Undying
Valos of Sonhadra #7
A Novel
Tiffany Roberts
Copyright © 2017 by Tiffany Freund and Robert Freund Jr.
All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be used or reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form by any means, including scanning, photocopying, uploading, and distribution of this book via any other electronic means without the permission of the author and is illegal, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, contact the publishers at the address below.
Tiffany Roberts
[email protected]
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or people, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Cover Illustration © 2017 by Cameron Kamenicky
Proofread by Colleen Vanderlinden
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Introduction
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
VALOS OF SONHADRA COLLABORATION
Titles by Tiffany Roberts
About the Authors
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Dedication
Dedicated to my mate. My love for you is undying.
A huge thanks to Cameron Kamenicky and Naomi Lucas for the hours of work they put into the covers for Undying and all the Valos of Sonhadra books. Colleen Vanderlinden, thank you for being our third set of eyes.
To Poppy Rhys, Amanda Milo, Nancey Cummings, Ripley Proserpina, Naomi Lucas, Isabel Wroth, Marina Simcoe, and Regine Abel: thank you for letting us be a part of this collaboration. It has been amazing working with all of you! This series wouldn’t be the same without every one of you.
Introduction
When an orbital prison is torn through a wormhole and crashes on an unknown planet, it's every woman for herself to escape the wreckage. As though savage beasts and harsh, alien climates aren't enough, the survivors discover the world isn't uninhabited, and must face new challenges—risking not only their lives, but their hearts.
Welcome to Sonhadra.
The Valos of Sonhadra series is the shared vision of nine sci-fi and fantasy romance authors. Each book is a standalone, containing its own Happy Ever After, and can be read in any order.
Chapter One
A SINGLE SOUND SHATTERED the silence.
Thump.
It blasted through Quinn, its force tensing her muscles and arching her back. Air flooded her lungs, burning, and she clawed at the ground beneath her. The pain forced her eyes open; she saw only darkness.
Her heart beat again.
Thump-thump; thump-thump.
The slow, thunderous rhythm shook her ribs, echoed between her ears. She sucked in lungfuls of air, and the stiffness gradually left her limbs. Easing her back onto the ground, she stared upward; blurred light spread through the darkness that was her vision. As her eyes adjusted, the scene came into focus — the deep indigo of a night sky, framed by swaying leaves made black in contrast.
She swept her gaze along the canopy, glimpsing a bit of the silvery moon through a break in the leaves.
This couldn’t be right. Where were the sterile white walls and ceiling of IPS Concord’s lab? Where were the glaring lights and masked faces that always hovered over her?
Quinn closed her eyes. The guards had been leading her back to her confined, solitary cell for the first time in days while another woman screamed in the lab behind her. They were dragging Quinn; her legs had refused to support her weight, result of the drugs they’d pumped into her veins. There’d been the sudden blare of an alarm, and flashing lights in the corridor...
The ship had crashed. She remembered a few seconds of weightlessness, and then the deafening rush of air as the corridor tore open and she was pulled out. Then...
Blackness.
Quinn turned onto her side. The motion sent her head spinning, and her stomach churned. She managed to flip onto her belly and push herself up on trembling arms before she vomited. The stench made her gag again, and she hurriedly crawled away.
Remaining on hands and knees, she bowed her head and concentrated on her breathing until the lightness in her head faded and her stomach settled. She dug her fingers into the dirt and inhaled its aroma, mingled with the smells of sweet grass and bark.
It reminded her of home — not home exactly, as she’d grown up in a city, but Earth. She’d been on the Concord for two years, without being granted so much as a glance at the planet below. The scent of dirt and vegetation soothed her nerves.
Tears blurred her vision. It had been so long since she’d felt ground beneath her, so long since she’d breathed air that wasn’t recycled and stale, so long since she’d seen the sky.
But where was she?
Quinn slowly sat back on her heels, settling her hands on her thighs. Trees surrounded her, and more vegetation — just visible in the filtered moonlight — sprouted from the ground everywhere. She’d never seen so many trees in her life. They were a rare sight in the city, most of them kept within the boundaries of wealthy neighborhoods. It was a hundred miles, at least, from her apartment to anywhere remotely like this.
A cool breeze swept over her. Shivering, she glanced down and frowned at her tattered prison jumpsuit. The fabric — declared stain-proof by the sour-faced guard who’d issued it to her — was stained with dark spots that glistened faintly in the silvery light. She brushed her fingers over one.
Moving into a shaft of moonlight, she lifted her hand to inspect the liquid coating her fingertips. It was crimson.
“Oh my god.”
Quinn hesitantly touched her stomach, where the largest patch of blood stained her suit. Her trembling fingers encountered smooth, undamaged skin. Frantically, she swept her hands over her arms, legs, and face, but found no wounds. Not a single scratch; not so much as the tender flesh of a bruise. Despite the first terrifying moments after she woke — she’d felt like she was suffocating even as she drew in air — she was unharmed.
“How is that possible? I was—”
—thrown from a crashing ship.
Pushing herself to her feet, Quinn folded her arms over her chest, clutching at whatever warmth she could. She turned in a circle, but everything looked the same. The only sign that anyone — or anything — had been here was the broken twigs and leaves scattered on the ground where she’d landed. She was alone and lost.
Even if she found the Concord, what would be waiting for her there? If anyone else had survived, they were likely to do her harm — whether they were guards or prisoners.
But what about Zoya, Preta, and Lydia? They’d been the only friends Quinn made while she was imprisoned; were they alive?
In the distance, a shrill animal call rose over the ambient sounds of the forest, followed by answering cries. Quinn’s heart leapt. It was unlike anything she’d ever heard.
She would not be going in that direction.
Walking away from the shrieks, she focused on the ground in front of her. Fallen logs, branches, tangled patches of vegetation, and pitch-black holes turned the woods into a dangero
us obstacle course. One misstep could result in a broken ankle or worse, leaving her more helpless than she already felt.
The calls faded as she continued forward, and the night grew colder. Soon, Quinn’s breath was visible in little puffs of steam. She rubbed her arms for warmth and pressed on despite the numbness in her fingers and toes and the weakness in her legs. She just had to keep walking; there’d be a road eventually.
Wouldn’t there be?
Finally, she emerged from the forest. She stopped and stared ahead.
The thicker vegetation gave way to grass as it spread from the tree line, narrowing with distance. The greenery ended abruptly about thirty feet away, where something like a road began. Ten feet wide, its surface was stone, and the edges dropped off onto steep, rocky slopes at either side. Nothing grew beyond the path’s starting point — not a single sapling, shrub, or blade of grass.
She ran her gaze along the road, following its steady incline. Her breath caught in her throat.
Shrouded in mist and bathed in the glow of two moons were large, dark buildings. A city. But there were no lights in any windows, and she didn’t hear any of the city-sounds she was so familiar with from home.
The wind gusted, biting through her jumpsuit to chill the skin beneath. From somewhere behind her — still distant, but if she could hear it at all it was too close for her comfort — the shrieking calls rose over the trees.
She’d take her chances in the city.
Forcing her legs into motion, Quinn followed the path, its pronounced incline putting more strain on her tired, cold body. She glanced to her right. The path fell off into impossible darkness. Cold sweat beaded on her flesh, and she returned her gaze to the city. She’d never feared heights, not even as a child. Why was she so afraid now?
I fell from the sky. I should be dead.
She inhaled deeply and shoved the thoughts aside.
Focus. I need to focus.
The entrance of the city came into view as she approached; a broad archway with tall, thin adornments rising high on either side. The center of the arch had crumbled, leaving dark stone piled in the road, but the surrounding walls appeared sound. She stepped around the rubble and into the city.
In the shadows and mist, the buildings all looked to be constructed of the same stone as the entryway. They were tall structures, packed close together, with pointed, narrow spires and arched windows. They reminded her of ancient Gothic churches, but the comparison wasn’t quite right. Though it was too dark to tell for sure, these buildings gave the sense that they’d been carved from huge blocks of stone.
Most of the buildings were in varying states of disrepair, with cracks visible in their walls and piles of rubble on the ground beneath the worst of them. Many of the windows were broken. The wind moaned through the empty streets, sighed through the seemingly abandoned buildings.
Quinn turned to follow the path further into the city when she saw a figure in the shadows ahead. Startled, she took a step back.
“Hello?” she called out. There was no response. No movement. Apprehension filled her. “Hello?”
She approached cautiously. The figure didn’t reply, didn’t move. Her eyes slowly adjusted to the shadows around the figure; it was leaning against a wall, a tall form with lanky limbs and a bowed head. There was a strange, uneven texturing to its skin, and its proportions didn’t seem quite right.
Quinn stopped in front of the figure and furrowed her brow. It wasn’t a person; it was a statue. An old one, by the look, and unfinished. As though someone had begun shaping a block of clay to look human and stopped before the details were completed.
She raised her hand and touched the statue’s face. The stone was cold. It had been so long since she’d worked with clay, since she’d felt it take shape in her fingers, since she’d created.
Quinn lowered her arm. That life was over now; it had been since long before she woke up here.
She walked past the statue, following the path as it curved around a building. There were more statues in varied poses, all in the same unfinished state. They littered the street like the discarded toys of a bored child. It both fascinated and unnerved her.
The road opened into a large square, bordered on all sides by tall, thick stone columns. Dozens of unfinished figures were sprawled throughout, but they didn’t draw Quinn’s eye; her attention fell on the large statue in the center of the square, set atop a wide, low pedestal.
The details were exquisite in this work, if unsettling. It stood at least thirty feet tall, a lean, long-limbed man with a stylized, not-quite-human physique. The basics of its anatomy were familiar, all the forms and proportions more-or-less correct, but it was just...off. The statue had its arms raised so its hands — with claw-tipped fingers — were just below its shoulder level, palms up. The head was covered in some sort of mask, without eyeholes. Huge, upward-curving horns protruded from either side, with smaller ones rising from the brows.
Quinn stepped closer, craning her head back. She ran her fingers over the smooth, dark stone of the skirt wrapped around the statue’s hips, the folds in the fabric so detailed they looked real. Had the other sculptures been meant to have the same amount of detail? It would have taken a sculptor years to complete something like this by hand, if anyone had the talent and skill to attempt it to begin with.
The art of sculpting was a dying one, in an age when computers could design and manufacture most anything. It was considered an outdated skill, irrelevant, unnecessary. But Quinn had fallen in love with it when she was young, had been fascinated by ancient sculptures and the notion that they’d been shaped by someone’s hands and a few simple tools. Though money was always tight, she’d visited as many museums in as many cities as she could just to see with her own eyes the work of a thousand, two thousand, four thousand years past.
The sharp crack of a falling stone startled Quinn. Her foot caught on the corner of the pedestal as she whirled toward the sound. She stumbled backward in an attempt to regain her balance, slamming into the statue and releasing a cry of pain. Stone scraped against stone; the statue was no longer supporting her weight. She leapt to her feet and turned.
Quinn watched with her heart in her throat as the statue fell. When it hit the ground, there was an explosion of sound that left her ears ringing as a dust cloud spread through the square.
Quinn cupped a hand over her mouth, staring with wide eyes at the settling dust, which soon revealed the destruction wrought by her carelessness.
She ran her gaze over the rubble that had once been a work of art and took a step forward.
Something glowed at the bottom of her field of view. She looked down at the pedestal. Without the statue atop it, the hollow inside the stand was exposed. It was filled with countless smooth, dark, circular rocks. Light — a blend of blues and greens — shone from within the pile.
She reached in, brushing aside the dull stones until she uncovered the source of light. It was the same size and shape as the other stones, but its black surface was run through with veins of opalescent color that cast a glow. She took hold of it; the stone fit neatly in the palm of her hand, strangely warm given how cold everything else was. Wrapping her fingers around it, she raised it for a closer look, fascinated.
“Desh shon’ven elad ureshel,” whispered several voices in unison.
Quinn gasped, lifting her eyes to the source of the words — a tall, broad-shouldered figure standing beside the broken statue. He looked to be wearing armor of some sort, with blade-like protrusions at the shoulders and on the head. The material’s sharp planes and dark coloring resembled obsidian.
Clenching the stone to her chest, Quinn stumbled backward, keeping the stranger within sight. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean for it to fall.” She pointed toward the statue. “It was an accident.”
The figure turned his head to follow her gesture, but said nothing. When he turned back, he straightened suddenly and took several steps forward. “Ithuun elad ebin’ab.”
Heart pounding, Quinn continued her retreat, thrusting out her hands to ward the stranger away. Her fingers tightened on the stone. She’d stood up to people far stronger than her in prison and paid a hefty price for it...but they didn’t compare to whatever the hell this thing was. “Please. I don’t understand.”
“Lenal ree saal ebin,” he said, stepping closer. He held out an upturned palm and pointed at her hand.
Quinn glanced at the stone and her eyes widened.
“Okay. Okay.” Slowly, Quinn crouched, setting the glowing rock on the ground. When the stranger continued to advance, she rose and backpedaled, keeping as much distance between them as she could. She jumped when her back bumped into one of the stone pillars. “I wasn’t going to take it, I swear. It was warm and I’m just...so damn cold and lost. I’m sorry.”
The stranger squatted before the glowing gem, staring at Quinn. His eyes were dark pits in his mask — or helmet, or whatever it was — empty and frightening. He reached forward without looking away from her and closed his large hand around the stone. When the stranger stood, she realized just how large he was — he had to be close to seven feet tall.
Finally, he broke eye contact with her, dropping his gaze to the stone on his open palm. Its light pulsated, casting strange shadows on the alien contours of his armor.
“Ebin’ab ediya akean,” he whispered, awe in his inhuman voice.
Quinn clutched at the pillar behind her as the plates of the stranger’s chest armor shifted apart, revealing a cavity in his chest. Faint light glowed inside, the same swirl of blue and green as the stone.
With startling delicacy, the stranger took the gem between forefinger and thumb and placed it within the cavity. Green light blazed in the hollows of his eyes and shone through the layered segments of his armor as it closed.
He threw his head back and released a pained, sorrowful roar. The hair on the back of Quinn’s neck stood on end, but the hurt she heard in his call kept her rooted in place. The green glow faded, leaving only pinpricks of light in his eyes, and he dropped heavily to hands and knees. Tremors wracked his body, and his fingers gouged grooves into the stone beneath him.
Undying (Valos of Sonhadra Book 7) Page 1
