This was their punishment for following Aduun. For daring to see themselves as beings worthy of choice, of freedom.
His shoulders rose and fell with heavy breaths as fury and sorrow clashed inside him, tightening his chest and curling his clawed fingers. Would there truly be no justice for this? Had Kelsharn truly escaped the punishment he deserved?
Nina covered one of his fists with her hand. “Do not blame yourself.”
Aduun closed his eyes and drew in a deep, shaky breath. This time, he drew on her strength rather than offering his; in that moment he had nothing to give. Her love flowed into him, her concern, her protectiveness, settling over him warm, secure, and comforting, but it could not overpower his emotions.
This was wrong. This was all wrong.
“Something is happening,” Balir said.
Aduun glanced over his shoulder to see Balir with his head turned as though listening. He felt it a moment later — a faint vibration under his feet. It turned into a low hum that built great pressure in his eardrums and resonated in his bones, gaining power until it was almost too much to bear. Nina withdrew her hand from his to cover her ears, squeezing her eyes shut. Clenching his teeth, he reached toward her, uncertain of what else to do apart from hold her close.
The sensation stopped abruptly, and the sound cut out.
“Aduun,” Vortok called warily.
Aduun turned to see a towering, ghostly figure standing at the center of the platform. He growled and stepped forward, placing himself in front of Nina. “Kelsharn.”
“You’ve made it farther than I thought you would,” Kelsharn said. His voice echoed from all around, as though projected from the very walls.
The caged beasts went wild, slamming into the unseen walls, snapping their jaws, and raking their claws in the air. Even if they didn’t know Aduun, it seemed they knew Kelsharn.
Aduun took another step forward; his instinct was to attack, but he held it back. This was too big to be the real Kelsharn, and once again there was no accompanying scent.
Just another phantom.
Kelsharn spread his arms to either side. “You have found your people. Congratulations. Did you find the journey enlightening?” He grinned, displaying those malicious, pointed teeth. “I must assume the worst, of course — that you have not learned the lesson this was meant to teach you. That you have not learned your place.”
The image swelled, growing larger, and seemed to solidify. “I’ve reminded you time and again that it was I who made you more, who made you better. I am your creator. You are my pets, my playthings. Ungrateful. Insignificant. Worthless. I must commend your tenacity, but the simple truth of the matter is evidenced by your presence here.
“You have not learned a thing. You have not changed. And you will never realize the potential I instilled within you. You have reached this place because of your defiance, not because of your obedience.”
Kelsharn glided to the edge of the platform and turned his head as though gazing upon the cages. “Look closely, Aduun. These are your people. This is what you are without me. You could’ve been so much more.
“The other clans of your tribe have provided me with servants that understand loyalty. They are perfect machines of death that will lay waste to the entirety of this world should I command it. They are what you might have been if you had shown me loyalty.”
The figure faced them again and tipped its horned head down. “This is your final lesson. Learn it well, for you have little time to internalize it. I owe you nothing. You owe me everything. And I have no further time to waste on beasts that cannot understand their place in the universe. The only reward you have earned is agony.”
Kelsharn lifted a hand, gesturing behind him. “Their heartstones are hidden within this city. Not far out of your reach, really. I wanted you to know that because you will be dead before you ever locate them.” He flicked his wrist toward the cages. “Enjoy your reunion with your clan. They’ve been starving for your company.”
He grinned maliciously before the image faded into nothingness.
Aduun stood motionless, heart pounding, paralyzed by overwhelming emotion.
They were never meant to leave this place. They were never meant to free their people.
A piercing roar shattered the silence.
It broke Aduun and his companions from their stupor. All four rushed to the edge of the platform and looked down to see shimmering blue and purple light spreading from the outmost cages toward the center. More bestial calls joined the first, turning into a chorus that both chilled his blood and demanded he answer with his own proclamation of dominance. As the light faded, the animals leapt out of their cages, unhindered by any invisible walls.
“Aduun!” Nina grabbed his arm. He turned to her and met her wide eyes, which held a startling combination of fear and hope. “I think I know where the heartstones are. If he told the truth, I think they might be in the same place my mother found Orishok’s heartstone. That must’ve been the voices! They’re the voices of your peoples’ heartstones!”
“Where?” he asked.
“They’re coming, Aduun,” Vortok rumbled.
“Under the crystal pyramid,” Nina said hurriedly. “That’s where Orishok’s heartstone was in the real Bahmet.”
“And Kelsharn is arrogant enough to do the same thing twice, thinking himself too clever to be caught,” Balir said.
“We need to go now!” Vortok shouted.
“Nina, ride with Balir,” Aduun commanded as he initiated his change.
The pain of his body altering gave him clarity and focus, tearing his thoughts away from everything but the most important task — protecting Nina. She’d led them here, to their people, and he trusted her to lead them to the right place again.
As soon as Balir’s change was completed, Nina climbed onto his back. She wrapped her arms around his thick neck as he lifted his head and released a piercing shriek; once, that sound would have provoked Aduun’s beast, would have ignited his urges to violence and to protect his territory, but now it was the familiar call of a packmate.
A hundred bestial calls replied to Balir’s from all around, all much too close for comfort. Aduun knew what drove his kin. He understood their hunger.
Balir broke into a run, leaping off the platform and onto the path. Aduun flattened his quills and darted after his friend. The heavy pounding of hooves against the stone just behind Aduun meant the rockfur was following.
The stone pathway was raised above the cages on either side, but many of the beasts — the tribesmen — below were scrabbling for purchase, desperately seeking a way up to reach what was likely their first meal in centuries. Aduun wasn’t sure whether it was a boon or a curse that his people did not turn on each other. The allure of fresh, healthy prey was likely too strong for them to resist; why battle each other for the scraps they’d pick from their withered bodies when Aduun and his companions had ample meat on their bones?
Balir sped through the archway and turned sharply in the direction of the crystal formation. Aduun’s paws slipped on the stone beneath him as he turned, but he scrambled to catch himself and recover his momentum, bounding forward. He glanced back briefly to see Vortok slide sideways, kicking his legs, and crashing into one of the trees lining the street. Wood snapped. The tree sagged over, broken in half, and Vortok lowered his snout and powered onward.
They raced down the road. Aduun’s heart pounded rapidly, thunderously, and he knew that it was echoed in his companions’ heartbeats.
Nina sat up and twisted to look back at Aduun. Her eyes met his for an instant before shifting to look past him. They rounded, bright with alarm.
A chorus of roars sounded behind them, echoing off the walls on either side to become something haunting and blood-curdling. The clan was on the hunt, but this was unlike any hunt in which Aduun had partaken.
This time, he and his friends were the prey.
The open area came into view up ahead. Aduun growled deep in his chest an
d increased his speed, straining his muscles. He felt ravenous gazes upon him, heard the clicking of claws against stone behind him, and his quills rose in anticipation.
Was the hunger of his people stronger than their wasted bodies?
If he considered it with logic, he and his three companions should’ve been able to outrun the wild beasts without difficulty; Aduun, Vortok, and Balir were in excellent physical condition despite their own long captivity. But his instincts knew better. They were not being pursued by beasts; they were being pursued by valos.
And valos did not adhere to the rules of nature.
Balir dashed between two of the double-peaked stones ringing the crystalline pyramid and slid to a halt. Nina climbed off his back as Aduun entered the ring. Vortok arrived a few moments later, sides heaving with snorting breaths.
Aduun turned to face the oncoming beasts. They were moments away. He flexed his paws, dragging his claws over the stone. He didn’t want to harm his people, but he would do anything to protect Nina.
“Vortok, knock that crystal down!” Nina shouted, moving to stand next to Aduun. “I’m…I’m going to try to hold them off.”
Aduun moved in front of her, unleashing a roar. She needed to step back, to find someplace to hide, to stay out of danger.
She placed a hand on his flank; her touch was impossibly soothing, given the situation. “I don’t think I can do this for long, but we just need to buy Vortok some time. Trust me.”
Balir moved forward to stand beside Aduun, the red spots on his throat pulsing.
The eyes of the charging beasts gleamed with reflected light; they were not the eyes of Aduun’s beloved people, but of the creatures Kelsharn had always wanted them to be. Bloodthirsty killers that fulfilled whatever purpose he set them to, even if that purpose was devouring one of their own.
The ground shook as Vortok slammed his hind hooves into the pyramid. Crystal cracked, but a stolen glance backward revealed that the structure hadn’t broken.
Aduun swung his attention forward again and bunched the muscles of his hind legs, ready to intercept anything that came for Nina.
“Stop!” she yelled. The word resonated in both Aduun’s ears and his mind, producing a sharp, fleeting pain in his skull. Power washed over him, that inexplicable power Nina possessed, a force well beyond his understanding.
The wild, charging beasts stopped abruptly, many skidding or tumbling forward. Their gaunt features maintained their savagery as all the beasts looked at Nina. None of the creatures moved or made a sound.
A heavy whump signaled Vortok striking the crystal again. More high-pitched cracks, but no immense crash. Vortok’s hooves clacked on the stone as he repositioned himself.
Nina’s fingers curled, clenching Aduun’s fur, and her arm trembled. A ripple of movement flowed through the beasts. Aduun felt Nina straining and opened his mind to her.
You can do this, Nina. You can hold them. Take what you need from me.
Several of the beasts struggled forward, slowed as though moving through thick sludge. Nina growled. Another wave of energy pulsed from her, and the advancing beasts recoiled before stilling once more. For a moment, he heard her projection to them in his mind as clearly as though she’d spoken it aloud.
—your tribe. Don’t attack. Stay—
The sound of Vortok’s hooves hammering into the pyramid echoed off the walls of dark buildings nearby and carried across the night sky. He hit it again and again, and Aduun risked another glance back to see the crystal around the impact points crumbling inward.
Planting his thick front legs farther apart, Vortok rocked forward, heaved his flank off the ground, and threw himself back, slamming his hooves into the crystal with all his strength and weight.
The crystal pyramid shattered, the sound at once delicate and thunderous, like ten thousand icicles breaking on a rock at once. Its pieces scattered in all directions — chunks as large as Aduun’s torso falling away near the bottom, shards as long as his arm around the middle, the pieces smaller and smaller toward the top. All sparkled in the light of moon and stars, granted new reflective surfaces by the breakage.
A chill crept along Aduun’s spine. He shuddered from tail to nose, quills flaring, but the cold did not pass; it only intensified and solidified, becoming like an icy hand sliding over him. This was different from the cold he’d known in the winters of his old life, different from the cold they’d struggled through in the valley on their way here. It possessed a weight that was both terrifying and familiar.
Dread gathered deep in his belly. Baring his teeth in a low growl, he turned fully toward the platform as the pieces of crystal fell away to reveal a tall, lean figure and another psychic wave — stronger than anything Nina had yet released — blasted over Aduun.
The force of that power wove together with the cold and pressed down on Aduun. His mind trembled, his growl became a snarl of pain, and his shaky legs gave out beneath him. He fell to the ground, bracing his claws against the stone as though he could find strength enough from it to rise. Every muscle in his body strained against the impossible pressure.
Vortok was in a similar position near the platform, his legs splayed to the sides.
An old scent drifted to Aduun’s nostrils, made thin with the passage of years — a hint of alien spice and decay.
The figure’s horned head turned slowly toward Aduun, who learned the true meaning of cold in that moment.
Kelsharn wasn’t dead. Kelsharn wasn’t gone. He was here, in the flesh.
The remaining crystal on the platform cracked and crumbled away as Kelsharn stepped down. The flowing fabric draped around his waist hung to the ground, but it was tattered and dingy, faded and ancient.
Aduun struggled to charge forward, to attack, to taste Kelsharn’s blood on his tongue once again and know this time that the being who’d destroyed his people was dead, but his body was unable to comply. The power was too great, the pressure too much.
“No…” Nina rasped. Shock radiated from her, for an instant just as heavy as Kelsharn’s power.
—no no no no he can’t be alive he can’t be here no no—
Aduun’s eyes felt as though they’d burst from his skull as he turned them to look at her. Her hand was heavy and trembling on his flank, as though she were leaning on him, but somehow, she remained on her feet. Her skin was deathly pale and beaded with sweat.
Everything was silent except for their heavy breathing and the clinking of crystal shards that announced Kelsharn’s approach. Aduun turned his gaze back to his maker. Kelsharn’s head was tilted as though looking at the stone mounds beside him. His lean, corded neck didn’t seem as though it should be able to support those massive horns. His thin lips pulled back in a sneer to reveal sharp, yellowed teeth and gray gums.
—For centuries, I have been caged because of these pathetic lumps of stone—
Kelsharn’s mouth moved, but no sound emerged from his throat; Aduun heard the voice in his mind, vibrating through his skull to resonate in his very bones. The horned head once again faced Aduun and Nina.
“But you came.” The words emerged in a faint, raspy whisper from Kelsharn’s lips, as dry as his imprisonment must’ve been, still reinforced by the voice in Aduun’s mind. “You prevailed, as I’d hoped you would, and entered the most satisfying part of your punishment.
“I did not expect my failures to come until I sensed that.” One of Kelsharn’s long-fingered hands rose, and he gestured directly at Nina, taking another step forward. She swayed against Aduun as though her knees had buckled but held her footing without falling.
“And what a strange, beautiful creature it is that has answered my call.”
Nina stared at the being in front of her, limbs quivering and breath shallow. She couldn’t believe what was before her eyes.
It…can’t be. The Creators are gone!
But Kelsharn was here, in the flesh, speaking to them, probing her thoughts. She forced her mental barriers into place, but she could fee
l him; it was like insects crawling inside her head, slowly working their way through every tiny part of her mind. He was too strong.
She sensed Balir behind her, felt the rage and hunger of the valos behind him, but no one was able to move. The weight of Kelsharn’s power — overwhelming, confident, and bolstered by his fury — was too great for any of them to shrug off.
Kelsharn took another step toward them, his stride stiff; he moved more like a corpse than a living being. The helmet that left only his mouth visible was even more terrible in person than she could have imagined — she could not see his gaze, but she could feel it.
“So much more potential than your people had, chieftain’s son,” Kelsharn said. “You were never anything more than beasts at heart. But this female…this human…”
Her stomach churned, threatening to empty its contents. Only the willpower she was expending to keep herself upright prevented her from vomiting. The touch of Kelsharn’s mind was a violation, and the malevolence he exuded was beyond anything she could’ve imagined. How naïve she’d been to have thought she knew the face of evil as a child, to have thought she’d seen true cruelty from the people she’d spent her earliest years with.
She was so foolish to have believed she understood what Kelsharn was based only on Orishok’s memories.
“I have much to do,” Kelsharn said. He turned his head slowly as though surveying the ring of stone valo remains. “Much to avenge. Though I silenced Ilena forever, her creations have proven more troublesome than I anticipated. That will be remedied.”
He shifted his attention to Nina again and approached her slowly. The air around her, already chilled, seemed to turn to ice. “Your beasts have caused only grief, as well. It is unfortunate that only one of my death valos remains, but once these lot have been destroyed, I may begin anew. With you, Nina, and all your kind. I will drag them from the holes they are hiding in, I will tear down their towers, and I will show you power. There are no more of my people on this world, and their creations are vulnerable… Once I remake you, they will all fall before my might.”
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