by Ryan Muree
“You really should have figured it out, Nida.”
Her jaw dropped. “What?”
“Well, you can’t Life Weave worth a damn and nearly die doing it. Hatching a generation, saving the species, takes too much life. Of course we die.”
“Brynn!” she shouted. “You’ve been lying to us… to all of us. All the previous queens, too? How have we not known? Why did you hide this?”
Brynn half-laughed. “Can you imagine? The great Life Weavers, the forgiving keepers of the jungle, murdering human men? We’d be—” She hiccuped.
“We’d be as terrible as the humans,” Nida whispered, tears forming in her eyes. “The stories, the lies.” She ran her hands through her hair. “So many lies—”
“To keep us going!” Brynn boomed, struggling to stand back up. “Our existence is at stake. We help those petty humans by providing for the jungle. They need us.”
“And we need them! Now you’re telling me that we capture humans and murder them to stay alive? And they don’t even know they’re doing it?” She tried to gain her composure but her heart, her reality, was unraveling.
Were they even worth saving anymore? If this is what they’d become, did they deserve to survive?
“Wait a minute!” Brynn lifted a shaky claw at Nida’s face. “We don’t capture humans. Their leaders send them willingly. Well, until recently—the bastards. Apparently, our pact with the Zchi elders needs to be revisited.”
Nida gasped and leaned back. Rowec’s people were in on it, and he didn’t know?
“Oh, don’t give me that look.” Brynn rolled her eyes. “The humans had agreed to it.”
“The humans who made the pact? Or the humans who were being sacrificed?”
Brynn shrugged.
It didn’t matter. Rowec wasn’t given the choice. Rowec didn’t know. “You captured Rowec, took him against his will—”
“It’s what’s best for us!” Brynn wobbled and rested her arms on Nida’s shoulders. “Our previous queens, me, we’re all doing what’s best. This is just the way it has to be, Nida.”
She tossed Brynn’s hands off her shoulders. “You lied to me, and then you let me lie to him. Who else knows? Am I the only one?”
Brynn shook her head.
“You’ve selected the next queen…” All her rearranging of the buds had been for nothing. She had been working towards equality, and the whole time it’d never mattered. “Who? Who is the next queen?”
Brynn grinned and refilled her cup. “A strong Tialan. One willing and able to do what’s necessary when her time comes.” Brynn patted her on the cheek. “Your heart is too big, Nida. You’re too soft.”
“Drathella?”
Brynn smirked.
“Brynn, how could you?” She closed her eyes, warm tears spilling down her cheeks. Everything would be more unfair, less equal. Now, all she wanted to do was run. Run out of her sister’s room, out of this temple.
Rowec had been right to question Brynn’s plan. He had known Brynn was keeping something from him, and Nida had been part of it—unknowingly.
But as much as she wanted to, she couldn’t run. Not before, not now, not ever. Simply because she couldn’t let this happen. Her sisters had to be born. Even if Drathella would be queen, they would be more equal than any other generation if she had anything to do with it. They could be better.
But the ceremony still required Rowec, and he couldn’t suffer for them.
Maybe there was another way. Maybe the ceremony didn’t have to take lives.
“Look at it this way.” Brynn swallowed another sip and wiped the corner of her mouth. “Once the ceremony’s over, you won’t have to suffer being a rejected reject anymore.”
Nida’s eyes shot open.
“A rejected reject.” Brynn sneered and put a clawed hand on her hip. “He was never going to love you, being part slitherskin and all. In fact, I think you get the worst end of the deal, my dear sister. At least I get to be worshiped as a goddess for saving our sisters and bringing them to life. You, on the other hand, don’t get love, don’t get adoration, don’t get to bring back the sisters, don’t get anything honorable.”
She narrowed her glare. “Stop it—”
Brynn raised an eyebrow. “Even if everything was absolutely perfect after the ceremony and no one died, Rowec would just run right back home to his wretched human village and marry one of their prettier girls.”
Nida slapped her across the face—hard. It echoed and stung her palm. She stepped back.
Brynn brought a hand to the red spot growing on her cheek, but she didn’t utter another word.
Nida backed away and ran down the hall. She had to tell someone. At the very least she had to tell Ascara first. If there was another way to perform the hatching ceremony where no one died, they’d find it together. She had to.
Hallway after hallway, she darted. The oculus was open in the main hall, and the moonlight was streaming in, but some of her sisters were lighting sconces anyway.
She blew past them.
She needed to tell Rowec, too, but if she could figure out how to change the ceremony so that it didn’t result in death, then she could tell him after she learned how.
She ran so fast that her bare feet slid across the smooth Tialan stone as she turned the corner toward her and Ascara’s room. She gripped the walls for balance and dashed inside. “Ascara!”
Her sister had been seated at their shared vanity, fixing her violet-tinged hair. She jumped and spun. “What in the world? What is wrong with you?”
“I need your help, right now.”
Without any hesitation, Ascara hopped off the stool and ran back through the hallways with her. “Where are we going?”
She didn’t know where exactly, but she had an idea for the best place to start. “The archives.”
Ascara nodded. “What are we looking up?”
“The hatching ceremony.” She turned two corners and nearly jogged down the long corridor to the archives.
Ascara jogged alongside her. “What for?”
Nida dashed inside the dim room filled with rows and rows of shelves from floor to ceiling, which were at least two stories high. A musty, papery smell filled every nook and cranny of scrolls and journals. The dust made her nose itch.
A couple other sisters browsing the shelves turned and stared with lifted eyebrows at their disturbance.
Nida ignored them and scanned the labeled signs above each aisle until she found the one titled Origins.
“What about the hatching ceremony are we looking for?” Ascara asked in a hushed tone.
Nida passed shelf after shelf as she surveyed their contents. “The beginning. The first few hatching ceremonies.”
There were so many scrolls to sift through. Origins of Humans. Origins of Fraygyns. Origins of Kwendi.
“And why?” Ascara casually skimmed through the section about the earliest Vigor essences.
Nida swallowed.
“Nida, what is going on? Are the sisters going to die—”
“Shh. I don’t know—”
“What?” Ascara’s eyes bulged as she leaned in closer. “What happened? Are they wilting? Are they—”
“No, no.” Nida checked around them for eavesdroppers and lowered her voice. “Brynn and Rowec die after the ceremony. They have to give their lives to hatch the sisters.”
Ascara’s eyebrows pulled together. “No. No way. That’s not—”
“Yes, I swear.” She nodded. “I don’t have time to tell you everything, but Brynn just told me.”
“No. We would know. We would know that.” Ascara pulled back a little, looking her over, and dropped her voice even more. “Your eyes are red. You’ve been crying. Spirits, you’re telling the truth?”
“Do I lie, Ascara? Seriously? Think about it. We’ve been so gullible. Life Weaving takes life from us. We know this already.”
“I just feel tired and weak after. You’re the one who passes out and almost dies.”
“But if you needed to grow an entire generation? Hundreds of Tialans?”
Ascara’s face drained of color. The violet scales along her cheeks and jawline lost some of their sheen.
“Brynn witnessed it,” she continued. “She lied about the last queen and her mate leaving to explore Lousha.”
Ascara’s eyes glossed over. “Rowec doesn’t know yet, does he?”
“None of the humans have known. Well, I guess some did. It sounds like Rowec’s elders have been providing mates for our queens. But the victims—they don’t know until it’s too late.”
Ascara’s mouth dropped open. “That’s… terrible. That’s so wrong. How could she lie? How could they…” She shook her head.
“I’m not going to let him die, but I can’t let our sisters die, either. That’s why I need your help. We have to find another way to do the ceremony.” Her hands went back to the scrolls, sliding and pushing them out of the way.
Origins of Vulkypsy. Origins of Fallen Gates. Origins of Eien.
“We would already know if there was another way,” Ascara said.
“We didn’t know our sisters die and murder humans. It was right there the whole time, and we just trusted her.”
Ascara shook her head. “This is unbelievable. I mean, I believe you, but I can’t—”
“Wrap your head around it?” Nida slid a few more scrolls out of the way and peered at a neighboring shelf. “I know. I still don’t know if I believe it, but I’m more afraid that if I don’t, it’ll be too late, and Rowec will—”
Ascara’s head shot up. “Do you love him?”
The air escaped her lungs. “No,” she choked out. “No, no. I think he’s a good example of what humans can be. I think—”
“You’re blushing. You love him.”
Nida shook her head. “I don’t know what it is. I care about him. I don’t want him to die.”
But love?
Ascara focused back on the scroll in her hands.
It wasn’t love. That wasn’t possible. Rowec had other female humans he could be with.
But, he had asked her to stay in his village. He had touched her gently. Lovingly? He had asked about the festival and her being there. Suddenly, she wanted to ask what it all meant.
Focus on first things first. She couldn’t find out what it meant if he was going to be sacrificed.
She glanced up. An entire shelf for Tialan origins loomed above her. She grabbed the nearest ladder, climbed it to the next level, and combed through the scrolls.
Origins of Tialans I, II, III, & IV. Dust plumed, and she coughed.
Origins of Life Weaving I, II, & III. Origins of the Sanctuary.
She grabbed the last one, slipped the ribbon off, and unrolled it.
“I don’t get it,” Ascara said below her. “Why wouldn’t the queens themselves try to find another way?”
She scanned the text in her hands and stepped back down to join Ascara. “What if they did, and they just never figured it out?” She pushed one side of the thin scroll in Ascara’s direction. “Take that side.”
They read in silence, but it was the same old stuff about the hatching that she had known.
Ascara pointed to a paragraph. “This says that the jungle grows enough Tialan buds to sustain life, but it doesn’t say anything about the ceremony. And this part… I can barely read this part, it’s so messy.”
Nida knew it well. “Brynn showed me this passage when I first accepted responsibility for the hatchery. It says that if the sanctuary dies, it never grows back. It talks about shattering a seed or something. It’s just saying that if one generation of buds dies, that that’s it. No more buds.”
Ascara swallowed. “We knew that.”
“Yeah, this scroll doesn’t have anything we’re looking for,” Nida said. “It doesn’t mention the switch to humans or anything. This is still just talking about when there were male Tialans. What am I going to do, Ascara?”
Ascara shrugged. “The hatching is about a week away. We don’t have much time.”
“Then where would it be?”
Ascara bit her lip. “The switch to needing humans was fairly recent. Well, last-hundred-years recent. Maybe it wasn’t written down. The only parts that discuss humans being part of the process is in the prayer room.”
The prayer room? “What are you talking about? There aren’t any scrolls in the prayer room.”
Ascara smirked. “Man, you really do go there to pray.”
She rolled her eyes. “Fine, then. What’s there?”
“The histories? On the walls and ceiling? Remember?”
Nida’s mouth dropped as she recalled the odd-shaped figures stained with powders for color. “They show the humans.”
“They show a human taking the hand of the Tialan queen—”
“And a beam of light radiating out.”
Ascara crossed her arms.
“We need to go check the rest of the ceiling. See if there are any other hints—”
Crilla, their red-scaled sister, stepped into the library. “Attention sisters. We need you to return to your rooms immediately. Humans have been spotted near the temple. This is only for your safety. We believe they’re going to request to enter the temple.” Crilla quickly exited down the hall with the other archive browsers in tow.
Humans?
Nida shared a glance with Ascara. “Rowec’s village? He’d threatened that his brother would bring an army.”
Ascara raised her eyebrows. “This can’t be good. I bet Brynn is losing her mind.”
“I need to go.” She turned to Ascara and held her hands. “I’m going to try to see if I can find out who’s come. Maybe if Brynn is desperate enough she’ll let me stay as a translator or something. Can you—”
“Ignore the request that I go to my room, go to the prayer room instead, see if I can solve some ancient mystery that saves the day for absolutely everyone, and report it back to you?” She winked. “What are sisters for?”
Nida hugged her. “Thank you, Ascara. Thank you so much.”
“Don’t thank me. I want to know how to fix this as badly as you do. I’m going to finish reading this first, and then I’ll head down.”
Nida dashed out of the archives for the hall but grabbed the side of the door frame to hang back. She had nearly forgotten. “Ascara…”
Ascara glanced up from the scroll in her hands.
“If Brynn dies, she’s named Drathella as the next queen.”
Ascara’s eyes widened just before they narrowed. Her nostrils flared, and the edges of the scroll crinkled in her claws.
Nida smiled. “Good luck.”
CHAPTER 15
Nida lifted her robes as she ran down the corridors to the throne room.
If Brynn was going to meet with humans, she’d want to look powerful and wealthy. She’d want to look like a goddess.
She really needed to talk to Rowec as soon as possible. He needed to know the truth about the ceremony, about what she and Ascara were hoping to figure out, and that his people were here for him.
But if Rowec’s elders had some sort of pact with them to send males for the ceremony, then why would Rowec’s village send people to talk with Brynn now? Maybe it wasn’t about Rowec at all. Maybe it was about the pact in general. Maybe they were done sending their men to be sacrifices.
She slid into the throne room, where Crilla and the other guards had begun lighting all the sconces as quickly as they could. “How many are coming?” she whispered at Crilla.
“Two.”
“That’s it?”
Crilla nodded.
Nida squeezed past the rest of the guards for Brynn, who was already seated at her throne atop a pyramid dais. Her claws tapped the golden arms.
“Find Nida!” she barked.
“I’m here,” Nida said, though her sister’s command sent shivers down her spine.
Brynn stalked Nida as she approached. “Crilla, is Rowec guarded?”
“Yes, Brynnti
al,” Crilla said.
“Don’t leave him alone for a second.”
“Yes, Brynntial.” Crilla immediately moved to talk with two sisters at the entry.