Shadowed (Valos of Sonhadra Book 6)

by Isabel Wroth

  Izax was distracted from his thoughts when the sensation of fear slithered beneath his armor. Deja had stopped as the valos came out to make their silent greeting. As one, hundreds of builders lowered themselves to one knee and bowed their heads in deference.

  "Wye arr dey doowing daat?" Deja asked, leaning closer to his leg as she apprehensively looked around at the kneeling valos.

  It was slowly becoming easier to understand her, her dialect was so strange, harsher and so different from their own. Izax waved his arm out to encompass the hundreds who had come out to the street.

  "These are your valos, Marahi Deja. They have been diligent, it seems, in following the orders left by your predecessor, Marahi Astaria. We must have been asleep far longer than we thought for Penumbra to have grown so vast."

  Deja peeked around him, her teeth tugging at her lip nervously after shooting a quick glance up at him.

  "Translaytor ehs wurkeng. Eye gawt haf uv dat. Dare arr sew menni. Wer diddey cum frum?"

  Uncertain what exactly she was asking, Izax did his best to read her body language in conjunction with the echo of her emotions. She seemed curious, wary perhaps. She gave a huff of frustration and pointed to him, Azzuryn, and Arkhan, then made an exploding motion with her hands, waving her slender digits at the valos lining the street.

  "She wishes to know why we are so many and where we came from." Arkhan interpreted.

  Deja whipped around with a soft gasp, pointing at Arkhan with wide eyes. "Yoo! I uhnderrstud yoo. Keep tawkeng. Slowlee."

  Craning her neck to be able to meet Arkhan's gaze, she waited patiently for him to answer, seeming to startle when Arkhan also took a knee before her.

  "Before Marahi Astaria came to this valley, the Shadow Valo were no more than wraiths. We had consciousness, but insubstantial form. Marahi Astaria came, needing warriors to protect her from her fellow creators and slaves to build this city for the children she said would one day come.

  “So, she found a way to give us physical form by enclosing us in stone exoskeletons. These are the valos who have built Penumbra," Arkhan pointed to the long, silent row of kneeling valos. "It seems Izax, Azurryn, and I are all that remain of the warriors. We are bound to you now. We will lay down our lives to protect you."

  Deja was quiet for a moment, not moving as she stared at Arkhan with open mouthed shock. When Arkhan tilted his head and asked if it would please Deja for him to repeat himself, she spluttered and shook her head.

  "No. I heard you fine, I'm just uh...struggling to process."

  "Your translator must be functioning as intended. We are able to understand you much easier now." Izax told her, hoping the knowledge would please her.

  Strange, he thought, that he should find himself seeking to please this female. If Marahi Astaria had demanded such a thing from him, or if he had felt desire at all while in her service, Izax could not recall it.

  "Well, that's good then. Did you say, slaves?" Deja asked Arkhan.

  "I did, Marahi."

  Deja reached up to tug on the tail of her hair, distressed for some reason. "So many questions. Priorities when conversing with aliens. Need priorities." she muttered to herself. To them she said, "Are they waiting for me to do something?"

  Izax looked at his people, taking note that not a single one of them had so much as raised their eyes from the ground. "No, Marahi Deja. They have stopped their work to greet you and will return to it once you pass by."

  Their new Marahi nodded, pressing her hands to her belly when the sound of something inside her growled furiously. Having never heard such a sound before, Izax was certain the beast in her belly was responsible for her long sleep on the revitalization platform.

  "We must return you to the healing chamber, Marahi. The parasite inside you has not been successfully neutralized. Come, I will carry you." Izax knelt and offered her his hands, but she was frozen with horror.

  "Parasite? What parasite?" She demanded, her belly snarling again as though the creature within was sentient.

  "The one that makes such furious noises inside you. You need not be afraid, the platform is well equipped for such things."

  Deja looked down to where she had folded her hands across her stomach, making a strangled sound as the sensation of amusement brushed his senses.

  "You just scared the life out of me, Izax. That's the sound my stomach makes when I need food. I'm hungry. I don't suppose you have food here that's human friendly?"

  Arkhan stood, he and Azurryn sharing a look while Deja seated herself in the hands Izax still held out for her. "What is a human? Why would you require your sustenance to be sentient enough to show kindness?"

  Deja pointed to herself, "I am a human. It's the species I belong to. What I meant is, this is an alien planet, I might get sick from eating something here because my body isn't capable of digesting it."

  Striding off for the palace, Izax cast a quick look behind them to see that the builders were slowly rising, returning to their workshops without uttering a single word. With the gift of her blood, Deja gave him the ability to know he should feel sadness now. Perhaps anger as well that his kind were no more than drones, yet there was only emptiness.

  "The revitalization platform will have altered your body to adapt as needed to Sonhadra's climate, atmosphere, and all forms of sustenance." Izax detoured to the nearest garden, hoping the builders had maintained it well enough in their Creator's absence for Deja to be able to find the nourishment she required.

  "Sonhadra? Is that the name of this planet?"

  "It is."

  "And you are a valo? That's your species?"

  "Correct."

  "Arkhan made it sound like you're a biological entity inside all that armor, not robots or statues."

  Izax was able to traverse the distance to the gardens much quicker now that Deja was secured within his hold. "I do not know what this robot is, but we are indeed a biological entity. Our armor, as you call it, contains our non-corporeal form. A vessel we use to ambulate instead of floating around as shadow.

  “One day perhaps, you will find us worthy enough to grant us the gift of our heartstones. The valos will then be able to take a physical form without the assistance of our exoskeletons."

  "What is a heartstone?"

  "When our creator took us from the shadows to give us form and shape, it was with the assistance of a special stone. Arkhan?" As Izax was carrying the precious weight of his Marahi, and Arkhan was closest, his fellow warrior shifted to show Deja the depression at the center of his exoskeleton's breastplate.

  "It is a stone that fits here." Arkhan demonstrated.

  "And what does the stone do?"

  "The stone holds memories, feeling, consciousness. It is what gives us life. Substance. Choice."

  ~DEJA

  There were exactly zero recognizable fruits in the garden she had been brought to. Some of what she saw now looked dangerous; the berry like things in front of her for instance. They were green and covered in spikes, something in the bed beside it was bright yellow and smelled like week-old dirty socks. Yuck.

  Hungry as she was, Deja kept wandering until she found something that looked less dangerous to eat. A pinging sound made her look up to find Arkhan walking ahead of her, poking a thick finger against the triangular shaped lanterns. The agitation caused the lichen inside to put off more light, allowing her to see perfectly.

  The giant alien didn't say anything as he knelt beside a larger shrub, and with amazing dexterity, began to pluck fat, pale pink berries from the top where she might not have been able to reach. Deja stood frozen and watched him patiently pick one at a time, placing them carefully in his other hand until he held a modest pile.

  "Here, Marahi. You will find these to your liking."

  Deja crossed to where Arkhan knelt, holding the berries out like an offering. The flesh was soft and smooth, just the right size to eat whole, though her first bite was far more cautious. She nibbled, slightly startled when the berry gave a pop, rele
asing a burst of delicious juice.

  Deja couldn't help but laugh when the liquid dripped down her chin. The flavor was incomparable to anything she had ever eaten, but it was sweet and she liked it, so she slowly put a dent in Arkhan's pile until her belly didn't feel so raw inside.

  Deja continued to explore the garden, numb to the worst of the shock at this point as she stood staring up at the underside of a mushroom. The stalk was as thick as a tree trunk, smooth and spongy to the touch, the cap large enough to stand beneath, and like everything else in the garden, it cast a beautiful glow. Pinks, purples, neon greens. Deja finished off the last of her berries and continued to admire the enormous fungus. It was utterly marvelous.

  "Have you had your fill, Marahi?" Izax rumbled from behind her.

  "For now. I want to make sure I'm not going to have some kind of bowel loosening reaction to eating strange fruit before I try anything else. Speaking of, uh, where are the toilets?"

  Arkhan stood, towering over her once more, the confusion evident in his tone, though she couldn't see beneath his helmet.

  "What is a toilet, Marahi?"

  Deja experienced a moment of horror. Visions of having to poop in a bucket and toss it all out the window like some kind of medieval peasant flashed across her mind, each scenario worse than the one before it. She stumbled across her words, trying to decide how best to explain without having to demonstrate.

  "Um, everything I put in my mouth is digested and comes out again once my body has finished processing it into waste. A toilet is a receptacle with running water that takes the waste away. You've got a few of those around here somewhere, right?"

  All three of the stone warriors looked at one another. Azurryn shrugged his massive shoulders, looking like he was wordlessly attempting to convey his thoughts to Arkhan.

  "I will remain here to gather more sustenance for you, Marahi. Izax and Azurryn will return you to the palace so you may explore your quarters and decide whether or not it meets all your needs. If it does not, you witnessed how many builders are at your disposal, they are able to create a space suited for your comfort."

  When Azurryn knelt to offer her a seat in his hands, she didn't hesitate to hop up and allow him to carry her off towards the palace. The trip seemed much quicker this time, the longer legs of the valo eating up the distance.

  At the top of the stairs, Deja craned her neck to take in the awesome size of the stone doors in front of her. They were easily as tall as a five story building and appeared to be carved from two slabs of solid stone, yet when Izax put his hands to the panels and pushed, they opened with freakish silence.

  This grand entry of the palace was unbelievable. Breathtaking.

  Figures were carved into the walls on both sides like a motif, or a story maybe. The megalithic space was flooded with a beautiful indigo color that reflected off the intricately carved, floor to ceiling murals along either side of her, so high Deja couldn't make out the topmost motif.

  Polished columns stretched up into beautiful fan shapes, each doorway decorated with scalloped edges, elaborate carvings seen on every wall and door lintel. The skill and craftsmanship was astounding.

  And here she'd thought the room with the crystal table was large.

  "This is amazing. I don't even know what it says, but it's still amazing." Her voice echoed like she was standing at the precipice of a ten mile wide canyon.

  Izax's voice truly sounded like a thunderstorm when he answered, echoing in the vastness of the hall. "It is the story of Astaria and how Penumbra came to be. How the Shadow Valos came to be."

  "It's beautiful. Can we come back here later?"

  Izax's purple eyes flashed at her from under his helmet. "You are Marahi now, you may go wherever you wish. All your eyes see belongs to you."

  Deja missed the majority of the view as they ascended up a wide, winding stone staircase to the next level, gaping like a fish no doubt because she could not believe the words that had just come out of Izax's unseen mouth.

  If she hadn't been held like she was in his hands, Deja knew she would have been tripping over her feet. He couldn't be serious. Her eyes had seen a hell of a lot in the last few hours. It couldn't possibly belong to her. Had she misunderstood somehow?

  The pair of giants took her up and up and up the winding stone staircases and through hallways that glittered with gems, through others that made music as the wind blew across them.

  Room after empty room, and there wasn’t another living soul anywhere.

  The hallways were beyond grand, except they were empty of any sort of hustle and bustle one might expect from such an enormous place. Though really, any preconceived notions of an alien civilization were pretty much being re-written at this point, Deja hadn't ever given much thought to aliens in general.

  Finally, her hosts stopped their upward climb and Azurryn hung back while Izax moved to push open a pair of stone doors. They swung inward without so much as a hiss of stone on stone. She barely noticed Azurryn carefully setting her on her feet, so engrossed in staring at what were apparently her quarters.

  It was a round room, the stone a lighter grayish black than the majority of the city, but still shot through with gorgeous veins of color.

  On either side of the many arched doorways were raised beds of bright fuchsia flowers and climbing vines. They stretched up the walls connecting high up above on a ledge where the same flowers spilled down like frothy, living curtains.

  There were lounges around low tables, windows made of what looked like stained glass refracted rainbows across the floor and her skin in the most beautiful patterns.

  The ceiling above the open courtyard appeared to be constructed entirely of glass allowing the phosphorescence of Penumbra to filter through, illuminating a massive pink globe in the dead center of the courtyard.

  She was drawn to the object, marveling at the way the glittering crystal seemed to revolve, perfectly balanced on the point of the small pyramid recessed into the floor, surrounded by softly flowing water.

  As she walked around it, deep emerald colored curtains hanging in the threshold of the largest archway, caught her eye.

  The arch to her left led to a long rotunda, a lounge area, and in a glass-walled room Deja found a round platform draped in gauzy black curtains. The bed? As large as it was, eight to ten people could sleep easily on it.

  The arch to her right led into what she could only assume was her new bathroom. Her bathtub was an opalescent pool reminiscent of an ancient Roman bath, made of what she thought was the same stone as the healing table.

  It was filled with water, but when she knelt down on the cold stone floor to trail her fingers across the surface the liquid she had expected to feel was more...solid. Like jam.

  Curiously, she pushed her hand into the odd stuff, her skin telling her it was wet just like water was supposed to be, but when she pulled back she was completely dry. Not only that, the lingering bit of stickiness from the berries was completely gone from her palm and fingers. How weird was that?

  "Marahi Deja, do your quarters sufficiently meet your needs?" Izax called from the courtyard.

  She remembered she was on the hunt for a toilet, and hustled to look. Sink like basin, benches for lounging in the opulent space, toilet...where was the toilet?

  Deja found a smaller, human bum sized bowl, made of the same crystal as the tub sitting up on an odd pedestal. Her fear of chamber pots returned, but she really had to wee now. Bad.

  Peeking to make sure neither of her new friends could see her, Deja swept the fringe covering her butt aside, giving a random thought to the easy access her outfit gave her for things like having a good wee.

  She did her business, and before she could think about paper or a wipe, Deja felt a cool stream of something swish up between her exposed nether region.

  Frozen with horror that she had just been accosted by some kind of weird loo monster, not wanting to startle it or make it bite her on the ass... Oh god! What if she had just peed in a fi
shbowl?

  Deja lurched forward off the basin and stood up, noticing two things happening simultaneously.

  One, the skin between her legs was soft and dry, as though she hadn't just gone to the bathroom.

  And two, the liquid in the basin was pink. Bright pink. Like someone had poured a dye pack into the bowl and it was slowly swirling around and around until the liquid was clear once more.

  No alien fish in the bowl, no explanation as to why her urine was apparently neon colored or how it disappeared. As concerning as that little factoid was, she was still alarmed, and relieved in more ways than one.

  This was apparently an alien loo, and Deja did not have to chuck the contents out the glorious windows and onto the equally lovely flagstones below.

  "Marahi?"

  Deja hustled out of the bathroom to find all three of the valos kneeling in the doorway of the bedroom, leaning forward expectantly looking for her.

  It made her give an almost hysterical giggle to know that even as enormous as these rooms were, the stone warriors just barely fit inside the courtyard.

  "Yes, Izax. My quarters are more than sufficient. Um, I have some questions. A lot of questions, ah..." Deja looked around for the closest chair, but it seemed the people of Penumbra only lounged. She was in the process of dragging one of the luxurious pieces closer to the open archway when a long, armored arm reached past her to pick the lounge up like it was a child's toy.

  "Thank you." Azurryn set the lounge in the center of the arch, in perfect position for her to see all three of them easily. It was a fine feat of engineering, trying to sit without the fringe of her dress sliding away to leave her totally naked from the waist down.

  What she would have given in that moment for a pair of prison issue briefs.

  "Okay, firstly, what is it you keep calling me? Mara-high, what does it mean?"

  Izax inclined his head to her, lifting his big hand to make a little motion, touching his brow with his fingertips to then wave in her direction.

  "It is a title of distinction. Of respect."