They found Ki’Remi and Issa hovering over a side table, making final adjustments to a spread of delicious food on heavy ceramic platters.
Both whirled around as the couple entered.
‘You’re here! We wondered if you were too tired to eat, so I’m glad you came up. Sit,’ Issa commanded, gesturing at the carved timber chairs. ‘Fill up first. We talk shop once your blood sugar stops bottoming out.’
She slid a packed plate toward Sheba.
The meal consisted of a thick-cut seared rib-eye steak, a pile of bitter greens tossed in citrus oil, and a loaf of warm sourdough bread.
Also on offer was a bowl of roasted yams in spiced coconut milk. The surface of the Sacran delicacy shimmered with a fine mist of edible gold dust.
Sheba sliced into the steak, the juices mingling with the sweet, earthy cream of the purple and white tubers.
She let out a moan. ‘So good.’
By her side, Idan ate in silence, his eyes flicking across the stateroom.
He tracked his gaze over the ship’s interior and at the void beyond the viewport.
Yet Sheba sensed his mind churning. He was likely five steps ahead, lost in his sudden change of circumstances, while dissecting the rot of Sulfiqar’s demands.
Used to his quietude, she gave him his space and dove into conversation with her friends.
They spoke of the Riders, the politics of Selene, and her growing family on Eden II.
The heart-to-heart eventually drifted to the evacuation of her colleagues from Lattaya Medical Centre.
‘The team traveled safely to Dunia,’ Ki’Remi reassured her. ‘Those who needed it are receiving treatment, and the rest are home with their kin. However, you should know, the families of Brad and Imani held their funerals five days ago.’
Sheba’s jaw tightened.
She gripped the edge of the table to stave off the sudden swell of sorrow, her eyes burning.
Beside her, Idan’s hand covered hers, his thumb tracing a slow, grounding circle over her knuckles.
‘I don’t know why I keep falling apart,’ she muttered. ‘It’s been weeks.’
Issa reached across the steel surface, touching her other hand while sending a gentle Sacran psionic tap, a pulse of cooling energy that settled Sheba’s frantic heart.
‘It’s normal, Sheba. Your grief is to be expected,’ Ki’Remi murmured.
‘Our encounter with Ty and Sulfiqar probably didn’t help,’ Idan rasped. ‘It might have ripped open old wounds.’
Sheba whispered, nodded, thinking of her parents and Idan’s mother, and their senseless deaths.
‘Then let time work, honey,’ Issa insisted. ‘Don’t rush the healing. Cry, weep, feel what you need to until the storm passes on its own.’
Sheba gave Issa a wry smile as she wiped the corner of her eyes with the napkin Idan handed her.
‘Sante, all of you, for letting me be messy.’
‘Anytime,’ Ki’Remi grinned. ‘But then again, you were always messy. I remember how one time you slid down a flight of stairs with a patient’s food tray in front of me a few years ago.’
‘But only half the soup in a bowl spilled because my ass bumped the rim of the stairwell,’ Sheba laughed.
They shifted to reminiscing and laughing about the good old days, which lifted her spirits and made her momentary troubles seem far away.
They also moved on to a dessert of tart blackberries poached in hibiscus syrup, paired with glasses of viscous tawny port.
