by Regine Abel
But they couldn’t pierce through my camouflage: the latest, top-of-the-line stealth shield of Guldan design. For all their sins, Guldan technology could only be rivaled by the Tuureans. But thankfully, the Veredians—disguised as those advanced cyborgs—had been smart enough to withhold some of their best technology from the Xelixians. Otherwise, I probably wouldn’t have succeeded in making my approach undetected. Still, I felt relieved that the information provided by my contact within the Xelixian Council regarding the type of security equipment used by the General proved accurate.
It still boggled my mind that my people had managed to infiltrate the highest governmental body of the planet. It also greatly disturbed me that, as one of the highest-ranking agents of Korlethea, I would just now be informed we had such an operative here. I’d never heard of that agent and suspected that not many who should were actually aware of his existence.
The laughter of children in the distance mingled with the chirping of the birds in the thinning trees as I cleared the edge of the forest. Far to my right, a tall, light-grey fence blocked the access onto the property all the way to a giant tree which marked the start of the forest. Rocky, spiky terrain on the other side prevented entering the woods so close to the wall. The scanner on my armband picked up ingeniously hidden cameras, motion detectors, and lasers in the surrounding trees. With the single push of a button by a guard, an intruder would find himself sliced to pieces.
Despite its proximity to the house, the military compound didn’t ruin the magnificent view of the mansion. Clever landscaping in front of the house mostly hid it from view. The estate itself was an elegant, three-story mansion with gleaming white walls and huge, dark grey windows. Beyond it, as far as the eye could see, endless rows of red fruit trees rustled in the wind. The ryspak orchards of the Praghan family were renowned for the quality of their crops.
Sticking to the edge of the woods, I headed left towards the back of the house where the voices of the children came from. Although impressed by the beauty of the gardens—despite the oddness of its light-beige grass under the green sky—I forced myself to focus on the task at hand. I froze when six young Veredians came running around the house.
They were chasing after a floating disk and attempting to target it with their light wands. The disk had three concentric rings of different colors, from white on the outside, to grey, to black. Hitting any of the rings with light would prevent the disk from falling to the ground. The closer to the center the light touched, the higher the disk would lift back up. The goal of the game was to keep the disk in the air for as long as possible. But that it flew in a random direction each time light hit it made it harder to keep up for extended periods of time.
I recognized Zhul and Valena Dervhen’s twins, Threvus and Dhaxius, Aleina and Ghan’s half-Guldan adopted daughter, Lenora, as well as three of Amalia and her mates’ offspring, Zharina and her younger brothers Rhadames and Tharek. It disturbed me not to see Vahleryon, the most powerful among them. But it disturbed me even more to see the young Tharek playing in such a carefree fashion with the Dervhen twins, both clearly alphas. As a Shadow, his viciously territorial nature should have driven him to violence against these trespassers.
Advancing with caution, I tried to get a better view of the patio. In front of it, the most stunning natural pond pool ran the entire length of the back of the mansion. An energy field fenced it off to protect the children from falling in. As was often the case with Titans, the children grew much faster than average, both physically and mentally. Aside from Tharek, despite all looking nearly twelve years old, the children were actually between six and nine years of age.
I activated the camera embedded on the shoulder of my armor to record their interactions as supporting evidence for whatever decision I would later end up taking. Observing these young baffled me. All of them, but Lenora, were clearly Titans. Even from where I stood, wave upon wave of the tremendous psi power oozed out of each one of them. And yet, my Empath powers perceived nothing but innocent, childish joy and excitement for the game. The original Titans on Korlethea couldn’t tolerate each other’s presence. They would have exterminated themselves in their quest for dominance if not for Loras, the apex alpha who had risen as their leader and had rallied them under his banner, bringing Korlethea to its knees.
And now, Vahleryon is rallying the Titans to his own banner.
As if summoned by that thought, young Vahl Praghan appeared, holding the hand of a young toddler, whom I recognized as Yhanos, the two-year old son of Ghan and Aleina. Just like his adoptive sister Lenora, he wasn’t a Titan and was therefore growing at a normal rate. In contrast, his Shadow cousin, Tharek, born a few months after him, already looked five.
I focused on Vahl who approached the others while remaining at a safe distance so the toddler wouldn’t get hurt by the stampeding children. The love, happiness, and strong protectiveness radiating from him further increased my confusion. Although having recently celebrated his seventh birthday, and thus being a child himself, he watched over his siblings and friends like a parent would.
Suddenly, Vahl extended his free hand before him and flicked two fingers sideways. Tharek squealed with pleasure as he levitated sideways at great speed towards the falling disk that had swerved too fast out of their reach. Waving his wand, Tharek managed in extremis to get the disk going again, to the other children’s delight. His older brother lowered his hand, setting him back on his feet. The Shadow beamed at him before racing back to the others still chasing the disk.
Impossible.
And yet, I couldn’t deny the scene playing before my eyes. I advanced a few more meters to stay in line of sight of the children. It opened my view onto the side of the house where I noticed the familiar silhouette of Eryon sitting at a large, round table on the stone-paved patio. My chest tightened with sincere joy at seeing my old friend looking so well. He was reading something on his datapad, his long legs crossed beneath his traditional, light blue Korlethean robe. It warmed my heart that, although labeled a traitor for reuniting with his trueborn daughter, he still held on to his Korlethean heritage in his dress-code and his long, blueish-black hair tumbling freely down his back.
Although the Quorum hadn’t spelled it out, I knew they hoped for me to kill him as part of this mission. They would be sorely disappointed. No edict justified preventing a man from bonding with his child, least of all one birthed to him by his now deceased soulmate.
The disk landed at last, leaving the children slightly disappointed but happy to catch their breath from running so much.
“I’m thirsty!” Tharek said to his older sister.
Dhaxius, the youngest Dervhen twin, held up his hand. I watched in fascination as his cryogenic powers gave form to an ice glass in the middle of his palm. He waved two fingers from his other hand above the glass, freezing the moisture in the air into small icy shards. At the same time, before they even had a chance to fall, Trehvus, the oldest twin, waved his own hand. Blue flames erupted around the shards, instantly liquefying them. The water dropped into the glass, which Dhaxius extended to the young Shadow. Tharek beamed at the older boy and greedily gulped down the glass’ contents.
“Anyone else?” Dhaxius asked.
When all of them replied in the affirmative, he repeated the same process using the same glass under Vahl’s approving gaze. Speechless, I checked that my camera was still recording. Korlethea was torn over this Titans debate. No one would ever believe what I was witnessing. It didn’t prove they weren’t a threat to the rest of the world; after all, a pack of rabid rhomak didn’t attack each other but massacred everything else on their path. However, it gave me hope that the young Vahleryon Praghan might lead us down the path of that great era of peace the Oracles have foreseen, and not to our ultimate destruction.
Pleased with the footage I had captured, I started retracing my steps, intent on making a silent exit, when the large patio door slid open. A powerful tingle spread down my nape like an army of ants racin
g around in a panic. My heart slammed against my ribs, and a wave of heat ignited my body. I barely managed to slam my hand over my mouth to keep myself from whistling my mating call, which would have given me away.
I stared, mesmerized, as pure perfection stepped out of the house and onto the patio. Copper skin with light brown hair plaited into a single braid falling to her calves, I couldn’t quite see the color of her eyes from a distance, but they seemed pale-colored. She wrinkled her slightly upturned nose, her plump lips parting in shock as her back stiffened. The stunning goddess shook her head as if to clear her mind, then stretched her neck, no doubt feeling the tingle of the Tuning.
With hesitant steps, she walked up to the table where Eryon was sitting. He stood up to help free her of the large tray of food she’d been carrying—obviously mid-afternoon snack for the children. Although I couldn’t hear them from here, Eryon asked her a question, the concerned expression on his face indicating he’d sensed something troubled her. As soon as she was rid of the tray, my soulmate raised a hand to rub her nape, giving me a glimpse of the elegant Veredian markings running down the sides of her neck and the length of her arms.
The Tuning couldn’t be denied. Over the decades, I had felt the draw of a potential mate in the presence of a few Korlethean females, but none had ever pulled at me with such strength. Even without my aunt’s foretelling that I’d meet my soulmate during this mission, what I was feeling right now would have made it obvious.
Love at first sight wasn’t a myth, although fated mates would be a far more accurate wording. Korletheans called it the Tuning. Our psi abilities allowed us to perceive the frequency at which each person’s soul vibrated. A potential mate would vibrate within the same range as us. A soulmate would vibrate at the exact same frequency as I did, allowing us to achieve perfect harmony.
Since Fate and the Goddess both had a fucked-up sense of humor and loved to mess with me, my mate would of course have a close bond with the targets I was supposed to assassinate.
My blood boiled as the Tuning bond tugged at me to go to my woman, while my throat ached with the repressed need to sing out to her. I needed to get away from here, but I couldn’t move. Thankfully, my female shook her head as if to reassure Eryon that nothing was wrong and went back inside. He followed in. Although they were probably only going to fetch more food or beverages, an irrational jealousy stirred within me. Eryon, barely two years my elder, was quite handsome and charismatic. While very few Korletheans mated again after the passing of their soulmate, it had been over eighteen years since he’d lost Sevina. No one could fault him for seeking companionship again. With our average lifespan of 150 years, he still had close to a century left to live.
But not with my female!
The whispers of a psi mind around me, seeking another presence, snapped me out of my daze. I swiftly erected my mental shield around my consciousness. Too lost in my ache to go to my female, I had overstayed my welcome. A vicious growl startled me. My head jerked left, and I felt the blood drain from my face as Vahleryon stared directly at me, fangs bared. He couldn’t see me through my shield and yet, I felt as if he did. I increased the defenses of my mental shield with all the psi power I possessed and did the same with my cloaking device. The boy blinked. Although he’d stopped growling, his emotions shouted at me that he’d sensed a trespasser and was now on the hunt. He would catch his prey.
He pushed the young Yhanos behind him, protectively. The other children were closing in on him, alerted by his menacing stance.
“Lenora,” he called out to Yhanos’s older sibling, “get your brother and Tharek inside.”
Despite being the oldest of all the children, the Veredian-Guldan hybrid didn’t question or challenge the order. She ran nervous fingers over her right horn and grabbed the hand of her little brother and of a reluctant Tharek before hastening towards the house.
I silently moved backwards, keeping my eyes on the young Titan. His twin sister, Zharina, came to stand to his right, while his Geminate, Rhadames, came to stand to his left. The Dervhen twins flanked them on each side. In that instant, I realized I was staring at the prophesied General and his Lieutenants.
I instinctively knew that stunning them or using any type of diversion weapon would make them go into combat mode. Vahl’s emotions boiled in an oddly controlled chaos of rage that one would violate his domain, the primal urge to hunt and destroy the enemy, the burning need to protect those he considered as his, and the powerful desire for restraint.
Refusing to trigger an incident that could have dire consequences for all of us, I decided to break into a run through the forest, hoping my shield would help my escape. But I never got a chance. The psionic minds of the five children whispered all around me, with an insanely powerful one battering at my mental shield. I made to turn around, but my entire body froze. Vahleryon’s psi energy coursed through my skin, blood, and every cell within me.
Goddess!
As a biokinetic, Vahl could exert complete control over any lifeform or living organism. While Veredian psi abilities normally required them to physically touch the target they wished to influence, Titans could achieve the same with a mere thought. I’d never imagined he could affect even things he couldn’t see.
“Dhaxius,” Vahleryon said, his eyes never straying from my location.
Without further instructions, the young boy waved his hand before him, and frost began to form over my shield. Having calibrated it for the sunny and warm climate of Xelix Prime, the cloaking device couldn’t compensate enough without me manually recalibrating it.
“Show yourself,” Vahleryon ordered in a tone that brooked no argument.
I immediately felt his control release my right hand. For a second, I considered going for my blaster but, even if I set it to stun, I’d only manage to incapacitate one of the children before one of the Dervhen twins either turned me into a block of ice or a piece of charcoal. Heart pounding, I complied and deactivated my shield. The boy immediately took back control of my arm. In nearly thirty years as an agent, I’d never felt as helpless as in this instant.
Dhaxius, Trehvus, and Rhadames all hissed at me, their little fangs descending. All three bared their claws in a menacing manner. To my shock, Vahl remained still, a vicious look on his face, the perfect blend of his mother Amalia, and sire Khel with her brown skin and Veredian markings branding him as a Warrior, and his father’s dark purple eyes and crihnin on his forehead. He raised a hand in an arresting gesture, and the other three boys immediately stopped their threatening sound, but not their intimidating stance. Their fearlessness boggled my mind.
“Impressive powers,” I said, buying myself some time.
“More than you know, Korlethean. Why did you sneak in on my territory?” Vahl asked.
A damn good question that I definitely didn’t want to answer.
“I came to verify something,” I said, noncommittally. “I was leaving when you sensed my presence.”
“You came here to hurt us,” Trehvus snapped, while flexing his clawed fingers.
“I had no intention to hurt anyone today,” I replied.
“Truth,” Zharina said.
For a moment, I wondered if she was a mind-reader, too. From my previous investigation in the children, Zhara—or Zha as they commonly called her—was a powerful healer, even greater than her Nana Maheva.
“If you didn’t want to hurt us, why did you come like a thief?” Vahl challenged.
I didn’t know how this mess was going to turn out, but that he hadn’t attacked me yet proved that Eryon had indeed performed a miracle with these children. They weren’t the mindless, bloodthirsty monsters the Quorum were making them out to be. By rights, I should already be dead.
Zharina gave me a strange look, and then her yellowish eyes with green specks widened, her lips parting in shock. The aggression I’d initially felt from her completely shifted, replaced by curiosity, awe, and… protectiveness? She placed her hand on her twin’s shoulder and, from the p
sionic energy I felt passing between them, I guessed she was telepathically communicating with him, sparing me from answering yet another question I didn’t want to. Vahl’s head jerked towards her, and he gaped at his sister, disbelieving. She smiled and nodded as if to confirm what she’d told him. The young Titan leader turned back to me, staring at me with new eyes. All aggression also bled from him.
A siren rose above the estate, the guards having finally detected my presence. The tingling sensation assaulted me again as my mate and Eryon burst out of the house.
“Children, come back here,” my mate yelled as she and Eryon came running, both yielding weapons.
Lenora had probably warned them of Vahl going into hunting mode.
A bolt of fire exploded at the base of my skull, spreading searing tendrils of heat down my spine and to every nerve ending. My mate shuddered violently, her steps faltering as the effects of our bond strengthened the closer she came to me. Eryon’s jaw dropped, and his eyes bulged as he finally recognized me.
“Vahl, children, step away from him,” Eryon repeated when, ignoring my woman’s request, the children stood their ground. “What the fuck are you doing here, Xevius?”
“Hello, old friend,” I said, my eyes remaining glued to my mate.
She held her blaster trained on me with a firm hand, but her emotions screamed her confusion and the fear she might have to use it on me. And she would protect the children, no matter the cost to herself.
“It’s okay, Grappa,” Vahl said. “He won’t hurt us.”
