EPILOGUE…
The sun was just rising over the rolling hills of Verdant when The Wayward Prince touched down.
It had taken longer than expected to reach Jaime’s birthplace. After they left Gwaii, they had been set upon by pirates — actual pirates, not smugglers — intent on collecting the reward for the ship. Escaping them had got the ship lost in an asteroid belt, where they came across an old distress beacon. That had led to the discovery of a ghost ship, lost for more than a century, and a salvage operation that was both too good to pass up and more dangerous than anticipated.
All in all, it had taken more than four months to finally get to Verdant, but they had been months of excitement and daring that would put even the best volume of The Luisa Lee Adventures to shame. Jaime had loved every moment of it.
It had also been months spent with Rylan. They’d finally gotten their chance to talk and there were no secrets between them anymore. Getting to know each other, to depend on each other — in the scary times, definitely, and in the mundane moments of everyday life — was its own adventure. But it was the most rewarding one he could imagine. And, well, Jaime had loved every moment of that, too.
Jaime stepped out of the ship and took his first breath of the air of Verdant. The memories brought back by the smells of warm grass and wildflowers staggered him for a moment, and he closed his eyes.
When he opened them, Rylan was beside him. “Ready?” he asked.
Jaime wasn’t sure if he was, but he knew he could face anything with Rylan there. “Let’s see what we find.”
The colony was gone.
The several dozen pre-fab, one-story farmhouses still stood, along with the larger communal buildings for storing grain and equipment, but they were all empty. Empty, too, were the long fields of wheat and corn Jaime remembered, overgrown now in weeds and bushes.
Rylan and Mags took point as the crew searched the tiny settlement, hands on their weapons. But it had all been cleared out in a methodical way that did not suggest violence or scavengers. Everything of use or value, sentimental or otherwise, had been stripped from the place, leaving what little was left to the relentlessly green growing things that had given the colony its name.
Jaime stood in the doorway of what had been his own house, expecting to feel some kind of pain or regret. But it was barely recognizable to him. The four-room building was much smaller than he remembered and, of course, stripped bare. He touched the thick dust on the floor and tried to conjure happy memories. They were there — laughter at the dinner table, hugs at bedtime, playing outside on sunny afternoons — but there were also the tense whispered arguments his parents constantly had, and the uneasy looks that followed him once they realized what he was. Jaime brushed off his hands and went back outside.
The crew was waiting for him.
“Anything?” Rylan asked, his eyes searching Jaime’s face.
Jaime shook his head.
“Judging from the plant growth it looks like these fields have been abandoned for three or four years,” Lydia said. “I’m sorry, Jaime.”
Simi hugged him. “This sucks. How could they just go?”
“I remember my mom and dad always worrying about the soil quality,” Jaime said. “I guess it wasn’t so great for crops.”
“They should have tried sheep,” Garcia said unexpectedly. He smiled apologetically. “My people raised sheep.”
“It happens a lot with these smaller farming colonies,” Rylan said. “They get a few years of bad harvests, and then either scatter or ask the Commonwealth to help re-locate.”
“I’ll get Dub to scan for any beacons,” Kaz said. “Maybe they left a transponder? Or even a frickin’ note as to where they were going.”
“We’ll scout the larger buildings a bit more,” Mags said. She nodded briskly to the others and they moved off, leaving Rylan with Jaime.
“Jaime, this isn’t over. I’ll contact Jonathan. He’ll be able to find out where your parents went.”
“It’s okay. They made their choice.” In the files Jonathan had already given him, he had found his old letters home, returned unread and unanswered. His parents had signed off on the areas on the forms requesting no contact.
He looked at Rylan, hair glinting with gold in the sunlight, face filled with worry. “I have to think they believed they were doing the best they could for me. And maybe they were right. If I’d stayed here I’d probably have been looked at as a freak or a monster. Even by them.”
“But I promised I’d get you home.”
“You did,” Jaime said. He put a hand on Rylan’s chest and then turned his head to where the Prince was waiting. “So let’s get back to it.”
Rylan stared down into his face, brushing back a strand of hair from Jaime’s eyes. “I love you, you know.”
Jaime smiled. “I love you, too. I’m so glad you found me all those months ago.”
“You found me, too.”
He held out his hand. It was warm and strong, and Jaime held on tightly. Together, they made their way over the green hills towards the ship.
THE END
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