by Stella Sky
We walked through the metal drawbridge, and I watched as it flapped up behind us, locking us in the Vithohn society. A fight had broken out between my people, several of them beating on one man and drawing blood, shouting a battle cry that sent waves of sick memories through my shoulders.
I watched, one hand on the small of Elise’s lower back, as they viscously attacked the Vithohn.
Before I had the chance to turn around, a Vithohn approached.
“What’s this then?” the man said, pointing to Elise with a deep curiosity.
I nodded toward the man. “Nadirath,” I acknowledged.
He was tall and muscular: heavily armored. He was one of the only other Voth in my crew. He was also one of the first Vithohn to suggest Earth as our main target for takeover. He was the one who reported back to Udrenahine, our home planet.
“Well, well, well, look who came crawling back. And just in time, too,” Nadirath laughed: his tentacles twirling around behind him from the buzz of the fight.
I cocked a brow. “What’s going on?”
“It's Ordyt,” he spoke of an old friend before waving me off absent-mindedly as he said of Elise, “Who's this? Where's Fiona?”
I set my jaw and grabbed her hand. “This is Elise.”
“Hello,” she said with a polite wave.
“No Fiona?” he asked with a small smirk trickling up the corner of his crooked mouth.
“No,” I tensed.
“I see,” the Voth said slowly. I could see he was trying to control himself: could see him struggling to contain the lust and violence that surged through him: the same core in his body that was once in mine. The part of him that screamed: take her.
“What's going on with Ordyt?” I asked, redirecting his attention as I gestured toward the scuffle.
“A Kilari,” he said direly. “Possibly.”
“What?” I offered a deep scowl. “Impossible.”
“We want you to connect with him,” he said slowly, watching my expression carefully.
Elise frowned, unsure what was going on, and squeezed my hand. I didn’t look at her, but I could already feel her eyes reaching for my attention.
“That's dangerous...” I said, confused by the order. “How do they think... how is that possible? He's been with us since the takeover.”
He set his fingers against his chin and drew us further into the fortress. He shook his head as we walked along the black stone floors. “Form enhancement, they’re saying.”
From his tone, I could tell it was just a guess.
“A shapeshifter?” Elise repeated quickly: her tone going up at the end like a little child. “The Kilari? I've never heard of such a thing.”
Nadirath laughed at her, looking at me as if to say ‘Isn’t she cute?’ and I grit my teeth.
Nadirath reached a hand out and touched Elise: tickled a long finger up her arm and then grabbed at her wrist, violently. “The Voth have everyone so paranoid about an attack,” he laughed and then released her. Then he looked at me, and I knew what he wanted. “It's either kill him or Onoxulate.”
“Then I'll join with him,” I said, pushing Elise behind me.
“I see. Then I'll... see to it that you're accommodated. I'll tell the Voth.” Nadirath sounded just as surprised as I did by my response. He turned once more before leaving and pointed to Elise. “You'll have to explain this woman’s presence at some point, I hope you know.”
I waved him off, and he began walking toward the fight.
“Why are they asking you to figure all this out? What's up with that?” she said, pulling my hand and tugging me toward her.
“I'm the Exerott,” I breathed, hoping that would explain things to her.
I smiled, and she blinked and shook her head in frustration. “Sorry?”
“The interrogator,” I expanded.
“Really?” she said, chomping away at the minty gob she liked to keep in her mouth. “And what is Onoxulate?”
I swallowed and turned around, pointing to the tentacles that lay limp behind me. “They want me to connect mine with his to see if he really is a Vithohn.”
She blinked in surprise. “I didn't know that was a thing. The shapeshifting, I mean.”
I exhaled uncomfortably. “Neither did I.”
“So how will you know?” she said, now seeming transfixed by our surroundings. Her head tilted back as her eyes followed the oversized walls that guarded our fortress. “What difference does it make?” she continued.
“I'll be able to sense it,” I said.
She nodded slowly. “And what do I do?”
I wanted to tell her to go into my quarters, but as I looked around the square, I could already sense the Vithohn getting aggressive: ready to take her into their beds. Take her right on the stone floor.
This was exactly why Fiona wanted to leave. I tried so hard to keep her away, and yet here I was, inviting another woman in to get attacked.
“You'll be with me,” I said firmly.
A part of me felt bad for bringing her into the interrogation room: to bring her into such a mess on her first day in Tenizi.
My first day at Scarlet Heights, I was served a hot meal and something amazing that Elise called ‘cookies.’ Her first day in Tenizi, she would watch a man get tortured.
We stepped into the small boxed-in room; metal walls and a myriad of cameras were set up.
“Kodyn, please,” Ordyt begged.
“What are they saying, Ordyt?” I said uncomfortably, trying to read his eyes for any sign that they might be wrong.
“You know how it is here. The paranoia is rampant. All they talk about are the Kilari. Now they're saying I'm one of them.”
I’d known Ordyt since I was born. The thought that he might be one of those… things sent a shiver through my core. My eyes flicked to Elise, and she stepped back from us, pressing her tiny body into the cold wall behind me.
I shook my head to my friend. “It's crazy,” I reiterated.
Ordyt’s eyes flicked up as he spotted the white-haired woman behind me. “Who’s this?” he asked.
“Elise,” I said and then studied him.
Ordyt looked at her with a sad smile and then offered me sympathetic eyes. “No Fiona?” he said and quickly followed up with, “That’s too bad.”
We had a long stare: an unspoken exchange that made me sick. I watched him look at Elise and felt uneasy. I knew he’d never been with a female; he never had that aggression. I couldn’t see it before Fiona, before I was awakened.
But I saw it now.
“Things are out of hand here, Kodyn. I can't say I blame you for leaving. Not like before. It's the humans... they've gotten in our heads.” He blanched: stopped and regarded Elise uncomfortably.
“She's hard to offend,” I said.
Elise shrugged, and I could tell she wanted to make a joke. Instead, she said, “It's true.”
“I wish I’d left with you,” Ordyt said.
We had been close friends for so long. I had never questioned his loyalty. In fact, when I left with Fiona, he was the only one I told. He supported the decision: wished me well. He had been my brother.
“I’m sorry you didn’t,” I said, pained. “But I still have to do this.”
Ordyt blinked back in surprise, looking horrified. “You think I'm one of them?”
“I have to do it,” I repeated, cold.
“So this is what it's come down to?” Ordyt spat. “Didn't we shed blood together? Take over this planet together? Kodyn, please.”
“We did,” I said firmly and reached my tentacle over to his. He screamed and struggled against me, shouting into the air with gut-wrenching cries. He screamed out, ‘Please, no!’ over and over, scrambling to get away from me. They were the tortured sobs I knew I would hear over and over after this night.
I focused my energy in my spire, feeling it go purple and pink and light up the room with its power before I pelted him with a small blast of it. He was stronger than I remembered.
The force sent him careening back into the floor, and I raced to get on top of him, forcing my spire into his and connecting violently.
Our connection lasted for only a second before I pulled away. I ripped my spire away from his, feeling the heat of him in my body somehow. I used both my spires to whip his body to the ground.
It was then I knew we had bigger problems than the humans and the Vithohn
Chapter Seven
Elise
We hadn’t been at Kodyn’s fortress for a day, and already we had been plunged into an interrogation and a mock trial.
The men here looked at me like something that was to be devoured, destroyed, and punished for daring to show my human face. These Vithohn didn’t seek females. It didn’t seem like it, anyway. They sought war.
I swallowed hard as Kodyn and I were brought into an interior room, lit up with white lights and fastened with sliding doors. The rooms were sleek and new, and they reminded me of what the world must have been like before the Vithohn take over.
Ordyt, to my surprise, was taken to a large, circular coliseum that sat in the middle of the fortress. We could see him through the open windows in the room we sat in, being held back by Vithohn and never moving to defend himself.
The accusations rang out one after another as various Vithohn lined up to proclaim Ordyt’s guilt to Nadirath.
“He doesn’t react to females,” one said.
“He’s snuck off to the mountains at night with no explanation,” another said viciously.
The looks on their faces ranged from mild vengeance to a seething desire to see Ordyt punished for his crimes. Each face came onto the scene with little regard for the man's wellbeing, each rushing to accuse him.
Their accusations went from mild observances of peculiar behavior to what sounded like outright lies. I could see from the reactions around the room that the Vithohn didn't care whether they were true or not. They had already made up their minds.
Then suddenly there was a face I recognized. Kodyn. He stepped up onto a platform before Nadirath and the ground made a hollow, tinny sound as his boots clamored against it.
“Kodyn,” Nadirath demanded: formal. “You connected with Ordyt, did you not?”
“It was my intention, but I could not make a connection.”
“And you have no reason to lie to the council?” Nadirath asked, and the entire court seemed to hang on his every word: a tense upheaval overtaking the room.
I wondered if he would say that he was good friends with Ordyt: that he didn't wish him any harm and therefore had no reason to lie. I wondered if he actually believed what he was saying. But there was no light behind his eyes. He was completely unreadable to me.
“I do not,” Kodyn said.
“Then what is your assessment?” the tall Vithohn asked, traipsing around the room with purpose.
Nadirath stopped at the windows that overlooked the courtyard where Ordyt was being held down, and I wondered what he was thinking.
“That he is a Kilari,” Kodyn said, and I knew it was coming.
Nadirath gave a small nod, sad but resigned, and then looked around the room at his collection of warriors. They looked hungry for blood: ready for the sentencing.
“And... what punishment will fit this traitor?” Nadirath asked.
Kodyn didn’t hesitate. “Death,” he said.
I couldn't believe what I was hearing. They shouldn't be locking him up; they should be studying him. If he was really a Kilari, able to take on another form, they should figure out how it was possible to do and how they could identify one in the future.
Kodyn’s words hit the air crisp and clear and the only audible gasp I heard was my own. I looked around with pin-needles of shock rushing through my body like a wave.
They were really going to kill him. Just like that.
An hour later, after the sun had set, I snuck down into the wide-open coliseum and stared through the iron bars that kept me from walking in. I wondered for a moment if I could slide my slender body through the bars, but thought better of it.
My eyes trailed the creature slowly as he sat cross-legged in the center of the ring. He stared back at me, empty, and it unsettled me.
I slipped my hand through the bar and gave him a look of pity. “Hey,” I said quietly, looking around to see if there were any guards nearby.
“You…” he said with some confusion. “Why are you here?”
“I'm not sure, to be honest,” I laughed and waved him over. “I guess I just...”
“You don't understand,” he said, not moving from his spot. It made it irritating and difficult to talk to him in secret: his refusal to come close to the gate. Still, I was game.
“Do you?” I asked, shouting in a whisper. “Does this decision make any sense to you?”
“I am Vithohn,” he confirmed. “So of course I understand why they have chosen my sentence. Vithohn do not compromise their people. It's why your people are having such a hard time getting them to ally.”
I shifted uncomfortably. “The Vithohn seek women. It's not actually that hard to get them to sign a treaty.”
“Ah,” he said, raising a long, scaly finger to the air. “But how many mate with a female and then leave, instead of joining your army?”
I thought about it, leaning against the doorframe just outside the bars. I kicked a rock beneath my feet and shrugged. He was right. Some Vithohn became obsessed with the females and vowed to stay with them, which usually meant joining our militia. But other times, the two would just run off together, both refusing to betray their people.
“I guess you have a point,” I said stubbornly.
“Kodyn left,” he said. “Left with a girl for that very reason.”
“Is that right?” I asked, more of a statement than a question.
“The men here tried to kill her out of their own desire. The Vithohn pursued her; she fought with them. He couldn't stand them looking at her any longer, but she wouldn't go back to the humans. It is how I know he does not love you,” he said so evenly that it made my knees buckle.
“How’s that?” I asked, clearly offended.
He didn’t love me?
The phrase rang through my head over and over.
“Because he brought you into the fortress,” he said quickly. “Into danger.”
I gave a long pause and then stood upright again, still feeling shaky. “Maybe he believed I could take care of myself. Ever think of that?”
“No,” Ordyt said, sure of himself.
I decided I wanted to ignore him then and sighed, changing the subject. “So then, he didn't betray the Vithohn, so much as he was protecting his lover.”
“No... He did not betray the Vithohn,” he finally agreed. “Only me, it seems.”
“Ordyt, please, tell me why you didn't defend yourself? What did he see when you connected?”
He shook his head, still so far away. “I don’t know,” he said slowly: emotionless. “But if Kodyn sees fit to put me to death, then something must be wrong.”
I set my jaw. “That's the most absurd display of submission I have ever seen. I get that you're being loyal, but come on.”
“Why do you care so much?” he asked, finally stirring from his spot.
He stood from the center of the courtyard and seemed so incredibly tall all of the sudden.
“I guess I just... that's just not how we do things. What are you going to do? Let them tear you apart?” I scoffed. “Because that’s what they’re going to do.”
He approached the cage and gave me a look that unsettled me more than anything else: it made me sweat. He looked resigned to his punishment. I was sure he was wondering why I was concerning myself. I didn’t even know him, after all. Why I hadn’t asked if he was guilty.
Then, in a final brush-off he said, “I will do whatever they see fit,” and turned away from me.
I grit my teeth, pissed at his indifference to death. Fine then, I thought, go ahead and die.
> I walked down the bright corridors leading back to the sleeping quarters, back to Kodyn, and could see the figure of a Vithohn just ahead of me. I recognized it as Nadirath right away. He turned his profile to me, hearing my footsteps behind him, and I quickly announced myself.
“It’s Elise,” I said.
Apparently, I was ready to talk to everyone tonight.
“Off exploring, are we?” he said, bemused as he stopped walking, waiting for me to catch up to him.
I nodded. “Yeah, sorry.”
“No need,” he waved me off. “Let our temple be yours. Might I ask why you were consorting with our prisoner?”
“I'm sorry,” I said, unenthusiastically. “I guess I just don't understand what happened.”
“No, you don't,” he responded as we walked. His tone wasn’t harsh or judgmental. It was simple. And he was right, I supposed. I didn’t understand.
“I don't see what everyone else see’s,” I said.
“Nor do I,” Nadirath breathed and looked back over to me, his eyes roaming around my body. He stopped at an open window: a thickly barred opening with no screen that let in the cool night breeze. “But, I trust Kodyn. If he says Ordyt is not to be trusted, that he is not one of us, then that is what we have to believe.”
I set my hand on the bar in front of me and let the moisture of it run slick down my palm. I tried to bite my tongue, but because I am me, I couldn’t.
“Not being one of you and not being trusted aren't necessarily the same things,” I tested.
“You are right,” he said.
He followed my lead, setting his long fingers around the thick black bars of the window and leaning into the fresh air. “But that is not something I can convince my people of. Believe me; I wish things were different.” He looked around then, furtive. “Ordyt and I…”
“Close?” I finished.
He remained stoic, gripping the bar hard suddenly. “It's not safe to say anymore.” He shrugged. “I trust no one will rush to his defense.”
I let go of the window, instead turning to lean my back on the bars and momentarily feeling like I might fall back and let the wind take me.