Page 77 of Taken to Heimo
The suns are blazing and for all of Lemoria’s technology, she doesn’t have a thing to solve their cruel grip on the lighter shades of skin among the humans, like mine, Ibra’s and my dad’s. So, I’m back to coating my skin in the aloe from the mixture my parents make from the sticky desert weeds that crop up everywhere.
Lemoria found the substance fascinating and has been working with my parents to manufacture more and improve it so that it not only soothes burns, but actually reverses their effect.
“What’s wrong?”
I shake my head.
“Krisxox?” she asks.
“No,” I lie. “Well, a little. Mostly, I’m just worried about the Council.”
Kiki stops dead in her tracks and slaps a hand over her chest. “Oh, my stars. Universe strike me down now! Did Svera just tell her firstlie?”
My lips twitch, even as fire comes to my cheeks that does nothing for my burn but make it itch. “Kiki…”
“Heaven forbid,” she says. She laughs and loops her arm through mine. “I think your time away from us changed you.”
“Your time away from us changed you.”
She smiles and her gaze flashes to the male on her left. “Yes, it did. And I have you to thank for getting me through it. That call we had meant everything to me. Thank you, Svera.”
I inhale deep into my lungs, smelling sand and earth on the wind. “You don’t need to thank me for anything. We’re family.”
She bends over and knocks her forehead into mine. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
“And Krisxox is a maniac, but whatever change you might have gone through when you were gone, I think his was more profound.”
I think of the language, the baptism, that he asked my parents for my hand. Why he hasn’t shown up to see me is a mystery, but perhaps…Anand is still around.
“Have you seen him?”
She laughs, the cloud of her hair moving around her face, making her look angelic. I’m struck sometimes by how beautiful she is and I can tell Va’Raku is thinking the same thing, judging by the deep blue and purple swirling in his ridges.
His gaze hits mine and he straightens, his colors shutting off all at once, but not before I catch a fleeting shade of embarrassment. I smile broader, glad that Kiki doesn’t notice our interaction.
“Have I ever…”
I frown. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
She rolls her eyes. “It’s been two solars since he fled Lemoria and he’s still badly injured, but he’s already been to see me and Miari a dozen times each and he’s called three different meetings with Raku and Va’Raku and boy, has he gotplans.”
My frown deepens. “Why wouldn’t he share them with me?”
Kiki’s smile grows disproportionately and, as I watch her face, the tiled awning above Miari’s front door casts a shadow over her expression. She reaches for the knob made of pink metal. “I think I should hold my answer to that one. Come on, Svera.”
There’s a buzzing energy about her and I still can’t get over the fact that this is the same female who didn’t speak for over two rotations. This is the same female who fought because she wanted to die, not to kill. This is the same female who I saw fall so hard, and who now looks around at the world as if she’s on top of it. As if everything is beautiful and perfect.
Her aura buoys me and I forget that I’m irritated as we step into the house. It doesn’t smell like a center for hardened warriors to come together and make battle plans. No, it smells like baked cane-and-root bread.
Kiki’s favorite.
“Stars, bless you. Miari, is this cane-and-root bread?” Kiki drifts to the kitchen on the left. Without waiting for Miari to answer, she bends over the bread tray and inhales deeply.
“It is, indeed,” Miari says, coming down the long hallway in a dress that swishes in shades of cream around her feet.
“My favorite.”
