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“Why not?” I asked, looking back the way we’d come with confusion. “They’re going to notice a piece of the terrain is missing, Ceph.”
“Consider it a favor to me,” he said, lowering himself so that we were even.
I couldn’t read anything from his face, but his bearing said he was ready for action. “You think you’re here...to guard me from them?” I looked around, as if there could be anyone else. “If they wanted me dead, all they would have to do is snip the end of this cable!”
“Don’t remind me,” he snapped, and his color flashed as black as the sea around him, before it warmed again. “Of course I know that—but the less they know about me, the stronger I am.”
Which possibly explained why he didn’t want to share anything about his life with me. “Oh. So that’s how it works then,” I said with sarcasm. “Got it.”
I reassembled myself and started pacing the bottom of the wall, looking for the rock I’d measured my scanning distance with last time. I found it, turned my cameras on, then I felt his presence behind me like a weight, until he spoke up on our ’qa.
“My wife and child died. He was still unhatched—but I sung to him through his egg sac.”
I heard his words and a moment later his raw pain at their loss hit me like a wave. I fell to my knees beneath it, putting a hand against the wall to stop me from falling all the way over—and after I did, the colors of the nearest symbols flashed, and kept flashing, for as far around as I could see.
“Elle!” Cepharius shouted, sounding panicked, picking me up again.
This time I didn’t fight it, I let him cradle me.
“I didn’t mean to overwhelm you—” he started to apologize.
“Don’t,” I said, shaking my head. “It’s okay. I asked.” Because we shared his ’qa, I could feel his feelings reverberate, and it was like I was experiencing them myself. I was wracked with agony on his behalf, and I wrapped my arms around his neck, sobbing helplessly inside my helmet, as he tried to soothe me through my suit.
“I am sorry, Elle of the Air—I thought I could tell you without emotion.”
“It’s okay,” I said again, sniffling hard.
“It seems that part of me will be forever broken,” he thought, and bowed his head to mine.
I nodded fiercely. “The best part. I know.” I felt my throat squeeze again, but this time at the thought of Lena. “Can...I?” I asked him, on the verge of sharing everything about her anyways, unable to stop all the sorrow and despair that was burbling up.
“Of course,” he said, so I let it all spill out. The good, the bad, how we pretended we were going to be each other’s dates to prom so our folks wouldn’t find out we were dating the Nicholas twins, how she was maid of honor at my wedding, how she brought me my first publication to sign like I was Stephen King—everything, up until she was in the ground.
“Oh, little pearl,” Ceph breathed when I was finished. “I am so very sorry for you.”
“I know,” I whispered, because I could feel it, radiating off of him. I tucked my head against his chest, breathing roughly.
There was no way for me to wipe my nose inside my suit. I was just going to have to spend the next six to eight hours being disgusting.
At least he didn’t show any signs of setting me down.
“I guess this is why krakens don’t want to bond with humans, huh?” I said, after I’d regathered myself, giving him a sad smile through my helmet.
“I started things, if you recall,” he said.
I was still clinging to him. I knew it was inappropriate, and foolish, but fuck it, it felt right.
“Now that your cable has more reach, let me show you more,” he said, and I got the impression we were going up. “These are the symbols I told you about yesterday,” he said, and moved me so that I was shining a light on them.
I was already thinking ten steps ahead, worried about how I was going to edit the parts where I’d been sobbing off of the suit’s camera feed, but then the top of the structure came into view.
I looked around, as far as the lights on my helmet showed. The structure didn’t have true corners, in fact, where the two planes of metal met were sloped and smooth.
And the ridges Ceph had destroyed had been dirt, not rock like I’d assumed...
“Oh fuck,” I whispered sharply.
“Elle? What are you thinking?”
