Sands of Aggar: Amazons of Aggar Book 3

by Wolfe, Chris Anne

  Adrian shook her head. “No.”

  The tea Khalisa had given her started to work its way through her body, easing her to sleep, forcing her body to conserve energy. Jacquin closed her eyes, trying to fight the effects. The tea would ease any other sick person, but for Jacquin it was a descent into madness, her visions enveloping her as the medicine robbed her of her strength to control what she saw.

  Jacquin held to her vision of Rox as she drifted into unconsciousness, her lips moving slowly, forming Rox’s name in a soundless whisper.

  Jacquin descended into a vision, waking in the middle of a dark, ancient forest, her bare feet cold and sore against the rough forest floor. The trees, swathed in inky shadow, rose high above her, almost blocking out the deep blue night sky. An icy chill clung to her skin, chilling her to the bone. In the distance she could smell smoke rising above the scents of wet pine and cedar.

  She heard a mournful yowl and turned, a orange and ginger eitteh stalking toward her, its sandy cream wings folded tight against its back like a rigid cloak. It looked up at Jacquin with sad eyes. As it stalked toward her, it grew, shifting and rising into a changling, its body expanding to reveal taut muscles and a masculine frame a bit shorter and more muscular than the changlings that had attacked Oasis. The changling’s eyes echoed the same sadness as the eitteh.

  Somewhere in the back of her mind she remembered that the winged cats were all female, but there was no mistaking the changling before her was male. Instead of a knife, a woman’s shawl was strung through the loop on his belt, his pants tattered and torn from running through the forest.

  In the distance, melding with the sent of smoke, was a loud, hoarse, feminine scream of pain. Jacquin jumped in surprise but knew in an instant the woman wasn’t in trouble; she was giving birth. The changling turned to the sound, emitting a wild yowl that echoed through the trees to the sky as mournfully and viciously as any wolf’s howl.

  Jacquin wandered forward, catching the changling’s eye. She instinctively flinched, waiting for an attack, but the changling was still, the sharp, feline angles of his face a frozen expression of pride and acceptance. They locked eyes and Jacquin gasped, instantly recognizing the creature’s truth in a series of images and emotions. A woman bathed in moonlight, standing in the forest. A feather-light touch. A kiss. A sigh.

  “She wasn’t crazy, was she? And you weren’t a ghost.”

  The woman screamed again in the distance, her voice joined with the squeal of a child, the infant’s voice too strong, to pitched to be a fully human infant cry. Jacquin saw another flash of images. A child, as changling as human. A torch. A cry. Her heart sped with panic, her legs ached from running.

  “And her family didn’t move south voluntarily.”

  The changling turned from the sound, stalking deeper into the forest. Jacquin chased after him, pressing through the tangle of brambles and low-hanging tree branches, but he ran faster, blurring together with the forest. As Jacquin suddenly stepped outside the forest, her feet meeting familiar warm sand, the changling stood before her, no longer a man, but a woman, more catlike than human, her fur a perfect match for the winged eitteh from before. She carried a wooden, carved staff, her eyes narrow and intense.

  Jacquin was consumed with vision, running through the forest, stones beneath her feet, claws and fur and the sharp edge of glass blades piercing her skin. She heard a rising, purred song echoing in the distance to be shattered with the hissed, screaming war cries of changling warriors. The scents of blood on snow, minerals strung through an underground river, sulfur and fire filled her nose and mouth all at once. A deeply rooted fear settled in her stomach. The sensations bombarded her, too much for her to comprehend or separate, a swirling storm of aggression and misery and fear choking her like the sandstorm, filling her lungs until she could no longer breathe.

  Jacquin woke with a silent scream, arching out of bed and nearly tumbling to the floor. Adrian caught her, laying her back in bed with a distraught look on her face. Jacquin saw her lips move, felt the tightness in her hands, but she couldn’t hear anything. She was loosing her senses to her visions and she grabbed Adrian’s shirt in shaking, damp fists as she realized that she would soon lose her vision, and with it all connection to reality.

  Adrian’s lips urgently formed Jacquin’s name, her breath coming too quickly for her to be doing anything but yelling. Jacquin tried to respond, but she was frozen, her body slowly rebelling against her desires.

  She felt darkness closing in again and she held Adrian tighter, their eyes meeting as she plead with whatever God would hear her not to slip away again. Adrian kissed her, held her close, her hands desperate to protect her lover but they both knew there was nothing Adrian could do. She had stayed. She was all that was keeping Jacquin alive.

  Darkness fell again and Jacquin was once again far from home, standing in the dark, her feet on cold stone and her hands bound. She wasn’t in her own skin. The body was different, slighter, smaller. Her wrists burned from her bonds, the skin wearing away beneath the metal manacles. Her feet were numb from the cold, every movement sending shocks of electric pain up her legs. She felt thin linen around her haggard frame, her stomach nauseous with hunger, her tongue dry and heavy in her mouth.

  All she could smell was the cold, the damp, the dirt, sweat and tears of the other prisoners. There was no light, but somehow Jacquin could still see the other cells -- the other prisoners – in the darkness. Her eyes were locked on a small child across the stony aisle, her face covered with her hands, her knees tucked tight against her waist as she curled into a tiny ball on the cave floor as close to the prison bars as possible. She was too dehydrated to cry, all her tears spilt days before.

  Jacquin reached out through the bars of her cell as far as the manacles would allow, attempting hopelessly to be closer to the child. She sang softly, wordlessly, her mouth too sore and broken with thirst to easily form words, but she could still hum, could still vocalize the child’s favorite songs. She refused to let the girl – Serena – be alone for even a second in the dark.

  A light echoed deeper in the prison, the sound of boots stomped forward. Jacquin turned to the sound, a cold fear rippling through her stomach, her eyes flickering back and forth between the child and the sound. A small contingent of guards began opening the cells, pulling prisoners seemingly at random until she noticed the mark on the guards’ clubs. They were slave merchants.

  A man stopped before Serena’s door and unlocked it as another entered Rox’s cell. The man didn’t hesitate with Serena, throwing the limp child over his shoulder.

  “Stop!” Jacquin shouted with all her strength, the sound ripping from her heart as she pushed her way toward her cell door. Jacquin hesitated, recognizing the voice. Rox. The man blocking her door pushed her back, the motion instantly igniting a fire in her stomach that eased away her pain, pushing everything but getting to her daughter to the back of her mind.

  She charged, catching the man off guard as the frail prisoner who had been effortless to push away barreled into him, her hands flying like claws, her voice a crazed animal’s howl. She didn’t hesitate, didn’t think, her nails and teeth finding every bit of exposed skin, her fingers warm with his blood before more men charged her. She flailed and slashed, catching another man by the throat and snapping his neck with her arms before another caught her from behind.

  Everything became a blur of blood and screams. She didn’t feel their fists as they punched her, only their weight as they fell limp to the floor. Serena screamed, both at the sight of her mother covered in blood and the man carrying her away.

  Jacquin lunged, reaching out for Rox’s child when she was grabbed by the neck and an icy blast encircled her, knocking her instantly unconscious, consuming Jacquin in darkness.

  Jacquin gasped, her voice echoing in her vision, her own once more. She wept, Rox’s grief over the loss of her daughter still a physical weight beneath her skin. She could still feel Rox near and she ran through the darkness
in search of her lover, the ground beneath her feet turning cold and hard, high marble walls running to peaked vaulted ceilings shifted into view until she stood in the center of a great hall, walls and floors of slick, smooth, mottled black and white marble. A council of warriors and mages sat along the walls.

  Sitting at the front of the room on a short dais were identical twins, young men in matching black travelers’ leathers, the only sign of their nobility scarlet cloaks wrapped around their shoulders and over their heads like hoods. Jacquin walked up to them, unseen in the vision, and studied the Twins who Adrian and Rox so feared.

  They were perfectly identical in all respects but their eyes. The twin on the right had green eyes, while the other had brown. She crossed her arms over her chest. Their identical appearance was a farce. They weren’t identical, they were fraternal, using illusion to erase their differences.

  Soft, shuffling footsteps and sounds of alarm echoed through the hall and Jacquin turned as Rox stumbled into view. She was manacled at her hands and feet, her dirty linen dress ragged and torn, dried blood in her hair, beneath her nails, down her chin and neck. She stood at the center of the wide hall, a lone pinpoint under full scrutiny of the council and the Twins.

  Rox, ever defiant, seemed not to notice the men along the walls, her full attention on the Twins, her eyes wild, her stance low and aggressive, her mind spinning, trying to find a way to run, to attack, with bound hands and feet.

  “Give me back my daughter.”

  The brown-eyed twin leaned forward, seemingly unfazed by Rox’s wild, gory appearance. “Rox, is it?” Rox regarded him warily without answering. “You’ve been held prisoner for two weeks, picked up during our raids down the coast of the southern continent?”

  Rox was single-minded, her voice hoarse and vicious. “I want my daughter back.”

  The twin continued on, “And yet somehow, despite limited food, water and exercise, you were able to escape your cell and kill four armed guards with your bare hands.”

  A murmur of approval and awe echoed between the courtiers and councilors, but Rox didn’t even glance away from her captors. She took two shaky steps forward, soldiers in the crowd instantly moving forward to stop her, but the green-eyed twin waved them away.

  Rox made it to the base of the dais, close enough that Jacquin could smell the old blood on her skin, the dirt and sour filth on her skin from weeks of imprisonment.

  “Give me my daughter or I’ll kill you,” Rox hissed.

  “We did some research on you, Rox,” the green-eyed twin whispered, unconcerned with his council hearing what he said. “You’re a tracker and guide, yes? Leading merchants through the desert to southern ports.”

  “We want to offer you a deal. We have a contingent of soldiers in need of protection and guidance. Someone with your skills and ferocity.” Rox bared her teeth in response and the brown-eyed twin laughed. “You will be paid, of course. Handsomely. Enough to ransom your daughter from captivity and purchase a small settlement for the two of you.”

  The green-eyed twin leaned in. “And to prove our good intentions, we will keep your daughter in holding until you return. If you are successful, no harm will befall her. If you fight us or try to escape, of course our offer would be forfeit and your daughter’s fate would be at the hands of the highest bidder.”

  Rox paused for the first time, some of her ferocity falling. “I don’t trust you.”

  The brown-eyed twin frowned, his eyes flashing red for a moment in his intensity. “We never break a contract. Anyone who harms your daughter or threatens to harm you would be instantly killed.”

  “You will take Serena’s word if she says she’s been hurt?”

  Both twins smiled, the expression disturbingly identical. “Why would we question a child?”

  Rox fell back, logic and reality working its way into her primal conscious. She had already decided to accept their offer. “I want to see her first.”

  The brown-eyed twin, who seemed to be the more dominant of the two, shook his head. “You could imagine, with your reputation for killing guards, that we can’t trust you not to try to escape with your daughter. You will have her again when you return.”

  Rox pressed her lips tight together and shook her head. “I know you. You have eyes everywhere. You find a way for me to speak to Serena or I won’t help you.”

  The green-eyed twin clapped his hands together, slowly pulling them apart, and a crystalline glass spread between his palms, creating a small mirror, revealing a small, stone room, Rox’s daughter sitting in the corner, her knees curled to her chest, hiding her face. “Will this do?”

  Rox paled, tears streaming down her cheeks, carving wet lines through the dirt and blood on her face. “Serena? Baby?”

  The girl looked up, searching the darkness for her mother. Her voice was soft and strained. “Mama?”

  “Serena, listen to me. You’re going to be alright. I’m going to save you.”

  “Mama, I can’t see you.”

  “I know, baby, but please listen to me. It’s going to take me a while to get to you, but you’re going to be safe. No one will hurt you. You remember when mama has to go on a job and you stay with grandma? It’s like that, baby. I’ll always come back for you.”

  “I’ll be a good girl.”

  Rox shook her head, her hands twitching, grabbing at her manacles in a desperate urge to hold her daughter. Jacquin reached out, trying to touch Rox, to give her some comfort, but she knew she was walking through memory. There was nothing she could do.

  “No, baby. Not a good girl. You be a brave girl. A strong girl. If someone hurts you, you tell someone. You don’t have to be polite. You don’t have to be quiet. You be loud. You be smart. You be my warrior girl like I know you can. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Mama.”

  “I love you, Serena.”

  “I love you, Mama.”

  The twin closed his hands and the mirror disappeared. Rox stepped back, her eyes determined and settled. The brown-eyed twin nodded. “That’s that, then. You’ll be taken to your quarters where you can bathe and eat. Your orders will come by morning.”

  The sounds of the vision faded, enveloping Jacquin in complete silence as she watched Rox walk away, led out of the hall by a team of armed guards. All confusion and pain at Rox leaving evaporated, replaced with a heavy emptiness. Rox didn’t abandon her. She chose her daughter.

  A soft padding sound echoed in the darkness and Jacquin turned as the ginger eitteh crept forward again, ruffling her wings in silent invitation. Jacquin didn’t hesitate as she followed the feline, walking side-by-side with the eitteh back into the desert.

  The warm sand and cool night air was familiar and comforting, soothing her heart after the trauma of Rox’s past. The sound of dustings of sand catching in the night air, dancing in small clouds of spray was like a lover’s sigh, the streaming waves of stars in the night sky singing across galaxies to heal Jacquin’s soul. Jacquin thought if she were to die of her sickness in the real world, this is where she’d want to stay.

  Jacquin glanced down at the eitteh and smiled gently. “Thank you for bringing me here.”

  The eitteh sat, seemingly weightless on the sand, its eyes still sad, beckoning. Jacquin spread her skirts like a blanket and sat before the creature, resting her arms on her knees and looking into the creature’s eyes. “What do you need?”

  In a blink of her eyes, the eitteh was once again the changling woman, sitting cross-legged before Jacquin, her staff at her side. She reached out and took Jacquin’s hand, the touch surprisingly firm and realistic. She cocked her head to the side, her eyes beseeching.

  A flash of images spun through Jacquin’s mind, reflected in the changling’s eyes. Cold stone floors and towering cave walls veined with lifestone and dotted with holes like a beehive. A fiery, red gem embedded in a long stalactite glowing in the darkness. Rockslides and earthquakes, changlings stumbling and fleeing out of the mountains into the forest. A heavy pain rippe
d at Jacquin’s stomach and head, sickness and death ripping at her skin and muscles, turning her stomach and snapping her bones.

  “I don’t understand,” Jacquin moaned, trying to make sense of the images, the message the changling was trying to place in her mind. She fell to her knees, in too much pain to stand. “Please, I don’t understand.”

  The visions stopped as the changling released Jacquin’s hand, her eyes more pained than before. Jacquin could feel her pain, the frustration at their inability to communicate. “I’m so sorry.”

  The changling stood, shaking her head slowly and walking away, disappearing into a swirl of sand.

  Jacquin woke, returning to reality with an icy blast, trembling in the cold. She was half-buried in sand, laying outside the desert walls. She had wandered from her bed in the vision, collapsing in the middle of the desert.

  “Jacquin!” Adrian ran for her, her voice ringing in Jacquin’s ears, making her smile. She could hear again. Her brief connection with Rox must have given her a small shot of health.

  Adrian pulled Jacquin out of the sand, holding her tight in her arms. “Don’t make me sleep again,” Jacquin gasped, her voice soft, gravely, already fading again.

  “Never,” Adrian vowed, scooping the fatigued Jacquin in her arms again and carrying her back to Oasis.

  Chapter Two

  Adrian sat on the floor of the wagon beside Jacquin, her bondmate’s hand limp and cool in her grip. She felt her stomach roll with a wave of nausea, her eyelids droop with exhaustion, but she pushed it aside. Jacquin needed her. She wouldn’t let Rox affect her. Not with Jacquin near death.

  Khalisa crept into the room, a woven bag full of incense and herbs under her arm. “How is she?”

  “She’s out again,” Adrian muttered, rubbing Jacquin’s cold hand between her own, trying to warm her. “Even without the tea her visions are taking over.”

  “Is she still talking?”

  Adrian shook her head. “I don’t think she can hear me, either.”