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I nodded, trying to hold onto my resolve, and felt Wesley begin to draw on my power.
CHAPTER31
WES
There it was.
Jax was trusting me, not just with my own life, like any self-respecting adult, but with his life, and those of the Zathki who rushed, panicked, around us. And the ones who couldn’t hope to make it back to the city entrance before the Thorzi ships fired.
Given that, I didn’t have time to sit around being thrilled about Jax’s change of heart. I reached out and laid a hand over the mark he’d pointed me toward.
Warmth flared in my skin as I touched it, and I could feel every ridge of the design like they were lines of heat etched onto his skin. When I left my palm pressed against him, that heat seeped into me, lighting up my whole body like I was lying out in the sun, despite the fact that we were still on the frozen surface of Zathkar.
The first change other than that simple sensation was the connection to Jax himself. I could feel his worry, his hope, and his... burgeoning feelings for me, and the terror they were stirring over what we were doing.
And he’d said so, hadn’t he?
And more important, he knew I could do it. He believed in me—he hadn’t just said it, he felt it. He was only worried because—
A full blooded Thorzi stood, leaned against the balustrade, staring out at the jungle. His skin was almost as much gray as blue, a sign of his increasing years, and of ill health. His normally sparkling eyes were a dull shade of indigo, and it was easy to see, even through the alienness of Thorzi expressions, that he was a million miles away. “He loved these nights when the seasons at the poles shifted. The hazy golden glow it left in the sky over the capital.”
My own voice—Jax’s voice—came soft and so very young. “Who?”
“Your fa—” The Thorzi turned and glanced at me, and that expression was unmistakable on any face. Pain, like a lance right through his middle, before he glanced away again. “My first mate. Nox. The last mage on Thorzan, damn them all.”
“Father?”
“It’s good they’re gone,” the Thorzi said, in a harder, colder voice—one that felt wrong, coming from him. “They were a crutch. We used them, used them up, let them die, all for the sake of yet another star-forsaken fight. A little more, a little further, never quite enough. It’s good they’re beyond Lyr, where we can’t use them anymore.”
I blinked hard, eyes blurring, and I was once again looking up at Jax, and not his father.
Jax was worried because he blamed his father’s suffering on the very thing I was doing. He could imagine himself in the same situation, me dead, and himself staring off into a hazy Thorzan sunset, wishing for a world with no more war, and hating himself for “using me up.”
I released the breath I was holding and shook myself out of it. I needed to finish this. Needed to prove to Jax that I could not only be useful, but not die doing it. So I reached out farther with the warm presence in my mind, toward the incoming ships.
Toward our saviors, or our destroyers.
Crossing my fingers and hoping for the best—that they hadn’t been sent by Crux.
It was a jolt when my mind hit a wall of... thoughts. But I couldn’t pick one mind out and talk to them—that would have been like jumping face first into moving water and trying to sort out individual droplets.
But water, well, that seemed like a good analogy, so I went with it.
I opened my mind up and let the situation, everything that had happened flow out of me, and into the water of their thoughts. From Crux shooting at the ship he’d thought contained his prince and a handful of terrified humans, to the crash, to the Zathki helping us.
A second later, the emotional reaction of a bunch of Thorzi who had just been mentally shouted at hit me, my whole body vibrating with the almost body blow of their feelings. Shock, more than a little fear and suspicion, and then, there in the center, a pinpoint of smug amusement. Amusement that seemed to catch, like a drop of dye added to water, spreading and flowing into all of it. It magnified as it caught, rippling to the edges and then back, folding onto itself, becoming almost joyous. My breath caught in my chest with relief and pride, and I had no idea whose it was. Mine? The Thorzi’s? A single Thorzi’s?
Then a voice slid onto the surface of the water, soft and kind and above all, amused.Jax, you lucky ass. I don’t even know why I’m surprised. We’ll land.
My eyes flew open to meet Jax’s equally wide, surprised gaze.
He spoke aloud, and like the other words, they slid right across the water. “Kaelum? Thank the stars.” He glanced around, looking at the still retreating Zathki, but meeting the eyes of Marex, who had joined us and was watching with trepidation. He took a deep breath and continued. “We have much to discuss. I think there is peace to be had with the Zathki. And we can gain from it.”
Marex grinned, wide and bright, and inclined his head. It was still a disturbing expression with that mouthful of sharp pointy teeth, but he was clearly as overjoyed as the pool of Thorzi thoughts I was treading water in.
That was when I saw it—what Jax was so afraid of.
I was treading water. It wasn’t hard, but it also wasn’t something I could do indefinitely. If I tried to keep it up forever, it would be all too easy to get swept away in the current and drown.
