15
Sorik
Sol'Virex appeared all at once— the jungle simply releasing us into it.One moment dark canopy and charged undergrowth.The next, open valley and there it was.
I watched her face.Hoped my home—our home—would please her.
She stopped walking.
Sol'Virex had evolved over four centuries, not against the landscape, but part of it.Obsidian and stormglass walls rose from the rock as though the cliff face had decided to become shelter.The building panels blazed violet and electric blue in the pre-storm charge.Every surface conducted the valley's energy into the ground through the node network beneath like a second root system.
The Storm Hearth building at the village center was already lit.Amber warmth at the heart of the electric blue, the great central fire that had burned through every storm for four hundred years.
The whole settlement glowed.
"It's beautiful."Barely a whisper.Words that escaped before she decided to say them.
The tension I'd carried for the entire trip released all at once."Yes."
Her hand moved to the marks at her collar — not covering them, that instinct was gone — just touching them.She’d left her jacket on the ship.The storm warmed her from within now.Her marks had deepened during the run, branching lines extending toward her shoulders, throwing faint blue-white light across her jaw.
Everyone in Sol'Virex would know what they were looking at.
"They're going to see my marks," she said.
"Yes."
"What does it mean to them?"
"It means the Commander has found his mate.And that she has chosen to stay."
Her lips quirked."How can they know that just based on marks?"
"The marks don't appear on someone who hasn't already chosen."I watched her face."They'll feel our approach before we reach the Hearth.As you will feel them."
Her heartbeat spiked through the Skybond.
"All right," she said.Then, quieter: "I don't know your customs.I'm going to do something wrong."
"You won't."
"You can't know that."
"I know you," I said.
“My crew is going to freak out.”She held my gaze for a long moment.Then she looked back at the settlement."Tell me what I need to know.While we walk."
I fell into step beside her and talked.I took her to the hot springs.Held her in the bubbling water.Bathed her soft skin.Rubbed cleansing oil over every inch of her body.Reveled in the feel of her small hands as she did the same for me.
All the while, I told her the history of our valley and my people.Our customs.What her life here could be.She listened with her whole body.
We didn’t linger, though I wanted to.The storm was approaching and I wanted to introduce her to the elders.To the village.To her new home.The energy of the Hearth hit my nodes from forty meters out.My spine blazed with welcome.I was simply, entirely home.
Beside me, Sloane made a sound.Her marks blazed full-bright, branching lines pushing past her shoulders in the Hearth's intensified field.She had one hand pressed flat to her sternum.
"I can feel it," she breathed."From here."
"The Hearth runs on the same grid as the valley network.Your nodes are responding to it."I kept my voice level."It will intensify inside.Tell me if it's too much."