by Ford, Lizzy
“No.”
It was his turn to raise his eyebrows.
“Turi has a communicator. You can send Mansr word about Gage and bringing the people back.”
It took every bit of A’Ran’s self control not to admit he hated the idea more than anything else she’d said. But the reminder they had little time, either to save Gage or his lifemate, left him with little choice. He had no way to find Mansr or even know if his uncle was still on the planet.
“Very well,” he managed.
Kiera flashed him a grin. “I love you. I know that was hard.”
He growled in response. She hugged him briefly before waving to the strange creature that was already headed towards the door. “Come on! We have to find Turi! We’re going to save Anshan together!”
He watched her hurry to the door. The image of her dying was in his head, rubbing his emotions raw, making his mind work furiously to discover a way to save her and Anshan both without losing the entirety of the Anshan population. He sought some story his parents or Mansr had shared, some tale of the past to guide him.
Evacuating thousands of Yirkin and bringing in his people was going to take time Kiera didn’t seem to think they had. The palace was the center of Anshan civilization for a reason, chosen many thousands of cycles before by his ancestors. The throne room was part of an ancient tradition he barely recalled.
The ground beneath his feet quaked suddenly, and he dropped to one knee to keep from falling outright. A crack formed in the stone floor of the chamber. It raced to one wall and up, severing a painting in two. The trembling stopped, but his gaze lingered on the splash of green along the wall. The image depicted was that of the hill overlooking the palace nestled between the foothills and lower mountains of the towering range.
A’Ran crossed to it, his instincts humming, his heart hammering. The planet was suffering. He had less time than either of them knew.
The familiar painting on the wall filled him with familiar yearning. One of his last memories of peace was sitting with his mother and sisters on the hill. He had looked out over the palace and the bustling city at its feet and fantasized about the day when he’d become an honorable, respected dhjan like his father. The sacred area where only the ruler and his family visited had always resonated with Anshan’s energy. He felt it even as a child and knew one day, he would experience so much more as the ruler of his people.
He had never thought about why the hill was off limits to mining, but it was said only Anshan royalty were permitted to visit the sacred place. His hasty coronation ceremony had been on the hill, like those of his forefathers as far back as he knew.
If he went there now, what would he find? A hill of green grass? A hole where it used to be?
Instincts kept him alive in battle, but he was less certain about the sense he had now, the one urging him to visit a place of memories when he had no time to reminisce. Anshan’s energy trail was concentrated around the image, but no part of him was able to logically explain why or how such a place held any significance beyond the memories of a better time of his life.
Yet his planet, his home, wanted him to go. Whether this was its dying final request or he’d find a way to save Anshan, he wasn’t able to refuse.
“Kiera,” he said quietly. “We need to go somewhere else first.”
He turned to face her. His breath caught in his throat.
Kiera was lying on the floor, the animal standing over her and nudging her with its long snout.
A’Ran rushed to her and knelt, cursing his injured body for making it hard to hold his lifemate.
“Kiera,” he breathed the word.
Her eyes fluttered open, and she smiled. “Not sure what happened.” She pushed herself up, expression pensive.
“Are you hurt?” He ran his good hand down one side of her face and searched her body visibly for blood or wounds.
“No.” She took his hand and nuzzled it. “I think something’s really wrong, A’Ran.”
Coldness shot through him again.
“Whatever’s happening to Anshan is getting worse.”
A’Ran sat, frozen in indecision and rare fear, debating what to do. “Can you walk?” he asked at last.
She nodded and rose, wobbled, and caught her balance.
“How do you feel?”
“I … don’t know. I don’t feel right,” she said, frowning. Tears lined her eyes again. She swiped them away and looked up at him. “A’Ran, I’m scared.”
Her whisper hurt worse than every injury he had ever suffered combined.
The ground beneath them trembled once more. Kiera clung to him, and he held her against him tightly, torn between the feeling he needed to see the hill and the urgency of finding Turi to warn Mansr.
He sensed without knowing for certain he didn’t have time for both. “I know the underground tunnels better than you do. I’ll-”
“A’Ran! I don’t want to be left here alone like –”
“Stop, my sweet Kiera,” he said gently. “You need to go somewhere else while I’m gone.”
Her objection died on her lips, and she waited for him to finish.
He gazed at her tenderly, every cell of his body praying this wasn’t the last time he held his lifemate. “Tell the creature to take you to the hill behind the palace,” he said. “Something is there. I don’t know what, but Anshan wants us there.”
“And you’ll go to Turi?” Her expression turned skeptical. “You won’t kill him?”
A’Ran gave a rare smile. “Not this time.”
She rolled her eyes, some of her spark returning. “You have to hurry. So does Mansr. I can feel whatever is happening.” She motioned to the stone flooring.
“The hill isn’t far,” he said.
She gave him a long look before rising up on her tiptoes to kiss him. “Don’t be gone long, my A’Ran.”
“Never,” he breathed again and rested his forehead against hers. “Nothing will keep me from your arms, my brave, beautiful Kiera.”
She grinned, though he saw the flash of sadness and fear in her gaze as well. With reluctance, he withdrew from her warmth and calming scent and left.
A’Ran didn’t care how much he hurt. He was concerned only with saving the life of his lifemate, even if it meant negotiating with the people who tried to steal his planet and slaughter his people.
Chapter Twelve
Kiera gazed up at A’Ran’s roughly hewn, noble features, admiring his strength. His movement was slower than she was accustomed to, and white lined the skin beneath his eyes. His left arm was limp across his chest. She almost asked if he was all right but stopped herself, knowing the warriors of Anshan regarded concern for their physical conditions as a personal affront. She slid her hand into his and squeezed, happy to have her lifemate with her on the final leg of their journey to save the planet.
“Go. We’ll be together soon,” she told him with as much cheerfulness as she could muster.
A’Ran hesitated, as if he wanted to say more, before he started away.
Knowing A’Ran had changed since they met didn’t fully prepare Kiera to appreciate how much. The mischievous part of her loved to see how far he’d come, but her humor was soon swallowed by the realization the planet was losing its fight to survive. He disappeared around the corner and she resisted the urge to scream for him to return, to stay with her.
The primal quake within her mirrored the trembling planet in the throes of death and left her weakened, terrified and wanting nothing more than A’Ran’s arms around her when the worst came.
“Keep it together, Kiera,” she murmured and wiped way more tears. “We have to save the world.” She almost laughed but found herself starting to cry instead. Jamming distance between her emotions and her new mission, she began walking. “Hey, bear, can you take me to the hill?” she called to the beast.
It plodded along, heading left down the corridor once it left the throne room.
She dwelt on it, the bewildering, unsettling aw
areness of Anshan. She hadn’t felt this strongly how connected the planet was before. The deeper they went into the palace, the more intense the presence became, as if Anshan were walking beside her, bringing with it all the despair and urgency of one struggling to live.
The emotions threatened to overwhelm her, and Kiera found herself pausing too often, crippled by fear that wasn’t hers. The bear prodded her when she froze up, and she refocused on the world outside her head.
At long last, they left the palace. Her protective bubble formed around her at once, and she was dismayed not to be able to see in front of her once more. The storms continued to rage, the renewal of their howling and dust scaring her even more.
A’Ran was right. How did they bring hundreds of thousands of people back to the surface without killing everyone in the process? If the ships made it to the surface, did A’Ran have enough exoskeletons to protect everyone?
Realizing she’d stopped to stare at the storm raging around her, Kiera hurried forward before the bear disappeared from view. It led her up a rocky hill and through a shallow valley whose exit was blocked by rubble and boulders. The bear turned its attention to the steep hill running to her right. The slope left her gaping.
“You’re serious?” she asked the bear paused beside her.
The earth trembled once more. Kiera caught herself against the bear. As before, the quake started beneath her feet before it tore through her. The sensation of being ripped in two left her gasping and aching, and she hugged the bear to keep from falling. Shaking as much as the ground, she waited for the worst to pass and looked anew at the hill.
Anshan was in crisis, and she wasn’t going to withstand the tremors much longer if she and A’Ran didn’t hurry. Trusting her lifemate and the bear, Kiera focused on scaling the slope.
The presence of Anshan clung to her, and she found herself talking to it without knowing if the planet was able to understand her or not.
“Almost there. Reminds me of the one time I tried rock climbing,” she said, grunting with effort. “There’s a reason I never …” She stopped, another shudder running through the ground and her. They were growing in intensity and frequency. This one left her breathless and clinging to the side of the hill, her vision blurred from the shared sense of desperation.
When she had recovered enough to climb once more, Kiera began making her way upwards without seeing the top of the hill. Her frame shook with effort and exhaustion, mixed with the side effects of the quakes ripping Anshan apart from the inside out.
“Hang in there. I’m almost wherever I’m going,” she murmured. Her hand slipped, and she gasped. Her own strength was ebbing. She concentrated hard on the area before her, trying not to think of how they were going to save the planet this late in the game.
With some relief, she reached the top of the hill before another tremor hit. Kiera hauled herself to the plateau on the other side and lay still, horrified by the sensations of the quakes working through her body. She knew she was connected to Anshan, but feeling it inside her was absolutely terrifying.
The tremor stopped. She lay still for another moment, unable to recover fully from any of the quakes. They were eating away at her strength a little more with each one, to the point she wanted a nap.
Grass tickled her ear, and she sat up instead. The storms soared overhead, as if the entire acre-sized area of grass before her was sheltered by the same bubble protecting her. The top of the hill appeared as if no storm had ever touched it. A small pond was at its center.
The bear wasn’t anywhere in sight, but someone else was.
Kiera’s heart slowed, and her breath hitched, as she stared at the figure before her.
“You’re real,” she breathed finally. “Like really real.”
The form before her nodded. Neither male nor female, with no face and six arms like everything else on its planet, it resembled a human – yet distinctly not. It had initially scared her in her dream, but in person, the form Anshan took was slight and emitted a peaceful calm like sitting beside a lake.
“You’re hurting,” Kiera added sadly and approached the form the same size as her. “How do we fix this?”
No response.
“Can you talk?”
It shook its head.
“Okay. Are we on the right path? Bringing the people back?”
The figure nodded.
“And you sent the bear to find me?”
Another nod.
Kiera looked around. The sense of peace filled the small part of Anshan that hadn’t been destroyed. “What is this place?” She felt the answer without the figure moving. It was the last part of Anshan that hadn’t been lost, the place where the planet’s spirit was trying to make its last stand.
And it was tiny compared to the planet at least twice the mass of Earth. Even as she watched, the grass was receding slowly, inch by inch from the edges.
Kiera knelt and placed her hands on the ground. A ripple went through the area around her, and the recession stopped. Mushroom-sized trees sprang up near by and grew as she watched them.
The figure knelt beside her and placed all six palms on the ground. Another ripple spread through the grass, this one smaller, weaker. It didn’t make it to the edges of the greenery.
“I’m so sorry,” Kiera whispered. “I had no idea you needed me so much. Needed us. A’Ran will bring everyone back, but the air is poisonous to everyone else. Can you fix this?”
The creature leaned back on its haunches, its faceless head bowing in what she took to be resignation.
Kiera kept her hands pressed to the ground, aware of how quickly the jungle had sprung up beneath her touch. “You saw or um … felt or whatever the jungle, right?”
The figure nodded.
“Maybe we can expand this area so there’s more room for people to come back.”
The figure stood abruptly and strode to the edge of the green space.
“Or not,” Kiera murmured and climbed to her feet. She limped, stretched her knee, then joined the figure.
It pointed towards the palace.
“You think it’s better there?” Kiera asked. “There’s no ground really.” She glanced at her feet. “Just … oh. People can stay inside the palace while the plants take over and push back the storm.”
The figure nodded.
“You know where to go?”
It took her hand in two of its, and she flinched at the reminder of how many arms it had. The figure’s palms were slightly waxy and cool, like the topside of leaves. It held up her hand and squeezed.
“So don’t let go, right?” she asked.
It nodded.
“It’s a tricky path down.” Kiera peeked over the edge of the hill. “Might be rough.” Grass had begun to spread down the side of the hill. She sat on her bottom and swung her legs over, hoping to scoot down.
The figure followed her lead. They began inching down the hill, at least, until she slipped. Kiera tumbled down the hill, clenching the hand of the planet’s representative hard. They landed in a tangled heap onto the floor of the valley.
“Oh, god!” Kiera cried when she’d caught her breath. Pain radiated through her body from new and old scratches, bruises and tears. She crawled to her knees and glanced at the figure.
It appeared in the same shape she was. Its skin had torn in a few spots, and it bled the same color green as the grass. But it was alive and it climbed to its feet.
A quake made both of them clutch one another. If having two hands holding her was odd, having six arms wrapped around her was unnerving. Kiera clung to it, feeling the tremors pass from the planet through her and into the faceless figure.
“They’re … they’re getting worse,” she whispered. The quakes rattled her teeth and left her feeling lightheaded. This time, they didn’t completely leave. The earth, and her insides, quivered incessantly. “Way worse. We have to go. Now.”
She stumbled away, accompanied by the figure, and ran down the valley as fast as her aching body le
t her. When they reached the door leading into the palace, she opened it with a touch and then paused.
The figure moved ahead of her, intimately familiar with every part of the planet in a way Kiera doubted she’d ever be, even if she spent her life there. She was pulled through hallways of differing widths and heights, through hidden doors between empty chambers, and up a stairwell that ended on the roof level, which consisted of expansive gardens and courtyards long since dead and formed the landing area for an upper level of the palace carved out of the rock of the lower mountains.
The figure stopped walking in the center of the gardens and knelt, placing five of its palms on the ground. Kiera sat beside it, grimacing at the renewed pain in her knee. She took the hand of the figure and placed it on her ankle instead.
“I don’t have enough hands and you have too many,” she joked weakly.
The figure was focused on the ground. Already, grass was starting to peek out around its hands. Kiera focused on the earth as well, and grass sprang up and outward even faster than before, covering the ground of the courtyard where they sat and scaling the walls.
“This might work,” Kiera said, startled and pleased by the speed. Hurry, A’Ran, she added silently.
Chapter Thirteen
The longer he stayed in the palace, the more he remembered. A’Ran took only a couple of wrong turns before finding his way back to the entrance to the underground tunnel system running beneath the palace and throughout the mountain range. The walkways became noticeably narrower as he descended beneath the surface, the air staler. He recognized the river from his youth and also knew where Mansr was supposed to have landed. If their navigation had guessed correctly, the distance would take him several hours to cross.
He stopped when he reached the river. He vaguely recalled how to cross it; he had done so as a child. Floating stone beds bumped against the walkways, awaiting their next passenger.
He strode onto one and waited. The stone shifted away from the boardwalk and floated to the center of the river.
