Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 77692 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 388(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77692 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 388(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
There is a reason for everything.
I try to keep that thought in mind as I finally pull out the handheld tablet that contains the message sent by Ila to me from Earth. I make a mental note to contact our allies, the Tall Whites, to see if they’ve made any advancements to their technological abilities in making contact through space. It would be far better for me to sit screen to screen with my sister than simply listening to her voice or waiting endless moons for messages to arrive.
One thing at a time, Halun, I tell myself.
First, the message.
I make sure to turn the volume down on the tablet as to not disturb Luna and Nowas while I listen in the enclave, but I do plan to share it with her, and even Bothaki, at some point. I would be lying, however, if I said a part of me knew I wouldn’t want to listen to the message unless I was alone.
As if it were just Vabila and I, and she had something to tell me.
Finally, I start the message.
“Brother … Thori,” Vabila says first, very quietly. “I swore I could hear the bell from here, Halun. I hope you know you’re going to have a long and happy reign on your throne. There is always a purpose …”
She trails off, and my brows furrow as I glance down at the tablet in confusion. Thinking, wrongly, that her message had somehow been cut off from the sudden silence that echoes from the device.
But no.
Vabila simply knows how to make a good point.
“Please don’t be mad at me, but things are not finished here,” Vabila says, then, “and I’m not coming back home, Halun. Not right now … maybe never if you mean for me to stay forever. People, ours and theirs, need me here. Our mother didn’t die for nothing, and I won’t let it end up that way.”
She takes a deep breath, and I hear it unlike her other pause that left me with nothing at all.
“And I’ve gotten married, brother … the human way. I’ve found my mate.”
Luna finds me some time later still standing in the enclave with the tablet in my hands, although silent now. With our son still latched to her breast, it’s the graze of her fingertips under my jaw that breaks whatever trance I’m in.
“Did you listen to the message from your sister?” she asks.
I nod once. “I did.”
“And?”
How does one say something like … this?
“Well,” I murmur, swallowing loudly, “it would appear I was wrong.”
I let the replay of the message explain the rest.
BIOS
Ava Mona is a writer, reader, mother, and wife… All at the same time.
Send help.