Kiera's Sun (#2, Anshan Saga)

Chapter Nine

As a warrior who had been fighting for fifteen cycles, A'Ran was accustomed to pain in all its levels and intensities. The sharp pain in his shoulder was likely from it being jarred out of socket, the burn radiating down his forearm a break, the warm pain in his chest and one leg indicating shallow stab wounds onto which his clothing clung.

He categorized his injuries and came up with the almost satisfactory conclusion that he'd been through worse on at least one other occasion. It wasn't just pain he felt, either, but a familiar thrum of energy. He had first experienced it when he returned to the planet for the first time in fifteen cycles several weeks ago. The planet had welcomed him with an internal hug similar to the warm energy inside him now.

With a grunt of pain, A'Ran pushed himself into a sit with his good arm. He didn't have to guess how he'd landed; the left side of his body was damaged while his right was fine. He rested his limp left arm on his lap and prodded the most serious of his punctures to ensure they weren't too deep. When he finished, he looked around – and realized what he'd missed the first few moments of waking after the brutal landing.

He was alive on the toxic surface of Anshan. The air wasn't choking him with poison, and the storms weren't hurling boulders and dust at him. He reached out with one hand and tested the strange bubble around him. It was impossible to pierce, because it moved with him. It wasn't an exoskeleton or at least, not one his people had created.

His hand dropped to his side, and he stood, testing the bubble around him. It continued to go wherever he did. A'Ran limped to a large rock and knelt. Steeling himself for more pain, he gingerly placed his hurt shoulder against the rock, drew a breath and smashed the shoulder back into place. Agony pierced him, left him close to passing out, and he concentrated hard on breathing steadily until the throbbing pain descended into something more manageable.

When it did, he shifted and pulled off his shirt. His left arm was going to need medical attention. He tore a long strip from his clothing and created a sling then went to work binding the tears in his body the best he could. When he was satisfied with his work, he rose and looked around.

One of the reasons he preferred to be in space instead of on the ground: perspective. On the planet, he wasn't able to see what he could from space. In the middle of an Anshan storm, he saw even less - only what was directly in front of him, and he hated the limited perspective of his world that caused.

He returned to where he had landed and surveyed the shattered emergency landing equipment he had used once it was clear his ship was going down. For a long moment, he simply stood and stared at the scene. He hadn't noticed the ground beneath him before. His blood marred the equipment and had soaked into the red desert of the planet. But it wasn't this holding him transfixed.

Grass. A small patch had sprouted beneath where he had lain. He had heard Mansr and Leyon speak of how Kiera brought the planet to life with a single touch, but he had never considered what happened when the dhjan touched the planet. His brief visit weeks ago hadn't been of too short duration for him to do more than land, attend a meeting, rescue Kiera and fly off again. He had spent less than half a day on Anshan and another several moments during the trip to assess the mines.

Mansr's question about when he had last visited the planet was back in his thoughts. He had been exiled seconds after officially becoming the dhjan and had never spent more than several hours on the planet. He had certainly never sat long or slept or been still enough to see if he had the same power Kiera did.

A'Ran bent on his good knee and ran his palm through the grass. The moon had grass, of course, but this was different. It might as well have grown out of his own spirit. It was his. His touch had done this. After spending well over half his life in exile, and destroying the surface, his planet still remembered him, still welcomed him, still loved him.