They left on the morrow, after she’d repaired their hyperdrive. She’d never tell Krane, but now that it was all over and done with, she was glad that she’d disobeyed. Glad of that wild night with five males, and glad of knowing herself a little more. She’d always been a little shy with males, not quite confident. No more.

The real challenge would be not imaging a certain pair of eyes when she closed her eyes during sex. Someday, she might manage. It was always so damn awkward as soon as she opened her eyes again, and found the wrong person below her.

“Where to now?” she asked.

“I,” Krane replied, “am going to the Council. You’re heading to Nimeria.”

“Nimeria,” she repeated, frowning.

“Aye. Enlil’s loyalists have a base there, and they’re recruiting for simple hands. You could even go back to loading cargo.” He winked. She frowned some more.

What was the point of the last year if he just wanted her to go back to doing what she’d been doing then? And for loyalists, too. That made no freaking sense. She didn’t feel one way or another about the group that had rallied against Kai, but she knew Krane had no love for them.

Still, she gave the old male the benefit of the doubt. He’d led her right so far.

“If it would do any good, I’d say come with me. I’m going to be right in a viper’s nest, and I could use an ally. But Nalini, you’d be a hindrance.”

Well, that hurt.

He further explained, “You aren’t interested in politics, in the greater good, and anything like that.”

She couldn’t exactly protest: he had a point there. She just hadn’t realized he was completely done with her.

“You’ve shut yourself off from the rest of the world since you were seventeen, Nalini. You hid where you wouldn’t see what either side is doing. You don’t know the first thing about Kai Lor Hora, or his enemies. So, go to the loyalist base. Keep your head down. Observe. Make up your own mind. When the time is right, you can decide for yourself where you want to stand in this war.”

“I don’t want to be in a war at all.”

He seemed downright exasperated. “Nalini, I like you, kiddo. A lot. So it’s with a lot of affection that I’m saying this. The entire galaxy is at war, and you’re gonna get pulled in someday, however far you ran. Continue fleeing from the shadow of a dead man, until you get kidnapped, killed, or worse. Grow the fuck up. Enlil is gone. He isn’t after you anymore.”

“But Kai is. He wants my powers, my vision. He wants…”

“You have no idea what he wants. And you have no idea what’s happening out there.”

“I see plenty,” she argued.

Krane seemed exasperated by this point. “You see battles, you see deaths, but you don’t know why any of it is happening. You can’t see the forest for the trees.” He sighed. “Remain ignorant and stubborn if you so wish, kiddo. Or be stronger than this, better than this, and go to Nimeria.”

Irritated, she glared, but his words ended up hitting the mark as the seconds passed. He was right. She might not like it, but he was right. She had no fucking clue why either side was fighting; for power, she guessed. Beyond that, she was ignorant.

Nalini nodded, slowly agreeing, and Krane smiled, before uncharacteristically pulling her into a very brief hug.

It felt nice. Warm.

“You’re in control now,” he told her. “Infinitely better at reading what you need to see. You’ll see. By Goddess Light, in time, you’ll know exactly what you’re supposed to do.”

She smiled at the older man. “It sounds like a farewell.”

“It is.” Ian winked. “For now, anyway.”

He bent and opened his arms up to Kronos, who also went for a short and highly reluctant hug. He was too cool for hugs.

“You take care of each other, kids.”

“Sure,” Kronos replied, shrugging. “No one else will.”

Nox, who still wasn’t sure about Nalini, was good enough to let her stroke him behind the ear before following the Wise Councilmaster into the Zonian. In no time, the ship was flying out.

Nalini was confused by the strength of her own feelings as the male left her behind. She’d never had this before. Someone older, wiser, who was helping her for no other reason that the fact that he cared about her – whatever he said about ulterior motives. And she’d mourn the loss of her friend and mentor.

She wasn’t the only one who’d regret leaving.

“I’ll miss it here,” the teenager mused, stealing a last glance at the beautiful world they were leaving.

Nalini forced herself to speak. “You really can stay, you know.”

It was the best thing for him. Staying here, in this place where he was taught better than anywhere else in the world. Where he wouldn’t ever be hunted for his magic. But when Rani had offered Kronos a place in her land, the boy had refused.

Nalini was selfish enough to not insist he stay. What was she supposed to do without him?

“Don’t be ridiculous. You wouldn’t survive a week by yourself. You can’t boil water.”

She pouted. “You said my last soup was edible.”

“I lied. Poured it into a plant pot. The plant died.”

* * *

Nimeria wasn’t a bad place, overall. Nalini and Kronos might even have been impressed, had they not spent a year in a true paradise. Kronos lamented the absence of dragons, and Nalini wished for more abs and triceps.

The very thought of joining the loyalists, as Krane had suggested, was distasteful to her. He was right; getting involved in any sort of politics went against her every instinct. She woke up in the morning intending to do something about it, and then found a pretext to stay away. Homeschooling Kronos. Tending to her plants. Attempting to cook something that they could eat without grimacing; in this, she always failed.

There was money aplenty in an account bearing her name now; Krane had in fact made good on his word. He paid her for her year away, quite well. As she hadn’t had any cause to spend any of it, they were comfortable without her needing to earn their bread. Still, she earned some coin; she couldn’t help but notice the female who was always coughing when she passed by her little terrace on her way back from her work each afternoon. One day, Nalini offered her a draft, and each day that weak, at the same hour, she had one ready.

Her long hours with nothing else to do than reading in her youth had paid off; she knew the properties of most plants, and while her garden was an occupation she enjoyed, her practical mind had made her seek plants for their use rather than their esthetic.

Soon, the town whispered of a pretty healer who’d managed to shift Pera’s endless cough, where all else had failed for years; they came to her door again, just like they had in Fruja.

That’s how, although she never found it in herself to seek out the loyalists, the loyalists came to her.

The tall male who knocked at her door was handsome, and Nalini thought she recognized some of his features, although she would have been hard-pressed to place him. Had she been more intrigued, she might have scanned his mind. She wasn’t.

He watched her in a way that didn’t quite sit well with her; not just like he liked what he saw; it was as if he also felt entitled to take it if he pleased.

“How can I help?” she asked.

The male explored her small place, ignoring her question, and picking up random things like he had the right to.

“I hear you live here alone with your son.”

She could have rolled her eyes. Kronos was thirteen now, and, while she was twenty-five, people often assumed that she was younger because of her small frame and her diminished height compared to other Evris females. It was the first time anyone had accused her of having born the boy.

“It’s just me and Kronos, yes.”

He seemed pleased. She was losing patience.

“Is there a point to this interrogation, sir?”

Catching her irritation, the male finally consented to stop putting his paws on her things.

“My apologies. I was sent by Seraka Mayn,” he said, like the name was supposed to mean something to her. It sounded vaguely familiar, but Nalini’s memory had a tendency to obliterate things she found of little importance.

She blinked. The stranger clarified, “General of the loyalist armies and lord of this system.”

Ah, that guy.

“And what could he need with little old me?”

“The general has put a call through for additional troops. We are, amongst other things, looking for healers specifically. We’ve heard talk of your skills. Given that you’ve moved to this specific planet recently, we assumed that you may be against the current government.”

The male was slowly approaching her, taking detours, zigzagging through the house. If she wasn’t a 100 percent certain that she could have mopped the floor with his face with blinders on and one hand tied behind her back, she might have felt threatened. As things stood, he only disgusted her.

Nalini considered her options. She was itching to tell him to go fuck himself, but Krane’s words haunted her. He had been right: she didn’t know anything of these loyalists. And she knew even less of Kai’s rule. Her one brush with it had caused Kronos’s death; since then, she’d stayed the fuck away. Staying in her little house, in the village, far from them, wasn’t going to suddenly open her eyes.

Ignorance was weakness. So, yes, she’d observe them for a time. Making her own mind up about the things happening in the world wasn’t a bad idea.

“Why, yes. I’m positively against the current government,” she lied.

She simply knew nothing of it, and it was past time to change that. Looking at it through the eyes of its enemy was step one.

“If you were to join our cause, you’d have to reside in the base, for your safety; it’s not far from here. There are training and instructional facilities on base for your child. You’ll be well taken care of and paid fairly.”

The sleek snake was so close she could smell his cologne now. She’d need to keep her distances from him, or she’d kill him. Slowly.

“Great.”

She walked away, heading to her kitchen, and started cleaning up, making it clear she was busy, and putting as much distance between them as she could.

“A transport can pick you up as early as tomorrow.”

“That’s fine. Well, better get packing.”