Page 12 of Returned to the Vissigroth (The Vissigroths of Leander #6)

I was too confused, too tormented to really pay attention to Mallack's last words.

My mind was like a sieve filling with water.

I was standing underneath it, trying to catch as much as possible, but it ran between my fingers, leaving only a hint of a story.

Fragments that I tried to fill in. Make fit.

I had been dead.

That was still the hardest one to wrap my head around. How did one come back from the dead? And why? Just to deliver a message to Myccael, one that didn't make any sense to me?

And after I did? Then what? Would I collapse and die again?

I thought that would be the most likely possibility, because whoever had brought me back hadn't seemed to think me important enough to restore my life to me. Because what was the sense in it? Did one give a vessel a name that carried illies flowers?

Strangely, the thought of being dead again didn't bother me at all. At least, not in the way one would think. It bothered me more when I looked at Mallack. It was obvious the male was grief-stricken over the loss of his mate… me. To do that to him, again? What kind of heartless monster did that?

Mallack said a god. The god Grandyr. Another name that didn't mean a thing to me.

I don’t know how long I sat there, lost in my thoughts, but after a while, Mallack brought me food, and we talked again, this time about nothing.

He seemed content to just sit there, stare at me, and ask me questions about waking up in the shrine and how I got to Veyrhall.

Honestly, most of that journey was a blur to me.

I just knew where I had to go. People there called me Vissy Thalia, which was why I assumed I was.

Thalia and I really had to look an awful lot alike for everyone to make the same mistake. Thalia. My daughter.

I asked Mallack more questions about her and her husband, Darryck, whom I was supposed to know as well.

From out of nowhere, the image of a boy with black hair and dark, serious eyes came to me, but I wasn't sure if it was Darryck or Myccael, and I didn't want to ask Mallack. Everything was confusing enough.

That night, I dreamed again.

Smoke still hung in the air. Not the thick, choking kind from the night before, it was thinner now, curling through broken beams and shattered windows, rising from what was left of the city like ghosts. The sun filtered weakly through the haze, pale and cold.

Our hut was still standing, but only barely.

The front door sagged on one hinge, and the inside smelled of ash and scorched oil.

Mama sat curled in the corner, her shawl pressed to her arm, blood soaking the fabric.

She tried to hide the pain, but I saw it in the way she held her breath.

The way her lips trembled when she thought I wasn’t looking.

“I’ll find a healer,” I offered.

She didn’t argue. Just closed her eyes and leaned back against the wall.

And that told me more than any words ever could have.

She would’ve never let me step outside unless it was truly dire.

The mother in her always fought to keep me safe, to hold the world at bay.

Sending me into that war-torn city went against every instinct she had, but she must have known that if she died, she wouldn’t be able to protect me at all.

It took many rotations, and becoming a mother myself, before I understood the terror of that kind of choice, when every option feels like a betrayal, and survival demands you gamble with the person you love most.

Outside, the streets were littered with ruin.

Scorch marks and soot blackened the cobblestones.

One of the bakeries had collapsed inward, the wooden frame looked like ribs snapped open to the sky.

I kept to the alleyways, head down, eyes low.

Dragoons were everywhere, mostly Vissigroth Kennenryn’s, wandering the broken streets like carrion beasts without a commander.

I’d nearly made it to the healer's house when I heard a laugh.

It was rough and off-key and clearly belonged to a male.

Goosebumps rose over my skin, and dread filled my stomach.

I turned to run too late. A hand clamped around my arm, the grip was like a vise; it was gloved in blood-streaked leather.

“Well now,” he said, breath reeking of sour ale and battle sweat. “Aren’t you a sweet little treat?”

He was taller than me by far, like all Leanders. His armor was dented, the insignia of Kennenryn scorched but visible on his chest. One eye was swollen shut. The other glittered with something mean.

“I’m just looking for a healer,” I said. My voice shook. “My mother’s ? —”

“I'll heal you, alright,” he muttered, dragging me toward a collapsed alcove. “C’mon. Let’s see what a human body feels like.”

“Ney—please ? —!”

I twisted, but he was stronger; his grip bruised my arm, and I felt a hint of panic bloom cold and wide inside me. A scream tore from me, one that made my attacker only laugh harder.

But then, out of nowhere, "Let her go!”

The voice hit like thunder. It was loud and commanding, leaving no doubt that he expected it to be followed. The soldier froze. His fingers still dug into my arm, but I felt them twitch.

“Who in the hells ? —”

“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 sword at 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.