by R. R. Banks
"Good morning, everyone."
The deep sound of King Creia's voice brought the attention of everyone in the hall toward the platform where the king and his queen, Theia, stood. They looked out over the clan gathered in the meeting hall with the fondness and pride of parents overlooking their children. Several of the warriors were, in fact, their children, but even those who were not theirs by blood were adored by the kind and caring king and queen.
"This morning is very special for all of us, Creia continued. Today is the first day of a time of discovery that will change the future for every one of us. Through their selflessness, courage, and determination, our warriors and healer will do what no other Denynso has ever been able to do; learn what exists beyond our compound boundaries and what it means for our clan. The journey may be long and difficult, but I have absolute faith and confidence in each one of them that they will be successful and make us all even more proud of them, and of our kind, than we already are. I want each of them to know that our thoughts are with them and that we will all be eagerly awaiting their return. For now, everyone enjoy breakfast and spend some time together. They depart in one hour."
Creia nodded and stepped back, walking down off of the platform with Theia so that they could go to their nearby table and eat. The meeting hall cooks had placed trays overflowing with food into the centers of the long tables and everyone was starting to eat, but Bannack didn't have much of an appetite. He was too busy regretting everything that he had done and said in the first day that he knew Loralia. Though she had forgiven him without question, he felt like he was never going to be able to let go of those lost moments with her.
"Don't hate yourself, Bannack," Loralia said.
Though she couldn't read his thoughts the way that the other mates could read the thoughts of their Denynso men, Loralia was able to perceive the feelings and emotions of the people around her, making it possible for her to always know what he was going through.
"I lost so much time with you."
"It was only a day, Bannack, and every moment that you suffer with that is another moment that you are taking from us. Stop thinking about what has already happened and can never be redone, and think about what has yet to happen and what could be. I love you. Nothing is going to change that."
"I love you, too," Bannack said, leaning forward to kiss her.
As she gazed back at him he realized that everything she had said she meant with her whole heart. For the first time, he let himself let go of what had happened and gave himself over completely to the powerful, consuming love that he felt for her.
Chapter Seven
The compound felt eerily quiet without the men. Loralia and the human women stood in the center of the compound long after the warriors had marched out of sight, disappearing into the darkness of the forest that bordered that edge of the compound. The Denynso women and the monarchs had walked away, returning to their daily activities, within just a few moments of the last man marching out of sight, but the humans and Loralia couldn't seem to pull themselves away from where they stood. These had been the spots where they were standing when their mates had given them their final kisses goodbye and stroked their faces, imparting their warmth and expressing their love even without words. They didn't want to move and break the beautiful, precious space they had created with their men.
Finally Samira sighed.
"I don’t think that standing here is going to make any difference, guys. They aren't coming back today."
There was a brief pause and then the rest of the women started laughing, happily breaking the painful tension that they had all been feeling. They needed that moment, that first second that forced them to have a thought that wasn't their mates' voices and the touch of their skin. None of them wanted to do it. They all would much rather continue feeling their men close to them, but they had no idea how long it would be before the men would be back and if they didn’t push themselves out of that frame of mind, they would all just allow themselves to waste away. They knew that they wouldn't be able to get through this on their own. It would take the strength of all of them to support each other and take care of the compound while their mates were gone.
"Loralia," Eden said and Loralia turned to her, "I haven't had a chance to tell you that I'm really happy that things worked out for you and Bannack."
"Thank you, Eden."
"I am, too," Zuri offered, "I heard what happened between you two and I wanted to tell you that you aren't alone."
"What do you mean?"
"I know it can feel like him being resistant to accepting you as his mate was him rejecting you, and that that can be really hurtful. I just don't want you to think that things were so easy for the rest of us."
Loralia looked at each of the women. She wasn't sure how to feel about the conversation. She had just that morning told Bannack that he needed to let go of what had happened between them at the beginning of their relationship and let them move forward into the future together, but at the same time she found it comforting to hear that these women had also coped with challenges when they were finding their way with their mates in the Denynso compound.
"It wasn't?"
"We should have told you that when we first came to see you that first night you were on the compound. It probably would have made things much easier for you," Zuri said, "The truth is that finding a mate is something that the Denynso men look forward to their entire lives, but it can be a really scary and uncomfortable experience for them. They can get really violent and aggressive, even more so than usual, and they feel like they can't get their minds straight. That's really hard for all of them, but sometimes they have a lot of their own issues to work through, too."
"I wasn't exactly the most pleasant person in the world, especially to Pyra, and basically told him that I didn't like him and didn't want anything to do with him," said Eden, giving a short laugh and looking down at her hand stroking across her belly.
"I was a virgin who was terrified of Ciyrs and had a really difficult time trusting him," Elianna offered, "and when I was kidnapped by the Klimnu, he had to deal with knowing that I was being tortured and not being able to find me."
"I had been held by the Klimnu for almost two months and tortured, and was in a coma when they brought me back to the compound," Leia said, her voice sounding strong even though it was still difficult for her to talk about her ordeal in the prison, "Gyyx spent days with me and he finally had to…" she hesitated, "excite me to get me to wake up. Even then he was terrified to touch me because I'm so small and he didn't want to hurt me."
"Ty resisted how he felt about me as hard as he could because he thought I was too young for him. I came here with Zuri when she came back to Uoria and Ty was my guide and protector. I had to force him to acknowledge that we were meant to be together."
Loralia nodded, appreciating how these women were opening up to her and feeling more confident in her new place in the compound. She turned to Zuri, the final woman in the group to tell her story. Zuri looked slightly startled as if she had forgotten that she hadn't told about her early days with her mate.
"Oh," she said, "Ero thought I was fat."
The women laughed and together they started walking back toward the houses. Loralia was processing the connection that she was feeling to these women, trying to remember what it was like to have friends to spend time with and people to rely on. She had spent so much time alone that she was finding it harder than she would have imagined just relaxing in their company and enjoying having the friendship. She knew it would take time for her to really feel like she was a part of them, but she had already begun to feel a strong loyalty to the Denynso and was looking forward to spending more time with these women.
Chapter Eight
The acrid smell of the burned building still lingered in the air even though it had been weeks since the fire had burned the Klimnu prison to the ground. An impending storm threatening the sky had made the air feel wet and heavy, seeming to magnify the strong smell of the burn
ed prison.
The Denynso men trudged toward the prison, all of them feeling reluctant to go back to this far corner of the compound, a site that held so many horrific memories for all of them. This had been the site of a brutal battle with the Klimnu, a clash that started when one of the creatures came into the compound disguised as Pyra and kidnapped Elianna, holding her in the prison and torturing her because they knew that her pain would radiate out to her mate, luring the rest of the Denynso to the prison so that they could attack.
The Klimnu hadn't been prepared for the fury that the warriors held that night, or the power and intensity that their actions had inspired in their healer, Ciyrs. Between the two of them, Ciyrs and Elianna had laid waste to more of the slimy creatures than a few of the warriors combined. They had hoped that it would be the end of the conflict, but, of course, it wasn't. Now as they stood only a few yards away from the black, sooty remnants of the prison, each lost in their own thoughts, it was as if they were walking into that battle again.
Bannack felt his muscles tightening as if preparing him in case he needed to attack. Around him the raindrops started to fall, cooling his skin but increasing the solemn, eerie feeling around the prison.
"Come on," he said, starting to walk toward the rubble again, "we're almost to the boundary of the compound."
They all walked toward the prison, going at an angle so that they walked around the perimeter.
"Wait," Pyra said suddenly, "What's that?"
Bannack followed the direction where he was pointing. He saw that the several rainstorms that had occurred over the weeks since their battle with the Klimnu had washed away enough of the ashes to reveal what looked like the edges of a trapdoor in the foundation. Pyra climbed into the remnants of the prison and toward the trapdoor. Bannack followed, watching carefully where he stepped to avoid stepping on something that might injure him if it suddenly gave way, broke, or splintered upwards.
By the time he had gotten to the edge of the trapdoor, Pyra was already on his knees digging with his fingers around the edge.
"Help me," he grunted.
Bannack reached forward to pull on the edge of the door. The heat from the fire seemed to have melted some of the metal, but after a few minutes of pulling, the weakened door broke and the two warriors were able to toss the pieces of door away. They stared down into what looked like a black abyss. It was so dark that they couldn't see the ground and there was no way of determining how far the fall would be between the door and the floor.
"Does anyone have a light?" Pyra asked.
Ty reached into his bag and withdrew a stick loaded with a solar power cell. Bannack took it and activated it so that it sent a wash of light down into the hole. Even with the light there wasn’t anything to see. Pyra took his bag off of his shoulders and handed it to Bannack, then jumped down through the trapdoor.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Ero yelled, dropping to his knees beside the open trapdoor and staring down into the darkness.
Bannack swept the light back and forth until it fell on Pyra, crouched on a dark stone floor at least twenty feet down.
"It's a trapdoor," Pyra said, "It had to be close enough to the floor to let people actually get down here. Come on. Jump down."
Bannack went first, followed close by Ero. They stepped out of the way so that most of the other warriors could follow. A few had pulled out their own lights and soon there was enough illumination that they were able to see they were in some kind of dungeon.
"Well, it was close enough that we could get down, but that doesn't make any sense for the Klimnu. They're not anywhere near as big as we are. How would they get down here without breaking themselves?"
Pyra gazed up at the open trapdoor like he was pondering what Ty had just asked.
"I'm not sure. Anyway, let's look around. I didn't even know this place was here when we were here."
The group split off so that they could explore the dungeon more efficiently, breaking up so that everyone had a light with them. They had been exploring the dark, damp hallways for nearly an hour when Ty discovered a door on an otherwise blank wall. Unlike the other doors that looked like they had once belonged to cells, this door was solid. He stepped back and directed a hard kick into the middle of the door, causing it to splinter.
Pushing aside the broken pieces of door, Ty stepped inside the small room and shined his light around. It looked like an office; a large desk on one wall, rows of bookshelves on another, and the back corner filled with what looked like stacks of drawers. Ty approached the drawers cautiously and pulled one open. It was filled with folders of documents and he pulled several out so that he could spread them across the surface of the desk.
"Hey, Pyra," he yelled a few minutes later after going through a few pages of the documents he had found in the folders.
Pyra stepped into the room and shined the light he had borrowed from another warrior after giving Ty back his on the desk.
"What did you find?"
"What do you know about this prison?" Ty asked, flipping through the fragile, aged pages of a book that looked ancient in his hands.
"Not much. I didn't even know it was here until the Klimnu attacked. I'm guessing that they built it so long ago that no one remembers it."
"I don't think they built it at all."
"What do you mean?"
"Look at this."
Pyra came around the side of the desk and Ty turned the book to show him what he was reading.
"Holy shit."
"I know."
"What's going on?" Ero asked, coming into the small room.
"This prison wasn't built by the Klimnu," Pyra told him.
"What do you mean?"
"Ty just found all of these books and papers. It looks like the Klimnu were just about as gracious with this prison as they were with the realm under the compound. Apparently this prison has been here for hundreds of years, which means that it was built before the Denynso were living on the compound."
"How could we not know that?"
"I don't know. Creia said that our kind has never made contact with other species except in battle. If it was there when the Denynso settled the compound, they either didn't notice it, or the species that built it was already gone by the time they came."
"How is that even possible?" Ero asked.
"I don't know."
"Look at this."
Pyra had pulled another, smaller book out from the stack of papers that Ty had taken out of the drawer and held it open to the other warriors. It looked almost like a military log, but was more extensive, like the person keeping it was both tracking the events and journaling about them as his way to express his thoughts and emotions.
"This says that the species that built this prison built it during a war with another species that they had been in conflict with for years. They used this prison to hold people who they captured during battle, but the other species found out and infiltrated the prison, freeing all of the captives and killing many of the Covra."
"The Covra?"
"That's what it says. I've never heard of that species before."
"What happened after that battle?"
"This says that the Covra knew that they weren't strong enough to fight off the rest of what they call the Light Ones, so they locked them."
Pyra stopped and looked up at the other men, a confused look on his face.
"Locked them?" Ty asked.
Pyra turned the page and read for a few seconds before looking up at them again.
"It says that the Covra can lock an entire area in place. It's like the whole place is frozen in time. They at once exist and don't. Time passes around them, but it doesn't impact them. They locked the entire kingdom of the Light Ones in that moment and never made any plans to release them."
Pyra met eyes with Ty, and then with Ero.
"What if they're still there?"
Chapter Nine
"What do you mean?" Ero asked.
"There's a
map right here that shows where everything was when this all happened." He pointed at a large area outlined toward the upper corner of the map. "What if the kingdom is still there and the Light Ones are still stuck there, just like they have been since the Covra locked them?"
Silence fell in the room as the three men pondered what Pyra had just said. It was almost unfathomable that what that journal said could be true. After what they had all seen Loralia achieve with her mirrors, they were far more willing to accept that there were things that existed right on their own planet that they didn't understand, and species that could accomplish truly astounding things. The idea that one of these creatures could literally stop time for an entire other species, and that that frozen kingdom could still be persisting in its fully locked state just as it had been for years was too much for any of them to wrap their minds around.
"Pyra?"
The voice of another of the warriors made them all turn to the door to the office. Lynx stood there, leaning into the room with the glow from the light in his hand directed at the floor.
"What is it, Lynx?" Pyra asked.
There really isn't much down here. A bunch of cells. A couple of old chains."
"Tell the men to find a way to get back up out of the trapdoor and gather up outside. Our little adventure here is taking a detour."
"Where are we going?"
"Back in time, it looks like."
Twenty minutes later the men had managed to find a nearly rusted-out metal ladder that looked like it was once attached to the bottom of the trapdoor so it could be used to climb in and out of the dungeon and had gathered right outside in the soft rain. Though the fact that the Klimnu had not actually built the prison originally explained why the structure was built as it was, the existence of the ladder seemed to make the dungeon make more sense.
Pyra gave them a brief overview of what they had found out in the office in the dungeon and told them that they were going to follow that map and see what they could find in the place that marked where the kingdom of the Light Ones at least once stood. Lynx watched him push the stack of papers and books he had carried out of the dungeon into the bag that he had returned to his hip and headed out toward the furthest boundary of the compound, past the wastelands and toward the complete unknown.
