Page 40 of Taken to Heimo
“And I do not intend to.” Just then, there is a soft beep. Mathilda lifts a hand to her right ear and presses against it. For a moment it looks like she’s listening to someone speak to her, though I can’t hear anything out loud, then she nods, lowers her hand, looks down at me and smiles.
“But I will not have to.”
“What have you done?”
“Pirates,” Deena whispers behind me. “They’re here. Svera, you have to run.”
The sound of footsteps gets louder and when I turn, I see two males descending down the stairs. Sons of Council members, they’re each carrying weapons that I’ve never seen before.
“That isn’t Voraxian technology,” I whisper.
“Nox, it is not. And Svera,” Mathilda curls one bony hand around my shoulder, gripping it tighter than a woman her age should have strength for. I wince as pain lances into me. “This ismyworld. That you think to take it from me is pointless. Just as pointless as it would be for you to try to run.”
11
Krisxox
“I don’t like lurkers, Krisxox.”
I grunt and step into the healer’s cabin. It hangs suspended and slightly apart from the others and, of all the buildings in Qath, it is the most protected. Li’Lemoria is the most useful of us. He’s put bodies back together again too many times to count. Including mine. I’d have far more scars without him, though I never minded scars. Except for the one that lingers beneath my chest like a third heart that I don’t want because it isn’t the right kind.
The door slips shut behind me and Li’Lemoria stands to his full height. He is not an imposing male — he is too kind for that — but he is tall. He watches me now and allows a brief flash of blue to surface in his ridges, letting me know that though I am interrupting his work, he does not mind.
“I need to ask you about Xanaxana.”
Blue again, more of it this time. “I would not proclaim to be knowledgeable in this area. Why don’t you ask Va’Raku? Or Lemoria? Or any number of happily mated pairs here in Qath?”
“Because I want to know how to sever a bond.”
The color in his ridges dies. He falls back into his bowl-shaped seat and rubs his left knee. He also rubs the space between his two hearts. “That is…”
“This is all theoretical, of course. But if someone were Xiveri mated, could they break the bond?”
“In death.”
I can’t kill her and I won’t kill me. “How else?”
He shakes his head. “There is no other way.”
“There has to be.”
“None have ever attempted to deny the Xiveri bond. None in recorded history that have felt it have been able to resist it at all.”
“So it takes strength.” Strength I can do.
Fuchsia colors his entire face. He doesn’t understand. “I don’t understand. Do you feel…”
“I don’t feel anything, I just want you to confirm that — in theory — if one were strong enough to deny the bond for long enough, one could break it?”
“And I’m trying to tell you, I don’t know what would happen because this is not something ever experimented with. It would be sacrosanct to even think to keep a pair apart. It could kill them.”
I can’t kill her. I’d die first. “But if one…” person, I almost said person… “If one being did not feel the bond, then they wouldn’t die if it were broken.”
“Krisxox, are you talking about a pair in particular?”
“Nox. It doesn’t matter who I’m talking about. I just want to know that it can be done.”
“And I’m trying to tell you itcan’tbe. Xana and Xaneru do not make mistakes. Trying to deny the will of the universe could have egregious consequences.”
