Crystal Tomb (Starfire Angels: Dark Angel Chronicles Book 3)

by Melanie Nilles

Too weird. The man's pupils weren't round but something like a triangle now that she looked closer. Raea shook the thought away, along with the intensity of his cold stare. He was alien; enough said.

  Kan Rikku Nakor Surik—whatever kind of name that was—stood up with a fluid grace not normal for a human but probably normal for his kind. Man, this was too weird. She'd never imagined aliens like this, but she'd never expected to be one herself.

  "You and your mate will translate the script for me."

  What was so important to him if the monolith was Inari? It intrigued her, but rightly so. She was Inari. That monolith was a part of her species and its past culture, a recording of events from before the Starfire came to them and a confirmation that they had been on Earth long before Heffin's Gate allowed them passage across the universe. It had nothing to do with anyone else.

  The Inari must have known about Earth before Heffin's Gate was operational. That's why it was so easy to find this world. It wasn't a new discovery at the time but likely sought after.

  The room blurred and faded behind the sharpening of another scene. Good. The Starfire would answer the questions jumbled in her mind. She focused on the scene for whatever information the entities had to impart…

  .

  An explosion of light faded into a clear scene. Several Inari stood in a room of green marble panels and cushions upon the center of the floor around a white column.

  ["That was merely a small demonstration of the crystal's power, Lady Dieri."] A woman in a plain brown flightsuit with lighter brown wings and short-cropped hair stood nearby.

  Another woman stepped forward wearing black pants accented in silver and a matching waistcoat open along her chest exposing a white blouse and an intricately crafted silver choker at her neck. Exquisite in the refinement of her features, the lady slightly opened her deep blue wings matching her long hair. A delicate silver chain hung across her forehead bearing a shimmering drop of a gem in the center.

  ["You believe this power can be harnessed and focused?"] Dieri asked.

  ["Yes, my Lady. This was only a small model of what I had in mind."] The woman in brown brightened with enthusiasm, her wings lifting slightly. ["We can create a portal large enough for several ships to pass through. With it, we can mine other worlds for the resources we need to grow. We will no longer depend on the Ahben in the oceans below us for materials or need to trade off world or rely on others for our defense. We can depend upon ourselves for the first time."]

  Dieri stepped closer, her blue eyes as brilliant as her hair, and fixed on the view as if staring through it into her own thoughts. ["Might we finally find the lost colony?"]

  ["It is my hope, my Lady, that this will expedite those efforts also."]

  Sadness overshadowed the hope which had glimmered moments before from the lady's face. It haunted her voice. ["Seven thousand years, Matres Heffin Sarees. Time means nothing. We depended on the Miru; we still do. They took our ancestors to another world we have not had the power to reach. They claim to have found nothing upon returning and will search no more. What happened to the colony? That is the only question remaining."]

  Dieri straightened, her wings tightening to her back. ["I will sponsor your project, master engineer. Organize your team, while I make arrangements with the Ahben for the materials for this project. May it be the last time we call upon them for such resources."]

  The woman in brown dropped an arm to her waist and bowed her head. ["Thank you, Lady Dieri. You have given this world new hope."]

  The lady's lip twitched minutely but settled into a stolid confidence by the time the other woman stood up. ["No. The Starfire has done that. I only hope we find what we seek."]

  .

  "Raea!"

  She blinked away the vision. Heffin's Gate. She had seen the key decision to begin construction on the machine created to harness the Starfire's energy into portals to travel to other worlds. Was the lost colony the same mentioned on the monolith? Is that what they wanted her to see—that they had found Earth because they were looking?

  "Raea."

  Her heart nearly stopped at the familiar voice. Elis! She wanted to run to him and lose herself in his arms, but the weapons threatening them halted her feet. Her insides ached for just a touch. "Elis."

  Across the chamber, he stared at her from above the muzzle of the gun at his chest.

  "Now then, young Inari..." Surik's arrogance made her want to spit in his face. He said something in that strange language and the "woman" with the gun stepped away from Elis. "You will both stay here until you translate the script."

  Good. Relief poured into her—they would leave Elis alone.

  Behind the black hair over his eyes, Elis's brows pressed down with his frown. "Why? What script?"

  Surik motioned with his arm to the monolith, which faced away from Elis.

  Hesitant at first, Elis stepped around and joined her. At her side, he halted and stared. Silence overshadowed him for several seconds, until he looked at her.

  In answer to the question in his eyes, she could only shrug.

  "Where did you—" Elis stiffened and turned to the commander. "You're the thieves."

  The commander's camouflage faltered with his anger. "You are the thieves, Inari. We seek only to reclaim what is ours. You will tell me what it says."

  "Why?"

  Not good. Raea leaned closer and bumped him in the arm. ["Don't test him. They have guns."]

  Too little too late. The commander pulled his weapon from the holster at his side. "You will tell me because I order it, and because if you don't, one of you dies."

  Shadows played on Elis's cheeks with the clenching of his jaw. Although their hands were shackled, Raea reached her hands towards him to clasp his in hers. His fingers tightened around hers, but his eyes fixed on the commander. "All right," Elis calmly said.

  The commander lowered the weapon. "Read, Inari."

  With a hint of caution in his movements, Elis shifted his eyes from the Risaal to the monolith and led Raea towards it. Standing before it, he released her hand to reach up toward the stone and trace the script. "This will take time."

  "Time means nothing to me," Surik said. "You will stay here until you tell me the secrets of the D'Nuvar."

  What did the monolith have to do with the Starfire?

  Elis said nothing but studied the script. Each symbol was no bigger than two inches with the innermost tracks around the red stone being half the size. Now that she saw it all closer, Raea realized the stone showed signs of erosion, but some of the etched letters went deep, revealing the smooth gleam of metal in the deepest grooves.

  Raea reached to the inner tracks, the segment the Starfire had highlighted in her vision. They had recognized something special about it, but she couldn't let these creatures know. ["I saw this in a vision. I think the Starfire understands something."] She spoke in a low voice but in the silence of the chamber, she could have been shouting. The Risaal made no sound or movement to threaten them.

  Starting at the gap separating two symbols, Elis traced each one. ["This doesn't make sense. This character means 'in darkness' while this indicates the mind or head. And this…this talks about a fire and burning cold."] He frowned and continued around the tracks. "Translating is one thing, but the meaning is something else entirely."

  "Figure it out." The commander motioned to the others. A shadowy shape looked up, and Raea saw why—a glass window overlooked the room. They would be watched.

  The door scraped open and the aliens departed, leaving her and Elis alone.

  In that moment, Raea pressed against him, her cuffed hands at his chest. Relief poured in when he dropped his arms around her, his warm breath blowing along her head. ["Don't ever challenge him again. Promise me."]

  Stupid cuffs. She wanted to hold him more than ever but she could only press close to him, his steady breath and heartbeat loud in her ear against his chest.

  ["Who are they?"]

  ["They call themselves Risaal,
and they're definitely not human."]

  The warmth of his breath disappeared.

  Raea looked up; he focused on the window above and the face of the commander staring coldly from behind it.

  ["Have you heard of them?"]

  ["No."] Elis lifted his arms from her, his attention returning to the monolith.

  After a long silence from him, she stepped away and around the stone. The back bore only a few roughly etched characters. "Kita youal vishorun etzi." That couldn't be right. Those ideas made no sense together.

  "Swallowed by darkness."

  Raea peered around and met Elis's eyes. "But what does that mean?"

  "I don't know."

  She returned to his side and studied the script on the front. ["Is it the same darkness mentioned here?"] Her fingers traced the character near the center red stone about the width of both her hands together. In fact, if she put her hands on it…

  The resonance burned through her and the entities shrieked in her head.

  "Raea!"

  The Starfire entities drowned out Elis's voice, until she found herself lying on the floor with Elis looking over her.

  "Raea."

  Someone make the room stop spinning. She was going to hurl. Oh, God. Spots mottled in her vision until they blotted out Elis's face. Everything vanished.

  Conspiracies

  Crystal fire. What was wrong with Raea? He couldn't even hold her because of the cuffs on his hands. He'd barely caught her before she collapsed.

  Elis pressed his fingertips to her wrist, the only easy place to find a pulse on their kind. She wasn't dead. Some relief, but she was still unconscious. What had happened? What had the stone done, or was it the cuffs?

  He might be able to burn the cuffs off with the Starfire energy if he found the time, but they watched his every move. Given their hatred, they would probably shoot before he had a chance. Better to not reveal anything until the right chance came.

  But he had to do something to help Raea.

  Elis set his hands on hers and found the resonance. It warmed through him and tickled down his arms into his hands, flowing into Raea from the exposed Starburst marks on the undersides of his fingers through her hands. Through the connection, voices whispered to him, indistinct like someone talking on the other side of a door. Who are you? The question echoed through the void. Raea?

  The voices spoke faster and grew more jumbled. What do you want?

  From somewhere in the melee, a familiar voice called his name: Elis?

  Raea!

  The voices rose into a tumult, drowning out their connection in a scornful tone.

  Please. I need to know if she's all right.

  Silence fell.

  Raea? Raea!

  Nothing. He could trace no connection. The entities cut him off. Elis let the resonance fade and noticed her still breathing. She was alive, small comfort it was.

  Why had the Starfire cut him off this time? He and Raea had shared a connection on several occasions to push them to share their memories with Raea. They had occasionally objected, but had never come between them.

  If they wanted her, he could do nothing until they released her from whatever they had done. What did they want? What happened with the red stone?

  He looked up at the innocuous stone in the center of the monolith. He had touched it briefly without any problem, so maybe it hadn't been the stone. Maybe the Starfire entities had simply chosen that moment to react.

  If only they would speak with him!

  Crystal fire. He wanted to know what happened to her.

  The monolith blurred in the tears burning his eyes. Why Raea? Why? What was this all about? There had to be a reason.

  There was—the Risaal. They did this.

  He wiped his eyes and looked up at the observation glass and the doppelganger human faces behind it, his emotions burning in his chest. This was their fault. He and Raea would have found the Eye if the Risaal hadn't interfered. He and Raea could have lived their lives, worrying only about the Shirukan and a future together.

  If they wanted the translation so badly, the Risaal could do it themselves.

  He laid down next to Raea, the only thing that mattered in his life. Whether they stayed on Earth or returned to the homeworld didn't matter, as long as they were together. He would do all he could to protect her; he had since the first time he saw her walking home along the quiet streets of McClarron and felt his breath halted in awe.

  The door clicked and scraped. Footsteps padded softly in the perfect quiet of the chamber and stopped.

  "Get up," a voice growled.

  Elis clamped his jaw and shifted to hold Raea's hands, despite the awkwardness of the cuffs. The warmth of her hand filled him with strength.

  Something pressed against his head, the answer obvious. Despite the fear pounding in his heart, he refused to leave her. "Kill me. You won't get your translation."

  After a few heart-pounding seconds, the weapon withdrew, but a sharp jab to his back stole his breath.

  "Get up!"

  Elis gasped, unable to speak, much less move. Curse them all for this! He wouldn't help.

  The woman in the body suit knelt over Raea, a device of some kind in her hand. "She's alive, but her life signs are weak." Her voice was anything but feminine, a big clue they weren't what they seemed.

  "What happened to your mate, Inari?" The voice came from the figure standing over him.

  Elis inhaled sharply, until the pain where they had kicked him dulled and he let out his breath. "I don't know." He rushed the words out to struggle for another breath.

  After a few seconds, the man standing over him said, "We can't lose her yet. We need the secrets of the D'Nuvar. Treat her and feed them. They'll stay here until they give us what we want."

  "Yes, sir." The woman with the odd voice rose from Raea's side and knelt near him as his breathing steadied. She passed her scanner over him, her expression neutral in the few seconds it took to finish. Something must have satisfied her, since she followed the other man out without a word.

  Elis stayed by Raea, breathing deeply. ["We'll find a way out of this. I promise."] His lips pressed against a warm cheek, reassuring him she lived. What did they mean by weak life signs?

  Raea couldn't die. He'd do everything in his power to keep her alive, even if that meant sacrificing himself.

  * * *

  Upon the exit of his commander from the room, Kalas stepped from the control room window where he had watched. The girl's hands might have glowed briefly before she collapsed, but that might also have been an effect of the lights on her strange markings.

  He stepped out of the room in time to meet Kan Rikku Nakor Surik with Dar Lorel in the corridor.

  His commander halted. {"Ronur Kalas."}

  The extra hiss in that voice sent a shiver of anticipation through Kalas. His commander sounded pleased, not what he had expected.

  {"Kan Rikku."}

  {"You did well capturing these two. Tell me more about the D'Nuvar shard worn by the female."}

  {"Its power seems to be a part of both."}

  Lorel glanced at the scanner. {"I wondered about these readings."}

  Surik turned to the xenobiologist in the human female form. {"You're certain the D'Nuvar is blended with their cells?"}

  {"Yes, sir."}

  {"Is this why they can touch the crystal and we cannot?"} Surik gazed behind them at the door now closed to the chamber where the pair laid.

  {"Unknown,"} she answered. {"I would have to study it further."}

  The crystal had injured several Risaal since the beginning of the war among the clans and the emergence of the Nakor as the dominant clan. They had encased it to prevent the power from harming any others and tapped into it to threaten the other clans into submission, and now the Inari wore it like any other jewel, unaffected by its dangerous power.

  Rik had still not recovered from touching it and lay in a health pod connected to life support systems. They should have scanne
d the pendant sooner, but they hadn't suspected it was a piece of the crystal they sought. Surik had sworn to take the life of all Inari they encountered if his clan-mate died.

  {"How is this possible?"} Surik looked to each of them for an answer but Kalas could not explain. The triple pupil of the commander's dark eyes opened into a triangle in the dim lighting, but the human expression hardened. {"These questions I leave up to you, Rikku Ronur Kalas."}

  {"Yes, Kan Rikku."} Kalas bowed slightly as the commander stepped past him into the control room of that small complex. Kalas had worked harder than any of the Nakor to earn his position, where Nakor Surik had been handed his position by virtue of birth, whether he deserved it or not. And the young commander most certainly did not.

  On Earth, though, they were a universe away from their homeworld and the clan wars, but Kalas had to tread carefully if he would gain power among the thirty-two survivors who had awakened on Earth. The Nakor among them numbered less than half, a disadvantage that could be exploited if he could gain the loyalty of a few more of the minority clan members.

  Perhaps this was an opportunity to speak to Lorel, who came from one of the most oppressed of the clans. Surely the xenobiologist would sympathize with him.

  He had to plan it carefully. For three years, they had been too busy, focused on learning the human culture and language and tracking all references to crystals and Inari—angels in human mythology—that they could find. Now that they were close to the end, he would have to put his plans into motion. The Nakor would fall and the oppressed clans would rule under a new leadership.

  Under his rule, they would destroy the Inari, where their fellow soldiers had failed.

  Dar Lorel strolled ahead, her movements in the fluid grace of the Risaal far outclassing the jarring pace of the humans or Inari. Kalas dropped his camouflage and hurried after her. He focused on the hallway ahead and the familiar colors of Risaal in camouflage, a visual adaptation of their species.

  One of them stood still along the wall ahead, blending in perfectly to those without their secondary vision. He would have to be careful what he said.

  {"I am not the Inari."} The words came from Lorel in a deep growl and her strides lengthened with the clear intention of putting distance between them.