Broken Skies (12 page)

Hours and miles later, I’m wiping my forehead with the back of my hand. The sun is high in the sky and even in the shade of the woods, it’s hot. I pause, waiting for Lir to catch up. His pace has been steady, but he’s obviously not used to hiking. He’s only about ten feet behind me now, but the distance has gotten bigger as the day has gone on. He hasn’t complained, just kept walking even though I’ve made a point of sending branches zinging back to hit him and not warning him about spider webs. That’ll teach him to try and sneak off. Or maybe I’m just being mean. Then again, maybe I was wrong to distrust him this morning.

What do they do in that city anyway? Doesn’t look like exercising is on their agenda. Or maybe it has something to do with the malfunctioning cuff. “What exactly does it do?” I ask out loud.

“Huh?” Lir stops beside me. His breath is coming a bit faster than normal and his hair has curled up even more with sweat and humidity, making the green in it stick out even more.

“The
kitu
? What does it do?” I ask. Jace is always telling me that I need to work on my people skills, that people can’t always follow what I’m saying when I only verbalize half of what I’m thinking. It’s never bothered me. Why would it? The only person I see on a regular basis is Jace. I guess I’ve always taken for granted the fact that he almost always knows exactly what I’m talking about. Maybe it’s a twin thing.

Lir narrows his eyes and edges back slightly. “Why do you want to know?”

The sharpness of the words startles me until I realize he must think I’m trying to interrogate him or something. I shrug. “I don’t really know much about you guys and, well, I’m curious. Kind of an annoying trait of mine actually. If I hadn’t been so set on getting a glimpse of an alien, Jace wouldn’t have gotten taken.”

“Why are you so interested? Most humans…are not very fond of us.”

I snort. “That’s true. Humans resent you for coming to our planet and then ignoring us, not even offering to help with our problems. I’m sure you guys have problems of your own though.” I glance at him and he nods. “Most even blame you for the Collapse, but I don’t know how you could be to blame for something that happened decades before you arrived…I’m not most people though.”

Lir smiles. “I am beginning to see that.” He motions for me to follow him and sits down on a log. I perch next to him. He stares at me with his brow furrowed before starting to talk. “The
kitu
is mostly a communication device. It allows us to link to each other and interact, but it can also boost my strength, allow me to move faster for a brief period of time, enhance my vision…” He stops and then shrugs. “I am not sure how they work.”

“So they’re like a physiological crutch?” Lir tilts his head to the side and gives me a strange look. I continue to be sure I’ve gotten it right. “It must link into your bio-mechanical and chemical functions or something. Either you have specialized functions that have developed to help you control the link or somehow the cuff must link directly into your biology. Perhaps even altering your basic make-up to allow you to use it.”

“That sounds about right,” says Lir, both eyebrows up in surprise. “How do you know so much about biology?”

“My dad taught me. He was a scientist, you know… before.” I push back the wisps of hair that have escaped my braid and stand up.

“Your dad sounds like an intelligent man.”

“He was.” I look away and sigh before straightening my shoulders and changing the subject. “I don’t think we should try to travel too much farther today. It will be dark before long and I’d like to try to set a few snares,” I say, smiling. “Fresh rabbit is so much better than dried.”

Lir’s eyes sparkle when he returns my smile. “I’m sure you could make a great meal out of anything.”

After that, Lir keeps pace with me, though that might have more to do with me actually being nicer to him than anything else. I point out various features of the forest and explain some of my navigation methods. He seems particularly interested when I start going over the edible plants and how to find water. It gives me a small thrill to have him focused so intently on me and I end up smiling and joking more than I normally would. That worries me. Lir laughs more too. I like the sound and that downright terrifies me. I shouldn’t be getting attached. I shouldn’t be enjoying his company. Even so, the air feels clearer now, like we’ve moved past a simple truce and into some sort of friendship.

* * * * * * *

The night brings with it a drop in the temperature and a new sense of hopelessness to me. We huddle close to the small fire I built, a rabbit roasting on a stick across it. Every time the fire sizzles, my stomach rumbles. We ate only a little bread and some berries I found for lunch. The food I packed is already running low. I set five snares, but only caught one small rabbit. It will have to do.

The flames reflect off Lir’s eyes, lighting up the golden ring around his pupils so it almost drowns out the bright green around it. He was impressed that I actually caught anything with my ‘primitive hunting techniques’ as he called my snares. When I pulled out a lighter for the fire he half gasped. He must have expected me to rub sticks together or something. I rolled my eyes. Cleaning the rabbit, something I’ve done since I was eight, made him go pale and look away. He’s not looking away now though. His stomach’s growling nearly as loud as mine as he watches the meat crisp.

The silence between us tonight is different, somehow softer. We’re both dirty and tired, but I’m clearly in better shape than Lir. His injuries from the soldiers remain. Though it’s not swollen shut, his left eye is shadowed in bruises. His lip is split and there’s still blood on the side of his face from his beating. At least his knife wound hasn’t reopened. My stitches have held it well, but the edges of the wound that I can see are red around the black thread.

I need to find us somewhere to get cleaned up tomorrow. Water alone might not hold off infection, but it couldn’t hurt to clean his wounds and bandage his arm with something other than the dirty piece of fabric he has wrapped around it.

So many things could go wrong out here. What would I do if he got sick? Does his body even work like mine? So far his injuries haven’t healed at super speed or done anything else out of the ordinary, but would I even know if something were wrong? More importantly, would Lir tell me if something were really wrong?

Too many questions. Too many worries. I run a hand down my face and my stomach speaks up again, a loud noise in the quiet night. There’s an answering noise across the fire and I grin. He’s hungry and he’s been eating and drinking, so he can’t be too bad off. Lir looks up and smiles at me, one side of his mouth turning up and a sparkle in his eye. My original assessment of him really is spot on. He’s beautiful.

During the day he looked at home in the woods, the green in his features blending with the forest. Now, the firelight brings out the gold and, even dirty and exhausted, he shines. Too caught up in everything else, I hadn’t noticed it last night. He has an inner light that is nowhere near human and I think it should bother me or maybe scare me, this otherworldly illumination. But all I want to do is move to him and bask in it. I’m drawn to him in a way I don’t understand. That’s what frightens me.

And now I’m staring. The eyebrow goes up and heat floods into my face. I busy my mind and my hands with pulling the rabbit away from the fire. I divide the meat and pass a little more than half to Lir without meeting his eyes.

It’s hot, really too hot to eat yet, but my stomach doesn’t care. The grease burns my fingers as I shovel the meat into my mouth. It’s gone much too soon and I’m not even close to full. Even with the mishap in the market, I should have found a way to bring more food. We’re going to have to live off the land when the food in the pack runs out and we won’t be in the forest forever. I didn’t really think about how long this trek would take, how much physical exertion would eat into our supplies, hell, I didn’t even really think about exactly how much two people would need to eat. Just another example of my poor planning.

I’m going to end up getting both of us killed. All three of us really if I’m not in time to rescue Jace from who knows what. My eyes sting and my stomach rumbles, quieter now but still audible.

“Here, Jax.” Lir leans across the fire with some rabbit in his hand. “I’m full.” He’s lying. I know he is, but I take the food anyway.

“Thanks,” I mumble.

Still short of sated, I wipe my greasy fingers on my jeans and pull out my sleeping bag. I spread it next to the fire and snuggle down into it. Fall weather would choose to finally arrive when I’m stuck out in the woods. Everything seems to be working against me, even the temperature.

The rustle of leaves to my right signals Lir settling into his sleeping bag. His breathing evens out quickly. Looks like another night of easy sleep for him while I’m left lying here staring up at the stars, the scenarios of all the things I should have done differently playing on repeat in my mind.

The bright twinkling lights look so close, but they’re really millions of miles away from me. Jace feels just as far away as those stars. Only the second night since it happened that Jace isn’t here to hold my hand while I fall asleep to chase the nightmares away and I’m already losing it. The burn in my eyes overflows into tears that trickle silently over my cheeks and down to the ground.

“Would it help if I told you I was scared too?” Lir’s voice is soft, just barely carrying over the fire to my ears. Not asleep then.

I don’t answer. I can’t, not without giving in to the tears, without admitting how weak I am. If he had any idea how broken I am… he has followed the Bridgelake nutcase into the woods, trusted her to know what to do. I’d be scared if I were him too.

There’s a puff of air across my face when Lir’s sleeping bag flops down next to me. What is he doing?

“Is this acceptable? Me over here instead of over there?”

I just nod, still not trusting my voice.

He settles down to the ground beside me. There’s still a few feet between us, enough for me to be comfortable but not so much that I want to scoot closer. “It will all work out,” Lir whispers before making himself comfortable and falling asleep. For real this time. I checked before closing my own eyes and counting my breaths to help me drift off.

Without Jace, the nightmares come back again. Hot breath. Long red hair twisted around a fist. The knife. The blood. The images retreat though, rather than lasting all night long, and are replaced with new ones. Firelight. A long red braid trailing down my back. My smile. My laugh. A feeling of amusement at my narrowed eyes and my hands on my hips.

TEN

I crack one eye open. It’s not quite dawn, but it isn’t far off. The dreams weren’t so bad last night and I actually feel rested, something I normally can only achieve with Jace’s presence to ground me. It isn’t until I go to sit up that I realize Lir’s fingers are wrapped around mine. Did I reach out for him in my nightmares or was he trying to comfort me?

Yanking my hand away is what I should do, but the press of his palm against mine is too tempting. The touch of another’s hand, such a simple thing, anchors me and helps to clear my head. Sure, people other than Jace have touched me in the past year, but they stick to my arms or shoulders and I have to brace myself in case I start to lose it. It’s that way even with Flint, who’s like a second brother to me, though he’s the only person besides my actual brother who
I
will voluntarily touch. Until now that is. Just lying here and being able to revel in the feeling of someone holding my hand without reminding myself to breathe or listening to my pulse thunder in my ears… I can almost feel normal and whole.

With that thought, I finally snatch my hand away. Lir’s hold tightens briefly as my fingers leave his, but he doesn’t wake. His touch is a luxury I could get used to much too easily and it’s bad enough that I need Jace to get a good night’s rest. I can’t afford to become dependent on someone else, especially someone I’ll never see again once this mission is over and someone who already has some sort of unexplainable draw for me.

I don’t get up though. Instead, I roll onto my side and run my eyes over his face. He looks so peaceful that I just lie there and trace his features with my gaze. The bruise around his eye is already fading to yellow and I know enough to realize that means the E’rikon must heal faster than we do. At this rate he’ll be back to normal in only another day or two. I guess I don’t have to worry about his arm as much as I thought I did. It’ll heal up just like the rest of him.

His hair just barely brushes the tips of his ears before curling upward and this closely I can see that the hair is actually gold at the root, only turning green after about an inch of growth. It’s not a dye job. Not even the strongest dye would be able to cover that metallic gold color, so his hair must grow like that. Gold blending into green like his eyes… and the scales on his back.

I push myself up on one elbow and lean forward. Without the high collared jacket he was wearing before, the scales are clearly visible. I was too busy studying the ones on his back before to notice that the scales also flare out at the top and edge into his hairline and behind his ears. They’re fainter the farther up they go and almost entirely gold by the time they disappear under his hair. Could it be this gold…base… that gives him that subtle glow? Would all of them look a little shiny up close or just the ones with the metallic colors?