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."Just hold on until then.Try to do some damage control if you can.The people love you, and if anyone can do it, it's you."She smiled at him, and it made Carver happy to see it."I'll do what I can.I sent you some files and notes that I found when we were going through Father's things recently.They seemed important, so I thought you should have them."She didn't say that she thought he should have them and not Ithril, but Carver already knew that was what she meant."I'll take a look at them.Thank you, E'lira.Be well.""And you, brother."Carver disconnected the call and leaned back in his chair.It was troubling news to be sure, but he couldn't say that he had expected anything different.Ithril wasn't level headed enough to be a leader, and Carver cursed himself for not seeing that this would be a problem sooner.He had always given his younger brother the benefit of the doubt, and clearly that had been a mistake.He sighed and dragged a hand down his face.There was nothing to be done about that now.Looking backwards did nothing but prevent you from seeing what was coming ahead, as his father had always said to him.Now he had to put his energy into fixing the problems this inattention and his brother's zealous hate for the Des'kos had caused as soon as possible.His head was buzzing with the need to act, and sitting around on Earth while his people were dying and suffering did not sit well with him, but there was nothing he could do about that, either.Until the transporter arrived with fuel, he was stuck.If Vivian had been around, she would have provided a good distraction.More than that, she would have told him that he was already doing all he could.In the time they had spent together, she'd become valuable to him, keeping him from giving in to his anxieties and getting worked up.Her presence was calming and he found himself missing her greatly when she had to go attend to things in her life.And of course, it wasn't fair for him to expect her to always be there.She had a life of her own, and she'd been going along perfectly fine before he'd shown up, but he couldn't help the way he always wanted to have her near him or to be near her.It was perplexing because he'd never felt anything like it, and he didn't understand where it was coming from.Needing something to take his mind off of how ridiculous he had become, he pulled up the notes that E'lira had sent him.Even though they were typed in the same precise characters used for all Sitheri writing, Carver could almost hear his father's voice as he read them over.At first he wasn't sure what he was looking at, but the more he read, the more it seemed like it was some kind of personal journal that his father had kept for years.There were accounts of attacks on the Sitheri by the Des'kos, notes about casualties and losses, and Angen's own suspicions over who was really leading the rebels who constantly assaulted them.Carver became absorbed in his reading.According to the notes, his father had been giving the Des'kos the minimum amounts of resources and land that he could get away with and keeping careful notes of everything."In case they tried to pull anything," he murmured.There were certain laws that had been in existence longer than either the Sitheri or the Des'kos.Laws that governed every clan that called Khaosali home, and even the Des'kos couldn't break them without expecting punishment from a much higher galactic power.Scrolling back to a page near the beginning of the journal, Carver settled in to read.It was a pleasant distraction, and knowing what the Des'kos had been up to could only benefit his people in the long run.But the beginning of the journal wasn't dedicated to the Des'kos.Carver's brow furrowed as he found himself reading an account of Sitheri mating practices.He'd heard that in the past, it wasn't unheard of for a Sitheri to have a mate, but it hadn't happened in his lifetime, so he'd assumed it was something they'd abandoned.What he read changed his outlook on that completely.According to his father, Sitheri mating practices went beyond compatibility and desire and moved into the territory of actual, true soul mates.He described the way he'd felt when he'd met his wife, the mother of Carver and his siblings, and how their bond had grown.He talked about his grief when she had been killed, and how it felt like there was a piece of his soul that had been taken from him.Included were excerpts from accounts that had been written by other Sitheri who had come before Angen and found their own mates.Carver paid close attention to these, noting the pull towards the other person that they all documented feeling.It was a lot to take in at once.Both the fact that a practice he had considered outdated and irrelevant was clearly still alive and well in some cases and the fact that he seemed to be experiencing some of the same feelings for Vivian that his father had written about feeling for his mother.Carver remembered how in love his parents had been and how natural things had seemed between them.They could communicate an entire conversation in one look, and no one else had ever seemed to have a relationship like that.On the one hand, it frightened him that he could feel this way about someone he barely even knew, but on the other hand…On the other hand, it felt like something was clicking into place.Before he had too much time to think on it, the door was opening, and Vivian was sticking her head in."Hey," she said, grinning at him."I knocked, but I don't think you were paying attention.Any news?"She had taken to asking that every day when she showed up, eyes alight with wanting to know when he'd be able to go home
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