The Way Back (Champions of the Crystal Book 4)

Chapter 5.1

Sabrina made no progress for the rest of their shift in the hatchery. Mara seemed to have decided that Sabrina was lying for obscure reasons of her own, and with a stubbornness that was at least a shadow of her real personality, she would not be moved from that opinion. As the sun went down and the guard changed, Sabrina thought wearily that all she had achieved was getting used to the stench of the hatchery. Almost.

The night guard shackled her to the egg trough and pointed to a small, thin pallet rolled up behind it. Sabrina dragged it to a clear space on the floor and spread it out, curling up almost into a fetal position to fit on it. She fought off a wave of despair, thinking that only last night she had been safely in her nice comfy bed, with Tristan curled up on the pillow beside her, purring her to sleep. He would be missing her tonight. The image brought tears to her eyes, and she banished it angrily.

Mara had her own quarters, being a trusted servant, but Scotty was probably trying to go to sleep in roughly the same conditions she was in, Sabrina reflected. She wondered where Ford was, and if he was sleeping. And what was Major Ilyanan doing? Had Khediva been able to heal Tirqwin? She had no way of knowing any of that.

Sabrina rolled over onto her back; her arms were beginning to hurt from the sunburn they'd gotten in the course of the afternoon. She longed for some aloe. Khediva would know what to provide—or Mara, if she had her memory, could ease the pain merely by laying her hand on it and concentrating a bit. But how to bring her memory back? That was really the crux of the problem, and it was the one Sabrina had the best chance of solving in her current situation.

But no brilliant ideas came to her, and eventually exhaustion conquered discomfort, and she slept. Dreams came and went in the night, vivid memories of the life she had led during her first absence from Earth mixed in with surrealistic scenes she didn't recognize. When she woke, early in the morning before the sun was up, she wondered for a moment if Mara had come to sleep in the hatchery after all. The odd dreams had felt a little like when she had used to sleep near Mara and experienced vague echoes of her dreams. But no, there was no sign of Mara. It must have been her own mind generating the images after all, she thought, frowning as she sat up and rubbed at her eyes.

She stretched as best she could while shackled, stiff from sleeping on the hard floor. Trying to remember when she'd last had to rough it, she realized it must have been in the caves beneath Dansestari, with Tassan. For an instant she could almost feel his arm around her shoulders and his breath against her cheek, and she curled up and leaned her forehead on her knees as the tears started to flow. The enormity, the irretrievability of her loss was finally sinking in, and all her doubts and caution, her refusal to commit herself before she left, now seemed a betrayal.

If only she had stayed on Allyria until she shed the Pharon crystal resonance...if only she had called Tirqwin and Khediva years ago and gone back...if only she'd promised to marry Tassan before she'd gone so that he could have had some grounds for asking Mara to bring her back.... All the possibilities played themselves out in her mind. Anything would have been better than to have left Tassan alone for an entire lifetime with no word. He would be old, very old, at the end of his life now, still wondering why she had not kept her promise to return. Or had he forgotten her, perhaps after hating her for abandoning him?

No, somehow she remained convinced that his devotion had survived the long silence. If he had ever truly hated her, he would have quit the Citizens Council and the career he had chosen to pursue as preparation for becoming part of her life. But Ford had said he'd been the longest-serving member, so he must have kept hoping, holding up his end of their bargain. Now...ninety-two years almost certainly constituted an insurmountable age barrier, and even if it didn't, they would have to have time to get to know each other again. Did he have that time at his age? Would he even care? Perhaps he was comfortable with his life now and would not welcome a ghost from his past.