Page 72 of Taken to Heimo
“Svera,” I hiss, panicked, Xanaxana in my chest doing something strange. Flipping and expanding. Becoming too much to take. “Svera!”
“Mhm,” comes her small, shattered whisper. The pain of hearing it is only matched by my relief. How is she…she shouldn’t be breathing.
“Svera.” My muscles are shaking now and my xoking left leg is threatening to give out on me. I glance down, catching sight of the metal sticking out of my skin and plates. I’ll be fine. Nothing that won’t heal. The only thing that won’t is my xoking Xaneru if Svera isn’t okay.
I canvas her body with my gaze, having a hard time making out what’s new blood and what’s old blood. Her once tan shift is now some other color. A lot of colors.Allthe colors. She’s still got blue Oosa blood embedded near the neckline and my copper blood eating up most of her sleeves. A few droplets of her own horribly bright red blood stain the front of her tunic, between her breasts, but now with the angle, they drip off of her perfect upper lip onto me. And I can’t do anything about it. Not with her strapped into her upside-down seat and me, suspended like a spider below her. I’m scared to move her, though. Scared…just scared.
“Svera, can you breathe?”
“I…” She coughs abruptly. “I’m fine. Are…are you okay?”
She blinks and her eyelids flutter. Her eyes open, but they’re distant and unfocused. Still, she smiles and breathes, “Anand.”
I grin at her but it doesn’t feel like pleasure. It feels like insanity. “How…how are you…” I look down at the metal sticking out of her chest. Right over her heart. It should have killed her. Should have… The only thing between her and the metal is her…
“Rug,” I choke, all mangled and wild. I take hold of the metal piece in one hand and when I yank it free, the rolled up carpet covering her chest flops forward.
I touch her breast.
“Krisxox,” she mumbles.
I shush her and feel for damage, finding none. Then I reach for the folded carpet and pick up one edge and find it broken on the first two layers, but by the third, it’s back to being intact.
I meet her gaze, aghast. “Thereisa god.”
She just smiles back. “I told you.”
“Xok.” I wrench the rug out from around her and hang it over my shoulder, determined to worship it. “Come on. Grab my neck.”
She does and I manage to lower us down somewhat safely and together, we stumble out into the light.
Underneath the sun, in the shooter’s graveyard, I make it twenty paces past the last flaming piece of metal before collapsing on the hard, packed sands. Rocks dig into my knees and Svera’s breathing is thin and ragged when she rolls onto her back.
I collapse forward, flinging onto my back beside her. We lay there for a long time. So long that I’m fully baked by the sun when I next wake to Svera’s light touch on my face. I open my eyes.
“Remind me never to trust a pirate again, no matter the species,” she grumbles, wavering where she sits.
I laugh and reach for her, touch the wild tufts of her hair. “Xoking Ashmara.”
“At least we’re alive, though you…” She just squints down at me and wipes her face, smearing blood and vomit across her cheek. “Your injuries look bad. We need to get you to Lemoria.”
I nod. There’s no denying that.
“How far do you think we are from the colony?”
I shrug, too dead to move. “Xok if I know.”
“Don’t give up on me now. Not when we’ve made it this far.”
“Never.”
She tilts her head, blocking out the light of one sun but not the other. Her skin is pink all over and when I reach up to touch her forehead, she winces.
“What is this?” I ask.
“Verax.”
“The color.”
