can set her up on the island.”
“I’m not following your train of thought.”
“She can live at the summer house, and you can live at the palace. We’ll find another woman for you.”
“For what? My harem?”
“You won’t be as happy as if you had a proper relationship but it will be better than nothing.”
“Are you suggesting that my wife and I live apart?”
“You can’t have temptation sleeping in your bed.” He wasn’t looking at me.
“And other women, who weren’t my wife, would carry my children?”
“Of course! Don’t stay with her now. It is a pointless exercise to producing children with biologically impure females. What would people think if the crown prince himself wasn’t following the rules?”
Finally, I understood. Father was afraid of looking bad. “I’m not divorcing Jayne.” A moment earlier, I had been wondering how I could stay married to her. But I couldn’t let her go like that. We had both lied. We could admit it to each other and begin again. We wouldn’t have to give anything up without giving love a chance.
“Of course you are. If you don’t, I shall have to change your mind.”
I stared at him, wondering what had happened to the man I thought I knew.
“Are you threatening me?”
&n
bsp; “Call it what you want.”
“So you want me to abandon Jayne and get over her? That’s a good idea. How’s that going for you?”
He froze.
“Have you forgotten Mom yet or met someone new?”
He dropped the mask from his face. I saw raw pain in his eyes as if it were only a moment ago when he discovered Mom was dead. Our staring contest didn’t last long as he quickly averted his gaze.
“No. I’ve never stopped thinking about your mother.”
“How can you tell me to do something that you can’t? I’m not going to forget Jayne if you send her away. Do you want me to end up like you?”
He lifted his head, eyes blazing. I thought he was going to tear into me for insulting him, but he chose this time to surprise me once again.
“I don’t want you to be anything like me. If you were, you would know how miserable I’ve been since your mother died. I’m not a monster.” He sat down slowly on my couch.
I felt like I didn’t recognize him anymore. “I don’t think you’re a monster.” I sat next to him.
“I don’t believe you. In some ways, I am a terrible person. But everything I do is for the good of Auxem. I must save our people, Arnon. They’re all I have left.”
I glared at him. “I’m right in front of you. You have five sons who would like to have their father back.” I choked up a bit and felt like I had when I was a little boy, wishing someone would comfort me when I learned my mother wasn’t coming back. “You might be a grandfather soon. I bet those kids would love to meet the man who was my hero until Mom died.”
He stared at his clasped hands. “I don’t know if that man exists anymore. I think he died with her.”
“I don’t believe that.” I pressed my lips together in dissatisfaction.
He looked up at me, and I watched as my father disappear, replaced by my king. “That’s beside the point. You can’t have children with a woman carrying the gene. You know that.”
“Isn’t there a way to work this out?”
“I don’t see any possibilities.” It looked like the weight of the world was on his shoulders. “We’ll get her set up in a separate suite tomorrow. When we get to Auxem, she can live at the summer residence while you remain at the palace. Problem solved. I’m sorry, but it’s how it has to be. I warned you that nothing good would come from marrying that girl. We’ll find you another woman in the next shipment.”
