10. Alana

"I'm fine," Karvex growls and stalks from the room, leaving me alone on the crumpled bed.

My shoulders still feel the strength of his grip as he shook me awake. What the hell was that about?

I don't understand. I was just trying to help. The barely restrained anger in his eyes still terrifies me.

I play back the scene in my head, trying to work out what I did wrong. I can see nothing that should have invoked such wrath. But a sneaky seed of doubt lurks in my mind. If I did nothing wrong, why do I feel so guilty?

The strange encounter has left me shaken. He was so sure he was someone else. One of the magnificent Ishani, famed for their love and beauty. How can that possibly be?

I've always been drawn to stories of the Ishani. ‘The Race of Angels,' brutally crushed in a war that wasn't theirs. But I'd never heard of survivors from the utter devastation of their planet. And Karvex certainly doesn't have the visage of an angel.

And yet a memory flashes to mind of the first time I saw him, outside the casino vault. For a brief second, I swore I saw him with beautiful golden skin.

I need more answers, and I'm not going to get them sitting here alone.

I dress hurriedly and pull a blanket from the bed to guard me against the chill of the night.

I know instinctively where I will find Karvex. He always did love to sit under the stars when he needed to think. The thought comes unbidden to my mind. A knowledge that is mine and yet not mine. I don't know what the fuck's happened to me since Karvex dragged me from my life on Gur. Everything I once held true is coming unraveled.

Or maybe it's me that banged my head in the crash. I feel like I'm going a little crazy. Could this be a simple concussion?

I don't believe it is, but I reach up and check my head just in case. There is no pain nor unexpected lumps. Besides, the weirdness started before the crash. The inexplicable bond I've felt from the moment Karvex found me.

Just as I predicted, I find him sitting on a bench in the hotel courtyard.

I throw the blanket around his shoulders as I sit down next to him. He left the room without a shirt or jacket, and his skin feels chilly as he leans into the warmth of me. My arm snakes around behind him, my hand running over the bony protrusions that run down his back.

It makes me feel reassured and safe as he puts his arm protectively around my shoulders. I hadn't realized how unsettled his dream had made me.

"I believe you," I say quietly.

He hugs me a little closer to his side, and for a while, we simply sit and stare out at the rocky landscape.

"I can see it, too. You as an Ishani. I believe you, though I don"t know why. I shouldn't. It"s insane. But I know it"s real somehow."

When he speaks, his words come from far away, like he's only partly here with me. "We were Ishani," he says. "All of the Reapers. The war changed us. Their toxic weapons."

"Tell me what you know about the Ishani," I urge.

"I know that the Ishani tried to help resolve the cursed war between the Ataxian Coalition and the Trident Alliance. It was tearing at the very fabric of the Universe. The weapons they were using were hurting things in more ways than they could possibly understand. But they wouldn't listen."

I squeeze his hand in silence.

"And then we began to catch it from them. We argued, some of us taking sides. We fought each other, and they were quick to fan the flames. Before long, they turned their weapons on the Ishani and destroyed everything."

I already knew some of this from the stories I'd heard. I had always hated both sides for their actions. Most humans did, as we were losers no matter which side would come out ahead.

What they did to the Ishani, however, had always settled particularly painfully in my gut. I never knew why. All I knew was that they had destroyed something priceless and beautiful when they destroyed the Ishani and their home planet. The bitterness in Karvex"s voice tells me he feels the same way.

"I know it sounds crazy, but I remember it now," he says. "At least some of it. It wasn't a dream, not totally. It was a memory, too."

"I believe you."

"I had forgotten what it was like to fly. But I could fly in my dream. I always fly when I dream this way. It feels wonderful."

"You've had this dream before then?"

"Sometimes. It"s a little different every time. I had ignored it, thinking it was just something I was making up in my imagination. But this time felt different. It was more real than my life now."

"What do you think it means?" I ask.

"It"s like something unlocked inside of me," he replies. "Maybe it was the crash. But not because I"m making this up now. I"m finally remembering what I had forgotten."

"Being Ishani?"

He nods. "We all were, the Reapers. I think over time our Reaper selves pushed out whatever part of ourselves remained. We changed when we fled our home planet until we couldn"t even recall what we had once been."

I'm stunned. "So every Reaper that you know has the same faulty memory?" I ask him. "None of you remembered this?"

"No." He shrugs. "Or if they do, they do not mention it. To be a Reaper is to be angry. To be angry at everything they took from you. To put everything into growing the monster they made you become."

He looks up at the stars. "I do not think, perhaps, there is any energy left to remember the before times. Or any desire to learn how much angrier we would be if we recalled what we had lost."

Again we fall into silence. The stars look strange from here. When I was on Gur I could barely see them because of the light pollution and clouds, but when I did, their configuration was very different. Here I can see every one of them blazing a trail across the cold dark heavens. It is a magnificent site, but it also makes me feel very small and insignificant.

Somewhere out in the bleak rocky landscape, an animal screams its call out into the night. The noise chills me. "Let's go back to our room," I suggest.

Karvex sighs. "Come on then," he says, standing up. His arm remains protectively around my shoulder until we are safely back in our warm room.

So much has changed so quickly. I study the pattern of horny growths that cover his body as he gets undressed. At first, they appeared fearsome and ugly. But now we've become intimate, and I"m viewing them differently. They form intricate symmetrical patterns down his back and over his shoulders.

He catches me looking at him and smiles. It makes the lines on his face fold around the growths that cover it. "Are you checking me out?" he asks as he climbs onto the bed.

"Your body is amazing," I tell him, running my fingers over the patterns.

"I think you're the first person to tell me that in those words."

I study him, trying to memorize all the lines, letting my fingers wander along his cheekbone. Following the line of spikes up to his hairline and over his head. He lays back and lets me take in every detail of him.

Life is so strange. How can I be in love with a Reaper? A Reaper who swears he was once an Ishani?