Undying (Valos of Sonhadra Book 7)

by Tiffany Roberts

  She hadn’t thought of them in so long. Her time in the lab had been a haze of mind-numbing drugs and soul-crushing pain.

  “Are you okay, Quinn?” Orishok asked. He was speaking more and more English, his cadence improving seemingly by the hour.

  She lifted her head. His large frame was silhouetted in the glow of the window, dark save for the twin lights of his eyes.

  “Yeah,” she said, rubbing the sleep from her eyes; she wished it were as easy to be rid of the memories. “Yeah, I’m okay.”

  “You made a call. A bahlvash.”

  “A what?”

  He tilted his head down, and as her eyes adjusted to the lighting, she noted his frown. He was searching for a way to explain.

  “It was a sound of fear.” Orishok lifted his hand, holding it horizontal over his head. “Sithianah.”

  “Oh,” she said, sighing as she laid her head back. “A scream.”

  “A scream,” he repeated. She felt his eyes upon her, his gaze heavy but not necessarily uncomfortable. “You are okay? You do not look like you feel fine.”

  “Just a bad dream.” Quinn pushed herself up onto her elbows and met his steady gaze. “I’m fine. I just needed a moment.”

  They’d talked into the night, learning each other’s words, piecing together broken information. He’d answered her questions as he’d been able; when it came to the forest and its beasts, he was an expert, and Quinn now had a small list of creatures with alien names that she never wanted to encounter. About the technology in the city he was less knowledgeable; he was no more able to explain the workings of Bahmet than she would have been to explain to him how a hologram was projected.

  “What is a dream, Quinn?”

  “A dream happens when you are sleeping. You see things in your head. Sometimes they are real, sometimes not.” She tilted her head. “Did you dream before you were made?”

  Orishok was silent. He likely didn’t understand all of her words, but based on his expression — thoughtful rather than confused — he understood enough.

  “I do not know,” he finally said. “I see things in my head now, with my ediya’akean returned, but they are things that were.”

  “Not always good to remember. Some dreams are bad reminders.” She sat up. The blanket pooled in her lap. “What is an ediya’akean?”

  He lifted a hand to his chest and tapped its center. “What you gave back to me.”

  “The glowing stone?”

  “Yes. A stone. That is akean. The stone is my ediya, taken long ago.”

  “Ediya’akean,” Quinn repeated quietly. His had been the only one that glowed with life inside the pedestal.

  She pushed the blanket off her legs and reached for a rum’aht — her translator marked it as riverfruit late last night — and cracked it against the floor. She ate quickly and washed up at the fountain when she was done.

  “I need to go out.” She glanced at Orishok as she pulled on her shoes. It’d been difficult, but she finally got him to understand that simple necessity.

  “Okay,” he replied simply. She’d asked if there were any buttons that led to a toilet, but he either didn’t understand or just didn’t know. Maybe aliens never needed to take a piss.

  She followed him outside, and while he remained on the path, she stepped into the alley and did her business. It would have been strange, maybe even embarrassing, had she not spent the last few years imprisoned. Privacy didn’t exist on the Concord, and she’d had to murder her own modesty to survive.

  She used torn of strips of cloth she’d found in the room to clean herself and tossed them in a bucket. It wasn’t ideal, but it was the best she could find for now.

  Orishok was looking down the street when she rejoined him. The mist was already burning off in the morning sun; the strange statues were ghostly figures, each trapped in a single moment. The dark buildings marched away on either side, giving her the sense that she was standing in some otherworldly canyon.

  “Where is everyone else, Orishok?”

  “They are here.”

  Quinn frowned. “I don’t understand. I’ve only seen you.”

  He turned his head to look at her then, and she could not read his expression. “Come. I will show you.”

  She followed Orishok along the now-familiar path leading to the square. Her eyes went immediately to the large statue she’d toppled and broken, and she was hit with a fresh pang of guilt despite how imposing and unsettling the monument had been. Quinn was an artist, and the statue had been a work of art — no matter how self-indulgent. It didn’t matter if a piece evoked negative emotions, only that it had some sort of effect, that it somehow connected with its audience.

  He walked past the shattered monument without sparing it a single glance, only stopping when he reached the pedestal upon which it had stood. She drew up beside him and looked at the dull gray rocks in the hollow.

  “This is where I found your ediya’akean.”

  Orishok reached inside and picked up one of the stones. They all seemed to be the same size, shape, and coloration, big and smooth enough to fit comfortably in Quinn’s palm. He held the stone out for her to see. “Ediya’akean.”

  She stared at it, confused. “It isn’t glowing. Not like yours.”

  He dipped his other hand into the hollow and shifted the stones gently, not looking away from her, and repeated the word again. Her confusion must have been plain on her face; he walked to one of the nearby, vague-featured sculptures.

  “This is a valo.” He touched the statue’s arm.

  “A sculpture of one.”

  “No, Quinn.” Orishok lifted the stone and held it to the statue’s chest, tapping it lightly. “This is a valo.” He walked to the next sculpture and repeated his actions. “Valo.”

  Sudden understanding filled her blood with shards of jagged ice. “These...these are your people?”

  “Yes. They are my ukasha’kueshas. My people.”

  Quinn turned her gaze back to the hollow in the pedestal and saw only a pile of dark, lifeless rocks — they looked as though they’d been harvested from a river that had worn them smooth over countless years.

  All those statues throughout the city were his people, and...

  “Orishok,” she said, looking at him. “There are no other glowing stones. Only yours.”

  “I am the last.”

  “There’s no one else?”

  He shook his head, once to the left and once to the right. He’d picked it up from her.

  Quinn looked away from Orishok, eyes drifting over the nearby statues; she couldn’t see them as misshapen blocks of clay anymore. This city was a graveyard.

  Her attention shifted to the valos she’d broken that first night, and her guilt deepened. She’d desecrated them. “I’m so sorry.”

  Orishok’s eyes followed Quinn’s to the ruined statues. “They were named Rathir, Losk, and Dargaan,” he said, voice low. “Do not be sorry, Quinn. Sonhadra will still take them.”

  “Sonhadra?”

  He glanced at her over his shoulder before walking to a raised stone planter. Kneeling, he reached into it and lifted a handful of dirt, sifting it through his fingers. “Sonhadra.” He swept his other arm in a wide arc, indicating everything, and repeated the word.

  “The planet,” she said. “The planet’s name is Sonhadra.” She’d never heard of it before, but that didn’t mean anything. If her kind knew about this place, they undoubtedly had a different name for it. Sonhadra was likely farther from Earth than she could imagine. There wouldn’t be a rescue; what did Earth care about a space station full of convicts?

  She gestured to the larger monument. “And this one?”

  Orishok stood up, brushing the dirt from his palm. “Kelsharn. The one who made us, and took our ediya stones.”

  Quinn tilted her head. “Is this...him?”

  “No. I would like it to be.”

  “Why? To know that he is also dead?”

  “Yes. All of this,” he raised h
is arms and gestured at everything again; the square, the statues, the city, “is because of him. I would like to know he is dead, and that Sonhadra will not have him.”

  Quinn understood how he felt; the rage, pain, and helplessness that laced his voice were familiar to her.

  She walked to one of the nearby valos and lightly ran her fingers over its shoulder. “What happened? Why are they like this while you’re...still alive?”

  “When he made us what we are, he used the stones to dakaran us.”

  “Dakaran?”

  “To...say to us what to do. Do you know my words?”

  She knew his words, and didn’t like what they implied. If Kelsharn had used their stones against them, Orishok — along with all his people — had been slaves.

  “Controlled,” she said softly. “He controlled you.”

  “If you say, Quinn.” He stared at the broken monument, eyes blazing, utterly still save for the movement of his lips. “The stones are us. Our...hearts.”

  That was ediya — heart. “Heartstone.”

  “With no heartstones, my people kalinidakel to the death onin.” With the last word, he tapped both hands against his chest; inside or within.

  “How are you the only one left?”

  “I am the nukanahl. The one who must stay, until Sonhadra takes them back.”

  The one who must stay, until Sonhadra takes them back.

  The valos were stone; their bodies wouldn’t decompose and return to the earth. It would take centuries — millennia — for them to erode away into dust, especially without vegetation to speed the process. She glanced around the square; there were many more stone planters arranged throughout, all of them filled with dirt, but none held even the remains of a plant. On Earth, vegetation would reclaim an abandoned city within a few years.

  But Bahmet wasn’t a dead city. It was a city of death.

  “How long have you been alone, Orishok?”

  He tilted his head down and closed his eyes. “At least one hundred and fifty winters. More, I think. It is hard to know.”

  “And no one else comes here?”

  “There are other valos made by Kelsharn’s people, but they do not come here. Nothing comes here.”

  “Except me.”

  “ONLY QUINN.” ORISHOK lifted his head and glanced at her. She looked out of place here, and not simply because her pale coloring was at odds with the dark, imposing stone of the city, not simply because she was unlike any creature he’d ever seen. Quinn was apart from this place because she was wholly, unquestionably alive, despite the death-scent that lingered with her.

  Did she know death had marked her? Did she somehow walk in both worlds at once? He didn’t think he quite had the words to ask, though he longed to know.

  Quinn approached him. “I could stay here.”

  Logic told him this place was still too dangerous, insisted he send her away; he knew he would not.

  “I don’t have anywhere else to go. I don’t even know if anyone else is alive. But...I could stay here. With you.” She brought her hands together and met his gaze, stopping just outside his reach. “Quinn and Orishok.”

  His heartstone warmed, and heat coursed throughout his body. Vigil over the dead was meant to be a lonely duty; it was a trial endured to honor fallen kin, to pay respect and display loyalty to the tribe. Quinn was an outsider, an other, just as Kelsharn had been...

  Despite what his people had suffered in accepting Kelsharn’s early friendship, Orishok could not deny his desire for Quinn’s companionship. She was pleasant, vibrant, intriguing...and she’d been the one to restore his heartstone.

  “Bahmet is yours,” he said.

  Quinn smiled. “If it’s my city, why don’t you show me uh rownd?”

  “You...want to see Bahmet?”

  “Yes.”

  “As you say, Quinn. Come.”

  Orishok led her from the square, refusing to contemplate the tangle of emotions in his chest. They were too complex to face. The way she’d said Quinn and Orishok, the gesture she’d made, the patches of smooth, soft skin visible through her tattered clothing...

  Did her kind come together as male and female?

  Best not to think on such things.

  He was changed now; mating had been a part of his old life. His stirrings of desire for Quinn were result of the memories embedded in his heartstone, and nothing more. Still, as they walked, he found it a constant struggle to keep from looking over his shoulder just to get a glimpse of her.

  Perhaps he could take action to help curtail those urges. It would be beneficial to them both — less of her skin exposed meant less temptation for him and more protection from the cold for her, an element to which she seemed particularly susceptible. He turned down a narrow side street, following it toward the large, unadorned building tucked behind the taller residences.

  No one had been inside since before Orishok was alone. His people had struggled, for a long time, to reclaim something of their old lives, and this place had been central to those attempts...but such hope hadn’t been long-lived. Without heartstones, they had little will to reshape their existences. Had Kelsharn known what would come to pass?

  If so, it hadn’t made a difference.

  Despite the weight of many years that had settled upon the building, its doors slid aside silently when Orishok pressed the panel on the outside wall. The interior was dark; he could recognize that, though his eyes weren’t hindered by it as they had been in his old life. He stiffened when Quinn’s warm hand settled on his back.

  “I can’t see past the glow of your eyes,” she said.

  He turned his attention forward and did his best to ignore the feel of her touch. Part of him recoiled, still fearful that it was her doom. Even if she was resistant to the effects of contact with Orishok, it was possible she’d still be harmed by it. What if it took her days, instead of hours, to die?

  But...what if she was immune?

  No. Such thoughts are a danger to us both.

  He led her down a corridor and into the main space of the building. Kelsharn had had a word for it, but Orishok’s people never grasped it fully; their native tongue had no translation.

  At their entry, the light posts within flickered, struggling to spark to life. Only a few managed.

  The chamber was large, cast now in the weak, golden glow of the few functional posts. They shed illumination upon some of the many workstations. There were still spools of fabric arranged at most, some linked to unfinished garments, blankets, and curtains.

  Quinn stepped around Orishok, fingertips brushing over his side, and approached one of the tables. Silently, she reached forward and ran her hand over the dark blue fabric wound around one of the spools.

  “It’s so sawft.” She turned her head and smiled at Orishok.

  “I do not know sawft, Quinn.”

  Her smile widened. “I am sawft. You are hard.”

  Orishok returned her smile. He had wondered, too often, what her body felt like. He’d only the briefest of contact with it — her upper arms, specifically — and it hadn’t been enough to know for sure.

  “What is this place?” she asked, wandering further into the room.

  “It was a place of making. Not for making valos. To make things for Kelsharn’s people, who were to come.”

  She scowled back at him. “So, everything all of you did was for him and his people? What about yours?”

  “He made us this.” He spread his arms and looked down at his body, at the segmented, armored plates into which he was still shaped. “To him, this was better. This was reason to be thankful to him and to obey. His people would rule Sonhadra, but they would allow us to exist here, too, if we served.”

  Quinn looked away, but not before he saw her frown. She fingered the unfinished garment. “He was hor uh bull. You were his slayvz. It’s not right what he did to you. To all of you.”

  “It is done, and cannot be changed. But we are here now, Quinn. Bahmet is yours.”


  She looked at him again, and her face lit up.

  “Come.” Orishok gestured for her to follow as he walked deeper into the chamber, moving from one island of lamplight to the next. He halted about halfway across the space, where large, seemingly-solid stone blocks — each nearly as tall as he — stood in neat rows.

  “Touch there,” he said, pointing to a spot on one of the blocks.

  She glanced at him and did as he instructed. The front of the block opened in sections, sliding to either side from the center, each portion disappearing neatly behind the next. The lights within flickered and pulsed, uncertain of their own functionality, before finally stabilizing to cast a soft, white glow on the clothing that hung inside.

  “This is yours, Quinn.”

  She gasped. “All of it?”

  “All you want.”

  She reached in and brushed her fingers over the delicate-looking fabric, moving from one garment to the next. There was an array of colors, more than Orishok had seen in some time; the orange of sunrise and red of sunset, the blue of the open sky, the varied greens of windblown grass, the purple of twilight. Colors he had not seen — or simply hadn’t noticed — before Quinn.

  “They are beautiful.” She lifted a green skirt and ran her hand down its length. Her hand stilled abruptly, and she released the fabric, stepping back. Looking down, she picked at her tattered clothing. “I’m fil thee.”

  He did not know fil thee, but he knew the other word she’d used — beautiful. It meant something was pleasing to the eye, that it looked appealing. That word applied to Quinn rather well.

  She must have seen his lack of understanding in his expression. “I’m covered in dirt and blud,” she said, gesturing to the stains on her clothing. “I don’t want to ruin these.”

  “There is a place you can clean yourself, if that is what you want.”

  “Really?”

  Orishok dipped and lifted his chin a few times; she called it nodding. It meant yes to her people. “Take some you find beautiful and bring them along.”

  She rose on her toes and unraveled the garments from their hangers, laying four of different colors over her arm. Her eyes sparkled with excitement. “Thank you, Orishok.”