Page 48 of The Delver
They continued onward at a slow pace, constantly scanning their surroundings for potential hazards. She couldn’t tell if he’d altered his speed for her sake or his own. Either way, she was grateful for it. He’d taken another crystal out of his pouch so she could keep the first. She’d offered to take out her lantern for more light, but Urkot had shaken his head and told her to save it until they truly needed it. For now, the crystals were the safer option, as their blue light was not out of place in these caves and would draw far less attention from any creatures lurking in the dark.
Callie requested a brief stop so she could relieve herself. She’d excelled at mountain-womaning it in the jungle, so why not tick off another checkbox by peeing in a cave? But the novelty didn’t make the experience any more pleasant. She found a spot out of Urkot’s view, but there was no hiding the sound.
Her face was aflame when she finished and rejoined him. Thankfully, he made no comment, and they walked on.
For the most part, the winding tunnel was spacious, and the floor seemed to have been worn smooth by a no longer present water source. But there were spots where Urkot had to squeeze his broad shoulders and large hindquarters through narrow gaps, and a few points where they had to climb a little higher, only for the tunnel to slope back down. The temperature was noticeably lower than that of the crystal chamber. Callie wondered how far beneath the surface they’d gone.
“Do you still have family in Takarahl?” she asked, needing to break the eerie, stifling silence.
“Yes,” he replied, his voice low, soft. “I was hatched in my mother’s fourth brood. Many brothers and sisters in Takarahl.”
“Fourth brood? How many broods did your mother have?”
“Six.”
Callie gaped at him. “Six?”
Urkot nodded with a chitter and held up two hands, three fingers raised on each and thumbs folded. “That is this many, yes?”
Snapping her mouth shut, Callie nodded.
He lowered his hands, though his mandibles rose in a smile. “The way you said it made me think I gave the wrong word.”
“Sorry. That’s just… That seems like a lot.”
His chitter was a little fuller this time, but he seemed to pull it back before it could get too loud. “Much broodlings.”
During her time in Kaldarak, Callie had learned a lot about the vrix. They laid eggs, of course, and did so in batches they called broods. A single egg was a rare thing from what she’d been told. More common was three, four, or sometimes five eggs, though Rekosh had once said he’d heard of a female who’d laid eight eggs in a single brood.
That had been considered a fortuitous occurrence, given that the vrix held eight as a sacred number.
Urkot looked at her as they walked. “Do you have siblings?”
“I have two older brothers, Shaun and Xavier.”
After she spoke, she came to a painful realization.
Her brothers were no longer alive. They were not going about their lives on Earth while she was here. They’d died long ago, while she’d been asleep on theSomnium.
And she’d always known that was going to be the case. She’d joined the Homeworld Initiative with full understanding that the journey to Xolea would take sixty years, that her parents would have passed by the time she arrived, that there’d been a good chance her siblings would’ve also been gone and their children would’ve had families of their own.
Being told that before boarding the ship was one thing, but it had only been words then. Not reality. It didn’t matter that one hundred and sixty-eight years had passed instead of sixty; the result was the same. Everyone she’d known on Earth was gone.
Rubbing her arm, Callie lowered her eyes to watch her footing, trying not to let her emotions get the better of her. “My parents didn’t want a big family. I…was what people would call an accident.”
“An accident?”
“An unwanted pregnancy.”
Urkot came to a sudden halt and turned toward her, his eyes narrowed. “They did not want you?”
Callie also came to a stop, nearly colliding with him. She chuckled and gave his chest a pat. “It’s okay. I was wanted after they found out. They were busy with work, and two kids were already a handful, so my dad had a vasectomy a couple years after Xavier was born. Well, it apparently failed because”—she spread her arms to either side—“here I am!”
Once again, he touched his foreleg to hers, brushing it soothingly up the side of her leg from calf to mid-thigh. The sensation of his rough hide against her skin sent a thrill through her.
He reached out and twined a finger around one of her curls, studying it. “I do not knowvah-secto-mee, but I am glad it failed.” His eyes met hers. “Much, much glad.”
Urkot released her hair and turned, continuing along the passageway.
