Mastered by the Zandians (Zandian Brides 3)

He balls up the fabric. Takes my hand with his other one. Gives me a look, and I go quiet. We’re silent for a long minute. The wind whistles along the eaves of the hut, the lonely cry of the dry reeds crackling in the parched creek bed.

He smiles. “Did you know there’s a race of being called the Fi? They’re similar to humans physically. About 500 light years from Jesel. They have the opposite problem of Zandia. They’ve got mostly females left; their males died in wars. Turns out human males work perfectly to mate. That’s where I sent the males.”

“So—what? We should send all our males there?”

“Yes. And females to Zandia?” He smiles. “It sounds like a good place for them.”

I hesitate. “Divide and conquer?”

He smiles. “Like a cell. Basic biology. Split in two and make more of yourself.” He sighs. “I don’t know, child. I’m old, now. More philosophical than I’ve been. Possibly prone to fancy. But I don’t think I’m wrong about this.”

I consider it. “But I came back here for you, Father. For this. For humans.” My voice breaks. “I came for you.”

He squeezes my hand. “But what you get is yourself. Take her and go.”

“But…” My mind wrenches with this new possibility. The scariest thing is that I think he’s right about all of it.

He lets my hand go, pats it once. “Go back to Zandia. And take the other females with you.”

“I can’t leave you alone.” My response is automatic, but I’m already thinking of how it could work. First of all, I’d have to get a craft capable of getting there. Rescue the women from the North group.

Or: Contact Zandia and ask them to help me do it. If they even would listen at this point. I’ve been more trouble than good. “Also they will not want me back. But I can’t leave you.”

I cross my arms, feeling nauseated.

“I’m afraid I’m the one who is leaving.” His voice is low. He holds up his hand with the balled up cloth.

“Father.” My voice catches.

“It’s all right. I’ve had a good run of it.” He smiles. “No regrets, Mirelle.”

“Maybe I could fix up a craft and get you to Talon. They have medical care, and we could barter for some medication.” My mind races and I lean forward, balling my fists. “I can steal something of value and barter—”

My father shakes his head. “This isn’t the kind of thing that can be helped.”

“But…”

“I’ll stay here.” His voice is firm. “For as long as I have left. Jesel is still known as a outflung human post, and we will surely get stray escapees. They’ll need someone to welcome them and send them on to another location. You go to Zandia.”

“What if they don’t want me back?” Emptiness breaks my ribs open and spills my organs.

“Then you convince them otherwise.” He smiles.

“What if they won’t be convinced?”

“That’s not the fighter I know.”

“I’m not the same person I used to be.”

“You’re a stronger one.” He looks approvingly at me. “Your mother would be proud, Mirelle. So would your sister.”

“I don’t know where they are.” I whisper it, and tears flow down my cheeks, sudden and hot.

I look up at the roof of the hut, as if I could see through the rough beams and then through the dusty hot sky, gaze past the stars and the nebulae, and find them. Somewhere, floating. “I never find them, no matter how far I go.”

Hot tears drip down my face. “Why did they have to go?”

My father grabs me up into his arms and I press myself into him, for the last time, maybe, because every time is always the last time. I squeeze him as hard as I think I can without breaking him.