“Wexxon! Wexxon!” I heard Rachel calling out for me as my eyes came to a close, as it suddenly became so much harder to force a breath down my throat.
“Wexxon!” She screamed for me again, and I would’ve sworn that she was so much closer now, so close that I thought I felt her tears falling onto my face. “Wexxon! Please! Stay with me! I love you, Wexxon! Stay with me!”
I love you, too, my little warrior.
More than you will ever know.
It was the last thing I thought, the last thing that blazed across my brain before I slipped into darkness, wondering if where the moons met the sun was going to be a place of impossible brightness, a place where warmth beamed from all angles, always and forever.
Wondering if my parents and my brother were going to greet me at the entrance.
Chapter Sixteen
Rachel
“He’s lost a lot of blood,” Aldvirion remarked as he stood beside Wexxon’s frame. “I don’t want to lie to you, Rachel. I’ve very rarely seen warriors recover from this kind of—”
“He’s going to be okay,” I interrupted Aldvirion as I slid beside Wexxon on his temporary bed, hidden away in a separate part of the castle. Aldvirion had arrived at Reddin’s twisted version of the arena a few moments after Wexxon had dealt his brother the fatal blow. He’d secretly been on Wexxon’s heels from the moment he left to come find me at Reddin’s mansion, working off an instinct that something was amiss.
And I’d never been more grateful in my life than to see Aldvirion’s face appear in the arena. I’d been sobbing at Wexxon’s side, his blood all over my hands as I tried to keep an eye on his vital signs, checking to see if there was still any breath left in his body. And after Aldvirion pulled me away from him, I still watched his frame, tears clouding my vision as I wept for the warrior I loved.
“While I admire your optimism, Rachel, I don’t want you to set yourself up for further disappointment.” Aldvirion sighed. “Besides, I’ve spoken with Palqeet about your…interests.”
“What about my interests?” My attention was still on Wexxon, his chest softly rising and falling.
“Your interest in going back home?” Aldvirion murmured. “I’m not sure if it’d be entirely possible, assuming your coordinates are outside of our typical travel range. However, if travel is something that you’d like to try…you could always leave your child with us.”
“…Are you asking me if I want to leave my baby on a planet all by itself?” My blood boiled at the thought. “You just said that you’re unsure if Wexxon will even survive!”
“I’m not sure how that’s relevant to your situation—”
“You are asking me if I want to make an orphan out of my own child, Aldvirion!” I could hardly believe his awful suggestion. “And the answer is no. Even if you could find a way for me to go back home, I wouldn’t take it. I couldn’t. I have to stay here with my child. I have to wait for my warrior to wake up.”
“It was only a suggestion, Rachel.” Aldvirion sighed again before he turned to leave the room. “I will be back at a later time to check on his condition. I recommend that you take a break from his bedside, as well, if only to give yourself room to breathe. And think.”
Aldvirion’s emphasis on the last phrase made me wonder if the plan he’d suggested was one he thought was foolproof, one where I abandon my child to Xelxar and disappear into the stars. But Aldvirion had no idea how even considering that route made my heart ache behind my chest, as I thought about the way it felt when my own parents died in the fire, when I thought about the way Wexxon’s parents had died in their spacecraft, too.
Which is how I knew that I could never willingly leave my child, not if I ever had the option to stay. There was also the fact that I was deeply in love with Wexxon, the connection between us feeling stronger than ever before, every part of me so desperately wanting every part of him in return.
“…Rachel?” Palqeet’s voice floated over to me as she stood in the doorway of the room.
“Palqeet.” I offered her a forced smile, my soul feeling so broken and weary.
She then moved closer to the side of Wexxon’s bed, staring down at his unconscious frame. A moment or two later Palqeet was weeping, her hand going up toward her mouth as she gasped for air.
“Wexxon…” Palqeet’s cries came even harder as she shook her head. “Oh, Wexxon. You can’t be lost to us. You can’t be lost to me. You are one of my oldest friends. Who else is going to be the arena’s greatest champion? Who else is going to keep things orderly in our cities?”
A laugh then escaped Palqeet’s mouth, even as she continued to cry. “And who is going to tell me that I cannot buy everything in the market, just because I feel like it? I will have no money to my name if you are not here to watch over me and my wallet, Wexxon.”
I shared in her laugh as I looked over at her. “Thank you for coming to see him, Palqeet.”
“Of course.” Palqeet smiled at me through her tears. “Wexxon would do the same for me. Always.”
Palqeet then paused for a moment before she looked away from me. “I’m sorry, Rachel.”
“It’s not your fault, Palqeet—”
“I still loved him.” Her voice was at a whisper. “Reddin. And I should’ve been honest with you. Even though we hadn’t been lovers for such a long time, there was still a connection between us. And I don’t know if I…I don’t know if he was able to sense where you were based on my connection to him. Sometimes, it felt like he was able to read my mind, even when I was fast asleep. It just felt like he was…trying to reach into my mind—”
“Palqeet, this will never be your fault,” I interrupted her explanation before I quoted my warrior, word for word. “And if you hold onto that as your guilt, you will only poison yourself for years to come.”
“…I know.” Palqeet sniffled, her eyes drifting back down to Wexxon’s frame.
After that, Palqeet and I sat in silence, each of us with our gaze trained on Wexxon, as if we were trying to will him to wake up, as if we were waiting for us to join us in conversation at any given moment.
“…How did you come here, Rachel?” Palqeet asked as we sat side by side in the castle’s kitchen, our bowls filled with a warm soup-like meal. “I always meant to ask you, but it seemed like it was never going to naturally come up in our conversation.”
It took me much longer than it should’ve to answer the question, my mind still focused on Wexxon, unconscious in his bed several rooms away. “…I don’t know, actually.”
“What do you mean? You don’t know?” Palqeet squinted over at me. “I assumed you were a visitor. Or maybe Wexxon picked you up during one of his dealings, some kind of prize, even.”
“…Prize?” It was my turn to ask the questions. “You don’t mean, like, slaves or anything, do you?”
“Not slaves.” Palqeet grinned. “Presents, the kind that powerful males like Wexxon often like to receive.”