Page 36 of When Eden Falls

I smirked at the undeniable truth to his words, one he clearly had no idea about. When I remained silent, watching the smile fade from his handsome face, he touched my arm gently and said, “I’m not going anywhere, Eden.”

I took a deep breath and met his concerned eyes. “I thought the worst today when I couldn’t get in touch with you.”

“I can imagine, I’m sorry. Everything is fine. We are safe here.”

I forced a smile and nodded, only to be swamped by gold armour.Captain Blue Capeforced himself between Rooke and I, towering over us. Those crystal eyes full of authority and demand. “No touching,” he said with an icy tone.

“We weren’t.”Were we?

“You are too close. Take a step back,” he insisted, “both of you.” We complied.

I scowled at the Akquarian as he strode away. Rooke hung his head, a smile dancing across his face. He peered at me, and we burst into laughter.

“What the Nux is all that about?” I said, before downing my wine.

C h a p t e rE l e v e n

The following day Cora was whisked away to the fortress library by Havav. She returned late afternoon, beaming from ear to ear. Two guards followed her into the apartment with arms laden with books—books that looked older than life itself. They smelt it too.

“Put them over there, please,” she said sweetly, indicating to the table. She watched them stack the multitude of books in three piles, before they were swiftly ushered out by Yuska.

“How did it go?” I asked, rising from the sofa I had been resting on all afternoon.

“It wasamazing. The library is huge, and considering how old they are, the books are in such good condition.” Cora gestured to the piles on the table. “Havav only allowed me to take these. The others are too delicate.”

“Did you find anything interesting?”

“I didn’t really have the chance.” Cora walked over to me and seated herself in a lone chair. “Havav, he…he doesn’t stop asking questions.”

“About what?” Zamya asked, from where she lay on the sofa opposite.

“Everything.” Cora shrugged her shoulders. “Literally everything about Allura. What part I come from, what the people are like, the temperature, the humidity, the size of the mountains, literally everything.”

Zamya glanced at me, inquisitive worry dancing in her eyes. “Do you think he’s going to use this information somehow?”

“I suppose he may want an alliance with Allura…if we eventually get off this rock.”

“What if he…” Zamya stared into her thoughts. I could see her mind ticking over at a hundred miles an hour, distorting her delicate skin.

“What?”

“What if he sent that probe? What if he wants to get off this rock himself, away from the horror beetles?” She sat up abruptly. “What if he wants Allura?”

“What if he does?” I sat down again. “What’s he going to do when he gets there, if he gets there? Attack? There’s probably only a few thousand Akquarians here. They can try and conquer Allura, but they won’t succeed. To start with, their weapons are obsolete.”

“Maybe they aren’t quite so ill educated and defenceless as we think.” Zamya lowered herself into an alpine position again.

“Zam, I don’t think it would be possible.”

“All right, I know. But…I’m trying to get my head around this.”

“Aren’t we all.”

“Maybe you could ask him why he is so interested in us yourself,” Cora piped up. “He wants to see you tomorrow.”

Zamya groaned. “How wonderful for me.”

Yuska escorted Zamya to Havav’s social quarters early the next morning. She was gone most of the day, leaving me to scroll through some of the books Cora borrowed from the library. A large majority of them were geology books, which didn’t surprise me, but one that caught my eye was a book on modern space engineering. Modern, as in twenty-second century Earth modern. The language in which it was written was slightly different to what Allurans used, but it was understandable enough.