A soft sound escapes Sator. When I glance over, I see his luxen have flooded with brilliant gold. A color I've never seen in all our time together. Joy, I realize. Pure, overwhelming joy.
His daughter is alive. His daughter iswinning.
The human makes another sound, drawing my attention back. He's crouched down to my level and is extending one hand toward me. Palm up, fingers slightly curled.
He says something else in his strange rolling language. The tones are gentler now, almost coaxing.
I look at his outstretched hand. At this impossible creature with his smooth, unreadable face. Behind him, the Cerastean warriors are moving through the facility. Their shouts echo down corridors. Somewhere in the distance, I can still hear the crack of weapons fire.
Everything is changing.
This is a wonderful thing. I should be elated, but I am so, so tired.
But the human's hand doesn't waver. It waits, patient and steady, and his forbearance makes me reach out and place my hand into his palm.
His skin is warm. Warmer than I expected, and softer than my own. He closes his fingers carefully around my hand. Carefully, like he knows how fragile I've become, and begins to rise, pulling me gently up with him.
My legs refuse to cooperate.
I make it halfway to standing before my knees give out entirely. A small cry of frustration escapes me as I crumple. The human moves faster than I expect, catching me before I hit the floor and scooping me into his arms. He pulls me close to a broad, solid chest.
I should struggle. I should hiss and claw and fight this stranger who's put his hands on me without permission.
Instead, I sag into him, too weak to do anything but breathe and stare.
He straightens, lifting me like I weigh nothing at all. He cradles me against his chest, my head resting in the hollow of his shoulder. This close, I can see details I missed before. Faint lines around his eyes. A small scar cutting through one eyebrow. Brown hair peeking out from beneath his helmet – a dark, muted color so unlike the golden shades of my people.
That hair. I can't stop looking at it. It's the color of the dark sands of the Rel'kathari Wastes back home. Rich brown with hints of deeper umber, so different from the pale gold of my people. And it's cropped short, barely long enough to curl at his temples. Among Cerasteans, only the grieving cut their hair like that.
I stare back as he watches me with an expression I can't quite read… The pupils are round, not slitted, and surrounded by a ring of color that makes my breath catch. Blue. The bright, vivid blue of open sky. I've been surrounded by gray walls for so long that the color is almost shocking.
So impossibly, startlingly blue.
I haven't seen blue since my last glimpse of sky, the day they took me. And here it is, in the eyes of this strange creature.
The human says something again, and I shake my head weakly.
He pauses. Seems to consider. Then says one word, very slowly and deliberately: "Gew-ba."
Gho'ba? The word sounds almost like the name of the great desert raptors back home. The gho'ba are silent hunters with razor talons who strike from above without warning. An odd thing to say, but perhaps humans admire such creatures the way Cerastean warriors do.
I blink, trying to puzzle out what he is saying. "Gho-ba?"
He nods, then taps his own chest with one hand while still holding me easily with the other. "Goober."
Oh.
It's a name.Hisname. This strange male with sky-colored eyes who holds me so carefully. The simple act of introduction feels like the first normal thing to happen to me in longer than I can remember.
"A'Vanti," I manage. My voice is barely above a whisper.
The human, Goober, repeats it carefully. His strange flat tongue stumbles slightly over the syllables. "Ah-vahn-tee."
Close enough.
Just as I start to finally relax, he pulls his lips back and bares his teeth at me.
Instinct takes over.
