Arvex’s voice was oddly strained when he spoke over the buzz of voices. “We’re going to rest here a while, give our new earth legs a rest.” Our eyes met and I saw in his the compassion and sorrow I knew must be visible in my own. We did well hiding it from everyone except each other. I echoed his attempt to smile, nodded my assent.
Ohre was rushing around the cave, ripping things from his pack and setting the pieces aside on a cloth splayed on the rock beside him. While the others grouped together far away from the stench of rotting meat as possible, I crouched by the miner and watched.
He moved between rations and weapons, dividing and checking them with mechanical precision. His palms were scarred, tales of his past written in every crease and stain and tattoo marking that started at his knuckles and wound their way up his wrists. None of our kind had hands like these, I realized, not even the Pioneer crew. Ours bore callouses from our single weapon, the curved scythe blade we knew how to use because our ancestors had used them. We didn’t bother trying anything else.
The weapons he had spread in front of us were different than miner weapons. They were given to us by the miners, though, and filled with plasma energy and good for a last resort. But we had never practiced with them or even used them before.
“What are you doing?” I asked as he twisted the raised projectile from the top edge of his gauntlet.
“Making sure we can survive the night.” He tested each weapon, holding them up and attaching them briefly to the strange technology on his left arm. My eyes followed the way they clutched him like a second skin.
“Does it hurt?” I blurted, then blushed when his eyes sharply cut into me. Dark brows knitted together, and I realized they too were painted onto his skin in place of the hair that should have been. And because I needed to know and wanted the brush of any skin in that moment, I reached out.
Ohre held his breath and my fingers traced the metal grooves, was surprised to find them as pliable as the windows that had kept the beyond outside the Datura 3. Lights blinked beneath my fingertips, shone through my blunt nails. Before I could trail my fingers over the inked skin above the long band of metal, his rough hand covered mine. Our eyes met.
“Pain is something we learn to know as well as water. From the time we’re born we’re taught that the ways of a miner means to breathe pain.” I stared because something shifted and clicked inside of me that I had never considered before. How had we learned to hate the miners? Was this the reason we had kept them controlled and off-world half of each season?
Glancing back at my crew, laughing together over Arvex’s version of our triumph over the beast, I wondered if we were the weak ones of our species after all.
“Who were you before?”
Ohre started, nearly dropping his tool on the stone. His brow rose in silent question. Motioning with my hands, I pressed on. “I mean, before you met me…before Datura 3. Don’t you—don’t you have a family to go back to?”
Frowning, he rolled the weapons back up and set aside the rations. “I don’t think it matters anymore, does it?”
I bit my lip to stifle an even deeper question. It was odd to me to imagine a miner with a family, with a relationship of any kind. He must have felt pity for me, otherwise he never would have smiled and answered.
“No, I don’t have any family. I’m as lost as the rest of you, Navigator.” I cringed at the royal title.
He broke the rations into pieces and offered a supplement to me. It tasted like wreen guts. Passing another chunk to me with a glance at our tiny crew, I nodded and crossed the cave to meet them.
“Gem! Get that out of my face before I use it on you!” Bruv growled when the twin had slashed his claw one too many times the young warrior’s way. Kahne shrieked when Menai teased her cheek with his new toy.
Jymee shook his head. “Arvex will take that away from you if you don’t stop.”
Menai and Gem turned to look at each other and then laughed heartily. Plopping themselves on either side of Jymee, they now teased him with their alien claws.
“Why you got to throw the chief at us like that?” Gem moved his claw as if it were speaking. Jymee tried his best not to squirm.
“Yeah, especially since we just lost our lives again.”
“So you might as well let us have our fun, Jymee-boy.”
My shadow fell over them, and in unison the twins greeted me. “Qeya! Oh beautiful Orona!”
“Here, you boys chew on this.”
“What is it?” Bruv questioned warily.
“Your breakfast, lunch and dinner, so eat up.”
I smiled as I turned away and they compared the rations to the worst things they could think of.
“Here,” I offered the last chunk to Arvex. He had taken Hanea to sit apart from the children, gathered her up into his lap where she stared outside. My brother offered me his best half-hearted smile.
“You look terrible. Must be that red hair.” He always teased me about my hair and he was the only one who got away with it.
Wrapping my arms around my knees, I winced from the injuries I had sustained from the crash.
“How are you swimming, sister?” Glancing up, I found a smile on his lips that did not reach his eyes. And remembered that while Arvex may act careless, he was still a King. And we carried the weight so the others would never have to. I could not answer him though, not now, with the water up to our necks like this. When he saw my indecision his smile fell and his hand left Hanea to rise between us. I brought my palm to his.
It was stronger than instinct and memory, the bond between a King and his Orona. Unlike a Queen, I could never be replaced or consider betraying him. Our blood flowed in unison, our minds opposite halves. We were the reason Datura had been so strong. Only when my father’s sister was murdered did the balance change. And now, Arvex and I shared the burden of our feelings. But when he caught a glimpse of the one new emotion I wanted no one to see, a telltale smirk appeared on his handsome face. I wanted to smack it off.
“Hmm…very…interesting, sister.” His eyes moved past me to settle on the miner before flickering purposefully back to mine.
“Your ears are clogged,” I grumbled and stood as gracefully as I could and returned to Ohre’s side.
Jymee gagged on his rations nearby. “Yuck! What’s in this stuff, Qeya?”
Ohre answered for me. “Don’t ask.” I wondered how much more of the stuff we had left, but before I could ask, he’d eased back against the rocks to face the setting sun and waited until I joined at his side.
“You’re lucky to have them, Qeya.” We both watched the twins make Kahne and Jymee laugh. We listened to the world beyond our cave without looking beyond its opening to dusk. When he spoke again, I realized he hadn’t forgotten my earlier question.
“Old Brien was the last family I had left. Rest was killed during the first Invasion…” His voice strained, hoarse, and I felt rather than saw the emotion in his face. And then he told me about his world, the hidden one we had turned our backs to. “Miners live in clans, large families, so everyone is connected to other clans in some way. I be the last of my clan.”
This sounded so much like my people that I couldn’t help a glance toward them to see what was left of them now. Gem and Menai had fallen asleep slumped over each other, claws in hand. Bruv and Jymee were being lulled to sleep by Kahne’s sweet voice. Arvex cradled Hanea to his chest when before he had treated her like a joke. His eyes never ceased their scan of the cave opening. I knew he would stay awake all night.
“How can you keep so calm all the time?” I interrupted. “After everything we’ve been through, you just take it all in with ease, and we’re barely keeping ourselves together.”
“It wasn’t—easy—growing up on the streets. You don’t know how hard it is until you’re a no-name in a grinding world that has everything to do with rank.”
My mind drifted again to my memories of home world. I thought of our palace, one large ancient clan, rarely open to ou
tsiders. Had we made this harsh order he spoke of? Ohre was still speaking, of the heaven-sailing clan of Brien. How it was only through old Brien, his distant relative, that he had found status and family again.
“Our caves go deep in the cliffs of the southern island. We learned to mine there first, lived so long around the core gasses eventually we forgot the rivers we had lived in before.” His words trailed off, eyes narrowing in on the dust-sprinkled inky entrance that had replaced the sun. Creatures and beasts from outside came alive the brighter the heavens grew.
I relaxed somewhat, listening to his words. Somehow his arm ended up wrapped around me, our sides pressed tightly together. I was determined to stay awake with him through the night. Someone had to make sure those beasts didn’t come back. But Kahne’s sweet voice sounded eerily similar to the way Orona used to put me to sleep as a child. And as my lids grew heavier, I imagined that Ohre caressed my cheek before I escaped into my dreams.
V: ABANDONED
When I woke, I was alone with my cheek plastered to the smooth side of a rock. A strange melding sound was coming from ahead, and disentangling myself from the strange position, I frowned at the alien hide billowing in the wind. The length of it covered the cave entrance where the miner had hung it. Ohre stomped around from the opposite side, unclamping the welding tool from his gauntlet. It was the same one he had used to blast our way out of the ship and I wondered how he controlled the metal thing.
At one corner of the cave, near the fire pit, the twins had carved up and were now roasting the beast’s meat; what remained of my crew were laughing together. Twisting to face them I watched Bruv gently stir Kahne awake, then hand her a cup of water. Her grateful smile made the harsh lines of his dark face ease. Their moment was almost immediately disrupted by the twins.
“Welcome to the first day of the rest of your life, mate!” Gem said, and then grabbed Kahne’s face to plant a quick kiss on her cheek.
Menai came from the opposite side to kiss her other cheek, saying, “’Bout time you woke up, girlie!”
Bruv clenched his fists and the startled Kahne jolted out of bed and rounded on the twins. Boxing both of their ears simultaneously, she screeched, “How dare you, you pus-leaking miners!” The boys cried out, though their grins never left their faces. I shook my head. Bruv could have easily sliced them from nose to navel with his scythe, and Kahne was just as proficient with his.
“Get them, Kahne!” Jymee cheered on from beside Hanea. He was currently carving into the nearby rock with a smooth black stone. Willing my weary limbs to move, I ignored the scuffle continuing at my feet and came up behind Jymee.
“What are you making?” I asked with a nod to the drawing.
His smile lit his face, pleased to have found my attention. Back on the ship, I had made the children look after one another by a strict order. Each class mentored the one below it, unless they needed my help or Arvex’s. Jymee beamed up at me as if he hadn’t lost his mother and father in one instant.
“It tells how we found our new home, so our kids will know one day,” he said, then pointed to the larger circular symbol. “This is the ocean that covers everything, then the big mountains that go around the valley…” Pausing to scratch his chin, he added, “I’m not sure what’s past the valley yet.”
I nodded and rested my hand on the top of his mop of flaxen hair and said, “It’s very good, Jymee.” Inside, I was reeling at the fact the youngest member of my crew saw more clearly than any of us. Not only was he implying that this hostile alien world was our home but that we would be stuck on it long enough to raise another generation here.
Shaken, I wrapped my arms around my chest and moved past Hanea, closer to the cave exit. Now I knew how she felt, that overwhelming loss that reminded you constantly you could never go back and undo things. We were stuck. As I watched the children play I wondered how they could act so at ease after everything we’d been through.
Arvex leaned against the newly covered entrance to the world beyond, fists on his hips and a confident grin on his handsome face. “That’s one way to keep the leaking beasts out of our cave!” Ohre returned his grin with a much more disturbed one. His eyes found mine immediately after, and I recognized the vague sense he had been watching me long before.
“Stew in the cooker if you want it.” He motioned to the smoking pit to my right. The other children were already gathered round, eating the diluted chunks of the predator and its pups. They laughed together as if our lives hadn’t just been blown to bits in the heavens. Playing with the bones of the alien that had tried to eat us the night before, they acted as if they were home.
“No…” Something inside burst suddenly. Needing the others to hear my protests, I turned to Arvex and Ohre, the steel returning to my bones. “No! What are you doing? We can’t live here!” Gesturing wildly to the harsh cavern behind us I couldn’t believe when Ohre caught my hand in his, stunting my orders.
“Relax, Royal…this is just a camp. Let the children feel safe for now. It puts them at ease to rest and pretend their lives be different. We’ve marked this cave with our smell and no other predator will dare come near for a while.”
“Besides,” Arvex unnecessarily added, “have you seen what’s out there? Those bottom-crawling aliens kept me up half the night with their screams. No way are we camping out in that forest! The little ones won’t make another march like the last one we took.” I hadn’t looked outside but I was not about to own up to it.
Wrenching my fist from Ohre, I growled, “And what about the Pioneer, Arvex? Are you suggesting we just leave them out there to fend for themselves? We owe it to them and ourselves to find them. We know the way out and they are obviously lost. And we are not going to get fresh waiting here. I need all of us together. We split up and we might as well feed ourselves to the aliens.”
“But, Qeya…”
“She’s right,” Ohre cut in, eyes steady on mine. “This ain’t home for you Royals. We make our camp here. We will sweep the valley but come back before nightfall.” I looked at my brother and after a lasting tense moment he only shrugged.
Clapping his hands and rubbing them together, he moved between us and to the rest of the group. “All right, mates! Let’s pack up for our first big adventure!” The twins scampered up the quickest, already bragging about who would have the most claws by nightfall. Kahne and Bruv had finished teaching the twins their lesson and were sharpening their scythes and Jymee was debating on what to pack.
Pulling out my scanner and pulsing it on I frowned when the trace seemed weaker but closer than before. We had a lot of ground to cover and Ohre sensed this.
Though he spoke softly, his voice carried over the group. “Gather your wits and follow me. There be more waiting out there than fangs and claws.”
We were not prepared for the difference of what waited inside the valley. A tangle of trees higher and larger at the base than anything on our home world clustered like an endless sea out before us. Vines laced through flowers and fruits and there were more screeching fliers than we could catch an eye of. Beasts called out in the distance, echoing the cries of the ones we had narrowly avoided.
“Welcome to the new world, mates,” Arvex said with his usual sarcastic flair. The silvery sky shimmered above, burgeoning clouds thickening in a light carpet above the canopy. As much as the land outside this valley seemed devoid of life, within was brimming, life that in the following moments realized intruders were in its midst.
No one joked or laughed when the forest drew even closer around them and the light was dim and deep green. Whenever the distant—and nearby—creatures drew quiet, we mimicked their silence. The signal on my scanner led us alongside the mountain range back the way we had come. And unfortunately for us, the edge of the wooded valley was home to the most predators. Occasional disruption of underbrush indicated larger plant-eating beasts. The twins were beside themselves with excitement, a fresh burst of adrenaline to help them ignore encroaching exhaustion. But Jymee w
as less than enthusiastic about the wild alien life hidden, watching us.
Tugging on Hanea’s sleeve, he edged closer to her side until they were practically fused together. “I think it’s getting past time for our night meal…” he said in a squeaky voice, betraying his unspoken fears. Hanea said nothing, only tightened her grip on his shoulders in the most comforting gesture she could manage.
“We don’t stop until the star is directly over us,” I replied after checking the pale yellow orb’s position in the sky.
Bruv and Kahne kept their backs to one another, side stepping along the path to keep a better eye on the forest. Bruv spoke up next, “I don’t like this, Qeya. The trees are too quiet.”
Kahne nodded, twirling her scythe loosely between her fingertips, adding, “Something’s been watching us ever since we left our cave.”
Arvex laughed, “You are all so serious! Why can’t you see this adventure for what it is? At least we’re out here doing something, instead of training for a future that will never come.”
Nearly dropping the scanner from my hands, I rounded on my brother with a sharp eye. “What do you mean, will never come?” I didn’t mean for them to hear the tremor in my voice, or for Arvex to realize how furious I was.
Offering me a slightly apologetic look, he replied, “Just come off it, sister. You know well as the rest of us, our parents were leading us nowhere but farther away from the lives we should have had. They abandoned us at the furthest edge of the universe, knowing there was no way we could show our gills back home. I say we make a new life for ourselves here. This place is ripe for the pickings, if you’d only open your mind to it!”
Shaking my head in disbelief, I gripped the scanner more tightly, could feel its electric current beneath my sensitive fingertips. My eyes blazed with things I couldn’t say in front of the others. I wanted to scream at my brother and kick him somewhere he wouldn’t forget. How dare he talk about our parent’s mission like it meant nothing? They hadn’t even been dead for two nights and already he was calling judgment. Furthermore, the instant the adults passed, some of their memories managed to pass to us as well. We knew how much it meant to them to come home one day, and now that drive was instilled in us.
Qeya (Heaven's Edge Novellas Book 1) Page 5
