Page 11 of Dark Destiny: The Fates' Bargain
"Shall I accompany you?"
"No." Annani did not want Areana to witness Navuh's humiliation, not because she wanted to spare his feelings, but because she wanted to spare her sister's. "Kian and I will tell him."
6
SULLHA
Stars covered the sky over the water, so thick in places that they blurred into a wash of light, and a thin sliver of moon hung low near the horizon. The approaching island gave off nothing. No glow, no lights, only a long black smudge where the water ended.
"There." Yaaf lifted his hand. "That's Safe Harbor."
"How do you know? You've never seen it before." Sullha chuckled nervously. "You haven't seen anything outside our island before."
He turned to look at her, his glowing eyes the most prominent feature in his face. "We are nearing land. Where else could we be other than the stated destination?"
"I can't see anything." She squinted into the dark, trying to force her eyes to do what his clearly already had. "To me it just looks like a big, dark lump. It could be a low-hanging cloud for all I know."
"There's a dock." He pointed. "And a tower at the far end. There are a few low buildings over there. You should be able to see thefloodlights." He leaned forward, his torso half hanging over the railing, as if that would help him see better. "Two people walking down toward the water. Both tall."
"You can see that from here?"
"Yes, but I'm not so sure about the people." He turned around, leaning against the railing, and crossed his arms over his chest. "Our brains are programmed to recognize patterns, and particularly the shapes of people. They also like to fill in missing details, so those two might be poles that my brain is shaping into people."
Why was he telling her these random facts? Was he trying to distract her from what was about to happen? Or was he distracting himself?
No, he was doing it for her. He wasn't panicking because they were about to get separated, because he wasn't dependent on her for anything. While she had grown to depend on him for everything.
It was scary.
She shouldn't do that.
"You're leaving tonight," she said.
Yamanu had told them the plan hours ago, but she had set it aside because she couldn't deal with it yet. She had to deal with it now. The island was resolving itself out of the dark up ahead, and somewhere out there was a plane that would take Yaaf, the other seven, the scientists, and some of the Guardians and fly them to America.
"I am." He uncrossed his arms and reached for her hand. "You will fly out tomorrow morning. We will not be separated for long."
That wasn't true. They were not going to the same place, and even though Yamanu had promised visits, he hadn't said when that would be possible. Days? Weeks? Months?
Sullha swallowed the lump in her throat.
She didn't say anything else.
There would be time to obsess about their impending separation later. Right now, all she wanted to think about was Yaaf's hand around hers and how good it made her feel.
If anyone had told her a few weeks ago that she would crave the smallest touch from a male, she would have laughed in their face.
But Yaaf wasn't just a man.
He was her childhood best friend, and he was the one she loved. Well, not just one. There were eight of him, but that too could wait for later.
The dock came up out of the dark, just that long concrete finger reaching into water. The engine cut, and the hull shuddered once and settled against rubber bumpers.
It didn't take long to organize everyone to disembark. Yaaf collected the sleeping Tomek off the deck, and her son didn't even blink as he made himself comfortable over the large body carrying him to shore.
A Guardian helped her onto solid ground, and it took her a couple of seconds to trust that it wouldn't move beneath her.After spending hours underwater, and then a few more on the boat with the deck rolling under her feet, her body had gotten used to the constant motion, and now that the world had gone still, she found she almost missed it.
Whatever she'd expected from this island was not what greeted her.
