Page 2 of Returned to the Vissigroth (The Vissigroths of Leander #6)

D uring the past rotation—rotation—the Vissigroths' Council Room had seen more of me than in all my fifty rotations prior.

As much as the room had become familiar to me, it still didn't stop impressing me.

Dark walls were decorated with carvings of our gods, wars, and heroic deeds of vissigroths from the past. The domed ceiling was also carved and painted in a similar fashion, albeit a bit lighter to bring color into the otherwise stark chamber.

Pillars stood in regular intervals about ten feet from the walls.

During times of war, such as now, a dragoon would be posted at each pillar.

Not that they were ever needed, because any fool entering a room filled with fourteen vissigroths would find their end sooner than they could unsheathe a dagger.

But they were there, providing a deterrent.

The room's center was dominated by a large, round table whose edges were engraved with images of dragons, as well as fourteen chairs, none of which differed in size or looks. Around this table, all were the same, all vissigroths. No matter that one of our number was our susserayn. Not here.

The table had been carved, in front of each seat, with a shallow groove that marked the perfect resting place for our swords, their tips angled inward toward the center, where an ornate sunburst gleamed from the stone.

"Vissigroth Mallack, what do you say?" Cyros the Vissigroth of Agradyr pulled me from my musings.

I took a moment to get my bearings and stared at the atrocious weapon currently hiding the carved sun in the center of the table.

How could such a small thing bring so much death and destruction? It was unfathomable.

We Leanders might not have looked it, but we were technologically advanced.

Advanced enough to have mastered spaceflight, and we’d just won a major battle against one of our main enemies, the Chrymphten.

We might have preferred swords over high-tech weapons, but we were no strangers to them.

What lay in the center of the table, though, was beyond any weapon I, or any of us, had ever seen.

I hadn't been here when the Renegades attacked our capital, Bantahar, but I had visited the site, and even many days after the attack, the horror of what had happened lived on.

This little weapon, looking like a silver bracelet no larger than my fist, had broken through our thickest walls, pushing stone out for many paces and turning them into missiles that killed anybody unlucky enough to be in the area.

Along the outer fringes of the blast, just as many were maimed.

Imagining this weapon in the hands of the Renegades was a danger not to be trifled with.

"I've never seen anything like it," I admitted.

"Kyra?" my son Myccael asked the human seffy—the only one who had ever been invited to a council meeting. Kyra was Vissigroth Duncayn's mate. A human straight from Terra, she was the only other person in the Fourteen Planets who might have an idea what this weapon was.

“From what witnesses describe, I’d say this is some kind of pulse weapon.

Not a projectile. They said there was no visible energy output.

Just… a sound. Then the wall imploded outward like it had been hit from the inside.

” Kyra hesitated, “Whatever it was, it compressed the air so fast it became a weapon. The atmosphere didn’t absorb the shock; it carried it. Amplified it.”

I looked back at her, shaking my head. "That’s not something a scavenger pulls off with stolen tech.”

Grumbled sounds of agreement made their way through the seated vissigroths around the round table.

"I'm sorry I can't be of more help," Kyra said, turning to her mate, Duncayn.

"It's okay, at least we know it's not from the humans," Duncayn replied, "that's something."

"Zyn—yes—thank you, Kyra," Myccael, our new susserayn, nodded at her, telling her she was excused. She didn't look upset to be sent out, more relieved. If I were a betting man, I would put many credits down on her making her way straight to the other seffies to report on our meeting.

"Well?" Myccael looked around the table, only to meet expressions as clueless as his was.

"Let's go find us some Renegades and get answers," my son-in-law, Darryck, the Vissigroth of the Icelands, decreed. His suggestion was met with hearty nods of agreement.

"I'm with you." Unsurprisingly, the Vissigroth of Djyngh, Garwayn, jumped at the opportunity. The two had had their disagreements, but they’d worked it out and become friends.

"You know me, I'm always up for a good fight," Claymor of Falls decreed.

All eyes moved to Myccael, who slowly nodded, "I don't think we'll need three of my vissigroths to hunt down a handful of Renegades.

" He sighed but relented, sensing how much the vissigroths itched for retaliation.

By the gods, I was itching for retaliation, and I was way past my prime fighting days.

The three vissigroths took their leave at once, and while the others filed out, I followed Myccael into another room.

There, on a long, large table, was a three-dimensional replica map of the long, treacherous journey from Bantahar to Ackaron Harbor—our spaceport.

Nobody knew why, but tradition forbade any spacecraft from landing any closer to Bantahar than Ackaron.

For as long as we could remember, the trek had to be done on foot or with the help of nictas.

Now that the humans had renewed contact with us, Myccael was set on taking Leander to the next level.

In support of that, he was having a mag-rail built that would make the journey easier and cut it from three days to three hours.

It would infinitely improve our trading.

"How is the project going?" I asked, studying the male in front of me.

He was my susserayn, but also my son, or rather, my adopted son.

I had believed him my biological son for many rotations, and we had only recently found out that due to an unspeakable betrayal, he and my daughter had been switched at birth.

"The digging has begun, but the Eulachs and Renegades have been a pain in my rear ever since.

From harassment to full attacks," Myccael rubbed the back of his neck.

"We've made it as far as the Pyme mountains, but the attacks have grown bolder.

And now with the latest attack on Batahar," he shook his head.

"I heard my favorite father-in-law was here," Oksana's sweet voice interrupted us when she entered like a breath of fresh air. All beauty and grace.

"I'm the only one you have, kid," I smiled, before I embraced her heartily, as I always did. Our words were a standing joke between us.

"Are you going to stay with us for a while this time?" She inquired.

"Not this time, I'm afraid," I declined her offer, "unless you need me to," I turned to Myccael, trying hard not to show how much I was looking for an excuse not to have to return to Hoerst.

I had always loved Hoerst, but after my mate Daphne's death, every rotation I dreaded going home to an empty palace more. So much so, that it had been several moon phases—months—since I’d last stepped foot on my home planet.

"I think we’ve got it under control, Father," Myccael's expression was rueful.

Our relationship had taken several hits over the rotations, and part of me had always blamed him, undeservedly, for Daphne's death.

Ironically, our relationship had only begun to improve after we found out that he wasn't my biological son.

He still called me father, and it gave me more pleasure than I was willing to admit.

"If you do need me, though, you know where to reach me," I encouraged.

"You'll be my first choice," Myccael replied with a sad expression on his face. He knew full well why I didn't want to go back.

"I wish you could stay longer," Oksana said, laying her head against my chest, a gesture I much appreciated.

Her father had betrayed her and her family in the most heinous way, and over the past rotations, I liked to think I had become a father figure for her, as surely as she had become my own child.

I had always wanted a daughter, and now I was blessed with two.

Oksana and my biological daughter, Thalia.

"I promise I will soon." I hugged her tightly.

She swirled out of my arms and swiped hers open to encompass Myccael's, "What do you think about your son's project?

" Oksana changed the subject, her eyes aglow like they always were when she talked about my son.

I didn't think he could do anything wrong in her eyes.

She truly loved him, and I was grateful for it.

Her love and support through recent events had been instrumental in molding Myccael into a man any father would be proud of.

"Ambitious," I laughed, and she giggled. "It will be a marvel once it’s done."

Myccael's face scrunched up in annoyance, "If we ever finish it." He shook his head, "The Renegades and Eulachs have been sabotaging us wherever they can."

I put my hand on his shoulder and squeezed it, "You have Grandy's favor, son. You will prevail. I have full trust in you."

He laid his palm on top of my hand, still on his shoulder, "Thank you, that means a lot to me."

"We're going hunting, you want to accompany us, Susserayn?" Darryck entered, fully geared up in his vissigroth finest.

He and Myccael had never been friends; Myccael had always seen a rival in Darryck, and I'm afraid that was my doing.

I had preferred the Vissigroth of the Icelands over my son for too long.

But now that they were brothers-in-law, they were both making an effort to get along, for Thalia's sake.

The gods knew that my daughter had suffered enough, and I was grateful that her husband and brother were making an effort to like each other.

"If you'll excuse me, my Susserayna," Myccael took Oksana's hand and kissed it.

"Only if you promise to be careful." She cautioned him, stepping into his embrace.

"Nothing is going to happen to him; he has three vissigroths at his side to protect him," Darryck announced.

Not too long ago, his words would have been a painful thorn in Myccael's side, but now he only grinned good-naturedly. "Don't worry, I've got your back, little brother."

"Be careful, Darryck, I'm sure he could take you now," Garwayn, being Garwayn, tried to inflame the little banter.

"He was chosen by the dragon," Darryck conceded, "I'm sure he can take all of us."

"He slayed an entire Dragoon squadron, singlehandedly," Claymore added.

"And I'd do it again for a noble seffy like my Susserayna," Myccael kissed Oksana's cheek.

I took the opportunity to take my leave while the males were busy with their banter and excitement over going Renegade hunting. I had a long journey ahead of me, and for some reason that I could not begin to fathom, an urge to get to Hoerst was growing inside me.

The urge only gained in strength over the following days.

So much so, I drove my entourage to travel day and night.

We were lucky that no Eulachs or Renegades waylaid us; either that, or our heavy weaponry scared them off.

By the afternoon on the third day, my companions and the nictas were ready to collapse in the sand when we entered Ackaron Harbor.

Never had I driven this hard to get to the spaceport, not since Daphne was taken from me.

Normally, I did anything I could to delay my arrival, but this time, I couldn't get there fast enough. Something was pulling me home; something I didn’t understand.

Once upon a time, I would have said it was the urge to get back to my Vissy, but Daphne had been dead for rotations.

You haven't been to her shrine in several moon phases , my inner voice brought up.

A fact I was shamefully aware of. After her death, I had Daphne entombed in a glass shrine, one that would preserve her beauty for all eternity.

The shrine was hidden in the Grandyr's Crown mountains.

I was the only person who knew where it was.

I journeyed there several times a rotation, to look at her, to remember everything we had lost, I would talk to her, tell her things, as if we'd only parted a few hours ago and she were still alive.

She was the only seffy I ever loved—the only one I would ever love.

I hadn't looked at another seffy since I met her, not even after she died.

Some days it was a lonely existence. Some days, I yearned for the intimacy, the connection Daphne and I had. The conversations. The quiet moments. The way her eyes could hold mine and make me believe the galaxy wasn’t already broken.

Maybe that’s why I felt the pull to get to Hoerst as quickly as possible. I needed to visit her shrine. Seeing her like that, like she was only sleeping, soothed her loss in the only way possible. Made it, not bearable… not tolerable…

But distant.

And distance was sometimes the only peace I knew. I hadn't even told her about Zara, our new granddaughter, yet.