by Isabel Wroth
She opened her eyes in response to a cool brush across her cheek, smiling to find Azurryn leaning over her. She could see his billowing shadow form trying to take shape again, head, neck, torso and arms. He still had no features, only the iridescent gems that were his eyes.
"I don't suppose there's some kind of stockpile of actual clothing around here somewhere? Perhaps material that isn't see through? I'd even take a laundry sack, so long as it covered me from tits to ankles. No? Alright. Well, I suppose I'd better get started then."
She gathered every item of clothing she found and lay it out on the bed, layering diaphanous skirts. Things with high collars went under the dresses that had a high back but deep necklines.
She might have to wear twelve layers of clothing and rip up some of the draperies to add some coverage around her face, but it could work.
One final problem. She had no shoes.
SIX
~DEJA
When Izax had told her the bell to summon the molo wasn't far away, he hadn't been joking.
Arkhan had settled her and all her ridiculous layers of obscene clothing into the cradle of his hands and stepped through the doors to her suite.
Only they didn't go down the stairs; the four of them entered some sort of alternate dimension.
The shadows Izax said. As if it were an actual place. A freezing cold method of transport she vaguely remembered from the night Izax had rescued her.
Arkhan explained every valo of Penumbra was able to travel in the shadows, but the builders had no need to do so. In a matter of seconds, through a black tunnel lit with prismatic motes of color, she, Azurryn, Arkhan, and Izax went from standing in her bedroom to a valley of death.
Literally, everything around them was dead. Skeletal trees reached their bony branches towards the night sky, the wind making them knock together in a hair-raising rattle. Bones of animals littered the dry, cracked earth, decaying shelters lay in mounds at the feet of another megalithic structure. A pyramid of sorts, with so many steps Deja had lost count after two hundred.
If Arkhan hadn't been carrying her it would have taken her a week to climb to the summit.
There at the top, the view was unbelievable. Directly across from where they stood was another stone pyramid, the gap between the two wider than the Thames.
A stomach churning look downward showed a well-trodden path cut deeply into the earth, stretching ahead and behind as far as Deja could see.
In the vibrant, beautiful light of the twin moons overhead, for what must have been at least a ten mile radius, everything made of organic matter was dead. Not a single shrub or puddle of water anywhere.
Beyond the circular boundary, enormous trees made up a beautiful forest, the leaves gleaming silver in the moonlight. Past that if she squinted, Deja could make out what looked like a tall plume of smoke. When she pointed it out, Arkhan turned his whole body.
"We saw this as we tracked the molo, Marahi. It is the remnants of the vessel your people came from," Izax informed her.
Deja felt her mouth go dry wondering how far away the ship was, if there were survivors and prisoners running around in need of help. Corrupt guards in need of killing. Was it wrong of her to hope the Ak'rena lizards ate the guards first?
"Did you see any of my people?" she ventured tentatively.
"Many, Marahi." Arkhan rumbled above her, tilting his face down to look at her when she curled her hands around one of his fingers.
"They contain themselves within the wreckage and have set up a defensible perimeter."
"So they don't need help?" part of her wanted to offer her fellow prisoners sanctuary, but the other part was far more practical. She wasn't stupid enough to walk up to the ship and invite the inmates or guards into her haven.
Lord only knew who had survived and what fresh hell she might unleash on Penumbra by bringing them home with her.
If she happened to stumble across a human in dire need, she certainly wouldn't just pass on by. Then she would offer assistance, but if there was already a defensible perimeter set up around the wreckage...?
"Unknown. Would you like us to offer assistance?" Izax asked in a dull, uncaring tone.
Deja shook her head, shivering as the wind kicked up a little.
"No, not right now. Maybe just...keep an eye on them from afar at regular intervals. Just so I know what's going on."
Izax inclined his head, "As you say, Marahi."
She cleared her throat, hoping when they got their heartstones back, Izax wouldn't insist on calling her what seemed to be their equivalent of Mistress.
"Alright, let's go over the plan one more time."
As one, the three warriors took a knee with her at their center, their bodies blocking the chill of the night.
"We will wait with you until dawn, and take the shadows ahead to wait for you at the next bell station. If you are not there, we will move to the next, and the next, until you arrive." Arkhan repeated by rote.
"Right. And you're certain the bell stations are safe for me to wait at? It will be a long wait if I have to stand under the afternoon sun without cover or run from monsters."
Izax touched his fingertips to his well, gesturing towards her gracefully.
"All of the stations are secure, Marahi. The bells themselves keep wildlife at bay. You will be safe until we come for you."
"And in case of am emergency, as I'll probably be burnt to a crisp?"
"We will take you immediately to the revitalization platform," Izax assured her.
There was no way to contain her nervousness, but after a while Deja found herself lying down in the center of Arkhan's palm to let the soothing warmth of his exoskeleton go to work on her tight muscles. Bundled in so many layers like she was, it was almost comfortable.
When they woke her, the first pale fingers of dawn had just started to reach across the night sky, and the relaxation she had managed to find fled at the mere sight of the radiant beams.
She stood in the crumbling alcove at the top of the pyramid and watched her only protection on this entire planet disappear down the side of the temple.
Gone, just like that.
Shaking with adrenaline, cold, no small amount of fear, Deja backed up into the corner of the niche and sat down to wait. Huddling in her hodgepodge of alien clothes in hopes it would protect her from the sun's punishing rays.
Deja jerked out of her light doze, her body having bounced just a little bit. Just like Izax had told her, Deja could feel the slow, rhythmic vibration of the molo coming closer despite the fact she couldn't yet see it.
The sun was almost directly overhead now, her cloth covered toes, her body, just barely protected by the shallow shadows. Deja carefully pulled herself up, pressing into the corner like a vampire trying to hold onto the fading darkness until the last possible second. The ground beneath her feet vibrated with each heavy boom.
When she saw exactly what was approaching, she almost forgot to ring the large bell. Izax had failed to mention the molo was a dinosaur. She saw the chest and neck first, stretching up higher than a skyscraper, its face lost in the clouds as it slowly lumbered closer.
The rest of its truly enormous body came into view not long later with the glittering city built upon its back shimmering and shining like a desert mirage.
Deja watched the majesty of the creature, understanding now what Izax had meant when he said the city was unmistakable, and how the path of the molo's movement had been so deeply carved into the surface of the planet.
As it came closer, she hurried to reach out and yank the bell chain. The loud, low peal echoed across the dead land, answered by the molo's guttural call.
The dinosaur paused long enough for a drawbridge to line up to the platform edge, and not wanting to be stranded out in the sun, Deja rushed ahead to cross the narrow path, gasping in total terror when the beast resumed its momentum.
She was only halfway across, clinging to the railing on either side of her so hard her bones ached. With the beas
t swaying and the towering fall beneath her, Deja sucked in a ragged breath, sweating as she forced herself to put one foot in front of the other.
So far her clothes were protecting her, but one wrong move, one slip and she was toast. Literally. Bile rose as she swayed back and forth on the bridge, her heart banging so hard in her chest it actually hurt.
The terror was constant, born from either her fear of being thrown from the bridge to her death, or being burnt to death because she just stood here like a boob.
Somehow she was able to pick up her feet, to find the rhythm of the molo, and move forward as it paused between each step until she was falling through the large arched doorway. Once on the more solid ground of the city itself, the sway of the animal wasn't as pronounced.
Though how that was possible was beyond her. So was the reasoning for an advanced race of beings having built a city on the back of a live animal. Unless it wasn't alive at all...another kind of valo? Who knew.
No one came out to greet her, no one shouted at her to halt or to identify herself, and no faces peered out of the glittering glass windows above her.
Despite the fact that Deja was sweating profusely beneath all her layers, a chill worked its way down her spine. Just like the palace, this place felt utterly deserted.
How the hell was she supposed to find the Shadows’ heartstones if there wasn't anyone home to direct her?
"OW! GORDON Bennet!" Deja swore, ducking her head as the head wrap she'd put together slipped—again—to allow a sliver of light to lash at her cheek like a whip.
Her fingers hovered over the searing burn protectively, the agony of it causing her hand to shake and tremble.
She had been wandering around the city for God only knew how long. The angle of the sun no help to gauge the time as the molo just kept following it. The state of her body told her it had been hours.
Her legs burned from having climbed thousands of stairs, up and down, her face and hands blistered in places where the strips of fabric she had wrapped herself in gaped here and there.
She had stopped and taken several long breaks, snooping in through the rooms flooded with crystalline light, basking in her luck when she came across a broken down marketplace.
There were stalls with littered remnants of pottery and beads, another with tarnished jewelry.
To her absolute delight, she found a booth with thin stone chests tucked away in a corner, full to bursting with swaths of white linen-like material, protected from the elements and time.
There had to be some kind of insane preservatives in all this alien fabric for it to have survived for so long.
She wrapped up the items she chose, certain no one would miss them and made into a bundle. At the bottom of one of the trunks, Deja miraculously found a pair of long since discarded boots that were a size or so too big, but they covered her feet and that was all that mattered.
The lucky discovery of cloth and boots aside, if Penumbra was her heaven, this place was surely hell.
In all her wanderings, there was literally not a single inch of this God forsaken city not saturated with light.
Tears spilled over her lashes to gather in the bottom of her goggles. Her head cover chaffed painfully against her burns and the frustration of having been too stupid to have not done more research as to exactly where the heartstones were, the idiocy of having not brought along some food or water, and having foolishly thought this was a get in and out quickly sort of job, all began to boil over in furious sobs.
The pain made everything real. She could no longer go around pretending she was in a coma or having some fantastical dream.
Deja stopped to lean against a cool glass wall to have a good cry, rallying herself after the worst of it had passed and made herself sit to think.
"If I was an evil bitch who wore the hearts of my slaves as jewelry and wanted to ensure they would never be able to reach it, where would I put it? I think so highly of myself everyone and everything is beneath me. So..."
Deja trailed off, talking to herself having helped calm down a bit, and when she opened her eyes she was staring up at a tower that glittered a little brighter than the rest.
The shadow valos were weakened and eventually forced into hibernation in the light. Astaria hadn't wanted them to ever get their heartstones back and rise up against her, so it made sense to put the stones in a place with as much light as possible, didn't it?
"Makes sense to me." Deja muttered, hauling herself up to head in the direction of the tower. Just inside the doorway, Deja's bundle of cloth fell to the floor in a heap.
Naturally, there were a million more stairs to climb.
At the top, shaking, gasping for air, drenched in sweat, Deja stood at the feet of a familiar black statue, and there, draped around its slender neck was a glittering cascade of jewels.
"There you are, you triple titted bitch. Up here like some bloody princess in a tower. Could you have asked for a bigger statue?" Deja huffed and puffed, pressing at the painful cramps biting at her ribcage.
Thousands of gems glittered in the web of Astaria's necklace, obsidian shot through with bursts of color, prisms that caught the light to wink at Deja almost tauntingly.
She circled the statue, trying to figure out how she was going to get up there to get the necklace, without breaking her neck. Why the hell were all the statues around here so tall?
Nothing for it, she was going to have to climb up.
Deja fell twice and burned herself so many times she could barely see beyond the haze of agony. The third time she fell, she had just hooked her fingers into the elaborate coils of Astaria's necklace, her weight causing the sheet of gems to come with her.
She hit the floor again, and this time, she didn't get up.
ARKHAN~
Two sunsets had come and gone, two bell stations had been searched, and still Deja had not come. Azurryn paced circles around the crumbling temple, clearly agitated, and Arkhan knew he should be every bit as concerned.
Randomly Arkhan felt glimmers of emotion, of Deja's emotion, but she was too far away for him to discern anything other than their blood connection was still strong.
Izax walked the perimeter of the temple, his gaze turned towards the horizon where the first tendrils of dawn began to pierce the darkness.
They would have to move on to the next bell station before the sun rose much higher, chasing the darkness to keep the light from sapping their strength.
Arkhan heard the wind whistle as it swirled, stirring up the fallen leaves near his feet to blow across Azurryn's impatient path. A flash of brilliance in the far distance drew Arkhan's gaze, spears of light striking the ground in angry succession.
A tempest.
A violent one heading across the sky towards the sun, which meant if the tempest continued to gather strength, the thick clouds would blot out the light. He called out to Azurryn and pointed towards the brewing storm.
Azurryn looked and almost immediately disappeared into the shadows. He and Izax followed, keeping beneath the veil of clouds, their good fortune continued as the tempest raged across the path of the molo carrying Noon.
The harsh wind and rain pounded down on his armor, the shadows having darkened the brightness of Noon to the point where they were able to infiltrate the city. Arkhan saw Azurryn's armor abandoned where he had left it, his shadow darker than the rest as he disappeared in and out of the empty buildings, searching for Deja.
"I will take the lower tier." Izax stated.
Arkhan inclined his head, "I will search the towers."
"Be quick, we do not know how much longer the storm will last."
The command Astaria had given to guard Penumbra and any of her children compelled him to move faster. He ran through the abandoned city, knowing if he had possession of his heartstone, it would have been twisting with fearful worry.
There were twelve towers, and from the state of the unnatural roil of the furor overhead, they had only a handful of moments to find Deja.
/> Her blood was inside him, had pulled him from slumber, gave him a measure of free will, an echo of her emotions. A direct link, a tether to follow if he allowed himself to concentrate.
Where are you, Marahi?
A pull, a barely there tug, drew him towards the tallest tower. The staircase was too narrow, too short for him to fit, so Arkhan did the only thing he could to reach the top. He climbed. Stone crumbled beneath his hands, raining down where he drove his feet into the side of the tower.
The swaying gait of the molo and constant barrage of rain made his ascent difficult, the stone slick as ice, the integrity of the tower in jeopardy as cracks formed along the glittering white walls, but the higher he climbed, the stronger that tugging sensation in his chest became.
When he reached the top and peered inside, he saw the familiar statue of his Creator towering over a small form crumpled in a heap at her clawed feet, covered in a net of dark gems.
Deja.
Unable to squeeze his body through the arched windows that supported the roof of the tower, his arm not long enough to reach her, Arkan drove his fist through more stone to carve himself a large enough opening.
His human mistress moaned in abject misery, crying out in pain when he scooped her up off the floor, but she made no replies when he spoke to her.
Driven only by her commands to see to her health and safety, Arkhan dug one hand into the side of the tower and let the will of Sonhadra pull him back down to the city streets.
The destruction of the tower drew Azurryn's shade to him, angry pulses of color bursting through his darkness as he hovered over the precious bundle Arkhan carried.
"Return to your vessel, brother. She needs the revitalization platform." Izax's pounding footsteps followed Arkhan into the shadows.
DEJA OPENED HER EYES to a cool prickling brush along her cheek.
It took her a moment to orient herself, to realize the ground didn't softly sway beneath her, and her eyes weren't burning behind her protective goggles from all the damn light.