Page 22 of The Last Hope

I grunt. “You had the electro-whatcha-call-it. We were freeing ourselves no matter what.”

Court reroutes his attention to us. “Can you take him out alone?” he asks me.

“He’s no match for I,” I assure him, though my sore nose says otherwise. “Now that I’m fed,” I add.

Court nods, urgency narrowing his eyes.

Franny gapes. “You two can’t be serious.”

I eat a bit of meat underneath my thumbnail. “Serious as a ram on a ridge-wall.” He’s far from a friend of ours. Our best bet is to aim this starcraft at a world we want to go to. Andtalkingto the man-boy won’t be helping us achieve that.

Anyway, I prefer not speaking to people.

Court frowns. “Why wouldn’t we be serious?”

Her eyes dart between us, and realization eases her bones. “You two have always run from people. For survival. Haven’t you? Your distrust foreveryonestems from longer than I’ve been linked to either of you.” She stretches forward, moreexcitable. “But can’t you see that he could have answers?” She lowers her voice even more. “Like why we’re human. What that even means.”

I don’t care much about that.

I just want to find a safe place to settle down. Wake up before the light bathes the land, and hear the wind whistle through rustling trees. Hunt for a good feast. Warm my skin with a wood fire. Hold the boy I love in my arms. Go to bed.

Fall to gentle sleep.

I’m about to shrug, but Franny says passionately, “I’d like to know. I’d like to understand why we’re linked. Why we ended up on a planet that was never our home.”

Her fraught need and plea for answers strikes me like ten quivers of arrows. Shot at my wild heart, and I rub my rough jaw and look to Court.

He stares unblinkingly at the table, emotion too muddled to make sense of. I’m supposing he’s confused.

“You’re bleeding,” Court says, not picking up his gaze.

Since he feels me more strongly than Franny, I know he’s speaking about me. I run my coarse fingers over my crooked nose. Dried blood is flowing out of my nostrils again.

“Gods bless.” I stand from the booth, turn to face the cushion, and kneel on the ground. Forearms set against the seat.

Court and Franny let me be.

I have no eyes on the man-boy, but I trust them to keep a lookout while I pray.

When I was a boy of five years, a little lady fought me for a snow leopard that I had killed and lugged across my shoulders. She pushed me in knee-deep snow, and people in my village trickled out of their warmth to watch.

I’d spent two days hunting that animal and had quiet pains that no man or lady could see.

She punched. I clawed.

She beat. I howled.

And when I couldn’t stand up on my own two feet with my own two hands to help me, she proudly won my snow leopard.

My eye bled badly for two straight nights. My pa told me to go to the village sanctuary. Losing the snow leopard dishonored the God of Victory, and so I knelt in front of the sorcerer. She performed a familiar ritual, and the next morning, blood finally dried.

In the starcraft, I can almost taste and feel the ritual. Like only just yesterday I hiked through my village with the crunch of snow beneath my boots and with a friendly gust blowing my unruly hair.

I whisper a blessing in my head.

I shall do good, be good, and honor thee in greatness and glory. For ye shall know the mighty winds do sing songs of Wonder, of Victory, of Death.

Dipping my fingers in my blood, I draw a line from my forehead, down my nose, lips, chin, and neck. I mark three scarlet lines beneath my eyes.