Page 2 of 3013: SAVIOR

“I did not steal it, and he has hundreds of favorites,” Jaya scoffed. “This one is rather cute, though.”

“Why do you have it?”

“Gideon gave it to me.”

“Gave it to you?” Jecca repeated suspiciously.

“Well, it was actually a trade. He offered it in exchange for one of my moon daggers.”

Jecca turned her head to shoot her twin an incredulous look. With their glowing silver eyes and similar facial features, it was like looking in a mirror. The only distinction was that Jecca kept her long black hair natural, while Jaya liked to change the color of hers on the regular. Right now, it was a pale silver that made it look like the strands had been dipped in liquid metal.

She let out a groan. “You gave a blade to a baby?”

“Of course not. I gave Gideon and Kadan harmless replicas.”

The moon daggers they both carried were made of an iridescent crystal they’d found on a moon of a distant planet. The crystal was one of the strongest natural substances they’d ever come across, and it was an excellent source material for weapons. Besides the knives, they also had swords and throwing darts made out of the gemstone. Although none of them were appropriate gifts for toddlers, at least magical replicas wouldn’t hurt them.

As Jaya snuggled closer, Jecca sighed again. Whenever her sister was being this blatantly affectionate, she’d either done something she knew Jecca wouldn’t like, or she wanted something. Instead of asking, she simply waited her sister out.

It didn’t take long before Jaya broke and said, “Our brother contacted us while you were sleeping.”

“Which one?”

“Braxas.”

That made Jecca wince. Malachi and Braxas were their older brothers and the Crown Princes of the Palace on the Isle of Mist. Both of them were extreme hard asses, except when it came to their mate, but Braxas was the most difficult to deal with. It would have been much better if their younger brothers, Riko and Nox, had contacted them, but they were usually too busy causing mischief to spend time with their sisters.

“What did Braxas want?”

“He wants us to come home, of course. And he wanted to know if we have any more information about the race behind the recent attacks within this area.”

“Did you tell him we are planning to speak with Amari Nazira about that once we get to Earth?”

“Aye, I did. But he is concerned due to another report of an attack near the Ziturri home world.”

The significance of that made her turn more fully toward her sister. “Who reported it? How many ships? Did they discover anything new?”

Instead of explaining, Jaya used their mind bond to directly send her all the information about the attack. Unfortunately, the Dragon Warriors who had reported the incident had destroyed the enemy vessels before they could get any information. Not that Jecca blamed them. When a Dragon Warrior was attacked, their retaliation was swift and deadly.

However, that wasn’t the most interesting part of the exchange. When she had shared the information with her, Jecca had sensed her sister was hiding something. “Spill it.”

“Whatever do you mean?”

Jecca used her fingertip to poke her sister in the forehead. “What are blocking me from seeing?”

Jaya rolled her eyes, then finally admitted, “I pretended to be you during the call since Braxas does not lecture you as much as he does me.”

That made Jecca chuckle. Switching places had been something they’d done often as younglings to trick their parents and older brothers. It didn’t work when they were in the same room together, but if there was only one of them around, they could make it work.

“He is just showing his concern.”

“He is just being a big pain in the ass,” Jaya countered. “He still blames me for the whole wormhole incident. It is not like I flew us into the damned thing on purpose.”

They had been on their way to meet their cousins when Jaya had accidentally flown their vessel into a wormhole. Their vessel was magically protected and programmed to avoid such anomalies, but the pull of that particular wormhole had been a lot stronger than anything they had encountered before. That had obviously caused an unexpected delay in their plans, but it had turned out to be an interesting experience since they had ended up in a part of the universe that hadn’t been discovered yet.

At least, not by any Dragon Warriors according to the historical records.

While it had been fascinating to explore the new territory, most of the worlds on the other end of the wormhole had been barren, desolate places. The few inhabited planets they had found were too young and the natives too primitive to establish contact with just yet. Jecca and Jaya had explored those worlds a bit, but they’d made sure to conceal their presence so the civilizations could continue to develop undisturbed.

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