Star-Crossed

Chapter Twenty-Eight: I'll search the world until there's no place left to go

NOT EVEN FIVE minutes after Rania of the Cosmos' memory plays through my head, I'm running down the hall, heading straight for the room Xerxion told me was his. When I reach his room, I hold my hand against the access panel and it opens right away, the doors making a slight clinking sound as they open.

Xerxion knows the door is opening as soon as it opens and as I step into the dark room-blinking my eyes to adjust them to the unfamiliar surroundings-Xerxion rolls from the bed lithely, grabbing one of his swords and gripping it tightly, his jaw clenched and his eyes blazing.

"Rania," he breathes out a sigh of relief when he realizes it's just me, his hands loosen on the sword but only for a moment because then, he really takes in my face. I'm not really sure how I look at this moment, but whatever Xerxion sees makes him clutch his sword tighter. "Is something wrong? Did someone hurt you?" His tone of voice becomes dark as he says that last sentence.

"I'm fine," I assure him. "But we need to go to Earth and find Ithuriel. Now."

Xerxion's eyes sweep over me as he tries to determine whether or not I'm sane. The incredulous look in his eyes reminds me a lot of the way one would look at a person who suddenly asked them to make candy rain from the sky.

"You want to go to Earth to find Ithuriel? Rania, you're still being hunted by the humans," he argues.

"And I can also take care of myself in combat," I counter.

"Perhaps, but what if Ithuriel attacks you. You are very good in combat, but Ithuriel's level of skill is equal to my own. What if he decided to kill you?"

"He won't," I say, shaking my head.

"How can you know that? How can you trust that he won't-"

"I saw one of Rania's memories," I tell him, watching his face carefully. "In the memory, she knew she was going to die soon." Xerxion takes in a deep breath, his eyes holding shock at this new information. "So, she called Ithuriel. She felt like a third party was hunting her and that there would be Illusionists involved. Because Ithuriel's mind is safe from them, she gave him a box and asked him to give it to whoever she merged her soul with. Ithuriel was supposed to give me the box alone, away from everyone else. That's why he kept trying to get me and take off. He was trying to fulfill Rania of the Cosmos' last wish."

The air that hangs between us is heavy as Xerxion processes this. There's only the sound of our breathing, and even that sound is slightly heavy, both of us breathing hard. Adrenaline is coursing through my veins like fire, my heart is pounding. Rania of the Cosmos said that whatever was in that box would somehow help me understand everything. I'm so close to knowing who killed this alien woman who I didn't know but I care so deeply for, I can taste it on my tongue.

"Okay," Xerxion says quietly. "We'll head down to Earth and I'll send out a call to Ithuriel and have him meet us somewhere. Stay here. I'll wake the others." And then, after a quick kiss to my temple, he is off.

As the spaceship lands in the middle of the desert, grains of sand rise up. They dance around us, swirling before falling and becoming indistinguishable from the rest of the sand.

I'm in Xerxion's room and, like always, even when I'm in the most dire of situations, whenever it's just him and me together I can't think of anything else. In this moment, all I'm thinking is that his room smells like him. A scent that makes me want to close my eyes and breathe in deeply, burning that scent into my memories so that, when we are apart if I close my eyes I can come back to this moment and smell this scent again. His room reminds me a lot of him, too. It's neat. A king-sized bed, plain sheets and a window that is a lot smaller than the one in my room. It's big enough to crawl out of if things on the ship went horribly awry, but not any bigger than that.