I nodded in understanding.
“Did it take long to find Ealra?”
“Three years.” Surkah answered. “Our race took refuge on Vada, Vina’s home world, during that time. Along with the Vina, the people searched for a suitable planet we could survive on. The Ara star system, and Ealra, was discovered three years later, and within one moon cycle of its discovery, our entire race moved there. There were less than 1500 hundred of us by then, all the mated females whose mates died had passed on to be with their mates and Thanas in the Beyond, and so few of us were left to start a new life on Ealra.”
“Kol said the Maji weren’t the only inhabitants on Ealra. What other species live there?”
“Many creatures live there, but only one other intelligent species like us call Ealra home, the Eedam. They’re tribespeople. Very primal and not advanced like Maji at all. We don’t bother them, and they don’t bother us. They are not compatible with Maji for breeding, we already checked. Sera says they are very similar to a species called primates that you had on Earth, they’re just bigger and more intelligent. They communicate with their hands, not verbal words.”
I nodded.
“What else did Kol tell you?” Surkah asked, an eyebrow raised.
“A lot.” I sighed, my shoulders slumping. “He told me about Terra, about the humans there, and about the deal your people made with Earth’s Officials.”
Surkah swallowed. “I urged him to inform you of Terra and its rulers, but he was scared you’d want to go to the new human planet.”
“He told me as much,” I said with a shrug. “He got what he wanted, though. We’re mated, and I’m by his side instead of on my way to Terra.”
“You … you feel betrayed, though?” Surkah pressed. “By Kol?”
I did. I felt like my options were once again taken away from me. Deep down, even though I was terrified of Sera—I still was—I knew that I wouldn’t have chosen Terra over Kol, or the Maji in general, but he never gave me the choice. He made it for me, and that was what bothered me.
“I do,” I admitted. “I hate lies, Surkah, and he has lied to me. Something he has done more than once.”
“It pains him, sister,” Surkah assured me. “He would never lie to you unless he was in fear of something.”
To me, that still wasn’t a good enough reason to lie about something that involved my very way of life. I inhaled and exhaled, trying to force him from my mind.
“Let’s just go with Nero so we can get the introductions to your planet underway,” I said, locking eyes with Surkah’s through our reflections. “My argument with Kol is the least of my worries right now.”
“You need not worry about Ealra and the people, dear sister. Your arrival is a celebration. You’ll see.”
Chapter Fourteen
“Nova—”
“What am I doing wrong now?” I cut Surkah off as we stepped onto a huge ramp that was lowered to the ground of Ealra.
I was anxious and felt out of place, and with every step I took, I seemed to do something wrong. First, I walked ahead of Nero when I was supposed to walk behind him then I smiled and said hello to a male who was also escorting us—he was so caught off guard he looked at Nero with panicked eyes. Apparently, no male was allowed talk to me without Kol’s permission even if I spoke to them first.
“You have to wait for your Guard escort,” Nero answered.
I looked at Surkah. “The Guard?”
She nodded. “They’ll be here in mere minutes.”
I looked at Nero. “Can I talk to any members of the Guard?”
Nero gnawed on his lower lip. “By law, you shouldn’t, and they shouldn’t reply if you do speak to them, but the Guard members coming to escort us are you brothers-in-mate, so no matter what Kol says, they’ll talk to you. They’re his older brothers, and they give him a hard time whenever possible.”
I sucked in a strangled breath. “What if they don’t like me?”
That was such a trivial thing to be concerned about, but it was what worried me at the current moment.
“They’ll adore you,” Surkah said with a loving smile. “They’ll be shocked that Kol has mated, but then they’ll be joyful for you both. They have gained a new sister in you.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because”—Surkah winked—“I know my brothers.”
Surkah was trying to reassure me, but my nerves were still spiked.
“Change the topic. Discuss something else to distract me until they get here.”
Nero drew a blank, so I focused on Surkah who was deep in thought.
“Housing,” she suddenly announced. “All of the human women should be excited with their housing.”
“Housing?” I repeated incredulously. “You have housing on Ealra?”
Surkah muffled a giggle with her hand. “Of course. Where did you think we lived if not inside a residence?”
I paused. “I … I guess I never thought of it.”
I never thought about what life would be like on Ealra, which was stupid considering I had a one-way ticket to the planet. Thinking about my life there should have been on my mind, but it seemed Kol had taken up all my focus over the past six days.
Surkah vibrated with laughter. “We have modernised homesteads for our citizens. Each family builds their own on their land. The Revered Father gifts every new family a plot of land as a mating gift.”
That’s nice of him.
“But I’m the only human female who has mated so far.” I frowned. “There are no other new families.”
“That is a technicality,” Surkah said with a wave of her hand. “Each female will eventually take a mate, so my father thought ahead and had large family-size homesteads built for them in advance. Each homestead has five floors. It consists of a large cookery, a big living area, a washroom for clothing, fifteen sleep rooms, and eight cleansing rooms—each has a relief pod.”
It sounded like they built mansions and not just simple houses.
I raised a brow. “How far in advance were these homesteads built?”
“Construction of the human housing started three years ago,” my sister-in-mate replied. “Ealra years.”
I whistled. “Your father was certain Earth would give its women up, huh?”
“Pretty certain.”
“So, each human woman will have a home of their own?”
She nodded. “Two thousand homesteads were built in a new brand-new section of Royal City that neighbours a beautiful forest and a nearby lake. We weren’t sure how many would be needed. We hoped for two thousand females, but we’re overjoyed to have many more. Royal City is the name of our main city, in case you were wondering. It was named by the people. The human housing section is very large itself, so it has been given its own name as it’s now an official district of Royal City.”
“What is the new district’s name?”
Surkah devilishly grinned. “Human Burrow.”
I almost instantly burst into laughter. “Is it really called that?”
“No,” Surkah tittered. “It’s called Harmony.”