by R. R. Banks
Pyra straightened and Bannack could see the darkness and anger roll over his eyes.
"How have you allowed us to not know what's beyond our compound? The unknown is what made the Klimnu such a brutal force, and what almost allowed them to defeat us. The entire planet is unknown to us. What if there are other creatures who know that we are here and want to come after us?"
"There has never been a threat, Pyra," Creia said sternly, speaking to his son with the tone of both a father and a king.
"Every threat comes after a time when there has been no threat."
Pyra seemed to be fighting to control himself. The anger was building inside him with such force it was visible. Eden reached out a hand and rested it on her mate's arm, looking at him with eyes that pled for him to stay calm.
"Are you questioning my choices as king?" Creia asked, the tone of his voice like a warning.
"I am questioning your decision, as someone who has been the primary focus of the violence and strategic attacks of the Klimnu, to pretend that there couldn't be other threats existing outside the compound. You say that our people have battled creatures from other planets. Why have we been so quick to wage war against species that come from other places in the galaxy, when we don't know anything about the species that live right on our own planet?"
There were several long, tense seconds and the look on Creia's face went from anger to regret.
"I wanted to do as all of the leaders before me have done, and I wanted to do what I thought was right for my people and my family. Staying in and near the compound meant staying safe. If we stayed here, we didn't cause trouble with the others that inhabit the planet. To me, that seemed to reduce the chances that we would be in danger."
"But we are warriors. We are known around the galaxy for that."
"Just because we can go to war, Pyra, doesn't mean that we always have to. I didn't want to watch my children face any dangers that they didn't have to."
Pyra looked at Eden and then back at Creia.
"I am going to have a child of my own soon. I don't want that child born into a world that I don't understand. I have heard about the threat of the Klimnu my entire life. They have been looking for you for as long as I know. They're gone now, but how do I protect my child if I don't even know what I should be protecting him from?"
The mention of his grandchild, the first of the new generation, seemed to change something in Creia. He looked at Eden with painful softness in his eyes. She carried the hope of the future of their kind, and in that moment Bannack could see Creia shift. He couldn't let anything happen to that baby, and that meant finding out what threats could be lurking just outside the compound.
"Start with the mirror world," Creia said, his voice returning to his usual strong, steady tone, "Find out what you can about it. Find out if there are any species that live there, and then report back here. We will decide what to do about the rest of the planet from there."
Without another word, the warriors stood and started toward the door. Zuri, Samira, and Elianna followed closely behind, determined to return to where they had joined in the battle alongside their mates. Eden stayed behind, knowing that Pyra would never allow her to do something as dangerous as wander into an unknown area that had already claimed the life of one of their warriors when she was as far into her pregnancy as she was, and Leia stayed to be with her.
The warriors knew that they would not be able to get down the tunnel in the cave, so they would have to go down into the mirror realm in the same way that they did before the battle. They walked through the compound toward the forest in silence. Bannack could feel the tension among them and knew that they felt the same way that he did. None of them wanted to go back to the site of the battle so soon.
When they got to the forest, Bannack watched as Ero and Pyra pulled away the layers of moss that covered the holes leading down into the mirror realm beneath the compound. Moving slowly and carefully, they climbed down one by one. Bannack followed Pyra, grabbing onto one of the dangling vines as soon as he got deep enough. He wrapped the vine tightly around his wrist and forearm to secure him, and swung over so that he could grab onto the tree.
He concentrated on each of his movements, going slowly and carefully to keep himself from tumbling down toward the bright blue reflection of the sky that looked even more like water rippling across the ground of the massive cavern. Bannack looked up and watched the rest of the warriors make their way down the trees. The human women were last, coming down even more gradually than their warriors due to their smaller size. The warriors watched them intently, ready to catch them if they stumbled. Once they made it all the way down, they gripped onto their mates, holding them closely both to keep themselves steady on the branches that stretched out across the sky and to gain strength and comfort from their presence.
As Bannack looked around, he felt the fury and aggression that had eased slightly roar back into full intensity. His stomach clenched and he felt a strange pressure building throughout his pelvis and down his thighs. He struggled against the feeling, fighting to focus on what Pyra was saying even though his voice seemed to be coming through fog at him. Bannack tightened his grip around the vines, hoping that the pain of the thick plant cutting into his palm would turn his focus from the feelings building inside him. Around him the warriors were strategizing about how to safely and effectively explore the cavern, but all Bannack could think about was the intense, almost irresistible pull he felt toward the back corner.
Chapter Five
I sank as deeply down into the shadows as I could while still being able to see the Denynso and the women I assumed to be the human females that had joined their tribe. The fear coursed through me so powerfully that I felt like I couldn't catch my breath and I struggled to hold myself silent as I watched them. I had, of course, seen them before. They had been there only the day before when they had descended from the moss and struck down the pale, disgusting creatures that had been crawling through my home for many months.
I didn't think that any of them noticed that I was there. Just like during the battle, I stayed out of sight, keeping completely to myself so that they didn't know that I even existed. That was the way that I liked it, the way that it had been for several years since the rest of my kind succumbed to an illness so severe that it burned through our families in a matter of days and killed everyone that it touched. I had no idea why it spared me. There have been many times when I wished that it hadn't. It would have been much simpler to let it take me as it had everyone that I knew and loved. Instead, it left me with the memory of youngest sister disappearing into the sky as I let her slip through my fingers.
The creatures that live on the ground above me have never known that we were here. My grandmother once told me that our kind didn't always live in this cavern. We once lived where the Denynso have settled, but a brutal war with another species and a plague that threatened our very existence drove us down into the cavern, a space that the wisest and most powerful of our species living then transformed into a reflection of the land above, the land that our clan loved so deeply. They had no way of knowing that the plague followed us down. It would be many generations before it struck again, but when it did it did so with a vengeance and only I was left behind.
Now I was more alone than I could ever imagine that a person could be. I was not just the last of my kind, the last of my family and friends. I was the last of a species that had been out of sight for so long that no other species on the planet even remembered that we existed. If anything, I was a myth and a legend.
I could see the men clutching their vines tightly as they scanned the reflection of the sky that covered all of the floor of the cavern that they could see. They all emanated fear and uncertainty, emotions that none of them were accustomed to feeling, and that none of them wanted to admit to the others. They all hated to feel as though there was something that they didn't understand so close to a space that they only knew as their own. The human women were more difficult
for me to decipher. Unlike the warriors, who presented themselves as cold as stone on their exteriors but in fact presented their thoughts and feelings quite readily, the women held themselves closer, protecting themselves with their own internal forces so that I had to concentrate intently on each of them to be able to see what they were experiencing inside.
Many times I had heard the legends of the Denynso warriors and their incredible might, both on the battlefield and with their mates. It was said that these massive, forceful men fought with more intensity, skill, aggression, and determination than any other creature that had ever existed among the stars, but when they found their mate, they could be tamed as quickly as a pet. The warriors went through a difficult change when they neared their mate, struggling with their anger, primal force, and arousal until their mate soothed them. The blazing heat of their skin kept all but their intended partner away from them, and once they bonded, it was permanent. I had been told that these partners shared a very special gift that enabled them to communicate with each other through their minds even when they were far apart.
I often wished that my abilities were like that. I didn't read the minds of those I saw. Instead, I looked into them and reflected back to them the essence of who they were; their thoughts, their feelings, and their struggles. Now I was struggling myself, trying to grip what the human women were experiencing as they watched the warriors slowly and carefully extricate themselves from the vines and start to make their way out onto the branches that snaked and intersected across the sky. It was those branches that were perhaps the most brilliant element of the creation of that ancestor of our kind. He designed the cavern so that it reflected the space our species knew as its home so that we could always remember what the land looked like, but with that design came protection.
Those that made their way down into our cavern would see the branches and walk out onto them, thinking that they could make their way across the entirety of the cavern. The branches would only go so far, though, and just like the ones on the ground above, some were weak and could snap in an instant, sending whoever stood upon it tumbling into the unknown beyond the sky. There had been very few who had ventured down to the cavern in recent generations, and none in my lifetime until the Klimnu appeared. When they did, it was the first time that I had been truly thankful for the illness that had taken everyone else. Their deaths had been fast, and though it left me alone, I would have much preferred that to watching my family and loved ones go through the horrors I could only imagine those creatures would have inflicted on us if they had found our colony thriving.
As I watched them, one of the men caught my attention. He was not the largest of the group and he, like the others, were definitely under the control and guidance of the tremendous one that now stepped out onto one of the biggest branches and hunched down to stabilize himself as he made his way out a few feet over the sky. There was something about him, though, that made me not want to turn away. His hair was stark white like the hair of the rest of the warriors, but unlike them, who wore their hair in high, spiky mohawks, his was tightly braided down his back and tied with a stretch of dark fabric. I remembered seeing him in the battle the night before. He had been much the same then, exuding an energy that was wild, unchained, and volatile despite being contained within his quiet exterior.
He looked up in my direction and for a brief moment I thought that he might be able to see me. I sank back further into the shadows and watched him narrow his eyes, the energy within him send out aggressive, powerful waves that drew me in even more. Part of me wanted to reach out to them, to tell them about the cavern and unveil its secrets, but the other part was so frightened and unsure of them that I couldn't move from my spot.
The man I had been watching stepped forward onto one of the branches and my heart tightened. I knew that he had chosen one of the weaker branches and the further he stepped, the more likely he was to fall. Keeping my eyes focused on him, I crept out from behind the low hill where I had been hiding. I lifted my hand to my chest as I made my way quickly, but as quietly as I could, toward the very edge of the bank where the land on this side of the cavern would flow into the sky. They couldn't see me where I was standing. They thought that the sky filled the entire space. Knowing that made me feel more secure, but even if they had suspected that there was something beyond the gradually darkening sky, I wouldn't have stopped.
The man took another step and I heard the low creak of the wood. The growing darkness of the sky was making it more difficult for him to differentiate between the branch and the sky, and he took another step onto one of the smaller outshoots of the branch. He stumbled and I heard a gasp rise out of the human women. One of the warriors started toward him, but I acted first. I tore my necklace from my neck, opening the compact in my hand and thrusting it forward. As the reflection of the stone wall across from me came into view on the bottom portion of the mirrored compact I stepped forward into the sky.
Chapter Six
Bannack heard the sickening sound before he felt the branch beneath his feet crack. Pyra yelled behind him and he heard the women scream. For just a moment the world slowed down and a wave of peace washed over him as if everything around him had gone quiet and calm, and his body could release. Maybe this is what Jem had felt in those seconds before he jumped.
An instant later he felt his body fall forward and he knew that he was going to drop into the sky and discover whatever existed beyond. The branch disappeared from beneath his feet and he felt his body straighten, but it didn't drift downward. Instead, there was a brief moment of falling before he hit something hard and solid. It was as though he had tripped and landed on the hard packed earth and stone of the cliffs, only harder. The impact took the breath out of him, but he didn't feel any pain. He lay still, waiting for something, anything to happen.
Chaos broke around him as the other warriors ran toward him and scooped him up, dragging him back toward the trees before he could even get his feet beneath him. The women were talking so quickly that he couldn’t understand any of the words that they were saying. His mind was reeling. He was aware that he hadn't fallen into the sky like he had expected to even though the branch had broken beneath him, but he had no idea what had actually happened. Suddenly he noticed a faint, pearlescent glow across the cavern. His eyes locked on it and he felt the muscles of his stomach clench. His pants tightened painfully and a wave of confusion rolled over him.
Bannack released the vine he was gripping and took a step toward the edge of the trees again, wanting to get closer to the glow. When it didn't fade or disappear, he took another step toward it. He felt Pyra's hand grab the back of his tunic and try to pull him back, but he lifted his hand to wave him away. He didn't need to be rescued. He wanted to be near the glow and whatever was making it. Though he knew he was only inches away from the edge of the sky, he believe he would be fine when he stepped forward. There was no fear as he lifted his foot away from the trunk and stepped out into the darkness.
His foot again hit solid ground rather than the sky and the confidence built inside him. The validation of that first step propelled him forward and he took another. He could hear Pyra and the other warriors protesting behind him, but the human women argued with their mates, telling them not to follow him. Bannack didn't care whether they followed or not. He continued to walk toward the glow, knowing each time he took a step that the solid ground would be there to meet his feet. As he walked the glow grew brighter and more intense, and soon he realized that there was a figure within the light.
"Hello?" he called out softly as he approached.
There was no response, but he continued forward still. The figure became more defined as he got closer and he realized that it was not actually within the glow but behind it. It seemed to move away from him, but he wasn't worried. He took another step, allowing the slowly retreating glow to lead him forward toward the other side of the cavern. After a few more steps he felt the texture of the ground beneath him change from hard and s
olid to slightly softer and more resilient. As soon as his feet touched that surface, the bright glow disappeared and out of the corner of his eye he could see the floor behind him go from solid and dark back to a sky awash with stars and a vibrant full moon.
Bannack turned his attention back to where the glow had been and found a woman standing in front of him. The figure that had been standing behind the glow, she was emanating her own very soft light that didn't seem to be coming from within her, but off of her. She wore a long white dress that gently skimmed the lines of her body and stopped with a band across her chest so the soft upper swells of her breasts and her smooth, elegant shoulders were bare. Ties down the front of the dress held it just in place, making the dress and what lie beneath even more intriguing. Pale silver hair flowed to her knees and the eyes that stared back at him from a face so breathtakingly beautiful it didn't seem real, her eyes were a clear, hypnotic lavender. She closely resembled the human women, but it was obvious that she wasn't.
Without a word, she held out one slim, graceful hand and Bannack took it, resting his hand on top so that she could curl her fingers around his coarser skin and draw him closer to her. The nearer he got to her, the more intense the feelings that he had as soon as he stepped into the cavern became, only he was no longer feeling anger or aggression when he was near her. Instead, he felt a sense of power and calm, while the tension through his body seemed to only increase.
"Hello," he said, wanting to make more of a connection with the beautiful creature standing so quietly and calmly in front of him.
"Hello," she replied and her voice was like the delicate, dancing sound of raindrops hitting glass. "Are you alright?"
