by Ryan Muree
A figure dropped down from the trees directly in front of Rowec. A being so large, the ground shook beneath his feet when it landed. It towered over him, nearly twice as wide, too, and it held a lit torch just above its head.
Rowec could barely make out a hood, a robe, and yellow armor. But this… thing was not exactly human. It couldn’t be. It was three heads taller than him, and he was the tallest in his village. The hand that held the torch had crimson scales— scales! —claws for nails, and two big round eyes glistening under its hood.
“What the—” He stumbled back and adjusted his grip on his spear. “Where’s my brother?”
It hissed.
He lunged at it with his spear, but the thing knocked it away effortlessly. The spear snapped against a nearby trunk.
He twirled his peicha knife in his hand. He wouldn’t let him get Maur without a fight.
The brush around him rustled. Were there more? He spun to keep his eyes on his attackers, wherever they’d emerge. He could probably take on one, but several?
“Maur?” he called out
“He is a thief,” the creature before him said tightly.
“He’s a—” Rowec glanced around as several other similar figures stepped out of the jungle and into the torch’s light. They were just like the first, tall, gross beasts bearing down on him. “The wall is yours?”
“Drop the weapon,” one snarled.
He was outnumbered, and these things… they… they had spoken. Had they been part of the treaty? He tilted his head to try to see their faces. Had this been anyone—anything—else from another clan, he would have killed them in seconds. They wouldn’t have had the chance to speak or make demands. But he was supposed to be proving himself diplomatic. He was supposed to be more than just a fighter if he ever wanted out of his village.
“Drop the weapon,” it repeated.
He lowered the knife. A quick glance around, he counted five giant warrior creatures with armor and claws… and scales. None of it was making sense.
“The man stole from our gardens,” hissed the first. “He must pay.”
They were talking about Maur.
“You steal from us, and then try to kill us?” another added.
A creature to Rowec’s right dragged Maur out into the torchlight, pulled his head back, and placed a claw at his ear. His brother tried to squirm away while pleading for his life. They were going to slit his throat.
“Wait!” Rowec said, hand out. “He’s my brother. My family. Don’t kill him. We were just hungry, and-and-and couldn’t find any paratils.”
Their large eyes gleamed at him.
One curled its lip. “Stealing is not allowed—”
“I know, I know. And we’re sorry. Surely, that doesn’t mean he deserves to die.”
The creatures glanced back at one another.
“We can give them all back. All of them.” He began opening his pack and dumping the paratils onto the ground. “See? We can give them all back.”
The leader, or the one in the front—he wasn’t sure—leaned forward. “This one made plans to come back for more. We must take him to our queen as our prisoner. She’ll decide his fate.”
One of the creatures grabbed Maur’s ankle and began dragging him along.
Maur screamed. “Please! Rowec! Please don’t let them take me! Please!”
“Wait!” Rowec shouted. “Take me instead.”
The creatures froze and slowly turned their heads.
“Take me,” he repeated. “Take me in my brother’s place. I’m the lead warrior. I’m more valuable. My brother is the village idiot. He’s no use to you.”
Maur’s face soured, but he didn’t say a word.
And he’d better not, the dumbass. Only Maur could find some secret clan in the jungle and steal from them.
The main creature tossed his brother away and gripped Rowec by his biceps.
“Wait! Let me at least talk to him,” Rowec urged as the torchlight faded on his brother’s stunned face.
Maur scrambled up. “Rowec! I’ll get help! I’ll get help, I promise!”
CHAPTER 2
NIDA WAS SICK TO DEATH OF PRAYING.
Praying for the rain. Praying for the sun. Praying for Brynn, her sister and queen, to find a mate. On her knees, Nida eyed the two statues for the millionth time.
Carved from the yellow rock native to the Tial jungle, one statue took the form of the first Tialan queen, immortalized with vibrant scales of gold and green, braided hair that fell to her waist, and a robe of leaves from paratil trees. Alongside the monument to the deceased queen was a statue of her deceased mate. He was fully human, unlike Nida or the queen. He was thick with corded muscle and carved to include his human clothes—boots, pants, a puffy shirt that exposed the rigidity of his chest musculature—and his facial hair.
Sometimes her eyes wandered to the walls and ceiling, where Tialan histories had been painted in pastel colors. But for the most part, she shut her eyes and tried to pray.
Her sister, Ascara, had been kneeling beside her with her hands clasped together. She had also been silent, and that only meant one thing—she wasn’t praying either.
“You think,” Ascara whispered, “all of him was that strong and big?”
Nida opened her eyes. It wasn’t exactly out of place for Ascara to ask things like that. She might have been one of the prettiest of her many, many sisters, but definitely not the most mature.
“I mean, his fingers are exceptionally long. His legs, his torso, his chest, his feet…” She bent forward as if to look at the queen’s mate directly in the crotch. “You think all of him was big—”
“Ascara!”
“What? I mean, you don’t wonder about that?” Ascara’s violet eyes and scales twinkled in the evening light pouring in from the oculus in the center of the prayer room. “Tialans haven’t had males for several generations. He’s human, and there’s plenty more of ‘em. I’m just thinking it’s worth considering, especially since we come here twice a day, every day. If he’s so special to help bring our sisters to life, he had to be gifted everywhere, right?”
“Most humans are murderers, Ascara. Vicious. Cold. Bloodthirsty.” She gestured at the male statue. “The last few human mates were different, sure, but he’s not supposed to be questioned about his… gifts. His gift was performing the hatching ceremony with the queen.”
Ascara snorted. “If they’re so willing to help us, could they really be so bad?”
The villagers living outside the jungle seemed to be. Brynn had told them all about it several times—the slaughter, the starvation, the disregard for life. Humans were a blight, an affront to everything Tialans believed in.
“Come on, Nida. You should know. You’re more human than any of us—”
She shivered. “Don’t, please.”
Though she was technically Tialan, Nida—and her sisters—never forgot that the flower bud she had been bloomed from had gone wrong somehow. Not enough sunlight. Not enough moonlight. Not enough water. Those were only guesses. Whichever sister had been in charge of the hatchery at her birth, she had failed to care for Nida properly, and Nida had been paying for it her whole life by taking on a more human physique than Tialan.
Ascara turned to her. “What do you think about when we’re in here then?” She held up one hand with glittering violet scales running down the back of it and up her arms. “Don’t tell me you actually pray.”
“Of course not.” Nida crossed her arms of mostly human skin. Her teal scales only came down as far as her elbows, and even then, they were sporadic at best. She checked over her shoulder for any other sisters who might be passing by or joining them and lowered her voice. “I mean sometimes I pray, but no.”
“Then what do you think about?” Ascara whispered.
She shrugged. “Stuff. My job, the hatchery, mostly. Where the future mate might be—”
“And you don’t think about that?” Ascara jabbed a finger in the direction of the statue�
��s groin.
“No! Now, stop it!” Nida pulled her sister’s arm down.
“I’m just saying—”
“That you spend your prayer time thinking about human genitals? Yes, I got that.” She sighed and tried to mentally align herself for a final, tiny bit of actual praying for her future sisters. But Ascara’s silence beside her made it nearly impossible to continue. “What now, Ascara?”
“Humans are scary, don’t get me wrong, but I want one. Like a pet or something. I don’t think it’s fair Sister is the only one who gets one.”
Nida rolled her eyes. “Only you would say that. Be happy you don’t have to deal with one.” She quickly scrunched her eyes shut and grasped her hands together, praying for everything in the universe as hard as she could.
Her sister sighed. “Do you think they’re capable of falling in love?”
Never mind. “Ascara, seriously?” Nida stood, dusted her hands off, bowed her head in respect to her late sister’s statue, and turned for the hatchery.
Ascara followed. “If the last few weren’t so bad, maybe others aren’t. Maybe falling in love with one of them wouldn’t be that bad, you know?” she whispered. “The last queen actually fell in love with her human. Would you want to fall in love?”
Their bare feet padded across the yellow stone as they scurried down the hall, their path lit by sconces with fires in full bloom.
“Not with a human.”
“Who else would there be to choose from?”
“Exactly.” Nida stayed ahead and only turned her head to whisper her reply. “And even if there were other males to choose from, I don’t get much choice in things around here. There are many things I’d rather have than falling in love.”
“Like what?”
Our sisters born, the continuation of our species, a new ruling system. No queen. No bullying. Equality. Freedom.
It was true that on the darkest nights, when the moon couldn’t be seen through the oculus in the hatchery, she dreamed of leaving the temple and traveling to other places. But that was impossible to explain to Ascara. She’d never understand.
Nida rounded the final corner to the hatchery corridor and found Drathella, another sister, waiting. She stopped, and Ascara collided into her back.
“Where have you been?” Drathella’s legs were planted, her hands on her hips. She stood just before the hatchery doors.
Ugh, Drathella. Always Drathella.
“Praying. Not like you ever do.” Nida straightened her spine and lifted her chin. “What are you doing near the hatchery?”
“I’m allowed to go where I please. The hatchery is a holy place for the sacred—the true Tialans—not the hybrid trash.” Drathella slung her dark blue hair over her shoulder. Her bright yellow scales were nearly orange in the firelight. Her matching blue robe hung loosely on her thin frame, revealing the intricate pattern of matching scales along her chest, arms, and upper thighs.
“If she’s not supposed to go there, then why did sister put her in charge of it?” Ascara came out from behind Nida and put her hands on her hips, too. Unfortunately, her “helping” would only make it worse.
“Stop, Ascara, it’s fine. Go to the kitchens. I have work to do,” Nida whispered.
“She’s not hybrid trash.” Ascara leaned toward Drathella. “She’s your sister. Brynn will have your head if she heard you talking like this.”
“Hah. The queen would praise me for it.” Drathella flashed her teeth in a terrifying smile.
“Stop, Ascara. It’s fine. Just go.” But as much as Nida urged her, Ascara stayed her ground.
Drathella scoffed. “I guess it’s good you have at least one Tialan on your side.”
“You go, too,” Nida commanded.
Drathella crossed the distance and gripped Nida by her hair, placing her face inches from Nida’s ear.
Nida closed her eyes as Ascara tried to stop Drathella without success. With her eyes shut, it was easier to ignore Drathella’s seething rage, easier to hide the tears, easier to stay strong.
“Watch yourself, Nida,” she hissed. “Brynn only gave you this job because you’d inevitably screw it up before the hatching. Then we can banish your disgusting presence, and you can be eaten alive by the jungle.” Drathella released Nida’s hair and wiped her hand on the wall.
Equality. I wish for equality and freedom. I pray for equality for my future sisters so they may never live this pain, and I pray for my freedom so that no one can hurt me for what I can’t help being.
When Drathella’s footfalls echoed away, she opened her eyes and turned to Ascara. “Go on.”
“Nid—”
“No, I’m fine. Really. Tough as scales.” She forced a smile. “I have work to do. You have work to do. I’ll see you tonight at dinner, all right?”
Ascara nodded and hugged her. “Don’t let that slitherskin affect you.”
“Ascara!”
Ascara shook her head. “I don’t care. She is a slitherskin—”
“She’s not the only one who treats me that way. A lot of them think that.”
“I don’t.” Ascara pressed her forehead to Nida’s and squeezed her hands before running off for the kitchens.
Nida rubbed the tears from her cheeks and turned for the hatchery doors—her sanctuary, the safest place in the temple. Her other sisters were too nervous to come visit her there. They feared they’d hurt the unborn sisters somehow.
She pushed open the polished golden doors and stepped into the lavish indoor green garden. Two hundred buds pulsing with soft white light through their opalescent petals waited for her. Two hundred unborn sisters.
She and all of her sisters weren’t slitherskins, curling under rocks with fangs and forked tongues. Reptilian in origin, yes, but they were more. Believed to be graced by the gods, Nida and her sisters had been born from the buds of Tialan flowers, each one imbued with the ability to use Life Weaving. Seeds in the Tialan jungle took root because Nida and her sisters willed it. Trees and flowers grew because they made it so. The jungle prospered because they ensured it.
Nida, being more human than Tialan, looked at the buds before her as her future—her salvation. She would make sure they were a generation of sisters who wouldn’t care who was queen and who was… a little different. It was why she couldn’t run away. Her job was here. They took priority. They would bring change, and she couldn’t run from it.
She smiled and sighed. “Hello, girls.”
Of course, they didn’t respond. They wouldn’t hatch until Brynn—their queen—held the Life Weaving ceremony with her future mate—who had yet to be found—on the holy day. Nida’s job was to care for each one until that day arrived.
She couldn’t wait.
She stood before the sweetly scented garden, closed her eyes, and inhaled the soft dewy air. “Okay, let’s get you all some water, then I’ll open the center dome for some moonlight, and then maybe a song? I’ll let you all vote which one.” She giggled to herself, pretending they all would inevitably answer.
But there was an answer. A scurry, some chatter, a few giggles.
She opened her eyes.
All of the buds sat growing and waiting. Silent.
The noise had come from the hall.
She hurried to shut the doors when a man hollered, “Stop! I can’t believe this is all over one piece of fruit! You are disgusting, hideous beasts! I shouldn’t be treated like this—”
A man? She gasped. A human.
She turned to her unborn sisters. “Forgive me, girls. I’ll be back soon.” She closed the doors to the hatchery and followed the noise.
CHAPTER 3
Rowec’s feet skidded across the stone floor.
They had taken his weapons, and that he could understand. But his ruddy, no-good, harvesting boots? They couldn’t even let him keep them on while walking into this place?
They. Those freakish beasts.
The light inside this… What was this place? A fortress? There were gold floors, g
old walls, and beast-shaped sconces with fangs and jeweled eyes that held fire along the walls. The whole place was warm and damp and massive. The ceilings went on forever above him. There were hallways everywhere. How had the clans not found this place before? It didn’t matter. Maur would remember and bring an army back to get him out.
And he better bring an army. The beasts proved they weren’t like anything he had seen before. They had four limbs and walked upright and everything, but scaly. They had scales like a reptile all the way up their arms and across their chests. Up their necks and down to their clawed feet. Their eyes were huge orbs with narrow pupils. They were like walking slitherskins. Sort of human. Sort of not.
Disgusting . He shuddered.
But spirits, they were strong.
Two carried him with an arm under each of his armpits—dragged more like—while another led with a rope tied around his neck. Giggles and whispers came from behind.
He strained to look over his shoulder.
The creatures following behind him were smaller than him and giggled. Children?
Another one of them poked her head out from a side-corridor. She stuck out like a fresh paratil in a rotten bunch. Her scales looked smaller. Her eyes were big, but more like a human’s. Was she captive, too?
“Hey! Hey!” he called out to her.
Another creature, blue and yellow with a curled lip, grabbed the nearly-human one and pointed at him. They were discussing him. The girl-thing was in trouble? Had she been human before?
Shoved by the blue one into the crowd of his onlookers, the girl-thing stumbled and avoided staring at him.
“Hey!” he tried again, but it only caused the smaller ones walking just behind to giggle even more.
How ridiculous. As soon as he figured a way out, he was leaving. Screw the trade. He might have agreed to taking his brother’s place in the moment, but that was in the moment of panic. This was insane.