Page 77 of Silver Slayer

“He believed the risk had been too great.” I looked down at the untouched bread in my hand. “He begged Sakkar never to leave Valose again. But Sakkar still believed exploration was our future. Even after losing every female, he intended to continue searching the stars.”

Quin frowned. “That's when they divided.”

“Yes.” I nodded once. “The Royal Council supported Sakkar. Jakkar opposed another expedition with everything he had. In the end, he was stripped of his authority and exiled. Many warriors believed he remained the rightful Sia and chose exile beside him.”

She absorbed the words in silence.

I rubbed my thumb along the edge of my cup. “That is how I remember it.”

My gaze lifted to hers.

“What I did not know then, but what Vallon explained to me last suns-fall, was that much of what happened afterward had been manipulated. While I lay unconscious beneath the palace for nearly a yeron, he learned the truth. The Gretolics had been influencing Huren long before the exile. Members of the Royal Council had fallen under their control. Even Sakkar had not been entirely acting of his own free will.”

Quin's eyes widened.

“The germ was not Sakkar’s doing,” I said, trying to make sense of it all. “The exiles discovered the truth. It was seeded into our atmosphere by a species called the Grites. They unleashed it to contain the Gretolics after their own creations rebelled against them.

“The rest... I only know because Vallon spent the previous dark hurs telling me everything I missed.” I looked down at the thin scars around my wrists where metal cuffs held me captive for Uri’s pleasure. “My last clear memory is of carrying out an ordinary duty inside Huren. I had never laid eyes on a Gretolic. I had no warning that an enemy was already beneath my feet.” I swallowed hard. “Then there was nothing until I woke aboard the Gorken vessel.”

The words settled heavily between us. I had never spoken of my captivity to another soul. Not even to Vallon. Somehow, with Quin, the memories came easier. Perhaps it was the quiet patience in her eyes, or the faint joining of our spirits, assuring me she would not judge what the Gorken queen had done to me.

Yet even as the burden eased, another settled in its place.

She had called me her silver slayer. Her protector. Yet beneath everything I felt through our connection remained the constant pull of another world.

Her feelings for me were no longer in doubt. The doubt lay only in whether they would ever be enough to outweigh everything she had left behind on Earth. If she still longed to leave despite the bond we shared, and despite calling me hers in that small, unguarded way, then I simply was not worthy enough to ask her to stay. Not worthy enough to become the home she still searched for beyond the stars.

I simply wished that, somehow, I could have been enough to make leaving feel impossible.

“Hey,” Quin said, reaching across the table to clasp my hand while softly rubbing a tight circle over her shawra. “Stop ruminating. I can feel how unsettled you are.

“I don’t remember the Gretolics either, only what the girls told me after I woke up in a cage on a Xegnot craft. From what they described, maybe we’re better off not having any memory of them. Now, let’s not think about the past anymore and focus on the present.”

We finished our meal together and cleared the small table. I packed the remaining food into the satchel I left while Quin wandered toward one of the broad openings overlooking the Caspeen Sea. She stood at the edge of the cavern, her gaze following the endless expanse of deep blue water as waves crashed against the rocky shoreline far below. The rhythmic sound echoed through the interconnected caverns while the salt breeze drifted lazily between the stone passages.

When everything had been stowed away, I retrieved my sword and crossed to her side. She looked over her shoulder as I approached, the suns’ light catching the dark waves of her hair.

I smiled and offered her my hand. "Come. Our date is not over yet."

Her eyes brightened instantly with eager curiosity. "You planned more?"

"Much more."

She slipped her hand into mine.

"You learned this dating thing awfully fast," she teased as we made our way back through the winding caverns. "Yesterday you didn't even know what a date was."

"I learn quickly."

She laughed. "Apparently."

We reached the summit, and the bubble craft waited exactly where I'd left it, invisible save for the two white stones marking its location. I pressed my palm against the cloaked hull, and the hatch slid silently open.

Moments later, we lifted from the island and turned inland, leaving the Caspeen Sea behind as the jungle spread beneath us in an endless sea of silver-barked trees and luminous blue canopy. Before long, a sprawling field of floratraps appeared below. Hundreds of the carnivorous plants blanketed the valley floor, some tightly furled into heavy green buds while others stood open beneath the twin suns, their thick, brightly colored petals surrounding deep, inviting throats that concealed powerful jaws capable of swallowing large prey.

I explained that the colony had spread over countless yerons, eventually forcing an entire Nuttaki horde to abandon the caves to the west. I promised Quin we would come back, and next time she could bring her bio-analyzer to satisfy the curiosity shining so brightly in her eyes.

I banked the bubble craft northward, leaving the floratrap valley behind. Before long, a jagged scar broke the endless canopy below. The black hull of a Gretolic vessel lay where it had torn through the treetops and buried itself among the jungle, twisted metal disappearing beneath vines and new growth that had slowly begun reclaiming it.