Kayleb

CHAPTER ONE KAYLEB NAMOREN DIDN’T want to die. He walked down a small street near the apartment he shared with his brother and Penny, his brother’s mate, and tried to block out the yawning chasm of despair that clawed at his heart. He was out of time. As a youth he’d never cursed the Denya Price. His parents had found one another, as had several other family members. Yes, some Detyens died at thirty because they couldn’t find their mates. But that didn’t happen to NaMorens. Not until Karwan. And once his elder sister died, everything changed. Suddenly thirty was no longer some far off age, an impossible threat that would never come. No, he and his younger brother Krayter had barreled toward it at speeds faster than light, each day a little closer to the end than the last. Until Krayter met Penny and everything changed once again. As selfish as it was, Kayleb had always assumed that he would meet his denya first. Krayter was his brother and best friend—he’d choose no other Detyen to stand beside until the end. But Krayter was... enthusiastic with his lovers, never caring for them beyond a night, never minding that somewhere in the vast fields of space his denya had waited for him. Then Krayter crash landed his speeder in her back yard and found his salvation. And Kayleb was left to rot. He clenched his fist and ground his teeth against the uncharitable thought. Penny had been nothing but kind to him since she came into their lives. She’d made every effort to become his friend. If anyone had been rude, it was Kayleb. The days until the end had grown shorter and shorter and he’d hoped to spare her the pain of his loss. And he hoped that her presence helped his brother muddle through. When Karwan had passed... No, Kayleb didn’t need to think of that now. Not today. The sun shone bright overhead, a final gift given the tumultuous spring weather. The scent of rain still hung heavy in the air and the ground carried the memory of an overnight storm. Kayleb tilted his head up towards the sun and let it wash over him. The heat on his home planet of Jaaxis could melt the skin off a weaker species’ bones in the hot months, and in comparison, Earth was pleasant. Almost like the home he’d never known. The ancient loss of his home planet, Detya, hung over every waking and sleeping moment. It was more than a hundred years gone, his people eking out existence on other planets and moons, poor substitutes for the paradise they’d once held, but Kayleb and his brethren held that loss close and never let go. To forget the grief was to forget home. He’d grown maudlin. More maudlin. Someone jostled his shoulder and he realized that he’d come to a standstill on the middle of the sidewalk, practically a capital offense in New York City. Kayleb shook his head and looked around, but he’d wandered off his normal paths and out of the neighborhood he’d refused to think of as home. An ancient bodega sat on the corner, its sign so old that it had no holograms, and a trio of cats lay on the stoop, basking in the midday sun. Across the street was the even older church, stonework dating back centuries, all the way to the founding of America. Parents played with their children in the churchyard and an old human man in black robes watched over it all with a small smile on his face. Though Kayleb felt no affinity for human religion, this wasn’t the first time he’d wandered here when his mind went... wrong. Red flashed in the corner of his eye and Kayleb whipped around, but it was only the brightly colored headscarf of a woman going into the bodega. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to summon the memory that teased his mind, the reason he’d been winding up on unfamiliar streets, his gaze drawn to red hair on human women. All he found was the gaping hole in his mind where a week’s worth of memories should have sat. After his injury a six months ago, he’d worried his brother to the bone with bouts of sickness and amnesia. But since Krayter had met and bonded with Penny, Kayleb had made an effort. Not to get better, but to seem better so his brother needn’t worry when he should be focusing on someone else. The sickness had gone. And the memories had returned. Almost. He didn’t remember the blow that had struck him from pirates aboard their ship from Jaaxis to Honora Station. The last thing he remembered was the morning before a different injury, when he’d met a fellow Detyen named Inrit and the cyborg who ended up being her denya. After that, nothing. The specialist he’d consulted a few months ago, before he’d given up hope of full recovery, had told him his brain was intact and undamaged, but that trauma could do things that humans didn’t yet understand. The memories would come back or they wouldn’t, and Kayleb needed to accept that. Bullshit. Even on his last day, the day before his thirtieth birthday, he couldn’t quite accept that he’d never know what had happened in that week on the ship. There was an emptiness in his chest, something he knew he should remember, but it was shrouded behind a wall of impenetrable fog. That was the part he’d never told his brother. Who knew what Krayter would do? His reckless brother might hunt down Captain Morvellan and demand all of the security footage from their stay, piecing together with technology what Kayleb couldn’t manage for himself. Kayleb smiled at the thought. At least one of them would live to see their parents and siblings again. At least one of them had found love. He walked up to the iron fence lining the church and placed his hands on it. A few humans glanced his way. He was the only alien on this part of the street, his blue skin a dead giveaway that he hadn’t come from Earth. With a quick tensing of his hands he could bring out wickedly sharp claws and show everyone that Detyens had once been the top predators on a faraway planet. But that was all ancient history and he had no wish to disturb the peace. Kayleb turned away, letting go of the iron fence and the nagging sense that he should continue down the street until he found what he was looking for, that lock of red that would be just right. After all, this wasn’t the first time he’d found himself searching it—her—out, but it would be his last. For him, tomorrow wouldn’t come. And though he feared that spending this time with his brother would only bring him more pain once Kayleb was gone, he retraced his steps until he found himself back at their midrise apartment building. Penny was gone for the day, spending the time with her sisters and giving him and Krayter a final night to say goodbye to one another. His brother sat on the couch and jerked around when Kayleb opened and shut the door with more force than necessary. Gravity on Earth was a little different than Jaaxis and far different from the ships they’d taken to get here. He’d still been getting used to it and when he didn’t watch himself, his strength took over and he hit things too hard. Of course, that had been his way of life on Jaaxis, but those days were long gone, never to be revisited. Krayter’s eyes flashed red for a moment, emotion riding high, but he smothered it and they settled back to the normal black after a moment. At first glance, some mistook them for twins, but Krayter’s skin was closer to teal while Kayleb leaned toward blue. Kayleb also edged his brother out in height by a centimeter and carried a bump on his nose, first broken as a child and rebroken in a fight several years back. “It’s nearly sundown,” Krayter said, haloed in light from the window behind him. “I needed to move.” The words tumbled out, something Kayleb had muttered time and time again over the last months. It was true, in its way. But it hadn’t just been movement he needed, it was the hunt for something he couldn’t articulate. Something he’d never wanted to share with his brother, no matter the worry that it caused him. Krayter swallowed whatever he’d been about to say, his skin going a bit pale around the edges. He blinked his eyes hard and gulped, dragging in a huge, shaky breath. “Of course,” he said once he’d gained control of himself once more. “You should do as you wish today.” Guilt washed over Kayleb and he was forced to face the real reason he’d needed to move today. Tears pricked at his eyes as the chasm inside of him widened even further, the darkness reaching out to pull him in, to take him away from this place that was supposed to become his home, his haven. “I’m sorry, brother,” he managed around the ball of emotion that had lodged in his throat and refused to move. Krayter blinked again, holding back his own tears. “You have nothing to apologize for.” But that wasn’t true. He’d been so caught up in pain and denial of what was coming that he’d pushed his own brother away in the past weeks until all he could feel was the time wasted. He shouldn’t have ventured out to chase ghosts when the only person that mattered was right here waiting for him, reaching out even as he began his new life. “I’m glad you found her,” Kayleb said. “I’m glad that you’re not alone.” Krayter shot up and wrapped his arms tight around him, the warmth and care and brotherly love everything he’d been pushing away for far too long. “We don’t have much time, but we’ll make it last. I promise.” Midnight came and went while they reminisced. If they’d kept to the old ways, Krayter would be sitting vigil as Kayleb prepared himself for the spiritual journey across the stars, following the guiding lights of Detyens gone before. But neither of them had attended the temple back on Jaaxis and Kayleb wasn’t sure he could recite the old prayers even if he tried to remember them. So he and his brother made their own ritual, one of life and love and memories. Kayleb recorded messages to send back to the family on Jaaxis and trusted that Krayter would see them delivered. As the small hour of morning ticked by, exhaustion took him in a tidal wave and that chasm in his soul snapped at him. He swallowed hard against the fear and looked where Krayter sat beside him, their arms resting against one another. “I think it’s coming,” he said, unsure of what exactly the rest of the morning held in store for him. The priests of the dead kept the secrets of the Final Night, and he hadn’t been with Karwan, instead forced to spend the night in a delinquent cell on Jaaxis for a fight that had gone too far. “I’ll stay by your side,” Krayter promised. “Maybe it would be best if you tried to sleep?” With a jolt, Kayleb remembered that Krayter hadn’t been with Karwan either. Neither of them knew how this night would end, whether Kayleb would fade in peace or die screaming. If this was the end, he couldn’t go without saying one last thing. “I love you, brother. And I have no regrets about making this trip. I wouldn’t change it,” he promised. As the first beams of the sun crested the horizon, Kayleb laid back on the couch and closed his eyes, letting the darkness take him. Death in sleep would surely be less painful than succumbing while awake. His thoughts faded into cloying darkness and he dropped out of consciousness and into something beyond. ***