Chapter 27
When Mayra awoke, she was alone. Pulling the blankets up around her, she considered all that had passed in the hours before she’d fallen asleep.
I stabbed Sanri. Could that have really happened?She looked down at her hands and realized that traces of blood were caked around her fingers. It had happened. She’d tried to murder the woman.
It had all seemed to make a sick sort of sense when she’d done it. Her inner voice had convinced her of how deep the plot against her had run and how Sanri was a part of it. The woman had been helping her to slit her own throat, for fuck’s sake. Mayra had done what she had to do.
But after, when the voice inside her was eerily silent, she’d wondered if she’d made a mistake. Then Nojan had ordered her to bed, where she’d been accosted by nightmares and visions. Was any of it true? Would the things she saw happen? Some had seemed contradictory, like her marriage to Nojan in a field of flowers versus being alone on a planet filled with fire. Seeing the future certainly wasn’t like what she’d thought it would be.
And she had vague memories of Nojan joining her on the bed last night. He’d made passionate love to her after she’d begged him to. Had that happened, or was it just another one of her dreams? It had seemed real, and her lower regions were sore this morning. Perhaps it had happened.
Oh, gods, I asked him to touch my pussy, she thought, suddenly mortified. She’d shown such desperation that she wondered if he could still respect her this morning. Then she sat up in bed, realizing that she had bigger worries on her plate.
Mayra wasn’t sure how long she’d slept, but she figured they must be getting close to their destination. She just wasn’t sure exactly where they were headed.Vartik or Vanfia?she asked herself. In the end, it didn’t matter.Either way, I can’t show up with blood on my hands in one of Nojan’s dirty shirts.
She padded into the shower, letting the hot water wash away the cobwebs in her brain along with the remnants of blood around her neck. The wound had disappeared, and she knew that Nojan must have healed her while she slept. Mayra felt shaky, as if she’d been buffeted by hurricane-force winds for days. She soaped up trembling limbs and tried not to think about how she’d shared a shower with Nojan only the day before.
Last night, he’d said things, wonderful things, when he was inside her. The thought that they might be true was the only thing holding her together. She finished the shower and wrapped herself in a towel, heading once more to his wardrobe in the hopes of finding something serviceable. What she found was a dark trench coat with a row of shiny buttons and a cloth belt. It likely came down just past Nojan’s waist, but on her, it fell to the knee. Grabbing one of his plain white T-shirts, she threw it on underneath, then belted the trench coat around her. It would have to do.
She stood at the bedchamber door and focused on her breathing. This was the moment of truth. If Nojan was being honest, she’d walk out this door to find herself headed toward a new planet, home to a superior species, one of whom had professed his love for her. In this incarnation of her destiny, she would be protected by the most handsome man in the galaxy, one who brought her intense pleasure. One who she loved with all of her sad little heart.
Otherwise, they were headed to Vanfia and a lifetime of servitude. The man that she loved with all of her sad little heart had betrayed her, used her, and ultimately led her back into the servitude that had so crushed her spirit. Even a couple of stabbings couldn’t get her out of a lifetime spent catering to Rantel’s whims.
Which would it be?
For an oracle, she was really bad at telling the future.
She rested her head against the door for a moment, her limbs trembling. It would either be the best thing or the worst thing to ever happen to her, so she was understandably anxious about opening the door. Then she remembered that, either way, she was fated to take part in the Battle of the End, some kind of apocalyptic war that would pit good against evil for the fate of all worlds. When she considered her life in that perspective, she figured even Rantel paled in comparison to the apocalypse.
Another deep breath and she opened the door.
Stepping through, she was surprised at how mundane everything seemed. Sanri was sitting at the table, eating a bowl of something. Her eyes followed Mayra as she headed toward the console where Nojan sat. Mayra approached the man who’d captured her heart. She felt suddenly shy, unsure of where to begin. Maybe it was best to lay it all out on the table.
“Are we almost there?” she asked.
“Yes. We land in five minutes.” He swiveled around to look at her. “Would you like to have a look?”
Mayra nodded, waiting with her heart in her throat as Nojan punched up the viewscreen. Would it be the yellow and pink swirls of Vanfia that appeared, or the image of a mystery planet unknown to her?
The viewscreen winked on and Mayra’s breath caught in her chest. “It’s beautiful,” she said at last, meaning her words. The planet was a lovely mixture of blues and greens, running the spectrum from the lightest lime to the deepest navy and everything in between. A few purple-tinged clouds spiraled their way along the surface, like the lightest icing on the top of an exquisite cake.
“Home,” Nojan said, his eyes shining.
“Eh,” Sanri said, and Mayra turned to see the woman shrug a shoulder. “You seen one world, you’ve seen them all.”
Mayra cocked an eyebrow but decided not to engage. She would spend the rest of this short trip avoiding the evil woman and would only breathe easily when she’d seen the back of her as she departed into the distance.
She seated herself to watch Nojan make preparations for landing. It was hard to sit patiently as she felt a wave of overpowering relief wash over her. Nojan had been telling the truth. He’d promised to bring her to Vartik, and he did. All of her suppositions of betrayal had been unfounded.
Mayra wanted to apologize but didn’t think that was the right time. Once they’d landed, she would pull him aside and let him know how bad she felt about everything.He loves me, she thought with wonder. It hadn’t been a dream or a lie.He loves me and wants to spend the rest of his life with me.
The craft entered the atmosphere, and soon, the viewscreen was filled with amazing sights. They glided past pink snowcapped mountains and hills full of swaying grasses. The ship drew closer, and suddenly, they were flying over fields of yellow flowers.
Mayra clutched at her chest. The flower fields from her vision, they were here on Vartik. She recalled cupping her pregnant belly, remembered being whirled around with Nojan while they laughed in a joy she’d never before experienced.
And then she recalled the flames. And the voice that had blotted out everything else in the universe.This is the End.
Shaking her head, she tried to clear it of such terrible thoughts.No, it doesn’t have to be that way.That doesn’t have to be my future. I’ll do whatever I can to make sure Vartik isn’t scorched by the flames of the final battle.
