Blayze froze, eyes wide, as if she’d just touched him with something electric. “I — did I?”
“Yes,” she said, smiling. “Hold still.”
He held still. Perfectly still. Aelanna wasn’t sure he was breathing.
Nayli wiped the corner of his mouth with the gentle efficiency of someone who’d done this a thousand times for younger siblings or distracted friends. When she finished, she smoothed the napkin on the table and gave him an approving nod.
“There. Much better.”
“Thank you. I… thank you,” he stuttered.
Nayli tilted her head. “Are you alright?”
“Yes,” he said immediately — too immediately. “I’m fine. Perfect. Very fine.”
Kora tittered from the other end of the table. “He’s malfunctioning.”
That comment brought him to his senses, and Aelanna suppressed a grin.
“I am not malfunctioning,” Blayze protested, sitting up straighter.
“You kind of are,” Kora said, amused. “You look like someone just patted your head and told you you’re a good boy.”
Blayze’s flush deepened to a shade Aelanna didn’t know skin could reach.
Nayli glared at her. “Kora! Don’t tease him.”
“I’m not teasing,” Kora said. “I’m observing.”
“Your observations are unhelpful,” Lero growled across the tables.
Kora ignored him.
Blayze fidgeted with his cup, shoulders hunched. “I don’t mind,” he said quietly. “She can… um… help. If she wants.”
Nayli’s expression softened into something unexpectedly tender. “I don’t mind helping,” she said. “You’re very sweet.”
Blayze made a small sound — half-sigh, half-whimper — that he tried to disguise as a cough.
Darren was on her mind, though, and she wanted to know what had happened to Dhelta and why it hurt him so much to talk about it. She mumbled something about getting more coffee to her breakfast companions and got up from the table. She made her way to the counter and waiting until Darren had turned his attention from her, she slipped out, caught up with Pilot Joel as he strode down the corridor and she walked to the elevator with him. He didn’t pace his stride to match hers, and she had to run to keep up. He was smartly turned out in his cream-colored dress uniform.
“Pilot, what happened to your planet?” she asked,slightly breathless.
He gave her a quizzical glance. “Dhelta? Your bodyguards can tell you.”
“They don’t want to talk about it.”
Understanding softened his face. “Ah, too painful. Yithir, our sun, swallowed it in a massive flare,” he explained in a level tone. “Unfortunately, Dhelta’s orbit was close to our star. It had its advantages but being in range of the flares was a fatal disadvantage. Yithir was a red dwarf, you see, and the thing about dying stars is they sometimes flare.”
“How come you don’t mind talking about it?” she asked as they reached the elevator. He pressed his palm to the panel to call it.
“I left home early to join the military. I became a pilot and I spent more time on this ship than I did on Dhelta. When I heard the planet was no more, I offered myself, my crew and my ship to the emperor, and he accepted me with open arms.”
The elevator arrived and the doors slid open.
The pilot bowed.
“If you’ll excuse me, I have a ship to land.”
