Page 17

ALICE

"None of you has to stay here," Silla promised all of us while we sat inside what looked like a great hall from medieval times. "The Pandraxian Empire is made of two factions, one that adheres to the old traditions and is governed by Lord Protectors, like my mate, Garth, and the other that embraces the high-tech lifestyle. Many citizens alternate every so many years, wanting to live one way for a time and then switch."

Silla's gaze moved over our ranks as if trying to guess who would be more comfortable where. "There are also other planets kept by Lord Protectors if Astrionis isn't to your liking. There won't be any judgment from us. You've been through enough and deserve to make your own choices.

"And then there is Rottvan, a brand-new planet we are colonizing and developing. It was meant to become a planet for human refugees, but after the mating bond was discovered, it was thought better to try and integrate our species more."

"Mating bond?" Josie asked.

"Yes, the easiest way to explain it is that it's like finding one’s soulmate. I know," she raised her hands, "I didn't believe in it either, but trust me, the Pandraxians and some others showed me proof, and honestly, it's the most magical thing that can happen to you." Her smile was so warm and dreamy that nobody voiced any arguments. There was a lot of new information to digest anyway.

Servants entered, bringing very Earth-like food. Bread, soups, rice, spaghetti, meat, it was too much to name. Many groans of appreciation rang out as we began to eat, filling our stomachs with real food for the first time in months.

Garth walked in, putting an arm around his wife. They looked at us with affection, but my heart grew heavy because I knew Garth's presence meant that Xyrek had left.

It was stupid, really. I had known he would. What had I expected? That he would return with a declaration of love and claim he couldn't possibly live without me? I scoffed. I wouldn't have known how to respond to something like that. It wasn't like I had any feelings for the guy. Right?

No. I mean, I liked him. But I liked Ava too. And I liked Silla and Garth. If any of them left, I wouldn't be too upset. I might be sad, but it wouldn't hurt. So, there. I was just sad that Xyrek had left. Nothing else.

After a long meal, more people, mostly humans, appeared, moving from table to table and inviting my fellow travelers to follow them. Undoubtedly, to show them where they would be staying.

To my surprise, it was Silla who approached me. "Garth said you had a talent for fixing things?"

I nodded, "I do."

"We have a problem at the forge. Would you mind taking a look at it in the morning?"

"I can look at it now," I offered.

"I don't want to put you out. You need to get acclimated here first, see your quarters, and make it homey."

I shook my head. "What I need is to feel useful. Show me."

Her smile was so wide and sweet and contagious that I reciprocated it instantly. It had been a long time since I smiled this honestly back at someone, and my jaw hurt. The last time was at Xyrek when he… damn him, why did he always have to sneak back into my mind?

I followed Silla outside, still a bit awed by how they lived inside a freaking, hollowed-out root and how it looked absolutely medieval, complete with a fireplace— inside the root. We even walked over a drawbridge that stretched over a real moat. More than a moat because it looked like it was lava or a swampy mess. Heat rose from it, reaching me even on the bridge. This entire place was impressive and utterly unreal. Even the sky, with its barely visible planet or moon sitting on the horizon, proclaimed that I wasn't on Earth any longer.

I wasn't sure how long living inside a root, with candles and fireplaces, would be intriguing and at what point I would start yearning for a TV or whatever the other Pandraxians had, but for now, I thought I could live here.

We entered the forge, and the sweltering heat from the fires immediately enveloped me. It was a relentless heat that clung to my skin, thick and suffocating, like standing inside a wood-burning oven while someone kept throwing logs onto the fire. Sweat dripped down my back, soaking into my shirt and making it stick to my skin.

The air reeked of metal, hot iron, sweat, and soot, and it truly felt as if I had stepped through a gate into the past. The steady clang of hammers against steel, the hiss of metal being quenched in water, and the low murmurs of workers filled the space around me. In a way, it reminded me of the garage I used to work at before my fancy job in Vegas.

This was medieval in the most impossibly real way. I turned in place, taking it all in. Everywhere I looked, weapons gleamed under the firelight. Swords, spears, axes, and rows upon rows of arrowheads stacked neatly in wooden crates, ready to be fitted into shafts and sent flying into someone’s chest. But there were also tools—many, many tools—and household items. I didn't see any type of machine. No conveyor belts, no automated efficiency.

Everything was made by hand, shaped by fire and sweat.

I thought Xyrek was built like one of those guys on muscle drinks and magazines, but these Pandraxians were just as muscular. Their bodies were sculpted and their muscles honed—without an ounce of softness among them. Their metallic-looking skin gleamed in the firelight—purple, yellow, aqua, green.

What I mostly noticed was that the forge was dying, along with all of the blacksmiths’ patience. I didn’t need to know much about alien or ancient tech to understand the problem. The fire was too weak, and the embers barely glowed beneath half-melted iron. The smiths hammered away at their stations, but the metal wasn't fully pliable. I creased my brows; they had to have known that the bellows were shot.

I walked over to the bellows to take a closer look, my lungs burning from the heat. How could these men stand this? The massive, wooden-and-leather contraption that fed air into the flames—the literal lungs of the forge—was nothing more than a sagging, useless heap. It wheezed pathetically every time one of the workers yanked on the pull chain, but there was no strength left in it. No pressure, no force, and without that, the fire wouldn’t get hot enough to smelt properly.

I crouched beside it and ran my hands over the damaged leather, the warped frame, and the tangled pulley system. My engineer brain was already piecing together the why behind the failure.

The smiths had tried to fix it, but they obviously didn’t have the right tools or understanding of load distribution. Their attempted repairs were rough—layers of mismatched stitching where the leather had torn, splintered wood reinforcing already warped beams. They’d done what they could, but patching something without knowing why it failed in the first place only delayed the inevitable.

It wasn’t just the leather. It was the entire system.

The wooden support beams had warped due to uneven weight distribution, which meant the bellows couldn’t expand or contract properly—they were misaligned. The pulley system was tangled because the counterweights weren’t functioning correctly, making it impossible to pump enough air.

No air, no fire. No fire, no forge.

I wiped the sweat from my forehead with the back of my hand and turned to Silla, who was watching me with the kind of expectant patience that only someone in charge could pull off.

"Can you fix it?" she asked.

"Yeah. But I need a few things." The blacksmiths exchanged doubtful glances with each other, but I ignored them. "First, I need rope. Sturdy, thick rope."

A few hesitated, still unconvinced I wasn’t about to make things worse. But when Silla simply lifted a brow, the smiths scrambled to get what I needed. A few hours later, I had it fixed. I pulled on the pulley, a rush of air blasted into the struggling fire, and suddenly, the flames roared back to life. The forge exploded with even more heat, licking at the iron, turning the dim orange embers into a raging inferno once more.

I exhaled hard, wiping soot from my face with the back of my sleeve. "There," I said. "That should hold."

"Impossible," one of the smiths muttered, eyeing the now-functional bellows like it was some kind of miracle. Every face was filled with gratitude and excitement. It reminded me of when I used to work in the garage and fixed a car whose owner had been sure this was their last visit before they would have to buy a new car they couldn’t afford. The same strange sensation of warmth creeping through my chest I experienced then ran through me now and brought a genuine smile to my lips. Yes, I could live here, and I would like it too.

"Thank you," Silla said, pressing my shoulder.

I smiled deeply at her, "No, thank you. This reminded me of how useful my work used to be."

She grinned. "I think you'll fit right in. Come, let me show you your new room; you can get cleaned up there too. I'll have clothes brought up and whatever else you might need."

To my surprise, she took me back to the palace . I wasn't sure why I called it that, probably because she and the Lord Protector lived here, or maybe because it was the biggest root around. Either way, it was getting dark, and I saw many other Pandraxians and humans going into their smaller root houses.

"Am I staying with you?" I asked.

"I have a feeling your work here will be very important to us. So yes, if you don't mind, you'll be staying with us," She replied, and we walked over the moat.

"So, this moat…" I drifted off.

"We have some nasty critters come out as soon as it gets dark. That's why we have all these precautions. They can't enter the rootrocks, but the moat provides a second layer of defense and will keep other enemies out, too, if they ever come."

"Reassuring," I muttered.

She laughed. "Life here isn't easy sometimes, and it can be dangerous, but it's also very rewarding."

"I'll take your word for it."

She grinned and led me back inside and up a set of stairs, so many, my legs ached for the last part of it, and I had to take a break.