Page 3 of Returned to the Vissigroth
Myccael's face scrunched up in annoyance, "If we ever finish it." He shook his head, "The Renegades and Eulachs have been sabotaging us wherever they can."
I put my hand on his shoulder and squeezed it, "You have Grandy's favor, son. You will prevail. I have full trust in you."
He laid his palm on top of my hand, still on his shoulder, "Thank you, that means a lot to me."
"We're going hunting, you want to accompany us, Susserayn?" Darryck entered, fully geared up in his vissigroth finest.
He and Myccael had never been friends; Myccael had always seen a rival in Darryck, and I'm afraid that was my doing. I had preferred the Vissigroth of the Icelands over my son for too long. But now that they were brothers-in-law, they were both making an effort to get along, for Thalia's sake. The gods knew that my daughter had suffered enough, and I was grateful that her husband and brother were making an effort to like each other.
"If you'll excuse me, my Susserayna," Myccael took Oksana's hand and kissed it.
"Only if you promise to be careful." She cautioned him, stepping into his embrace.
"Nothing is going to happen to him; he has three vissigroths at his side to protect him," Darryck announced.
Not too long ago, his words would have been a painful thorn in Myccael's side, but now he only grinned good-naturedly. "Don't worry, I've got your back, little brother."
"Be careful, Darryck, I'm sure he could take you now," Garwayn, being Garwayn, tried to inflame the little banter.
"He was chosen by the dragon," Darryck conceded, "I'm sure he can take all of us."
"He slayed an entire Dragoon squadron, singlehandedly," Claymore added.
"And I'd do it again for a noble seffy like my Susserayna," Myccael kissed Oksana's cheek.
I took the opportunity to take my leave while the males were busy with their banter and excitement over going Renegade hunting. I had a long journey ahead of me, and for some reason that I could not begin to fathom, an urge to get to Hoerst was growing inside me.
The urge only gained in strength over the following days. So much so, I drove my entourage to travel day and night. We were lucky that no Eulachs or Renegades waylaid us; either that, or our heavy weaponry scared them off. By the afternoon on the third day, my companions and the nictas were ready to collapse in the sand when we entered Ackaron Harbor.
Never had I driven this hard to get to the spaceport, not since Daphne was taken from me. Normally, I did anything I could to delay my arrival, but this time, I couldn't get there fast enough. Something was pulling me home; something I didn’t understand. Once upon a time, I would have said it was the urge to get back to my Vissy, but Daphne had been dead for rotations.
You haven't been to her shrine in several moon phases, my inner voice brought up. A fact I was shamefully aware of. After her death, I had Daphne entombed in a glass shrine, one that would preserve her beauty for all eternity. The shrine was hidden in the Grandyr's Crown mountains. I was the only person who knew where it was. I journeyed there several times a rotation, to look at her, to remember everything we had lost, I would talk to her, tell her things, as if we'd only parted a fewhours ago and she were still alive. She was the only seffy I ever loved—the only one I would ever love.
I hadn't looked at another seffy since I met her, not even after she died.
Some days it was a lonely existence. Some days, I yearned for the intimacy, the connection Daphne and I had. The conversations. The quiet moments. The way her eyes could hold mine and make me believe the galaxy wasn’t already broken.
Maybe that’s why I felt the pull to get to Hoerst as quickly as possible. I needed to visit her shrine. Seeing her like that, like she was only sleeping, soothed her loss in the only way possible. Made it, not bearable… not tolerable…
But distant.
And distance was sometimes the only peace I knew. I hadn't even told her about Zara, our new granddaughter, yet.
Iwoke to silence. Not a peaceful silence. It was a stillness that rattled my soul. A kind of nothingness so absolute, it felt wrong. Like I’d stepped into a song halfway through and missed the opening notes, the ones that tell you where you are and who you’re supposed to be. I didn’t remember closing my eyes. I didn’t remember… anything.
My breath came slow and ragged. It hurt to breathe, as if my lungs had forgotten how to work and needed permission to try again. Cold wrapped around me. It wasn't the bite of wind or weather, but the sort that seeped from stone and memory. I tried to move, but my limbs didn’t respond. They floated, dull and heavy, like I wasn’t quite in them yet.
I opened my eyes.
At first, my vision was as fuzzy as my mind. But then I made out a light above me, altered in strange prisms, casting gold and violet across a curved, uneven ceiling that shimmered with faintfrost. I blinked. A trick of the light, I thought. But the shimmer didn’t vanish.
That's when I realized that I was inside something. It wasn't a room or a cell.
It was a… I wasn't ready to give it the name coffin, but no other word came to mind. It helped that whatever surrounded me was made from glass: smooth, seamless, perfect.
My hand moved—slow and uncertain—trailing over the curve of the surface. The warmth of my skin left a smear in the condensation. I saw my fingers for the first time. Pale. Too pale.
I pressed my palm against the glass and tried to sit. But I sank back down with a moan as pain lanced down my spine, white-hot and immediate. I gasped, my breath caught, and my ribs ached, while my muscles were a bit more assertive and screamed at me. Every inch of me felt used and forgotten, like a book left open too long.
