They didn’t really look like home though.
I just missed it and anywhere I looked, I saw it.
But I wasn’t home.
I was far from it.
The bright fluorescent leaves were enough evidence of that, never mind the carriage we were using to ride back to the farm and the bizarre creature that pulled it.
Tall and sleek, it reminded me of a horse… if it’d been turned inside out and covered with tiny blue starfish.
Its nostrils flared and tiny finger-like tendrils extended out, reaching toward me.
It was what a Predator might ride.
And all the way home, Kayal was quiet.
It wasn’t hard to imagine what was on his mind.
He’d taken off suddenly and disappeared outside.
I stood in that big drafty old room and looked after him, wondering if it was something I should have been worried about.
Finally, realizing there was nothing I could do, I shrugged and went back to picking through the old items.
I’d always enjoyed picking through random items back home.
It was the thrill of thinking I might discover a bargain or a long-lost treasured heirloom.
Except I couldn’t name even a fraction of the things piled up on these dusty old tables, never mind what their uses might be.
That was why I finally decided on the plates.
They were about the only thing I could identify.
I glanced at Kayal who sat looking forlornly out the window, peering at the sky like it concealed a great secret.
And to him, it did.
“Kayal?” I said. “Are you all right?”
He hesitated only a moment before explaining what happened with the spy and the doom he’d inadvertently caused.
He seemed to take a great deal of relief in telling me about it.
I doubted he had many people to speak with about such things.
The moment he finished explaining the event, he eased into his seat like he might sleep for a week, the poison having been pulled from his system.
He leaned into me and I ran my fingers through his hair and over his smooth horns.
I wondered how I had managed to live my life so far without having him beside me.
When I thought back to the cave, my cheeks burned.
His strength, his power, focused only on me and my body for three whole hours…
Wow.
I’d never been lucky in love but it turned out maybe that wasn’t entirely my fault.
The only men I could choose came from the same planet and it turned out my soul mate wasn’t from there.
He was from Qyah’an’ka.
I cursed the day the aliens had come to do battle over me, but now I rejoiced it.
If it wasn’t for that strange turn of events, I never would have come across Kayal and would still be wallowing in my misery.
Yes, things hadn’t turned out the way I expected, but that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.
I had wandered from one failed relationship to another, and it had all been, in a weird way, expected.
It was what always happened.
So why shouldn’t the most shocking thing to ever happen to me deliver a different result?
The carriage pulled to a stop and I shifted the lace curtain aside.
We’d arrived.
I kissed Kayal on the forehead and whispered:
“We’re back.”
He woke up, having fallen asleep, yawned, kissed me on the cheek, and climbed from the carriage.
He helped me down and crossed the driver’s palm with a handful of coins.
With no further to go and little chance of finding more passengers down this isolated road, the driver turned his carriage around and headed back to town.
We knocked on the farmhouse door and waited as Pana answered it.
“You don’t need to knock!” she said. “Treat our home like it’s yours.”
She ushered us inside and we found Yoath and young Kayal in the front room bent over a board game that looked suspiciously like chess.
“We wanted to thank you for letting us stay here,” I said, and Kayal extended the bag to them.
“You didn’t need to do that!” Pana said, wiping her hands on her apron. “It’s been an honor to have you in our home.”
She took the gift—it would have been an insult to do otherwise—and cooed over the new plates.
“They’re not the most beautifully designed things in the world,” I said. “But they remind me of home. I wanted you to think about us sometimes while you’re eating your delicious home-cooked meals.”
“My girl, these are the very last thing I would use to eat. They’re going to take pride of place in my display cabinet.”
Touched, Pana wrapped her arms around me and Kayal.
She had tears in her eyes and it was hard not to reciprocate.
“It’s been a real pleasure having you here,” she said, her hug with Kayal holding for a little longer than it should have. “You’re everything a Qyah should be.”
It was the closest thing to showing pride in her grown-up son without admitting what she knew about us.
She must have known something was going on, even if she couldn’t quite explain it.
I got the feeling she didn’t want to know all the details.
I turned to leave but Kayal offered resistance.
In his face, I saw that same conflict raging.
His lips moved but the words were inaudible.
“We should go,” I said.
He started, coming awake from wherever he had drifted off to.
He didn’t move and remained where he stood.
His eyes locked onto his mother and he lowered his voice, finally coming to a decision.
“Pana, there’s something I need to tell you. It’s about what will happen as soon as we leave.”
I was taken aback.
He’d been the one to insist we wouldn’t tell his mother the truth about what would happen the moment we entered that storm cloud.
“The moment we leave the atmosphere, the Shadow—”
Pana waved a hand to silence him.
“Hush, child. What will be, will be. No one has the right to change it.”
There it was.
Admission she knew what was going on.
Maybe she did have magical powers.
She caught the confused expression on Kayal’s face, cocked her head to one side, and pressed her hands to her wide hips.
“What, you think a mom doesn’t know her
