Or I choose badly?
I do not trust myself.
Unlike my brothers, I was not raised with my family. Instead, I was sent to be raised with other fourth sons. I’ve never had a home, even though I had a place to live. My entire life has been about survival.
Living in the colony has been a small respite, but it is too calm and too easy, and I have been waiting for it to end. Being asked to go on this mission is the ending I’ve been searching for. Perhaps returning to the mainland is what is right for me.
One man on the trip has already made it clear that he is not happy I am coming. He thinks I am a traitor. And while it should be easy for me to grab one of the women on the trip, and present myself to a tribe, I do not want that either.
I do not want to return to my tribe, as they did not want me.
And I do not expect another tribe to want me either.
“Your thoughts are dark,” Edilk says.
“They are a storm…and have been for a while.” But I do not share my fear.
“You need a mate.”
I grunt when I should laugh it off. Edilk seems to think that having a mate will solve everything. That a woman will calm my mind and erase my doubts. I fear having a mate will only make them worse. She will become the center of my storm, and I will know no peace.
I take the hat off and shove it in my pocket. “They are sending me to get rid of me.”
Edilk smiles. “They are sending you because you are distracting all the women.”
I glare at him. They no longer joke and tell me to speak of my accomplishments so I can be chosen. But I can see in their eyes that they want that for me because they think I will be happier. If I believed that, I’d have gotten to know the interested women better and accepted their offer to take me as a mate.
But some human women do not take the Honey mating bond seriously. They used me to make human men jealous, so I stopped playing their game and ignored them all.
“Are you worried about returning home?”
“I am banished.” I shrug, not needing to say anything else about what that means. “I expected to die years ago.” Then I expected to die crossing the ocean. It would’ve been a worthy death even if there was no one to tell the tale of our adventure. Not only did we cross the ocean, but we found another tribe of people. People who crossed the stars seeking a new life.
In that respect, we’re not very different from the humans.
There are people in the colony who are not happy. And that is true of every tribe. Even among my brothers, there were arguments about how best to ensure our survival. Those who only wanted to raid and tempt death never stayed long because that was never what Edilk’s tribe of the banished was about.
He wanted more than fighting to survive. He wanted to live…and now he is. I do not begrudge them their happiness. Nor do I want to fill them with my own fears.
“That’s not what I asked,” Edilk says.
A sigh escapes as I sit. I do not blame the colony for sending me. I have no mate, and I have not made a home here. I do not fear death, as it has shadowed me since the day I was born. I was told that my mother wanted to kill me to save me from the life of a banished warrior, but my father didn’t let her. I was three when I was taken away from my tribe, and the memory of my parents is nothing more than a few faded fragments.
“I am not returning home. We are not landing near my tribe.” The markings on my arm are all that remain of the tribe I was born into.
“I have never seen you so reluctant before leaving on an adventure. You stepped onto my ship without this much hesitation.”
“And now you want me gone too.”
“I do not. We will miss you. We would not have survived this long without you, and I want to hear all about the trip when you return.”
I nod, even though I don’t expect to return. I expect the humans to betray me, but I do not want to give Edilk that burden. “You expect me to cross the ocean three times?”
“The human ship is faster.”
“It flies.” Perhaps if the human ship traveled on water, it would appear safer.
When I look at the stars at night, I no longer see the campfires of all the banished who came before me, because the humans told me they are all suns, and around each sun are many planets.
