El and Onine (6 page)

He kicked the ash at his feet and looked over at a
blaze two away from the one beside him. “I don’t know,” he said. “We barely
know each other.”

“Does that matter?”

He shrugged again. “I know—I just—I
don’t know. Whatever.” He sounded defeated.

“She seems excited.”

“That’s good.” He tugged at his gloves, pulling one
of them back on. I compared his calloused hands to those of Onine without
realizing it. Tal’s were inelegant, imperfect, hard, but they were like mine
and that made me feel connected to him.

“I guess—listen,” he said, “I need to talk to
you.”

I didn’t know when Tiro would return but had to be
in the Temple when he did. “Meet me in the field.”

Tal raised one eyebrow and shook his head. “I can
come to the shanty?”

It was already improper for us to spend time
together now that he was reassigned. If we met in the field, no one would see
us. “Better not,” I said.

“Right. Are you feeling okay?”

“Sure.”

“Cause you’re wet.” He lifted his hand to point out
the circles of liquid that stained the fabric under my armpits. I looked down
at the wetness, horrified at the sight of my body melting. The drops of sweat
tickled my torso, as they dripped down its sides.

“It’s nothing,” I said and turned to go.

When he called to me again, I was halfway across the
fire patio and ignored him. I headed into the steam and got lost in the heat.

“We are made for this,” Minosh had said. “Our skin
is impervious to heat.”

“Is that why they came?”

“No,” she’d said. “They are here for another
reason.”

“What reason, Minosh?” It was a question I’d asked
knowing the answer was beyond me.

“Because we possess the thing they value most.”

“What?”

“The treasure inside of us.”

“What is it?”

“Ah, my little Pchi. Something we cannot live
without.” On and on she went like this, dancing around the purpose of our treasure.

“Why do they want it?”

“They are without one,” she’d said.

“If we give them ours, will they leave?”

“They are here to stay, my little Pchi.”

Minosh had seen our planet’s future in the baths. She
knew what the Venusians wanted but she kept their secret to the end.

***

I waited for Tal in the wheat field, admiring the stars
that twinkled in the darkness of Luna’s slivered light. I felt insignificant when
I looked up at the sky. The fires were endless, so bright, so faraway. I
wondered what I looked like to them, if they ever looked down on me. Was I as
bright and endless too?

“El.” Tal’s voice was rich and deep and so real I
could almost touch it, a welcomed change from Onine’s screech, though I’ll
admit I was disappointed when I heard him instead of the keeper coming through
the rows of wheat. Even though I wasn’t expecting the Kyprian, I longed for him
still.

“Are you here?”

“I’m here.” I came out from between the rows and
revealed myself. I’d heard him shuffle through the soil. He didn’t walk with
the grace of a Kyprian.

“I’m glad we met out here.” He smiled and reached
for my hand, and his touch sent a chill through my nape. “Come with me.”

He led me away from the light of the shanties and
deeper into the field. I didn’t ask where he was taking me. It didn’t matter. When
we finally stopped at the knoll we’d laid on as younglings, I was indifferent
to the place. It was tarnished now, its gold browning over time, and we no
longer slid down it in the sacks of silk Minosh had made for us. “Sit with me,”
he said.

Darkness had come upon us. Luna had tucked herself
into the clouds and I could barely see Tal’s face. His dark blue eyes were lost
in the backdrop of a black sky.

“I’ve got to tell you something,” he said. “But I
don’t want you to worry.”

I looked down at his hands and wanted to pick at the
soot beneath his fingernails. He sighed my name and leaned in closer. I
shivered when he put his hand on my shoulder.

“This is going to sound strange but you have to
believe me, okay?”

I nodded.

“Venusian and sapient are going to mate.”

“What?” I whispered my disbelief into the field.

He cleared his throat. “They did it once already when
they first arrived.”

“No,” I said. “That’s impossible—the fire starter.”

“Maybe that was just a story.”

“Minosh said she saw it.”

“Did she?”

I dropped my hand to the ground beside me and dug
into it with my nails.

“Maybe it was a rumor, spread to enforce the rule,”
he said. “Maybe no one actually saw it happen.”

“Do you think Minosh is a liar?” The hairs on the
back of my neck rose.

“Of course not,” he said. “But she’d say anything to
keep you safe.”

“I don’t understand.”

“When they first arrived, the goddess insisted on a union—she
chose the two species herself.” I couldn’t speak. “It’s the reason she let sapients
live. If they’d chosen to mate with the likes of Bendo, we’d be dust.”

“But how?”

“Why is the question,” he said. “Sapients are reliable
breeders but the Kyprian aren’t and so the goddess prepared the Venusian for it—the
contact—and she expected the best possible outcome.”

“Did the sapient survive?”

“They both did.”

“And what happened? Was there a youngling?”

“No,” he said. “That’s why they’re trying again.”

“How do you know this?”

He looked at me with such serious eyes I became
distracted for a moment. “Minosh told me.”

“How could she know?”

“She saw it in the water.”

“Her visions aren’t always—”

“No,” he said. “But this one was real.”

“Did she know the sapient?” He shrugged his
shoulders. “It’s possible, isn’t it?” He stared at me blankly. “Why would Minosh
tell you this?” I didn’t mean to sound accusatory.

He brushed the hair from his eyes, as though
deflecting my suspicion. “She wanted me to protect you.”

“From what?”

My question disappointed him—I could see it on
his face.

“Minosh knew—”

“I’d be selected.”

“Yes,” he said. “She came to see me before she left
and begged me to watch over you, to keep you from them. She told me to take you
away if I had to. That’s when she told me everything.”

“It sounds extreme for my creator to ask such of you.”
I thought of all the times Minosh had told me I was special—she must have
meant something else altogether. She didn’t want me to become a specimen for Venusian
experiments, but an outlier? An exile from the only home I’d ever known? Was I
to follow Tal to the outer sands? Could she have wanted that?

“Why didn’t she tell me herself?” I asked Minosh the
question but Tal thought it was for him.

“She thought you’d be frightened by the prospect of
being with a Kyprian and she was worried it would delay your—well, she
said it was important for you to reach full sapience before taking you away.”

“I’m staying here,” I said.

He looked at me knowingly. “I assume you’ve had the
change—”

“I won’t discuss this with you.”

He kicked the dirt at his
feet. “I want to help you, El.” He said my name as though he’d never said it
before and it was strange to hear it aloud in such an intimate setting. It
almost sounded unnatural—alien.

“Where’s she now?” I said.

“Who?”

“The sapient.”

Tal put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed. He didn’t
know and couldn’t say if the story was true. I could see it in his wicked eyes.

“So she may be a myth too—a rumor to put fear
in us,” I said. “What about the Venusian?”

He shook his head.

“How is it you don’t know,” I said. “You seem to
know so much. I mean, how could none of us know what’s happening here? It’s our
planet—it was ours before they came and it should be ours after—”

“Terra belongs to no creature.” The word was
strange. I’d never heard anyone name our planet, our home. Terra was unfamiliar
and yet I knew the name. I’d dreamed of it.

“If their first attempt was successful,” I said, “why’d
they wait so long to try again?”

Tal shrugged.

“Why’d they risk contact?”

“I know as much as you,” he said.

“Hardly.” I crossed my arms in front of my frock. A
chilly air rolled in and Tal moved closer to put his hands on my shoulders.

“They’re confident they’ll get what they want from
the second attempt.”

“What do they want?” I asked defiantly, fearing the
answer.

“An offspring.”

I’d wanted a youngling, but not a mix breed of Venusian
fire and sapient clay. “Our treasure,” I said.

“Our what?”

“The cultivator’s womb—that’s what allows us
to reproduce—that’s what they want, what Kypria’s come to take—but—but
what can they possibly give us in return?”

Tal squeezed me with his embrace. “They won’t take
you,” he said. “I won’t let them.”

I didn’t see much choice in the matter. I was
foolish to think I was being saved for something greater. I was merely collateral
in an intergalactic union—a simple vessel.

“Who’ve I been paired with?” I already knew. Onine
had all but told me in the garden. “He’ll lose his beauty …” I didn’t mean to
speak aloud.

I could barely breathe, as my throat tightened. Tal pulled
me closer and bathed me in coldness. A cooler breeze rushed up over the tips of
the young blades of wheat—the warm season hadn’t reached us yet. The
smell of his skin made me feel alive and I put my cheek on his chest to hear
his heart beat. He didn’t flinch, holding me as though he’d never let me go. It
felt good to touch, it felt right.

“El,” he said in a low voice, his smoky breath
comforting me in ways too subtle to explain. If my flesh could’ve melted into
his, evaporated at once, I’d have welcomed it. “I’ll never let anything happen
to you.”

I let him hold me, as I wept, imagining the
suffocation of a Venusian flame.

“El,” he said, as though giving my name to the
darkness, “I want you to be mine again.”

His admission made me think of Onine. I broke our
embrace, pushing away from him and wiping my tears with the back of my hand. Our
tender moment was swept up in the breeze.

“You can’t save me,” I said. “I won’t leave the
Kyprian.”

Tal kicked the soil at his feet, tossing his head
back to shake the hair from his brow. He reached for me again, catching my hand.
He threaded my fingers with his and brought our hands up to his chest. “I can keep
you safe,” he said. “I will.”

He squeezed his palm against mine and I knew he could
feel my warm skin. I pulled my hand from his and tucked it into the fold of my
frock. I searched for Luna in the sky to avoid his gaze. “I’ve been selected,”
I said. “I have to obey the will of the Kyprian goddess.”

I’d been chosen for Onine—I couldn’t tell Tal
what happened to me in the garden, and in the golden forest, but I knew I’d
been chosen for the keeper. He’d already tried to make contact, to tempt clay
with fire, but had lost his nerve.

Tal looked at me with an expression that tore into
me a little. When he didn’t blink his wicked eyes, I felt their coldness
penetrate mine. Before reaching for me again, he caught himself and let his
hand fall to his side. I imagined the blush before it rushed into his cheeks.

“What has he done?”

“Nothing,” I said.

He moved forward and caught my face in the palms of his
smoky hands. He squeezed my cheeks, pinching my skin with his thumbs and
forefingers. “I’m going to take you away from here and you will be mine again.”

Free yourself from your
chains, but do not let him take you. You do not want to anger Kypria. She sees
you.
The
words of Saturnia’s sister replayed in my mind and I drew my head back, forcing
him to release his grip. The smell of smoke stayed on my cheeks.

“I won’t go with you,” I said. “I’ve been chosen.”

“You don’t know what you’re saying. You don’t want
this—to mate with him—with such a being.”

“He’s not—” I stopped myself. Pointless to
argue, I’d already decided to give myself to Onine willingly but Tal didn’t
need to know it.

“Tiro is the most foul Kyprian here,” he said.

“Tiro?”

He sighed and looked more defeated than he’d been
since the start of our conversation. “You’ve been selected for the floor master.
I thought you knew.”