I smiled, reflecting his own. Then he turned sad.
“And now they’re gone,” he said. “And now that we’ll be eating lizards, I wonder if it’ll taste as good as it used to.”
As if in response, the meat popped and sizzled.
I got up and turned the lizards over. Instead of returning to my seat, I sat beside him and placed my hand on his.
“It was the Changelings that came,” Nighteko said. “Their thirst for power and money is unquenchable. They raided villages like mine and took our people as slaves. We were only miners. And the worst part is, you can’t be a smuggler without working with the Changelings. Over the years, I’ve worked with them, helping them do to other species what they did to mine. I won my freedom in the great fightings pits of Klaxxon but I never stopped being a slave. And I never will. Not until I get enough credits so I can leave that life behind for good.”
He’d been a slave his entire life, I realized. From when they took him, to when he fought in the pits, even after winning his freedom, he had few other options with his background and became a smuggler for slaves himself.
I massaged his arm. The wirelike hairs tickled my palms.
“What happened to your parents?” I said.
“They were taken, sold into slavery like everybody else,” he said. “To be honest, I never really knew what happened to them. It’s been so long. They’ll either be so old now that they could never remember me or they’re already dead. The warriors in my clan were recruited for wars and sent on the most dangerous missions. The chances of my father still being alive are… not good.”
“You never laid them to rest, did you?” I said. “You never let them go?”
He shook his head. “Not while they could still be out there.”
“Will you ever find them?” I said.
“Once you’re sold into slavery, it’s impossible.”
I turned to the table and brought down the items I found earlier. I held them in my hands and offered them to him.
His hands shook. He reached for the little toy and a smile curved his cheek. So happy, and yet, drenched with sorrow. Then he fingered the stones and gold and silver rings. He ran them between his fingers.
“The gold rings were mother’s,” he said. “The silver ones were my father’s.”
“Do you remember when we had the funeral for Maisie?” I said.
“When you put her in a box and sent her inside space?”
“Yes. But we’re not a spacefaring species yet. Usually, we bury our dead in the soil.”
“Why?”
“As a way to say goodbye, and return them from where they came from. I was thinking maybe you could do the same thing for your parents. Let them go. Let them move on so you can move on too.”
“I’m not sure I can do that.” Tears shimmered in his eyes. It was the first time he didn’t feel embarrassed to show me his deepest emotions. His tenderness.
His weakness.
I placed a hand to his cheek and looked him in the eye. “You can do anything, Nighteko. You’re so strong. I know it’s difficult to let go. Once you do, most of the sadness eventually leaves. Then you’re left with the happy memories. And you’ve focused on the sadness for much too long.”
The sickness had every bit as much effect on him as his sadness. It poisoned his mind, his memories. Just as the sickness was leaving his body, so I would make this poison affecting his memories disappear too.
His history made my heart ache for him. I leaned forward and kissed him on the forehead. Then I kissed him on the cheek. When he turned to me, he must have seen the lust in my eyes. I saw it reflected in his.
When Maisie died, I needed intimacy. I needed to be with someone. And now, I felt certain he needed it to.
He cupped my face in his hands and kissed me full on the lips. It was passionate and I returned it to him tenfold. He lifted me and carried me to the hard stone bed.
He laid me down and unbuttoned my shirt so my breasts hung free. He tasted them, licking, before pushing my pants down and sliding inside me.
I groaned as he filled me. He took his anger, his pain, and his sadness out on me.
And then I demanded more.
Nighteko
The boat ground to a halt and woke me up. Peering up at the sky, I saw the clouds weren’t moving very fast. Not like they usually did when I was in a boat. I peered over the side and noticed we’d come to a stop somewhere beside the jungle.
I peered up into my mother’s face. Her eyes were closed and she looked very pale. I reached up with my hands. I started back, confused.
Her skin was cold. It somehow felt wrong, even then as a young child. “Mom?” I said. “Mom?”
She slumped forward and I had to move quickly to keep her from falling on top of me. Sticking out of her back were two arrows. Her dress was red where they hit her.
“Mom?” I said, gently prodding her. “Get up.”
She didn’t move. Sometimes she was a heavy sleeper, so I shook her harder.
“Mom?” I said. “Get up.”
My tears were so hot they burned the back of my throat. She was never going to wake up. Even at that tender age, I knew that. And still, I refused to believe it. I needed to get help. If I was fast, maybe a doctor could save her.
I ran into the jungle and tripped on a pair of furrows that ran like train tracks along the ground. Ahead, a man crouched at a wheel of his cart. He spun a piece of wood, locking
