“Your eyes,” I muse.
“Eyes?”
“They went black. Like mine.”
She looks up with her hands still in the bag. “Did you see them go black?” I nod, and she tenses. “When?”
“After I got you out of that cage and Gaius ran away. You wanted to chase him, and your eyes went black. Not fully, but I could no longer see the brown.”
She grimaces and scratches her hairline. “Shit, I guess I shouldn’t have tried to stab him…” With a sigh, she adds, “I thought maybe he figured it out because I got murderously protective over you.” I frown, and she holds up a hand, palm out. “In my defense, he was saying somewildshit.”
“Is that why his hand was bandaged and you are covered in his blood?” I ask, glancing at the cuts and scrapes that cover her exposed skin. The sight of her injuries sends a confusing mixture of guilt and rage through me. It is clear what happened, and I do not like it. It makes me feel violent.
She hums and goes back to digging through the medical bag before stopping and growling in frustration. “I was so close!” Her hands cover her face, and she shakes her head. “Inches away from his fucking jugular, and then”—she drops her hands—“I got shocked or something.”
I secure the flight controls and unclip my harness. “Gaius wears an electron shield generator. That is why you could not kill him—not with a solid-state weaponanyway.”
She rubs her nose and looks away. “Do you think that’s how Marius found out? Gaius told him?”
The mention of Marius sends a fresh ache through my heart, but I manage to answer anyway. “Most likely, yes.”
She proceeds to fill me in on the details of her conversation with Marius, including everything she did not tell me earlier. With each new word, a little more of my foundation crumbles away.
“He was really interested in it,” she says before returning her focus to the medical bag.
I wish I knew what all this means, but we do not have enough information to come to any real conclusion. As much as I want to use the comms to contact home and get answers, we cannot. Not until we are a safe distance from Calidus. This ship was built for stealth, not war, so until we are out of range of Calidus’s sensors, we must stay quiet.
With an array of items set in her lap, Amara lowers the medical kit to the ground. “He asked if we’d exchanged blood. Do you know what that means?”
“Maybe.” I scrub a hand over my face and stare at the view-screen where distant stars have begun to appear as faint pinpricks of light. “But I am not sure of much anymore.”
“Tell me what you do know, and we can go from there.” There is no recrimination in her tone, no distrust, only a desire to understand, and I love her for it. She knows I am just as lost as she is, and her acceptance of that gives me hope.
I lean towards her, expecting to take her hands in mine, but she dodges my grip and reaches for my shoulder instead. Her fingers dig under the leather strap, and I do my best to compartmentalize the pain.
“On Vhorath, there is a ritual of sorts,” I explain, hoping “ritual” is the correct term. “It is done when two people choose to be together—like marriage—and theycall it a blood-binding. While it is symbolic now, its origin stems from the Zhyrrak bonds.” I bite back a hiss as she starts removing the packed gauze. It is hideously painful. “From what I have been told, it was originally used to make a bond permanent. To make it stronger.” Unable to resist, I glance down at her knee where an angry, pink cut stands proudly against her pale skin. A testament to the power of fate.
She follows my gaze, and I feel her burst of surprise as she drops her hands to her lap, fists full of bloody gauze. “Are you saying we already did it? The blood-exchange? By accident?”
I glance away. “Maybe.” Then I sigh. “Yes. I believe we did.”
“But, is it supposed to be literal? Like actually swapping blood?”
“Yes.”
She balls up the soiled gauze and sets it to the side. “Well, that’s a surprising custom.”
“Is that your only concern?” I ask as I stare at her in confusion.
She shrugs and picks up the bottle of liquid wound cleaner. “That, and our blood swap—or whatever it’s called—is incomplete. I got some of yours, but you didn’t get any of mine.”
I hum, surprised by how little concern she has. “Can I ask you something?” She nods. “If you did not think our bond was permanent, would you feel differently about … us?”
Her lips press together before she says, “No. It wouldn’t change anything for me.”
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