“I won't say it again.” The voice was deadly and cold.
I twisted in the male's grip, and my breath stopped. It was the same vissigroth I had seen the night before, riding in on his nicta. Up close, he was even more intimidating. Strangely, I didn't feel afraid of him.
Contrary to the dragoon holding me captive, his chest was naked, save for the baldric's strap holding his enormous swordat his back, proudly showing off his vissigroth's mark. His hair was damp, pulled back from his face. His eyes, those obsidian, unblinking eyes, cut through the smoke and locked onto the soldier’s with a heat that made my stomach drop.
The dragoon let go.
Not slowly. Instantly. Like he’d burned himself on my skin.
“Your vissigroth gave no orders to take spoils,” Mallack said in a voice cold enough to split stone. “And certainly not from starving children.”
“She’s not—she was just?—”
“Leave.”
The soldier stumbled back and vanished into the ruins without another word, while I stood there shaking, too stunned to run. Mallack stepped forward slowly, like one might approach a wounded animal.
“You’re hurt,” he said. “Let me see your arm.”
“I’m not—” My throat closed. I wasn’t even sure what I was. “It’s not me. My mother. She’s bleeding. I was trying to find?—”
“I’ll come with you,” he said simply.
And he did.
He walked me through the rubble like I was made of glass, and I hated how safe I felt. I didn’t know him. He was the enemy. A vissigroth. A killer. But when he looked at me, it wasn’t hunger or pity I saw. It was recognition. Like he already knew I would belong to him.
The dream began to slip away, soft at the edges, like mist burning off under a rising sun. I clung to the feeling of his touch, the way it had anchored me, long before I’d ever given him permission.
A quiet knock followed by the hiss of the door pulled me back to full waking.
“We’ve landed in Ackaron Space Harbor,” Mallack announced, balancing a tray of food in his arms and putting it down on a table.
I blinked against the sudden light, my heart still echoing with the weight of memory, real or imagined. I opened my mouth, though I had no idea what to say, but Mallack, oblivious to my turmoil, was already turning away so that I might prepare for the day in private.
Not much later, the docking gates opened, and I followed Mallack out, staring at the humongous hall, which was alive with an excited buzz. Hundreds of ships just like ours were parked under a massive dome. Drones moved this way and that, loading and unloading, weaving through countless Leanders, humans, and many more alien species, most of whom, to my utter surprise, I was instinctively able to recognize and name. Mallack led me through the throng and out of the dome to another area filled with the cries of merchants. If things had seemed to be organized chaos inside the dome, it was simply chaos out here. Everything was louder. Bigger. I squinted up at the towering arches and blinking signs, my eyes following the labyrinth of color and scent and sound that stretched beyond.
The marketplace was sprawling. Winding alleys and shaded walkways overflowed with stalls. Spice-sellers in layered robes hollered next to jewelers. Perfumed oils drifted through the air,clashing with the scent of roasting meats and hot grease. Fabrics rippled, stirred by the breezes of people walking by. A merchant waved a bolt of red silk at me, and I stopped, mesmerized.
“Do you want to look?” Mallack asked.
I turned. He was watching me, not impatiently, but curiously. Like he was remembering something else about me I hadn’t uncovered yet.
“I don’t know,” I admitted.
His mouth curved faintly. “You always wanted to look.”
That caught me. I looked back at the silk, at the market that spun around me like a world reborn. “Then… maybe I still do.”
We stopped at a stall stacked with scarves, some spun from material I couldn’t name. I picked one up, fingers running over it. Cool as water, but it sparked like fire where it touched my skin.
Mallack didn’t speak. He just waited indulgently, while I floated from one booth to another, purchasing whatever caught my fancy, no matter how briefly. A memory tugged at me, half-formed. My hands full of packages. Laughter. Trying on bangles and twisting for him while he watched, amused and utterly devoted.
I turned and found him still standing there, arms crossed, eyes tracking me like I was a sun he hadn’t seen in decades.
“You really used to let me shop?” I asked, half-teasing.
He smirked. “I used to pretend I was indulging you.” He leaned in, voice low and conspiratorial, “But I liked seeing you happy. Iliked… buying you things. Silly things. Pretty things. You used to laugh and say I was trying to distract you from politics.”
