by Unknown
Chris waved her hand. “This is Emily Allen. She was on the same Romarie ship with me, but she landed in Ursidrean territory.” She turned to Emily. “This is Carmen. She’s Renier’s mate.”
Carmen shook Emily’s limp hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. You must know my friend Aria.”
Emily nodded. “I….She’s been very kind to me.”
“We raced here because we thought your factions were going to war again,” Chris told Carmen.
Carmen shook her head, but she couldn’t stop smiling. “When Renier received Donen’s message, we couldn’t wait to come. This is the greatest day in our lives. We’ve wanted peace between our factions, and now we have it.”
Donen let go of Renier’s shirt. “We can’t afford to fight anymore. We owe it to our people and to the coming generations to work together.”
Renier nodded. “There’s so much to do to rebuild our planet. War costs too much in lives and resources destroyed that could be put to better use.”
“I’m ashamed of my faction,” Donen told him. “We were stupid to invade you in the first place. You had every right to kill me when you had the chance.”
Renier laughed a great booming laugh. “If I had, we would have no hope of peace ever again. Our factions would have fought until they were both destroyed. You know that.”
Donen nodded. “I have four sons, and I’m training them all to respect peace and work toward harmony with the other factions. It’s the only way we can survive.”
Faruk watched them with wondering eyes. “They already know. Everybody already knows.”
“Is it possible our factions can live in peace and harmony?” Emily asked. “Is it really possible?”
“We don’t want anything else,” Carmen told her. “We’ve never wanted anything else.”
“We all do,” Turk added.
Emily waved toward Donen and Renier. “Go to them, Turk. Negotiate with them on behalf of the Lycaon. You’re Caleb’s twin brother. You’re as much an Alpha as he is. If the Lycaon, the Felsite, and the Ursidreans make peace here today, that’s three factions united. We can use that bond to spread peace to the rest of Angondra.”
Turk eyed Renier and Donen in close conversation. Then he nodded and stepped forward. The others dwarfed him, but he approached them with no fear, and they welcomed him into their conversation. The three men bent their heads together in earnest.
Emily looked on with a pattering heart. She could laugh and cry and sing all at once at the sight. This moment meant more to her than watching a battle of mutual destruction. Carmen smiled and turned once more to Chris. “How have you been since I saw you last?”
“I’m very well,” Chris replied. “I’ve been living in the forest with Turk, and now we’re moving back to his home village so I can have my baby near his family.”
Carmen gave her a hug. “Congratulations.”
“How about you?” Chris asked. “How are you doing?”
“I’m not pregnant yet,” Carmen replied. “But with the war and all Renier’s responsibilities, that’s no surprise.”
Chris frowned. “Why not?”
“The Felsite can control their own reproduction,” Carmen replied. “Both sexes can consciously determine when they become reproductively viable. Can you imagine that? Either partner can stop a mating from producing offspring.”
Chris’s eyes popped open. “Really?”
Carmen laughed. “Pretty convenient, isn’t it? I wish I’d known about this back on Earth.” She became serious again. “Don’t get me wrong. Renier wants children as much as anybody and he doesn’t consciously prevent it. But something in his body stops it from happening because he’s so preoccupied with his duties as Alpha.”
Chris nodded. “That makes sense. Turk says he wouldn’t want to be Alpha for anything.”
Emily pointed toward the men with her chin. “He could be Alpha before you know it, the way he’s going.”
The longer they talked, the more animated the men became. “What do you suppose they’re talking about?” Faruk asked.
At that moment, Donen signaled Faruk to join them. Emily touched his arm. “It looks like you’re about to find out.”
Chapter 16
The men separated, and Faruk and Turk started back to where Emily and Chris talked with Carmen. Carmen moved back toward the Felsite column. “I better go. It was really good to see you again.”
“When will we see you again?” Chris asked.
Carmen smiled and held out her hand, but at that moment, her foot rolled off a stone in the river bed. She splashed into the water and she almost pitched over backwards. She put out her hands to steady herself, but at the same moment, a spout of water spurted out of the river and sent a shower of spray over the group.
Emily brought up her hands in front of her face, but before she could close her eyes, she stared in disbelief at a line of shadowy figures rising from the foam. They rode the wave out of the shallow water and stood dripping in front of the stunned onlookers.
Donen, Renier, and Turk stared at them in amazement, too. Inky black covered them from head to foot, and water ran down their bodies. Two bright eyes shone out of every face, but Emily couldn’t make out any arms or legs or other body parts.
The water receded into its bed. Emily stared at the creatures’ feet. There wasn’t enough water in that bed for a tadpole to hide in, much less a full-sized……whatever they were. They materialized out of the spray and took their full shapes on land.
Then, in front of her eyes, the black covering their bodies melted away and disappeared into the water, too. Underneath, perfectly formed bodies appeared with two arms, two legs, two ears, and eyes, nose, and mouth in the middle of their faces. A web of skin connected their fingers and their bare toes, and their skin shimmered with iridescent scales, but other than that, anybody could tell they came from the same breed as the other Angondrans.
One of them stepped out of the water and examined the three women with his head on one side. He blinked the water out of his eyes. Thick ropes of hair hung down his back. He turned to the four men still standing stock still some distance up the river bed. He bowed. “We meet again, Alpha Renier.”
Renier stiffened. “What brings you here, Fritz?”
Fritz studied the other Alphas. “Rumors of war bring me here, Alpha Renier. Rumors of war bring me here.”
“Our factions were at war,” Renier told him. “But we aren’t now. We come here to discuss peace between our factions.”
Fritz blinked again. His voice piped high and echoed down the canyon. “Peace, is it? Peace!”
Turk bared his teeth. “Is that so hard for you to believe? The Aqinas never profited much by peace.”
Fritz cocked his head the other way. “The Aqinas desire peace more than any other faction. We have done more to promote peace than anyone. You know that, Alpha Rufus.”
Turk let out a menacing growl, and the hair stood up on the back of his neck. “I am not Rufus. I’m Turk, Rufus’ son, and you won’t jerk me or my brother around ever again. We know the Aqinas and their tricks. You’re surprised we would meet here to negotiate peace without consulting you, and now you know why. We won’t have the Aqinas undermining the peace we’ve won here today.”
Faruk laid a hand on his arm. “Let him look. That’s all he can do. Let him look and see us united. Then let him go back to his water hole and leave us alone.”
Fritz smiled. It was an innocent smile, but it didn’t soften the tension. If anything, it made it worse. “I would never undermine your peace. No, never. The Aqinas want peace. That’s all we’ve ever wanted.”
Turk snorted and turned away. “Yeah, right.”
Donen said something under his breath to Turk.
Fritz waved his hand at the line of Aqinas behind him. They didn’t move from the river bed, but kept their bare feet in contact with the water at all times. Chris muttered softly to the others so no one else heard. “What do they communicate to each other throug
h the water?”
In answer to her words, Fritz turned toward the women. “I come to seek you and your kind. I come to communicate with you.”
Chris frowned. “What could you have to say to us?”
He waved toward his companions, and for the first time, Emily noticed one figure that stood noticeably shorter than the rest. The same ropey hair and the shimmering skin made the figure blend in with the crowd, but the longer they looked at it, the more they noticed it wasn’t like the rest at all.
The figure stepped out of line and up onto dry land. It blinked the way Fritz did, but something in its face made Emily start back. It wasn’t Aqinas at all. It was human, and its hips curved too much to be male. Its shoulders were slender and shapely, and its hair was twisted into thick strands rather than individual solid ropes like the others. It was a woman.
She moved toward the group, and Emily took a step back. The strange woman stopped and regarded them with a blank stare. She scanned their faces one by one before she stopped in front of Chris. “I came to speak to you.”
Chris stared at her with her mouth open. Then she gasped out loud. “Sasha!”
Emily and Carmen exchanged glances, but Chris rushed toward the strange woman and took hold of both her shoulders. She didn’t hug the woman, but she stopped just short of doing it. “Do you know this woman, Chris?”
Chris didn’t turn around. She gazed into Sasha’s face in amazement. “I only met her once, but I thought she was dead. What happened to you, Sasha?”
Sasha looked around. The Aqinas stood perfectly motionless in the water behind her. Only Fritz showed any sign of listening to their conversation. “I thought I was dead. I don’t remember exactly what happened…..”
“The Romarie strangled you,” Chris told her. “It happened right in front of me. One of them was crushed by a piece of debris from the crash. Do you remember the crash?”
Sasha blinked. “The crash….”
Chris nodded. “You told me all about the Romarie, but I didn’t believe you until you showed me one of them in the wreckage. You told me not to go too close to it, but when the Lycaon appeared to help us, you got distracted and it grabbed you. Don’t you remember?”
Sasha looked around. “I don’t remember that.”
“What’s the last thing you do remember?” Chris asked.
Sasha hesitated. “It was raining.”
“It rained the night you were killed…..” She paused. “I mean, after you were strangled. I checked your pulse, but you must not have been dead. You don’t know how upset I was to lose you.”
Sasha stared at her, but she didn’t react. It was Fritz who explained. “She washed into the river in the rain. That’s where we found her.”
Chris frowned. “I don’t understand how a woman’s body could wash into a river in the rain, but it doesn’t matter. You’re alive. I still can’t believe it.”
Emily moved forward. “Are you coming back with us? Is that why you’ve come?”
“I’m not coming back with you,” Sasha replied. “My home is with the Aqinas. Fritz….” She waved over her shoulder.
Chris nodded. “I understand. I guess the Aqinas Alpha has a human mate just like the others.”
Sasha smiled for the first time. “You can’t understand how comfortable and warm it is with the Aqinas. It’s so comfortable and warm…..”
Chris and Emily glanced at each other. “What else can you tell us about the Aqinas?”
“There are no questions there,” Sasha told them. “There’s no fear or wondering, and everyone embraces you in a warm, loving embrace. I never felt anything like it before on Earth.”
Chris sighed. “I’m glad you’re happy there. Is that what you came to tell us?”
Sasha shook her head, but Fritz spoke up again. “There is another.”
“Another what?” Chris asked.
“Another human woman,” Fritz replied. “She came to us four days ago.”
“How did she come to you?” Emily asked. “Did she fall out of the Romarie ship like I did?”
“She came through the river, like Sasha,” he replied. “I don’t know how she got into the water, but we found her at the mouth of the Borlass River.” He waved his hand toward the south.”
Faruk frowned. “The Borlass River? That’s more than five hundred miles from here.”
Fritz shrugged. “It is nothing for the river. This woman is known to you, and she cannot rest until her people know where she is. She dreams every day and every night that her people are frightened something happened to her. She wants them to know she is safe.”
A shudder passed through Emily’s being. “What does the woman look like?”
He held his hand up to his chest. “She stands about this tall. She has small hair, like this, around her head in small black curls.”
“Frieda!” Emily cried. “Where is she? Is she safe? Is she all right?”
Fritz nodded and smiled. “I see you are her people. She sent us here to tell you she is safe and happy. She is with us.”
Emily took a few steps toward him, but Chris held her back. “When can we get her back? If she’s worried day and night, we should get her back.”
He shook his head. “She is only worried for you. She worries you will worry about her. She is safe, and she will stay with us in the water.”
Emily narrowed her eyes at him. “How do I know she really wants to stay with you?”
“We wouldn’t keep her if she didn’t want to stay,” Fritz replied. “As Sasha said, it’s a very warm and comfortable place in the water with the Aqinas. Anyone would want to stay.”
Chris squeezed her arm. “I think we can believe him. The Aqinas are Angondrans like the other factions. They value hospitality and care of strangers. They wouldn’t keep Frieda against her will.”
“How did she get five hundred miles away from here then?” Emily asked.
“The Borlass River flows through Avitras territory all the way down to the sea,” Faruk told her. “It has its delta in the heart of Aqinas territory. If Frieda fell from that balcony into the river, or into any of its tributaries, she could have washed out to Aqinas territory in the water.”
Sasha nodded, and Fritz smiled, but Emily wasn’t satisfied. “How can I see my sister for myself if I want to hear this from her?”
“You are always welcome to come to our territory to see her.” Fritz waved his hand over the company. “Any of you would be welcome.”
Turk growled under his breath again. Chris turned to Emily. “What do you say? Do you want to go see her?”
Emily shook her head. “Not now. Another time maybe.”
Chris nodded and took Sasha’s hand. “Are you sure you don’t want to come with us? There are other human women in our factions. You wouldn’t have to be alone with the Aqinas.”
Sasha shook her head, but her eyes already drifted back toward Fritz and the river. “No one is alone among the Aqinas. Everyone knows your thoughts and feelings, and everyone loves you with a pure open love. It’s nothing like the way people live outside the water.”
Chris let her go and turned away. “I guess no one can understand it who hasn’t experienced it for themselves.”
Sasha nodded and took a step back. Her feet touched the water, and the faint light of human comprehension evaporated from her face. She took her place in the line of Aqinas and became part of them again. Chris’s shoulders slumped, and she and Emily moved away from the water.
The black stain rippled out of the water to envelope the Aqinas, and in another moment, they vanished into the foaming turbulence of the river.
Chapter 17
The Ursidrean column crossed the rocky steppes leading back to their own territory. Chris paused on the ridge and laid her hand on Emily’s arm. “This is where we separate.”
Emily stopped. “Do you have to go?”
Chris nodded. “This is the last place we can turn off to enter our own territory, and we’ve been gone too long already. If
we wait much longer, I won’t be able to travel at all.”
Emily squeezed her hand. “I wish you didn’t have to go. These weeks we’ve spent together have been so precious to me. You can’t imagine….” She broke off.
Chris gazed into her eyes. “I feel the same way. You don’t know how grateful I am to you for bringing us out here.”
Emily glanced around. “Really? I don’t know why you’re grateful for me dragging you away from your family to stop a war that was never going to start.”
Chris shook her head. “If you hadn’t, our factions wouldn’t be talking peace right now. Because of you, we’ll spend the next hundred years working together to make Angondra a better place for everyone. I know Turk is grateful, too.”
Emily tried to laugh, but she had to swallow the lump in her throat just to talk. “He says he doesn’t want to be Alpha, but now he’s on his way home to take over the negotiations. He’ll be more Alpha than Caleb.”
Chris smiled. “That’s why he’s grateful. He always thought he was happy by himself in the mountains—with me, I mean. But now he has a new sense of purpose. He has more hope for our future, and he’s inspired to lead our people into a new era of peace. I’ve never seen him like this before. He’s a different person.”
“What about you?” Emily asked. “Are you going to be happy in the village, being the Alpha’s wife?”
“I’ll have Marissa to commiserate with,” Chris replied. “And I’ll have the rest of my family, too. It’s you I’m worried about.”
“Me? Why?” Emily asked.
“You’re going back to Harbeiz,” Chris replied. “Faruk will be just as mixed up in politics as Donen. Donen is making him his right-hand man renegotiating the borders between the three factions. You might not see much of him, and he was always unhappy in the city. He loved the mountains as much as Turk loved the forest.”
“He may not have liked the city much,” Emily agreed, “but his heart was always on the border. Now the border means something different. It doesn’t mean war and conflict and destruction. It means cooperation and friendship. Faruk is as excited about the future as the rest of us.” She laughed. “I’m as excited about the future as the rest of us, too.”
