“So, you’d just be a caretaker?”
“More than that, Trent. There are things that need fixing. There’s rebuilding to do. People who died that need replacing, beyond our leaders. The list could be endless.”
“And you have six months.”
“Yeah.”
“Sounds like you want to do this,” he said, gripping her hands tightly within his.
“I love what we’ve built. I love our little family. But I am a Raige and we’re built to protect all of Nova Prime. The people are our family, too, and they’re hurting.”
“I know. I know all about the Raiges and the way you’re trained. Protecting runs in your family.”
“But you’re not happy.”
“I worry about you. Emotionally, you’ve been through so much in such a short period of time. Taking this on will be crushing and you rarely rely on others, preferring to do things yourself. Looking after the planet is a huge responsibility, and I want my wife back when the six months are over. Will you be the same?”
She leaned over and kissed him.
“As long as I can come home to you and Lorenzo every night, I’ll be just fine.”
Carefully placing the baby between them, the couple embraced and she soaked it in. After all, she began wondering, just how many nights over the next six months would she actually have the luxury of coming home, finding either one still awake?
It was, though, just six months. And Hunter already told her to do it. He was speaking for the ancestors. She would do the job, without that damned title, and protect not only her family but all the families on Nova Prime.
It was in her blood.
1000 AE
Nova Prime
i
Faia Raige had been preparing dinner for herself, since the men in her life were away together, when she heard a knock at the door. For a moment, she wondered if she had extended an invitation to someone and forgotten. That would be unlike her. She was usually good at remembering such things.
Hearing the knock again, she wiped her hands with a cloth and went to answer the door. When she opened it, she saw two men she had never met before. There was something about them. They looked… official.
“Mrs. Raige?” the taller of them said.
“Yes. Can I help you?” Faia asked.
Then they told her what had happened. For a moment, they were just words. Then they sank in, and she began to scream. The men looked away. What could they do? They had torn her life open and ripped its heart out. What was there to do after that?
Years earlier, Faia had lost her daughter, Senshi. That was the most horrible thing she could ever have imagined, the most horrible pain she could ever have borne. But this…
This.
ii
Kitai felt a soft pecking at his cheek. What…? He brushed it away with his hand, but it resumed a moment later. Finally, he opened his eyes to see where the pecking was coming from and found himself staring into the eyes of a tiny, newborn baby bird, close enough to nuzzle at him with its beak. Instinctively, Kitai jumped back and realized he was covered in something clear and viscous. He sucked in a breath and began wiping the stuff off his face. Only then did he pay attention to the patchwork of light and shadow around him and the intertwined branches picking shadows from the sunlight.
Where am I? he wondered.
Propping himself up, Kitai looked around. He was surrounded by eggs: not the kind he had known on Nova Prime but huge ones, each of them bigger than the baby bird. And they had all begun to crack.
As he watched, the birds inside them—dark, wet things—emerged from the eggs and spread their slick wings as if they would take flight. A nest, he realized. I’m in a giant nest. Kitai looked down. He could see through the bottom of the nest, where there were gaps in the branches. If I’m in a nest, he thought, I must be in a tree. He identified the biggest branch in the interwoven structure and traced it back to an enormous trunk. And there, sitting on the branch right next to the trunk, was a massive bird of prey, not unlike a condor except it was more than two meters tall if it was a centimeter. As Kitai looked on, his heart pounding, the bird opened its beak and spread its wings. They spanned a good five meters. Of course, he had seen that kind of wingspan before…
Just before the bird plucked him out of the sky.
It seemed to be standing guard at the base of the branch. Eyeing him. As what? Food for its newborn?
Kitai had no intention of serving that purpose. He looked around for his backpack and found it on the other side of the nest. It was torn in the corner, but his cutlass was still clipped to it. That was good. With the cutlass, he had a chance against the bird. He started moving toward the weapon slowly so as not to disturb the bird. All around him, its young continued to break free of their eggs. Finally, Kitai reached his gear.
But as he reached for it, he looked down through the gaps in the nest and saw a dark shape moving up the trunk of the tree. He couldn’t tell what it was, but it looked enormous, even bigger than the adult bird. One of the newborn creatures moved toward Kitai. He extended his foot and pushed it away. It fell on its side so clumsily that it was funny.
But Kitai wasn’t inclined to laugh. Not when the dark shape was still moving up the trunk below him. And definitely not when he saw a second shape drop onto his branch from above.
With trembling hands, he unclipped the cutlass from his pack. Then he tapped in a combination on its handle. Instantly the weapon extended to its full two-meter length, with one end featuring a sharp spear point and the other a flat blade. None too soon, either, because the limb on which the nest rested began to shake violently.
Suddenly, the adult bird went at the invader that had attacked from below. Kitai could see the intruder better now. Its fur was a burned gold. The body someplace between leopard and lion. It snarled and swiped at the bird, which spread its wings and took itself out of the leopard’s range. But not too far. It still had a nest full of young to protect. As Kitai watched, it flew at the leopard and pecked at it with its razor-sharp beak.
This is my chance, he thought.
While the creatures were busy, he could slip out of the nest and make his way down through the branches of the tree. With luck, neither of them would notice his departure until it was too late to retrieve him. Kitai crawled to the edge of the nest, but before he could climb over it, he felt the branch shudder. Casting a glance over his shoulder, he saw another leopard appear on the end of the branch. Still others were scaling the trunk below him.
The cadet looked back at the newborns in the corner of the nest. They squawked at him. Kitai didn’t know why, but he felt an obligation to defend them.
It was crazy. He had his own skin to look after, and his father’s life depended on him, too. But he couldn’t just leave the newborn birds to the mercy of the leopards. Moving back into the center of the nest, he stood in front of the younglings, his cutlass at the ready.
Suddenly a huge leopard paw erupted from between the branches of the nest, narrowly missing Kitai. It was the first of many. As Kitai watched, paws came up from the bottom of the nest here, there, and everywhere. One of them struck a newborn bird. The branches of the nest began to crack and break apart under the leopards’ assault. Kitai used his spear point to stab at one of them. The leopard screamed as the weapon pierced its hide.