Total pages in book: 61
Estimated words: 58483 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 292(@200wpm)___ 234(@250wpm)___ 195(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 58483 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 292(@200wpm)___ 234(@250wpm)___ 195(@300wpm)
“I’m not a leader, Leylah. I’m not anything.” I bend over to vomit, but nothing comes. “And I’m not going to let you die just so I can escape.”
She takes my shoulder. “You have a new life in front of you, and it starts tomorrow.” She sees my eyes and adds, “I’m dying either way.”
I sit down, overwhelmed with adrenaline and fear. “I don’t understand.”
She comes beside me. “My time is coming, I feel it in my bones. And it’s your time, too.”
She touches my face. “Your skin makes you different from the others. But what’s in here”—she taps my chest—“is what makes you even more extraordinary.”
I blink at her.
“You have something in you that the others don’t have. A strength, a kindness. An ability to rise beyond. Do you see that?”
I don’t know if I see it. I shake my head.
“Tell me: Why did you save that young?” She challenges me with her stare. “Was it for security, because you were afraid of what might happen if you did not?”
I think about the fear in his eyes, the hope. The way he watched us, with no hate in his eyes. “No. It was an as of yet innocent life. I needed to help him. I don’t know how to explain. Maybe it was because he wasn’t evil yet. I couldn’t let him die.”
She nods. “You have a special spirit, Taisha. A power you don’t yet understand. You feel things in your bones, sometimes, like I do. And you have the courage to do the unimaginable. That is why of all the females here, I’ve chosen you to carry our stories and our legacy out into the galaxy. Some planet rotation, maybe a cycle, or maybe a thousand solar cycles from now, you or your kin will return to save us all.”
“But you’ll be gone.”
“Humans will still be here, waiting for you, Taisha.” She puts her hand above my heart. “Carry that in here with you. Not the death of a young in your past. But the salvation of a young, in the future. That’s what I have, and what I pass to you.”
She adds, “It’s better than hate, you know.”
“What is?”
“Rannah is right. Hate is powerful and it can sustain you for a long time. The only thing even stronger is love. I ask you to cast out enough hate to leave room for love to grow. That’s what you take with you.”
She coughs. “And one more thing, from my dream. I saw the human queen named Lamira. We spoke to each other in the dream, although it was hard, like screaming into a waterfall. She has the sight like I do, although we’re so far apart, it’s just flickers. Tell her that Leylah sent you, when you arrive on the planet. Tell her that…” She coughs again. “Tell her that the secret will come to her with the silver coin. I don’t know what it means, but I think it’s important.”
“Coin?”
Leylah takes my palm, and something metallic slides across my skin. “It’s an artifact from a long dead planet—”
My fingers buzz with a little spark, and I answer before she can finish. “Earth.” I stare at the thing, transfixed at how the answer came to me before I knew what she’d say.
It’s old, as if it’s been buried for eons. It fits into my palm just barely as I close my fingers, but it feels like it belongs to me already. There are symbols I cannot read embossed into it, although Leylah has taught me to scribe. And a face, a profile, as familiar as it is mysterious. I hear voices, then see a sudden flash of purple and a burst of light—then it’s gone.
“That’s right.” She smiles and touches my hand. “Earth.”
“But how did you even get this? Why does it”—I shake my head—“speak… to me?”
Leylah’s eyes are shrewd. “What does it say?”
I close my eyes and try to concentrate, but that little spark is gone. I open them again in frustration. “Nothing. I thought I got a glimpse of something, but it was just my imagination.” I squeeze the coin anew, but feel nothing but its edges biting the inside bend of my knuckles.
She does not answer any of my questions. “I knew I chose well.” She seems almost exuberant all of a sudden. “You…” She coughs and takes a long time to stop, so long I rush for fluid.
She waves her hand. “I am all right for now. Hide this coin. Give it to Lamira, and only Lamira. No other being on Zandia, even ones you trust.”
“Why?”
“Because.” She answers as if it’s obvious. “It’s meant for her. It will mean nothing to other beings.”
“All right.”
It’s not all right, and I flash back to the stream from earlier, when I scratched my skin and Rannah tried to comfort me, before she hated me. It’s like déjà vu, a sick feeling, over and over. But Leylah doesn’t hate me. She loves me. All of us. I have to do this. My bones tell me it’s true.