Chapter 28

"Tajss provides," Rani says so softly it's barely a whisper.

"How do you mean?" I ask.

I'm sitting with my back against the door. The floor is so cold my ass went numb a long, long time ago, but that's okay because now I don't really notice it. I've told the tale of humanity, at least as I know it, up to the point of the first Zmaj rescuing us.

Rani chuckles and sighs. There is a heaviness to her sighing that is palpable even here in the dank dark. As if she is carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders.

"Everything happens, in the end, for a reason. One thing leads to the next, even if we can't see it. I've long thought this, but it's not always a pleasant thought."

"If you're right, I mean, it's kind of comforting, isn't it?" I ask.

"Only if you're on the ‘right' side of it," she murmurs, and that heaviness is in her voice again.

She's talking about her people, the Urr'ki. They've been retreating from the Zmaj for a long time. At war for generations. A war that they have been consistently losing. But maybe, just maybe, I bring hope. Or more specifically Rosalind does, I'm just a cog in a much bigger machine.

"Your people have lost a lot," I say.

"Yes," she agrees. "That is one way to put it."

"Why only one way?"

"Some things are inevitable," she says. "We made many mistakes and now we pay the price for them. Good and bad."

"That's grim," I say.

"Yes, but it's also freeing. As I said, I see now, more than ever, that Tajss provides."

I think about this and try to wrap my head around it. She is talking on a massive scale, but the most I can really grasp is Dilacs and myself. The series of choices, chances really, that had to happen for the two of us to find each other. Looking at it that way, it should be impossible. The odds of us even bumping into each other are astronomical.

What other logic is there to think then that something, somehow, pushes things at least a little bit in one direction or another?

"You haven't told me your story," I say.

"You haven't finished yours either," she counters.

"True," I laugh. "But it hardly seems fair that I give all my story to you without anything in return. Don't you think?"

She laughs. She has a beautiful laugh that brightens the darkness with its sound. It's warm and comforting.

"Gweneth, you are correct," she says.

"Thanks," I say. "I mean, how come you are here? You seem so… nice. Why would the Shaman put you down here?"

"It is not because of how I am, but of who I am," she says.

"Who?"

Silence falls between us. It's not heavy, well any heavier than it is naturally because of the extreme dark and inability to see a damn thing. It's long though to the point I worry I've said something offensive though I can't imagine for the life of me what that something was.

"Trust is such a hard thing to give," she whispers. "Now."

The pain in her words combines with the truth in them and forms a knife made of ice that slides into my heart. It's so cold it hurts worse. The ache, the pain, and the chills that race from my chest and through my limbs, carried by every beating of my heart.

Trust is another one of those deceptively simple words that carries an inordinate amount of weight along with it. Look how long it took me to trust Dilacs and Khiara. How long I went with trusting no one after the crash. I didn't know anyone and putting my faith in another person was one of the hardest things I ever had to do at that point.

"I understand," I say. "If you don't feel comfortable, don't tell me."

"Huh," she says. "Such wise words. Perhaps your people are guides sent by Tajss to lead us out of the darkness."

"I don't know about all that," I say. "Seriously, that's a lot of pressure. I'm just a girl. A girl trying my best to make my way in the world and do what's right."

"And again, such truths you speak. I find that is true for everyone, no matter their position in the world, all of us are trying to do our best. What we see is right."

"Except the Shaman," I say, darkly.

"No, even him," she says.

"What?" I exclaim, jumping to my feet and instantly regretting it because my legs and ass are numb from the cold. I almost fall, catch myself on the wall, then shake one leg at a time to wake them up as painful pins and needles sensations rushing in along with the returning flow of blood. "How can you say that? He's… evil."

Rani sighs so heavily I feel it in my own bones. The weight of it fills the air, making it thick and hard to breathe. Her sadness, but belief in her words, is literally palpable.

"I know," she says, barely a whisper. I strain to hear her words even here in the silent dark. "More than any, I know. Yet, still, he is doing what he feels is right. He works for what he thinks is the best, no matter how twisted and wrong that idea is."

"You're a better woman than me," I huff, crossing my arms over my chest.

I pace my cell, if you can call taking two steps in either direction pacing. That's all the room there is before I bump into one wall then the other. I'm angry. At her, maybe, but truly at the entire situation.

The Urr'ki I've met are not the bad, evil people that the Zmaj believe they are. And I don't think it's only bias on my part, though it could be. Dilacs warms my heart and that does color my thoughts of all his people. Not only him, though, it's also Khiara. I care about them both so deeply, so truly, that it fills my heart.

And if those two are good, then how can the rest of these people be terrible? All I've seen is that they've given up. They go through their days waiting for the end, without any hope of a future. The war they've been in with the Zmaj for generations is coming to its inevitable conclusion and they've lost.

"I do not believe that, Gweneth," Rani says. "I hear the good in your voice. You sound very kind. And I am certain that you love Dilacs."

"Love?" I ask, blurting the word out wet and noisily. "I never said…"

I trail off because maybe I did? I don't know if I used that word, accidentally of course, or not. Love. Me. An alien and me. He's hot, sexy, but he's also so damn kind. It's true that he not only ignites a fire in my pussy, but in my head and heart.

"Perhaps not using that word," she says, "but I hear it in your voice."

"In my voice?" I scoff, still wrapping my head around it.

"I assume Star People know love?" she asks. "What are the customs regarding it among your people? Are you monogamous? Do you have multiple partners?"

"We, uh, yeah, I, I mean, we…" I trail off.

Embarrassment is burning my cheeks. How do I explain the broad spectrum of love amongst humans? We all do what we do, but that's no answer at all.

"I, well myself, I am monogamous," I say. "Some of my people do it different."

"I see," she says. "And do you deny your feelings for Dilacs?"

"I—"

I what? I don't feel what I damn well know I do?

"You were talking about the Shaman," I say, diverting the topic back to the thing that made me angry. Which she blew apart with her questions on love.

"I was," she says.

"How can he think it is right? He's literally killing Urr'ki all in an attempt to what, end the world?"

"Yes."

"But… that's… wrong. It's evil."

"To you and I, yes. Kire was not always this way though. Once he was a good man, before he became what you know today."

"How long have you known him?"

"Most of his life," she says.

"What happ?—"

I'm cut off by the scraping sound of the door opening. As the footsteps stomp down the corridor fear climbs from my guts and clenches my throat tight. It's too soon for food. I can't imagine why else they are coming now except one thing.

They're going to hurt me. Dilacs, hurry. Please.