Pel’s hand squeezed her shoulder but said nothing. She knew he disliked the idea of her riding in the balloon, pregnant or not.
“It’s safe. Mishal’s tested it many times,” she said, giving him a quick peck on the cheek, and then doing the same for Flin.
Mishal lifted her up and over into the basket, it swayed with motion. The bag with paper, crude charcoal pencils, and the handheld telescope followed. Satisfied, he pulled her to the edge and planted a kiss on her forehead. “Do not let Flin be adventurous.”
“Straight up and back down,” she said. Flin climbed in, rocking the basket, and she gripped the edge for balance.
“Are you ready?” he asked.
“Yes.” Excitement coiled in her stomach. They brought the balloon to a high point. With the balloon aloft and using the telescope, she’d be able to make a decent survey of the landscape, possibly even an accurate map. The settlements, both human and valo, along the river were well known to the tribe, but what lay inland beyond the forest remained a mystery.
Convincing Mishal to build the equipment had been easy, once she described the concept to him. His eyes grew bright at the challenge. Convincing her mates to let her up in the balloon, however, took compromises. Lots and lots of compromises. Mishal and Flin thoroughly tested the balloon and the basket’s integrity to hold her weight. The balloon had to be tethered to one place, no drifting on the breeze, and they would descend at the first sign of a strong gust of wind. Flin did not entirely trust the Ventos, but they were far from their territory. The weather was clear and sunny. They could not have asked for a better day.
She released a coil of rope, lengthening the tether. Flin raised a hand to the mouth of the balloon. The air rippled as he heated it and slowly the balloon rose. Pel and Mishal, standing side by side, shrank as they lifted above the trees.
Her grip on the basket tightened but her smile and laugh of delight was genuine. They did it! Sonhadra’s first hot air balloon.
“How much more rope do we have?” Flin asked.
“Another coil.” Approximately thirty feet.
“Higher, my love?”
“Yes.”
They rose again, the canopy of the forest diminished, shifting into a mottled green blur. From this vantage, she could see for miles. The volcano dominated the horizon beyond the river, but all Sonhadra stretched out to the north and south.
This planet, weird and wondrous, was her home. Soon she’d bring a half-human, half-valo baby into it. There was so much she wanted to see and do. Each day held endless possibility and endless joy. Some days she couldn’t believe her good fortune.
She held Flin’s hand, fingers interlaced. “This is amazing.”
“Next time, we will go higher.” Flin shared her itch to explore. While Amber was content to collect knowledge, he wanted to push back the horizon.
“Come here,” she said, pulling him down for a kiss. His arms wrapped around her, not too tight but plenty warm against the chill in the air. Thank you,” she breathed as they pulled apart.
“For what?”
“For being you.”
Epilogue Two
Brandi
Eight Years.
Brandi had been on Sonhadra for eight years. She once read that human cells regenerate at such a rate that once every seven years they were essentially a new person.
Nothing remained of the old Earth Brandi. Her body was born on Sonhadra.
So much had changed in those eight years that it made her feel a bit dizzy. She started a convict, then a castaway, then joined the local tribe and found the loves of her life, then they built a new city and had babies.
Everyone had babies, apparently. First Lucie had her Rekka. Then Crystal and Evan. They had three sons with no signs of stopping. Herself, of course, with her little Claire. Amber had her son, Calder. Denise found a human guy from Utopia, and they had twins.
Human guy. So weird that she thought that phrase, and it didn’t strike her as odd, but that was Sonhadra. You had to roll with it.
Life on Sonhadra wasn’t easy—not even with the many hands of Maar, Nuriel, and Krenik, to lighten the load—but it was better than her life on Earth.
So much better and happier.
Fleeing the unstable City in the Caldera—because who wasn’t surprised that a city inside a volcano was a bad idea—they built a new settlement across the river and named it Phoenix. Cheesy, sure, but the valos liked the myth of an eternal bird born from flames.
Erected on the bluff overlooking the river, Phoenix was fortified against all the big bads that crawled out of the forest. With a landing on the river, trade between the valo tribes flourished. The settlement had a constant supply of whatever materials, goods and foodstuff they needed. They even established contact with Utopia upriver and other human settlements. With Utopia’s working 3D printer, Dillon, who joined the tribe in E’Lek, worked with Amber to make radios. They installed a radio communication system with every tribe.
She found friends she long thought lost, safely with their own valos.
Brandi adjusted her hood to protect her face from the biting wind. A small hand clutched at the hem of her coat.
“Mama, I don’t like the cold,” Claire complained.
“Come here, sweetie.” Brandi settled her daughter on her lap and wrapped themselves in a blanket. Despite her very human name—named after Brandi’s mother—her daughter took after her fathers. Claire appeared and acted very valo. The wind chilled her, but she could tolerate the cold. Her fiery baby girl couldn’t.
Nuriel touched the blanket and infused it with warmth. “Thanks, Daddy,” Claire said, the whining tone vanishing from her voice.
The Fire Valos used a primitive type of steam engine to propel the boat upriver much like a fan boat she remembered from a vacation once in Florida. A bladder under the boat even filled with air to lift it up. In theory, the fan boat could move over snow and flat ground, but it worked best on the river.
Brandi didn’t know who suggested the annual get-together, but once the idea settled in her head, she was all-in. The original celebration had been held in E’Lek in that first year. The Northern Valos sent out their Hunters and made contact with all the tribes. That first year, Brandi hugged people she never thought to see again. People she didn’t know the names of but they were human and they came out the other side of a wormhole together. The location changed each following year, to allow the other tribes to host. They were family.
The location changed every year with a different tribe hosting. This year was back to E’Lek, so it felt but like Christmas and returning home.
The first time they got together, Brandi did her best not to stare. Charlie and Preta arrived with an army of guys who literally sprouted like trees, breathed underwater and shot lightning. Not the same guys. Different guys from three different tribes. Charlie and Preta’s dad was even there. Somehow he had been on the Concord when it crashed, and he found his own lady to love. Quinn had her man, Orishok. He sat quietly in the midst of the celebration and Brandi noticed that the other valos gave him a wide berth. Zoya arrived with her two men made of stone. Deja had a cluster of guys who seemed more shadow than solid, but they were not nearly as mind-blowing as Aveline’s Ventos. They were wind elementals.
Wind.
How did that even work?
She shouldn’t judge. She bonded with three fire elementals, after all. Maar’s flirtations were constant. She paid him no mind because the man was just a flirt. He couldn’t help but make eyes and smile at every woman he encountered. It took months before Brandi realized he, Nuriel and Krenik were serious. They wanted her, but it took even longer before they convinced her it was safe.
Again, fire elementals.
Yahiro ended up on the traveling City of the Dawn with her three Radiant valos. The moving cities built on the back of massive dinosaur-like creatures took her breath away, but Brandi’s favorite remained E’Lek. She liked the cold and the snow. The city had a magical, fairy-tale
quality with the building that reminded her of those fancy ice hotels she saw on the media.
Lucie shifted in her seat, her own girl, Rekka, curled next to her.
“What do you want to do first?” Brandi asked Claire. Rekka perked up.
“I don’t know,” she whispered, face hidden under the blanket.
“I know what I want to do! I want to build a Frosty,” Rekka announced.
“That sounds like fun,” Brandi said, nudging Claire.
“I guess,” she replied.
“Or maybe sledding,” Brandi suggested. She didn’t want her shy baby to miss out on the fun because she was too bashful to join in.
“Could I try doing what Tonia does? But with ice?”
Brandi processed what Claire asked. “You want to shape the ice?”
Claire nodded. “I want to make it pretty. Melt it.”
“Can I do that, too? We’ll be like Daddy,” Rekka said.
Her baby blushed, orange spots glowing on her grey cheeks. “Okay. What do you wanna do, Mommy?”
“I’m just excited to see everyone again,” Brandi answered. What she really wanted to do was get a good look at everyone and compare crow’s feet and grey hairs.
Or the lack thereof.
Brandi knew something odd was happening to her body, but she hesitated to name the phenomenon. She first noticed that her old scars from the Concord healed. What they did to her while on board…. Well, it wasn’t pleasant, but she finally made peace with her body carrying those horrid souvenirs for the rest of her life.
They hurt her. Cut her. Deliberately infected her with viruses to see how her immune system responded. When she proved to be perfectly ordinary, they discarded her. She had her scars to remind her that she could survive anything. They comforted her during the initial days of living hand-to-mouth after the crash.
Then the scars faded.
She couldn’t explain why she had difficulty watching her body heal old wounds. It was like losing a piece of herself all over again and having her history erased.
But there was more than just old scar tissue healing. Her mother and grandmother usually had salt-and-pepper hair by the time they were her age. Assuming Sonhadra’s orbit around the sun kept pace with Earth, Brandi reckoned she was nearly forty. She did not have a single grey hair. Or laugh lines. Or crow’s feet. Nothing about her appearance spoke to a body entering mid-life.
Lucie believed that nanotech of some sort had been used on the Fire Valos. The nanotech exploited a natural mutation in the tribe—those who didn’t have it didn’t survive the conversion— and the same tech healed their bodies at an accelerated rate. Maar, Nuriel or Krinek never got sick; no allergies, never a sniffle. Brandi wondered if some of that same nanotech had been transferred to her when her guys, um, made deposits.
Brandi once asked Lucie for her observations, but she admitted that she had no idea. Yes, Lucie’s old scars had healed, but she had been dunked in the renewing fires. She received a direct dose of the nanotech. She wasn’t in the position to say what improved her rate of healing or kept the grey from her hair.
Amber also reported lack of grey hairs and wrinkles. Two data points were not enough to draw any sort of conclusion. Brandi had no idea how to even bring up the subject with the other women who were not her close friends.
Pardon me, have you noticed that you’re not aging at the correct rate?
Actually, that wasn’t bad.
Eight years added perspective. She would have never suspected the turn her life took after being sent to prison. Who could have predicted anything that happened, really? When they tortured her on the Concord, she wished for the pain to end. Now, on the other side, she was glad she survived. She found love three times over when she least expected it, had a family, and couldn’t imagine this level of happiness in her old life. Brandi back on Earth made bad choices and some terrible mistakes, but those choices brought her to Sonhadra, and Brandi on Sonhadra was thankful.
Thank you for reading Inferno!
What happened to Kira? Read her adventure in Iced by Regine Abel.
And yes, more Valos of Sonhadra books are in the works. When? I can’t say for certain, but a few of the other authors are “thinking” about it. Once a writer gets an idea they can’t shake, it usually turns into a book.
Join the Valos of Sonhadra reader group in Facebook to keep up with new releases, chat about the books, share pictures of interesting/weird things that remind you of the books, or anything your little heart desires, really.
This book was a right pain to write. Each book is different, and often the hardest part (for me) is floundering around until I find the book’s voice and figure out how it wants to be written. When I moan about missing deadlines or going over my word count, my husband reminds me, “The book takes as long as it takes. Write the story in you.”
That’s sweet of him, but he has no idea.
I’d like to thank all the people who let me bitch and moan about this book while I wrote and rewrote. They gave me the feedback and pep talks I desperately needed to claw another chapter out of this thing. So, in no particular order:
Regine Abel is a superstar. Not only did she deal with my drama llama chats about the hot mess that was Inferno, she read and critiqued that hot mess. Her notes were super helpful, and Inferno is a better book thanks to her.
Marina Simcoe is an amazing beta reader. She somehow managed to take time out of her day dealing with her own family and writing projects and gave helpful feedback because I basically don’t know how commas work.
My BFF, Abigail, is always there to help me when I paint myself into a corner plot-wise. Plus, she’ll work for tacos.
Finally, all the readers in the VoS Facebook group! I asked for fire/volcano inspired names and they did not disappoint.
Amy Shannon B. suggested Rekka and guessed Flin’s name.
Mary Dawn Q. had the inspiration for Brandi.
Isabel Wroth gave me Calder.
Esther Z.B. correctly identified the inspiration for Amber’s name.
Tammy Simmons gave me Adara, which became Adar.
Lori B.S. gave me Tonatiuk, which became Tonai, and Kresnik.
Megan Chandler suggested Shol and Nuri, which became Nuriel.
Ellen G.M. correctly identified the inspiration for Pel’s name.
Kathryn S. gave us the wonder that is Maar.
Peggy Sue D. basically gave me a dictionary because she’s awesome like that.
Finally, all the Valos of Sonhadra authors. They were a joy to work with and extraordinarily chill about me asking way too many questions.
Once again, thanks for reading!
Check out the Rest of the Valos of Sonhadra
1 - Alluvial - Amanda Milo
2 - Tempest - Poppy Rhys
3 - Blazing - Nancey Cummings
4 - Whirlwind - Ripley Proserpina
5 - Radiant - Naomi Lucas
6 - Shadowed - Isabel Wroth
7 - Undying - Tiffany Roberts
8 - Enduring - Marina Simcoe
9 - Unfrozen - Regine Abel
Galvanizing Sol – Poppy Rhys & Amanda Milo
10 – Iced – Regine Abel
11 – Inferno – Nancey Cummings (you just read it!)
Working with these ladies (and Rob) was an amazing experience. We started planning last July, writing in November and have been trading beta copies and snippets since. Everything from talking about the type of story we wanted to tell and figuring out the world was a blast. We’re already talking about the next shared world project.
But, Nancey, the fire guys were fun and all, but I want more of my purple warriors.
I got you. Right now I’m working on a special project for Celestial Mates, then back to the Warlord Bride universe.
Join my newsletter and be the first to know. Plus, get a free book.
https://dl.bookfunnel.com/jektemqay4
Also Available by Nancey
Warriors of Sangrin (With Starr Huntress)<
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Paax
Kalen
Mylomon
Vox
Warlord’s Baby
Seeran
Snowed in with the Alien Warlord
Delivered to the Aliens
Dragons of Wye (with Juno Wells)
Korven’s Fire
Ragnar
Alpha Aliens of Fremm
Claimed by the Alien Prince
Bride of the Alien Prince
Alien Warrior’s Mate
Alien Rogue’s Price
About Nancey
Join my newsletter and get a FREE copy of Claimed by the Alien Prince.
Get it at here:
https://dl.bookfunnel.com/jektemqay4
I write fun, flirty and fast stories featuring sassy heroines, out-of-this-world heroes, all the mischief they can managed and plenty of steamy fun. Hopefully you want to read them too.
I live in an old house with my husband and a growing collection of cats.
Follow my Facebook reader group for early teasers and whatnots.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/895051017325998/
Or my Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/NanceyCumm/
Copyright Notice
Inferno
Valos of Sonhadra 11
Copyright Nancey Cummings
Cover design by Naomi Lucas and Cameron Kamenicky
Published July 2018
Published by Menura Press
All rights reserved. This copy is intended for the original purchaser of this book only. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printer or electronic form without prior written person from the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Inferno Page 19
