We Are Forever
Rishi’s Wish Book 2
C.M. Martens
© 2021 C. M. Martens
www.CMMartens.com
Cover Design by GetCovers
Lightning Photography by: Chris Saunders, Foresight Photography
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. If your story reflects that herein, the author would love to hear it.
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. For permissions contact: www.CMMartens.com, www.stealingshade.com, [email protected]
Previously published as Book 2 on The Fool’s Path: Falling Forward 2018
Contents
More by C.M. Martens
Acknowledgments
Prologue
Part 4
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Part 5
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Part 6
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Part 7
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Dee’s adventure continues in WISH’S CURSE, coming Christmas 2021
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About the Author
More by C.M. Martens
Rishi’s Wish:
Book 1, Parts I-III: Killing Game
Book 2, Parts IV-VII: We Are Forever
Book 3, Parts VIII-IX: Wish’s Curse (coming Christmas 2021)
Book .5: TEN-ZERO-NINE (coming January 2022)
Book 4, Parts X-XII: Born to Die (coming (April 2022)
Claiming Krinkae
A dark fantasy series coming soon
Claimed by the Warchief
Claimed by Shadow
Claimed by Magic
A Huntress Claimed
Acknowledgments
Thank you for reading! This journey with Desiree has been long and drawn out and I can’t express how exciting it is to finally be able to give her story to you. I hope you enjoy following her along her path as she stumbles and fumbles to find her way. Don’t worry, book three will not be long to wait for!
As always, a huge thanks to those who read theses pages in their unpolished state, especially my baby sister Stephanie, my not as baby-ish sister, Kim, as well as Nikki and Bethany.
Thank you so much to all of you who left a review of Book One, especially those who took a chance on a genre you’re not used to reading. You’ll always be my firsts.
To the Instagram community that keeps my head in the game, especially those #ishouldbewriting and #indieauthors in #editingwoes The support I find in this virtual community is far above what I could have imagined. I’m so grateful for all the connections I’ve made there.
And of course, to the one who feeds me and laughs with me and helps me gear up my Diablo III and World of Warcraft toons- Jason. I wouldn’t face the zombie apocalypse with anyone else.
This one’s for my sisters:
Kim, Christina, and Stephanie
Your fandom kept me going.
Without your cheers,
these words might never
have been set free.
Prologue
Sabik was a large man. Round, bald head held large, dark eyes that stared out the observation window. The Rishi’s flowing robes hid most of his strength from a passing glance. Even his hands were lost to the folds of his clothes. It was how he’d looked for thousands of years, and despite staying ahead of developing technology and science, Sabik was steadfast in his personal aesthetic.
While his thick, muscled bulk stood tall, posture suggesting he wasn’t paying attention, Arlo knew better.
Arlo felt duty-bound to speak his concerns. Knowing he couldn’t sway the Rishi's plans didn’t halt his tongue. Whatever Sabik was up to, there was little chance anyone would hear about it. Rarely had this been a problem for Arlo, whose secluded existence cared little for the meddling of the outside world. But in this case, when the Rishi’s interference could affect them all, he was going to stick his nose in.
"I'm sure I don't understand what game you're playing, and I'm equally sure you won't tell me, so I won't ask. What I will demand to know is: how willing are you to risk our people for this?”
When no answer came, he continued, nonplussed. He hadn’t expected Sabik Han, The Ophiuchus as named by his peers when he’d forced his vision on them all, to answer without first considering his words. “Phecda's on our ass, and I'm not sure we have enough to keep her quiet when she finally figures us out."
What was left unsaid, implied by his tone, was that if they didn't leave this alone, they were going to blow centuries of subterfuge. Centuries of calculated steps and precision details they'd combined to create this world away from worlds. The autonomy and freedom they'd found for themselves and those they'd collected over the ages would disappear in one fell swoop.
Also implied was Arlo’s strenuous objection. There were no leaders among them, per se, but there were those whose opinions held more weight. As the founders of this pocket of independence, their decisions were the ones that held.
Arlo paused longer than he’d meant, reminiscing on his fortune that Sabik’s interest aligned with his own. The Rishi could easily take over and rule them all as a true twelfth House. A fact Arlo had never let cow his willingness to be straight with his old friend.
"We let her go, like you asked, a direct counter-order to mine. We kept eyes on her. Why now, when there's so much to lose, should we risk ourselves by getting involved in the others' games? You'd been forgotten. You'd been buried beneath layers of stories. As had I. I'm not sure we should risk coming out of the shadows because—"
Eyes that had peered out of the vacuum-sealed polymer turned to bear on him. The weight of that look was enough to stop his words, and the two stared at the other for several breaths.
“Arlo, you know I appreciate your perspective, even now, but you don’t understand what she might be."
"Oh? Or, I don't understand what she might be to you?"
The Rishi's lips curled in a mocking smile. "Maybe. Or maybe to all of us. Maybe not to me, but to you. There's too much we don't know. Enough that warrants the risk."
"Explain."
The Rishi turned back to the window. His blood-red robes contrasted sharply with the bone-white of the walls surrounding the floor to ceiling window and Arlo, not for the first time, wondered why Sabik bothered with such a wardrobe here where those few allowed were forced to live under the strictest of utilitarianism. His own outfit, an ugly buttercream colored suit resembling coveralls hooked to various nanotech sensors that would adjust the internal pressure of his clothes if the station were to sud
denly lose life support, was the match of the rest stationed here. A hood-like helmet hung from his belt, the only piece of equipment he would need to attach for the suit to serve its purpose if a worst case scenario came to pass. The Rishi was much more confident of their technology than he was. Or, much less worried about death.
"There is too much to learn before I might offer explanations."
Arlo frowned. He shouldn't have been surprised by the non-answer, but there was more at risk than there had ever been. He needed to know the Elder hadn't finally lost his sense, so he pushed where he’d never before.
As if reading the Soldier’s mind, Sabik turned back to him, mocking smile morphed to genuine warmth. “Fear not. My faculties continue to run strong. Your memory is long, but not long enough to recall what we were before. What we clung to until your human species took over and washed our way beneath theirs."
If these words were meant to inspire confidence, they fell short.
Part 4
1
A whirlwind.
It was the only word she could think of to describe the past week. A week of rushing from one place to the next. Hiding in shadow. Avoiding contact with everyone, including random strangers and known associates. Her cell phone was miles behind her, atomized by Pollux's foot. All part of some forward direction whose endpoint was never divulged.
If Desiree ever thought life as a fugitive might be romantic, she was long past it. A full night's sleep was a thing of fantasy. Hot food a myth. Jumping at shadows was more than an expression, told through the palm of her hand imprinted with the handle of the long knife Pollux procured for her.
She'd learned not to ask questions. She'd stopped attempting small-talk. There was never answer or response.
So, she'd resigned herself to this scary world of being hunted. Those days at home, training with Hamal, wondering when the next thing might come was nothing compared to this.
Then, they arrived.
All was quiet. All was serene.
After three days, Dee was bored to tears.
This morning of the tenth day, up before dawn, wrapped in a heavy, home-spun blanket, Dee stared out over her new world. Settled close to thirteen-thousand feet above sea level, the view was spectacular.
The wood-planks of the balcony where she stood, red paint clean and fresh, kept her from plunging to the mountain valley below. A year ago, the height might have forced her through an exercise in panic control, but she'd found so many other things to worry about since then.
-Hamal would be proud.-
Dee smiled sardonically at the voice in her head. As awkward as the last encounter with her mentor had been, she couldn't help wonder how he was doing. What he was doing. With too much time to think, she'd struggled to keep her thoughts from slipping to obsession. Her safety in question and her life on the line, she knew Hamal shouldn't occupy any of her thoughts. It was most likely she'd never see him again anyway.
Ignoring the hint that she should think of other things, her eyes lost focus on the surrounding majesty to indulge her reminiscing. He'd taught her so much, all at massive risk to himself.
Unbidden, the kiss they'd, literally, fallen into came to mind. Would things have been different if they'd let their attraction pull them closer? More likely than not, it would have meant Hamal’s death. Too many subtle words over her time at Amalthea’s eluded to that.
She ignored the constriction of her throat at the idea, Daniel's thoughts on the matter coming to mind: His feelings for you. They need to be tempered. If you share his interest, you need to forget it.
Hamal washed from her thoughts by the only other she'd consider friend, Daniel's presence had helped her more than she'd like to admit. That she hadn't been able to say goodbye to either before she'd left for São Paulo weighed heavily on her.
She gripped the banister, using the discomfort of its icy exterior as an anchor to bring her thoughts from their inner-reverie and lifted her eyes to the panorama blossoming under the rising sun. A part of her hoped never to leave this mountain retreat.
This was a third Rishi's House. As far removed as the Twins was from Amalthea’s, she couldn't get enough of just staring out the windows. There were moments here, full and unhindered that she forgot her troubles, her mind lost to the majesty of her surroundings.
Nestled into the crevices of the mountainside, Asellus' compound was a marvelous feat of architecture and the perfect place for Pollux to hide her. Her brain struggled to envision its construction, but the peacefulness of being so removed from others explained why the difficulty was worth the undertaking. Here, Dee had learned to breathe deep and free.
To better catch the wind in her face, she leaned forward, stretching from beneath the bright red awning that stretched over the terrace where she stood. Its red color mirrored the banister she held and matched the roof of a lower building that marred the picturesque view.
The wind lashed, dark hair grown to her shoulders over months in pseudo-imprisonment whipping her face. She ducked her head into the blanket wrapped around her, her thoughts as full as the view around her.
The Rishis had a weak truce. That much was explained. But this last attack, the attack that had Pollux scrambling to relocate her across the world, seemed to break that truce. What that meant for her, she didn't know. What it meant for any of them, they wouldn't say.
Asellus, a matronly woman whose kind expression had set Dee right at home, refused to speak of it. The Twins followed suit. Lulled by this new environment, the illusion of peace, Dee forgot her questions and the answers that dictated her life. Forgot the looming threat of an ancient race bent on destroying her, or not, to repress her. The idea that things would be okay, really okay, settled in her thoughts. Even questions of how Zosma had gotten inside the Twins' domain or how the Rishis could be so bad at keeping her safe seemed trivial when considered in the shade of this peace.
Her inner-voice, that nagging sidekick who enjoyed pushing the worst of reality into her face, continued to prod her to take her life into her own hands. Suggested she kill them all and not bow to any of their petty claims.
But how could she? She was strong, but she didn’t think she could survive a war with them. She didn’t even think she might escape long enough to formulate a plan towards this end. There was too much she didn't know to risk going off on her own. And if they allowed her to leave, allowed her autonomy, then what? Try at the normal life Mike talked about? The life he thought she was off starting at this very moment. If he knew what she was really doing…
The banister groaned beneath the pressure she applied.
Using her mastery of compartmentalization, she blocked thoughts of the only person she considered family, burying it for a time after she figured all this out. For a time when she lived a life she could explain to him without him thinking she’d lost her mind.
She spun from the scene, chased by guilty thoughts and the rising sun that told her she was late.
The simple room that was her sleeping quarters enveloped her in the warmth thrown off by the refrigerator-sized hearth. Asellus had never bothered to update this place with central air, and whatever system provided electricity was spotty at best. Dee had learned not to rely on having much light once the sun slid behind the looming mountains, or to expect the temperature to be above frigid.
Moving around the room, throwing on clothes better suited to face the day, another compartmentalized thought slipped free: Zosma's claim that he was responsible for what she was. His booming voice in the theatre of the Twins' urban home had triggered nightmares she'd thought long behind her.
The idea that he'd created her left her numb. Anger and regret, guilt and sadness warred inside her, negating each to leave her wrung out. She should be furious at the one who'd claimed her. She should rage against what he'd done. Instead, she just wanted an explanation. She was tired of running, tired of the stress of the unknown. In these moments, when her thoughts consumed her, she forgot the tranquility of Asellus’ mountain r
etreat.
At least the question of who was after her, and why, was answered. That the other Rishis were interested in her was simply a side-effect. Like any siblings, one couldn't have something without the others wanting it as well.
She bristled at this, annoyance quickening already hurried movements.
If they were all blood siblings, or if it was just a word they used to streamline conversation, she hadn't braved asking. Based on their dysfunctional relationships, she believed the point to be real.
-And they think you're the newest addition.-
The idea made her head hurt. With all she'd discovered she could do, with all she now was, learning she was a part of some ancient race of crybabies hadn't been on her radar of possibilities.
All she now was.
Her eyes swept the sparse room as the statement echoed in her head.
All she now was.
Her endurance and speed matched Pollux's, who was one of the most renowned of renowned. She’d learned that in their race across the globe, backed up in the training sessions he’d begun with her as soon as they arrived.
We Are Forever (Rishi's Wish Book 2) Page 1