by Ryan Muree
Ascara waited silently. “I asked for the truth.”
“I love him,” she said. She blinked, letting a small puff of air escape her. She’d said it. She’d finally said what had been building up. “I’m sorry. I should have told you, but I love him. I wanted to be with him.”
“So, when we tell Brynn how to do the new ceremony, will you leave with him?”
She shook her head. “He’s gone, Ascara. He said he’d come back, but he won’t. And Brynn won’t let him—” She gasped. “Ascara, did you do it? Did you figure it out?”
Ascara smiled.
“No one has to die?” Nida jumped up. “Ascara, are you serious?”
She nodded. “It still takes human males.”
Nida covered her mouth and laughed. Fresh tears formed. “How did you figure it out?”
Ascara played with a temple key in her hand. “After they locked you up, Brynn was losing her mind. Everyone sort of scattered, so I ran to the prayer room.”
“How’d you fix the lever?”
“I hit it really hard…”
Nida’s eyes bulged.
“With a rock.” She shrugged. “It was jammed.”
“And? What is it? What’s the change? What did the painting show?”
“Nothing. It’s just… more.”
“More?”
“The Tialans and humans we saw in the patterns created a chain. Light was radiating, not from the couple, but from all of them. They’re all giving their Vigor. No one has to die if everyone is willing to help a little.”
Nida laughed again. “That’s it?”
“That’s it.” Ascara twisted the key in her hand to fit the lock of Nida’s cell and unlatched the gate. “I mean, we won’t know for sure until the ceremony, but Brynn said the last queen and her mate went in with her alone. That’s the exact opposite of what the prayer room shows. And if you think about it, it makes sense.”
Nida ran around to hug her, both of them laughing on each other’s shoulders.
“I can’t believe it.”
Ascara nodded. “I’m still thinking someone sabotaged it. Maybe someone wanted a queen out of the way so she could be queen, then passed on the lie? Or maybe I just really hate Drathella and don’t want her to be queen. We still need male Vigor though.”
But that they had time for. That they could get.
“So why set me free? Brynn will know and—”
“Screw Brynn. She lied, and she’s lost her mind. You should see her in the throne room.”
Nida narrowed her eyebrows. “What is she doing in the throne room?”
“First, she was ordering the guards to go hunt down Rowec, but then that changed when some of the outside guards said that there was a shadow moving in the jungle.”
A shadow in the jungle?
“The whole temple is losing their minds over it.” Ascara shrugged. “I came down to let you out because I was certain no one would notice. They’re not sure what this shadow thing is, but Brynn is treating it like we’re about to go to war or something.” Ascara rolled her eyes and smoothed out her gown.
“What if Rowec’s warriors are coming to retaliate?” Nida asked.
It would mean death and slaughter. None of them would be safe. It would be a massacre on both sides, and the hatchery…
“We have to go now!” She pulled Ascara along.
“What do you want me to do?”
“Hide the little sisters. Then, go to Brynn and tell her about the ceremony.”
Ascara stopped and made a grimace. “I don’t want to go to Brynn.”
“If you stay with Brynn, you’ll have direct information about what’s going on. They’ll want to keep her informed first. You’ll be safe.” She was already halfway down the hall.
“Where are you going, then?” Ascara shouted.
“To protect the hatchery.” Nida dashed through the halls.
***
Rowec charged deeper into the jungle, the branches slicing his shins as he ran. He didn’t have time to cut the flora or wind around. Straight through. It was the fastest way to her.
Maur panted a few feet beside him. “Am I seriously going back to this place?”
Rowec smirked. “Once we catch up to our men, you’re going to stay with them and take the lead. I’m going to find Nida.”
“Oh, yeah, so you get the girl, and I get a bunch of sweaty men. Fun.”
They came up on the mass of Zchi warriors nearly at the temple. Several stopped and turned as Rowec ran up alongside of them. The chief had ordered all of their men—nearly a hundred—to interfere and take advantage of the Tialans and the Crola. He shook his head.
At the lead, he and Maur found Lyle, the chief’s second-in-command, shouting orders to each squad.
Fools.
They should have done this before leaving, but the chief had been in such a hurry to get them out of there, he could have sent the men to their deaths.
“Stop,” Rowec shouted, running up beside Lyle. “Stop. First of all, you give orders before you leave. Second, we’re changing orders.” He wiped his forehead free from sweat.
“Like hell we are. My orders were very clear from the chief—”
Maur punched Lyle square in the jaw, knocking him out and sending him to the ground.
Everyone stared at him; Maur shrugged.
Rowec took Lyle’s peicha. “All right, listen up. Maur’s in charge, now. Do what he says, or I’ll kill you myself.” He headed for the outer wall of the garden to follow it toward the front.
Maur roared. “That’s right, you stupid, no-good, brainless—”
“Maur… this isn’t training camp,” he shouted back. “Get them inside the walls. They need to stop the Crola.”
Hopefully Maur didn’t do anything too stupid.
Rowec made his way around the outside of the grounds and toward the front. Jungle debris and wood shavings had been left in the clearing. The two front doors had been swung open and smeared with dark purple handprints.
Definitely Crola.
He raced up the stairs, hoping the Tialans didn’t immediately kill him or throw him back into the cell when he arrived. But as he ascended to the top level and entered the temple, screams and the clanging of metal echoed down the corridors.
Bleeding bodies were strewn everywhere—both Tialan and Crola. He carefully stepped over them and followed the noises of fighting. After a few turns, he entered a throne room. Brynntial was on the floor on her knees, blood pooling around her.
With a staff, Ascara was fending off whoever must have been Brynntial’s attacker. He was as tall as she was, and though she was strong, the warrior had the experience.
The Crola thrust at her with his spear as she twisted and knocked it away.
He lifted it up to slam it down on top of her head. She would have deflected it, but Rowec was quicker.
He pulled out Lyle’s peicha knife from his back pocket, jumped, and sliced the Crola through the side, nearly cutting him in two.
The warrior crumpled to the ground, and Ascara froze, eyes wide with blood spattered across her skin and scales. She blinked a few times, and then dropped the staff. It clattered across the floor. “Rowec?”
“We’ve come to help,” he said.
She swallowed as her chest heaved. “These aren’t your men?”
He shook his head. “Another clan, but we’re here to help stop them.”
She nodded and knelt beside Brynntial on the floor. He did the same.
Brynntial’s green scales had lost their luster and were chipped, too. Her hair was matted with blood and stuck to her shoulders, and her fingers trembled.
“We failed,” she forced through thin lips.
Ascara cradled her sister’s head in her lap. “Not yet, Brynn.”
“Where’s Nida?” Rowec asked. He needed to keep moving.
Brynntial licked her dry lips and groaned, “In the cell—”
“In the hatchery,” Ascara said.
They ha
d answered together, then glanced at one another, and Brynntial smiled. “Of course, she’s in the hatchery.” She reached out a shaky hand to Rowec’s forearm. “Hurry or she’ll die trying to save them.”
He nodded. “I don’t know where it is.”
“I can take you, but—” Ascara looked down at Brynntial in her arms.
“Go with him. I’m done,” she whispered.
Rowec scratched a thumb against his forehead. “Can’t you Life Weave her or something?”
Brynntial shook her head. “I don’t want to be saved. I failed my sisters. I failed you. Let me go. Maybe your Life Weaving would still work on the buds, Ascara.”
Ascara and Rowec looked at one another before she nodded. “I’ll try.”
She rested her sister’s head down on some gathered fabric and stepped away from her. “Goodbye, Brynn.”
Brynntial grinned and waved them off. “Hurry. Nida could be in trouble.”
Rowec followed Ascara through the throne room and back into the corridors for the hatchery.
I’m coming, Nida.
CHAPTER 21
Nida slammed the golden doors shut and rested her forehead against the cool metal, tears bubbling up again.
The screams and shouts of her sisters fighting mixed in with the shattering of sconces and clanging of weapons against stone had echoed through the main halls as she had run. The men she had sneaked past didn’t look like Rowec’s. They were different. They looked like an entirely different clan.
And they were destroying everything.
A part of her yearned to be out fighting alongside her sisters, but she’d be of no use to them. Too human, too fragile, she lacked the strength and the claws to fight back. Staying with and protecting the hatchery was the smartest thing she could do.
Slowly turning and resting her back against the door, she surveyed the buds. Their bases were already turning bright and beautiful with hints of fuchsia, leaf-green, violet, and royal blue. They were as long as her torso and nearly ready to bloom.
“All right, girls,” she whispered. “We’re not going to make a sound. We’re going to be absolutely quiet so that hopefully no one even notices we’re here.”
The doors shook behind her, and a man’s voice demanded she open it.
It didn’t sound like Rowec.
She pressed her body against the door, hoping her weight combined with the weight of the doors were enough to keep the warrior from breaking in.
She took deep breaths. Rowec had said he would come back for her, but it wasn’t possible that he’d return this quickly. They’d all be dead before he could make it back in time—if he came back.
Her heart burned.
The man pounded and shook the doors, shouting something through it; the words were too muffled to understand.
Raz jumped out onto her shoulder, trembling.
“Raz, hide!” She helped him get to the floor and watched as he scurried and hid between some leaves in the darkened corner.
Back against the doors, she stretched her foot out to reach a staff leaning against the wall. She had used it to unstick the oculus in the ceiling sometimes. Nudging it just enough with her toe, it teetered until it fell. Able to drag it close with her foot, she picked it up and slid it through the handles of the door.
The man beat against the doors again, shaking them violently, but the staff held.
Bracing herself between the wall and a nearby wooden table with supplies, she grunted as she slid the table across the yellow stone to barricade the door.
The doors jerked violently with a thud, but the table had stopped him.
She grabbed a bucket she had used for watering and stood in the center of the garden. She couldn’t kill or hurt anything with the silly thing, but maybe she could knock a man out with it.
Sure. She rolled her eyes at herself and gripped the handle of the bucket tighter in her sweaty palms.
The table jerked back as the man grunted against the door again. More voices. He had brought help.
She inched back deeper into the sanctuary, tears falling. This was it.
She’d thought she had lost everything before, but now—
The table bounced back and broke into several pieces as the doors swung open and slammed into the stone. The room shook, and dust fell from the ancient ceiling.
She yelped and pressed herself against the far wall, the bucket still clutched in her hand.
Three men walked in with their dark hair tied back and their bare chests, shoulders, and faces smeared with purple paint. Their pants were made of pale leather and were splattered with red—blood. In their hands were long spears and knife-like blades as wide as their arms. Definitely not Rowec’s clan.
She swallowed and gasped for air. “Please, don’t hurt me. Please—”
The one on the far right screamed as claws raked through his belly from behind. Blood spurted from his mouth and gut before he fell. The one on the far left did the same. The one in the middle spun to face—Drathella! She knocked the weapons out of his hands and raked her claws down his face and chest until he, too, dropped to his knees and then his face.
She panted in the doorway, her face wild with rage and her chest heaving with speckled blood.
Saved by the sister she had thought never cared, Nida started for her. “Sister—”
Drathella hissed, and Nida froze.
“Don’t ‘sister’ me. We are not sisters,” she snarled.
“I-I don’t understand. I know you hate that I’m—”
“Human!”
Nida’s stomach turned as Drathella narrowed her gaze and circled her along the edges of the room. She felt hunted, preyed upon. Drathella wouldn’t—
Drathella hissed again and lifted her claws.
“I’m not human, though. I’m both, just like you. I-I couldn’t help that I was born different—”
“I can.” Drathella lunged, and Nida jumped out of the way across the garden and against the other wall.
If she ran out of the room, she’d be caught and killed by the humans. If she stayed, Drathella would… Drathella would… “Please, don’t do this, Drathella. We’re sisters; we are.”
“You betrayed us!” Drathella shrieked. “You favored that stupid human before protecting your sisters’ lives.”
“That’s not true!” she shouted, back against the wall. She scanned the room for a better weapon and found the shiny long-knife of the warriors by their bodies. Drathella was already closing in. She’d never reach the blade in time. She took a step toward the bodies anyway. “The sisters are going to live. The buds will be fine. Ascara and I—”
“You’re a liar,” Drathella said through clenched teeth.
Nida took another step and another. “I care about our future sisters as much as you do. I care that they all feel loved and appreciated and not ridiculed their whole life for something they couldn’t help.”
Drathella hissed and charged.
Nida ran for the weapon, but her feet were swept out from underneath her. Her chest and stomach slammed into the stone floor, all the air from her lungs gone. She coughed and gasped, her fingers still stretching for the blade.
Drathella pounced on top of her, clawing and raking her skin open. She punched and pulled at her hair.
Nida screamed and cried out, kicking and stretching for the knife right in front of her.
Drathella stood, grabbed her by her robe, and threw her across the room.
Nida’s body crumpled against the stone wall and fell into the vines and leaves of the sanctuary. Pain burst through her, and she cried out. She had to stand, she had to fight back, but her arms and legs were limp. She wasn’t strong enough.
The scent of iron wafted around her. Every inch of her hurt. She managed to pull herself up to her knees before Drathella approached with a sneer on her lips as she lifted one small bud.
“Don’t…” Nida grunted.
“This one looks rather small, don’t you think? Looks like it probably might
be a hindrance to the Tialans.”
“Don’t…please…”
“I remember someone else’s bud being quite small, too.”
“Don’t, Drathella—”
Drathella sliced a hole through the side of one petal and dropped it from waist-high. Water seeped out of the flower. “Whoops.”