“Something foreign about two miles away from the castle.Something a Xenoxx has never touched.”
“Let’s go.”
As we traveled in the direction the device indicated, toward a heavily wooded area, it beeped faster, in cadence with the thud of my hearts.Miekil allowed me to walk in silence, alone with my stormy thoughts, until it seemed he couldn’t take it anymore.
“Do you want to talk about what happened with Nera?”he blurted.
“No.”
“Okay, but… A baby, Maxx,” he said, watching my expression carefully.“Maybe you couldn’t see it, or maybe you did, but there was a light inside her eyes when she told us.It means something to her… The baby.It means a lot.”
”IsaidI didn’t want to talk about it,“ I gritted out.
But I’d noticed too, hadn’t I?A gleam of hope?Guarded, sure, and full of doubts, but a gleam all the same.
She could have another baby if she chose to.Our baby.She could be a parent to a child that wouldn’t be ripped away from her much too soon.I would do everything in my power to help the child, if that’s what Nera wanted.I could be a parent with her to raise something we’d created, together.
I knew right then and there, that was what I wanted, to share that experience with Nera, but it didn’t matter what I wanted.Nera’s choice weighed much more heavily than mine did.
Lost in my thoughts, I almost didn’t see the strange shimmer in the air ahead, like heat waves rising from the ground.
Miekil and I exchanged curious glances and pushed forward.It felt like we were walking into some kind of optical illusion.
“Do you feel that?”I asked, the hair on my arms standing on end.
Miekil nodded.“It’s like a tingling sensation.Any lightning strikes lately?”
“Not that I’m aware of.”
The tingling intensified as the quickening beeps converged into one long drone.
“This is it,” Miekil said, glancing down at his radar device.
“What is it?”I gazed up at the shimmery, warped air.
Miekil started forward slowly and appeared fine until there was a loud bang that knocked him backward on his ass.
“What happened?”I bent to kneel on the ground beside him.
“I ran into it, whatever it is.”He groaned and rubbed his head.“I don’t recommend doing that, by the way.”
“Solidandinvisible.“ I gazed upward, unable to make out anything other than the shimmery air and the trees behind it.But then I knew, the answer slipping inside my mind as if it had always been there as an impossible theory.“A cloaked spaceship.”
“So they do exist.”Miekil hauled himself up into a sitting position and glared at it.“I gotta say, I thought they’d be bigger.This clearing is only about eight feet wide.”
“You don’t need size for a stealth job.The ship may just be meant for one person.”
“We should make sure.Someone might be inside it waiting for Jorran to return.”
“Or to finish the job.”I drew my sword from its scabbard, an old one with battle scars that had belonged to my father.
I’d used it for years.Now, after swinging machetes found in closets for the past few weeks, it felt oddly heavy.
Miekil retrieved his bow slung across his shoulder, his weapon of choice.“How does one enter an invisible ship?Knock with my head again until someone answers?”
I pressed my free hand against the invisible surface.“There has to be a lever.A button.Something.”
“Has to be?”Miekil shook his head even as he stepped forward to search the ship too.“This is an invisible ship.It could be so high-tech that it’s voice activated.Or maybe it opens with a remote control.”
