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It’s easier to manage my grip on reality when I wake up safely in bed. There are times when the night terrors cause me to wind up on the floor. If I wake up there, it’s guaranteed I won’t be falling asleep again.
It takes me a few minutes of patting my surroundings and squinting in the dark to remember that we arrived on the ship called Makiva’s Revenge during their false evening hours. In the aftermath of my accident and the many panic attacks that followed, I made the decision to come here.
The ship shares a name with my ‘mate,’ but it long outdates his birth. Makiva’s Revenge was built for his great-grandmother and named for her father who declared that they would build an army strong enough to take Kar’Kal by force one day. I read about it on the ride over. Kalla lent me a book of Kar’Kali stories meant for children, but I enjoyed it and the illustrations inside. Strange to think that the alien who wants to marry me hails from historical figures, people whose choices are marked down to remember.
Would it be fair for me to break a family line after so long? As I understand it, rejecting him would end the fabled ‘House of Makiva.’ Elementary as the book might have been, it explained many things that I needed to know as an outsider to the Kar’Kali culture. For example, that the title of Ka’lakka means Makiva is spirit-chosen, and that if I become his queen, I would be the Ka’lakkori—the spirit-chosen’s mate.
It’s not the sort of commitment one backs out of lightly. It would be a lifetime.
I’d thought that arriving here and facing the precipice of an insane decision would help me confirm whether it’s the right choice, or merely the maneuver of prey with their back against the wall. But here I am with no more certainty than when I told Kalla and Kaye to take me here. Is this really going to come down to the moment I’m standing in front of him for the very first time?
I slide out of bed, dragging the clammy sheets with me as I search for the bathroom. Once the lights are on, I take a look at my reflection and assure myself that everything is fine.
I poke my skin and blink at myself in the mirror to leave the lingering nightmares behind.
Not a blemish remains of what happened, neither from the captivity nor the burns. The goo bath I woke up in is to thank, not only for my survival but for the reconstruction of my skin. It can’t fix what’s inside, though. I’m starting to think that nothing will. A hug from a friend feels like suffocation, and a kind brush of someone’s thumb on my cheek feels like the crawl of insect legs.
Kaye had slept with me for a couple nights when we first went home to EC-12, but I hid this from her. I threw myself out of bed, and when she stirred, I assured her I needed some water. Then I tiptoed to the bathroom and shivered in the tub until the terrors passed. I know I can’t hide it all from her, and I cherish her comforts, but I can’t keep taking from her. Her worry eats at me, and I fear that my fucked-up brain will spread my misery to her. If I show too much, she’ll be in a panic. The last thing I need is to take her down with me, not when she has happiness waiting for her at home. She fell in love while I was asleep, and I’ve never seen her more at peace. I won’t let her waste that special time on me.
She and her husband are in the next room over even now, close enough to be there in case I need something.
I brought the contents of the package the king had sent me. I decided to read it after Gerunde’s message sent me into a headspin. I figured there was nothing the king could say within that package that could take me lower than that voice message.
When I’m done in the bathroom, I take it out again. It’ll distract me at least, even if I’ve read it three times now. It’s a blue velvet folder embossed with Kar’Kali symbols on the front. Kalla told me that it’s Makiva’s family seal. My fingers slide over the soft material and the silver foil. I twist the claw latch that keeps the flap tight until it pops open with a satisfying ka-shink!
Francesca,
I understand you might choose to live the remainder of your life without me in it. I can respect that decision, even if I cannot fully bear it. Your friends tell me you are something of a scholar in alien cultures, so I hope you don’t take that the wrong way once you learn a bit about my kind. A Kar’Kali male lives every day in the hopes that his mate will be revealed, and I’m no different.
I will always be here, waiting for you and waiting for the possibility that you might give me and this matebond a chance.
I’ve been told that humans have a difficult time understanding the depth and longevity of Kar’Kali matebonds. So let me make something extremely clear. This is not an empty gesture to gain your attention. This is not an act of generosity. It is selfish in nature, I assure you. What is contained within this folio will keep you safe and well taken care of. If absolutely anything unfortunate, or even mildly inconvenient, should befall you, you should open this folio at once and allow myself or one of the contacts listed within handle the situation. It doesn’t matter when it is, and it doesn’t matter what the problem is.
The bank account speaks for itself. What is mine is yours.
Fifty years from now, this account will be active. A hundred years from now, it will be still be in your name when I’m dead or dying. Fifty years from now, I’ll still rejoice to see you on my doorstep. If you give me but one year of this life with your presence, I’ll consider myself very blessed by the spirit. Never doubt that my resources are yours, my heart is yours, and that your seat at the head of my table is waiting.
At the bottom, a few swooping Kar’Kali characters signify his shortened name with the English version beside it: Mak.
It’s a beautiful love letter, but it doesn’t feel like it’s written for me. I feel like a third party peering into some deep bond stamped in a history book, a love that might’ve taken place a hundred years before I was born.
The rest of the folio is filled with the documents he references in the letter, things I don’t need to review a second time—bank accounts, addresses, contact notes for every imaginable need.
I consider the keycard that I dropped on the bedside table before I briefly fell asleep earlier. The soldier that greeted us in the docking zone gave it to me when we stepped off Kalla’s ship.
“The king wishes you to know that his quarters are yours as well. You may enter at your leisure, or if you require anything from him at all.”
It seemed ludicrous at the time that I would consider barging into his rooms before we had a chance to talk things over, but now that sleep escapes me, I’m having even crazier thoughts. What if I had a peek? If I see him in person, and I regret it all in a wave of nausea, then I’ll make Kaye and her mate take me home.
Sleep deprivation causes all kinds of silly ideas. Things like talking yourself into an alliance marriage and stalking an alien king who might become your fiancé in the dead of night.
As Gerunde’s voice filled my head with memories and the skimmer careened off course, it felt like every thin string of control I had delicately wrapped around my mind and body snapped in an instant. Back to square one in a single moment of sheer terror—I can’t allow it. I might not be able to change what happened to me, but I should be able to control my future and what it looks like.
Drastic times call for drastic measures.
Now I’m standing on a ship that functions as a traveling fleet. There are eight warring pirate ships docked to the Revenge at this very moment, meaning there are countless warriors and an unfathomable amount of advanced weaponry. I imagine them as steel walls rising around me.
The question is, can I trust the man who commands this army? The public calls them an army of pirates, and they call him King of Deviants, a people that were forced into exile from their own planet centuries ago.
