Guardian of the Storm

by Kaitlyn O’Connor

  Smiling at him a little vaguely, Tempest returned her attention to the distant range of mountains that was their destination.

  Kiran, accepting her determination to pretend nothing had ever passed between them, had gone back to being withdrawn. Except for necessary conversation, they’d hardly spoken since they had left the mountain and headed for the Mordune encampment. Once they’d reached it, they had made arrangements to leave immediately, and they’d scarcely left the backs of the aquestans since.

  They were loathsome beasts. They stank for one thing. Otherwise, they were temperamental and stupid. The one she rode tried to stomp poor Kirry any time the poor little thing came anywhere near it.

  If they weren’t running out of time, she would’ve preferred walking.

  If, she amended, they weren’t running out of time and things weren’t so uncomfortable between her and Kiran now. Being alone and on foot had only seemed to add to the strain between them. At least now they had a physical buffer between them that made the emotional one seemed less noticeable as a barrier.

  The sun was low on the horizon by the time they drew near enough to see the city of tents dotting the sand below the mountain. Despite everything, Tempest felt her spirits lift. Kiran had said there were Earthlings among them. Maybe she would at least have the chance to see them and find out if it was anyone she knew.

  She was dismayed, however, when chaos suddenly broke out in the encampment and men surged forward, bristling with spears and swords. Kiran spoke to Ta-li and then, when Ta-li nodded, guided his beast alongside hers. Taking the leading ropes from Ta-li’s grip, he urged both aquestans to take the lead while the Mordunes fell back a few paces.

  “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  Kiran’s expression was grim. “We are enemies of the Mordune.”

  “Oh.” Tempest felt stupid. Between her own emotional problems and the task she was trying to help Kiran complete, she hadn’t given much thought to the possibility that they might find a poor welcome when they arrived at the Zoean encampment with a party of Mordune.

  Kiran glanced at her. “There are many here who know your language. Guard your tongue. It would be … dangerous to say anything that might call our religion into question.”

  Tempest felt a coldness wash over her. She hadn’t thought of that either … now she was going to be fearful of even opening her mouth.

  Her heart was still fluttering with fear when Kiran drew the aquestans to a halt a short distance from the men who’d come to ‘greet’ them.

  They might know her language, but it was their language they used in the ensuing, somewhat heated, discussion. Finally, with obvious reluctance, they were allowed to proceed with their escort.

  Despite her nervousness, Tempest glanced around with some interest as they rode between the tents. Many of the Zoeans, like Kiran, were dressed in loincloths of animal hide, though here and there she saw women wearing woven robes very similar to the robes the Mordune wore. The ‘star children’ weren’t hard to pick out among the Zoeans.

  As Kiran had pointed out, they were far smaller in stature. Beyond that, the Zoeans were almost universally dark haired, ranging from blue black hair to a medium brown. Five of the half dozen humans she saw had varying shades of blond hair, from barely brown to an almost colorless white.

  The oldest she saw was a boy who looked to be about fifteen Earth years.

  She didn’t recognize any of them and disappointment filled her.

  The older boy looked her over with interest and she smiled at him, realizing that he seemed vaguely familiar. He was younger than her several years, and it had been nearly two since the disaster. He couldn’t have been one of her classmates, but she decided she must have seen him—or perhaps she’d known an older sibling?

  Dimly, Kiran realized even as he urged his beast alongside hers and glared at her that his animosity toward the Earthling youth was way out of proportion to what had passed between the boy and Tempest. Yet there’d been no reasoning with the powerful sense of possessiveness that flooded him when he’d seen Tempest’s interest in the Star Children in general and the youth in particular. He understood her need for others of her kind. He wasn’t sorry that he’d been able to banish the look of desolation in her eyes with the news that she wasn’t alone, that there were other Star Children. He was glad that he’d been able to give her that sense of peace and disturbed at the same time that it made him feel threatened in some vague, excruciatingly uncomfortable way.

  In time, she could seek them for the comfort of companionship they had to offer with his blessing, but he was of no mind to yield his place for one of them.

  Tempest gaped at him in surprise.

  He ignored the look, focusing his attention straight ahead.

  As if he didn’t know he’d blocked her view, Tempest thought indignantly!

  After a moment, she dismissed it. She didn’t have time, now, to try to get to know any of her fellow survivors. Later, when they’d done all that they could to unravel the mystery and whatever it was that was expected of them, then, when Kiran brought her back to his tribe she could rejoin her own people.

  They stopped at last before the largest tent, which stood in the center, just as it had been in the Mordune encampment. An old man emerged. Kiran dismounted and moved to help her down. Grasping her around the waist and setting her lightly on her feet, he released her almost immediately, turning and kneeling before the man.

  Tempest looked down at him a little nervously, wondering if she was supposed to kneel, too. He hadn’t said she should. Surely he would’ve told her, she thought a little frantically?

  She relaxed a fraction when Kiran rose once more, allowing her attention to wander while the two men talked. Occasionally, she would hear a word that she recognized, but she wasn’t even close to understanding their language. The tone, she understood, and anger was universal. Finally, Kiran bowed once more and grasped her wrist, leading her back to the aquestan and helping her to mount.

  Tempest was confused. She waited until they had ridden through the encampment and dismounted at the foot of the mountain before she asked him what had happened, however.

  He was obviously controlling his temper with an effort. “Mikissi will not intervene on our behalf.”

  “I don’t understand. Why would we need him to?”

  Grasping her around the waist, Kiran helped her down from her saddle. “The priests will allow no one to enter the temple.”

  Tempest stared at him. “What temple?”

  “The Temple where the Keepers of the Memory live.”

  “You mean to say we rode all this way and we aren’t even going to get to talk to them?”

  Kiran’s expression was grim. “We can speak through the priests. It has always been the way of things. The priests present the problem to the Keepers and give us the answer once they have consulted them.”

  Tempest looked at him doubtfully. It didn’t seem to her that they would make much progress that way, particularly when they wouldn’t be able to ask straightforward questions to begin with. They were going to have to think of some way to find the answers without seeming sacrilegious. “Do you think they’ll help us?”

  “We will find the answers we need,” Kiran said grimly.

  He strode away then, spoke to Ta-li for some time and apparently came to an agreement. Ta-li and his men mounted the aquestans and, tugging the two Kiran and Tempest had been riding behind them, rode off.

  “They will circle the mountain and climb the northern pass. They will meet us at the Temple by mid-day tomorrow.”

  Tempest felt a touch of alarm. “What are we going to do?”

  “We will seize the temple.”

  “We’re going to kill the priests?” Tempest exclaimed, horrified.

  A faint smile curled Kiran’s lips. “We will hope it doesn’t come to that.”

  Tempest wasn’t terribly reassured, but she kept her thoughts to herself. It was easy enough once they began to climb. The path was
steep enough to require most of her focus. They hadn’t been trekking much more than an hour when dusk began to settle around them. Kiran scanned the landscape through narrowed eyes and finally chose a place to make an encampment for the night.

  Gathering dried brush together, he left her to build a fire and disappeared in search of food. She’d straightened the bedding on as level a spot as she could find and settled on it, staring musingly at the flames when he returned a little later and formed a spit over the flames to roast the small game animal he’d caught and cleaned.

  “There is a small pool there,” he murmured, gesturing in the direction.

  Tempest nodded in acknowledgement but didn’t move, her thoughts on the handful of her fellow Earthlings she’d seen among Kiran’s tribe. Except for the boy she’d spied, it seemed to her that most of them were too young to be without parents of any kind, which had pretty well quashed her grandiose plans of leading everyone back to the colony. She could barely take care of herself. She didn’t feel confident that she could take care of all the little ones.

  And, if she waited until they were older, what then? They’d already spent nearly two years living among the Zoeans. They were bound to grow attached, to begin to relate to their adoptive family if they hadn’t already. She doubted they’d want to leave now. In a few years that seemed even less likely to be the case.

  “What thoughts trouble you?”

  Tempest glanced at Kiran a little guiltily, partly because her thoughts were so far from what he was sure to consider the far more important issue of ‘the prophesy’. If it came to that, she was inclined to think it was, too. After all, they all lived on Niah. What happened to Niah was as important to her people as it was to his.

  Part of it, though, was the realization that he had to sense that she was trying to push him away, to distance herself from him. Even if he didn’t particularly want her himself, had no interest in her as companion, he was bound to feel at least mildly offended that she’d clung to him with grim determination and now seemed as eager to be rid of him as she had been to cling to him before.

  She shrugged instead of answering, unwilling to risk angering him.

  Not that that worked, she saw wryly. His expression tightened and she had a feeling it was because he knew the direction of her thoughts.

  To her relief, he didn’t pursue it. Instead, he grabbed his pack and sorted through the modest rations that remained from the food the Mordune had given them. Pulling off a small portion of hard bread, he cut two thin slices of equally hard cheese and handed her half. In silence, they nibbled at the bread and cheese while they waited for the meat to cook.

  Talore, the great red moon had risen above the horizon by the time they’d finished their meal. By the moon’s light, Tempest made her way to the small pool Kiran had told her about. When she’d taken care of her needs, she squatted beside the pool and washed her face and hands and then scooped up water in her palm for drinking. It was tepid, warmed by the sun of the day.

  She stared at the glassy surface for several moments when she’d finished drinking, feeling the unaccustomed urge to strip her clothes off and submerge herself. It was a wicked thought, of course, wicked in the sense of decadence even to her mind, though she didn’t doubt the Zoeans would consider it just plain sacrilegious. Yet, the experience she’d had bathing before tempted her, lured her.

  Knowing she shouldn’t, she peeled her garments off, shook the accumulation of dust off the best she could and carefully folded them. Settling her garments on a rock, she gingerly stepped into the pool, feeling the water against her flesh with a strange mixture of guilty pleasure and revulsion. Wading out only so far that the water was lapping at her knees, she crouched down, submerging her lower body and then cupping water in her hands and scrubbing it over the rest of her body. It chilled her skin, making it pebble uncomfortably, and yet her awareness of every square inch of her skin was magnified.

  It startled her when she looked up as a shadow fell over her and discovered that Kiran had followed her to the pool. She couldn’t tell anything about his shadowy expression, but guilt rose in her and she surged upward, shivering as the water rolled off her skin and the night air kissed it.

  Without a word, he reached for the ties of his loincloth, pulling at them jerkily until it fell to the ground at his feet. Her breath caught in her throat as he moved toward her. Halting when he was mere inches from her, he lifted his hands and skated them lightly down her damp arms and then upwards again, curling his fingers around her shoulders.

  Dragging her upwards even as he pulled her firmly against his length, he dipped his head and covered her mouth in almost the same motion.

  It was nothing like it had been before. His touch was neither tentative nor coaxing, gentling. His mouth was hot, hard, filled with a raw hunger that was possessive, demanding as he parted her lips and plunged his tongue into her mouth, boldly laying waste to her senses. With his first touch, he sent her reeling out of control.

  His hands seemed to be everywhere at once, kneading her flesh, strumming it until every nerve ending in her body vibrated and heated need poured through her in beguiling waves. Breaking the kiss almost as abruptly as he’d begun, he scooped her up and strode from the pool. When he reached the pallet she’d spread on the ground, he sank to his knees, settled her on it and covered her body with his own, wedging his narrow hips between her thighs in almost the same movement.

  She gasped as she felt the probe of his thick flesh, digging her fingers into his arms. “Kiran?”

  He released a shuddering breath, hunching his shoulders to nuzzle his face against her throat. “Zheri Cha,” he breathed hoarsely, cupping his hips to drive more deeply inside of her, shaking all over as he strained to fill her.

  Sinking dizzily beneath the waves of pleasure, Tempest clung to him tightly as he moved over her and inside of her, relishing the sense of being surrounded and filled with him as if he was a part of her. He began to move with a rhythmic thrust and retreat once he’d completely filled her that made anticipation build inside of her, growing tighter and tighter with each stroke that sent waves of pleasure rippling along her channel.

  Her throat closed at the exquisiteness of the sensations, her lungs labored with the effort to drag in enough air and then, when she’d begun to think she couldn’t bear anymore, the pleasure reached a summit and exploded beyond the boundaries of her body. The explosion of rapture dragged a mindless cry from her throat.

  He shuddered, groaned, and began to move faster, pumping into her almost desperately until he reached his own crisis and drifted downward from there with her into oblivion.

  * * * *

  As it turned out, to Tempest’s immense relief, the confrontation with the priests at the temple didn’t come to violence. The ‘priests’ didn’t fit Tempest’s concept of holy men. They were armed and made it evident that they were willing to die to defend the Temple. However, they didn’t expect to be attacked. As she and Kiran presented themselves at the gate, Ta-li and his men went over the wall. The priests were surrounded and subdued before they had fully realized the Temple was under attack.

  Once they had rounded them all up and locked them in one room, she and Kiran began their search of the sacred Temple. They found the Keepers of the Memory in the catacombs beneath the main Temple, accessible through a set of doors that only opened to the code of the crescent.

  Tempest turned to look at Kiran with startled eyes when the doors opened. “You’re a priest of the Temple.”

  Kiran glanced at her. “Yes.”

  The implications made her feel ill, but she dismissed them as the full magnitude of the implications struck her. “They lied to you. The whole thing—all of it was a lie and they knew it for a lie. You weren’t born with the sign. They took you to that place … They must have.”

  Kiran’s expression was grim, but he shook his head. “I do not know. I was not born into the priesthood as they were,” he said, jerking his head in the direction of the room whe
re they had locked the priests. “I was brought to them as a young boy after the death of my parents. They said that I was born with it.”

  Tempest frowned. “But… if the priests are the only ones who can access this chamber, then they must either know of the code and machine … or it’s in their genetic line. Which means your father, or grandfather, would’ve been a carrier of the gene.”

  Kiran shrugged dismissively. “It is not important now. We need to learn what we can from the Keepers and leave before it is discovered what we have done.”

  It hadn’t occurred to her that it might be discovered, at least not while they were still there. She’d thought the greatest danger was in seizing the temple to begin with. She should have realized before that Kiran had a very good reason for sending Ta-li and his men to take another path. “The people come here often?” she asked in alarm.

  “When they make camp here, yes,” Kiran said, grasping her arm and striding down the dimly lit corridor. It seemed to go on for miles, in a slight, but steady descent.

  Tempest’s alarm grew as they went. She was fairly certain that it would’ve unnerved her traveling so far underground anyway, but knowing they might be discovered at any moment, and that there was only one way in, or out, scared her far more. It didn’t help that it occurred to her that it was a very strange place for anyone to live and she couldn’t help but worry that they were risking their lives for something that might not even exist.

  They came at last to a vast chamber. As they had at the sacred temple of Zoe, lights flickered on before them, keyed to sensors that detected their movements.

  The vast computer at the back of the chamber came to life, as well.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Despite the fact that she was very familiar with such things, Tempest felt her heart jerk to a standstill as two ghostly men appeared before them and began to speak. Stunned, she walked toward them slowly, not even realizing that Kiran had stopped until she waved her hand through the images and turned to look for the projector. “Holograms. I’ve never seen anything quite like this, though.” She moved away and studied the images and the strange garments they wore.