The sound of her husband’s voice reverberating through her mind kept her moving forward. She continued to refuse to feel fear or hesitation. Aegeus had always done everything with courage and strength. He hadn’t been afraid when he walked into battle or when he faced down the corrupt members of the Order. This was for him.
Ahead of her Ellora could see the darkness of entrances to other tunnels that led off of the corridor where she was running. She kept her eyes focused on one several yards ahead of her, knowing that this was the one that she was going to take. Drawing in as deep a breath as she could, she forced her feet to run harder and faster. Though the man was far larger than she was, allowing for his strides to bring him closer to her with every moment, she suddenly felt like she was pulling away from him. He was getting further behind her, no longer close enough for her to feel like if he reached out toward her she would be able to feel his fingertips touch her back. She knew that she was getting further away from him and that it was her thoughts of Aegeus that were giving her the strength and the energy to continue pushing.
The entrance to the other tunnel was only a few steps away now. Ellora kept pushing, kept running. As soon as she was close enough, she dove into the new tunnel and ran as hard as she could to the nearest void that put her into another tunnel and then another. With every turn, she felt like she might be getting far enough away from the masked man that he might not be able to find her. She paused and strained, listening as hard as she could to hear the footsteps of the masked man. They were no longer loud as if close behind her. She could hear muffled shouting now as he called through the tunnels for her. Ellora paused for a brief moment to try to determine where the man was. She couldn’t hear his footsteps any longer and decided it was time to start back toward the entrance that she had used to get into the tunnel.
Ducking back into the last tunnel that she had used, she started back through the labyrinth, occasionally using tunnels that she knew that she hadn’t before to try to keep herself off of the same path as the masked man while still moving back in the direction of the entrance closest to her home, closest to the security of the weapons that she had gathered from her husband’s war room. There she would be safe. There she would have what Aegeus had prepared to handle the very people who were threatening her now.
She had to keep thinking about him. She had to keep reminding herself that her husband had made this plan so many years before, and even if it had taken her from the time that their sons were children until they were adults to understand it, now was the time for her to stand up and fight the way that she knew would make him proud. Even though Athan had told her that Ryan could have killed Aegeus now that he knew where to find Maxim and the Denynso, if there was even the smallest possibility that her husband was still alive, she had to keep going. She wouldn’t stop until she saw his face or they destroyed her.
The tunnels were becoming more complex as she ran and she started discovering doors embedded in the walls. She tried to open a few of them but found them all locked and soon gave up, knowing that pausing to try the doors was taking up time that she should be using to get through the tunnels. As hard as she was trying to keep track of where she was going and focus on moving in the direction that she thought would bring her back to where she had entered, she soon realized that she no longer knew where she was or how she should continue. Her body was growing tired and she couldn’t maintain the speed that she had been. Finally, she turned down another tunnel and found that the space was growing more and more narrow the further she went. After another turn she realized that the lights on the ceiling were no longer turning on and changing colors in response to her presence. Instead there were small white lights recessed in the ceiling that sent faint pools of glow to the ground every few feet. Ellora found the change unsettling. There was a reason that those lights were designed to turn on as the people who used the tunnels made their way along them, and if this section didn’t feature those it was also for a reason.
There were no longer other tunnels stemming off of the corridor, which meant that unless she was going to turn around and go back the way that she had come, possibly putting herself right in the path of the masked man, she had no choice but to keep going along the path that she had chosen. Around her the tunnels had fallen silent. She could no longer hear even the sound of the masked man calling for her. As much as she hated the sound of the calls, almost feeling like they were a taunt, not being able to hear them was proving to be worse. As long as she had been able to hear his voice, she had been able to gauge how far away from her he was and which direction he was most likely in from her. Now that she couldn’t hear him, though, she felt more isolated and out of control of the situation.
Ellora had been moving along the corridor for several minutes when she saw that the tunnel ahead of her was dark, the lights no longer glowing from the ceiling. She hesitated, unsure of whether she should proceed into the darkness ahead. She glanced back over her shoulder again, considering for a moment turning back and retracing her steps. Something told her to keep going and she turned back, surging into the darkness with greater speed so that she couldn’t question herself any further. For the first several steps she still had enough of the illumination from the last light in the ceiling that she could see ahead of her. Soon, though, she could no longer see anything and had to reach to either side of her to run her fingers along the walls and navigate her movements.
One hand indicated a turn in the tunnel and she followed it, continuing to feel along the sides of the corridor as she went. She had followed along two more corners when she found what felt like the edge of a doorway. Ellora paused and felt along the door to gauge its size. As she felt, she found a handle of cold metal. She pushed down on it and felt it resist. Gathering her strength, she pushed down on it with all of the force she had within her and the handle gave, allowing her to push the door open and slip around it into the space beyond.
Beyond the door was just as dark as the tunnel and Ellora couldn’t tell where she was or how large of a space it was. She reached ahead of her, ready to use the same technique as she had in the tunnel to evaluate her surroundings, and had taken only a few steps before she felt her fingertips hit a wall ahead of her. She was turning to measure the space in the other direction when she felt an arm wrap around her waist and a hand clamp over her mouth.
Chapter Four
“Their training means nothing. They will never be able to stand up to the Denynso and the Mikana. With us together, no one can defeat us!”
The small crowd gathered in front of the Mikana meeting hall cheered in response to Creia and the Denynso king held one fist up in the air as if in victory.
“But they are hybrids, Creia,” someone called up to him where he stood on the top step. “How are we to know how to fight against creatures that are made up of more than one species?”
“More than one species in each hybrid just gives us more opportunity to fight,” Creia said. “We’ll defeat them as we would any of the beings that make them up. These pieced-together creatures are nothing compared to us. Ryan wanted to make the strongest weapons in existence, but all he accomplished was making half-life’s. According to Rain, Azra communicated with Elise from Earth and says that these creatures don’t even have names. They are shells, nothing more. They have no hearts, no souls, nothing to fuel them. Everything that they don’t have, we do. Ryan thought that he was training them to defeat us, that he was creating soldiers that couldn’t be defeated. He didn’t know what he was facing. These soldiers are made up of scraps. They won’t have any chance when they actually confront us on the battlefield. We will cut them all down and return home before breakfast.”
There was another cheer and Ivy felt her heart clench. She couldn’t cheer along with the rest of the crowd that had gathered gradually as the king had begun to speak. They all seemed to be swept up in the furor of the huge Denynso and even Rey, the Mikana king, who was generally calm and controlled seemed ignited as he stood beside Creia
on the step. Ivy felt like she was getting lost in the buzzing energy of the crowd and it frightened her. The louder the men cheered in response to Creia’s fiery statements, the more Ivy’s heart pounded in her chest and she felt the desperate urge to get away.
She had come upon the gathering when she left the midwife’s home and had been drawn into it the same way as the others, but the longer that Creia spoke, the more uncomfortable she became. She stumbled back through the group, pushing people aside as she went, desperate to get away from them and escape the sound of the king’s voice. Finally, she broke through and started to run. She wasn’t sure where she was going, but she knew that she had to get away from them. Running through the Mikana kingdom made her ache for Maxim. Though it had only been a short time since she had seen him, she missed him with an intensity that she could have never fathomed. Every step that she took through the kingdom reminded her of the first time that she had come to this place with him. She already loved him when they left the human settlement and started their journey to the Mikana kingdom, but their relationship had changed once they were there.
Seeing where Maxim had grown up and learning more about him had deepened her love for him, but conflict with his mother and the realization that her life was never again going to be what it was when she was on Earth had nearly torn them apart. She still remembered the painful sting of looking into Maxim’s eyes and seeing doubt and questions where they had once been such security. It was that brief separation, however, that had cemented their bond and made her realize, fully and completely, that it was him that she wanted. She no longer cared if that meant that she was going to have to give up the life that she’d had on Earth in exchange for a new life on Uoria. All that mattered to her was that she was with Maxim. It was then that her mind switched and she devoted herself not just to the planet, but also to the fight that was building around them.
Now she was running through the kingdom, the darkness around her making it harder for her to know where she was going, the ache within her growing with each step. She suddenly became aware of the sound of footsteps behind her. Ahead of her she could see a small cluster of buildings and she rushed to one, ducking behind it and crouching into the shadows. As she peered around the corner of the building she saw that is was Rain who had been pursuing her and she felt relief wash over her. The building, almost frantic energy of the crowd around Creia had frightened her and she was glad to know that it was someone she knew and trusted that had been chasing her.
Rain approached her, her expression quizzical as she reached for Ivy’s hands.
“What is it?” Rain asked. “Are you alright?”
The woman looked into her eyes and Ivy felt like she was staring back through time. It was still so strange to her to think that this woman had lived more than 100 years before Ivy was born, and yet looked only slightly older than her. Rain’s memories didn’t stretch the decades that she had been alive, but Ivy still felt like she could see everything that happened around her even during the years that she had spent frozen in place, tucked perpetually into her bed awaiting the saviors who would come and free her, saving her from a horrific fate at the mercy of the Covra. The kindness and concern in Rain’s eyes made all of the emotion that Ivy had been trying not to acknowledge rush forward and she felt her chest swell painfully. She shook her head and looked down, watching as tears dropped from her eyes to the ground beneath her.
“How could Creia say those things?” she asked.
“What do you mean?” Rain asked. “What things?”
“You heard him,” Ivy said. “You heard what he was saying about the hybrids.”
“Yes,” Rain said. “They are our enemies. He’s a warrior. It is in his nature to feel that type of hatred toward them.”
“It isn’t that,” Ivy said. “I understand that he’s going to hate the people who have threatened his kind and want to destroy people he cares about and take over his planet. What I don’t understand is how he could be so cruel about all of the hybrids just because they are hybrid.”
“I don’t understand,” Rain said. “You know as much as we do what those creatures are. Ryan made them for the sole purpose of being weapons. They have no names. They have no personality. They are bits and pieces of other species put together so that he could exploit them for their characteristics and abilities.”
“What about Lysander?” Ivy asked.
“What?” Rain asked, sounding slightly taken aback by the question.
“Lysander,” Ivy repeated. “He’s half-Denynso, half-human.”
“No, he isn’t,” Rain said. “Remember Eden was transformed into a Denynso. Her DNA is no longer human.”
“She was already carrying Lysander when that happened. He is not pure Denynso.”
“And Idella?” Ivy asked.
“Lila’s great-grandmother?” Rain asked.
“Yes,” Ivy said. “She was one of the first hybrids created in the program. She had a name. She had a family. She wasn’t a weapon or a shell.”
Rain looked stunned, as if she, like all of the others, hadn’t thought about the woman who had, through the love and commitment of her great-granddaughter who had become the mate of one of the Denynso warriors, led them to the Eteri settlement where they found Azrael and Ariella.
“She came from the early phases of the experiment,” Rain said. “It was different then.”
“How?” Ivy asked.
“The people running the experiments weren’t like Ryan. Though they were cruel and vicious, it wasn’t to the extent of Ryan. They didn’t have the extensive technology and resources that Ryan has. They understood that each person who they brought into their experiments was valuable. They couldn’t replace them as easily as Ryan can replace his. Though they still held them and subjected them to horrible conditions, they recognized each of them as individuals. Even so, Idella escaped. She was only part of one level of the hybrid blending.”
“So?” Ivy asked. “Why does that matter?”
“Some of the creatures that are in Ryan’s army were born to adults that he spliced. Their parents aren’t even pure.”
“Pure?” Ivy asked, appalled by what Rain had just said. “So, they are like what Lysander’s children will be? Or if George and Zsilvia had a child, what their child would be? Or what…”
Her voice trailed off as she stopped herself from saying the words that had been hovering in her mind since she started to run.
“What?” Rain asked, tilting her head so that she could look more fully into Ivy’s face. “Or what?”
Ivy shook her head. She knew that this wasn’t the time. She had said that she would tell Ellora about her pregnancy before she would tell anyone else.
“Nothing,” she said, but she knew that her voice and the expression on her face betrayed her.
“Ivy,” Rain said. “What’s going on?”
Ivy felt like all of the energy and strength had left her legs. She turned so that her back was against the building and slid down to sit on the ground. Rain crouched in front of her and reached forward to rest her hands on Ivy’s shoulders. Ivy pulled her knees close to her chest and rested her hands on her belly. She took a few moments to settle herself and then looked up at Rain.
“I’m pregnant,” she said.
Rain’s eyes lit up and she smiled.
“That’s wonderful,” she said happily.
“Is it?” Ivy asked.
The smile melted away from Rain’s face and her eyes darkened.
“What do you mean?” she asked. “You’re having a baby!”
“But I’m human,” Ivy said. “Maxim is Mikana.”
“I know,” Rain said. “Why does that matter?”
“Why does it matter for the other hybrids?” Ivy asked.
The tears were still falling lightly from her eyes, but she didn’t bother to wipe them away. It didn’t matter if Rain saw the emotion that she was feeling. Now that she had confessed her secret, she wanted Rain to understand the stress that s
he was facing.
“Your baby isn’t a hybrid,” Rain said.
Ivy nodded.
“Of course, it is,” she said. “It is not one species. It isn’t ‘pure’.”
Rain winced at the sound of the word that she herself had used only moments before.
“Ivy, it’s not the same. Your baby isn’t the same as those creatures.”
“Why not?” she asked. “The mixed children who were born into the experiments had no choice in what they were or that they were born, just like my baby doesn’t. It has no say in the fact that it is being born to a human and a Mikana, and no matter what type species it one day falls in love with, its children won’t have any choice in the fact that they, too, will be hybrids. Even if they have a child with a human or with a Mikana, that baby will still be blended. It will never be just one species, and never again in its bloodline will there be someone who can be considered pure. This one decision that I have made, to fall in love with a Mikana and have his baby, has put my entire family on the path of always being seen as hybrid.”
“It isn’t a decision,” Rain said. “You simply fell in love.”
“And it isn’t a decision for those soldiers, either,” Ivy said. “You said that things were different when the experiments first started. That at least the Valdician and the human who started those experiments weren’t as cruel as Ryan. How can Creia and the rest of you understand that and yet still see the hybrids the way that you do? Think of what it felt like to find out that you were being used by the Covra as an incubator for their eggs, or when the Covra injected the men with the toxin that let the Covra take over their minds and force them to fight and kill each other.”
The Alien's Mystery (Uoria Mates IV Book 7) Page 3