Beneath the Twin Moons of Haldae (6 page)

“I saw several kinds of birds,” she said very slowly. “One that looked like a falcon. Several smaller ones, some very colorful. A few small mammals. One of them looked like a squirrel, I guess. And then…” She swallowed hard. “There was a bigger animal that looked like a big dog, or a wolf, even.”

She held her breath, waiting for someone to realize how important these last few words were, how much they hid.

“Hmm, birds and mammals… Anything that looked reptilian?”

Zaren replied before resuming her faulty retelling of the trek back to her shuttle. She felt no guilt about lying to the council: she had no choice if she wanted to keep her promise to Kris. She did regret, however, not being able to give him credit for all the help he had given her, not being able to share his mere existence with anyone.

She missed him
so much..
.

Chapter 6

Through the Woods

Zaren’s second day of trekking through the woods was easier in some ways and more arduous in others. She was now used to the terrain, the protruding roots and branches that hung low, and so didn’t stumble as much as she had the first day. On the other hand, even after a good night of sleep, she was still exhausted, her body unaccustomed to the demanding walk.

Breathing hard, she stopped for an instant, and used the tooth knife she had taken from the cave with Kris’ approval to cut down a certain kind of vine he had showed her the previous day. Pulling one end to her mouth, she sucked on the sap that instantly started to drip out, letting its coolness soothe her throat. Ahead of her, Kris had stopped too and looked back at her, waiting patiently as he always did.

He came back toward her, holding out his hand and saying what she had learned was his word for the knife. She gave it to him, expecting him to cut down a vine too, although he usually ripped them with his bare hands. Instead, he crouched down and started digging into the earth at the foot of a tree, uprooting a small plant. Zaren watched him curiously when he pulled out the bulbous root of the plant.

“Food?” she asked, and he nodded as he stood again.

She looked at the bulb in his hand, and couldn’t help grimacing. She was tired of eating fruits and would have enjoyed this change of menu, but covered in dirt the root wasn’t all that appetizing. Kris caught her grimace and grinned.

“Walk,” he said gently, and they started again.

Rather than walking ahead of her as he usually did, however, he stayed by her side and showed her what he was doing. In his expert hands, the knife seemed to fly over the root, shaving off the skin along with the dirt. In a few minutes, all that was left was the whitish flesh of the root. Its smell was sweet, almost candy-like.

Kris cut a slice of it and handed it to her. Their fingers touched as she took it. She glanced up at him, surprised by how fast he pulled back. He didn’t meet her eyes and gestured at the food in her hand. It was very moist and a little sticky. When she hesitated and did not take a bite right away, he cut a second slice and ate it as though to show her it truly was edible.

“I guess t
here isn’t any water to wash it
, huh?” she said to herself, sighing softly. “I suppose if I haven’t gotten sick by now…”

She looked at him again, and he smiled encouragingly. She took a small bite of the root—and could have moaned in delight. She had thought the sap trickling from the vine was refreshing, but this… She took a larger bite. Juice and flavor flooded her tongue. She finished her slice in no time. When she turned to Kris to ask for more, he handed her the knife, and showed her a plant a few
paces
away. She eyed the already prepared root he held.

“Why can’t I have this one?” she asked, pouting a little, as she pointed at his hands.

Still smiling, Kris shook his head. Undoubtedly, he had understood her tone, if not the words. With a sigh, she crouched over the plant and, a little clumsily, tried to repeat what she had seen him do. It took her a little more time than he had needed, but eventually she had a dirty root in her hands.

They started walking again, and she worked on cleaning the food as he had. Her work wasn’t as precise as his had been, but she was pleased with herself when she ended up with an irregular but clean ball of flavor in her
palm
. Rather than slicing it as Kris had, she bit into the root. Sticky juice trickled down her chin, but she didn’t care. The food tasted even better for the time she had taken in preparing it.

A quiet laugh drew her eyes to Kris. He said a few words which, of course, she didn’t understand, but the spark in his eyes made their meaning clear anyway. She smiled back, a hint of heat warming her cheeks. At times, she could have sworn he was flirting with her.

They
went on, picking up speed again
now that neither of them needed to focus on their knife work. Zaren once again forgot to think about how strange her situation was, or about the difficulties that lay ahead of her. A training mission might not have been much different, or even a recrehadeven a ational trek to one of the newly colonized planets. Some people paid a lot of money to experience what video brochures claimed was a return to a long gone past, before mankind had soared into space.

Zaren could admit this was one of the many reasons why she had wanted to become an observer. Just the same, she would have enjoyed this supposed return to the source a lot more if she had been able to communicate with her guide. Each time she tried to tell Kris something, or ask him a question, it hit her. She couldn’t call off the walk because she was tired, couldn’t ask for a ride to bring her back to base camp. All she could do was hope that they would find her shuttle, and that the communication systems would be functional enough to send a distress signal.

Her absence would have been noticed by now, but there had been three planets on her flight plan that morning. Even if a rescue shuttle was sent, how would they find her if she couldn’t signal her presence?

She tried not to think about it too much. When she did, the odds of the crash leaving her equipment in good enough shape to function seemed more and more unlikely. What would she do, if there was nothing left of the shuttle? She’d always wanted to explore,
find where she
fit
,
but spending the rest of her life on a primitive planet had never been part of her plans
—even with someone like Kris at her side
.

“Ow!”

Lost in her thoughts, she had tripped on the uneven ground and found herself on her knees on the damp grass. Kris came back to her and offered her his hand. She took it and shivered at the contact. His skin was warm; his grip as he pulled her to her feet was strong but gentle. A small smile accompanied quiet words. She smiled back, indicating she was fine, and they started walking again. It took her a few steps to realize she was still holding on to his hand. She let go with some reluctance.

A few days on the planet—or even a week or two—might not be so bad after all.

* * * *

It had been hours since Kris last shifted. He could feel the need like a physical presence, oppressive and inescapable. It burned in his veins, white-hot and searing, and still he shivered as if cold. It was hard to keep taking slow steps to accommodate Zaren’s pace when all he wanted was to run on all fours, jump from branch to branch, or even soar above the forest.

He could tell she was tired, and he had suggested that she rest twice now, hoping to shift for a few moments and calm the raging need, but she refused to stop. She wanted to keep going. He understood why; she wanted to reach her shuttle at last—although they wouldn’t reach it until the next afternoon at the earliest.

The woods darkened suddenly. Birds called to each other high above their heads, warning of the coming rain. He didn’t mind the rain, but Zaren already had trouble on dry ground; she would break her leg if they kept on walking when it became slippery.

He stopped and started gathering l/p> gatherarge leaves. Zaren was talking to him, asking why they were stopping, he supposed.

“It’s going to rain,” he said, pointing upward with a finger.

She looked up and frowned. She was smart, he was sure of it, but it was hard to tell how much she understood of what he told her. She had picked up how to clean a bala root easily enough.

When he had enough leaves, he started weaving them together in a criss-cross pattern that would keep the rain out. Zaren looked at him curiously, then picked up two leaves and tried to imitate him. He stopped what he was doing to correct her technique, holding her hands in the right positions.

Color flushed her cheeks at his touch, as it always did, and his own need to shift only heightened. He had to step back for a moment to calm down. Blood beat in his ears like an ominous drum, warning him that if he didn’t shift of his own accord soon, his body would do it on its own.

He found a large boulder and used it, along with a few long branches and vines, as support to the woven leaves. The small shelter was just large enough for two people sitting side by side on a covering of leaves—or for one person to curl down beneath a cover. He finished only moments before the rain started falling, its sound amplified by the leaves it hit before reaching the ground. He gestured for Zaren to come out of the rain. She did so with a puzzled look, asking what sounded like a question. Kris shrugged, unsure what she was asking now.

“Rest,” he said, tapping the ground with his hand. “Eat some food.” He handed her the small bag he had been carrying over his shoulder so that he could pick fruits as they walked.

He turned around to leave the shelter, but Zaren stopped him with a hand on his forearm. Sparks shot up his arm and down his spine. It was all he could do to stop himself from shifting right in front of her eyes.

“Kris?” she said in a small voice, adding a few words after his name.

He tried to smile reassuringly. “I’ll be back soon. Just rest. Stay out of the rain.”

She looked unhappy, but she dropped her hand and let him go.

He hurried out and stumbled through bushes and undergrowth until he thought he was out of sight. He let himself fall forward. When he reached the ground, he was in his wolf form. Breathing hard, he bowed his head under the thick rain, and tried to cling to his conscious mind. He couldn’t lose himself to the shift now. He couldn’t afford to, not when Zaren was a few paces away and counting on him to get her out of the woods. He couldn’t settle on his final form yet—not even if fighting the shift tore his mind apart until he was howling at the sky.

* * * *

“You said you settled on your final form,” Elder Sarly said.

Kris looked at him askance. Why come back on this now? “I did.”

“When?”

A couple of Elders gn=e of Elnodded their approval at Sarly’s question. Kris, on the other hand, couldn’t see how this mattered. They had been talking about Zaren, why come back to his shifting now?

“What do you mean?” he asked, frowning lightly.

Elder Sarly seemed to be losing patience, and his tone rose. “When did you settle?” he asked brusquely. “Before or after you met the stranger?”

Kris thought fast. Saying he had settled before meeting her would be safer, but he had already told them when he had met her, and they’d know he didn’t have time to settle yet. He had to tell the truth.

“After.”

Elder Sarly’s eyes sharpened. “So you were still changing in and out of your forms while she was around?”

So that was what he had been getting at.

“Not where she could see me.”

“But she could have.”

“No.” Kris tried to put all his strength behind that one-word lie. “I made sure I was careful.”

Elder Sarly sat back in his chair, looking skeptical, but he didn’t reply. He didn’t need to. Around the table, the other Elders were shaking their heads and throwing frowns at Kris.

“How do you know she didn’t see you?” Elder Pala asked very loudly. “How do you know she didn’t catch sight of you shifting? How do you know she isn’t a spy sent to steal our secrets and—”