I look out into space and the vast nothingness chills me to the bones. It’s a big black pool of nothing. Absolutely nothing. The absence—the blank void—unsettles me so much. Our galaxy is still just a pinprick in the distance, a faint spot in a sea of blackness. So much of space is just… nothing.
The distance between the galaxies is quite staggering. If not for the qizo minerals, we wouldn’t be able to cover such distances. When you look in the sky and see so many stars, you forget that they’re your local stars in your local galaxy. But once you’re outside that galaxy, there’s nothing.
Nothing that stretches for forever. In some empty sections of the universe, you could travel for ten million years at the speed of light and not see anything. Nothing. If you’ve never been off-planet, it’s hard to understand. Ten million years at the speed of light? Surely you’d run into something.
But no, you wouldn’t.
It’s not like that everywhere in the universe. The distance between Yrdat and Zalaryx, for example, is a relatively short 2.5 million light-years away—the distance light travels in 2.5 million years. Meaning, if you were limited to traveling at the speed of light (as many primitive societies are) it would take you two-and-a-half million years to get there. With the qizo minerals, we’re not constrained to such slow paces and can get back to Zalaryx in a few days.
“I don’t like it,” Aren says.
“What?” I ask, but that’s a dumb question.
What does she have to like? Being Marked as breeding property of the Zalaryn race? Hiding out on a desolate planet for her entire adult life? Being captured by a raiding party?
“The blackness,” she says. “It’s more black than black. It’s more empty than empty. More nothing than nothing.”
“It’s the void,” I say. “And no one likes it, but only a fool fails to respect it.”
“How fast are we going?” she asks. “It doesn’t feel like we’re moving at all.”
“That’s because there’s nothing to look at,” I say. “The cabin of the pod is pressurized and the gravity is stabilized, so you can’t detect acceleration or deceleration. The only other way to sense movement is by your vision. If your eye sees something pass by while your body is still, it interprets that as the sensation of movement. But if we don’t pass anything, you don’t feel like you’re moving. When we approach the Zalaryn galaxy, we’ll begin to see stars again. When we enter the galaxy, the stars will zip by us so fast it’ll cause deep inner-ear imbalances. I’ll have to lower the window coverings to prevent vertigo.”
“Why don’t you lower the window coverings now,” she says. “It’s eerie.”
“That’s exactly why I don’t,” I say. “It does you good to stare into the void. It’s where all life came from, and where all life returns. It’s vast and larger than anything we can imagine. In the universe there is much more nothingness than somethingness. Including us. We’re beyond insignificant. But yet…” I can’t think of how to explain it. “But yet we aren’t. Just the fact that we exist in this sea of blackness is amazing. Even though we are less than nothing—we are somehow more than it too.”
“I thought that Yrdat was ‘nothing,’” she says. “I had no idea.”
“That’s why we stare into the void when we travel,” I tell her. She has put her clothing back on, but she’s next to me still, her body pressed against mine. I fight the urge to put my arms around her. I don’t wish for her to feel like my captive—like she still wears my collar around her neck.
Even though I feel like a louse for doing so, I concentrate and try to sense her feelings. It’s easy to sense the big ones, like fear and panic—but if I focus and open my mouth, and let the air pass over my tongue, my sensory pads can usually pick up something.
Earlier, I could sense her arousal not just as the wetness between her legs, but as a radiating glow emanating off of her body.
It’s the reaction that bonded mates have to each other. Arousal being the physical symptom of a deeper, truer bond.
I know I feel it—that she’s my bonded mate. I feel the urge to bond with her so strongly, like the gravitational pull of a planet once a ship descends for landing. The need to exchange genetic material—to deposit my seed deep inside her. It’s like the need to breathe after being underwater for too long. The strain of holding it in, the pain of denying my body what it truly needs.
A lesser male would have taken her. Broken one of the most sacred laws of our race. Ruined her virtue and any chance she has of being auctioned to a decent male who could provide a comfortable life for her.
Or perhaps I am the lesser male, for ignoring the mate the universe has given me. In this vast expanse of nothing—the millions of light-years of emptiness—the fates send me to Yrdat, the planet on which my bonded mate is hiding. What sort of fool denies the will of the universe? What blustering idiot says that they know better than fate?
The comm-panel buzzes loudly, stirring us both. I wonder what Aren is thinking about. I can only gather the feel of her thoughts, which are frantic and disordered—no surprise, as mine are too.
I sit up and lean forward, feeling the place on my side where Aren was cuddled against. It’s cold, missing something. I don’t need to check the transmission log to see the location of the sender. It’s Xalax. No one else knows we are here.
“Fifty neus,” I say. “And fifty nights.”
“Fifty-one,” he says, “to you and yours. Ingzan’s ship has not followed you?”
“No,” I say. “I reset their coordinates and sent them back to New Pallas, then reset their security code so they could not access the navigation coordinates.”
“They could still be tracking you,” Xalax says, “and dispatch another ship to intercept you.”
“Great minds think alike,” I say, “Because I thought of that too. I disabled their tracking radars.”
“How did you jam the signal?” Xalax asks. “How did you get into the radar software coding?” It is true that signal jamming is a high-level procedure, usually requiring advanced preparation of software code to be uploaded at the right time.
“I used the blunt end of my anankah and smashed the sensors,” I say, “and the display screens.”
“Simple, yet effective,” he says. “I don’t want you to come to the Capitol. I want you to go to the protein farm.”
“Why?” I ask. “Won’t you have sufficient reinforcements waiting to apprehend the rogues?” I haven’t told Xalax that I am traveling with a human female, let alone one that is Marked. I don’t want to bring her to a bloody battlefield.
“I am preparing to address the High Council,” Xalax says. “I am going to inform them of the plot with Noxu and the Kraxx—”
“Kraxx?” Aren shouts. I hope Xalax can’t hear her, but there’s no way that he didn’t; she practically screamed it into the comm microphone.
“What was that?” Xalax says. I haven’t told him about her, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to lie to him either.
“I have a human female captive,” I say. Aren winces as I say this, and my heart squeezes painfully in my chest. I must tell him. He’s the High King, and my oldest friend. “She is M…” But the words are choked in my throat.
“What’s that?” Xalax says. “Connection’s bad.”
“She is maltreated,” I say. I technically haven’t lied, but I feel the guilt settle in my heart nevertheless. My oldest friend, the High King, and I’m keeping secrets from him. And to what end? Do I really think I can keep her? Even if she wasn’t Marked, I can take no mate. The cruel fates, showing me a glimpse of happiness after I’ve already sworn my oath.
“I would imagine,” Xalax says, “if she was held by Ingzan. I’ll have the High Healer himself tend to her when you come to the capitol. But for now, I still want you to go to the protein farm. Your task will be stealth and swift and—if done correctly—will not require you to draw your weapon or spill a single drop of blood.”
Xalax tells me his plan, what he wants me to do. I listen, making notations on a scrap of paper when necessary, but it’s a struggle to focus.
Aren consumes most of my thoughts. I feel like I’ve betrayed her, when all I’ve ever tried to do was protect her. Should I have told Xalax that she was Marked? Telling him would have ensured she goes to the Auction House when we get to the capitol. It was pure selfishness that kept me from telling Xalax. I can’t have her. I can’t provide for her.
But I don’t want anyone else to have her either.
Going to the auction house is in her best interest. She’ll be able to live a comfortable life as the pampered mate of a well-positioned Zalaryn. She’s young. She’s a virgin. She’s beautiful. Most Zalaryn males have respect for their female mates—we understand that they’re valuable to our society and treat them well. It’s true that most males don’t bond with their breeding mates—that there’s no real tenderness or affection between them. But that doesn’t mean she’ll be abused. Aren will live a much better life on Zalaryx than on Yrdat, or Earth.
When I was young, my father gave me good advice: if you have to talk yourself into something, it’s probably the wrong choice.
I can’t shake the feeling that I’m making a mistake—but there’s nothing else I can do.
I end the transmission with Xalax, vowing to do what he asks of me. Xalax has a careful, clever plan—brilliant in its simplicity. I should be able to do my part perfectly. Much depends on it.
Noxu’s rebellion and treachery are not yet known to the rest of the Zalaryns. Xalax learned of the plot and kept it a secret, hoping that I’d be able to apprehend Noxu and stop the whole rebellion before it truly started.
I failed.
Now he has no choice but to reveal the dastardly plot to the High Council—and, in doing so, threaten his own reign as High King.
If I fail this new task he’s set for me, the price will be dear.
The stakes have never been higher. The entire monarchy is in jeopardy. Xalax himself could be hanged at the Magneto Spire for a traitor, with me alongside him.
But that’s only if I fail.
And I won’t.
Except, that’s what I said the last time.