Unleashed

by Tiffany Roberts

  Her hand fell on something smooth. She looked down to see the heartstones on either side of her. Lacking any other weapon close at hand, she picked them up.

  The noises from the fighting beasts stopped.

  Nina raised her gaze to find the shrieker and quilled beast standing beside each other, staring at her as intensely as the rockfur was. Bits of thought slipped past her defenses; though they came from three distinct minds, they were similar in nature.

  —the stones, she has—

  —blooded the stones—

  —stones in her hands—

  Nina’s breath was shallow as she watched the beasts slowly approach. With shaky hands, she placed the stones on the ground in front of her.

  “These are yours?” she asked. “You can have them. I won’t take them.”

  She retreated as they advanced, maintaining the distance between them, but her retreat hastened when the beasts began to change. Her back hit the stone wall behind her; there was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.

  The beasts’ bodies twisted, contorted, compacted, and their faces tightened into masks of pain. Their agony washed over her, counteracted only by the awed numbness instilled by the scene unfolding before her. Paws gave way to fingers, snouts to noses and faces, and shoulders drew back into familiar, humanoid forms. All three creatures staggeringly reared up on their hind legs, but they weren’t hind legs anymore, just legs, and they were people.

  All three were tall and muscled, the rockfur the biggest by far. Each retained distinctive features of his beast form — quills, claws, horns, hooves, bone plates, fur, scales — but now there was something more familiar about them. The shapes of their faces and bodies, the bony protrusions on their brows, cheeks, and knuckles…

  They reminded her of Orishok and his people.

  Nina opened her mind to them for an instant, and she was so startled by what she sensed that she thrust a wall up to sever the connection. She was left wide-eyed and breathless.

  These were his people.

  Aduun curled his fingers and tilted his head back as the final ripples of the change pulsed through him, running all the way to the tips of his quills. He released the breath that had been straining his chest and sucked in another ragged lungful of air. His body eased gradually. His limbs were unsteady, his head cloudy; how long had it been since he’d last reverted from beast form? How long since he’d been locked in that cage?

  The weight of untold years threatened to crash down upon him. Years of burning rage, of gnawing hunger, of being reminded of his failures.

  The heartstones.

  Gritting his teeth, he shifted his gaze toward the stones on the floor and the female standing beyond them.

  She didn’t quite look like any of the Creators he’d seen, but Kelsharn’s people had varied appearances, sometimes wildly so. It wouldn’t be unreasonable for one of them to don a form that looked small and delicate to disguise their true power. Such deception fit well into the games the Creators seemed fond of playing.

  And she’d made the mistake of letting go of the stones, thus relinquishing her ability to control Aduun and his companions.

  His quills rose.

  There would be no better chance than this.

  Aduun charged forward with a growl. He’d made Kelsharn bleed long ago, and he’d do the same to this Creator — or die in the attempt.

  Long, talon-tipped fingers — Balir’s — closed around Aduun’s wrist, causing his momentum to falter, but it was Vortok’s powerful grip on his other arm that halted Aduun’s charge completely. Leaning forward, Aduun flattened his quills and scraped his claws on the floor for purchase. Vortok tugged Aduun backward and wrapped his thick arms around Aduun’s torso, lifting him off his feet. The female watched with fearful eyes.

  “Release me!” Aduun snarled, flexing his muscles to battle Vortok’s hold.

  Balir shifted his hand to Aduun’s shoulder. “Be still, Aduun.”

  Aduun snapped his head to the side to glare at Balir. “She is of Kelsharn’s people, Balir. She must be destroyed before she takes the stones again!”

  Balir frowned, his unseeing eyes downcast beneath the bone plates that began just above his brow and swept back over his skull. He lifted his free hand and pointed toward the female. “Use your eyes, you fool, and look. She is not our enemy.”

  “Why would one of his kind fall through the hole in the ceiling?” Vortok asked, his deep, rumbling voice vibrating through his chest and into Aduun’s back.

  Aduun eased his struggles and ground his teeth together, forcing his attention to the female. She looked small, weak, afraid, and unarmed, but appearances meant nothing. She’d been inside his mind. Even through the bestial haze of ravenousness and rage, he’d felt her presence in his mind for an instant and had been helpless but to yield to her command. How could she not be a Creator?

  Vortok set Aduun on his feet and tentatively withdrew his powerful arms, grunting softly; he’d undoubtedly been poked by several quills by holding Aduun in such a fashion.

  Aduun dipped his gaze to the heartstones on the floor. Despite the other powerful odors, the scent of blood was the most distinct to him — not only that of shrieker Vortok had slain, but of this female. He knew it was her blood glistening upon the stones in the soft light.

  “She blooded our heartstones,” Aduun said.

  “Yes.” Balir’s grip on Aduun’s shoulder tightened slightly. “Can you not feel it inside you?”

  Inhaling deeply, Aduun closed his eyes. There, beneath all the fury and pain, deep within his beast, he felt it. Faint, faraway, unmistakable. Even without his heartstone in place, he felt her.

  Vortok stepped back. Aduun’s tail flicked restlessly from side to side, its movements beyond his control; it was driven purely by his inner turmoil.

  Aduun exhaled and opened his eyes. The female remained against the wall on the opposite side of the chamber, her gaze gleaming with unmasked fear. She’d placed the stones on the floor and moved away from them. An offering.

  And whatever language she’d spoken, it hadn’t been Kelsharn’s.

  His claws clicked on the floor as he stalked forward. Vortok and Balir flanked him on either side, the latter not removing his hand from Aduun’s shoulder. Together, they crouched and collected their heartstones.

  Aduun rose and stared down at the stone on his palm. The female’s blood was dark on its surface, deepening the red of the stone’s inner light where it covered the fissures. As he watched, the blood slowly sank into the stone, absorbed by whatever dark magic Kelsharn had wrought over it.

  With another glance at the female, Aduun raised his hand and pressed the heartstone to his chest.

  Searing pain spread across his torso like a summer wildfire across the grasslands. Every muscle in his body tensed at once, amplifying the pain, but the physical agony was nothing compared to the strain on his mind. Ancient memories that had been only faint impressions a moment before roared to the forefront of his consciousness with such clarity that he felt as if he were reliving them. The faces of his tribesmen, his clanmates, their tents and feast fires, the dirt, cold, and blood of the many hunts he’d led, Kelsharn’s false friendship and his own foolish acceptance of it; it all flitted through his awareness in an unstoppable deluge.

  The memories were a reminder of who he’d once been, of the happiness he’d once known and would never know again, of all his failures and what his people had suffered because of them.

  The pained grunts and gasps from both sides suggested Vortok and Balir were having similar experiences as their heartstones settled into place, burning through flesh and bone to bury themselves deep within.

  Aduun’s shoulders rose and fell rapidly with heaving breaths. The heat that had suffused his body slowly dissipated, fading to a tingling sensation before ceasing fully.

  With his memories came the true power of his emotions, sharpened by the restoration of the man who’d been paired with the beast — rage towering like jagged mountain pe
aks over a deep, dark valley of sorrow, surrounded by a sense of loss and guilt that swept forever onward toward the horizon, as endless as the great, roiling seas of legend.

  Though their magnitude and intensity had been diminished by the absence of his heartstone, all those emotions were his. They were the truth of his heart. This was the return of what had been taken from him, of the pieces that once made him whole.

  But something new was layered within those familiar emotions, something of surprising strength despite its relative youth.

  Aduun returned his attention to the female. Her features were drawn not in fear but in discomfort or distress. She was the new part of him; her blood was at his core, and he was even more aware of her now as a man than he’d been as a beast.

  The others were correct; this female was no Creator. She was something else entirely, something new and mysterious — just as Kelsharn’s kind had once been new and mysterious. They could not dismiss her as harmless simply because she was different.

  Perhaps she’d been frightened and didn’t know Aduun, Vortok, and Balir were valos, didn’t know their heartstones could’ve been used to control them to some extent. Perhaps she didn’t know what valos or heartstones were. Was she undeserving of his rage, his hatred, his vengeance?

  She’d offered the heartstones willingly. That meant something, didn’t it?

  It meant something, but it wasn’t enough. Though she’d blooded the stones, had forged a bond between them, he didn’t have to accept that bond. He didn’t know what she was, and he couldn’t trust her. Not yet.

  “Are you well, female?” Vortok asked.

  “You speak my father’s language,” she said in the tongue of Aduun’s people. “You are—”

  Her words were cut off when a glowing figure appeared in the center of the chamber. It towered over everyone, even Vortok. The well-defined, lean muscles of the figure’s bare torso and abdomen led to narrow hips, where a wide belt held a long, dark waistcloth in place. The fabric hung to the floor and was pulled taut at the plates on each hip, which were shaped to look like the gaping maws of nameless, nightmarish beasts. The figure’s forearms were clad in spiked arm-coverings that extended over the backs of its long-fingered hands. Most unsettling of all was the mask. It was black, bone-like, with massive, curving horns jutting from each side to taper off over the head. There were no visible eyeholes; only the figure’s mouth and chin were uncovered, its lips curved into a sinister, sharp-toothed grin.

  The tall, slim visage was familiar to Aduun — it had consumed his life for more years than he could count, despite the crimson haze his beast had settled over their shared mind.

  “Kelsharn,” the female breathed in horror.

  Aduun had no time to wonder what the female was or how she knew Kelsharn; he was staring at his Creator, the being who’d shattered everything Aduun had known. He curled his fingers to ready his claws. His quills rose, and he growled deep in his chest, nearly drowning out Balir’s soft clicking.

  Kelsharn laughed. The sound was disorienting; it seemed to emanate from everywhere and nowhere in the chamber, and consisted of several, dissonant tones simultaneously like it was produced by several people rather than just one. It sparked a fire in Aduun’s blood.

  Balir settled a hand on Aduun’s shoulder again. “It is a spirit, Aduun. He is not here.”

  Flaring his nostrils, Aduun scented the air. He would remember Kelsharn’s smell no matter how many years passed, and it was no longer present in this chamber. There was only the fetid odor of rotting bones, the beast-stink of Aduun and his companions, and the fresh, alluring aroma of the female and her blood.

  “My pets have finally freed themselves,” Kelsharn said in his native tongue, his layered voice reverberating off the walls. Aduun wished he couldn’t understand the words, wished they hadn’t been burned into his mind against his will. “Your punishment is nearing its end. Have you learned your place? Do you understand that you are animals — my animals — to be chained, caged, and slaughtered at my whim?”

  “I will find you, Kelsharn, and I will—” Aduun said, but the spirit continued without offering acknowledgment of the words.

  “Of course you haven’t learned. Not yet. You were my first creations. My mistakes. But your imperfections taught me much, and I am a benevolent Creator. I believe in rehabilitation and redemption.” Kelsharn lifted a hand, splaying out his fingers. The walls rumbled.

  Aduun looked toward the source of the noise. The roughhewn rock beside the female was receding with a heavy, stone-on-stone scrape. She shoved herself away from the wall and turned to face it as she backed away from the growing opening.

  The ghostly image of Kelsharn glided to stand before the dark mouth of the newly revealed tunnel. “Beyond this chamber, you will find your people — what few of them remain. Reaching them will not be easy, and you will be in constant mortal danger despite the generous gifts I have bestowed upon you. Rescue them, and you are all free to leave, knowing that it is because I willed it. That it is because I made you into more than you were. Into better than you were.”

  Kelsharn seemed to grow impossibly tall, and the light in the chamber flickered and dimmed.

  “Know, Aduun, that your suffering has not yet reached its end. The pain to come will remind you of what you are. Of who you belong to. Even should you succeed, you and your people will exist for eternity knowing that you are what I made you. My work will never be undone.”

  Aduun gritted his teeth and clenched his fists, digging his claws into his palms.

  The spirit drifted closer and loomed over him. “Through obedience, your people would have known long, fulfilling lives. But you failed them, chieftain’s son. Do not forget that their suffering is your doing.” Kelsharn’s grin stretched wider, displaying far too many pointed teeth, and the spirit dissipated like smoke on the wind.

  The light stones reverted to their prior luminescence, bathing the chamber in their soft, mocking glow. For several moments, Aduun’s attention lingered on the place Kelsharn had stood, and then his eyes flicked to the dark opening beyond. The female stood staring at the tunnel, shoulders heaving.

  “Our people, Aduun,” Vortok said, stepping forward.

  Aduun turned his head to glance at the huge valo. The chamber’s illumination reflected in Vortok’s dark eyes, granting them a hopeful gleam like they hadn’t possessed since before Kelsharn changed their clan. “Why would Kelsharn speak truth? He has deceived us from the moment he arrived among our people.” Aduun snarled. “I will not be tricked again.”

  Chapter Three

  Nina’s head throbbed. The volatile emotions from the valos were an unrelenting assault on her psychic shields, having reached a feverish peak when Kelsharn’s image had appeared. She hadn’t believed her eyes at first. She recognized Kelsharn from bits of memory she’d picked up from her father, and seeing the Creator — even if it was only a projected image — had woken the same hatred and fear in Nina that Orishok had felt all those years ago. That these valos felt now.

  Kelsharn had caused so much suffering.

  She needed to tell her father. Needed to…

  Nina glanced around the chamber, finally settling her gaze on the dark opening before her. How would she get to Orishok? There were no other visible exits. She was as trapped as these valos were.

  Aduun and Vortok’s voices filled the air, the former a raised, tense snarl, the latter a low, gravelly rumble. Nina turned her head toward them.

  “How can we abandon them?” Vortok demanded, jabbing a thick finger at the tunnel. “If they are in there, it is our duty to find them. They are our clan, Aduun! Our people!”

  Aduun wasn’t small — she guessed he was nearly as tall as Orishok — but Vortok towered over him all the same. Despite the size difference between them, Aduun stepped toward the larger valo, quills raised. “What reason would he have to keep them alive? The three of us are here because keeping us alive was the cruelest fate he could imagine. Would it not be to his p
leasure to have us battle through more trials only to find that our people have been dead and gone all along?”

  Anger blasted through Vortok, lashing out with white-hot projections to strike Nina. She braced herself against the wave; it was explosive, primal, irrational, produced from somewhere beneath his conscious thought. She knew the source was his beast.

  Vortok took a step closer to Aduun, stomping his hoof-like foot on the floor. “After all this, now is the moment you choose to betray our people? Now that we are free?”

  Aduun threw a hand out. “Does this look like freedom?”

  Something touched Nina’s shoulder. She flinched and turned her head to see long, clawed fingers settled there. Gasping, she pulled away and spun to face the valo behind her. She’d forgotten about him, forgotten there’d been three valos in the chamber. The other two stopped speaking.

  His name swept through her mind like a gentle breeze.

  Balir.

  He moved closer. This time, Nina didn’t back away. He didn’t project violence or rage in that moment, only curiosity.

  Though slightly shorter than Aduun, Balir was at least a foot taller than Nina. His skin was the color of cooled ashes, made up of fine scales. A ridge of bone swept back from his forehead, terminating in two dull points that weren’t quite horns, and similar plates rose from his shoulders — just like on a shrieker. The points of red luminescence on his neck were dulled by the ambient light in the chamber. He was well muscled but lean, with long limbs. His fingers each had an extra joint, and both fingers and toes were tipped with wicked, curved, black talons.

  His eyes were at once disconcerting and soothing; his irises and pupils were an unnaturally pale gray that looked ready to fade completely into white at any moment. They were unfocused and directed away, but she sensed he was fully aware of her all the same. He produced a series of soft clicks in his throat. Under any other circumstances, that sound would’ve chilled her blood; it was the noise shriekers made while they were searching for prey.