Chapter 27

Cora's heart raced as she and Levi ran hand in hand through the space station. It didn't race with fear, though, but excitement. After their three days of rest in the shack on Jorvla, Cora was ready for more adventure, and the mission would be well and truly delivered.

"In here," Cora suddenly called, catching sight of a bathroom.

Levi followed her inside, and the two took the chance to catch their breath.

The bathroom was empty except for the two of them, and Cora couldn't help but break out into a wide smile as she gazed up into Levi's eyes, still panting from the run.

"What?" he asked, smiling back.

"Nothing," she replied. "I'm just having fun."

Levi laughed—a hearty, good-natured laugh that made Cora fall in love with him all the more.

"You're something else. You know that?" he asked, grinning at her.

"So, what's the plan from here?" she asked. "Steal another ship?"

Levi shook his head.

"I might be a fugitive," he replied, "but I'm also a Prince of Lorr, and as long as nobody knows I'm both, I can use that title to pull some strings. It has some sway, just as long as we're not on Jorvla."

Cora grinned.

"Well, Your Royal Highness," she said, affecting a little curtsy just for fun. "You may want to clean up a little. Right now, you're a little more ‘column A' than you might prefer."

Levi turned to look in the mirror behind him and did a double-take at what he saw.

His clothes and skin were marred with dust, his hair was matted, and a small cut on his forehead was encrusted with dry blood. He looked a lot more like a fugitive than any prince she'd ever seen.

Cora didn't look much better, though. Her light skin had turned such a dirty, sickly gray from Jorvla's desert dust, with smears of black soot crisscrossing her cheeks and forehead that she felt she looked half-Jorvlen. The clothes she'd stolen were filthy now, and her usually curly, shiny hair was dull, dusty, and frizzy.

In the mirror, they grinned at each other before doing their best to wash up in the bathroom's basins.

Miraculously, no one else came in, and by the time they were done, they looked semi-presentable. Cora even had a couple of extra shirts stashed away from the pile of clothes she'd stolen—one for each of them.

"All right, Prince Levi," she said, taking his hand. "Let's go get a ship."

Levi grinned at her, taking her hand and leading her out of the now mud-streaked bathroom.

It wasn't far to the ship rental desk, but before they approached, Levi stopped her.

"I know I said we'd go back to Noxxa to get my ship, but we lost some time in the chase. What say we just get a ship and follow the Imperial Surfer from here?" he asked.

Cora smiled, happy he was consulting her. It really felt like they were a team. Even though she trusted his call implicitly, she loved that he asked her opinion.

"For sure," she told him.

He smiled at her, squeezing her hand before leading her to the rental desk.

It took little more than dropping his own name for the clerk to offer him a ship free of charge, and soon they were making their way to a small zoomer on the other side of the space station, escorted by the clearly starstruck Xoyosan rental clerk.

"And I hope you have a wonderful trip, Your Highness" the clerk crooned, handing Levi the paperwork. "If we can do anything else for you, please just let me know."

Levi flashed her a quick smile as did Cora before they climbed into the vessel.

"Oh my gods," Cora said as she sat in the copilot's seat and surveyed the control board. "This thing has a solium hyperdrive."

They were the best on the market but insanely expensive. Cora had never even seen a ship fitted with one, let alone ridden in one.

Levi grinned, slipping into the pilot's seat.

"Only the best for His Highness," she joked as he fired up the engines.

Cora strapped herself in for what was sure to be a powerful ride. She didn't have to wait long. The clerk had put them at the top of the launch queue, and they rocketed out of the space station so fast the internal stabilization hardly had time to catch up. And they weren't even in warp speed yet.

"All right," she said once she'd recovered. "Let's see where they are."

Cora punched in the coordinates of the space station the Imperial Surfer was supposed to be headed for, and the holoscreen brought up the galaxy map showing the Jorvlen ship's location.

"Prepare for hyperdrive," Levi told her with a grin.

Cora raised an eyebrow but didn't have a chance to reply before Levi pressed the hyperdrive button. For a split-second, Cora felt like her heart had fallen into her navel, her brain into her throat, and her stomach into her knees.

A split second later, though, the stabilization kicked in and all her organs resumed their proper positions. She looked to her right and saw that the same thing must have happened to Levi.

"Damn," he said, looking at Cora. "That is powerful."

"Which means we should catch up with the Jorvlens in no time. Right?" she asked.

"Here's hoping," Levi replied, smiling at her. "The Desolation Stone had better still be on board that ship, too," he added.

Cora took a deep breath, praying the stone was indeed on it. They still had a long way to go before they could call their mission a success, and despite how much they'd gone through already, she still felt the hard part hadn't even started yet.

They were on their way, but what if they didn't find the Imperial Surfer? Or they found it and the stone wasn't on board? And what if they got captured again?

But as these thoughts ran through her mind, she felt Levi's hand touch her head softly before running his fingers through her hair. It felt as if a cool waterfall not only washed over her but through her. All the fears and doubts that had consumed her just a moment before now fell at her feet and were floating downstream.

"We can do this," Levi told her, and Cora opened her eyes to look at him. She hadn't even realized she'd closed them.

Levi had put the ship on autopilot when she wasn't looking and he turned to face her, his beautiful violet eyes peering intently into hers.

"I know we can," she told him and hoped he knew she didn't just mean the mission.

His eyes soothed her the most—more than his words, more than even his touch. She saw in those eyes that despite the vastness between their two worlds, their two ranks, and their two histories, he really understood her.

She wanted to be with him, wanted to build a life with him somehow. All thoughts of guarding her heart had long been cast off, whether consciously or not, and all she wanted was to get through this mission and out onto the other side. Together.