Page 35 of Taken to Heimo
The carpet on the floor beneath my feet is made of a synthetic plastic. It is enough to mute my steps without carrying the dust mites that can affect the sick. “You can’t leave without telling me. Especially after what happened. You might hate me right now, but I’m still your guardian…”
She cuts me off, as clean as a well-slit throat. “I have already put in my request to have you removed as my guardian.”
“Verax!” Nox. I stagger as she rams that dagger into my heart all over again. Bloodthirsty creature, she twists.
“The Rakukanna will be remaining here on the human colony for the foreseeable future and I would like to stay with her until she returns to Voraxia. I will travel back with her when she leaves and then I will organize a werro for myself in Illyria or on Nobu. I’ve already been offered a dome in the Va’Rakukanna’s village.”
“No.” I know this word in her Human language. I’ve heard it from her often enough.
“Yes.”
Rage. It pummels me like raining fists. I shake my head, feeling the effects of the spirits wash over me hard, making my emotions explode while the skin numbs on my fingertips. I can suddenly feel life firing through each and every one of my scars. I look up at her face, at the soft scar below her left eye. It’s almost imperceptible now, but I can still see it glowering at me like a neon sign, ceaselessly blinkingfailure.
I choke, “Is this because of what happened on the transporter?” I told myself I wouldn’t speak of it until I found the right time, yet here I am xoking blabbering about it. Making it real.
“Of course it is.”
“I told you, I would fix it.”
“You can’t.”
“I can…”
“Nox, Krisxox. Unless you’re planning to marry me, then you can’t. And even if you were, I wouldn’t want you to. I don’t want you for my mate!”
Irony. It’s a xoking bitch, isn’t it?
I shake my head and watch the doors to the platform slide open behind her. I’m trying to catch up, trying to figure out what’s changed.
The ripping in my chest is worse now and so is the nausea. I can feel Xaneru trying to anchor me while Xana tears at me from above. She’s going to take back the Xanaxana and even though it’s what I wanted and I refuse to give into it, I’m not strong enough to give it up.
Ruined. Hexa, I am. But in this moment, I wouldn’t want to exist any other way. This is it. She is the garden. Her hot nectar only proves it.Don’t take me from the garden, Svera,I want to tell her. I want to scream it until my lungs burn.
What would my sires think?Xok my xoking sires!
“Svera…” I choke, chest heaving as I catch myself on the wall. “Don’t do this. I can fix…fix…it.”
She takes a step back onto the landing and her arm is still blocking the door, but that’sallthat’s keeping her here with me.
Without prelude, she rips her headscarf off and tosses it towards me. It flutters to the ground, closer to her feet than to mine, and just before the doors shut, she says three final words that tear me apart.
“You’ve done enough.”
And then it comes. The wave. The horror. Every torture in history is inflicted upon me all at once as Xana, in her infinite wisdom, gives me what I’ve always wanted.
Freedom from the Xiveri that binds us.
The pain is too much to take.
I pass out.
9
Svera
My fists are clenched, my shoulders tight by my ears, as I finally extricate myself from the mob of people surrounding me, rejoicing at Miari’s successful childbirth, just like I should be rejoicing. Many of them comment on my hair and who I’ve been married to and why they weren’t invited, but I offer no answers or explanation.
But my shame can no longer compete with the suspicion —accusation— growing like an infection in the pit of my stomach, turning all that is good to rot.
