Page 7 of Shadow Mark

It didn’t matter. The shirt was already ruined by a fine mist of blood covering the front. Good riddance. Court fashion served little purpose other than being expensive and uncomfortable.

As he washed, the ship’s floor vibrated with the signs of departure. He was clean and dressed by the time his brother returned, carrying a mug of steaming tea.

Baris accepted the mug with thanks. “Go ahead and say it. The Starshades were as bad as you expected.”

“You did not even consider their gracious offer of marriage,” Vekele said, which earned a laugh from Baris. The brothers smiled for a moment before a serious expression returned to Vekele’s face. He tilted his head to one side, leveling a flat stare with his side eyes as his front eyes had been blinded. He said, “They behaved exactly as we expected.”

“Sadly.” Baris had hoped for better. He always hoped for better and, thus far, had always been disappointed.

“You take unacceptable risks.”

“There was no risk. We have advanced weapons, sophisticated monitoring, cloaks, and three times as many forces. They had pointy sticks.”

Vekele’s expression remained the same.

Baris waved his hand in acknowledgment that his brother was correct. “Were there any difficulties with the crowd?”

“None. Your Majesty delivered a very effective message.”

“Enough of that.” He received plenty of flattery and outright sycophancy from some councilors and courtiers. He needed Vekele to be honest.

A knock sounded on the door moments before Sarah, Vekele’s human mate, entered. With her eyes fixed on a tablet screen, she stumbled into the pile of discarded clothing. She paled at the bloody mess. “How are you? That couldn’t have been fun.”

No. It had not been enjoyable. If he ever found execution enjoyable, he deserved to have a knife planted in his back.

“Did you have a message?” Baris asked.

“Oh. Yes. The sensors picked up an anomaly not far from here,” Sarah said.

“The same anomalies that brought you here?” Baris asked.

Two months ago, some force generated portals on Sarah’s home planet of Earth, seemingly at random, and transported several—potentially thousands—of humans. Sarah had been one such person, depositing her at a sacred temple. Fearing an enemy incursion, Baris had sent his brother to investigate. What he found was a confused and injured female with two eyes and bearing the royal mark. Her arrival caused quite a stir in the kingdom.

Much happened since then. Vekele bound himself to Sarah in what Baris had intended to be a political marriage of convenience, but genuine affection bloomed between them. His political marriage began with a kidnapping and ended that day at a funeral. For Sarah’s efforts to help restore peace, Baris gave her the resources to locate other transported humans and build a portal home.

Vekele took the tablet from Sarah and read the findings. “It would add no extra time to our journey to investigate.”

“Proceed.” Another human. The last one sent a ripple through the kingdom. What would a second do?

LENORE

Winter was coming.

Probably.

A chill hung in the air in the mornings. This place didn’t offer a lot in the way of seasonal markers. The days were still just as hot and humid, but it rained less. Maybe that only meant the rainy season finally ended. If winter was coming, Lenore didn’t want to be caught unprepared.

The cabin was solid enough, she decided. The roof didn’t leak when it rained, not even when the winds picked up. There wasn’t a fireplace, so hopefully, that meant it didn’t get cold enough to bother. Or that this was a summer cabin and no one in their right mind would spend a winter in a cabin with no fireplace. The wood-burning stove would have to do.

Lenore disliked being unprepared. She always had a plan, as far back as her first day of school. She remembered doing practice walks to the elementary with her mom in preparation for the big day. Practice walks continued as a tradition up to the first day of her residency when Lenore drove to the hospital at various times during the day to get an idea of how long the commute would take. Twenty-three minutes during the morning rush, fifteen in the afternoon. So, not knowing what to expect from the weather had her on edge.

Food remained a top concern. She found some fishing hooks and lines in a storage locker and fashioned a pole. She could keep herself fed, but what if it snowed and the stream froze over? She should be storing fish somehow. Smoking or salting the fish, but she only had a vague idea of what that entailed.

She needed shoes. The clogs she wore the day the portal grabbed her were already worn. Now, they were deceased and held together by wishful thinking. Searching through the storage lockers in the cabin, which in the past had been generous enough to provide blankets and a blue jumpsuit, failed to produce a spare pair of shoes.

She’d have to get creative. She could wrap her feet in fabric if it got cold, but that did nothing to protect her from rocks and thorns. Weave together grass to form a sandal? The trees had a spongy bark, leaving her to think she could utilize that.

One of the things the storage lockers produced was, hand to her heart, a scout’s guide, or something very close to it. A beginner’s guide to not dying in the wilderness. It was filled with pages of text she couldn’t read, obviously, but had helpful diagrams like using the fire starter and how to build a campfire.

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