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“Yes.” I smile. “I realized I belong with you, Kazrith. You made me see my real worth. My whole life, I’ve fought, bled, and cried for my wings, but never have I felt more alive than when I was with you.”
I raise my head, as does Kazrith. He lays his palm against my cheek, stroking my chin as I speak.
“That’s not a life I want to leave behind. Sometimes, I found myself wondering if you felt the same way.”
Kazrith smiles, his eyes gleaming with a love that fills my heart with joy.
“The longer we spent together, the harder it was to ignore how you made me feel,” he says. “I couldn’t bear to think of the mission’s end.”
“So that makes the two of us,” I joke.
“Oh, Hanna,” he says. “You’re a wonderful woman, one I never thought I deserved. The truth is that I love you. More than anything else in my life.”
I bite my lip in excitement, my skin erupting in an electric feel of warmth that makes its way to my heart.
“I love you, too, Kazrith.”
We throw ourselves into each other, an embrace that quells all the troubling thoughts I ever had about a future together.
“You saved me,” I whisper.
“No, we saved each other.”
We both turn in amusement when my father clears his throat. I almost shrink in embarrassment.
“I’m sorry to interrupt, but I believe we ought to be going if we’re to avoid the xaphans once morning comes.”
“Yes, you’re right. Hanna, take him, and I’ll lead the way out of this forsaken shit hole.”
I throw my father’s arm around my shoulder. He winces with every couple of steps, but like the strong man I know him to be, he bites the pain, knowing the worst is far behind him now.
We stay a few meters behind Kazrith as he guides us through the xaphan territory, going back the same route he and I took.
By the time we clear ourselves from their controlled grounds, the dawn has broken. The journey home is slower on behalf of my father’s condition, but I don’t care.
I’m elated to have him back. The sight of our home in the distance is a sight for sore eyes. I almost thought we’d never come back here together after that fateful day when Zathex took me.
I hope you rot in the afterlife, you sick son of a bitch.
“Home, sweet home,” my father says as we enter. “Lay me down on the bed.”
“I’ll stand guard,” Kazrith says, taking a place by the window. “Just to watch for any xaphans, but I don’t expect any to come.”
I tend to my father’s wounds. As I do so, he tells me the details of what Zathex did to him, details I wish I could soon forget.
“Shit!” he blurts as I dab a cleaning solution on his cuts. “Sorry, that really hurt.”
“I wish I could say a xaphan wouldn’t do such things to humans, but I’ve seen many human trainees like me go through something similar. Some haven’t lived to tell the tale.”
“None of that matters now, my dear. I don’t care if you got your wings, you showed your strength by surviving.”
“I’m glad you’re proud of me,” I say, trying to hold back the tears.
“Your mother would be too. I know she’s smiling right now, wherever she is.”
His words are enough to let the tears loose. My father hugs me as I cry. I feel like a child again in his arms. I see my mother’s smiling face when I close my eyes.
“I’ll just wrap your bandages, then you should be fine,” I say, wiping under my eyes.
