“Right,” I say, distracted again by the deep timbre of his voice, the way it resonates in the air. It’s almost hypnotic.
But then my hand throbs again, the heat spiking, and I can’t ignore it any longer. I glance down, and the cut has started to glow faintly. “Uh, Solan….” I lift my palm, showing him the strange light. “What the hell is this?”
For the first time since we sat down, Solan’s mask slips. His eyes widen, and there’s a flash of something—fear? Worry? Longing? He quickly schools his expression, but it’s too late. I saw it.
He leans in, inspecting my palm with more focus than necessary. “Ah… it is… nothing. A small cut. Will heal. Do not worry.”
But I can see his jaw tighten, the way his eyes linger on my hand like it’s something much more than “nothing.” He knows something. He just isn’t saying.
Before I can push for more, Jamie says, “Your world? You’re not from here either?”
“No.” Relief practically pours off him as he gives Jamie his full attention. “This is my home.” He indicates the structure we’re in. “It once belonged in Pyrima, which is my world. It and some of the forest around us came with me. I left everything and everyone else behind.”
Surprise has me sitting up straighter even as sadness penetrates my chest. “And how long have you been here? You said something about twenty-five cycles…?”
He nods, his gaze flicking to mine only briefly before he turns back to Jamie. Discomfort shifts in my gut, which doesn’t makea lick of sense. But fuck if it doesn’t feel, I don’t know, wrong… frustrating, maybe, that he’s not looking at me.
I try to shove the weird-arse feelings away and instead concentrate on what really matters: figuring out how Solan’s arrival likens to ours and what that means for us.
“I think our moon is all the same… the same pattern. One turn is one cycle.”
A cycle is a month?
The heavy thud in my chest hurts, it’s that powerful.
“So two years was when it last happened? When you came here?”
A frown dips his large brow. “Two years when a slice of your world merged, yes. I’ve been here forty cycles. I could find only few remnants of my home.” Sadness lingers in his tone, and the thud in my chest picks up speed, creating a fresh ache behind my ribcage. “But there have been more rifts than that. More soon.”
Understandably, he’s sad, but it’s his acceptance… that he seems not content, necessarily, but more resigned that has me shifting, uncomfortable, and fighting not to rub at my chest.
It’s best I focus on what he knows. If I start thinking about the fact that he’s been stuck here for over three years and fuck knows how many dimensional meltdowns there have been since, I’ll be useless to Jamie. I stare once more at the TV. “There’s electricity here?”
He perks up a little and nods. “There’s a large settlement a quarter of a day’s walk from here. They have markets, supplies, goods from this world and others. It is not the same as the power on your Earth with wires underground and in the sky, but wind and water create the power needed. Energy.”
So the locals, the “dominant species,” know of his existence. He hasn’t been gobbled up, plus they have markets, so that has to mean the Glowranth are an intelligent species. At least I hope I’m not bullshitting myself here.
I tilt my head, wondering at his ability to communicate with them as well as me and Jamie. “How do you monsters communicate with them? With us?”
Solan’s gaze is on me in an instant. As soon as it is, the air in my chest freezes. The golden hue is so vivid that I struggle to look away. It’s only when he blinks and I lose contact for the barest of seconds that I suck in a breath.
“Thraxus.”
Right, I asked him a question.
“He is a Glowranth. Many cycles ago… seven of your Earth years, a section of my world was replaced with this one. Thraxus appeared.”
My eyes widen. Before I can speak, Jamie says, “This is some crazy shit, Uncle Jack.”
A huff of amused agreement escapes me. I reach out, place my hand on his shoulder, and give a gentle, reassuring squeeze. “No argument from me.”
Solan studies our interaction. I swear he doesn’t seem to miss a thing. The whole time, the strange zap of awareness continues to needle its way through my system.
“And this Thraxus taught you the language here?” I ask, pointedly ignoring the weird sensations flooding me.
“Yes,” Solan answers gruffly, pulling his attention away from me and focussing on his drink.
The moment he does, I take a deep inhale. The fresh intake of air helps to settle the vibrations.
