My anger dissipated beneath the logic of Ava’s argument.
Was it too much to hope she was right?
Too much to pray my parents had opened that letter, seen its contents, and acted upon it?
Was it too much to hope they were still alive?
After all these years…
The cynical part of me refused to believe it.
And yet, with the birth of the burgeoning relationship between me and Ava, that tiny sliver of hope that’d been sustained by the inanimate paper rose she gifted me all those years ago, began to swell and morph into a monster larger even than my cynicism.
It was at least possible.
And right now, that was all I needed.
“What sort of message would they leave?” I said.
“Only you can answer that. You know them better than anyone. Where do you think they would leave something for us to find?”
I paced around the bedroom.
“Somewhere they knew the Shadow wouldn’t think to look, somewhere they knew would survive these years. They wouldn’t have much time with the Shadow raining down on them from above… So it would have to be obvious, small, where the Shadow wouldn’t understand the message even if they found it.”
I peered about the room at the disheveled clothing, drawers, and hastily opened wardrobes.
This was where they were when they prepared to leave, I thought.
It was also the most likely place they would leave a message for me to find.
My mother was a simple and humble woman.
She wouldn’t have designed anything crazy or over the top.
She didn’t have the time even if she wanted to.
What was the simplest place she could leave a message?
And just like that, my eyes moved to the wardrobe.
No, it couldn’t be that simple…
I drifted toward the wardrobe.
I sorted through the clothing, each item sporting holes or signs of repair.
I came to my mom’s simple, plain, but elegant cardigan.
It was long and reached to the top of my mother’s thighs, stretched from all the times I used to pull and pry on it.
That was why she used to roll it up to her elbows.
Of all the items of clothing she possessed, this was the piece she would pack first.
She’d worn it every day of my life.
There was no doubt in my mind she would have taken it with her.
I reached for it, my fingers shaking.
I checked the right pocket but it was empty.
I reached over for the left pocket…
My hand froze when I felt something.
I extracted an envelope.
It was yellow and worn with age.
My hands shook as I read the words on the front:
READ NOW.
It was written in an elegant hand that must belong to Ava.
I raised it to Ava, who nodded back at me.
I reached inside and extracted the notepaper.
I checked inside the envelope but found nothing else inside.
I unfolded the letter and read through Ava’s message.
The paper had turned crisp and hard, the ink smudged.
It contained Ava’s warnings about what would happen and what they should do next.
My heart thudded in my throat.
Did she leave a message for us?
Would I be able to understand it?
I turned the page over, and there at the bottom, was what I was looking for.
I glanced over at Ava, who peered at the image and frowned, perplexed.
“What is it?”
“A map. An intergalactic map. You were right. They read your letter and took your advice. They escaped!”
We left immediately and followed the rough coordinates for the planetary system my mother had hastily scribbled.
It was a distant star system nestled in the Ruchas Nebula.
Mom couldn’t know if it would later lie within the expansive Shadow Realm in twenty years but she did know it was one of the least populated, and least desired, locations in the entire galaxy.
Still, that reason alone wouldn’t have prevented the Shadow from colonizing an alien planet.
They understood some places were valuable beyond their natural resources.
But Ruchas 9 didn’t have a good location and was found in the very center of the galaxy.
Its neighboring quadrants had long since been fully explored, its mines already removed.
It was a farming planet and would remain so until the end of time.
The perfect place to be if living in peace was your primary driver and you had no ambitions to improve your station in life.
I did, once, but now I had Ava, I was already the richest man in the galaxy.
What more did I need?
I followed the coordinates, my nerves simmering on low heat.
I was distracted and made basic piloting mistakes as I traversed the flatlands and drew closer to the final destination.
Ava placed a hand on mine and smiled at me comfortingly.
“Almost there.”
“They read your note and made to escape, but there’s no telling if they made it or not.”
I shored up my hopes in case despair struck me at the last moment.
“And even if they did make it here,” I continued, “there’s no knowing if they’re still alive. They would be really old by now.”
“The only way to know is to go look. We’ve come this far. We might as well go a little further.”
I raised her hand and kissed the back of it, thankful she was with me.
I was unsure if I would have managed to cover the final few miles on my own.
The journey to the planet had been epic, matching anything we experienced in the caves back on Qyah’an’ka.
Her body grew more delicious the more I explored her, discovering something new to enjoy with every experience.
She unlocked great realms of eroticism I’d never even considered before.
Finally, the ship banked and rounded a large mountain.
We came to a valley perched between two huge walls of sheer granite stone.
The scene below took my breath away.
Long glistening fields of crop waited to be harvested.
This farm had to be nine—no, ten—times larger than my parents’ on Qyah’an’ka.
My parents had only ever dreamed of having a spread this large.
I brought the ship down a discreet distance from the crops.
A ship passing too close overhead could easily destroy delicate plant life.
The engine powered down and I took Ava by the hand.
I led her through the ship and waited as the hatch lowered.
A
