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Fiona
The first week without Dalk in the Deep Sky was fucking misery. I moped around like a loser, depressed and listless and generally just driving myself mad with thoughts of how he might be doing out there without me. And then I’d chastised myself, because his uncle had just died so obviously he wasn’t going to be all hunky dory, now was he? Not to mention the state I’d put him in before he’d left here.
But if I thought the first week was bad, the second week was even worse. By the second week we were back in Gahn Errok’s territory, and we had confirmed news that, at the very least, Dalk had left Gahn Fallo’s lands and was journeying back to meet us here. But that just led to a whole new host of worries. What if a zeelk nabbed him or a krixel chomped him? What if he pissed off a braxilk and couldn’t fight it off as easily as he’d once told me he could? What about those nasty ablokoi things that lived in the Death Plains, like the one that maimed Varrow and made him lose an arm?
Oh, God. What if he came back missing an arm?
What if he came back missing both arms?
What if he never came back at all?
That was always the most terrible thought. The thought that something might happen to him, that I might never see him again, and I’d never even told him that I loved him. I oscillated viciously back and forth, at times sticking by my guns and thinking it was good I hadn’t told him right before he left, and at other times wanting to tear out my own hair with regret.
And the worst part of it all?
I still didn’t know how to resolve the original problem. I still didn’t know what to do about the fact that he — or I — could end up bonded to someone else at any time.
Nope, when it came to that lovely little problem, I’d made absolutely zero headway towards any kind of reasonable solution. There were still only two possibilities I could see. One would be to essentially break up and just be miserable about it until one or both of us got bonded to someone else and hopefully moved on. Or, we could be together, fall even deeper in love, start to make a home, a family, a life for ourselves, only to have it all upended when the Vrika or Lavrika decided that they didn’t like us playing house without their input.
And then Dalk would probably kill somebody.
Honestly? Both options sounded depressing as fuck.
And I knew Dalk wouldn’t want to hear about either of them when he got back. He’d probably just say something about not caring how things turned out as long as I was with him. Which was a beautiful sentiment, don’t get me wrong. But it wasn’t a realistic one. Not on this planet, anyway.
Or, maybe even worse than that, maybe he’d decide that he didn’t want me anymore. Late at night, when I was feeling at my lowest, I liked to torture myself with the idea that maybe while he was back in the Sea Sands, the Lavrika had summoned him. He’d been bonded to another woman and he’d discovered that he was capable of feeling a mate bond for someone else after all. Maybe he’d even realize that what he’d felt for me wasn’t anything close to a real mate bond, and he’d drop me faster than a hot human potato.
Sometimes I even dreamed about it. And I woke up wiping tears from my cheeks, feeling heartily sorry for myself even while I knew I shouldn’t, because I knew Dalk was going through way worse shit than me.
Yeah. Miserable. I wandered around Gahn Errok’s like some pathetic spectre until it was once again time for us human girls to head on back to Gahn Thaleo’s mountain for another week.
The morning to go to the other mountain came, and I didn’t want to leave. I was scared that Dalk would lose track of the days and wouldn’t know where we’d gone. Or that he’d try to come into Gahn Thaleo’s territory and wouldn’t be granted entrance. And then he’d try to fight his way in, because he was Dalk, and he’d probably end up with a belly full of arrows before I even got to say two words to him.
So I took my sweet-ass time getting dressed, I dawdled at breakfast, and I dragged my feet all the way out to Valeria’s shuttle on the morning we were meant to leave. And it was pointless, really. Childish. As childish as sticking out your tongue at a handsome, frowning warrior on the other side of a fire. Because it was a solid two-week journey from the Sea Sands to the Deep Sky, and no matter how slowly I walked to the shuttle, Dalk wasn’t going to suddenly show up days early right before we happened to shut the doors and ascend.
It didn’t stop me from looking for him anyway.
But of course, he wasn’t there. He was probably in the Death Plains now, based on what I knew of geography and the journey’s path. Three or four more days to get here, at minimum.
And I’d be in Gahn Thaleo’s mountain.
I sighed and buckled myself into my seat, resigned to waiting a few more days. I’d told him I’d wait for him, after all. Tilly and Nasrin buckled themselves in as well while Oxriel and Zoren got comfy on the floor. Engines whirred with power as Valeria tapped switches and buttons in the pilot’s area of the shuttle, Grim at her side. The shuttle heaved off of the ground, pulling up into the air smoothly. Calmly. Everything running exactly to plan.
Until Valeria suddenly gasped, “What is he doing here?” Then she gave a tight yelp when something hit her viewscreen with a furious thunk!
“Hold on, everybody,” she snapped, viciously banging on buttons and dials. “Unexpected landing taking place.”
Nasrin, Tilly, and I looked at each other with fearful eyes. I didn’t think it had been a bird hitting Valeria’s viewscreen. If it had been a bird, while unfortunate for our feathered friend, Valeria would have just continued up on her assent. No, this had been something else. And, judging by her obvious anger, something intentional.
“Was it an arrow?” Tilly asked, craning her neck to see what was happening. Oxriel and Zoren were on their feet the moment the shuttle touched back down, weapons ready in their hands.
“No,” Valeria huffed, snapping off her harness and leaping out of her seat. “It was his fucking spear.”
A spear.
His spear.
It couldn’t be. He was still days away...
