Page 3 of Taken to Heimo
I wince as the fusion knife cuts into the edge of my longest finger. The blade is sharper than any I’ve used before. It’s one of the new Rakukanna’s designs.What would my sires say if they saw me using it now?
“Hefenena, Krisxox,”Svera—it— greets me in the Drakesh language. Though distinct from Voraxian, she’s somehow managed to master both languages in the short time she’s been among my kind and speaks them fluently now with only the slightestmost charminghint of an accent. Nox. Not charming. Despicable. That’s right.Despicable.
I do nothing to acknowledge her. Setting the blade aside, I pull out a flat, stalyx knife and continue cutting into the tough roots spread across the wooden surface in front of me.It feels so dull by contrast.I shake away the thought and dump the roots into the fusion tray. Steam rises from them and with a quick flick at the controls, they brown beautifully. I spice them and then I pull out a second tray and toss in a few strips of meat. Svera, she…doesn’t eat this meat. So if I want to feed her, then I have to cook the meat separately.
And I do.
Every solar.
Her heat reaches me before her scent as she steps up beside me. She smells like darkness, a danger not yet known. My hand flinches like it’s going to reach out and touch her without my consent…pull her against my chest, brush my mouth over those soft, pink things she calls lips…Nox!
“Mmmm,” she says. She says the same thing every solar. That small sound of satisfaction. My xora stirs and my hearts beat harder knowing that she is pleased with what I cook for her.
I tilt my head from side-to-side and it cracks loudly. “It smells delicious in here. What do you call that root? The purple one?”
She points to a block of gum root as big as her head, and that’s only half. I hand it to her and grumble, “Viron.”
“Ouch, prickly, aren’t we?” I can’t decide if she means me or the xoking root. I grunt again, scoop roots out of the tray with a spoon and dump them on a plate that I shove her way.
“Thank you, Krisxox,” she tells me in her human tongue, for this gratitude is something they express more easily than we do.
She takes her plate to the low island behind me and pulls out a string of herbs I know she likes. She chops them using the smallest stalyx knife I have. It’s still way too big for her, and I glance at her periodically, hating that I’m impressed by the way she wields it. There’s a disturbing fluidity in her movements. I train warriors to have such grace.Most don’t come close toSvera.I growl aloud.To it.To it.
I eat at the island standing across from her and I accept the herbs she’s chopped for me. Does she know I don’t care for the taste? How could she? I eat them every time she offers them. I like the idea that she wishes to feed me.
“You’re welcome,” she says, when I don’t say anything at all.
It’s tradition for us, at this point.
She has a small cushion she sits on every morning to eat, pressed right up against one of the walls. The one with the largest window. She didn’t like all the windows at first, until she realized that the sleeping quarters are insulated and that even if they weren’t, there’s no one up here with us.
All of the homes sit elevated among the trees and among the clouds when they drop low. The village where I train the xcleranx is a short journey away, but the next village is a half span from that. Qath’s many markets are chaotic, but here in my home, Qath almost seems like a quiet place. It’s why I like it. Even if it’s no longer quite so quiet.
She starts to hum. A melody so delicate and beautiful it hurts. Like sunshine through Qath’s dense canopy of leaves, it touches me gently, in a way that makes me want to tilt my face up to the light.
My stomach twists. The flavors that were bursting in my mouth a moment ago turn to ash all at once.Nox. Nox nox nox.Thepressure. It rushes up from my stomach and presses down from my throat.Nox.I scrape my wooden spoon across my plate loudly and choke down whatever’s left.Who gives a xok?Just so long as the pressure…just…justdies!I’ve had enough.
I return to my room, pull on my training armor and attach a fusion ion gun and stalyx sword to my belt. I ordinarily would never walk through Qath armed, but these solars, things are different. I don’t know why.I do know why. Now, I have more to protect. But only because I agreed to keep the filthy human alive. If it were not that vow I made to the Raku, I wouldn’t care at all.
Right. I would have just let Nondah…
I stagger into the living area.Ithas moved into the cooking pit and is washing up both her own dishes and the ones I used. I’ve told her she doesn’t need to do this many times, but the fool doesn’t listen.
I open my mouth to tell her as much, but that’s when it occurs to me. Where is her incessant chatter? Her relentless questions about all things Voraxian and Drakesh? Her pointing at things and asking me how to say them in Voraxian? Constantly asking for my help to improve her accent?
I step up to the edge of the pit, but don’t take the few stairs to descend into it. I just watch her with my arms crossed, my jaw ticking, wanting desperately to know what in the xok is wrong with her, but wanting equally to just keep going and accept her silence as a win. I hate when she talks to me. I hate it when she doesn’t.
“What’s wrong with you?” I blurt out.Xok me.
Sveraturns. In her long, graceful fingers, she dries a plate. Setting it down in a stack with the others, she smiles. “Don’t you know?”
Xok. If I’d known I wouldn’t have started this xoking conversation. I shake my head.
“We leave today.”
We do? I don’t acknowledge her, but my hand twitches towards my life drive. Perhaps there was some important directive I’d missed.
Svera rolls her eyes just a little and I panic when they twinkle.It’s pretty.“She’s giving birth in two solars. We leave this lunar to Voraxia. I’m going to the market one last time before we board our transporter. I’d like to get Miari…” Her eyes widen and she shakes her head quickly.
