Page 14 of Fated to the Dragon Alien

Cerani

The crystal vein had little depth, putting it close to the surface and easier than some to extract. Cerani scraped along the edge of it, dragging her tool across the brittle rock with shallow strokes. It buzzed against her gloves, a dull vibration she barely noticed anymore. Dust filled the air between her visor and the narrow tunnel wall, smearing gray streaks across her vision.

The shaft was new—barely reinforced, lit with utility lights. Her suit’s air filter sounded like labored breathing, but at least it worked. Mostly. Cerani didn’t count on help anymore.

She crouched and slid a small fragment of basian crystal into her carrier pouch. Then she froze. Footsteps.

She knew the sound of the mechs. Heavy, uneven. This wasn’t that. His steps were different. Precise. Controlled. She didn’t need to look to know Stavian stood behind her.

“You’ve extracted the most high-purity crystals from this shaft than anyone else.” The deep burr of his voice moved through her like warm water.

Cerani didn’t pause in her work. “The veins are better here.”

He didn’t leave. He stayed, like he had the last few times he came down to check in. Most of the time he asked if her panel was working right or if her tools logged output. She gave the shortest answers possible. Never looked at him. It felt safer that way.

“What was your overseer like?” he asked.

That made her pause. Slowly, she eased back onto her heels and leaned against the rock wall. She rested her gloved hands on her knees. “At the settlement?” she asked.

“Yes.”

Cerani wiped at her visor even though the inside stayed dust-covered. “I never knew his name. His scales were purple and his eyes were gray, like yours. He kept very separate from us. I never spoke to him,” she said. “He was not cruel, but he didn’t step in when the riests punished people, either.”

Stavian knelt beside her. Not right at her side, but close enough that she sensed it—his size, the press of heat from his body, even through the suit.

“You saw your people get punished?” he asked.

She looked down and flicked a rock away with her tool. “I saw the aftermath. They took out someone’s eyes for trying to learn how to read.”

Stavian didn’t speak. She didn’t expect him to. There wasn’t much someone like him could say that would change any of it. Cerani scraped at the crystal again, letting the silence stretch. He stayed beside her.

“Did they say why the Axis didn’t allow Terians to read or write?” he asked.

“They didn’t need to.” She shrugged. “Illiterate people are easier to control.”

“That’s true.” He studied her, but she kept her eyes on the rock.

Cerani pulled another shard of basian crystal from the wall and tucked it into the box by her feet. It clicked softly as it fit into one of the padded slots.

“What about your friends?” Stavian asked.

She hesitated. A cycle didn’t pass that Cerani didn’t think about her friends from the settlement. Although time had passed, she worried about them. Wondered where they’d ended up. Hopefully, they were in better places than she was. “Lilas told off a riest when he tried to take my ration slip. She has the best comebacks. Nena drew moon cycles and weather patterns on her wall because she was comforted by knowing what day and season it was. Fivra was positive even when things were at their worst. Sevas was always threatening to run off into the wilds, and Turi…” Cerani’s lips compressed. “She’s still there, I guess. With the overseer.”

“Why did he keep her?”

“She was favored by him.” She didn’t know why she was telling him these things. It wasn’t as if he cared. Just that cycle, another miner had been taken offline by the med unit and he hadn’t even been there when the miner had been carried out by a mech.

“Favored how?” he persisted.

Cerani finally turned her head. Not all the way. Just enough to catch the side of his face through the visor. The dusty light etched hard lines along his jaw, the pale scales on his cheekbone catching the shimmer like burnished metal. His mouth was set, unreadable, but his eyes—what she could see of them—looked tired in a deep, haunted way. Like he hadn’t slept. Or couldn’t. “Favored. We joked he was in love with her, even though that was impossible.”

“Why would you think that impossible?” he asked, deep and quiet. “Are overseers not capable of love?”

“I don’t think they are,” she said with an unmistakable challenge in her voice. “Some are so cut off, so far above the little beings they control, that they lose the ability to feel anything for them.”

He sighed. It went quiet again, the kind of quiet that sank in deep. She went back to her crystal vein and scraped the rock around it. Surely he’d leave now, and let her resume her work in peace.

But no.

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