“What was that about?” I asked, watching Kâl’s back while we aimed for our tent, for our gears and weapons.
“What do you mean?”
I lifted an eyebrow, although she couldn’t see me. “The questions? About going back in time?”
“Just curious,” she affirmed, never crossing my stare. I huffed.
“It didn’t look like curiosity, it looked like a necessity.”
She finally turned around, right at the threshold of our habitations. “You’re reading too much into this.”
“And I’m starting to read perfectly into you,” she met my eyes for a split second but couldn’t hold my gaze. “You’re having enough of me?” I smiled. And she returned it.
“Not everything is about you,” she answered, entering inside.
“Maybe not. Doesn’t answer my question.”
“I’m not tired of you,” she taunted, showing her teeth and I couldn't help but laugh, even if I was slowly losing patience with this one.
I scratch my nape. “Not this one.”
“You asked many of them. I forgot about the other ones!”
“Kâl.”
She stopped fidgeting with her clothes and let her bag fall over the mattress of her bed. Her light green irises striked in my hazel ones and I held them, scanned into them, searched for the answers myself. Her expression was stoic, inscrutable. “Aren’t you a tiny bit interested in his story? Samay?”
“I am. What does that have to do with what I’m asking you?”
“It’s the truth. I was just curious.”
“I know what you do when you have something else on your mind. That gaze you give. The way you bite your upper lip. It’s like I can see the whirls of the turbine inside your head.”
“You’re watching for signs when there are none. I didn’t peg you for a paranoid man,” her rictus only betrayed the uneasiness I was creating. But we had promised. We had a deal.
“Were you asking because you hoped to save your family?”
The silence that filled the bedroom was like a punch in my gut. I dared ask because I needed to know. As to why I needed to know… that was something else. She gave me a look I imagined her enemies would receive before dying at her hands. I wanted to believe we were past that. Wanted to believe the fight that we had, literally and not, had sufficed for us to deal with our similarities. And differences. But after a few seconds, her features moved. And she seemed just sad. “Many moments have gone through my head, when it came to choose which one I would do over. This was one of them, yes.”
I took a step toward her and she lifted her hand between us, just to keep me where I belong. “You can’t.” I only responded, even if I could very well understand why she would envy such power. Why she could fall to her knees and beg days and nights for this kind of gift.
“I know I can’t.” Her eyes were riveted on mine this time, and she became angry, defensive. “I was just curious.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, immediately receding toward my part of the room. “I overstepped.”
“You did,” she answered, but didn’t seem to hold any grudges anymore. Like she wasn’t really in a place to be furious about my actions. She held onto her clothes, our attires and looked at them with a weird expression. “I can’t go back there with these clothes.”
As I grabbed mine, I came to the same realization. “Me neither.”
“Maybe we could help you with that matter.”
Krolea’s figure appeared outside and they waited for us to follow them, their hands leading to a table we could see from there.
On it were displayed many different sets of weapons and gears, and we gawked at the arsenal in front of us. “How could you have all of this?” I blabbered. These were top qualities. Steels, cannon, firearms. An entire armory.
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“A legacy from our predecessor, most likely,” The Protector smiled and invited us to come closer. “We have never used them of course, but we figured they had needed to defend themselves at some point. We cannot assure you they will all function but… It is the least we can offer, for the danger you two are about to face.”
And I only realized, Samay will have a solution for us and we will be back to Kendara.
We’d be among the people that were actively hunting us, among the walls and streets we always knew and we would be free of Maorat. Not stuck inside for the next ten years. Only, we had seeked to leave. To never come back to the capitol again. We actually had, unlike them, the possibility of going back to our previous lives. As if nothing had happened. And they were seeing, now, that we might just use Samay’s power to disappear, and let them to their fate, to their unending curse, to the endless night dome, away from the planet they wished to return to.
We could do just that. After all, they had tricked us and hoped for the best regarding their future, not ours. And one deep part of my brain had wanted some revenge. Had wanted to choose that option, and let them rot inside their cave.
But I couldn’t resign to make that choice. First of all, because Kâl wouldn’t let me. And second, because… Kendara was not our future. Not anymore. And I had come to appreciate the Maors’ company. Had learned to understand their pain. Their loss. Their craving. When I met the eyes of the Protector, I could feel everything. The fear, the trust they couldn’t give us for various reasons. The hope we would still ally to their cause. Help them anyway. The apologies they didn’t actually voice but had shown in different ways. I inhaled deeply, and nodded, putting my attention back on the weapons laid onto the table.
Kâl grazed the daggers with her fingers, her nails caressing the handles as if they were works of art, she felt drawn to the small white weapons, when I had my full focus on a bow. I had always loved the tension of the string, the silence before the shot of the arrow. How it pierced the air. How deadly majestic it could be.
She fidgeted with the blade between her fingers and kept smiling as she started arranging them over her belt, filling every ounce of spaces on her body with silent and fatal steel. As for myself, I tucked the bow over my shoulder and strapped it behind my back. “Do you have black attires?” I asked the Maor.
Jalyons’ style was pretty simple and vast. They mostly used dark colors and comfortable fabrics. Some liked to add jewels but most of them just draped themselves with the first thing that would fall under their hands. We needed to dress differently than our ‘official’ gears for they would recognize us in an instant. “Long robes with hoods would be perfect,” Kâl continued.
The Protector turned around and grabbed two pieces that fitted the description. As we slipped them on, Krolea also handed a beautiful piece of jewelry in his hand. A small tiara, holding a diamond at the center, all in clear silver, almost white as bone. Fabricated thinner than a strand of hair, depending on the light, it seemed invisible, resembling the specie’s aesthetic and shape.
Kâl pivoted so I could approach the jewel although she couldn’t break the stare they were sharing. Their artifacts were impinged with magic, filled with spirits, sometimes even a whole consciousness, to the point where some objects could very well control or subdue their owner.
“This crown has been forged as it was depicted over Lumnis’ head. Some stories explained she accepted wearing it only to please her community but never she intended becoming such an impact over our kind.” Hei-Tria had arrived in complete silence and roamed around us with their hand behind their back. Their stare was strangely directed to the ground, more as a way of reminiscing rather than any kind of submission. As always, we kept our mouths closed and listened carefully as they continued. “It is a great honor for you to use Maor’s devices, let alone an object shaped from our deity’s own crown.
The Protector growled as a warning and pronounced what sounded like their name, probably with their language’s accent. “You seem to like reminding us of our place,” I interrupted, my fingers reaching for the tiara, my gaze fixated on it. “You’re driveling.”
“Humans have had their importance regarding our exile.” Hei-Tria responded.
“Are we supposed to be punished for the choices our species made years and years ago?”
“You are supposed to understand why some feel reluctant to trust.” Krolea answered.
“I do,” I insisted. “Trust is the hardest thing to give. But trust is the only thing that can make us go forward.” Kâl stayed behind while the two Maors gauged at me. “I’ve been reluctant to trust you for the exact same reason. You have every right to stab us in the back whenever the chance of fleeing appears in front of your eyes, but we’ve arrived here, alone, starving and exhausted. We’ve overcome the fact that you doomed us here. We understand.”
The buzzing sound of glow-worms in the air floated through the quietness following my speech. During some of my missions, I needed to be as legit as I could to manipulate, to scare. I needed my orders to be strong, I needed my gestures to be irrefutable. That faculty granted me charisma, and obedience. This time, I wasn’t manipulating. This time, I was sincere.
As I lifted the crown over my head, I felt the Maor’s magic stick to every part of my body, like a morning dew veiling grass. It tingled my skin enough to pull a shiver out of me, feeling the goosebumps shrinking my pores, the cold freezing my soul and mind, making my head pound with hurt. My eyelids had been closed through the pain, but when I opened them again, the darkness submerging Maorat had disappeared. It was still visible no sun was lightening the place, but my senses had been improved, the few little lights providing much more clearance than it had with my human eyes.
“You’ll be able to see through the darkest of places,” Krolea spoke. “This way, the world would have no secret to you.”
Too much power flooded around myself, and similar to the encounter with Samay, I felt like fainting from the tremendous weight I was now bearing over my shoulders. “It seems,” I startled, “I’ve collected her strength.”
“You couldn’t possibly begin to match her capacities,” Hei-Tria mocked me. Strangely, my stomach rumbled with a chuckle and I sighed, that game between us starting to wear on me. As a confirmation, I noticed a smirk from their lips within a split of a second, before witnessing again their impeccably stern expression we were now used to.
Krolea’s brows frowned quickly with concern, but they regained their composure even quicker and declared, “Bring Maors back to their haven.”