44
“Tor, can you walk?” I tried to help him up, but he faltered and fell back to the ground. I turned my gaze to Keene, keeping my fingers wrapped around Tor’s arm. “Help me. Please. Help him.”
Keene gave a curt nod in response then circled to Tor’s other side and lifted him up. Together, we supported his weight and wove through the chaos of the space.
Sentries stood guard, ushering Within those who could withstand the wall of fire while leaving everyone else to fend for themselves. Erdlander gunmen took aim and plucked off one A’aihea after another. All around us, bodies littered the volcano crater., and the ground was slick with their blood. Children screamed as they keened over fallen parents, not knowing what to do.
Sev sprinted past us, a small child on her back, another cradled in the crook of her left arm, and two more trailing close at her heels. “Come!” she commanded, her right hand pointing her spear tip in the direction of safety, away from the commotion.
We raced through the black tunnel that led out of the volcano’s crater. No fire lit the way, no friendly conversation passed the time. We ran for our lives. How many times could a person be hunted for simply existing before deciding perhaps they weren’t meant to live? My feet were bloody and exhausted, and I stumbled over my own toes as Tor’s weight dragged me down. But he was here with me. I knew he’d seen me, that he’d known me, but there was no time to reunite.
When we broke through the blackness of the tunnel and into the hut-filled clearing, crackling flames greeted us. All the homes were ablaze. Erdlanders with guns and black uniforms ran after the A’aihea who had returned ahead of us, picking them off one by one.
“We go to the priestess’s cave,” Sev directed.
“What about the others?” I couldn’t imagine leaving them behind. Keene’s little village may have been prepared to kill me for existing, but no one deserved this fate.
“No time.” She shook her head, still taking in the carnage before us. “We live or we die.”
“Sera?” Tor’s voice was a croak, barely audible over the roaring flames.
“I’m here.”
“The others.... Where are...?”
“Oh, gods.” Panic washed over me. “We have to get the others! Elle, Lace, Lock! Where are they? Did Velka make it out?”
Behind us, shots echoed through the tunnel as Erdlanders fired blindly into the dark. It was impossible to know if they were close enough to see our group.
A strangled cry came from behind, and I whirled around to find Velka slumped to the ground. I ran to her small form and pulled her against me, but her body offered no resistance, only the heaviness of dead weight.
“No!” Keene ran back to us and threw himself to the ground at the priestess’s feet. He spoke in A’aihea, the meaning of his words clear in the tear-soaked sound of his voice.
“Velka—”
Words caught in my throat. I lowered my head in mourning, and though I had only known Velka for a short time, I liked her. She was familiar, kind, and strong.
Tor broke the reverent moment with a shake of his head. “We have to go.”
Keene looked up at him and then back at the body.
I placed a hand on Keene’s shoulder. “You’ll have time to properly mourn her later. Right now we have to keep these children safe.”
He cocked his head toward the children clinging to Sev and nodded. With a grunt he pulled his hand away from me and straightened, towering above us with the authority his blood commanded.
Keene leaned down to pick up Velka’s body, but Sev stopped him with a sharp reprimand. “No time!” Sev hoisted the child in her arms higher, and I saw the fear in her hard-set features.
Next to me, Tor straightened and pulled his weight from me. “I can walk. Sera can take the children. Keene, we need you to get the others.” His voice sounded stronger, but it still quivered from the effort.
“Do barely talk,” Sev scoffed, eying his weakened frame.
Keene nodded. “I will meet you.” He threw a sorrowful look toward Velka’s body before sprinting away, disappearing into the night.
For a moment we watched him go, unsure of what to do, and then the little girl cradled in Sev’s arm began to cry.
“Let’s go.” Her mouth hardened into a thin line, her strong features set in determination. Without waiting for our response she set out, keeping close to the rock wall outside the cave.
We slunk around the edge, away from the burning homes and slaughter. The little girl’s sobs slowed, and soon she settled her head on Sev’s shoulder, succumbing to sleep.
“Here.” I reached forward and took the slumped form of the boy hanging on her back and clutched him to my chest.
We would all make it out of here. We would survive. We had to.
Tor lagged behind but kept going, using the rock wall to maintain his balance. The two children walking on their own stayed close to Tor, as though protecting him in his weakened and disoriented state.
At the edge of the rocky wall, Erdlanders were everywhere. Their outlines blurred against the flames destroying Sev and Keene’s home. In the blackness, I sensed them surrounding us.
Sev whispered to me without breaking stride. “We go to cave, take passages deep in mountain. A way to the other side.”
“What’s on the other side?”
She shrugged into the blackness and my stomach fell. At least we would be alive.
Trees at the edge of the forest ignited, bursting into flames as the Erdlander attack spread. Soon the whole area would be burned to cinders, leaving nothing behind. I prayed to any gods left that we be spared and the others would join us soon.
A sharp crack stopped us. Bullets flew around us as Erdlanders stalked the ground.
“Stop!” a distant voice commanded. “Hold your fire!”
Five uniformed Erdlanders stood before us, their features masked by shadows and smoke.
The red light of the fire illuminated the clearing, casting everything in a bloody glow. We were only a short distance from the forest’s edge, but we couldn’t make a break for cover without first getting ourselves shot down out in the open.
“Serafay?” one of the soldiers called out. He took off his helmet, stepping in front of the rest. “Sera, is that you?” The voice sounded familiar, but I couldn’t immediately place it. “It’s me, Ash.”
“Ashrah?”
“Oh, thank the gods! We’re here to rescue you. Are Lace and Lock with you?” Ash ran his gaze over the crowd, and the rest of the soldiers relaxed as he spoke.
“Ash,” I said calmly, “you have to let us go.”
“What? No, we’re here to take you home. My reserve unit was activated when we learned about these A’aihea. We weren’t just going to sit by and let our people be kidnapped.”
A harsh tension in his features told me he believed in everything the Erdlanders were doing here. He believed that by killing the A’aihea, his troops had carried out some kind of noble act.
Revulsion scurried over my flesh and I stepped back.
Ash took another step forward, surveying every member of our ragtag group. “You’re with the A’aihea? It’s true, isn’t it? Tor really is one of them.” His relieved expression hardened into a frown. “Step away from him, Sera. He can’t hurt you anymore.”
He raised his rifle and aimed at Tor. The soldiers behind him followed suit.
“It’s not what you think.” I pulled away from Tor and spread my arms. They wouldn’t take him from me. Not again—he’d been gone too long already.
“It’s okay, Sera. Come with me, I’ll protect you. I won’t let anyone hurt you.” Ash reached out to me, but I took a step back.
“I’m not going with you.”
Ash’s expression relaxed, as did the arms holding his rifle. “I know you care about Tor. But you can’t be Matched with one of them. It’s not right. If you come with me, we can be together, and I’ll take care of everything. Please.”
I shook my head. There
was nothing for me if I returned with Ash, and as angry as I was with Tor, I couldn’t imagine ever being with anyone else.
One of the soldiers inched forward, his aim swinging back and forth between Tor and Sev. “Corporal Ashrah, what are your orders?”
“I have the women in my sights,” another offered.
“Hold your fire,” Ash ordered, taking another step closer. “Sera, come home. Please. We can be together.”
I shook my head. “I can’t go back to the camp. That’s not where I belong.”
His face hardened but he ignored my words. “Where are the others? Elle, and Lock, and Lace? Are they still alive?”
I nodded. “They’re fine. We weren’t kidnapped, we ran away.”
“Why would you do that?”
“I wasn’t safe there. None of us were.”
“Elle would never do that. She may have lost the baby but....”
“Sal abandoned her and she’ll never Match again. Lock was going to be experimented on and so was I, just to figure out how why we are different. The way Erdlanders do things... it’s wrong. No one should be treated like breeding stock.”
“You can’t want to live with him!” Anger invigorated Ash’s words, giving them power, and the hatred in his voice struck me like a physical blow.
“It’s not about just him. Don’t you see, Ash? All that hate—it’s poison. These are the people who care about me. Sualwet, Erdlander, A’aihea—it doesn’t matter to me. All that matters is these people helped me when I needed it most.”
“That’s not true! I was always there for you. I would never have let anyone hurt you, Sera. I love you. You and I could be happy together. Why would you rather be with these jikmanae freaks?”
Heat rose in my cheeks, and in the red light of the fire, Ash appeared more demon than Erdlander. “Freaks? You have no idea who I am. I’m the biggest freak of all!”
I lifted my right foot and spread my toes far enough apart for the webbing to show in the firelight.
Ash’s eyes widened larger than the ruby moon.
Sev saw his moment of hesitation, and she rushed forward, knocking him to the ground before I could even blink.
In response, gunshots tore through the night. Tor lunged toward me, pulling me to the ground. Rocks cut into my palms from the force of the impact. Bullets sang overhead.
Chaos broke out in all directions. Ash’s troops yelled back and forth while running toward us. Other boot-clad soldiers ran past us shooting and corralling A’aihea.
Tor reached out, grabbing one of the Erdlanders’ legs with his hand. The bloused black pants in his grip combusted into a flame that soon wrapped up the Erdlander’s leg and torso, igniting him in a deadly blaze.
Behind him, two other figures went up in flames, another farther back. Screams ripped from their lungs as the inferno of the A’aihea power melted flesh from bone.
In the firelight, Keene towered over us, arms ensconced by fire.
“What have you done?” Ash screamed. He wrestled away from Sev’s hold, pulling himself to full height.
“Stop!” I begged, struggling to stand, but Tor still held me down. “No more killing!”
Ash aimed his weapon at Keene, but before anyone could react, a great and terrible howl pierced the night. A massive, dark blur rushed through the fire surrounding us and pounced, sending Ash back into the flames.
Ash was gone, swallowed by the fire.
I reached in the direction his figure had dropped. “Ash?”
Something small broke inside me. Despite what he’d said, he’d once been my friend.
“We have to go,” Tor urged, unconcerned with Ash’s fate.
“Elgon?” I called out.
Tor released me, and I examined the darkness for my monster’s presence. No tears fell. I couldn’t afford to lose control, not now, but the relief that we were alive threatened to knock me down.
Through the fiery haze, I spotted piercing green eyes glowing in the flames. The outline of the mountain hound’s furry body towered over Ash’s figure, limp on the ground.
The flame around Keene’s arms subsided, but it still smoldered in his eyes, ready to burst back to life. “He... he saved me,” Keene said, visibly shaken.
“You’re part of our family now,” I said, placing a hand on Keene’s arm. “But where are the others? Lock? Lace? Elle?”
He shook his head. “They... they were gone, so I come back. I... I am sorry.”
Trapped tears demanded to fall, but I wouldn’t let them go. I couldn’t. I had to believe they were still alive out there somewhere.
Elgon didn’t playfully lope over to us like he usually did when I called out to him in Sualwet. Instead he was all predator, full of restrained power coiled to spring into action at any moment against anything else that might threaten us.
The huge mountain hound circled around us, his adopted pack, as we headed toward the forest’s edge. Sev darted ahead of us and leaped over the gory obstacles in her way, her arm still carrying the A’aihea child. The rest of us followed, leaving Ash’s body right where it had fallen amid the flames.
45
Forested darkness surrounded us, but I could see clearly enough to find my way to where Tor rested with Elgon. Part of me believed, I’d be able to find him even blindfolded, no matter how distant we were from each other. The ache tying me to him was too strong to resist. Was that love? Maybe it was pain. I wasn’t sure there was a difference anymore.
Tor sat unmoving, slumped against a tree with hunched shoulders. I stood above him, unable to bring myself down to his level. My hand ached to reach out, to run along the smooth scalp where his beautiful dark hair had been, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I couldn’t. I wanted to fall into his arms, pull him to me and know he was real and safe and here, but my heart had shattered a thousand times already, and I couldn’t pretend his being here was going to put those pieces all together again.
“Are you hurt?” his gravelly voice drifted through the darkness, wrapping around my already tight chest.
“I’m fine. How is your arm?”
He inspected the tattoos and shrugged.
Silence slipped between us, widening the uncrossable dam of my heartbreak and anger until I soared a million miles away and looked down on us—so close and yet unable to come together. The ruby moon tucked me against her side, offering understanding. In the distance, muffled gunshots littered the air, and fire and pain filled the sky with blackness so thick it threatened to blot out the stars.
Tor pulled his legs to his chest and rested his cheek on his knees. “Where have you been?”
“Where have I been?” Shock pulled me out of my apathy, igniting the anger hibernating under the surface. It was all I could do to keep my voice quiet as I seethed. “What the jikmae? Where have I been? I’ve been an amedu prisoner in Keene’s hut, trying to figure out some way to get Lace, Lock, and Elle out of here! I’ve been scared out of my mind over where you’d gone and what you were doing and whether you even remembered me. That’s where I’ve jikmanae been!”
Tor’s eyes widened as he looked up at me, my quiet, deadly voice trembling, but before I could get anything more out his eyes sparked and he smiled. “You’ve been here this whole time? Looking for me?”
“Don’t smile at me. I’m so... I’m so furious I could throw you off that cliff myself! Where did you go?”
He pulled himself up with a groan, his old scars and fresh tattoos towering over me. Without a word, he stepped forward, crossing the distance I’d kept between us, knocked down my defenses, and pulled me into his arms. I wouldn’t melt. Everything wasn’t all right. As perfect as his warm embrace felt, as easy and simple as it would be to just fall into him, I struggled, pulled back, and wriggled away from his hold.
“I’m not letting you go, little Fish.” His playful chuckle turned my anger into searing fury.
“Don’t call me that!” I pushed against his chest to put some distance between us so I could think straight,
but he held on tighter.
“I’m not letting you go.” Tor’s voice caught. “I’m never letting you go. Sera, I’m so sorry. So, so sorry. I had no idea. I promise: I will never leave you.”
I stilled, unable to fight the pleading in his voice but unwilling to submit. “What happened?”
“I don’t know. It was... it was like a dream. Like it happened to someone else.” He breathed into my hair before resting his cheek on the top of my head. “I remember chasing you and Lace through the woods. You were laughing, moving so beautifully through the trees while she plodded behind after you, and then there was a sound. It was like that melodisk you played but so much stronger, like something physically pulled me toward it, and then it was so warm, and I felt like I was melting.”
“You left.” The sob in my throat stopped me from saying more. I refused to cry. I’d cried too much. “You left me.”
“I—I didn’t know. I don’t know if you can believe me, but I didn’t realize—”
“It doesn’t matter.” My sigh wasn’t one of acceptance or even forgiveness. It was the sound of resignation. No matter what he claimed, he’d left. I’d seen the recognition in his eyes before he stepped forward and disappeared into the fire.
“It was like nothing I’d ever imagined.” He pulled away and set his hands on my shoulders. The feeling of his large hands made me want to crawl into his arms and believe his words, but it was late, and the ruby moon had already cried all the tears she had for me.
Tor bent down so his eyes locked onto mine. “It was like dancing. Every movement you make Within ripples through your whole body, and when someone else moves, you can feel it. You hear their thoughts and dream what others see only in their imaginations. It’s like floating, but instead of water, you’re in this timeless sleep and nothing matters.”
“Not even me.”
Tor shook his head. “Sera, as soon as I saw you, I knew you. Back there, when you came to me, everything snapped back, and I knew who I was again. I don’t want to lose that, or you, ever again. I don’t want to live in a dream.”
Two Moons of Sera Page 29
