by Cheree Alsop
Liora looked up. Hundreds of Cherum watched her in silence, surprise and awe coloring their eyes yellow. As she watched, their gazes changed color. It wasn’t from yellow to green, from surprise to happiness or perhaps the purple of amusement. She even expected the greenish-blue of thoughtfulness. She had, in fact, slain a dozen of their mortal enemies.
Instead, the eyes of the Cherum above shifted from yellow to an angry, heated red so fierce they glowed from every pane of glass above her.
A tremor ran through Liora’s body. Perhaps she was supposed to have died, to prove that the Vos could defeat even one as terrifying as a Damaclan. Maybe she had gotten it all wrong. Perhaps the creatures she had slain weren’t the Vos at all. If that was the case, then what were the Vos?
Looking up, Liora realized the answer with a rush of cold that stole her breath. She was staring at the Vos.
The false Cherum with their red eyes and abnormally long fingers shifted form in her sight. Instead of looking up at hundreds of pale-skinned, tall, four-armed Cherum, she stared at the same number of Vos, their scaled skin, padded toes, and hooked mouths bared in snarls.
No wonder the Cherum had let her walk through the hallway alone. He hadn’t led her into a tiny arena, he had given her over to their side where they waited to tear the Cherum apart. No wonder the Cherum built an army. If the Vos could look like them, they needed warriors filled with rage and without instincts, an army that would never back down even if the foe looked like a friend.
Liora tore another jaw from a nearby Vos. She could hear the crackling of the glass above, minute fractures as the creatures pounding against the panes with their clawed feet, creating spider-webbed veins in the windows.
Liora braced herself for the attack she knew would come. Glass shattered and rained down. Liora’s grip on the jaw bones tightened. She bent her knees and met the rush head-on.
Chapter 6
When Liora walked back to the wall, the oval doorway opened without a sound. She stepped through it in a daze.
Cherum were there to meet her, real Cherum this time. When she couldn’t open her hands from her grip on the jawbones, their delicate fingers worked them free. The jaws from the Vos hit the floor with matching thuds she felt through the soles of her bloody feet. Another Cherum scooped them up.
Gentle hands guided her back up the hallway. When her legs refused to carry her, the long-fingered hands picked her up so that she felt as though she was floating. She reached the circle room where she had awoken on Basttist and was set gently back on the bed.
“Tariq,” she whispered.
“We’ll get him,” a Cherum answered.
Liora tried to make sense of the words. Exhaustion made her limbs so heavy she couldn’t move. She felt as though she sunk into the bed instead of lying on top of it. Soft hands tended her wounds from the Vos’ claws and teeth, yet she felt no pain.
“Liora?”
The voice was enough to bring tears to her eyes. She tipped her head to the side and forced her eyelids open. Through the liquid of tears, she saw Tariq run toward her.
“Liora!” he said.
His hand touched her cheek. When he took his fingers away, she saw the red that colored them.
“They told me you were sleeping,” Tariq told her. “They wouldn’t let me see you. I fought them, but they wouldn’t let me out of my room. I was a prisoner.” The anguish in his light blue eyes was bright.
“They told me you were dead,” Liora said. Her voice was just above a whisper.
She realized with a start that the Cherum were gone. Somehow, they had tended to her wounds and left her there without her realizing it. She couldn’t decide if she was asleep or awake. Had the battle against the Vos been a dream? If so, why did her body ache?
“They told you I was dead?” Tariq repeated. “Why would they do that?”
She shook her head against the way her thoughts swam. “I don’t know. It made me mad. I-I think I killed.”
Tariq’s eyebrows pulled together, creasing his brow with worry. Liora wished she could smooth it away. She tried to lift her hand, but it wouldn’t respond.
“You did something,” Tariq told her. “You have cuts all over you. They’ve patched you up. It’s not the bandaging job I would have done, but it’s something.”
Liora couldn’t keep her eyes open. They must have given her a sedative. Her limbs felt so heavy. Breathing became harder. She heard him say her name.
“Tariq, stay with me,” she pleaded.
“I’m right here,” he answered. “I won’t leave you, I promise.”
She let out a breath and the darkness pulled her under.
***
Liora awoke with the feeling of having slept deeper than she ever had in her life. She took a breath and let it out in a contented sigh. Her body felt strong, her mind alert and ready for whatever the day would bring.
Liora opened her eyes. At the sight of the round room with light emanating gently from the walls, the memories of all that had happened came rushing back. She sat up with a jerk, her muscles tensing with the adrenaline that flowed through her system.
“Whoa. Easy.”
The strong hands that touched her arms were capable of far more force than the gentle pressure that eased her back down. She looked into Tariq’s face, drinking in the strong lines, the tangled black hair that fell in front of his piercing gaze, and the tight line of his lips that said he was worried.
“You’re alive,” she breathed.
He nodded and pressed his lips to her forehead. When he drew his head back, the deep lines of his brow had eased.
“I could say the same thing about you,” he told her.
Liora pushed up to a sitting position. He helped her, but he needn’t have. The pain of the fight was gone. Even the cast on her arm had been removed, and when she turned her wrist, no ache followed.
“What happened?” she asked.
Tariq took a seat on the small bed next to her. He studied his hands for a moment. His thumb traced a scar that ran from the back of his wrist to his first knuckle. He smoothed it a few times as though searching for what he wanted to say.
“I wish I knew,” he finally replied. He looked at her. “I wish I had answers for you. What they’ve told me is confusing at best. They said they gave you something that would heal you, and you slept so long I was afraid you wouldn’t wake up.” He gestured toward the wall where she knew the oval door appeared. “These beings call you their friend. They said you gave them their home back.” He gave her a wry smile. “My Berverek is very rusty, so I think I try their patience when I keep asking for an explanation.”
Liora studied her bare feet. She kept seeing them covered in sticky, red liquid.
“I fought the Vos.”
She saw Tariq turn toward her out of the corner of her eye. “What are the Vos?”
“The Cherum’s enemy,” she told him. The memories solidified as she said the words. It helped to say them out loud. “They’re creating an army to fight against these creatures that threaten their existence. Apparently they found a way into this building, the Cherums’ home. The walls kept them apart.” She turned to see what affect her next words would have on him. “I asked them to show me what the Vos were.”
A smile touched the edges of Tariq’s lips even as he shook his head. “Of course you did.”
“I went into a room and the Vos attacked. They were fast and had sharp claws. After I won, I thought the Cherum who were watching would be happy, but then I realized my mistake. It wasn’t the Cherum who watched me fight; it was more Vos disguised as Cherum. They could change form, and when I figured it out, they changed back and attacked.”
Liora fell silent. The blood of the battle still coated her skin even though it had been wiped clean. She couldn’t see a single drop, but she felt as though she was still covered from head to toe in the sticky, copper-scented liquid.
“They said you gave them their home back,” Tariq repeated.
“I d
idn’t fight for them,” Liora replied. The truth of her words gripped her heart in ice.
“What did you fight for?”
“For you,” Liora replied. She looked at him, and the way he watched her made her feel as if he saw her tattered soul. “They told me you had died in the escape pod. They said the Ketulans shredded your body. They said….”
Her words faded as her voice left her.
“Why would they say that?” Tariq asked.
“Maybe they know the truth about Damaclans,” Liora answered.
It was a few minutes before Tariq broke the silence to ask, “What truth is that?”
Liora studied her hands. She could see the impressions of the bloody jawbones on her palms. She blinked and the image vanished.
“Damaclans live for the fight. When they told me you died, they left me with only one thing, the need to fight, to kill, to destroy everything around me the way I had been raised to do.”
“You were raised for more than that,” Tariq told her.
Liora turned to face him with the intent of protesting his words, but his lips met hers. She kissed him deeply, holding him to remind herself of what she had thought was lost. She memorized the pressure of his lips against hers, the way his hands held her possessively, yet with a gentleness that said he would never force her to be with him.
She ran her fingers through his hair, memorizing his scent, the day-old scruff on his cheeks, the curls of hair at the base of his neck. Her fingers brushed something and she paused.
“What’s that?”
“What?” he asked.
She drew back and gave him a curious look. “Tariq, what is that?”
At her question, his face changed. For a moment, Liora feared that a Vos had pretended to be Tariq. His features twisted into anger so extreme it made her muscles tense. His eyes became piercing, threatening slits, and his hands closed on her arms like vice grips.
“Tariq!” Liora said. She struggled to break free, but his grip tightened.
“I’ll kill you,” he growled in a voice she barely recognized.
He picked her up and threw her across the room.
Instinct took over. Liora rolled when she hit the floor. She came back to her feet. Tariq barreled into her when she rose. Liora fell backwards with the force of his momentum and kicked out to send him over her head. She rolled up to her feet again and spun in time to meet his enraged rush.
The fury that colored his gaze was like nothing she had ever seen in him before. His blue eyes were nearly white with ire, and when he attacked, it was with his full force, nothing held back, as if he wished to tear her limb from limb and leave her broken on the floor.
“Tariq!” she shouted. “What’s wrong with you?”
He didn’t answer. She blocked blow after blow, using speed to deflect a punch that would have knocked her into the wall, and spinning to avoid a kick that could have broken her ribs. She dodged a punch, kick, chop, and grapple in quick succession, conserving her energy and sidestepping just far enough to avoid a fist to her jaw that would have spun her completely around should it have landed.
Speed won over brute strength. She kept just out of Tariq’s reach, tiring him out until he could barely lift his fists. Even then, she knew if he caught her, he had the strength to squeeze the life out of her. She watched him cautiously as he leaned against the wall gasping for breath, his head lowered like a banta ox whose horns had become too heavy for its head.
Liora went with the only resort she could think of. She feinted left and when he made a lunge for her, she darted back to the right and spun, grappling his neck and squeezing tight from behind him.
Tariq clawed at her arms. She held on. He slammed her against the wall, but the attempt was weak. He fell to his knees and she continued to hold. It killed her to feel him gasping for breath. He didn’t cry out, didn’t say her name. He merely fell forward. Eventually he stopped struggling, his face red and eyes finally closed in unconsciousness.
Liora stared down at him. The claw marks on her arms from his fingernails were nothing compared to the pain she felt at choking him out that way.
She dropped to her knees next to him and ran her fingers through his dark hair. Pushing the locks aside, Liora found a wound that matched those from the Cherum blade as they inserted their microchips.
Liora looked around for anything she could use to cut the healing line open. Finding none, she attempted to pry it with her fingers.
“You’ll kill him if you remove it.”
A snarl lifted Liora’s lips when she looked at the Cherum who stood in the circle doorway. She didn’t know if the was the same Cherum who had led her to the Vos before. They looked completely identical. Given their shared thoughts, she didn’t know if individuality really mattered. One Cherum seemed the same as the next.
“What have you done to him?” she demanded.
The Cherum’s gaze was green when he replied, “We did it as a gift to you.”
Liora stared at him, barely able to keep herself from yelling. “You inserted a microchip into his brain for me? Why?”
The Cherum bowed his head in a deferential nod. “Your prowess as a warrior surpasses anything we have seen or been able to create on Basttist. As such, you deserve a companion who can match the fury, if not the skill.”
Liora couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “I killed Vos for you, so you turn my friend into one of your death slaves?”
The Cherum nodded, his expression still green with happiness, but circled with yellow as if he couldn’t understand her anger.
“You’re welcome.”
Liora reached him in two steps and pinned the Cherum to the wall by his long, skinny neck.
“What’s wrong with you?” she demanded. “He was fine the way he was! Humans are supposed to have a conscience; they’re supposed to have the sense not to get themselves killed or to go around killing without remorse!”
“He’s not human anymore,” the Cherum said, his eyes yellow with surprise.
Liora glared at him. “Tariq is still human.”
The Cherum’s gaze changed to greenish-blue. “We find your lack of gratitude disturbing.”
“I find your presumptions disturbing,” Liora replied in a shout. “How dare you play puppet master with someone I care about? You’ve seen what I can do!”
“And you’ve seen why we do what we do,” the Cherum replied, his voice level.
Liora regarded him steadily, her chest heaving and hand aching to tighten its hold on his throat. “What do you mean by that?”
“We do nothing.”
Liora was surprised by his comment. Her eyes narrowed and she growled, “Explain yourself.”
The Cherum met her gaze. “We are defenseless. Our halls were filled with Vos, yet we are not built to fight them. We are geniuses by Macrocosm standards, yet we cannot wield weapons with these hands.” He held out his fingers, showing her the lack of muscles within his white-skinned arms and hands. “We must create armies to defend ourselves. We must operate in order to survive. We harness fury to protect our walls; we destroy inhibition in order to maintain our race.” His eyes were green-blue when he said, “Damaclans do the same; humans do the same. No one is ready to lay down and die. The strong survive, so we create strength.”
Liora loosened her grip a little. Pinning the Cherum against the wall had shown her the truth of his words. He weighed nothing, skin and bones with barely enough muscle to perform light daily activities. They were a weak race, not built for defense at all. Their hope lay in piggybacking on the strength of others.
She attempted to understand. “You said they choose to come to you; their families send them.”
The Cherum nodded. “For many, the chance to be a warrior is one worth leaving their families for. Once they earn their price, they are free to go.”
Liora relaxed her grip, but couldn’t quite release him.
“How do they earn their price?”
“They kill Vos,” the Cherum re
plied.
Liora looked over her shoulder at Tariq. He lay motionless on the floor.
“Can you remove the chip?” she asked.
The Cherum shook his head. “Not without killing him.”
Liora took a breath in through her nose and let it out through her mouth. When she spoke again, her voice was soft enough that the Cherum had to lean forward to hear her.
“You had no right to do that to him. He didn’t do anything to you, and he is not a part of your battle with the Vos. It wasn’t his choice. You had no right.”
The Cherum’s eyes flooded through a rainbow of shades. They ended with blue, reminding Liora of the sorrow he had shown when he told her Tariq was dead.
“You lied to me,” she said.
The Cherum’s face lowered. “We were wrong to do so.”
“Why did you?” she asked, letting her hand fall from his throat. The want to fight had left of her, but she had to know why they had done the things they had.
The Cherum spread his long fingers, taking in both Liora and Tariq.
“When we found you in the pod, you were holding each other. It was obvious you cared for each other. Yet we’ve been told that a Damaclan who fights alone is a most fearsome creature indeed, and that is what we needed.”
“You needed me to clear your halls.”
The Cherum lifted one thin shoulder. “It was a test.”
Liora watched him. “A test for what?”
“We needed a leader for our army and your timing was too perfect to be a coincidence.”
Liora shook her head. “I’m not leading your army. Tariq and I are leaving and you can’t stop me.”
