by R. R. Banks
"And there is nothing that a Denynso warrior likes better than going into battle," Eden said softly as if things were starting to make sense to her.
Zsilvia nodded, catching Eden's orange gaze and holding it so that the woman would process would she had told her.
"I was one of the women that would go along with the desires of the men because I wanted their attention. My first experience was horrible, but for some reason I kept doing it with the other warriors whenever they decided that I was what interested them, what would appease them in that particular moment. I know that it doesn't make any sense and I can't explain it to you. All I can say is that there was something about their attention, no matter how violent and aggressive they were, that validated me. One night the warrior who was the leader before Pyra approached me. I felt like it was quite an honor to have him want me, considering how important he was."
"Even though you knew that he wasn't after anything from you but sex?"
"Yes. I told you, I can't explain it. Looking back, I can't understand how I could be so blind as to put myself not only in that situation, but willingly and openly in that situation. I offered myself into it. Now the warriors are not as reckless and demanding of women as they once were. To be completely honest, it is possible that Pyra was a virgin when he met you. I don't know that for sure, but the way that the men are now, most of them don't interact with the women at all until they find a mate. They put everything into their battle. If they do decide that they are going to have sex with a woman who isn't their mate, they aren't kind to her, but they are at least respectful of her ability to dictate when and how it happens. That wasn't what it was like then."
"But I thought you said that you went with the warrior willingly."
"I did, but after the first two times on the same night, I was finished. I didn't want to be a part of the experience any longer and I wanted to get as far away from him as I possibly could. He didn't think that it was a good plan for the evening, however, and made it very clear to me that he was going to do whatever he wanted for as long as he wanted to do it. By the time that he was finished, I didn't think that I was going to survive. To be completely honest, I hoped I wouldn't. It was seriously that horrible."
"I'm so sorry that happened to you, Zsilvia, but I don't understand what that has to do with why you can't be with George if you believe that he's you're mate.
"I don't just believe that he's my mate. I know for absolute certain that he is. That doesn't change that I'm terrified to get anywhere near him."
"It wouldn't be like that with George, though. He's not a Denynso. He's a human."
"That's exactly my point, though. You questioned that I would have sex with someone who I knew was only after me for that purpose and absolutely no other. It horrified you to think that I would allow myself to be used that much. George is a human, which means that he doesn't have the concept of bonding, yet he was willing to go right ahead and have sex with me within just a couple of hours of meeting me. He hadn't even had the chance to have an entire conversation with me, which means that he was only after me for the sexual fulfillment of it, just like the warriors were."
"That's not true. The reason he wanted to have sex with you immediately could have been that he was as overwhelmed by his feelings for you, the same as your feelings for him and he just couldn't contain himself."
"How can you be so sure about that?"
"Because I was in his position when I came here," Eden said sternly and Zsilvia felt herself close her mouth sharply, cutting off the words that had been trying to make their way out, "I was a human who knew nothing about the Denynso or their mating habits. I didn't know anything about the idea of bonding, much less that I would discover my mate here within just a few minutes of landing on the planet, and that the same day I would bond with him. If someone had told me that before the shuttle took off when I was still on Earth, I would have told them that they were crazy."
"But you admit that you didn't like Pyra when you first met him."
"No, I didn't. Not at all. In fact, I couldn't stand him. That didn't matter, however, when we had our first kiss. No matter what type of emotions I was going through right then, I felt a draw toward him that I had never felt toward anyone, and it was like I absolutely had to have him right then. I didn't care that I didn't think that we would ever get along, or that I thought it was ridiculous and even a little bit offensive that Creia and Theia thought it was necessary to give me a Denynso babysitter to watch over me while I got used to being here, or even that I didn't think that I was going to be on Uoria for more than just a few months. None of that mattered to me at all. All I cared about was how much I felt like I needed to be with him."
"He could treat me the same way that the warriors did when I was younger."
"I can tell you from experience that the majority of human men aren't like that. There are plenty that aren't very nice and that are extremely disrespectful toward women, don't get me wrong. If you ever feel like you need to get everything that happened to you off your chest to someone who knows what you are going through, I suggest you have a talk with Leia. She knows what you went through. They aren't out for sport, though. If George had been interested in nothing from you but sex, he wouldn't still be paying attention to you like he is."
"He pays attention to me?"
The words were both startling and thrilling to Zsilvia. She had been trying so hard to not let anyone else notice what she was feeling when it came to George, but it hadn't occurred to her that any of them might notice that there was something going on with him.
"I've seen the way he looks at you. Even when you are standing as far away from us as you can get and not saying anything to us, he does everything he can to move closer to you or to sneak glances your way. It's obvious that he's thinking about you."
Chapter Four
"Look at this."
Lynx touched the loose bit of the desk that he had discovered again. He pushed harder into it and wiggled it slightly to test just how loose it actually was. Pyra approached him from across the dark office.
"What did you find?"
"I'm not sure," Lynx said, managing to move the piece of wood lose enough that he could stick the top of his blade into it and start to pry it away from the desk.
It suddenly gave a creak and the rest of the seam seemed to open on its own as if his movements had released something. He moved his hands along the piece and pulled with both of them, revealing that the loose piece had actually be a long, narrow drawer that had been sitting in place in the desk for so long while the people of the settlement were locked by the Covra that it had sealed itself.
The bottom of the drawer looked slightly wrinkled as if the lining had shrunk over time, and Lynx tucked the tips of his fingers under the edge of the thick, fragile-feeling paper to lift it away. As he tried to move it, though, the discolored paper crumbled in his hands. He suddenly felt the urge to pull his hands back to prevent the dust of the aged paper from touching his skin. It was a completely outlandish reaction and one that didn't make any sense, but he was unnerved by the drawer and the sudden catastrophic destruction of the paper.
"What is that?" Pyra asked.
"The lining of the drawer just fell apart," Lynx replied, shaking his hand to dislodge some of the paper dust that had gotten onto his skin.
"No, not that," Pyra said, stepping closer so that he nearly pushed the smaller, younger warrior out of the way, "There's something under the lining. It's like the people were hiding it with the lining."
The leader of the warriors took either side of the drawer and pulled it the entire way out of the desk. The people of the settlement would not have had the ability to hold the drawer like that, but Pyra's tremendous arm length and massive strength made it possible for him to pull the drawer out of its place and tip it over so that the rest of the crumbled paper fell out of the way and onto the top of the desk. Lynx had the same shuddering reaction to it lying there that he did when it fell apart in his tou
ch, but he still couldn't understand why.
Pyra leaned over the desk and Lynx leaned with him, staring at the basic black ink drawing on another thick piece of paper on the very bottom of the drawer. This paper seemed far newer and in sturdier condition than the paper that had topped it, as if the lining of the drawer had protected this paper from the influences of the environment and kept them from negatively impacting the drawing.
Lynx had been staring at the drawing for a few seconds before he even realized what he was looking at on the bottom of the drawer. The black lines, strange symbols, and boldly shaded areas were a map. Once he figured it out, the boundaries and symbols were completely clear to him, but when he first looked at it, it was as if his mind couldn't process what he was seeing. The Denynso had never even thought of a map of Uoria. It was not something that they felt that they needed, and not something that they could create anyway because they had never been into the other areas of the planet.
Getting one from another species was nothing that they could ever have fathomed happening before now. The Denynso ancestors built the compound on what their ancestors believed to be the most beautiful and useful part of the land on Uoria, and everyone after just stayed put. They didn't interact with the other species that Lynx was now convinced inhabited the rest of the planet. The only species they had encountered were those that wanted to take over their beautiful compound, or try to show their dominance and attempt to subdue the mighty Denynso, and came to wage war with them.
They assumed that the other species that were on the planet must operate in the same way that the Denynso did in terms of cooperating with others that were not like them. Though there were plenty of the Denynso who were extremely excited about the prospect of cooperating with humans from Earth and even starting to build a relationship that would allow both species to learn from and protect the other, there were others who believed that they should remain as they always did, kind to others, welcoming to few, and completely separate. They didn't want the warriors to find any other species or to start creating plans to cooperate with them as they were with the humans from the university. They felt that their kind had always been separate from others and that was the way it should remain.
"There is another kingdom marked on here. It isn't too far away," Pyra said.
"What do these marks mean?" Lynx said, pointing to a series of lines beside the name of the kingdom.
Pyra looked at them for a few seconds and then his eyes drifted down to the bottom of the page. He pointed to a square that had been drawn several inches away from the rest of the map and that contained not only that symbol but a few others as well. Beside them were words.
"I think that this is a key to the symbols used on the map," he said, "According to this, that symbol means that the two kingdoms maintained good relations."
"Do you think that it is possible that the other kingdom is still around?" Lynx asked.
The two men looked at each other, their gazes exchanging the idea that both of them were forming at the same moment. Pyra dug his fingers beneath the corner of the hidden map and loosened it from the position where it had sat for the decades since the Covra had locked the settlement and everyone inside it. Lynx watched while his leader worked on the map carefully, loosening it gradually by moving his fingers around the edge until he was finally able to release it from its position. Fortunately it did not crumble the way that the lining had and he was able to take it out of the drawer completely intact before gingerly rolling it up so that he could carry it more easily.
Without exchanging any more words, the two warriors rushed out of the office in the ornate building that they assumed by its design and the items that they found inside had some government purpose for the people in the settlement and toward the home that they had made their headquarters. Though they had only gotten the opportunity to explore that one office in that particular building, they had been going through all of the other buildings in the settlement for days trying to find anything that they could to help them. Now that they had the map, Lynx felt like they might have made progress that would help them achieve this incredible feat that they had set out for themselves but that had begun to feel as though it were slipping further and further away.
Pyra and Lynx burst through the door to the house where Rain lived and stalked into the living room. Only a few of the warriors were there, poring over papers and other items that they had found in some of the other buildings. Lynx watched them, suddenly feeling nervous about what they may discover in those papers. If he had been able to find out that Rain and the others in the settlement were human just by taking a glance at the back of a photograph that she had sitting on the table beside her bed, how long would it take for one of them to find something in those papers that would tell them? And when they did find out, how would they react?
"Where are the others?" Pyra demanded.
All of the men sitting around the room looked up at him, their expressions telling them that they hadn't even noticed the two of them come into the house.
"They are still out exploring."
"Go find them. All of them. Bring them back here immediately."
Ciyrs, Vax, and another warrior complied, rushing out of the house and leaving their papers spread across the table. Lynx approached the papers, letting his eyes scan over the words on them as quickly as he could so that he could determine what they were. The ones those three men had been looking through seemed to be forms that the people of the settlement filled out on a daily basis. They were like journal entries, but lacking the depth and emotion of freeform versions. Instead, they contained a series of questions and blocks for the answers, giving the people just enough space to offer a few words about each of the inquiries.
What is the day? What is the weather? How are you feeling? What are your tasks for the day? How has the mission changed since yesterday? What must you accomplish by tomorrow? Do you have any new information?
Reading through the answers gave Lynx a slightly uneasy feeling, as if he was at once looking into the past and listening to the voices of the people that were locked in the settlement telling him in that moment about what they experienced in the days and months leading up to the catastrophic event that kept them frozen in between heartbeats, unchanged and unmoving, for longer than Lynx had even been alive. Before he could look any further at any of the other papers, the rest of the warriors streamed back into their house.
As soon as they settled around the room, Pyra unrolled the map and displayed it to the men.
"Lynx and I discovered this while we were exploring an office in the large building at the center of the main street. It is a map of Uoria at the time when the settlement was active and has markings for other kingdoms that they maintained good relationships with during that time. For some reason it was hidden at the bottom of a drawer under a lining."
"Probably to protect it from the Covra," Vax said, "The Light Ones probably wouldn't want for their greatest enemy to find a map that would tell them the people that they were cooperating with and that they would rely on in serious times. It would only put both of them at greater risk."
Pyra nodded.
"It shows that there is another kingdom relatively close by that they were friendly with. If that kingdom is still there, there is a chance that they might have information about the Light Ones that could help us understand them better and might give us some insight into how to unlock them."
"Do you think that we should go there?" Ty asked.
"Not all of us. If there are still Covra around and they are just hesitating coming here because of the wall, us leaving could take that away. Loralia said that the only way that that wall of spikes would stay there is if we fully and completely believed that it was there. If we leave the settlement, that belief might disappear," Lynx said, "and even if it doesn’t, if we aren't here anymore, the wall isn't dangerous. As long as the Covra can see it, they know not to run into it."
"Lynx is right," Pyra said, "if we all leave, th
e Covra will know that the kingdom is vulnerable. If there are any adults left, they'll come back and they might not be so willing to let the Light Ones live any longer. Some of us have to stay behind and keep protecting the settlement and the people here. The rest will go on to the other kingdom and see if there is anything to find out."
"Who should go and who should stay?" Ciyrs asked.
"Does anybody have any opinions one way or the other?" Pyra asked.
"I'm going to stay here," Lynx said, "I don't want to be away from Rain. It's not that I don't trust all of you, it's just that she is my responsibility and I want to be here for her."
"That's fine," Pyra said, "Anyone else?"
"I should go," Ciyrs said, "As we found out with this settlement, we never know what we're going to find wandering around Uoria, and I should be with the ones who are going into the even more unknown areas so that I can help if there is another problem."
Pyra nodded and one by one the other men made their decisions about which of the tasks they would take on, whether they would stay in the settlement with the Light Ones and protect them while continuing to try to solve the issue of their locking, or step back out of the settlement and venture into the further reaches of what was turning out to be a much stranger and more hostile planet than they had imagined. When they had divided up, Pyra looked at Lynx.
"While we're gone, Lynx is going to act as leader for this group," he said sternly, looking at each of the men who had decided to stay in the settlement, "He has the most stake in all of this and he's going to be the one that will know best what to do to protect the Light Ones. I don't know how long we're going to be gone, but no matter how long it is, Lynx acts in my stead. You treat him with the same respect as you would treat me, and you do what he tells you to do."
The other men agreed and Lynx felt his chest tighten with emotion. It was an incredible honor, something that he never would have imagined he would have been given. Pyra had been born to be the leader of the Denynso warriors and had taken on the role when he was still quite young. Offering even the smallest amount of that responsibility and honor to another of the warriors was something that never happened, and the fact that he had chosen Lynx out of all of the men was extraordinary. Lynx was younger and less experienced than many of the other warriors, which meant that Pyra was showing even more trust in him and was relying on him even more than he would be had he chosen any other man to take on that role.