Undying (Valos of Sonhadra Book 7)

by Tiffany Roberts

  “Oh, my god,” Quinn said around the mouthful. She closed her eyes as she chewed.

  “I do not know if that is good or bad,” Orishok said. Was her expression one of bliss or disappointment?

  “So, so good.” She opened her eyes and took another bite, and another; soon, she had devoured the first half. Without delay, she picked up the remaining piece and started in on it.

  Orishok watched her eat, remaining silent. The flicker of remembered flavor from earlier proved elusive now. Seeming to know his eyes were upon her, she glanced at him, brow creased with shame.

  “Sorry. Are you hungry?” She picked up another riverfruit and held it toward him. “I can oh pen it for you.”

  “I do not eat,” he said. “I cannot.” But he still knew hunger. She was feeding it already, merely by her presence. Loneliness had gnawed at his insides, more painful than any hunger cramp he’d felt during his before-life, more pressing than any thirst that had dried his throat. And, just as Quinn would eat her small harvest and have no more, leaving her hungry, Orishok was doomed to lose his only companionship.

  He did not understand why she wasn’t showing signs of decline yet. Was it her alien body working in strange ways, or was she far stronger than she appeared?

  She lowered the riverfruit with a frown. “Nuth ing? Orishok doesn’t eat?”

  “Orishok does not eat,” he replied. “No food,” he added in her tongue.

  “That suhkz.” After setting the intact riverfruit on the floor, she stared at the piece in her hand. “It’s bin a lawng tyme sents I had f’resh froot. Bin lih ving awf ra’shun barz and veg payst.” She wrinkled her nose. “If I neh’vurr see that j’unk a’gen, I’ll die hah pee.”

  His mind was piecing together her language with a speed he could neither understand nor deny, and it produced a mournful weight in his heartstone. When Quinn was gone, he’d never hear such words again. Would never hear such a voice again.

  “Eat, Quinn. I am not sad for loss of fruit, or that I cannot feel the pain of my stomach demanding it be fed. Orishok is oh kay.”

  Quinn smiled at him. “Yeah, you are.”

  Yeah. She had a few words that mean yes interchangeably, and many more words that seemed to have different meaning depending on how and when she used them, though their sounds were similar. Though it was vocally unlike the tongue of Kelsharn and the Creators — which had been nearly impossible to grasp, before the change — Quinn’s language seemed quite complex. Why was he learning hers so much faster?

  Was it his desperation to communicate with her, or did it have to do with something Kelsharn had done to Orishok’s mind?

  Quinn finished the rest of the riverfruit and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. Scrunching her nose, she opened and closed her fingers. “Stih kee.”

  For the first time in a long while, Orishok smiled. “We ate riverfruit as often as we could find it,” he said, walking to the wall opposite the bed, “and always wound up with sticky fingers and faces. But, because it only grows near rivers and streams, we never had to go far to wash the juice away.”

  He stopped at the seemingly bare wall and searched for the hidden switch. It took a moment — these chambers were never meant for valos, and he no longer had use for most of their amenities — but he finally located it and pressed it lightly. The wall slid open silently, disappearing into itself, and revealed a softly babbling fountain. Clear water ran from an opening in the alcove into a wide basin.

  Orishok turned to tell her to come over, and nearly jumped back, heartstone blazing hot; she was already there, peering around him with her wide eyes.

  “This has bin here the hol tyme?”

  “I do not know your words,” he said, stepping aside. “The things the Creators built do not last forever, but they last long. Too long. I did not realize your need for food and water, when I first brought you here.”

  “It’s okay.”

  Quinn approached the fountain and peered inside. “Prih tee.” She dipped her hands in and scrubbed the sticky residue from her skin. Leaning down, she cupped her hands, filling them with water, and washed her face. She took another handful to drink. When she was done, she wiped her hands dry on her clothing. She turned back to him and smiled. “Thank you.”

  “It is my honor,” he replied, dipping his head. It was hard not to smile back at her; he didn’t resist.

  Quinn’s smile widened. She stepped past him and reclaimed her spot on the floor by the heat stones, tugging off her foot coverings. “So why does that fown’ten look so noo, wen the rest of the sih tee is in roo’inz?”

  Orishok walked back to the window as she spoke, puzzling through her words. Too many of them were unfamiliar to glean any real meaning. “I do not know your words, Quinn. What is fown’ten?”

  “The fown’ten is that.” She pointed toward the alcove. “It’s noo. Not like the bed. Ev’ree theeng in this sih tee — in Bahmet — is bro’kun.” Quinn lifted her hands and laced her fingers, only to pry them apart and turn her palms up. “Why does the fountain look noo?”

  “I do not know. Some things break, and some things do not. The fountain, like the blankets,” he pointed to the blanket on the floor nearby her, so she could learn the word, “was in a safe place. The buildings crumble, but the things go on. Like I do.”

  She wore an expression of deep concentration, as though she were deciphering his words. “Like you?” Her brow-fur lowered as she frowned. “You...don’t die?”

  Though it was only the second time he’d heard her use the word — die — he knew what it meant. Perhaps it was her tone, or his own instinct. Perhaps it was his familiarity with what it entailed. “I do not die. I am death. That is what I was made into.”

  “The plants.” She pointed to a riverfruit.

  “I cannot touch, or they will die.”

  “You touched me.”

  Another pang from his heartstone, spreading like poison through his limbs. “Would that I had not,” he replied. “I am sorry, Quinn. I did not try hard enough.”

  She tilted her head. “I am not ded.”

  Dead.

  “It is not quick for all creatures.”

  “I feel fine, Orishok. May bee it doesn’t werk on hoominz?”

  Was that possible? He didn’t think she was of Sonhadra, but he couldn’t know for sure — too much time had passed while he held vigil in Bahmet. If Quinn was from the heavens, like the Creators, maybe his touch didn’t affect her. Maybe...

  “I do not know.” He hadn’t been capable of hope for so long. Was it worth having any now?

  “It’s we’erd, akshul lee.” Leaning forward, she lifted a foot and ran her fingertips over the sole. “Sents coming here, I feel beh turr than I eh’vur have.” She repeated the process with her other foot. “I s’ware that forest kutt my feet up, but I don’t have a sk’rach.”

  Orishok stepped closer to her, hunkering down to study her foot. The bottom was pale and wrinkly. It had to be tougher than it looked; even his people had needed to cover their feet with beast hide to traverse the nearby forests. He felt a wild urge to run a finger over her sole, but he held his hand back. It was too soon to hope.

  She glanced up at him and set her foot down. “You said you were made. You were not bor’n?”

  “What is bor’n?”

  “Um. You know, like, a baybee?”

  At his confused expression, she looked around the room. Her gaze dropped to the blanket. She picked it up, wadded it, and cradled it in her arms. “Baybee,” she said, rocking the bundle gently.

  Understanding hovered at the edge of Orishok’s mind; the pieces awaited connection, amidst the memories in his heartstone, but they were fuzzy. His before-life had been hunting, defending the tribe, and sometimes watching over the dead until they were reclaimed by Sonhadra. But he remembered the women with their young. Was that what Quinn was asking? If he had been a baby?

  “I was born very long ago, of flesh and blood and bone. But my people were made into th
is,” he raised his arms and gestured at his body. “We were made into valos. To serve.”

  Quinn frowned. “I don’t know your words, Orishok.”

  “I was b’orn.”

  “Then made?”

  “Yes. By Kelsharn.”

  “Kelsharn. That’s a name, isn’t it? How did they make you?”

  He didn’t think she’d understand his words if he told her; he barely understood himself. Orishok brought his hands together and laced his fingers. Gripping tight, he tore them apart slowly, exaggerating the struggle. He held them away from one another for a few moments. When he brought them together again, he cupped his palms, curling his fingers around the sides of his hands rather than lacing them together.

  “Orishok,” he said.

  The blanket had settled on her lap, forgotten, and she stared at him with wide eyes. Pushing the blanket aside, she crawled closer to him and sat back on her heels.

  She gestured to his face. “Orishok. No ma’turr what they made you, you are Orishok.”

  He looked into her strange, expressive eyes. She was so close, so unconcerned with the chance that his touch was deadly, that he might already have killed her. Quinn saw him, though this was not the body he’d been born with, though this face was likely different from how it had once looked. She saw through all the changes that had been forced upon him, saw that he’d somehow retained himself — even through the absence of his heartstone.

  “They try’d to make me, too. On the kon kord.”

  She’d gone through the same? Did that mean the Creators were close, that they hadn’t forsaken Sonhadra after all?

  “I do not know kon kord.”

  “A sh’ipp.” She raised a hand, pressing her fingers and thumb together, and sent it flying through the air.

  “So, you did come from the sky.” He punctuated the last word by pointing to the window, through which the pale blue sky was visible.

  She dipped and lifted her chin a few times — a gesture her kind used to say yes without words — and rapidly lowered her hand, smacking it onto the floor. She made a sound like rocks falling in the mountains. Her hand turned over and lay still. “It krash’d. I was th’rown.” She raised her other hand, two fingers down and wiggling as though they were kicking legs, and sent it to the floor away from the other.

  The Creators had used sky-vessels, too, though their word for it had no true translation into Orishok’s tongue. He’d even ridden in them on a few occasions — when Kelsharn wanted them to spread death to some distant place. Orishok’s heartstone had already been taken by then. If he’d possessed it, he might have known the terror of being so high up, of moving so fast. Might have experienced the thrill. Before he was valo, a fall from as high up as those sky-vessels flew would have burst his body open and left nothing but blood.

  How had Quinn, seemingly so fragile, survived?

  “You fell from the sky?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you are not dead. You are flesh, but you are not dead.”

  She shrugged her shoulders. “Luk’ee, I g’ess.”

  “Did the Creators make you? Kelsharn, and his tribe?”

  She furrowed her brow. “I don’t know some of those words, but I am g’ess ing. No, not Kelsharn. Hoomins.”

  Her own kind. If they had the power to make, were they the same as the Creators? The thought of Kelsharn’s return rekindled the old fires of anger within Orishok. He would not let them burn bright in Quinn’s presence, wouldn’t make her their target; she was like Orishok. She had been a play thing, too.

  “Is this your body?” he asked, gesturing to all of her. “Were you made, or b’orn?”

  She smiled. “Yes, this is my body. I was born.”

  “Your eyes,” he said, “were they different when you were born?”

  “Were they what? You meen why don’t they g’loh like yours?”

  “G’loh?”

  Quinn raised her hand and moved it toward his face. His instinct was to pull away, to protect her, but if his touch was harmful to her, that harm had already been done. She stopped before making contact, turning her hand back and forth. Her skin was tinted green in the light of his eyes.

  “Your eyes g’loh,” she said.

  “Yes. But glow is not the word I mean. Your eyes...” He lifted a finger, tapping his cheek first below his left eye, and then below his right. “They do not look the same.”

  “Oh.” Her hand pulled back to touch the scar beneath her left eye. Orishok knew what scars were, from those old days, but had never seen them change anyone’s eye color. “I was uh takk’d.”

  When he asked what that meant, her simple gestures explained it clearly. She’d been set upon by another. Somehow, her eye had been replaced, and she’d survived. Even knowing of the Creator’s technology, it was difficult for Orishok to believe such things were possible now that he had his old memories back. Even small wounds were sometimes deadly, before his people had been changed.

  She shook her head. “I was born, not made. They fix’d my eye, but on the kon kord, the hoomins hurt us. They tess’tid on us, kut us, and drug’d us. We were not hoomins to them, just ex peer ments. They try’d to change me...to make me, but I don’t know what they did, only that it hurt. It always hurt.”

  He noticed only then that she was using words from his tongue interspersed amidst her own, flowing seamlessly between the two.

  “And Quinn is still Quinn,” he said. If he was himself, despite everything, why would it be any different for her?

  Her smile widened. “Yeah, guess I am.”

  Chapter Five

  THE POD DOORS OPENED and a pair of guards dragged a dark-haired young woman inside. She moaned and muttered incoherently, her eyes rolled back and her jaw slack. Spittle oozed from her gaping mouth. A third guard opened the interior security gate, and they tossed the woman onto the floor. She curled into a ball, twitching.

  Quinn exchanged glances with her friends, Zoya and Lydia, before looking back at the woman on the floor.

  Her name was Preta. Quinn had spoken with her a few times since being transferred to the Concord; the woman was kind, more so than most anyone else Quinn had encountered during her incarceration. Preta, Zoya, and Lydia were some of the few who didn’t belong here.

  But this place had already changed them.

  Quinn longed to go to her, to help her off the floor, but she didn’t dare. She grabbed Zoya’s hand and squeezed; Zoya squeezed back.

  “Prisoner twenty ninety-eight, step forward,” one of the guards ordered. Quinn’s heart froze.

  He held a shock-baton, but that would only knock a person on their ass for a minute or two. It was the gun on his hip that struck real fear into the inmates — Quinn had seen four prisoners shot by guards during her time here.

  “Twenty ninety-eight!”

  No!

  The other women — all but Zoya and Lydia — retreated, moving away from the gate. They didn’t want to draw attention to themselves, didn’t want to be near the guards. Everyone knew why the guards came here.

  The floor guard for their pod approached, lifting her wrist. Her cuff projected Quinn’s holographic image in the air.

  “Prisoner two-zero-nine-eight, Quinn Dalton.” Her eyes met Quinn’s. “Step forward. Now.”

  Someone shoved Quinn, and she stumbled forward with a cry, hand slipping from Zoya’s grip. She glanced over her shoulder to see who’d done it, but the guards were too fast. They clasped her upper arms with rough hands.

  Zoya reached forward, but a guard shoved her back, brandishing his shock-baton.

  Lydia’s eyes widened. “Quinn!”

  “No! You can’t do this!” Quinn struggled against their hold, but their grips were like hot iron. “Please! Please, don’t take me in there! I’m a human being! This is wrong!”

  They dragged her through the interior gate and along the narrow corridors. Her cries fell on deaf ears, and the guards never once looked at her directly. They paused in front of the
lab entry.

  In a panic, Quinn kicked, flailed, and snapped her teeth, throwing her weight back and forth in an attempt to escape. She didn’t know where she’d go, but she couldn’t let them take her in there. Couldn’t go to that place of terror and pain. That place that had broken Preta and so many before her.

  The guards tightened their hold, combating her with stoicism that promised retribution later.

  The lab door slid open. Cold air hit Quinn’s heated skin and the scent of antiseptics stung her nose. They dragged her inside, lifted her off her feet, and slammed her down atop a metal table.

  She renewed her struggles. They pinned her with their weight while assistants strapped in her wrists, ankles, waist, and head.

  “Incapacitate her,” the woman in white said after the guards departed, “but keep her conscious. We need to understand every aspect of the procedure.” The lower portion of her face was covered with a mask, and she wore protective glasses over her dead, black eyes. She glanced to the side. “Now, Lucky!”

  “No!” Quinn cried, tears streaming down her face. She wrenched at the bindings.

  Another woman, this one wearing blue, like the other lab techs — Lucky — appeared beside Quinn, meeting her gaze for a moment. That brief look was enough for Quinn to see the regret on Lucky’s face.

  There was a prick on Quinn’s neck, followed by a gush of heat.

  Everything blurred. The world became a whirlwind of static white, pain, and screams.

  Her screams?

  Lab techs floated in and out of her rippling, distorted vision. Their voices came from a great distance, but they boomed like thunder in her ears, and she could only make out a few words.

  “...results with this one. Increase the dosage.”

  Another sting, another injection. It burned like acid through her veins.

  Quinn woke with a start, her ears ringing from her own scream. Breathing heavily, she stared up at the ceiling through the diffused, gray light of morning.

  Where were Zoya, Preta, and Lydia now? If they were alive, were they all right? She didn’t know if they had been brought into the lab, if they’d been living or dead before the crash...