Starbreak Page 14

  “Partners,” Vadix said, then hastily added: “In the service of the hunt, they have developed their arts. They had words first. Music and poetry. Art and writing. Their minds are not like ours. They are hidebound, well-planted in the land where they sprout. But we are curious. We study. We scheme. We are scientists. Scholars. Political strategists. They are hunters, builders, artists, musicians.”

  I thought of Rebbe Davison, of what he’d told me about his plans with Aleksandra back when we’d first stumbled across her out in the wild. She was supposed to become the brawn behind the rebellion—Mordecai Davison, the brains. Apparently the aliens of Aur Evez had opted for a similar setup. Vadix went on.

  “In exchange for their protection, we build them cities. And they fill them with music and color, and care for us during our long winter’s nap.”

  “And it’s worked for you, hasn’t it?” Mara asked. She sat back in her chair, apparently satisfied by his explanation. “Almost too well. These streets are crowded.”

  The corner of Vadix’s mouth twitched. It was as if Mara had stumbled into an old, old argument. But she didn’t seem to notice his reaction. She lifted a cutting hand, then let it fall.

  “Well? Too crowded for us, isn’t it?”

  Vadix dragged his gaze away. Touching his chest, he turned to the senators.

  “Vala xezlu aum aizzu zhososezhi zaizikk aiosoa?”

  The senators erupted into conversations. Even the Ahadizhi joined in—gesturing wildly with their stubby fingers, leaping to their feet and brandishing the double-edged daggers they kept hidden beneath their robes. Mara glanced at me, her eyebrows lifted mildly. But I didn’t look back at her.

  My gaze was on Vadix. He was watching them all, his expression as still as the Asherah’s reservoirs and nearly as dark. He didn’t seem to be stirred by their arguments. The ruddy-skinned Xollu pairs clutched their hands together and drew close to each other, frightened by the sudden explosion of sound. The Ahadizhi hissed and muttered angry words. But Vadix only sat square in his chair, calm and silent. At last, without a single word, he rose from his seat. He stood tall, tucking his hands inside his robes, and regarded the senators who had gathered there.

  “Vhesesa auriz,” he said, his voice as smooth as velvet. But when their argument continued, an impassioned jumble, he repeated himself. His shout echoed against the glass walls of the antechamber. “Vhesesa auriz!”

  I sat forward in the hard stone seat, gripping the armrests. They were decorated with gemstones and filigree, delicate carvings that bit into the palms of my hands. I held on tight to them. Because as Vadix surveyed the senators gathered there, I had the sudden, sinking feeling that it was all slipping away.

  “We did not ask for you,” he said. I felt the air go out of the room as he turned toward me. He stared at me. No, he stared into me, uncovering parts of me that I’d been sure were buried deep. “We did not invite you here as our honored guests. You are simply driftwood, cluttering our shore. And now you rise up, elbowing us aside. You want us to make room for you? You come, full of weapons and ambitions, stirring the passions of our Guardians, demanding acreage for your cattle and sheep. You think we have space for them? We hardly have space for ourselves. We did not ask for you. Animals. Killers. We do not want you here. We do not want you.”

  His earslits narrowed. He would hear no argument, accept no reply. Every single word he spoke sliced into me, as quickly as a hand-hewn spear, just as surely as any knife. He didn’t want me. Bloodthirsty. A murderer. I felt my heart break in my chest.

  But not Mara. It was nothing to her. She sat back, flashing her hand. “What of the southern continent, then? We haven’t seen any sign of a city there.”

  Vadix leaned his hands against the table, but I could hardly hear him as he spoke. “It is wild. Untamed. The Ahadizhi there are not our allies; we do not speak their tongue. And without them the beasts will destroy your settlement. This is without a doubt.”

  “We have a dome.”

  “Do you think your ancient glass will protect you? In winter our Guardians patrol thrice daily. With prod and song and double-bladed dagger. And still some of them are lost to us at the claws of the beasts, may the god and goddess grant them many seedlings. The southern beasts would tear you apart, swallow your weak flesh whole.” I watched him—watched the jagged line of his teeth.

  The grimace was strange. So unfamiliar. I’d known the many moods of that mouth—joyful and teasing, hesitant and gentle, loving and lusty and coy. But I’d never known him to look so hateful. It wasn’t right. This wasn’t right. I felt something swell within me. Not the familiar flare of anger, that hot spark that led me to do dangerous, murderous things. Something else, shining and true.

  As he and Mara argued, I lifted myself to my feet. My hands were cold, numb. But my mind wasn’t. In my determination everything had gone bright and clear—especially Vadix’s expression. His lips hung open. I felt his fear, hanging over the heads of all these senators and dignitaries. He didn’t want me to speak. But I had no choice. Otherwise our fate would fall back on Aleksandra. On violence. On certain death.

  “No,” I said firmly. He looked at me, and Mara looked at me, and all the senators swiveled their heads to look at me too. A dozen black eyes took me in. I tried to keep my voice even. I didn’t want my emotion to spill over, revealing me as delicate and sensitive. Weak. I had spent too much of my life like that, soft-bellied and afraid. “It’s not right. This isn’t right. We need your help. You can’t turn us away!”

  “What do you know of ‘right’?” Vadix scoffed. He finally pulled his long hand from his sleeve—and pointed a spindly finger right at me. “You are not like us! Dangerous aliens, with untamed, murderous hearts.”

  I stared at him, at the anger that flared wildly across his face. But no matter the heat of his words, I knew the tender boy that was hidden deep inside. He already knew my heart. He’d clutched it to his body. He’d accepted me before he ever knew me, found me worthy, whole. Good.

  “Oh, Vadix,” I said, my own voice softening. “You know that’s not true.”

  This time I didn’t have to touch him to let him feel the electricity that tied us together. Words alone were sufficient. He snatched back his hand as if he’d been shocked.

  “Lies,” he hissed. But they were all looking at us, the Xollu and Ahadizhi and Mara Stone, too. The Xollu sat forward in their seats. The Ahadizhi exchanged puzzled glances before looking back at me. And Mara’s mouth was creased by frown lines.

  “Terra,” she said, her voice surprisingly gentle. “What are you talking about?”

  Up until that moment Vadix had been fearless—strong despite his willowy frame and slender limbs. But in that moment he looked like the slightest wind might blow him over. For the first time his eyes had taken on the same fearful cast as the rest of the Xollu’s.

  “Vadix knows,” I said, my voice hoarse. “He knows why he has to help us. He knows why he has to help me.”

  One of the Xollu senators sat forward in her chair. She inclined her head to Vadix, speaking gently.

  “Vadix lousk, aiosoez daullu aum auru thahari voraz daze?”

  “Shesezi daiosoez,” he said. In Asheran he added, “No. No, she is wrong.”

  “Terra,” Mara said again, more sharply this time. Her patience was wearing thin. But suddenly I was the most patient creature in the world. He knew who I was. He could deny it all he wanted, but we both knew the truth.

  “I dream about him,” I said. “Every night, for months and months. Before I ever knew him, he was there. I don’t know how it happened, or why. If it has something to do with the chemicals in my brain, or magic. But I know that together we walk through the dreamforests. The . . .” I reached for the words. They were there, at the back of my mind, buried deep in my subconscious. “The Ahar Taiza. Together. Vadix and me.”

  A collective gasp rose up from the Xollu senators. One of them fixed his red hand against the sleeve of Vadix’s robes.

 
“Vadix lousk,” he began, “auru thahari voraz daze?”

  Vadix didn’t answer.

  “I know we’re not supposed to take off into space again,” I said. Part of me wanted to plead with him, to throw myself at his feet and tug on his long robes. But I wouldn’t let myself. He knew me. He knew what I was to him. I needed to trust in that. “And I know we’re not supposed to land the dome in the south. Not without you, Vadix. Not without the two of us together. We’re supposed to be a team. We’re supposed to help each other.”

  I felt something shift, changing inside him. I can’t tell you how. Outwardly he was the same, immobile as a statue. But he was gathering up his courage like a heavy cloak, wrapping it around himself. Keeping himself safe.

  “No!” he said. “Lies!”

  He opened his eyes up wide. They were black as space and twice as endless as he spun on his heel, his robes a whirl of color and light around him, and rushed from the room.

  For a long time we were all silent, watching the door that hung open at the back of the antechamber. Finally Mara reached up her hand to me.

  “Oh, Talmid,” she said. I could see in the sad turn of her mouth what she thought of all of this. To her I was nothing more than a girl—a silly girl with a crush.

  But I wasn’t. I knew better, and so did he. I pulled away from her.

  “Vadix!” I called. I almost tipped over the heavy stone chair as I rushed for the door. “Vadix!”

  Mara called out for me to stop. After a moment a dozen alien voices joined hers. But I didn’t listen. I rushed through the door and down the wide stairwell, shouting after him as I pressed through the crowds.

  16

  Traveling alone, the city was a whole new beast.

  At first I chased Vadix, watching for the blue smear of light among the jumbled crowd of red. He led me across the wide pavilion and past the train station, down a twisting underpass and through a grove of shifting trees. Then he turned down an alleyway. I went after him, but ran smack into a Xollu pair. They flinched from my body’s touch, pulling back their hands as if I were diseased.

  “Sorry! Sorry!” I breathed. Sniffing, they moved past me. But when they did, I realized that I had lost him. The pathway up ahead was packed full of bodies. Ahadizhi streamed in and out of the storefronts along the alley’s lowest level, stopping to watch me with inquisitive eyes. I shrugged off their grabby fingers, shouldering past them. Surely he had to be somewhere up ahead. So I trudged forward.

  The smell of meat was thick in the midday sun. The shop counters were piled high with it. There were insects here, the first I’d seen on the planet—hairy, and as big as both fists, swarming heavily on the wind. They were held back from every shop door by a translucent skin of netting, but they clouded the path ahead. I heard the pound of footfalls. A group of diminutive Ahadizhi scampered past. Their furred skin was blue, the color of a burst berry. Children, I realized. They were children. They let out clicking laughter as they gamboled past.

  I watched them go, tracing the bruisey blue of their bodies as they disappeared into the crowd. Was Vadix a child, then? He didn’t look like one. He stood just as tall as the others, and his countenance suggested experience. He’d lived, seen things—perhaps too much. I knew there was a story hidden beneath his sad, full lips. As I scrambled forward, sweat streaming down my face, I wondered what it was that made him different from the rest of them. Other than the fact that he was alone. Other than the fact that he was mine.

  I gazed forward, searching the pathway for any sign of him. But no luck. Up ahead the road dipped and twisted, finally arching over a burbling stream. I hurried across the wide stone bridge, pausing halfway to take stock. Underneath, Ahadizhi piloted painted craft. I watched as they pulled up eel traps, filled with yellow, slithering creatures. There was shouting, clucks of laughter, the music of splashing water. Light danced and jiggled against the hulls of their boats. I reached up, touching the back of my neck. Beneath my fingers I could feel my skin burning—like I had a fever. But I didn’t feel ill. I pulled myself to the far end of the bridge, and continued on my way.

  I’m not sure when my journey changed, when the road ahead became as muddied as river dirt. I walked over bridge after bridge after bridge, crossing the canals as they looped and knotted through Raza Ait. The sun overhead was relentless, amplified by the sparkling cupola overhead. I’d never known anything like it. On the ship the artificial sunlight was never so bright as to make my eyes water or to leave my throat parched. But the city’s inhabitants didn’t seem to mind. I saw young Ahadizhi splayed out against the hot cobblestone, soaking up the light. Even stately Xollu pairs paused in their walking, unlacing the tops of their robes to bare their red shoulders to the sun.

  Meanwhile I stopped by the water’s edge to splash water over my face.

  Cool and sparkling, it trickled down my dirty neck, leaving pale rivers in its wake. The water tasted like metal and earth. Sharp, familiar flavors, not so different from the waters of home, but somehow cleaner. I wanted to dive in, to strip off my clothing and wash away the weeks of dirt and sweat and blood. But I couldn’t. I had to find Vadix. He was here somewhere. He had to be.

  I turned and looked over my shoulder, half expecting to see him there behind me. But an Ahadizhi woman stood there instead. She pushed a cart ahead of her on rickety wheels. The painted vehicle was piled high with scrolls of paper. I ambled forward. Lozenge eyes opened wide at the sight of me; her mouth fell open, showing teeth. So many teeth. Wiping my damp hands against my shorts, I picked out a scroll and slowly unrolled it. Paint had been spilled against the reedy canvas in great, dripping splotches. The pigments were lovely, one color layered over the next. A sunset. It showed a sunset. A white-yellow circle stood stark amid all that blue and green and violet.

  “Xarki,” I said, my hand barely gracing the bright shape. “You’re very talented.”

  “Tatoum,” she agreed. She put her hand over mine, helping me to unroll the scroll to its full length. She was standing close to me—maybe too close. Her body smelled so sweet in the sunlight, wilder than Vadix’s, and more fragrant.

  The bottom of the scroll had been only lightly washed with paint. There was the pale blue of snow and a distant red line of trees. I could practically see them moving against the skyline, writhing, shifting. I drew my gaze downward. There at the bottom was a green splotch of color, heavily shadowed with black.

  I held the painting at arm’s length. The Ahadizhi woman’s hand still touched my own. But my fingers slowly went cold under hers. A body. It was a body. One of Zehava’s great beasts, torn to pieces, its guts splayed out across the frozen winter fields.

  The Ahadizhi woman didn’t seem threatening as her fingers dug gently into my arm. But even in my addled state, I remembered the pitcher plant. Mara had taught me all about the tubular flowers, which drew insects close with their sweet scent before drowning them in their nectar. They didn’t look dangerous. They were green and red, their bells narrow. Delicate. But in truth they were deadly.

  I dropped the scroll back down into the cart. Slowly, carefully, I backed away. It wasn’t until she tried to close her hand on mine again, squeezing my fingers tight, that I snatched them back and broke out into a run. Without looking back, I raced across the next bridge and away.

  • • •

  I could feel myself cooking, the skin of my bare arms and face growing pink in the sun. As I headed toward the city’s outskirts, I kept trying to clamp my hands down over my neck, shielding it from the hot light of day. Xarki. Miserably I glanced up. Even as I squinted into the amplified sunlight, my face ached. It was too much. I didn’t know how all these scattered Ahadizhi could stand it. They lingered in the doorways half naked, chatting and laughing and looking at me. Then again, they were plants, and I wasn’t. I was an animal, one of the only living mammals under the glass ceiling of Raza Ait. I didn’t belong here, and looking at the Anadizhi, with their toothy mouths, I didn’t know how I hadn’t seen it before.
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  Their bodies moved in nightmarish ways, wavering and bending as they reached out to point at me.

  “Hu-mahn, hu-maahhn,” they whispered to one another. Their arms were too long, their bodies too thin. They reminded me of snakes who slithered over cobblestone. No, that wasn’t right. They reminded me of vines, winding themselves up and up toward any light source. Ferns or flowers, they’d never been frightening to me before. But now, wrung out by the sun, my mouth as dry as sandpaper, I saw the hunger there. Images flashed before me. Flytraps snapping shut on butterflies. Sundews curling their tentacles tight around black-bodied flies. No wonder Laurel had been so afraid of the people of Aur Evez.

  I collapsed in a shadowed doorway, tucking my face into the crook of my arm. For the first time in ages, I felt my solitude. It had been easy to chase away since I’d crashed on the planet. There had been survival to contend with, and then Aleksandra. . . . I hadn’t had time to mull over my lot.

  And I’d had Vadix. Even if he’d been merely a dream, he’d been there, his kisses working to cure my loneliness. But he was gone now, who knew where, or why. No, that wasn’t true. I’d stood right there as Aleksandra had told him the truth about me. I was murderous, a killer. No better than her, and certainly no better than the Ahadizhi who drew close to me now, examining me with curious eyes.

  I’d collapsed on the precipice of an Ahadizhi home—a squat, circular building whose stone walls were pressed with multicolored glass. The door behind me had been left open; the space inside was blue-dark and cavernous. There was only one beam of light inside, subtle, muted. It landed at the center of the entryway, filled with dust motes that swirled a lazy dance.

  And there was music. Someone was singing a sweet, gentle refrain, slow notes that lingered for just a touch too long. I’d heard this song before, but it didn’t matter. It was my song—mine. It wove the story of a girl whose mother had been lost to her, a girl whose father had left her just when she needed him most. It was the song of a girl who had lain awake in her bed at night, staring up at the endless dark, wondering when the strange dreams of an unseen love would leave her, when the boys in school would finally look her way, when she’d finally feel real and fully formed—grown-up. It was all carried in the aching notes that reached out that open doorway, wrapping their slender arms around me. I rose, leaning forward so that I could better peek inside that cool, inviting space.