When Eve woke, she felt…good.

Really, really, really good.

It was mid-morning and her body felt energized and her male was still beside her in bed, despite the later hour.

“Mmmm,” she hummed when she felt his fingers drift over her bare hip. She turned towards him, flipping over on the bed so she could see his face. She smiled, still blinking the sleep from her eyes. “Good morning.”

“Kasunu,” he purred, looking like he’d just woken as well.

“I like having you here this late,” she whispered, pressing a lazy kiss to the middle of his chest.

Eve didn’t work that day. She was only required to journey to the archives three days a week, four if she desired. Now that she was pregnant, however, and especially when her pregnancy advanced, she might even cut down to only two days a week.

She swallowed when she felt a slight nausea build in her stomach, but it was no where near the severity of when Khiva had been at the southern tip. The blue liquid that Kxiwi had given her had done wonders, though she would need to take another swig of it soon.

“I told Kavik that I would meet him later this afternoon,” Khiva said, “so we have all morning.”

Eve grinned but then she gasped lightly and said, “I didn’t even ask last night. Did you acquire the lab space?”

Khiva brushed his fingers through her hair, smoothing the strands away from her face. “Pax, we did.”

“Really?” she asked, her eyes lighting up. “That’s great!”

“We negotiated the credit price down,” Khiva said. “Kavik has already begun bringing in some equipment he’s found.”

“So when do you think you’ll get started on your first batch of firestones?” she asked.

“Soon,” he said. “I have already been working through some possibilities for the formulation and the heating process. Everything is different here. Except for my blood, at least.”

“Your blood?” she asked, frowning. “What do you mean?”

He made a sound in the back of his throat. “Keriv’i blood holds properties that other species’ blood do not. A small amount is required. When heated in the forge, it helps strengthen the firestone.”

“You actually put in your blood?” she asked, nibbling on her lip.

He saw the worry in her gaze and grinned. “Not much, leeldra, I assure you. All my ancestors used their blood in firestones. Some Keriv’i even believed that the strength and durability of the firestones was due to the strength of its maker.”

“Is that true?” she asked.

Khiva shook his head. “Veki. Blood is blood. All Keriv’i blood is the same, unlike other species. I could put in Kavik’s, if needed. But, the maker puts his blood into the firestones only. It is like…a signature.”

Eve nodded, understanding. She snuggled closer, her skin still feeling sensitive from their sex marathon last night.

She smiled and commented, “I wonder if my father used the firestones that you created.”

Eve knew that when her father had been alive, he’d preferred Keriv’i firestones as his choice of fuel for his merchant vessels.

Khiva said, “It is possible. Though, if he did, he would have used my earliest batches.”

She smiled and then asked, “How do you feel about starting again? Now that you have a lab space and equipment? It seems real, all of a sudden.”

“I do not know how I feel, truthfully,” he said, looking at her. The greens and blues and golds of his eyes seemed to twinkle in the morning light, though his expression was serious.

Eve sobered, knowing that it would take time for him.

“A large part of me is…relieved,” he said next, which surprised her.

“How so?”

“I always loved making firestones,” he said. “It gave me purpose, it filled me with pride. Firestones, making them…it is in my blood. It is my blood. A part of me has longed to return to that tradition, to be that male again.”

Eve’s heart softened.

“I do not know if I can be,” he admitted softly.

“I told you once,” Eve said, “that I didn’t want you to be who you were before. I didn’t fall in love with that male. You’re stronger now than when you lived on Kerivu.”

“Yet, I still carry bitterness in my hearts. I still carry fear that if I begin this again, I will be punished for it. Perhaps the demavs never meant for us to make firestones. And they punished us for it,” he said, looking at her. “If anything were to happen to you, leeldra, truthfully I do not know if I would survive it.”

“Khiva,” she whispered. “Nothing is certain. You know that. That’s just life and worrying about things like that is pointless. Fate is fate. And maybe the only thing I know for certain is that I was fated to meet you. I think…I think we are right where we are supposed to be.”

“Leeldra,” he rasped.

“I think you were meant to create them again, Khiva. Here. To begin again, from the ashes of your planet, to keep them alive.”

Khiva went silent, but she could see that he was processing her words carefully.

When he finally spoke, he said, “I think my mother would have wanted me to.”

“Really?”

“Pax,” he said. “She…she had no fear. Not on Kerivu, at least. She was a strong female. She would’ve begun making firestones again simply out of spite, to show that Keriv’i could not be so easily defeated.”

“I wish that I could’ve met her,” Eve whispered. “I wish I could’ve met your brother as well.”

“In the next life,” he said, “you will.”

He hardly spoke of his family, hardly opened up about them, that she didn’t want to push too hard. But still, she commented, “I never knew your brother’s name until Kavik said it.”

Khiva’s fingers paused over her hip.

“I don’t know your mother’s name either.”

“I thought…” he trailed off.

“What is it?”

He swallowed, loud enough that she heard. “I thought that if I did not speak of them, it would keep them alive.”

Her brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”

“When I still had hope that they were alive, in my own mind, I thought that if I did not speak of them, if I only visited them in my own memory, then maybe the demavs would not punish them, would not see them in the universe. It seems strange now. But for so long, I thought that I could keep them safe.”

Eve bit her lip, the idea a novel one to her. From what he’d said of the Keriv’i deities, the demavs, she figured that the Keriv’i believed them ruthless, but just. All-seeing.

It, perhaps, seemed strange to her because Eve had never been particularly spiritual or religious herself.

But to Khiva, the demavs were powerful and had influence over everything.

He continued by saying, “Or maybe, I already knew the truth and speaking of them meant that the loss of them would feel real, when before…it was simply a possibility. Words have power. Thoughts have power. I did not want to…to confirm anything. And that was cowardly of me.”

“It wasn’t,” she said, smoothing her finger over the tense space between his brows, next to his mouth. “You just dealt with what happened in a way you felt comfortable, in a way you could process it. I don’t know what you went through. I can’t possibly fathom what it must’ve been like that day and all the days afterwards. But now…now I can understand why you never wanted to talk about them.”

Khiva’s gaze shifted behind her, to look out one of the two windows in their bedroom. He was quiet for a long time and then he said, “My mother’s name was Cwera.”

Cwera.

“That…” Eve swallowed, feeling tears sting her eyes. “That’s a beautiful name.”

“Kerivu did not have royalty, but she was like our queen. She was beautiful and kind, but hard when she needed to be. She was the first female to create firestones in our family.”

Eve felt the edges of her lips curl and she asked, “No female had tried before?”

Khiva shook his head, “Before my mother, females were not allowed to. She did not care. She felt the calling towards them, because that calling was in her blood, despite her being a female. When she was younger, she told me that she snuck into the labs at night to try. She would watch her father during the day, memorizing the process. It only took her a few tries, which was remarkable in itself.”

“What did her father do?” Eve asked, wanting to know as much about him, his family, as possible.

He’d never been this open before. He’d never spoken about his mother so easily.

“He was furious,” Khiva said, his lips curving up. “Again, my mother did not care. She protested that she had the right to create them. Eventually, he could not deny her. Her father loved her, doted on her, which was strange for a Keriv’i male, at least during that time.”

“So what happened next?”

“The export laws were still in place. She could create them, but she could not sell them under her own name,” he said. “Instead, her father allowed her access to the labs, but they were exported under his name.”

“That doesn’t seem fair,” Eve said. She remembered the ledger that she’d given Khiva as a gift and commented, “So her name never appeared in the ledger?”

“Veki,” Khiva said. “She had just been born, that date I showed you. But eventually, when she was of age, her firestones would have been distributed. They would’ve been accounted for under her father’s name. Your father might have used her firestones.”

Eve smiled, the thought warming her. She supposed that during the peak of her father’s business, Khiva would have still been a young male. So, it made more sense that her father used the firestones a generation before him.

“And what about your brother?” she asked. “Pevka.”

“I loved my brother,” Khiva said. “I always felt protective over him. I think that across all species, siblings can be rivals, though they care for one another. But with Pevka…veki. We always loved one another. We never fought, we never argued. I would have done anything for him and he would have done the same for me.”

Again, Eve felt tears well up in her eyes at the emotion, the warmth, she heard in her male’s voice.

“Eventually, however, we drifted apart,” he said. “We still loved one another, but our lives took different paths once we were of age.”

“He didn’t create firestones?” she asked, furrowing her brows in confusion, at what he implied.

“Veki,” Khiva said. “He knew how to create them. We had been raised in labs, after all. We had been watching our mother and our mother’s father create them from a young age. But Pevka…he never felt the drive for it. Not the way I felt it. It was not a compulsion for him, as it was for many in our family line. He took after our father. He was more interested in the business of exports, than he was in the product of exports. It was partly why he and Kavik were great friends.”

“Were you…were you jealous of their friendship?” she asked softly, her eyes flickering back and forth between his.

One corner edge of his lips quirked. “Pax, I was.” Then he said, “Though I never would have admitted it until now. I thought myself above things like jealousy back then.”

Eve smiled. She’d always wanted a sibling, but after her mother died in childbirth, and her father never showed an interest in another woman afterwards, she’d given up hope at an early age. So, she couldn’t understand the dynamics between siblings, but she could certainly try to imagine it.

“And you will never tell Kavik that,” Khiva said, though his tone was light and playful.

“It depends how good you are, I suppose,” she teased softly.

Khiva grunted, but he knew her well enough to know that she would never spill one of his secrets.

“Like I said before,” Eve said, sobering, “fate is fate. You were meant to see Kavik here, you were meant to be his friend, his partner in this new venture.”

Khiva’s eyes flickered, his fingers stilling over her skin once again.

“Maybe your brother sent him to you,” Eve continued, “because he knew that Kavik would be a great friend to you too. Because frankly, after what you’ve been through and after what he’s been through on Jetu, I’m sure you could both use each other.”

“I like the thought of that,” he said quietly. “I do believe that we met here for a reason.”

“And now you know that reason,” she replied.

Khiva tilted his head to kiss her. And when the kiss ended, she pressed her cheek into his chest, listening to his heart beat steadily against her skin.

Eve realized that she could get used to this. To having lazy mornings with her male, speaking softly together before they both started their respective days. Not for the first time, she was immensely grateful that he’d left the mines behind.

“It feels good to speak of them,” Khiva said and Eve felt those words vibrate his chest. “A relief.”

“I like when you speak of them,” she murmured. “It will help you through their loss. And I like to hear about them.”

Eve wished she’d had someone like Gorkan in her life after her father had died, someone who knew him. Even after all this time, speaking of her father with the older male felt like a soothing balm over a wound. An old wound, yes, but one that had never quite healed.

Khiva had Kavik. Eve found it comforting that they could share memories, not just of Pevka and Khiva’s mother, but of Kerivu itself, the home and planet that they’d both lost.

“That day…” Khiva said quietly, so suddenly that Eve stiffened in his arms. “You once asked me about that day and I told you that it was the one thing I would not speak of. But I have realized that there is much that I have not spoken of with you. For that, I am sorry, leeldra.”

“I knew you needed time, Khiva,” she answered softly.

“I want you to know,” he said. “Everything.”

“And one day, I will,” she said. “I’m a patient woman.”

A whisper of a smile drifted across his lips before it faded.

Eve wondered what he was thinking. Sometimes, he still seemed so guarded, so unreadable, that he seemed lightyears away from her.

But there was an expression on his face right then that made her heart speed up.

And somehow, Eve just knew what he was going to say before he did…