Hybrid Saga 01 - Hybrid (46 page)

“Where did Orna send you?” she asked, decidedly, breaking the silence.

Jarred didn’t respond right away, meeting her gaze and hesitating, as though debating whether or not to answer at all.

“Into the mountains,” he replied, finally. “
Deep
into the mountains.”

“What was down there? The sphere you mentioned. What was it?”

Jarred looked thoughtful. “I can’t say that I really know. Something was leading me, drawing me towards it. It had been calling to me since we landed.”

“The sphere?” she surmised.

Jarred shook his head. “No. I thought so at first, but it wasn’t the sphere. It was what it held within it.” He glanced down and Elora followed his gaze to the sword in his hands.

“The
sword
called to you?” she asked.

“I know how it sounds . . . but, yes. Not in words exactly, but in a feeling. An urging. It wanted me to find it. To remove it. And now . . . it wants something more.”

Elora raised her brow at that. “What?”

“I’m not sure.” Jarred stared down at the sword, holding the palm of his hand to the blade, as though he could somehow glean the answer from it that way. “I think it wants me to do something with it. To take it somewhere.”

“But you don’t know where?” she hazarded.

“No.”

Elora sat back, taking a moment to try and register everything Jarred had told her. “How can you be sure it
wants
anything?”

“I can’t explain how,” he answered. “I just feel it.”

“Alright,” she yielded, deciding not to question him any further on what it was he felt. “Well, when you find out where it wants you to take it, are you going to?”

“Yes,” he answered, as though he had been asking himself the same question for some time and had finally made his decision. “I have to. I need to know what it all means. The sphere that held this sword has been buried beneath these mountains for a very long time. If what Orna said is true . . . if I was meant to find it . . . I have to know why.”

“If Orna knew what you would find when you went down there, maybe she knows where it’s trying to lead you now?”

Jarred nodded knowingly and she assumed he had already come to that conclusion.

“Why haven’t you asked her yet?” she asked.

“I will,” he replied, turning to look at her. “But not yet.”

“Why not?”

“Because if I know where it wants me to take it, the urge to go may be too strong to resist . . . and there’s something else that I have to do first.”

“What?” Elora asked.

Instead of answering, Jarred gazed back out at the mountains again. When he finally did speak, it wasn’t an answer to her question.

“Tell me about your mother and father,” he asked.

Elora was actually surprised by the question and stumbled for a moment before replying. “What do you want to know?”

“Anything. Who were they?”

Leaning back on the smoothed stone surface, she looked up at the stars, considering her response. “My father was-” She paused briefly, considering her own word use.
Was
, not
is
. Her father hadn’t died. He had been taken by the slavers. Though, in her heart, she still grasped at the possibility that he was alive somewhere, the passing years and her own reason told her otherwise. She took no comfort in the thought, but knew that her father would have preferred death to slavery.

“He was a good man,” she continued. “A leader. He helped to found our colony on the Kasdin moon, where I was born. He was some kind of soldier before that, though he never really talked much about those times.

“The colony was a simple place, very low tech, but it was a community and he was its heart. Everyone worked together to get by. I think most of the people there had come to get away from something in their old lives. It was a place where they could start over. My father welcomed them all. I think it was a new beginning for him and my mother as well, but I never knew what life they had left behind for it. Only that they had chosen to give themselves fully to the colony and to keeping it alive.

“I was Ethan’s age now when my mother died giving birth to him. My father stayed strong for us, but I know a large part of him went with her. The light that used to come to his eyes when he saw her dimmed. I saw glimpses of it from time to time, while he watched Ethan growing up, but he was never really the same after. Not that he wasn’t always there for us, because he was, but . . . my mother was
his
heart. Her death left a hollow spot in him.”

“What was she like?” Jarred asked, when she had been quiet for a few seconds.

Staring out into the mountain scape, focusing on nothing in particular, she tried to envision the woman she had not seen for nearly half of her own life time. She smiled at the familiar face, still vivid in her memory, as the mental picture took shape.

“She was beautiful. Always smiling. She could make anyone smile just by being in the same room. She had the ability to bring joy to the people around her, because she was always so full of it. She radiated it. I remember how happy she had been when she became pregnant with Ethan. How happy we had all been. It was as though she had been waiting for him her entire life.”

Elora was quiet a moment, collecting herself emotionally as she began to feel those emotions getting the better of her. “With the settlement of the colony, my mother and father had realized their own dreams of living a quiet, simple life, but I guess nothing comes without a price. When the birth went wrong, the colony physician wasn’t equipped to deal with the complications. In a more advanced medical facility things could have turned out differently, but . . .” She let her words trail off, not finishing the thought. She had dwelled on it for much of her life and had always come back to the same conclusion. Her mother had been a strong woman. The colony was her dream. Her life. Had she known the outcome, the price she would ultimately pay, Elora believed she would have made the same choices. Without them, neither she or Ethan would have ever been born.

“Ethan was saved,” she continued, “but my mother couldn’t be. She gave her life for his, which I know is how she would have wanted it.”

“They sound,” Jarred began, after a long quiet moment, with sincerity in his voice, “like very brave, caring people.”

Elora looked over to find him watching her intently, but she didn’t shy away as usual, instead matching his gaze. “They were. I miss them very much.”

“I have no memory of my mother or father,” he said, after another long pause, turning to stare out into the darkness.

While saddened by the thought, Elora also found herself surprised, unsure if by the admission itself, or by the fact that he had revealed it to her at all. “They died when you were young?” It was less a question than a knowing statement.

Jarred didn’t respond immediately, his eyes scanning across the vast landscape, though his focus seemed somewhere else entirely. “I honestly don’t know.”

Elora was thrown off by the remark. “I don’t understand.”

Jarred’s response was slow coming, but when he finally turned to face her again, his expression conveyed none of the resistance she had encountered with him before. “I have no memory of them because . . . I have no memory of
anything
from that time in my life.”

The statement left Elora momentarily stunned and it took her a moment to digest before responding. “What do you mean, of anything? You mean
nothing
? Like . . .
nothing
nothing?

“Yes,” Jarred answered, stifling the faintest of grins. “
That
nothing.”

“I’m sorry,” Elora apologized. “It’s just . . . hard to imagine. What happened?”

“Honestly,” Jarred answered, “I’m not sure. All I remember is . . .
waking up
. . . in a place I didn’t recognize, feeling like I’d been chewed up and spat out the exhaust vent of a freight hauler, with no memory of anything before. A man named Hiroshi had found me, a little better off than dead, in the wreckage of a crashed escape pod, and had done what he could to treat me. I recovered, but the injuries I sustained seemed to have had the side effect of leaving me with no memory . . . of
anything
. As hard as I tried I couldn’t remember how I had gotten there or where I had come from. And it didn’t take very long for me to realize that I didn’t know who
I was
either.

“So, with no memory and no place to go, and considering Hiroshi was the only person in the universe I knew, I stayed there with him. He became my mentor . . . and my family, really. He became like a father to me. Helping me to learn who I was. And like all fathers and sons, we differed in our opinions of just who that was supposed to be exactly. He had his thoughts on the matter and, of course, I didn’t agree. So, eventually the time came for me to move on.”

Elora waited for Jarred to continue, but when he said nothing else, she realized he was finished. “So, you became a mercenary.”

Jarred let out a short laugh. “Well, not exactly. I wandered a bit. Searching for clues to my past. To who I had been.”

“Did you find anything?” she asked.

He shook his head, negatively. “No. Nothing. Everywhere I went, as far as I searched, I couldn’t find anything. It was like Jarred Archer never existed. So, I let go. I didn’t need to know who I was. That person was gone. Once I accepted that, I was free to start being who I needed to be. Someone of my own choosing.”

“So, you became a mercenary,” Elora repeated, playfully.

“Not
exactly
,” he repeated, grinning. “Or not right away, anyway. It was just . . . something I fell into after a while.”

“
Fell
into?”

Jarred shrugged. “It suited my particular skill set.”

Elora had to laugh at that and Jarred soon followed suit. The light moment passed quickly though and she felt herself grow saddened.

“You know,” she began, “as hard as losing my mother was for me, I can’t imagine not having ever known her.” She felt a twinge of pain as she considered that similarity between Jarred and her brother. “He doesn’t know it, but Ethan has her energy. Her enthusiasm and joy for life. He’s a dreamer like she was. That’s what dad always called her. What he called them both.

“I’m more like my father in that way. The constant realist. Always serious. I’ve always given Ethan a hard time because of his way. Telling him to stop his daydreaming. To grow up.” Elora felt her chest growing heavy with grief and her eyes began to tear. She didn’t bother to wipe them away. “Now I’ve lost him too. I’ve lost all of them.” She felt Jarred’s arm wrap around her and she sank into him. Unable to hold back the tidal wave of emotions any longer, she wept freely.

“You haven’t lost him,” he assured her.

She pulled herself away enough to look up at him, her vision blurred with tears. He wiped them away with his fingers and then gently held her face in his hands. His deep blue eyes exuded compassion, but beyond that she saw a deep conviction as well.

“You’ll see him again,” he vowed. “I promise you that.”

She forced herself to nod, believing his words of comfort to be just that. A kind sentiment. But words and positive thoughts wouldn’t help Ethan, wherever he was, and she felt herself sink deeper into despair.

Sliding his fingers under her chin, Jarred lifted her dropping face back up to where their eyes could meet again, but he didn’t speak. His eyes were warm and penetrating and she found herself unable to look away from them. Emotionally drained, she needed the comfort they seemed to promise. She leaned closer to his face, only slightly, momentarily fearing he would not reciprocate the action and she would be humiliated on top of the pain she already felt. Instead, he gently pulled her face the rest of the short distance to his, leaning forward to press his mouth to hers.

His lips were warm, despite the cold chill in the air, the kiss sending tendrils of electricity racing through her entire body, the sensation making her light headed. She could feel her heart pounding in her chest, so fast that it actually stunned her at first, until she remembered the night in the desert. As the wild heart rhythm began to slow, she quickly realized that it was both of their heartbeats that she was feeling again, which were beginning to become synchronized as they had that night on Isyss. Overwhelmed by the sensation, she gave into it, pressing herself into Jarred and kissing him harder.

“Hey!” came a loud call from somewhere nearby, the exact location of which she couldn’t be sure of, as she and Jarred instantly broke apart, leaving her strangely disoriented.

“There you are.” It was Kern’s voice. “We’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

Her head still swimming, Elora noticed Jarred slide off the rock formation to a standing position. In her dizzied state, she didn’t bother trying to get up just yet.

“Sorry,” Kern apologized, looking suddenly awkward. “Did we interrupt something?”