“Then how was I able to go into your dream?”
“I don’t know.” He looked at a loss. “This is a first for me. I can’t explain it definitively. Maybe through exposure to me?” From underneath the collar of his black T-shirt, he pulled out an inconspicuous glass vial. It hung from a brown leather cord and was the size of a quarter, though I couldn’t actually tell what was in it. Etched delicately into the glass was a large, predatory bird in flight, sharp talons dangerously splayed. It was such intricate work that it momentarily distracted me.
“Does everyone on this...planet...have some of that?”
“No. It’s highly restricted.” He resheathed the vial under his shirt and leaned back, casually resting his boot on his jean-clad knee. “You need special clearance. It can be dangerous.”
“Why?”
“If someone isn’t careful with their imaging, they could end up in a foreign place, perhaps one without oxygen or one with an inhospitable climate. We’re pretty sure that an early pair of scientists died this way.” He paused. “No one knew they were looking into other life-sustaining planets.”
“Why aren’t you guys sure of any of this?”
“All we have left are journal notes. No...bodies. My grandfather and his assistant were the scientists.”
How awful.
“Since then, we’ve implemented safety regulations when explorers set out, which isn’t frequently. Not much experimentation is done with it anymore. The process of mining mylunate was outlawed because of the danger involved, and because of the health risks to the workers, so there’s a limited supply.”
“What made it dangerous?”
“Extremely hazardous chemicals are used to extract the ore, and they caused many to die young. What’s already been pulled from the ground is protected and used strictly for high-court purposes.”
He ran a hand over the back of his neck, as though a stress headache was coming on. I saw he was looking tired, and it was no kidding, if he’d been trying to protect me the last several days. He couldn’t have had a lot of sleep. Reluctantly, I felt my anger start to drain away.
“You guys have a lot of this stuff?”
“We’re rich with it here in the north. There’s enough of it buried under the surface that most citizens can transfer right from their homes. For those who aren’t near enough to a natural deposit, the high court had transfer units built in secure locations to make travel accessible for all.”
“You guys don’t need roads at all.”
“We don’t. However, the southern regions of the planet have a different geologic makeup. If they have any deposits at all, they’re minute and not easily accessible. It’s for the mylunate that the people of the south, the Brausa—” he curled his lip in disdain, “—have waged war with us. They’re a crude, animalistic, barbaric people who don’t care if they kill women and children in their quest for power.”
“I guess you don’t want to share your resources with them, then.”
“Have no doubt they would seek to enslave any nation they encountered. They have very little respect for human life, including the lives of their own kind.”
“Sounds bad,” I murmured, though in truth, I was having trouble taking it all in.
With a sudden frown Ryder said, “Christ, Taylor, you’re shaking. We need to get you warm.” I hadn’t realized my teeth were still chattering and that I couldn’t feel my toes.
“You have a heating system?”
“The heating rods will take a few minutes to warm up.”
“Heating rods?” I arched an eyebrow. “Sounds like it’ll hurt.”
“They line the floor, Taylor. They heat the whole room. I’m not going to stick you with them.” His lips quirked as he stood. I really liked to see him smile.
I sniffed, getting that cold-air, runny-nose thing, and said, “I guess I am cold.”
“This should help.” There was a blanket that I hadn’t noticed lying across the top of the sofa. He pulled it over me.
As it turned out, warming me up took not only a warm blanket but a fireball of a drink, one that had a murky look to it, that Ryder said was soldier’s brew out in the field. It singed my throat as it went down, making my eyes water, but my shivering stopped completely. I’m sure the heating system he went to turn on kicked in as well, but his brew, whatever the hell was in it, was powerful.
“Holy smokes,” I hissed, and I coughed.
“It’s potent. Take it easy,” Ryder said.
Taking care of someone else seemed to be a new experience for him, as he watched me closely, unsure of what to do for me. He was trying to be thoughtful, but the edges of his bedside manner needed smoothing out. He stood over me like a drill sergeant, first insisting on having me lean back on the arm of the sofa with my feet up, then wrapping me cocoon style—shoes and all—into the thick, warm blanket and finally forcing the jet fuel on me.
However, where the first sip of witches’ brew had had me coughing and sputtering, my eyes watering as I tried to breathe through the alcoholic fumes that choked my throat, the second and third got me to feeling like everything was A-OK. By the time I got to the bottom of the cup, heat flushed my cheeks, and the world was looking pretty damned rosy.
The world was looking so rosy that Ryder had gone back to being my hero again, saving me from the dark forces of evil, instead of the guy who’d just thrown me, with no warning, across the universe.
“Better?” he asked. He took the empty cup from me and casually perched it on a side table before sitting at the far end of the sofa again.
“Just like the frosted cornflakes tiger.” I slurred my words with a big silly grin, which had him looking at me with faint confusion, since he likely hadn’t watched enough TV to know who Tony was, but I was feeling too good to explain. I burrowed into the warm blanket and, strangely, felt as though it hummed with energy. What was it with all this energy? Why hadn’t I ever felt it before? In dreams now I could feel it swirling around me, knowing that it was my own, recognizing it like it was a personalized fingerprint or something like that. I could feel Ryder’s energy too. It was different from mine.
I noticed the blanket wrapped around me was absolutely magnificent. It was silky soft, mostly forest green, though there were sunbursts of burnt oranges, reds and browns sparsely woven in, creating a beautiful image. It had intricate stitches in a pattern of an animal. After looking at it more carefully, I realized it was that same magnificent bird of prey from the glass vial hanging on his neck. It must have taken hundreds of hours to plan and make.
“Ryder, this is amazing,” I breathed, running my fingers over the pattern more gently.
“My grandmother made it.”
“It’s so soft. I’ve never felt anything like it. It’s like butter. What is it made from?”
“It’s a special, rare sun plant that we call sele’tuen. My grandmother has spent her life nurturing fields of this plant species. Very few others have been so successful in growing them. It requires special care. Patience.”
“She spins her own yarn?”
“Spins it, dyes it, plans the designs and weaves it.”
“What a wonderful gift.”
“Everyone in our family has their own. My grandmother waits for a sign from our...” He frowned, as though looking for a word and not finding it in English. “In our world, I would call him Pere’seiunat. Like a spirit animal.”
“Is this your spirit animal?” I noted the large talons outstretched in attack mode and traced the outline gently. “I saw this on your necklace.”