Zan’s huge hand drops over the rim.
We engage in the most absurd struggle imaginable. Zan is a mountain of coiled muscle. He could easily rip the basket from my grasp. Yet he is gripping it with only two fingers, rigid with terror, his claws completely retracted. His body language screams that he believes if he pulls with even a fraction of hisstrength, my arms will snap clean off my body, and Kol will destroy him.
I dig my boots into the wet stone and lean back, throwing my entire weight into the pull. My muscles scream in protest.
“Kah,” Zan grunts. The sound scrapes from his throat, a hesitant, desperate noise.
I know he does not just mean ‘no’. I know he means ‘release it, frail one.’
“Go away, Zan,” I pant.
He shifts his grip, trying to gently slide his fingers beneath the basket to lift the weight without pulling against my arms. It is such a thoughtful, protective gesture that it makes my chest ache, but I refuse to let go. The damp fibers squish against my palm, reopening the small crack in my skin.
“Eh-ree-kah,” he whispers miserably. He throws a desperate, panicked look over his shoulder toward the central fire. His eyes plead for intervention.
“Kol is watching,” Justine rasps from the shadows, the words forced out on a tight, painful wheeze. She is braced heavily against the rock wall, a bead of sweat tracing down her pale temple as if she is being crushed. “Kol’s frequency in the mindspace... it is like an immovable stone pressing on the skull. Nobody is daring to breathe.”
I feel it then. The consuming, heavy pressure of a golden stare.
I look past Zan.
Kol sits by the fire, a gourd resting forgotten on his thigh. He is motionless, his amber eyes locked onto me. He tracks every detail: my white-knuckled grip on the basket, my braced boots, the stubborn set of my jaw. The sheer intensity of his focus feels physical, tangible, a searing heat that sinks deep into my chest and pools warmly in my belly. My breath hitches.
I do not want to feel this pull. I do not want to want the attention of a ferocious alien warlord with a glowing chest. It terrifies me.
I grip the basket tighter. I anchor myself in the frustration of the moment, seeking any distraction from Kol’s heavy stare. I lean back as hard as I can, jerking the basket.
Zan, clearly convinced that this sudden motion will shatter my spine, immediately lets go.
The sudden lack of resistance sends me flying backward. I hit the stone floor with a dull thud, the heavy basket tumbling squarely into my lap. I wheeze, the breath knocked from my lungs. But I hold the basket.
I scramble swiftly to my feet, ignoring the horrified, deafening silence from the massive warrior who just dropped me. I hug the wet basket tightly against my chest and begin the trembling walk toward the drying ledge. My arms shake with the effort, and my boots slip on the damp stone, but I keep walking.
I will not let them take this from me.
Chapter 2
THE ABSOLUTE WORST FAMILY REUNION IN THE HISTORY OF THE GALAXY
ERIKA
Idump the wet basket onto the drying ledge. My breath hitches, my arms trembling from the exertion, but I focus on the rough stone beneath the weave.
Through trial and mostly error, we learned that the acidic red algae cannot survive direct heat. A sharp shaft of sunlight bleeds through a crack in the cavern ceiling here, and if I lay the woven strips flat across the warm stone, the algae bakes and flakes off by nightfall. Clean filters by morning. That is the goal. That is the only thing I allow myself to think about right now.
Not the absurd tug-of-war. Not the way every single warrior in that cavern watched me march away with my basket like I had just challenged their warlord himself. I did not. I carried a basket. That is all that happened.
My arms are still shaking as I grab the first strip of damp fiber and stretch it flat. Then a second. Then a third.
I am reaching for the fourth piece when my hand stalls.
I pause, tilting my head to listen. The soft scritching of bone on stone has gone silent again. A frown knits my brow as I dry my hands on my pants and walk slowly toward the main cavern. Before I even exit the tunnel, I realize the soft murmur of conversation among the human women is also gone.
The entire atmosphere of the cavern has shifted, and this time, it has nothing to do with me.
A shape appears in the cavern mouth. It is massive, hunched. A Drakav. But he is moving so draggingly slow it looks like the air itself has become too thick to walk through.
I do not recognize him at first.
