Tor was gone!
Tightening her gasp on my arm, she wrenched me to the side and dragged me from the cave. At first I fought as hard as I could to get away. I tried using my strength against her and twisting away from her grasp, but no matter what I did, she just smirked and gripped me tighter. When I lost feeling in my arm from her viselike hold, the futility of my battle drained all fight from me.
Fear and loneliness weighed me down. My life consisted of nothing but death, both real and figurative. My mother, Tor.... I would never see Mintoch or Traz again. Gods, my mother.... I’d had no time to properly mourn her, to even come to terms with the idea she was gone. Now, her loss, compounded with Tor’s departure, was more than I could bear.
“Go,” the sentry demanded. She thrust me in front of her and prodded my flesh with her spear tip, likely tired of dragging me.
I continued along and lifted the membrane from my eyes so my tears could fall freely at last. I didn’t care if they saw what I was. I was already barefoot. What could they do to me that could compare to the moment Tor stepped forward and took that woman’s hand?
“You’re A’aihea,” I stated.
She shifted her staff to one hand, no longer pointing it toward me.
“Sualwet,” she replied, stepping alongside me and nodding to my feet.
The dark cave didn’t give her pause as she navigated through the black tunnels and around a corner. Ahead, dim light filtered through the waterfall, and the water from when I’d passed through earlier still dampened the ground. It seemed so long ago that I had chased Tor through this dank cavern.
“Yes.” I nodded, too tired to care what she thought.
Instead of impaling me with her spear as I expected, she stopped and faced me. After picking up a string of my wet hair, the sentry cocked her head to the side. “Erdlander.”
“Yes.”
She snorted and left me behind her. I stood for a moment, allowing her to gain some distance. I could turn around, go after Tor, or find another way through the cave.
But he was gone. I had to keep reminding myself that. He’d made the decision to leave me. The idea that he had no control over the A’aihea’s siren song was only a pitiful attempt to shield myself from shattering under the weight of what he’d done. I gasped, and even the air itself seemed determined to leave me. Pain tightened my chest, and I couldn’t breathe.
The sentry pounded her spear shaft on the ground. Ahead, the waterfall churned against the rock, and I longed for the purity of the cool liquid. The sea was so far away; it may as well have never existed at all, if not for the memory of its peaceful embrace. My mother had been right: beyond the cove was nothing but heartbreak and pain.
The waterfall washed over me with a rush of frigid refreshment and, for a moment, I considered just staying still.
Too soon, the other side appeared and I was shoved out into the bright sun with the sharp tip of a spear. The sentry stalked behind me, her body surrounded by a fog of steam.
“Go,” she commanded, pointing to the other side of the clearing where I had left Lace.
With the sun shining above us, I could see her clearly. Dark, smooth skin covered her, and she lacked any hair at all, even eyebrows. On her right arm, a tattooed black band wrapped around her upper arm. Along the length of her bicep, a pattern of triangular scars traced a line all the way up to her neck.
“What are you going to do with us?” I demanded, refusing to take another step. Let her kill me.
Her lips curled into the shape of a smile but there was nothing friendly about it. “Go.”
“No.”
She swung her staff wide and slapped me on the arm with it, knocking me to the side. I stumbled, but caught her gaze, which burned with the same fire I’d seen in Tor’s earlier. After stalking forward, she brought the staff to her side. I ached to scream, but wouldn’t give her the satisfaction.
The moon was high, and fatigue reminded me that I hadn’t eaten anything but a meal bar since she woke up, which seemed a whole lifetime ago.
She growled, and a spark flared in her eyes. “Go.”
“What do you want? I don’t have anything!” I held my hands out, knowing I had no value to her. They had taken Tor, I wasn’t a threat, and I didn’t even have my bag anymore. There wasn’t anything else they could take from me except my life.
“Go to others,” she said. “Others wait.”
Lace...?
“Go.” Her back straightened, her spear at the ready.
When we crossed into the forest, another armed A’aihea woman, tan and glorious, stood over Lock, Lace, and Elle. They sat at the base of a tree while the bare-chested guard glared at me.
My escort shoved me toward them and spoke with her counterpart in hushed tones.
“Are you all right?” I whispered to my friends.
The second sentry greeted me with a growl. She pointed at me, and a spark from her fingertip flew onto my flesh. It fizzled and went out. She raised an eyebrow and stepped forward.
Her strange words danced through the afternoon air, but I didn’t understand a single thing.
The sentry from the cave spoke to the one staring at me and pointing to my feet. Her eyes flashed in recognition at the word Sualwet.
Behind me, Lock whimpered, and I heard Lace’s hand smack against his skin.
“Come,” the first sentry announced, setting the butt of her spear on the ground.
The others stared at me, waiting for their cue. What did they think I could do? I had no more an idea about these people than they did, but I was the only one who had ever lived outside the Erdlander city or camp. To them I must’ve seemed like a great adventurer. In reality I was just a girl with a broken heart.
“Where?” I demanded, standing.
“Come, now.” She turned away from me.
“No.” My voice was small, but I straightened my back and widened my stance. They had taken Tor from me, but I was not going to let them shove us off a cliff somewhere.
My escort turned back; her cruel smile had returned. Black eyes bore straight into me, exposing the depths she was capable of. “Come.”
The second sentry spoke in whispered tones, but a glare from her companion cut her off. She also had a triangular pattern on her arm but no black band.
“Come to village. Others speak Erdlander more.”
The women walked away from us, their intention that we follow, but my companions remained sitting.
“What do we do?” Lock asked, his eyes darting from me to Lace and to the sentries.
“We go with them.” I brushed off my pants and reached out a hand to help him.
“What are they going to do to us? Where’s Tor? What the jikmae happened to Tor?” Lock’s voice rose in pitch as I helped him up.
“We have to get out of here!” Lace scurried to her feet, prepared to square off against the sentries, but she didn’t get the chance to make her move before the sentry who had guided me spoke.
“Erdlanders! Come!”
Fire sparked in the dry air as the two women glared at us.
“We have to go. Come on.” I pulled Elle to her feet and began walking. I could only hope the others would follow and not cause problems until I could figure out what these women wanted from us.
I kept my head high despite the throbbing ache of losing Tor. It burned in my chest, a slow acid working its way through me, consuming me from within.
My initial escort met my eyes with a nod and led the way. The second sentry waited for the others to catch up, prodding them to follow with her spear, and finally took up the rear to ensure none of us tried to escape.
“What the hell, Sera?” Lace hissed. “Where the jikmae were you? Where is Tor?”
“I’ll tell you later.”
“What do you mean ‘later’? There may not be a later. If these A’aihea really are the Devil’s Daughters, they’re going to boil us alive before they eat us. Maybe they’ll keep Lock alive long enough to try breeding him, but then
they’ll throw him off the peak into the sea.”
“That’s not very comforting...,” Lock mumbled.
I turned to glare at Lace, my voice barely audible as I spoke. “Tor went with them. He left. Besides, we don’t have much choice.”
“Oh, my gods,” she raged as anger flushed her features. “Men! Sal and Tor and Lock, they’re all the same! You can’t trust any of them!”
“Shut up, Lace,” I hissed.
Her voice trembled as she snarled at me. “Why aren’t you angry?”
Lace’s instinct was to fight. It was how she coped, but that wasn’t me. Fighting hadn’t helped me get through my mother’s death or the horrible things I saw at the camp, and anger alone wasn’t going to get us out of here. I needed time to think.
But Lace was wrong about one thing. I was angry—angry with Tor, with myself—I just knew acting on that anger would only get us killed.
“We have to find out more before we do anything rash. I survived living at the camp without you ever knowing what I was. Trust me, we need to follow them, get more information, and find out where Tor is.”
“Jikmanae Tor.”
“Yeah, well....” My voice caught, and the tears I’d been swallowing ballooned in my throat, snuffing out my words.
We didn’t follow any clear path or direction I could discern, and instead our route was haphazard. After a few miles, I was lost, unable to imagine where the cave had been. The mountain range loomed in the distance, towering over us despite the heights we had climbed. To make matters worse, my feet bled raw from running through the forest and cave. The ground had sliced into the webbing between a few toes, leaving them torn and tattered.
Every time one of us faltered, the rear sentry would use her spear to remind us this wasn’t a friendly hike through the woods. We trudged forward, bags strapped to sweaty backs, until the sun began to rise.
Our route wound around the first mountain. My ears popped from the altitude, but we never slowed. Soon we were high above sea level. By the time our escort paused along the path, the trees had thinned, and the air had cooled considerably.
She pointed to a rocky path, which scaled the mountainside ahead.
“We have to stop soon,” I reminded her, my exhaustion nothing compared to that of my companions. “The sun will be out soon.”
Lock was out of shape, and Elle and Lace were now two days without whatever medications and stimulants the Erdlanders plied them with. They weren’t going to make it if we kept going at such a pace.
“No,” she replied, her face hard.
“We’re exhausted. We can’t keep walking. Someone will get hurt.”
She shrugged and turned back to the path.
Without warning, Lace loosed a shrill scream and pitched forward. She tackled the A’aihea woman, knocking the staff from her grasp. Lace pulled her fist back to deliver a blow, but the sentry simply laughed instead of fighting back.
“Lace, no!” I shouted.
Too late.
Flames burst from the sentry’s flesh, circling her arms the way I had seen Tor do. Lace’s clothes ignited, disintegrating to ash at the fire’s touch, and she shrieked in terror.
“Stop!” I rushed forward and wrenched Lace away from the woman.
The second sentry kept Elle and Lock away, despite their screams and Elle’s willingness to bleed at the end of the spear. I covered Lace’s body with mine to smother the flames still licking at her form. The scent of charred flesh and melted clothing surrounded me.
When I pulled away, she moaned, unable to move. Her skin was raw, and blisters bloomed all over her exposed flesh. The clothes she had been wearing had burned away, as had most of mine, but I was unharmed.
“A’ai heyah, sha lengna thah!” the second sentry shouted at me, her eyes wide and bright blue. She continued speaking and gesturing at me, her agitation rising as she addressed the woman who’d set my friend on fire.
“Lace?” I said. “Can you hear me?” I placed my hand on her face, and she sighed, leaning into my cool touch.
Her blond hair was burned, most of it gone except for patches of fizzling chaos. While kneeling next to her, I watched her exhale, and her body went limp.
“Lace!”
Her breathing grew shallow, her flesh angry.
“Is she okay?” Elle called from where she and Lock stood. She seemed afraid to move as the second sentry continued her tirade and flung her spear about.
“I don’t know.”
The woman who had ignited Lace stood, her dark skin and bald head more menacing than before. She approached me, and I crouched over my suffering companion, prepared to defend her with every ounce of strength I had left.
“What are you?” she demanded in her broken Erdlander, eyes ablaze.
“My name is Serafay.” I stood and glared up at the intimidating A’aihea, holding her fiery gaze with mine. Whatever had come over Tor had no effect on me, and I wasn’t going to lose Lace too.
Before the sentry could speak again, I lifted the membrane over my eyes and let the evening sun illuminate my silver irises. “You can’t hurt me,” I declared, “and I won’t let you hurt my friends.”
The A’aihea screamed in rage. Flames consumed her eyes and body as she lifted the spear and attacked.
39
Awareness began as a pinprick then shot through me, sharp and bright before cascading out into my body. Silver streams of pain wriggled through my mind, making me long for oblivion. My body remained beyond my control, but a tingling in my leg told me it was still there.
I lay prone on the cold, wet ground. Leaves, straw, or some other scratchy bit of dried-out nature, scraped against my shirtless torso.
The memory of the fire attacking Lace pulled me back into my body. I sat up far too quickly. The world spun, and my stomach churned until I flung myself to the side and vomited. Pain radiated through my head, clanging around and overpowering the sound of my retching.
Darkness swirled in my vision as I heaved, desperate to regain my breath. I’d never felt such agony before. I clung to the nearest wall, trying to slow my pulse and push down the seething loss of Tor’s blue eyes.
Where was I? The small room consisted of sticks and mud, the floor bare earth. I was alone, and dim white moonlight filtered in through holes in the walls.
My own situation fell away as worry over my friends, the only family I had, burst to the forefront of my mind. I stood and braced myself against the wall for the onslaught of pain, which didn’t disappoint.
I felt around the wall of the circular room and pushed away from one end of the wall. The flap opened into the moonlit night filled with huts strewn across dusty ground.
“You wake,” said a man standing just outside. Mud-caked hair was pulled back from his face. His skin, tan like Tor’s, nearly glowed, and his smile radiated kindness. He wore no shirt, only the same long skirt as the sentries, but brown and made of thicker material. His right arm displayed triangular markings, including the one sentry’s signature black band. On his left arm, another series of bands wound between his elbow and shoulder.
“Am I a prisoner?”
He frowned, taking a step back. “Not of me, but some would have you be.” His even, low voice contained no anger or threat. He pronounced his words carefully, with an open sound, as if air were caught in his throat, making each word longer and full of breath.
The night sky bloomed above us, the ruby moon so large and bright it cast a reddish hue over everything. After looking behind the man, I spotted a series of small huts like the one I had emerged from. Farther in the distance, a fire blazed at the base of a cliff with a black cave mouth behind it.
“I have to find my friends,” I said. But as I stepped away from the door, my feet stumbled, and a wave of dizziness washed over me.
“You have to sit. Sev hit you hard.” He gestured with his hand as if holding one of those bladed staffs. “Always goes for the head, she does.” After holding out a hand, he led me to a stool next
to the hut’s door. He must have been guarding me while I slept.
Somehow I believed him when he said I wasn’t his prisoner, but I had to wonder: was I someone else’s?
“Who are you?” A fuzzy grayness covered my vision, and I feared I might black out again, but I had to find out why the A’aihea had brought me here.
“I am called Keene.” He stood erect, his tall, lean physique taking on strength and pride when he said his name. Then he squatted before me, head cocked to the side. “Who are you?” He placed careful emphasis on each word, as if trying not to spook a stray animal or an injured bird.
“I’m Serafay.”
“Erdlander and Sualwet, Sev did say.”
“Yes, I’m both,” I said, fighting down the nausea still spinning within me. “Are you A’aihea?”
“A’aihea born, yes, but no longer of the Fire.”
“‘Of the Fire’? What does—”
Keene’s frame suddenly blurred out of focus, and I collapsed onto the ground. I found it cool and soothing, strangely soft despite the rocks digging into my hip. If I just closed my eyes....
“Serafay? Serafay...?” Keene’s voice drifted from far away, as if a cloud had separated us.
While I could hear him, I couldn’t sense him. Instead, I slipped back into darkness.
40
“She did not say,” I heard a man’s distant voice say. It infiltrated the silence in my mind, bringing with it a resurgence of throbbing pain.
A female voice responded with the long, breathy sound of the A’aihea, but I sensed her agitation. I extended out my inner senses, searching for anything I could detect about them, or my whereabouts. While lying still with my eyes closed, I explored the space around me. As best I could tell, they had brought me back inside the hut. The small room was sparse and primitive, less sophisticated than even the cave I had grown up in, but it was clean, and even the vomit I expelled earlier had been removed.
Two Moons of Sera Page 25
