One Between the Stars

Chapter 47

 As soon as Ionia was able to collect herself, she went back to her room, where she found a port tablet waiting for her. She opened the face messaging and typed in the ID for Myran's desk port.

It rang several times before he picked up.

If she hadn't cried herself out already, she would have teared up at his familiar face. She noted that he was a mess; unshaven, uncut and wild hair, clothes that looked wrinkled and probably didn't smell the cleanest. What had happened?

"Ionia?" he asked with wide eyes.

"Hi, Myran," she breathed.

He sat at his desk, and she noticed that there was a girl next to him. She looked close to his age, and absolutely beautiful; warm tanned skin, full lips, golden brown eyes, hair such a dark brown that it seemed almost black. She looked familiar...

"How's your quest coming along?" He asked.

Oh. That. Ionia plastered on a smile. "Difficult. But I called to check in on the state of things back home." Home. That's what it was. Why didn't it seem so convincing?

Myran's face fell, and she knew that she didn't want to hear his next words. "I wish I could lie to you, Ionia." His eyes were grave. "You probably can guess that people are dying still?"

She nodded. But she knew that wasn't the bad news.

Myran licked his lips, but couldn't seen to get the words out. Then the girl spoke up, in a voice so soft Ionia turned the volume on her tablet up a few notches. "Your father has fallen ill."

Her stomach dropped to the floor. "What?"

"He had a fever a few days ago," Myran said, finding speech again. "We're not sure...he's not letting anyone in his chambers. Well, no one but Jen."

Jen. That was her name. Ionia realized that this was the healer in the infirmary. No wonder she looked familiar; her mother had been the healer when Ionia was a girl. She had vague memories of a large pair of brown eyes peaking out from behind back rooms and her mother's skirts whenever Ionia had a cold or a small cut, many years ago.

Jen's cheeks flared pink when all attention fell on her. "I've been tending to him. I've seen much of the plague since it struck..."

"Does he have it?" Ionia asked.

Jen bit her lip. "It's hard to say for sure...he's in very early stages, where it could be passed off as a cold. Fever, cold-sweating, loss of appetite...we would have to wait a week. By then, either the cold will go away, or the second wave of silver plague symptoms will surface."

"But if he has the plague?" she asked.

Jen hung her head. "Then I'm afraid there won't be any hope of survival for him. Not unless you've come up with some miracle out there and can get it here within the next few weeks."

"Are you saying that there's a chance I'll never get to see my father before he dies of the plague?" Her whole world had been shattered in the course of one day, and now the broken pieces were burning to ash.

"Well..." She bit her lip.

"How far by time are you away?" Myran asked. "Wait, where are you anyway?"

And it struck Ionia as funny - funny though this was perhaps the most devastating and serious situation in the world - that they had no idea. She laughed and said, "Myran, I'm on the hidden planet of the warlocks. I've just consulted with an all-knowing being who tells me that there is no way that I can get to the Wealthy One."

Shock was an understatement as to the looks on their faces, such that Ionia had never seen. "What?"

"Listen," Ionia said. "I have been traveling for six months, and have just been handed the news that it has all been for virtually nothing. And now not only that, but my own father has possibly fallen victim to the thing that my futile pursuits have been fighting for."