by Anna Carven
Anuk placed her hand on Rucha’s bald head. “My time is close now, but all will be well. I can’t keep this form for long, but once I pass through, our people will know what has to be done.”
“You have no heir,” Rucha lamented. “We need your guidance now more than ever. The Acolytes have betrayed us. They are capturing our ithari and trading them for weapons. Kordolian weapons!” He clenched his fists, his blue knuckles turning white with rage. “They taint their own hands with that filth. They are no better than these bloodthirsty shadowkin.” He glared at the Kordolians.
Ithari… Did he mean those like Anuk, who needed a physical body to inhabit?
“Why do they do this?”Alexis trembled as the full force of Anuk’s rage hit her. Her voice was low and cold and deadly.
“The Acolytes have made a deal with them in exchange for their own safety. They want weapons. Power. Domination over us. They want to return us to the old ways.”
Alexis didn’t know a thing about Tharian politics, but she understood the value of a creature like Anuk, who had the power to bring the dead back to life.
The detective in her burned with questions. Why would Kordolians of all people want second-stage Tharians?
Were they trying to use the Tharians to resurrect their own dead?
A chill passed through her, but then she thought of the woman who’d hung lifeless beside her in Zharek’s stasis chamber. She’d only caught a split-second glimpse of her, but she knew without a doubt that it was Sian, the secretive-but-pleasant Canadian who’d happily shared a bunch of delicious orbit-cakes with the rest of the passengers on the Malachi.
Sian was dead.
It was a long shot, but what if there was a second-stage Tharian that could bond with her?
What if she could be brought back?
Shit. She had to get out of this state. She had to tell Nythian everything.
Anuk, let me in. The pain was still there, pounding at her temples. She reached for her body, seeking that familiar feeling.
Home.
I want to go home.
Abruptly, Anuk yielded, and their souls swapped position.
Alexis blinked. She took a deep breath. She flexed her obsidian hand. She was back.
It is done. Rucha will take us there.
And then the Tharian took a deep, shuddering gasp in her mind and withdrew back into her sleeping state.
Anuk was exhausted.
Her time was close.
“Alexis.” Nythian came up behind her, curving his arms around her waist. Somehow, he just knew that they’d switched. “Do not do that again.”
She leaned into him. He was still tense. “I had to do something. It felt like the right thing to do.”
“Maybe, but my black heart can’t stand the feeling of you not being in control of your own body. I was this close to…”
“Killing someone?”
A puff of air escaped his lips—a small release of tension. “I don’t do well with this kind of thing.”
“Oh, you’re doing just fine.” She turned and looked up at him, searching his hard face, finding heat in his eyes.
“I am now,” he said thickly. He grasped her wrist. She didn’t resist him.
Ektans and his men stared at them as if they’d both grown horns.
Lodan wore an amused half-smile.
She became aware of several more Kordolians standing in the dark corners of the room; they’d been there all along, but they were so still and silent that they’d blended with the shadows, their faces like silver masks.
It was cramped in here. There were a lot of big, armed males in here.
Nythian practically bristled all over with protectiveness, and suddenly all she wanted was to be alone with him.
“So I take it Rucha here is going to lead us to this Eternal Portal of Souls, then?” Lodan moved to his captive’s side, making the poor Tharian jump. “You can be my navigator in the cockpit. You know how to lead me there by landmarks, yes?”
“I can. I will guide you there,” Rucha agreed, switching to heavily accented Universal. “But once you have released my Queen, you must leave here and never set foot on our planet again.”
“Nope. Can’t do that,” Nythian said bluntly. He leaned forward a little, and Alexis got a sense of how intimidating he could be when he wanted. “See, some old enemies of ours are sniffing around on the other side of your planet, and we can’t have that. You should be thankful to your queen for forcing us to come here. We’re the enemies of your enemies. You’d be wise to not forget that, Tharian.”
TWENTY-THREE
THEY WERE in the air again, flying over Tharos’s barren landscape. The red dunes gave way to a grey wasteland of rocks and stunted trees, and suddenly they hit the edge of civilization.
“Marenja,” Nythian said softly.
Lodan flew low and dropped their speed, surveying the area.
Alexis could only stare out the window, numb with fascination and horror. The scene was both familiar and new. Anuk’s memories were etched in her mind; she’d practically lived the devastating blast.
The white fire was long gone, leaving blackened ruins and rubble.
Marenja was a shell of its former glory, but it was still astonishing.
The first thing that struck her was the symmetry of it all. The Tharian city radiated outward from a single tall spire in the center, rings upon rings of concentric circles formed from thousands of domed black structures. In places, the black surface had crumbled away to reveal glimpses of pale pink stone.
There were no roads, only smooth paths lined with red dust. There wasn’t any sign of advanced technology. No vehicles or machines, not even burned out ones. Occasionally, she’d catch sight of a shallow channel lined with verdant green vegetation, crystal clear water flowing through it from some unseen spring or well.
The calmness was eerie, the afternoon sun casting perfectly curved shadows behind the charred domes. Abandoned to the howling winds and creeping sands of the vast desert, the city looked ancient and otherworldly.
Setting foot down there would feel like some sort of sacrilege.
“Too much power,” Nythian said quietly, his expression hard and inscrutable as he stared out the window. The sunlight had changed, becoming warm and bright, burnishing his features with a golden hue.
He looked like a sculpture, a statue, a mythical god of war.
The mood was strange. Everything felt surreal.
“What are you talking about?”
“That’s what happens when you have weapons of vast destruction at your fingertips. A word to the sylth and you can decimate entire cities in the blink of an eye. Some of the Lords used to get off on it. They would find any excuse. Destroyed planets on a whim, just because they could.”
“On a whim? How could anyone do something so mindlessly cruel?”
“Well, there wasn’t anybody to hold them to account, was there? Even us…”
“Even you?”
“Nothing to keep us in check but the programming in our brains.” His smile was chilling.
“You were brainwashed.” She rested her hand on his arm, her chest tightening a little. It all made sense now.
“It wore off eventually. Didn’t get my memories back, but that’s probably for the best. It was enough. We became the enforcers.”
What could she say to that? Nothing. She just squeezed his arm.
As the ship glided lower and lower, leaving the abandoned city behind as they entered a shallow ravine. The ravine grew deeper, wider. They flew low, vast walls of pink stone rising up on either side of them, dwarfing the ship.
She’d never seen anything like it.
Water started to appear, small rivulets at first, crisscrossing to form a shimmering stream that cascaded over grey and white and pink boulders. The stream grew wider, deeper, becoming a river, then a torrent, the stone walls on either side changing from barren pink to moss-covered green and gold.
And when she thought the landsca
pe couldn’t get any more spectacular, they flew over a massive waterfall.
Alexis gasped.
She’d been to Niagara falls once. This waterfall dwarfed Niagara. It was at least three times as high and five times as wide, ending in a fearsome plume of white mist.
Abruptly, they banked, circling around, swooping lower, their speed dropping dramatically.
They flew into the mist; into the waterfall. Droplets of water sluiced against the window, fluid silver ribbons spinning away into the darkness.
The brilliant sunlight disappeared.
They had to be in a cave of some sort.
A faint green glow suffused the edges of the window. What the hell was that? The further they flew, the brighter it became. Pressure built up inside her.
Anuk stirred.
But something didn’t feel right.
They were flying into an unknown void. What if it was some sort of trap?
The ship’s black walls closed in around her. Claustrophobia set in.
But then Nythian’s fingers snaked through hers. “You’re with us,” he said. “Don’t forget it.”
And everything became so simple.
With Nythian at her side, there was no way she could be afraid.
TWENTY-FOUR
NYTHIAN DIDN’T LIKE this sort of thing, this metaphysical, borderline-supernatural, ritualistic Tharian business.
He didn’t understand it.
It shouldn’t exist.
In truth, it made his skin crawl, and several times he’d been tempted to make the sign of the Goddess behind his back, to try and ward off that cold, unnatural feeling that wormed its way through the pit of his belly. He preferred things he could see and touch… and kill, if necessary.
Stupid.
In his past life, he’d probably been deeply superstitious like most of common-born Kordolians from the Flatedge.
But he’d seen too much of the Universe to believe spirits could have much power over him. Such things existed, and now he just accepted them.
“Let’s go, Alexis.” Following closely behind her, he watched his mate as she walked down the ramp and into the dark, damp cave, shining her bright crixa into the darkness. She clutched the powerful Veronian light-device firmly in her left hand, leaving her right hand free to reach for her gun.
They followed Lodan and the brown-robed Tharian called Rucha. At least the poor bastard had stopped trembling.
Ektans and his team spread out on either side, melting into the shadows as they covered the flanks and formed the rearguard. Lodan had done a bit of a recon run before they’d left the ship.
The path to the portal was clear.
Even if this was some sort of trap—which he highly doubted—it didn’t matter. They were packing enough firepower to blast through the walls of these caves if necessary.
He wouldn’t let anything happen to Alexis.
He couldn’t.
Goddess, she was beautiful. He couldn’t take his eyes off her body, admiring the way her light armor molded to every curve, accentuating the roundness of her butt as she walked.
He walked close, almost touching her but not quite, one hand on his plasma gun, ready to defend her against anything.
He would bleed for her. He would die for her.
She was his mate. He truly didn’t care if she had a symbiote inside her, if part of her had transformed into something not-quite-human. He was addicted to her appearance; her human softness, her strong, athletic body, her luscious face, but even if she grew scales or horns or a third eye, it didn’t matter.
He would love her even if she turned blue all over.
His tough, clever human.
“The green stuff is back,” she said quietly. “Look at that.” Her eyes became unfocused as she glanced into the darkness. Without light, she and Rucha were sightless.
Nythian and his brothers didn’t have that problem. He could see perfectly well in the darkness. The curving stone ceiling overhead clearly wasn’t natural. Thousands of alien glyphs were carved into the smooth pink surface, all perfectly formed, as if by machine.
There was that cold ripple across his skin again. This time, he couldn’t shake it off. The green glow at the edges of his vision intensified, and pressure built inside his head.
“Nythian. Wait.” Alexis put her hand on his arm. “I’m going have to switch again. Don’t do anything crazy… Don’t be afraid, Kordolian.”
Nythian bared his fangs as Alexis’s voice changed, becoming deep and resonant, clearly not human. Anuk. She’d switched again. It had happened in less time than it took him to blink.
“I thought I told you not do do that,” he growled. His anger wasn’t aimed at anyone in particular. Anuk was dying, for Kaiin’s sake. He just couldn’t stand it when his mate’s consciousness submerged, when her eyes glowed unnatural green, when there was even the slightest possibility that he might lose her.
It was the one thing he couldn’t fight.
Anuk chuckled. “Don’t worry, Nythian. I’m not going to take your human away from you. I’d fear for the Universe if that were ever to happen. I’m just enjoying the final few moments of my existence on this planet before I transcend. I need to tell you something.”
“What is it?”
Before Anuk could answer, the pressure inside his head grew stronger, and the faint green glow became brighter, brighter, until it nearly blinded him.
A thousand voices screamed at him, and he dropped to his knees, clutching his ears. Lodan did the same. So did Ektans and his men. A fierce gale of malevolent energy hit him square in the chest, bowling him over.
Whoosh. There it was again… and again! Hatred. Anger. Fear. Pure fury.
You killed us. Demon. Murderer. Kordolian filth! Coldlifelesssunnaturalfooldestroyer you don’t deserve to exist in that monstrous body… give it to us!
As the walls of Nythian’s fragile sanity began to crumble, he realized what was happening.
The phantoms were here; thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of disembodied souls, all ablaze with fury at his kind.
It made sense now, why Enki had been barking mad, why he’d refused to set foot on Tharos ever again.
How long had he suffered this torture before Tarak had been able to retrieve him?
But his brother had survived, and Nythian was cut from exactly the same cloth. They’d survived torture a thousand times worse than this.
His fangs sank into his lower lip as he grit his teeth, and he tasted his own bitter black blood. Good. It grounded him, reminded him that thoughts were just thoughts, nothing more.
Was this a trap of some sort? Had Anuk lured them here only to try and exact her revenge?
No, no, no…
If that was her intent, then she didn’t understand a fucking thing.
Slowly, Nythian rose to his feet and drew his swords. Lodan was up too, a murderous glint in his golden eyes.
But Ektans and his crew were still on their knees, fighting off the effects of the phantom horde.
In the center of the maelstrom stood Anuk—in Alexis’s body, no less.
Were they planning to attack? Unforgivable!
But then Nythian remembered Alexis’s words.
Wait.
She was speaking in rapid-fire Tharian, her voice deep and resonant and not remotely human, and Nythian wanted nothing more than to hear Alexis speak to him, to tell him that she was okay, that this cursed never-ending nightmare was finally over.
“Anuk,” he said coldly, holding his blades low and close to his body, a sign of deadly intent if there ever was one… only now he couldn’t do a fucking thing. “That thing you were going to tell me… it had better be good news. I’ll be honest with you, Tharian. If any harm comes to that human whose body you’re borrowing right now, I’m not sure what I’ll do. I could just end up slaughtering every mortal-bodied Tharian in this room. Your power doesn’t work on me.”
Thousands of screaming voices battered his consciousness, rising to a tor
turous crescendo, but he stubbornly held them at bay, separating his mind into two partitions.
There was the weak part of him, with his fractured memories and cursed strange emotions that he didn’t quite understand.
Then there was the part of him that felt most comfortable right now; the soldier, the warrior, the machine.
“Hold your fury,” Anuk whispered, and the only reason Nythian hesitated was because he heard a trace of Alexis in her voice.
Anuk held up Alexis’s obsidian hand and uttered a single word in Tharian. It wasn’t just her, though. Alexis’s voice blended with hers, equally powerful.
The phantoms swirled around her in a vortex, never quite touching her, their green glow highlighting her beautiful face.
He couldn’t help but become mesmerized all over again.
As she turned to him, the glow in her eyes faded. “Nythian, relax. There’s nothing to fight about.”
And suddenly he understood.
She was in control.
She’d been in control all along.
The angry spirits relented. The terrible voices in his mind went quiet. Ektans and his men rose to their feet, stunned, furious, blades and guns flying out of holsters and sheaths.
Ektans swore viciously in Kordolian. Several of his men swore viciously. They were angry; Nythian could understand.
None of them were used to dealing with spectral enemies.
“Apparently, everything’s under control,” he said dryly as the green glow ebbed away, fading into the background.
And just like that, the angry spirits left them alone.
“I don’t like ghosts,” Ektans muttered. “You can’t shoot ghosts.”
“They’re not exactly ghosts,” Alexis said softly as she rushed to Nythian’s side. “Sorry,” she whispered. “There wasn’t time to explain. Everything’s okay now. The ithari understand. They won’t bother you anymore.”
“Ithari?” Ektans raised an eyebrow.
“Thats what Tharians call themselves when they’re at the second and final stage of the Tharian lifecycle. We’re used to thinking of life as a physical thing, as bodies made up of cells, but it’s so much more than that. Tharians have evolved for billions of years. They’re able to survive outside their physical bodies in the form of pure energy.”
