Free The Starborn by Viola Grace

 
     
     
    Chapter One
     
     
    Wiali smiled as she took her students through the dig site on Halash. “This is the last city of the Hirn Empire. They scattered from here, out to the stars.”
    The professor running the dig came up and took charge of the group, directing them through the site and into the place they would work and learn. They had less than a year to absorb every detail of the cities and the dead civilization before the sun completed its cycle and went nova.
    Wiali wandered through the halls of her home and touched the walls. She hadn’t been back on Halash since the day her father’s newest Avatar had tucked her into the stasis chamber and sent her off to the next star system.
    Fifteen hundred years of Alliance information, data and current events had run through her skull until the day Suek’s Avatar, Sovalli, woke her with a smile and told her that she was entering the Citadel.
    Wiali walked through what had been her family home, watching the archaeological crew documenting everything and taking the images of her mother and father, packing them away for the Alliance Archive.
    “May I help you, miss?” One of the team members spoke before he looked at her face.
    Wia looked at him with a bland expression, knowing that he was taking in the mask colouration on her face and comparing it to the portrait that he had just wrapped and stored in a crate. “I just came back to see my home before my father burns up and scorches everything in his path.”
    A voice behind her made her smile. “I am not going so easily into the end, Wia. Don’t be so flippant, this is the end of a solar system.”
    Wia turned with joy surging in her chest, and she faced a man she did not recognise. She knew the brilliant purple swirl in his eyes, but the body her father was using as his Avatar was unknown to her. “Father?”
    He extended his arms and the purple became solid.
    Wia ran to him and embraced him. “How many since Danyer is he?”
    “He is the second. When Danyer’s body died, Sovalli stepped in to help ship you off for safety, and he remained with me until last year when Braenar offered himself for my last days.” Suek’s voice was the same.
    If Wia closed her eyes and ignored the intriguing scent of the man she embraced, she could almost feel her father, Danyer-Suek. Her mother’s life had been bound to Danyer, so when she lost one parent, the other followed within a week. At the age of fourteen, it had been quite a blow. Suek’s replacement Avatar was a man named Sovalli, and he had gently explained what was about to happen before Sovalli-Suek tucked her in the stasis chamber and froze her for fifteen hundred years.
    He was the same man who woke her ten years ago, and now he was gone as well leaving this strong, fit male who was decidedly interested in her embrace.
    She pushed away. “I am sorry. That was inappropriate.”
    He grinned, the purple still denoting that Suek was in charge. “It is never inappropriate to show affection, Wia. You know that. My body may change, but my soul will always be that of your father. Danyer was a wonderful Avatar, and Wiska was a good woman. You are a credit to both their species.”
    Wiali sighed. “I can’t believe you are dying.”
    “It comes to all of us, child.” The new Avatar wrapped an arm around her shoulders, and they walked in the dusty remains of the gardens that Wia remembered as full of wonderful blue-green plants and scarlet flowers.
    “At least you had time to get the Alliance to archive the history of the system. I am glad that the Suek system won’t be forgotten.” She smiled but could feel her eyes darken with tears.
    “And you are my legacy, Wia. Don’t ever forget that. When Danyer asked for a mate and Wiska ended up being the proper choice, I was sceptical, but the moment that my Avatar held you in his arms, I knew that you carried a part of me within you as well.”
    “It is peculiar to be having this conversation with a face I do not