She glanced at the slate, then back to Sheba.
‘We also tracked your skimmer’s descent during a perimeter sweep. A team of local villagers has been dispatched to retrieve the remains. Did you know what caused your crash?’
Sheba struggled to remember, then shook her head. ‘It happened all so fast.’
The doctor nodded in understanding. ‘De nada, the most important thing is that you’re safe.’
‘How did I get here?’ Sheba asked, the words hoarse and raw, her memory still fuzzy.
The doctor’s mouth curved up.
‘You appeared in our emergency ward. One moment, the triage floor was empty. Next, you materialized in one of the beds we left out. Unconscious. No craft. No escort. Just you and a pile of your clothes and gear wrapped up in a tent on the tiles beside you.’
She studied Sheba’s face. ‘Do you have any idea who might have brought you in?’
Sheba drew a careful breath as recall slid into place, tightening her chest.
‘A man,’ she muttered. ‘He pulled me from the wreckage and carried me.’
Linh lifted a brow. ‘Long, dark hair,’ she murmured, ‘muscles for days, glowing eyes, and a presence that unsettles?’
Sheba nodded once.
A knowing smile touched Linh’s mouth. ‘Then you’ve met Idan. He patrols the high ridges and deserts around here. A sigma, if you believe in labels. A guardian, beloved by the locals. We think he’s some meta, Lattaya’s self-appointed sentinel.’
The nameIdanstruck Sheba with a jolt.
Her pulse kicked up, the increased heart rate spiking on the monitors.
She sank back into the hover bed, the canvas ceiling drifting above her, every nerve alive with a surge of feeling she could not explain.
Her gaze slid toward the plex window of the medical tent, where the Lattaya Hills gorge opened in a sweep of stone, shadow, and light.
Despite the migraine pounding her head, wonder unfurled through her chest, quiet and immense, as if some buried part of her was awakening after eons in the dark.
4
Beware of Gods Charming Serpents
Amonth later, Sheba pushed through a pair of scarred metal doors and stepped into a bar that gave up on respectability decades ago.
The establishment, if one could call it that, squatted on the edge of Lattaya Village.
Above it, two and a half moons hung heavy in a star-drenched sky.
They cast pale bands of light across the packed-dirt street outside and through the open slats overhead.
The lunar orbs were visible through the establishment’s tin roof dotted with holes.
Its walls were stained with smoke and grease.
Old, dried candle drippings from sconces that had been replaced so many times that the wax had created its own art on the partitions.
‘Talk about eclectic,’ Sheba murmured to Linh, her boss and friend, who, along with a few of their colleagues, accompanied her.
‘The brews, however, are out of this world, allow me to treat you to their in-house specialty,’ Linh said with a grin.
Their boots crunched on the peanut shell-strewn floor, shoulders brushing strangers as they ordered their drinks at the ramshackle rattan counter.
