“I don’t know. Maybe I’ll come find you. Maybe I’ll try to make people listen.”
“They’ll never listen,” Lock said sleepily from behind me.
“Maybe,” Traz agreed, nodding his head, still determined to leave.
Lock sat next to Elle and patted her on the leg. “Morning, beautiful,” he said as Tor tossed him a meal bar.
“Morning,” she whispered, barely audible but finally speaking.
“Did you eat?” He ripped open the bar’s packaging and crunched half of it off in a huge bite.
“Yes.” She bobbed her head but didn’t look up. Instead, she placed her hand on Lock’s knee.
I understood the silent gesture to mean they were friends, too. Lock, whatever had driven him to Vaughn, was not truly a bad person. He would never hurt me or Elle or anyone else unless he believed he had no choice. Elle being the first accept his apology would ease the way for the rest of us to make peace with what he had done. Her sweet nature opened the door without even the slightest effort.
“It’s time to go,” Tor announced, leaving me with the fire. Behind me, he pulled Lace’s sleeping bag out from under her, dumping her to the ground unceremoniously.
“Hey!” she wailed, sitting up in half-asleep anger only to be met with Tor’s booming laugh.
I turned and saw his beaming smile, his relaxed stance. This was the real Tor—happy. I didn’t care where we went or what we did so long as he kept that smile.
He whistled, and Elgon came running in from wherever he had been standing guard. The mountain hound purred as Tor scratched his head and fed him a meal bar.
“Come on, let’s go,” Lace grunted, running her hands through knotted blond hair.
We repacked the few things we had taken out. I pulled on the boots I’d packed, hoping they would protect my feet from the rocky terrain we planned to hike through. Tor and I each took a bag, leaving Elgon unhindered.
“Are you sure you remember which way you came?” I asked Traz when we stepped out into the late-evening air.
“Pretty sure.” He pointed out over the tree line. In the distance, I could see the camp. The settlement burst from the forest, buildings overshadowing nature. Traz handed the bag he’d been carrying to Lock. “Be careful.”
Elle’s small voice broke from behind us. “Traz, thank you.” Her curls hung limp around her face, and she lacked the shine of her usual glee, but when he pulled her into his arms, she clung to him without tears. “Thank you.”
“We’re going up,” Tor announced, pointing to the rocky wall behind us. “We’ll cross the mountaintop and head straight west. If you leave the camp, go the same direction.”
Traz nodded, pulled Elle into another tight embrace, and then walked away. A part of my heart went with him. My mother, Mintoch, and now Traz. I was losing people before I ever really got to know them, and it all happened so fast. Hardly a week ago I was sitting in the sand at my cove, wishing Tor would return to me.
Traz’s figure retreated into the trees, and soon only my Sualwet senses proved he was there.
Lace rubbed her hands together and tightened the strap of her bag. “All right! Let’s go.”
“Do you have to be so enthusiastic?” Lock grumbled with a grin.
“Do you have to be so lazy?”
“Just wait ‘til your body adjusts to not having all those chemicals from the camp fed into it, then you’ll see.”
Lace rolled her eyes and turned to await Tor’s instructions. He took the mantle of leading our group easily. He knew the forest better than anyone, and with Elgon scouting ahead, we navigated from the cave, through the thick woods, and to the rock wall without difficulty. Well, all of us except for Lock, who was out of breath by the time we got there.
“Up, huh?” Lace raised an eyebrow as she inspected the rocks.
“It’s easier than you think,” I encouraged. I took off my boots and stuffed them into my pack. I’d appreciated the protection they offered when walking through the trees, but I needed my senses if I was going to make it up the wall.
Elle stared at my feet, noticing my webbed toes for the first time. “Sweet gods.”
“Yeah, she’s a Fish who’s Matched with a fire starter,” Lace joked, wrapping an arm around her friend. “Lock’s unMatchable and I’m a bitch. I think we all kind of belong together.”
Elle’s eyes traveled up to meet mine, and while I didn’t see the disgust I was raised to expect, questions loomed in her gaze.
“I’ll tell you everything,” I said. “I promise. But right now we need to get as far away from the camp as we can.”
Without waiting for her reply, I placed a foot on the rock wall and vaulted up the steep incline. I grabbed hold of the small rocks jutting out of the wall and pulled myself higher. Soon, the angle evened out and the terrain became manageable. With a glance back, I called down, “It’s not too bad when you get up high!”
One after the other, Lace, Elle, and Lock all pulled themselves up the wall until we sat on the rocky cliff above. Elle’s lithe, small body had allowed her to climb up quickly, and by the time she joined me, a smile graced her face.
“I’ve never done anything like this.” She glowed with accomplishment while peering down at Lace, who struggled to find places to put her feet. Elle’s radiance shone from behind the sadness in her eyes, still there but dimmed.
“It’s fun, huh?” I said.
“Yes.” She sat next to me. “Sera, thank you for what you did for me. Lace and Traz told me it was your idea to run. I know having us along slows you and Tor down, but—”
“I’m glad you’re here.”
“If we get caught, I won’t let them hurt you.” Her declaration was sincere, but we both knew she wouldn’t be able to stop armed Erdlanders like the version of Ash I’d seen in my dream.
Lace crested the wall and lay down next to Elle, panting, her bag thrown haphazardly on the ground. “Jikmae,” she wheezed.
Elle and I both laughed.
Below, Tor called, “I’m coming up, so get ready to keep going.”
Lace moaned as Lock reached the top and joined her on the ground.
I tugged on my pack before poking Lace with my foot. “Get up. He’ll be here faster than you think.”
“Shut up,” she growled before grabbing her pack. “And don’t touch me with your Fishy feet.”
Lace’s form of friendship was starting to grow on me, and I wiggled my toes in the dirt. “Fish maybe, but I’m still doing better on land than you!” I kicked her in the leg and took off running, following the natural path into the woods. I heard her panting behind me but refusing to give up chase.
While weaving beneath the trees, I sensed the river deep beneath the ground, its power reaching out to me and calling me home. Animals darted away as I sprinted, and I lost myself in the motion. The dirt was moist beneath my feet, and trees sang into the forest. Freedom was fresh in the night air.
Moonlight burst between the trees, leading me farther into the wood. Lace still chased me, the others following farther back. As I stepped into the open field, a familiar sound greeted me.
Voices filled the air, breaking in waves over me as I fought to control my own thoughts. The song from the melodisk was nothing compared to the overwhelming power I experienced hearing it in person. Each note drew me in, tried to subdue my mind, and overtake my will. Voices swam together, igniting the air with an irresistible draw. I pulled and struggled to escape the melody’s hold on me.
Lace broke through the tree line and stopped mid-stride as the music worked its insidious power on her mind. She inched forward one jerky step at a time, drawn toward the unseen call. Her eyes glazed over with the same hypnotic trance I’d seen in Pod Thirty-four.
“No!” I shouted, breaking the sound’s hold on me.
I lunged toward Lace and tackled her to the ground. She didn’t struggle when I started dragging her listless, limp form out of the open. Her body was heavy, so I shrugged off my bag, reducing the
weight I had to carry so I could focus on hauling her as far from the music as possible. I had to warn the others!
The farther I dragged her, the more animated she became, and a look of bewilderment replaced her vacant stare. As I settled her against a tree, something sparked behind me.
Tor!
He streamed past me, running into the field at full speed, leaving nothing but a growl in his wake.
I chased him, unable to match his pace but keeping him within sight. He surged into the trees on the other side of the field and headed straight toward the nearest cliff—the one we’d planned to climb. A stream cascaded over the rocks into a spring below. At its base, Tor ran through a wall of water, a waterfall glinting in the sunlight. The voices nearly overwhelmed me here. They bore down on my consciousness with a tangible weight, demanding my submission.
Focusing on Tor, I chased him into unknown danger and left the others to defend themselves. I burst through the waterfall, soaked, but kept running. My webbed toes gripped the wet stone floor. The cave around me was black except for the shimmer of flames far in the distance.
Tor....
The music from the field deafened in such close confines. Shrill notes reverberated against the cave walls, creating harmonies within themselves, surrounding me with power. I felt the draw of the music and wanted to give in, to let it wash over me, seep through me, and dominate my mind—but I couldn’t. Something was wrong with all of this.
Ahead the light flickered and disappeared. I ran faster. Darkness didn’t scare me. The rush of water from the waterfall still echoed behind me, and with my heightened senses, I could make out the curve of the tunnel. My feet navigated the path without faltering. At a sharp turn I flung myself around it, hoping to see Tor. Instead, a thick and heavy blackness greeted me. My eyes couldn’t pierce it, so I opened my mind and searched for the sound the sound of him.
I found nothing ahead, even with my Sualwet senses. The music somehow formed a solid mass impenetrable to sight or sound. My pace slowed, but I continued through the darkness. Tor had come this way. He was here, he had to be. I would find him. I couldn’t lose him now, after everything we’d been through....
With careful steps I pressed through the heavy, warm darkness, its presence weighing me down with an almost liquid force. But unlike in water, I was unwelcome here. This darkness wanted me to submit to the music, to become mindless like Lace in the field. Gritting my teeth, I dug my fingernails into my palms as I pushed through. The pain kept me centered on the present, my heart focused on Tor.
I turned again and again, weaving through the darkened maze until the song reached a crescendo and I broke through the black nothingness. In the distance, a warm light flickered. Again, I raced toward the flames. They grew brighter and brighter as I neared, and fear raced through my veins.
The next bend opened into a cavern. A cascade of lava formed one wall, the molten, orange flow radiating heat as it oozed into a pit in the cave floor. When I skidded to a halt, sharp stone and rocks grinding into my bare feet. I cringed at the pain but ignored it, refusing the focus on anything but Tor.
He stood before me, his hair hanging down his back like ropes. He faced two tall women, their skin black like the cave’s depths. They towered above me, almost as tall as Tor, with bald heads and unsmiling faces. Their crossed battle staffs blocked anyone tempted to approach the lava.
Bare from the waist up, the women had ebony skin that shone in the firelight. Each one had no hair anywhere—not on their heads or even eyebrows. White skirts flowed over their hips, tumbling in waves to the ground. The contrast against their dark flesh was striking. Bare-chested and ferocious, they stared at Tor as they sang.
“A’aihea,” I whispered, knowing that we had found these mysterious people at last.
Neither Tor nor the women acknowledged my presence, so I crept forward, careful to be as silent as possible.
“Tor.” I placed a hand on his arm, hoping to break the spell he was under. He twitched at the contact but didn’t pull away or look at me. It was as if his body registered the touch but not his soul.
“Tor, look at me,” I begged, hoping to pull him out of the trance.
His eyes retained that lost, hypnotized look.
Why was I the only one who could resist their song?
The singing rose in pitch, and the women stepped apart, eyes still locked on him. After pulling their bladed staffs aside, the cave wall pulsed in waves of fiery colors. Red and orange sparks burst from the lava, creating the illusion that the magma itself was undulating with life.
“Tor! Please!” I screamed, not caring what these women did. I grabbed his cheeks and forced him to face me.
He looked straight through me, his eyes ablaze with flames. He was lost.
“We have to go.” I pulled on his arm, his face—anything to get him to move. Frantic, I punched him in the arm and screamed, but he merely turned back to the cave wall.
“What are you doing to him?” I shrieked, squaring off against the A’aihea women. If I couldn’t get him to break their spell, I would have to break it for him.
The women only smiled and stopped singing. Heads bowed, they stood like statues as the lava bubbled and rolled, taking on density and mass. From its fiery depths emerged a figure. For a moment the being appeared to be liquid, still pulsing with the flow of lava, but soon a woman’s frame solidified.
The flames snuffed out with a whoosh, leaving us in a cloud of smoke and ash. A muscular woman with skin almost as white as mine stood stark naked between the sentries. Taller than the others, she matched Tor’s height. Her smile looked almost predatory.
“A’ai thouah,” she cooed, her voice deep.
“A’ai heyah,” Tor replied.
My head snapped in his direction. The enthralled fire in his eyes had gone out, and his stance relaxed—no longer the rigid frame of a man entranced. Now he looked like the Tor I loved so dearly.
“Tor!” I rushed to his side and reached out to him. “We have to leave here. This isn’t right.”
As I placed my hand on his chest, he stepped forward, ignoring me.
The woman’s skin turned from white to tan, the color deepening as her body cooled. I felt like my mind would shatter as her changing skin and lazy, seductive smile entranced me.
“Who are you? Are you A’aihea?” I demanded, hurrying over next to Tor. This was my place, by his side. He might be bewitched, but I wasn’t going to sit by while they brainwashed him.
“Ahh, the Fish speaks the city man’s tongue.” The naked woman spoke with a strange accent, elongating all of the vowels like taffy in her mouth.
“What are you doing to him?” I demanded, forgetting to be afraid despite the towering presence of the three A’aihea women.
“We do nothing. He has come home. We sing to bring the lost home, and now he has returned. We have spared your friends, but you must go.” She turned away, and the sentry nearest me stepped forward and grabbed my arm.
“A’ai thouah,” the lovely woman addressed Tor again.
He stood still, captivated by her as the sentry dragged me away.
“Tor! Please!” I pleaded, but the sentry yanked me away before I could touch him again.
The nude A’aihea spoke to Tor in a language I couldn’t comprehend. That dangerous, seductive smile still curled her lips, and she offered him her hand. When they touched, their hands sparked to life, wreathed in fire. These truly were Tor’s people.
“No!” I screamed.
The blaze from their hands ignited the length of his arm and spread across Tor’s entire body, filling the cave with an unbearable heat. I stumbled against the sentry pulling at me, who stood impassionate with one hand gripping my arm, the other clutching her staff.
Tor turned his head and looked my direction for the first time since we’d arrived. His face was aflame, but I could still see his blue eyes. Sparks lit them, but there was no recognition in their depths.
“I love you,” I sobbed, tears
trapped behind my membranes. If I let them fall, I feared I would wash away with the tears, until there was nothing left of me but a desiccated husk.
A glint of recognition flashed in Tor’s eyes, and hope cracked inside my heart. Maybe, just maybe, he would realize what was happening.
But the recognition faded as flames encompassed him, pulling him into their embrace, leaving me with nothing but the memory of his features.
38
Tor was gone.
He’d walked into the fire without so much as a glance back. I know he saw me, despite the fire burning within his eyes and the spell of the singing. I knew Tor was there—if only for a single moment—and he left anyway.
Wishful thinking would get me nowhere—he was gone. He’d left me standing in the darkness, abandoned. In all my years of solitude, I’d never felt more profoundly isolated than I did at that moment. Sound left my ears, air left my lungs, and I was utterly alone. The finality of his departure resounded in my empty heart.
Time began again, unwilling to allow me even a moment of reprieve. Heat filled the space as liquid magma flowed down the far wall. Colors danced and moved together, spilling from one to the next. Yellows and reds blurred, and nothing remained still for even a moment.
And Tor was gone.
The poison of my heartbreak spread through my system. It wrenched through me, twisting my soul, and I sought some kind of answer to the questions I didn’t dare ask aloud. How could he do it? How could he leave if he loved me the way I loved him?
The sentry broke my stupor, pressing the tip of her spear against my side. Tor was gone. I didn’t care what she did, and I would bleed until there was nothing left, but I would not move. Not without him, not without some kind of answer.
“Go,” she growled as her spearhead ripped my shirt.
“Not without him,” I replied.
The flame that had once been Tor danced before me, and I allowed its rhythmic pulse to dull my senses and hypnotize me. I would’ve given anything to simply not feel. What would happen if I walked into it after him?
A strong hand gripped my upper arm and pulled me back toward tunnel. This A’aihea woman was taller than me, and her dark skin bulged with muscle. There was no point fighting her, and as my world collapsed around me, I had no desire to try.
Two Moons of Sera Page 24
