Page 35 of Nansar
"No, no, no—" My fingers pressed against his neck, searching frantically for a pulse. There—steady, thank God, steady and strong beneath my trembling fingertips. But he was completely unconscious, his breathing shallow and rapid. Blood pooled beneath his head, staining the gray stone dark, spreading like a crimson halo.
I yanked off my makeshift backpack, wadding it up to press against the wound. My hands shook so badly I could barely maintain pressure. "Nansar, wake up. Come on, wake up—please, please wake up—"
A sound made me freeze. Not a sound, exactly—more the sudden, primordial awareness of being watched. I looked up from Nansar's prone form, and my heart stopped.
We were surrounded.
They emerged from the landscape itself—twenty figures materializing from behind boulders and rocky outcroppings as if the mountain had exhaled them into existence. Not a single footfall had betrayed their approach. They stood in a loose circle around us, tall as Nansar, their bodies lean and powerful beneath practical garments of leather and woven fabric in earth tones. Each warrior held a weapon—bows with arrows already nocked, staffs carved with intricate spiraling designs, blades that caught the alien sunlight and transformed it into sharp warnings.
Beadwork adorned their clothing, interspersed with feathers that shimmered with an iridescence that made my eyes water slightly—too vibrant, too alive, colors that seemed to exist just outside the normal spectrum. Something aboutthem plucked at a chord of recognition deep in my memory. They reminded me of photographs from history classes—Native Americans in traditional dress, that same marriage of function and artistry, that same quiet dignity radiating from their bearing.
The circle parted, and she stepped through.
Age had carved wisdom into every line of her face, and she moved with the fluid certainty of someone who had never questioned her right to command. Her skin was burnished bronze, but it held a quality that made my breath catch—a subtle luminescence, as if she'd swallowed starlight and it now glowed beneath the surface. Sharp cheekbones framed a face that was simultaneously beautiful and severe, her features possessing an almost blade-like precision.
But her hair—God, her hair made my mind reel even as terror locked my muscles. Thick black braids cascaded past her waist, and woven throughout were strands that looked like living fiber optics, pulsing with soft blue light in rhythmic patterns. A heartbeat made visible.
Her eyes were black—not the deep brown that people sometimes called black, but true, absolute black from edge to edge. No white sclera, no distinction between iris and pupil. Just fathomless darkness, like staring into the space between stars. Yet somehow those impossible eyes conveyed everything—intelligence, curiosity, judgment, power.
Intricate markings traced across her temples and down the column of her neck, and I realized with a jolt that they weren't tattoos. They existed beneath her skin, geometric patterns that shifted subtly as she moved, reorganizing themselves into new configurations like living circuitry responding to her thoughts.
She studied me with those void-dark eyes, her head tilting in a gesture that was almost avian. When she spoke, thewords were melodic but carried the weight of absolute authority, a language my translator implant struggled to parse before meaning crystallized in my mind.
"You do not look like the prisoners." Not a question. An observation laden with suspicion and dangerous curiosity.
Her words came to my ears in deep rumbles, resonant sounds that seemed to vibrate through my chest, but my translator turned the sounds into words I could understand—crisp, clear, and somehow more menacing for their precision.
I swallowed hard, forcing myself to hold that bottomless gaze even as my heart tried to hammer its way out of my chest. "I'm not. I'm not a prisoner."
Her expression remained unchanged, but the luminescent strands woven through her hair pulsed faster, their rhythm accelerating. "What are you, then?"
"Human."
The elder's head tilted the opposite direction, the movement precise and measured, like a raptor examining potential prey. The geometric patterns beneath her skin shifted, forming new configurations that looked almost mathematical in their precision. "Human." She rolled the word around in her mouth, testing its shape and weight. "This means nothing to me."
My heart hammered so hard it hurt. Behind her, the other warriors remained perfectly motionless, weapons ready but not yet threatening.
"My ship crashed," I said, fighting to keep my voice steady despite the fear that clawed at my throat with icy fingers. "I'm just trying to get home."
The elder's gaze moved from me to Nansar's unconscious form with deliberate slowness, then back again. Those black eyes seemed to penetrate straight through skin and bone, cataloging every micro-expression, every involuntary tell, reading me likeI was written in a language she'd spent lifetimes learning to decode.
Then her attention fixed on Nansar, and something shifted in her expression—recognition, cold and certain and utterly damning.
She gestured with one long-fingered hand, and the geometric patterns beneath her skin flared brighter, pulsing with what might have been anger. "Him, we know. Prisoner."
Ice water flooded my veins, turning my blood to slush. "No, you don't understand—"
"We kill prisoners." Her voice was flat, matter-of-fact, as casual as if she were commenting on the weather. She made a sharp gesture to the warriors behind her, and two of them stepped forward, raising their weapons.
"No!" I threw myself over Nansar's prone form, arms spread wide in a futile attempt to shield his body with mine. "You can't kill him. He's—he's—"
My mind raced, scrambling desperately for something, anything that would make them stop. What could I possibly say? What would matter to these people? The warriors were already moving closer, their expressions impassive as carved stone, their weapons catching the light and throwing it back in a promise of violence.
The elder raised one hand, and the warriors froze mid-step as if she'd turned them to statues. She studied me with renewed interest, her head tilting again in that unsettling bird-like manner. "He is what?"
"He's..." The words caught in my throat like fishhooks. What was he? My guide through this alien wilderness? My protector in a world that wanted me dead? The only person in a very long time who made me feel safe? The first male I'd trusted in longer than I could remember?
"Is he your mate?"
