Galactic Gale

Chapter Seventeen

Outside Out of Hours

Nona pulled herself from the covers, her curls falling around her body as she placed a hand on Traen's chest. How he managed to sleep so soundly for so long, she would never understand.

It was quiet in the palace. At this hour she had not been expecting to hear many people trotting down the hallways beyond her bedroom walls or the rattling of ships as they made their way overhead. But Nona was not used to quiet – at least, she and not been used to it until Lezorith had commanded the Sorii to take her as their prisoner.

She tucked her head under Traen's arm and chewed her lower lip.

His breathing was calm and controlled, much like when he was awake. Even Telion's most outrageous comments did not startle Traen. He never shouted in anger, nor let his temper get the best of him. If he had a temper, Nona frowned. She was yet to see him consumed by rage.

Of course, she had witness him cry. He was not indestructible or heartless. When they had first told Telion of their engagement, the queen had been disgusted by the idea of her daughter marrying a man without rank or private wealth. Traen had nothing, she had said. He could give her nothing, and he would not serve Uterca well as king.

After the tears that night, Traen had simply shook his head and denied Nona's plans to publicly embarrass Telion for bitter revenge. "I have to show her I'm worth something," he had said. "Not just to show her she's wrong. I have to prove I can be the right husband. That I can serve her daughter well."

"You are right. You don't have to show anyone anything," Nona had snapped. "You're right and Telion is wrong. She normally is."

Traen had laughed then. He had pulled her into his arms and held her until they couldn't bear to stand on the balcony any longer, drifting back to the bedroom only when their feet refused to take anymore. The rest of the night was a blur. Nona recalled trying some strange Sorii wine, then the memory became too fuzzy for her to pick apart.

Her fingers weaved easily through his scarred hands. Raising her chin, she kissed his jaw lightly.

"What if everything is wrong?" she whispered. The words barely reached her own ears, yet they seemed to hang in the room. She wrinkled her nose and pushed herself closer.

The nightmares had not woken her this night. She had been sleeping peacefully until the alarm at her bedside had buzzed. Its chilling call was designed only to reach her ears, so Traen had not been disturbed when the time had come for Nona to end her brief sleep. Just because she had to dread the rest of the night, it did not mean he had to suffer also.

For a moment she simply lay there, trying to imagine what her life would have been like if Telion had not become ill. Nona had no idea how her mother had managed to catch the disease that was slowly killing her, but she was sure someone in the palace did. And that someone had decided it was best Nona did not know the full story.

She might have been mad. Might have tried to track down answers as to what had happened to Telion. Nona knew Uterca's administrators and various nobles had expected her to react in such a way. But she had only nodded and accepted what was.

Nona told herself she did not search for the source of Telion's illness because it had already been delt with by the queen herself. She told herself again and again it was not her business, nor her duty. Even if she truly kept away for more selfish reasons – reasons that should not even linger in the head of Uterca's future ruler.

Telion refused to care about what happened to me. Why, then, should I care about what happened to her?

Rising and falling on Traen's chest, Nona savoured her last moments in bed. She knew it would do her no favours to be late. Wedjank would hardly be impressed if she crawled down the steps of the palace in her nightgown, barefoot, and still half-asleep.