The cavern was enormous. Big enough for a whole human house. Maybe even bigger. She could easily get lost in its space and never find her way out again. But it wasn’t the sheer size that was awe-inspiring. It was the heaps of metal and machinery that littered the ground, twisted and broken in a mass grave.
“What…” She didn’t know how to finish that sentence. There were too many questions zooming through her mind at the speed of light.
“This place is forbidden. My mother and other monarchs before her deemed it too dangerous. Surie and I found it as children, just playing around, but I come back here a lot. Just to think… Things were different once, you know? I think this place was once a hangar for starships, but when the civilization collapsed… whatever was happening, it was destroyed. That’s why I think it was a plague. Not very glamorous, but it would explain why we self-isolated once the last survivors arrived. Surely there were people clamoring to go help our brothers and sisters and others who knew that would only lead to more death. So, a difficult decision had to be made…” His expression looked suddenly tired, weary and worn-out as he looked down over the carnage of the cavern.
“So, you just come here to think?” Lina asked, already picking her way down a steep slope that led to the basin full of mangled machines. Pebbles slipped and rolled underfoot, and she finally yanked her dainty gem-encrusted shoes off with a huff and hurled them up to the top next to Bain. “You’ve never looked at any of this?”
He shook his head slowly. “I think I poked around a bit as a child, but I don’t know how any of it works. It might as well be artifacts of a lost ancient civilization.”
Lina looked back over her shoulder at him, blowing hair out of her face as she climbed down. The path had dropped off to a sheer cliff face and she resorted to climbing down the rock wall with bare hands and feet, her beautiful opalescent gown tattered and tangled around her legs. “It kind of is,” she said.
He nodded. “After seeing how you worked out that kettle so quickly, I thought you’d enjoy seeing the graveyard. If nothing else, there might be parts for other things that need fixing around town.”
Lina didn’t acknowledge that because just then, her feet touched the ground and she was immersed in a world of metal. There were jagged hunks ripped apart, scorched parts flung to the far edges… it looked like a bomb had gone off down here.
But no, there was too much damage and there wasn’t an epicenter. It had to have been several bombs. Someone really didn’t want anyone leaving this planet ever again.
“What I don’t understand...” Lina said, picking through the scrap, looking for anything recognizable that wasn’t just a hull or a door. “If you’re such isolationists, what’s up with the delegations? Don’t they come from other planets? Don’t they have ships?”
“The delegations started a few generations ago. They do have ships, and we have been gifted a couple, but they’re for short-range trips only. Within our solar system. No one in our network has discovered further travel.”
“But maybe they’re close. Maybe this technology could help them figure it out.” She wasn’t an inventor. She was a fixer. Taking all of this wreckage and turning it into a flyable ship wouldn’t be the hardest part. The hard part was programming, making sure the parts she didn’t understand worked. And how could she do that without Mom?
“My mother would never allow it. This place is forbidden because whatever happened to our ancestors was a result of their travels. Repeating the past is something we try to avoid.”
Lina looked up at him, his face shadowed at this angle and unreadable. “But you don’t really know that. You don’t know what destroyed your people anymore than I know why my parents got rid of me. What if it didn’t have anything to do with travel?”
Bain opened his arms wide and gestured around. “Then why all this?”
Lina groaned and threw up her hands. “I don’t know, but aren’t you excited that there might be another way?” He was the one who was bored and restless after all.
Bain stood on the edge of the drop-off, looking down at her thoughtfully. Just when she thought he wasn’t going to respond, he jumped down into the wreckage with her.
“You really think this junk could be something?” The lights from above didn’t reach all the way to the bottom of the basin and it left them cloaked in shadows, all alone, his eyes searching hers without trying to hide the glimmer of hope within them.
Lina nibbled her bottom lip, looking around. A lot of this stuff was junk. It would take a ton of work to sift through it to find anything useful. She didn’t want to give him false hope, but already Lina felt the excitement and possibilities welling up within her. This hidden cavern could be her ticket home.
Finally, she nodded. “Yeah, I do. No guarantees, but if we could find someone that has a better understanding of this stuff, I might be able to put one of these ships back together.”
A wide grin split his face and for just a moment, Lina thought he might kiss her. She even thought she might welcome it. But then his expression fell, his eyes darkening.
“If we get a ship working… You’ll go home won’t you?”
Lina looked down to her bare feet, not wanting to meet his gaze. He was terrible at hiding his emotions and she didn’t think she could bear to see the raw anguish there.
“That’s the plan, isn’t it? I don’t belong here. I don’t know anything of your people or your way of life… You’ve all been more hospitable than I could have asked for, but this isn’t home.” Even as she said it, it felt like a great chasm ripped open in her chest, making it hard to breathe. Painful.
The muscles in his jaw tightened and he looked off to the distance, surveying the mountains of debris they’d have to sort through. He gave her one curt, stiff nod. “I understand,” he said. After another beat of silence, he expelled a big breath with another nod. “Alright. We’ll start sifting through this tomorrow then.”
Lina twinged her neck with how fast her head snapped around. “Really? You mean it?”
Bain nodded again, but now it looked more like a reflex than a conscious choice. “I do. I don’t want us to be stuck here forever when we might have the means for exploration, and you don’t want to stay here if we have the means of getting you home. So, the only reasonable answer is…”
Lina squealed and threw her arms around his neck hugging him for dear life. She was going to go home! It might take some time, it might take a lot of work, but she was going to make it happen if it was the last thing she did. And with Bain’s help, how could they fail?
“Thank you thank you thank you,” she cried happily, still squeezing the life from him as he chuckled and his arms rose to envelop her.
“Don’t thank me just yet. We haven’t figured anything out. This could all amount to nothing, you know.”
Lina nodded, refusing to let him hamper her good mood. “Yeah, but it’ll work out. You’ll see. I’ve got a good feeling about this.”
She realized she was still clinging to him when his hands drifted down her sides, settling over her hips. The air in the cavern shifted, suddenly stifling and thick. Bain caught her gaze and Lina’s breath stuck in her throat.
“Call me crazy,” he said, his voice hardly more than a rough whisper brushing past her cheek, “but I do, too.”
Lina blinked. What was happening to her? Something pulled her towards the prince. Not physically, though she felt that too, but on a deeper level. Some part of her was linked with him and every time he was near, the magnets within them both fought to pull closer together. Surely he felt it, too. That heated, determined look in his eyes reflected the molten sensation Lina felt deep within.
“Bain, I—” She had no idea what she was going to say, but they’d never find out. The words were lost in the crash of his lips coming down on hers. She froze for only a moment, surprised by his sudden move, but then she paid attention to the warm press of him, the tingles that spread from her lips through her bloodstream, and she practically melted against him. Her lips parted and she grazed her teeth over his bottom lip, drawing out a low rumble from his chest that sent satisfaction to the tips of her toes. She’d never kissed anyone before, but the way his fingers tightened on her when he made that sound told her she was doing something right.
But then, just as quickly as it had started, the kiss ended. Bain pulled away from her before she was ready, leaving Lina grasping at the air as he extracted himself from her embrace. Her lips still tingled, and she lifted her fingertips to touch them gingerly, wishing she could seal that feeling into her memory forever.
All the air that had closed in on them making her feel hot and stifled now cooled and Lina wrapped her arms around herself, looking to Bain for answers. But the warmth in his gaze was replaced by that cold stone wall yet again. She knew she must look foolish, just hugging herself and staring at him confused, but Bain knew the question lingering on her tongue and he just shook his head.
“We should head back if we want to start working on this tomorrow,” he said, like the kiss had never happened at all.
Lina’s heart dropped through the floor, but she nodded. “I am pretty tired,” she said, her voice sounding robotic even to herself. She scrambled up the cliff-face, no longer concerned for the state of the dress that had been ruined some time ago, and slipped back into her shoes. The party felt like days ago now, not mere hours, and she’d been telling the truth when she said she was tired. It was an understatement really. Maybe Farita had been right and this was all too much for her still. She didn’t like to put restrictions on herself, but who really knew the long-term effects of matter transportation? Maybe she should take it easy.
Bain led the way out of the cave and they traveled all the way back to the village in silence.