“You’re probably safe, love,” she said, nodding sagely. “Like, if he doesn’t nearly break his back doing a billion weighted squats to impress you, can he really be your mate?”

  We all burst into laughter at that. Damn, it felt so good to laugh. Especially about a situation that had been a huge pain in the ass so far. That situation being a broad-shouldered, mouthy, sinfully handsome idiot of an alien king.

  “What are you gonna do when he gets back here?” Fiona asked me once our laughter died down.

  I slumped in my seat and tipped my head back to stare at the shuttle’s metal ceiling.

  “No clue. Just... Ignore him? I don’t know.”

  Fiona snorted.

  “Don’t think he’ll be easy to ignore. Lad’s gonna be looking for a new boulder out here. An even bigger one.” Her tone grew more serious. “But you do know we’re with you no matter what, right? If you don’t want him near you, he’s not coming near you.”

  I brought my chin down to look at my friends, finding them all nodding in agreement.

  “Thank you, guys. Luckily, even though he’s extremely stubborn, he hasn’t pushed me too far or anything. I mean, he told me that I’m wrong about my own feelings and that I’m apparently going to fall in love with him somehow. But he hasn’t done anything like... Icky. I don’t think I’ll need any actual protection from him.” I smirked. “Maybe just some earplugs for when he starts droning on about what a catch he is and how any other woman would ‘rejoice at the chance to be his mate.’”

  “He did not say that!” Fiona gasped.

  “Oh, he one thousand percent did,” I confirmed, aware of just how cringey it sounded.

  “Cheeky bastard,” she said, shaking her head.

  “Delusional bastard, more like,” I said with a laugh.

  The conversation died down for the moment, and I tipped my head back against the seat once more, closing my eyes.

  Could there be anyone else less suited to me? I wondered. Probably not.

  Although...

  An image of stony Gahn Thaleo flashed through my mind. I hated to admit it, but he was probably someone I’d want as a mate even less than Gahn Errok. Gahn Errok was his own spectacular brand of obnoxious, but somehow it felt more manageable and was now more familiar, than Gahn Thaleo’s eerily quiet power. Every once in a while during our conversations, Gahn Errok’s face would go flat and unreadable, but for the most part I could tell exactly how he was feeling as the emotions played out wildly on his features. I would take the dramatic, pouty sincerity of those expressions over the cold stare of Gahn Thaleo any day.

  Not that I’ll take Gahn Errok, of course! I’m just saying that he’s maybe not the absolute last guy I could stomach being with.

  But he’s still low on the freaking list.

  Hell, there wasn’t even a list at all! I didn’t need or even want some big alien boyfriend. I hadn’t had crushes or close connections with any of the men here. I’d barely put any effort into dating on Earth, and there’d been absolutely no reason to put more effort into it on a literal alien planet where every other day presented some catastrophic problem we’d had to solve.

  “Alright, we’re here,” Valeria called back to us. My eyes snapped open.

  “That was fast,” Nasrin muttered, leaning forward in her seat to see out the cockpit viewscreen. I did the same, but I couldn’t make much out.

  The landing was similarly smooth to our earlier one, and soon enough we were all getting off the shuttle – first the Bitter Sea guys, then the Sea Sand warriors, then us humans.

  My boots hit hard, smooth stone. I looked down to see more of the translucent, ice-like stone from the other valley beneath our feet. But unlike the long, splitting valley we’d come from, this stony clearing area was a nearly perfect circle. Mountain peaks ringed the clearing, pointing upward like spikes on a bear trap.

  Directly ahead of us stood a small group of warriors. Five of them, all with bows strung across their chests and various blades strapped to their torsos. The one in the centre stepped forward.

  “I am Warrek, Gahn Thaleo’s commander,” said the warrior. His long, inky hair was tied back in a tight, neat braid. “We’ve been commanded to show you into the hall upon your arrival.”

  “Should we wait for Gahn Thaleo?” I whispered to Valeria. It felt a bit weird to go into his mountain after beating him back here.

  She pursed her lips, thinking about it, then shrugged.

  “I don’t think so. Clearly, the other guys knew we were coming so we’re not surprising them or anything. And the Gahn must have known we’d beat him back here even though he left before us.”

  “Fair enough,” I replied.

  “Oh, thank fuck, because I’m absolutely starved,” Fiona said.

  “Thank you, Warrek. We never directly spoke, but I remember you from when I was last here,” Valeria called over. “I’m sure you remember my mate, Grim, as well as Tok. This is Taylor, Tok’s mate. And you probably remember Vaxilkai and Bariok, too.”

  Warrek stiffened slightly at the mention of those last two. Tension crackled in the air between the two men who’d been held prisoner here last time and the men who’d held them.

  But Valeria forged forward, ignoring Bariok and Vaxilkai seething behind her.

  “This is Zoren, whom none of you have met. He’s from the neighbouring Death Plains. And then there are...”

  She stepped aside and gestured to us.

  “Fiona. Nasrin. Tilly. Stephanie,” she rattled off, efficient and business-like.

  Warrek strode towards us. He kept his hands loose at his sides, which was probably the only thing that kept the men from getting all antsy about his approach.

  Scratch that, they were definitely itching to grab their own weapons, especially Bariok and Vaxilkai who hissed beside us.

  “Which one of these women is mated to Gahn Errok?” asked Warrek as he came to a stop in front of our group.

  My cheeks heated. What the hell? Why did he care about that?

  None of us answered, and Valeria’s eyes narrowed suspiciously.

  “Why do you need to know that?”

  Warrek didn’t react to Valeria’s challenging tone.

  “It is simply good sense to know whom we welcome here. There is some risk in inviting the Gahnala of a Gahn as... spirited... as Gahn Errok without his permission. We merely wish to know whom we are dealing with.”

  “I am not a Gahnala, and I do not need his permission to be here,” I responded fiercely.

  Warrek’s eyes flashed to me. So did Valeria’s a moment later.

  I shrugged at her pointed glance.

  “They were going to find out soon anyway. Might as well just get it out in the open now,” I said with a sigh.

  “True. We are allies after all,” Valeria said with a tight nod. She turned back to Warrek. “But I expect Stephanie will be given the same courtesies and protection as any other person here.”

  “She will be, of course,” Warrek said, silvery sight stars buzzing as they tracked down my face. “The fact that she clearly has not accepted Gahn Errok speaks to her wisdom – a good ally indeed.”

  Fiona snorted loudly and then clapped a hand over her mouth. I pursed my lips, not sure if I should laugh or groan at Warrek’s comment. Obviously, I wasn’t the only one unimpressed by Gahn Errok’s... Errokness.

  “Let us not count dust out here. Come inside and feast with us. With our expanded territory, hunting has been bountiful,” Warrek said. He gestured with his tail towards a dark crack in the large mountain straight ahead of us, across the round clearing.

  I shivered. That entrance looked so ominously dark I almost wanted to stumble back to the shuttle. But I sucked it up. We were here for this alliance. We’ll have to go in there sometime. And I’m not alone. I have my friends with me, and the other warriors.

  Valeria nodded in agreement. The four warriors ahead of us fanned out to watch us enter while Warrek led our group. The Bitter Sea men followed Warrek directly, and the three Sea Sand men hemmed us humans in at the back and sides so we were protected in a little muscly alien bubble.

  We crossed the stone clearing quickly, our party’s boots and claws scuffing and clacking on the glassy ground. Still following Warrek, we pressed into the darkness of the crack.

  But after one swift turn, the darkness dissipated, melted by flickering light.

  “Holy smokes,” I whispered. We stood in a cavernous, glittering space. The mountain’s insides were just as gem-like and blue as the outside, making light glance off of every wall in an effusive clatter. To the right was a tunnel that appeared to go up on an incline, snaking up into the height of the mountains. That tunnel, too, was lit.

  All the light in the space was shocking and exquisite. I turned slowly, taking in the unexpected sources.

  Much of the stone inside the mountain was completely opaque, but there were small pockets and natural shelves of translucent crystal that had what looked to be lit torches of some kind burning inside.

  “Those are new,” Valeria said, indicating the dozens of crystal lanterns.

  “We do not forget the needs of our allies,” Warrek said firmly. “Our Gahn remembered how your kind struggled to see in the darker parts of our mountain. He commissioned the installation of the light sources immediately after your departure.”

  “OK, that Gahn looks like he would kill a man in cold blood without a second thought, but he gets some points for that,” Tilly whispered. Fiona and I nodded in agreement – it was decent of him to have anticipated this need. Nasrin didn’t say anything as her gaze swept over the space.

  “Ooh, something smells great,” Fiona piped up, her nose scrunching up as she sniffed the air.

  “Yes, that is our evening fire. Our kills are roasting. Come. I will show you,” Warrek said.

  My gaze caught on something on the other side of the largely empty space we stood in – a flat stone slab on the floor that appeared to be hooked up to some sort of pulley system. An alien elevator?

  “We do not need to use that,” Warrek said, seeing where I’d been looking. “The Sky Hall is not so high up.”

  With that, he turned towards the tunnel on our right. We followed him, having to adjust the big circle of our group to walk more easily in the narrower space. The right wall of the tunnel was clearly the outer wall of the mountain, because large natural windows of translucent stone punctuated the wall and let in arching asteroid light and the slivers of stars. That, coupled with the lanterns, meant the tunnel was well-lit and not nearly as spooky as it otherwise would have been. As we walked, the scent Fiona had remarked on grew thicker in the air. Smoke and the smell of roasting meat. My stomach grumbled. I could definitely go for a hot meal right about now. I wonder if the food here is very different from the Sea Sands... I’d gotten used to the dakrival, rakdo, and valok menu at the settlement, but I was more than ready to try something else.

  Soon, it wasn’t just the scent in the air that caught my attention, but sounds, too. Conversation, laughter, and the crackle of a fire.

  The tunnel widened into a natural stone landing. Ahead, the tunnel continued onward and upwards, making me wonder if its spiral went all the way to the mountain’s peak. To our right, that landing extended outwards, a shelf jutting out from the mountainside. It wasn’t an exposed shelf, though, but rather a large natural cave seated on the flat jut of stone. The cave wasn’t dark – its rounded wall bubbled out from the mountain and was made of yet more translucent, crystal-like material, letting in the silvery evening light. A fire crackled at the far side of the cave, directly beneath a small break at the top of the see-through stone – a natural skylight and chimney for the smoke. The result was a firelit hall seeming to be suspended in the air, encased entirely by windows instead of walls. From my place in the group, I could see some of the Deep Sky people who lived here – a smattering of men, women, and children.

  “Strange that we didn’t see the fire from outside. Have we already gone around the mountain to the back?” I asked, confused. I could tell that the tunnel curved upward around the shape of the mountain, but we hadn’t been walking for that long.

  A voice from behind our group made me jump, echoing in the tunnel.

  “It is the nature of aguir stone. We can see out. But you cannot see in.”

  Gahn Thaleo stood behind us in the tunnel. Goosebumps broke out under my jacket. Weirdly, and rather ominously, his words seemed to be more about himself than the stone. I got the impression that his gaze captured absolutely everything.

  But gave away nothing.

  “If that’s so, how do the lanterns work? How does light pass in and out?” Nasrin asked, raising a brow skeptically. I would have said Gahn Thaleo’s sight stars snapped to her face... Except they’d already been glued to her face.

  “The lanterns use a different variety of stone, called kaktuir. Kaktuir allows unhindered sight from both sides. Aguir does not.”

  Nasrin gave one short nod, then turned away to look into the hall again.

  Warrek raised his tail.

  “Welcome back, Gahn.”

  He grunted at his warrior.

  “Please, enter the hall.”

  Our group spread out as we filtered from the tunnel area into the great hall. The Deep Sky people fell silent at the fire, staring over at us. Our group was equally quiet, taking everything in. The new alien allies. And the exquisite spread of stars practically encasing this entire space.

  “So. What do you think of my mountain?” came Gahn Thaleo’s quiet rumble.

  He didn’t seem to have addressed the question to anyone in particular, but when I turned towards him, I found him directly behind Nasrin, staring intently at the back of her head.

  She didn’t answer him. Though she had to have noticed his proximity and his gaze. That intensity must have felt like a finger of ice down the back of her neck.

  “You and your people have a very impressive home, Gahn Thaleo,” I piped up, hoping to avoid any awkwardness as Nasrin continued walking forward and away from him.

  I wonder if somewhere out there, Errok just snapped to annoyed attention, sensing I’ve just given another Gahn a compliment...

  “Yes. Thank you for the invitation,” Valeria added. Tilly and Fiona nodded eagerly, their eyes wandering to the fire where the food cooked.

  “Seat yourselves,” the Gahn said, gesturing with his tail towards the fire.

  The Deep Sky people’s sight stars buzzed silently as we got nearer.

  “Do you think this is all of them?” Fiona whispered to me. The tribe gathered was small. Much smaller than the numbers we had at the settlement. There were about twenty men including Warrek and Thaleo, and far fewer women and children. They all had skin in varying shades of greyish violet and blue, their hair gleaming with inky indigo. Several of the women had their hair bound into tightly braided updos, something I wasn’t used to seeing in the Sea Sands. Usually, the braids were worn loose down one’s back in the desert

  “I would assume so,” I muttered, glancing around. I didn’t see the four warriors who’d greeted us with Warrek outside, but otherwise, I didn’t see much evidence that there were significant numbers of people elsewhere. We hadn’t passed anyone in the main entrance hall or seen anyone else in the tunnels on the way here.

  Gahn Thaleo must have heard Fiona’s question. That, or he was a mind reader.

  “Apart from four men on guard duty, all my people are here.”

  One by one, he introduced every member of the tribe, his tail gesturing to each person with precise care. A couple of the children haltingly raised their tails to us while others stared with suspicious confusion. More than one person, not just the children, let their gazes swing wildly over the members of our group.

  Can’t really blame them. I wonder who looks more weird to them – the humans or the Bitter Sea men?

  The Sea Sand men may have had different colouring, but they were otherwise anatomically the same as the Deep Sky people from what I could see.

  But us girls, plus Grim and Tok? We probably looked like... Well... Aliens.

  When Gahn Thaleo was finished, Valeria did the same for our group, rattling off our names and jabbing her finger at each of us as she did so.

  After the introductions were done, Gahn Thaleo urged us to sit once more. We did so, sitting down on the stone. Perhaps expectedly, there was a very clear divide in the group – the Deep Sky people sat on one side of the fire, us on the other.

  Gahn Thaleo sat between the two groups, at the head of the fiery table, so to speak. The fire wasn’t a large circle, but rather burned in a long, rectangular pit. Blocks of stone along each side held skewers up, balancing meat over the fire. I inhaled deeply, the scent of the pale roasting meat seeming familiar.

  When I got handed a chunk of it, I realized why. It tasted like smoked chicken.

  “It’s called felkora,” Gahn Thaleo told us, watching us chow down on the alien chicken barbecue. “We eat the eggs as well.”

  The eggs, cooked in their shells, were equally pleasant, as were the delicate little pink mountain fish we were given. I didn’t know if I’d ever get to eat fish again, I thought to myself, smiling as I ate. There were oceans on this planet – the Bitter Sea Grim and Tok had come from for example. But I had no idea if I’d get the chance to go there anytime soon.

  The group was mostly quiet, our arrival silencing the chatter and laughter from before. I felt a bit bad about that – like we’d intruded on the Deep Sky people’s peace for the evening. But we had been invited. And we were allies, and hopefully would be friends eventually.

  As we ate, I let my gaze skim over the Deep Sky people seated across the fire. Yep – they definitely had the lack of ladies issue that plagued the Sea Sand men. And, at least from what I could see based on where everyone sat, it looked like all the adult women had mates already. Every adult woman sat with a man, some of them with children. There were no little groups of apparently single alien ladies the way Nasrin, Tilly, Fiona, and I sat together. Which meant that a good number of the small group of warriors here not only had no mates but no hope of one, either.

  At least, that would have been the case before. Before we showed up. Which probably explained why more than one silent warrior’s sight stars crawled back and forth over our faces with unusual intensity.

 

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