Page 21 of A World Enough

They had arranged to meet up with Thane, a member of the portal guardians. He was a fae like Morrigan, but a different race and with different features. Cousins, so to speak. They’d agreed to meet on an out-of-the-way forest covered moon.

Their ship had landed a while ago, and now they waited and waited for Thane to emerge from the forest. The fae had always resisted the Abnobians, and so they’d been hunted to near extinction.

Morrigan paced up and down the ship, and then Jhosa said, “He’s here.”

She hurried out the door and was closely followed by Margot and Jhosa.

Thane stood tall, regal, and strong. His dark brown skin was in contrast to his green clothes. The only way he revealed that he was a fae was his pointed ears.

His deep voice rumbled, “Jhosa, Margot, who is this?”

“Morrigan, a fellow fae,” Margot said.

He walked right up to her and looked deeply into her eyes. “The only Morrigan I know is heir to her mother’s throne, on their own world. They are called the tricksters.”

“Yes, I am.”

“That’s right.” Morrigan stood to her full height. Being her mother’s heir was something she didn’t like to think about. They didn’t have the best of relationships, and now she had helped banish her brother to the void.

Her mother was one of the reasons she had stayed on Earth for so long.

Thane said, “Pity we didn’t have more help from your people when the Abnobian bastards decimated us.”

Morrigan didn’t want to get involved in that kind of argument, but she was sure her mother had her reasons. They didn’t get on, but she wasn’t a bad person and would always be open to helping against the Abnobians.

“I don’t know anything about that. I’ve not been home in a long, long time.”

He said nothing and moved over to clasp Jhosa’s hand and then Margot’s.

“Let’s get going,” Margot said.

When they were all strapped in and Jhosa was taking off, Margot said, “Morrigan came back from a planet called Earth to try to find someone.”

“A debt of honour, you might say,” Morrigan said.

“Your people have honour? The people that deceive others by their appearance?”

“Look, I don’t know what happened back home, but I was with a group of friends and trying to protect their planet against the darkness of my brother. While this fight was going on, a wolf, one of the group, was sent through a portal. I promised I would try to find her.”

Margot, trying to calm things down said, “Thane, Vorka’s compound on Danus was attacked by bounty hunters searching for the Map Keeper.”

“Did Camber get away? How is Vorka?” Thane said with worry.

“Vorka is fine. Camber ran, but we got word she was with a foreign wolf. We put two and two together—”

“And thought the wolf might be the one Morrigan was looking for,” Thane said. “It might make Camber easier to get intel on if a lone wolf is travelling with her.”

Morrigan was getting frustrated. “Enough of the background. Let’s get going.”

“They were seen on Oipra,” Margot said.

Thane’s eyes went wide. “Why did they go to a heavily guarded Abnobian mining world?”

“My sense is that they were running and ended up there,” Margot said.

“Can this wolf be trusted? Lone wolves are notoriously—”

Thane was cut off by Morrigan. “Yes, she can be trusted. She’s a member of a proud wolf pack on the planet Earth, and she was willing to give up her life to save that planet.”