When Treyvon didn't respond, she tried again.
"I speak truth, Treyvon. I don't claim to know much about the military. Back home I was never directly exposed to those that served, those who sacrificed so much for my protection. I just took for granted my rights, my freedoms. I even felt I had the right to question and judge those who not only gave me those rights but how they delivered it to me." Jen felt her face heating with shame. "I have no right to judge what you and those that came before you have done. It's not like I'm a shining example of what makes a good human being."
"What are you talking about?" Treyvon demanded. "You are the most loyal and honorable female I have ever met!"
"A fat lot you know," Jen muttered. Pulling her hand away, she put even more distance between them by sliding down the bench. "But none of that is what you wanted to talk to me about. Now is it? You said something about luciferins."
"I did, but I want to know why you doubt you are an honorable and worthy female?"
"Why do you doubt you are an honorable and worthy male?" she fired back. "From everything I have learned, the only reason there is any doubt is because of what someone else, who just happened to be one of your ancestors, did a long time ago. Not from anything you have ever done."
"They are one and the same. We are the sum of our bloodlines."
"No, you’re not! A person should only be judged on their own actions. That is the only thing they can control. Everything else…" Jen reached down and lifted a handful of sand then let it run through her fingers. "Is no more important than these grains of sand."
"Yet these grains of sand can consume and destroy everything around it if it is not driven back." He looked to the piles where she had swept the sands from the path.
"Then drive them back!" she challenged. "You, Treyvon, are an honorable male. Your Emperor would never have given you such an important and powerful position if you weren't. He especially wouldn't have put you in charge of Pontus."
"Many wish me removed." Treyvon flinched, unable to believe he had admitted that to her. What would she think? He quickly found out.
"Then they are idiots!" Jen quickly defended him. "They know nothing about who you are. How you protect and defend with everything you are. You would never abandon a stranger, let alone one of your own."
Treyvon frowned at her words, even as they eased the hurt others had caused. "Why do you say it in such a way? As if we are so different? You have done the same."
"No, I haven't," she admitted on a whisper. "Not for my sister."
"I do not understand. It is not your fault she is unprotected on your Earth. It is the Ganglians’."
"And what about the six months before that?" Jen forced the words past tight lips. "When I just let her go because it was easier." Tears began to fill Jen's eyes as she thought of what she had done and why she had done it. "She'll never forgive me and she shouldn't."
"I do not understand," Treyvon said again.
Jen leaned forward and rested her elbows on her knees, rubbing her hands together. Should she tell him? Would he think less of her? Did it matter? And she discovered that for some reason it did. Treyvon's opinion mattered to her. Back on Earth, before the Ganglians, Jen worried about appearances and what strangers thought of her. She made a point of only showing the good, the positive, the beautiful.
She knew her looks opened a lot of doors for her, and she let them. But she also backed it up with brains and skill. It’s why she had been on the cover of the school’s recruiting pamphlet, instead of Denise. Denise had been just as talented as Jen, in some ways more. But Denise wasn't beautiful, not the way people always told Jen she was. Denise hadn't worried about her looks, although she had been very pretty. She never wore makeup and kept her hair extremely short so that it wouldn't interfere with work. Whereas Jen just pulled hers back in a tight bun when cooking, as she did here on Pontus.
Todd had liked it long, just as he liked the looks of envy he got from being able to say she was his. Jen had thought it was cute. They'd been the golden couple on campus. God, looking back it was all so stupid and superfluous. They'd been an image, not a real couple, with Todd always insisting they do and have what the 'beautiful' people did. She'd been nothing more than an accessory, a possession for him. Why couldn't she have seen that?
Kimmy had.
Kimmy had accused Todd of being a conceited, self-centered jerk who thought only of himself and didn't deserve her sister. Jen would never forget the look in Kimmy's eyes when she'd immediately jumped to Todd's defense and accused Kimmy of being the selfish and spoiled one. Shit, she'd even thrown Warrior, Kimmy's beloved dog, at her yelling that if she had been more responsible, he'd still be alive.
It had been a low blow. Not only because it wasn't true, but because she knew Warrior's death still haunted Kimmy. That dog had died saving Kimmy's life. And while Warrior had driven Jen nuts with his massive size, if it weren't for him, Jen would have lost her sister.
That had been the night of Kimmy's eighteenth birthday. After Jen had worked a twelve-hour shift at the diner, and only wanted to come home and have a nice meal to celebrate. But Todd wanted to go out saying they deserved it now that they were no longer required to take care of Kimmy. As if just like that she would be out of their lives.
Before Jen could say anything, Kimmy had started in, and Jen had defended Todd. Just like she had always done, but it was more out of habit than belief because, since the death of her parents, she'd begun seeing Todd in a different light. He was everything Kimmy accused him of being, but he was still her husband. She'd taken her vows seriously and hoped that this was just one of the bad times they needed to get through.
"Jennifer?"
Treyvon's one word, said with such concern, pulled her from the past. "Kimmy and I had an argument. Six months… moon cycles before the Ganglians took us. We hadn't seen or spoken to each other since."
Treyvon silently gazed at her, taking in the way she seemed to be trying to curl up into herself as if it still pained her, this argument. He didn't know what to do or say to ease that pain. It explained so much about her determination to return to Earth. She was trying to make amends for a wrong. He could understand that.
"I have never met your sister, but I do believe that if she is anything like you, not only will she forgive you, but that she is as sorry for the argument as you are."
"Maybe… but I'm the older one, the big sister. I'm supposed to be taking care of her. I promised my parents I would, and I failed her, just like I failed Todd."
"Enough!" Treyvon wouldn't allow this to continue. It served no purpose. “You cannot change what has happened, Jennifer. You did the best you could."
"Did I? Or did I just do what was best for me? Like Aadi."
"Never compare yourself to that male!" Treyvon rose and yanked her to her feet, enraged that she could even think that way.
"You don't know me, Treyvon. If you did…" Jen's words trailed off, and her eyes grew wide as she looked behind Treyvon.
Instantly sensing the change in her, Treyvon set her on her feet and spun around, ready to defend, only to be stunned by what he found.
Chapter Thirteen
"Oh, my God! Did you know it did that?" Jen asked, looking at the softly glowing path.
"No," Treyvon told her in a shocked voice, his gaze moving along the path she had cleared. "It was never disclosed in any of the written texts."
"Maybe they thought it was understood," she whispered, moving from behind him to look at the darker lines that ran along the glowing stones. "This is unbelievable. It's like whoever created it wanted to lead you on a journey."
"Have you cleared a complete path yet?" he asked, looking down at the closest glowing one.
"Only that one," she gestured to the one where his gaze had gone. "It opens up into another area and has a curved half bench at the end."
"The lines continue into it?"
"Yes, but then they change, creating something I don't recognize."
&nbs
p; "Show me," Treyvon urged, putting a hand on the small of her back.
"What do you think they are?" she asked gesturing to the lines.
"I am not sure," he told her honestly, guiding her down the path, his gaze following the lines that ran directly down the center. When they finally reached where the path opened up, the lines separated. Branching out to curve and twist around a large, colored, center stone before each ended at a different smaller inlaid stone. All of which seemed to ring the large one.
Moving slowly around the outside of the circular area, Treyvon led her to the curved bench. All the while, his mind raced. The smaller inlaid stones were not only different sizes and colors, but they seemed to have something moving inside of them. Taking it in in its entirety, it jabbed at his mind, making him feel like he should recognize it.
Jen slowly sat, her gaze moving over the ancient geoglyph. She'd never seen anything like it before. Back on Earth, Sally had been a huge History Channel fan. Especially when it came to anything dealing with the Nazca lines. Her late husband had been an amateur archeologist, and they had traveled to southern Peru to see the lines several times. It had driven Jen nuts how Sally had insisted the television remain on that channel. But it seemed Jen had learned something even though she'd thought it silly at the time.
While this glyph didn't resemble anything she'd seen on Earth, it was similar to something she had seen before. "It looks like a solar system."
"What?" Treyvon gave her a startled look.
"Well, at least that's what ours looks like… sort of. I mean we have nine planets in our system.”
Treyvon frowned, his gaze moving back to the glowing stones and realized she was right. It was the depiction of a solar system… the Kaliszian solar system with each stone exactly the right color. How was that possible? Why hadn't it ever been recorded in the ancient texts?
“I believe you are correct," he told her gruffly.
"You do?"
"Yes." Treyvon rose and moved toward the center of the geoglyph, taking care not to step on any of the orbiting paths of the other stones before going down on one knee to touch the large, yellow stone. It was warm to the touch and seemed to pulse with power. "This stone represents the Kaliszian sun."
"How can you be sure?" she asked.
"Because there are ten planets in the Kaliszian Solar system. Each one different in size and color."
He carefully stepped over the darker lines then knelt beside a blue and white stone that was not quite the largest of the stones. “This is Crurn. It is the fourth planet from our sun. From space, it looks blue."
"That's where Emperor Liron resides, right?" Jen quizzed.
"Yes."
"Are all these planets… populated?" she asked wondering if that was the right word.
"No. The largest planet," he moved two orbits away from Crurn to a stone swirling with different colors, "is a gaseous planet and uninhabitable. Although ships can enter its atmosphere and collect certain gasses that are considered valuable."
"Gasses? Valuable?"
"Yes, some of the gasses can be used as fuel for lighting and heating homes."
"I thought you used energy crystals to do that."
"That is the preferred source, as it is clean and has no… undesirable qualities. But fewer and fewer crystals are being found. Those that are found are weak and quickly exhausted."
"I didn't realize that."
"It is not something we want to be known, as the sale of power crystals are essential for providing the food staples our people need."
"You don't tell them you are selling inferior crystals?" Jen couldn't believe it. That didn't seem to jive with what she'd learned about the Kaliszians.
"No, we do! But we set the price very high for the best. Very high. It deters most from purchasing them or asking questions."
"Oh." Jen thought for a moment. "So what the Zaludians had us mining...”
"Were of the lowest quality. But there is a demand for them."
"I see." And she did. She and the others had been taken so they could mine inferior power crystals. Todd had died for inferior crystals.
"Jennifer?" Ignoring the dark lines that he'd made such a point of not stepping on before, he moved to sit beside her. "What is wrong?"
"Oh, nothing. Just the fact that Todd, the Jerboaians, and everyone else that died in those God-forsaken mines did it for inferior energy crystals." Surging to her feet, she began to pace.
Treyvon found he couldn't dispute what she said for it was truth. Had they not created a demand for the lower grade crystals, the Zaludians would never have thought to mine them.
Jen spun around ready to tear into Treyvon, but the look on his face, in his body language, told her he was already accepting the weight of responsibility for what had happened. Even though he had nothing to do with it. Just like he carried the weight of Aadi.
"I'm sorry, Treyvon." She moved back to sit next to him. "None of what happened was your fault. It’s the Ganglians and the Zaludians."
"That is not entirely truth."
"It is as far as your responsibility." She turned to gaze back at the glowing glyph on the ground and frowned. "You said there are ten planets in your solar system."
"Yes."
"What is the tenth?" she asked looking at the stones.
"The tenth? It's Pontus. Why?"
"Then why is the last stone in this glyph black and not green if when this was created, wouldn't Pontus have been a lush, green planet?"
Treyvon's gaze went to where Pontus should have been and frowned. She was right. Why wasn't there a green stone there?"
"Are the planets in their proper rotation?" she asked.
"What do you mean?"
"Well in our solar system, depending on the time of year, the planets are in different positions. I assume that's the way it is here. So if it is, when would this depiction have been?"
Treyvon looked back to the ground, and his eyes widened. For not only were the stones the right color, they were also in exactly the right location for where the planets they represented currently were, but they were also tilted correctly on their axis. How was this possible?
"Treyvon?"
Jennifer's quiet saying of his name had him looking to her. "It is as it is right now. Every planet."
"But how is that possible?"
"I do not know," he told her honestly.
A strong breeze suddenly blew through the garden, sending sand swirling and causing Jen to cry out in pain as it abraded her exposed skin. Treyvon immediately spun her around, his arms wrapping around her, pulling her close as his back took the brunt of the sand.
Jen found herself burrowing deeper into Treyvon's embrace, eagerly accepting the protection he offered. She recognized the slight scent that still clung to his skin from the cleanser he had given her, but it was his warm natural scent that had her senses reeling.
It called to her. It seemed to be something she recognized at the most basic level as being essential and necessary. She justified sliding her hands under his open vest, moving them up along his ribcage before coming to rest on his massive chest, by telling herself it was necessary to avoid the stinging sand. But she knew better. Just as she knew the sand had nothing to do with the way she rubbed her cheek against the area between his massive pectorals like a cat would on someone's leg.
She did it because she couldn't stop herself. She needed this tenuous bond that seemed to be growing between them.
She didn't understand it.
Wasn't sure she wanted it.
But there was no denying it was there.
The question was, would it hold?
Treyvon's arms tightened around Jennifer as he lowered his head, curling his body around her much smaller frame, doing his best to make sure not one grain of sand was able to harm her. It was unacceptable to him that she might be. He should have been paying closer attention to the dropping temperature instead of the carving on the ground.
When temperatures dropped on
Pontus, sudden gusts of wind that carried high quantities of sand often happened. They could be deadly if one were caught out in the open without the proper survival gear. The bare bones found in the mass graves were a testament to what the sands, carried by the wind, would do to exposed flesh.
The thought that one of those bodies could have been Jennifer's had his arms tightening even more. It was unacceptable to him. For him to never have met this amazing creature.
As the wind eased, Treyvon swept Jennifer up in his arms, ignoring the slight squeak she gave and quickly carried her out of the gairdín. He'd just passed through the eating area door when the wind picked up again, sending sand skittering across the clean floor before it slammed the door shut.
Jen looked up at him with startled eyes. She'd been about to tell him she could have walked, but she knew she would never have made it in time. Not with the shape her ankle was in. She also knew she should demand he put her down, now that they were inside, but she didn't. She wasn't ready to give up the feel of his arms around her.
"Thank you," she whispered. "I wouldn't have been able to get inside that fast.”
"You need always to be aware of your surroundings," he told her, "especially if you venture outside here on Pontus. Ground storms occur suddenly and can last for days."
"Days?" she asked.
"Yes. It has been nearly four moon cycles since the last large one has occurred. It lasted nearly a week, trapping Emperor Vasteri and a female in a cave."
"That was what started you looking at Pontus again. Right? Because the Zaludians shot down his shuttle?"
"This is correct. The Zaludians came to the aid of the Ganglians, which has never occurred before."
"Because they don't usually come to the assistance of the Ganglians?"
"The Zaludians never help anyone! Not unless they benefit from it."
"And they did because the Ganglians provided them with slave labor," she murmured.
"So we discovered. Yes," he grudgingly admitted then looked away. "I am sorry, Jennifer. If I could have prevented what happened to you and those with you, I would have."