“Oversized fire starters,” I retorted with a laugh of my own, but my good humor didn’t last long. The realities of my world were too heavy to allow such levity. The fire burned down to embers and fatigue dragged me with it.
“What are we going to do? I can’t stay here. And I have to get my friends....”
“We know,” Keene replied into the darkness. “Something will be done. Something will have to be done.”
43
Elgon’s rumbling growl woke me. He stood by the flap of the hut, crouched down, ready to spring. Keene had slept outside, but now I wished he was inside with us.
I lurched for the priestess cloak and threw it on, pulling my hair out of the opening on top, the way Velka had shown me. It was hot beneath the fabric, but I could see better than I expected. The cloth was solid in color but tiny holes made it possible to peer through the veil without anyone seeing in.
As Elgon’s growl rose, I hurried to him and placed a hand on his back. Was I calming him or hoping he would protect me? The fear of being caught, captured, and thrown off a cliff gripped me.
Sev’s head poked through the opening. “Good.” She gestured to the cloak. “Come.”
“What’s going on?”
She rolled her eyes in an almost comical response. If I didn’t know how deadly she was, I might have laughed.
I pet Elgon again before kissing him on the head. ~Stay here Elgon,~ I spoke in Sualwet. ~No monsters outside, okay?~
Night had taken over the sky, and the two moons shone brightly overhead. Had there really been a time when there was only one? If there was a picture of me on some ancient cave wall, I guessed anything was possible.
“All called,” Sev said. “Keene gone already. We must walk.” She grabbed my elbow and wrenched me forward out of my reverie.
“Walk where?”
“To A’ailia. The Qutha’ia have called congress. All go or die.”
“This place is insane,” I muttered, walking alongside my friend—or captor. I still wasn’t sure which.
“Girl with Fish feet. Yes, insane.”
At that, I had to wonder whether Sev was even able to make a joke. If not, I was kind of mad at her. The last thing I needed was to be made fun of.
Past the large fire, I followed them to a cave entrance behind Keene’s hut and stepped inside. Once my eyes adjusted, I could see it wasn’t a natural cave at all, but an excavated tunnel that bored straight into the mountain.
“What is this place?” I wondered.
“Road to A’ailia. We walk.”
“Did someone make this?”
“Many, many died to dig, but the Qutha’ia would have it done, and so it was.”
“Your Erdlander is getting much better.”
“Walk faster. We are late. Keene though it better to arrive after others.” Sev scowled at me and strode ahead with her long legs.
Between the giant cloak and my unfamiliarity with the landscape, I struggled to keep up, but I didn’t get the impression she would wait for me. The floor of the tunnel was even and cool, similar to the stones I found on the beach as a child, smoothed over a thousands years of tides beating against the shore. How many souls had walked this path? How many had been as afraid as me or as angry as Sev?
We walked for so long I lost sense of time. Was it was still night? Deep within the mountain, the air was cool, and even with my cloak, I shivered. The darkness completely obliterated any chance of me seeing, but Sev created a small orb of fire, which kept us company on our walk. Tor had done that once. It seemed like a million years ago that we explored the cave he lived in and he revealed his past to me. At least, what he’d known of it.
I wished we’d never gone hunting that morning. How different our lives would’ve been had we just stayed in his cave for even one more hour, long enough to have never met Lace and Lock in the forest, to have never ended up here? What would we be like, still living in the forest somewhere? I had gotten my answers and finally knew who the Erdlanders were. Thanks to Velka I now had more answers than I’d ever wanted, but I was no better off for it. Life had been better when I didn’t know, when I had Tor by my side.
“You think loudly,” Sev said, breaking the silence.
“Sorry.”
“What thoughts?”
“Nothing. Never mind.”
She stopped and turned to me with a raised eyebrow. “You love your Tor?”
“Yes.” The admission came easily, and there was no question.
“Then take him from the Fire. It eats souls. Keene escaped. A better man now.”
“Why do you work for them if you dislike them so much?”
“I am blood.” She gestured to the band imprinted on her arm.
“But you don’t like them. So why not leave like Keene?”
Sev grimaced in the firelight. I thought she wasn’t going to answer, but when her face relaxed, I saw a sadness hidden away in her. “No. Keene is blood. I.... Keene special; Qutha’ia would punish him. I stay. He is forgotten.”
“So you’re protecting him?”
She nodded and picked up her pace. “We approach,” she whispered.
The cave narrowed as we traveled, forcing us to walk single file.
“Soon,” Sev whispered before snuffing out the fire which had been lighting our path. “Stay close.”
I stumbled as the jolt of black pitched me forward in blindness. Throwing my hands out, I gripped the sides of the tunnel, their solid surface giving me security and direction. I used my internal senses to find Sev. In my momentary hesitation, she’d slipped far ahead of me, so I kept my hands on the walls and hurried to catch up.
The damp rock dripped with condensation, and the farther we went, the warmer the air grew. At first I thought the heat had come from Sev’s fire, but the flaming orb was too small to account for the rising temperature.
Soon a murmur began in the distance, and a dim light glowed in the tunnel. As we neared, the murmur became an echoing roar, and the heat blazed.
“Where are we?” I asked loud enough to hear myself over the din.
“Silence, head down. Watch, but no movement away.” Sev’s voice betrayed her tension. She stood straight, rising to her full height, and held the bladed staff in front of her. The woman who had slowly become a friend disappeared, and in her wake was the fierce warrior I first met.
We stepped out of the cave and into an opening deep within the mountain. High overhead, the ruby moon illuminated the hundreds—maybe thousands—of A’aihea crowded together here. The mountain’s inner walls stretched high above us, narrowing the sky overhead to a fraction of its expanse. We were inside the top of the mountain, inside the volcanic crater, which released smoke and fire into the sky.
From my cove, I’d often watched this volcano fill the heavens with its exhaust—ash and black clouds so thick they would blot out the noonday sun. In those days I’d dreamed of traveling far enough to explore this very mountain, and now, within its belly, the violence of the earth radiated a heat so extreme I wanted to turn and run.
Sev led the way through the crowd and as I passed, A’aihea in various stages of undress bowed their heads and let us through. Watching them through the veil of my orange cloak, I noticed it was me, not Sev, they bowed in deference to. The experience felt otherworldly, like a story from an Erdlander book: real only in the author’s imagination.
Against the rocky cliff of the far wall, a waterfall of lava, identical to the fire into which I’d lost Tor, beckoned us closer with its warm glow. My feet stumbled, and hands from the crowd righted me.
“Stay close,” Sev hissed over her shoulder as we stepped through the last of the crowd. She greeted a few of the other cloaked priestesses by name, but when I heard “Velka” on her lips, relief washed over me. At least one other person I could trust was here.
Still covered with fabric, Velka’s hand reached out to me, and I took it. The contact reassured me.
A row of priestesses stood together at the front of t
he crowd, and I remained at the end, tucked close between Velka and Sev. Before us was a clearing beyond which the wall of fire undulated with life, and at the far side of the fire stood Keene and five others with tattoos marking their lower arms. Sentries—bald, tall, and intimidating, but none as imposing as Sev—held them back from the crowd.
“Why aren’t you over there?” I whispered to Sev.
“Keene. I am not to guard him.”
“Because he’s your brother?”
Her eyes darted to the side, meeting mine for only a moment. “Weakness is seen in our bond.”
“It’s not weakness. It’s family.”
Velka squeezed my hand without saying anything.
Before us, the wall of fire rolled from one side to the other, the movement parallel to the natural flow. I stepped back to shield myself from the sweltering heat, but Velka gripped my hand and pulled me to her side. The temperature became unbearable as outlines of bodies appeared and coalesced from the fire, from Within. They came slowly at first but sped up until the flames arced out, bulging forth with three dimensional shapes.
Figures dripping with fire took shape and stepped forward: nine, ten—twelve in all. As the flames dissipated, these Qutha’ia stood resplendent with glowing white skin. The heat from being Within must have boiled their flesh to so high a temperature that it rendered them with a glorious incandescent glow.
I raked my eyes over them, looking for Tor. They were all nude, all hairless, but as their temperature dropped, I began discern individual features. My breath caught, and for a moment, I thought the world would fall away.
Before me, almost close enough to reach out and touch, stood a towering, hairless Tor.
His long hair was gone, burned away in the fire’s searing heat along with his scruff of beard, but against his cooling flesh, the scars of his youth stood out, each one a testament to the pain he’d endured. A scar ran through where his eyebrow had once been, raised up into a pucker of pink flesh against the tan hue of his body. More angry scars traveled down the length of his arms, but it was the patch of old wounds across the molten flesh of his stomach that wrenched me in two. If not for Velka’s steel grip on my hand and Sev’s body pressed up against my own, I would have toppled forward with grief.
He was there, right in front of me—so close, yet no recognition shone in his eyes.
All the air evaporated from my lungs as I took in the sight of him. His muscled frame stood tall and proud, but his blue eyes were missing, replaced by the cruel orange glow of the A’aihea.
The A’aihea Queen, the Qutha’ia who had seduced Tor to the Fire, stepped forward—tall, curvy, and dominating. She spoke with the flowing affectation of the A’aihea, and while I couldn’t understand her, the gloating pride in her voice as she gestured in Tor’s direction sickened me. Bile rose in my throat as I watched, helpless. She spared no glance at any of the people standing in devotion before her, barely acknowledging the individuals composing the mass before her.
I hated her.
I hated her for taking Tor from me, for banishing Keene—her own child.
Soon she stopped speaking, and one by one, rows of A’aihea flocked before her to offer gifts of pottery, jewels, flowers, and other devotions at her feet. Her eyes raked over the bounty, ignoring the people who gave it.
As I watched, my body ached to act. I searched Tor’s face for any sign that he could see me, or anyone, but his focus remained entirely trained on her.
Velka squeezed my hand again just as an idea began to form. “Don’t,” she cautioned. “You will be killed before he even realizes you were here.”
Her whisper stayed my hand from pulling the shroud from my body.
Once the gifts were all presented, the Queen spoke again. The crowd roared in delight and excitement as I stared at the man I’d loved and lost. He stood motionless, his mouth set in a hard line, not the casual smirk or thoughtful concentration I remembered. He looked alien, so unlike himself, and yet I had to believe my Tor still existed somewhere inside this unfeeling statue.
Bodies pressed forward, forcing me closer to the cascading lava flow. Its heat seared my eyes, but my undying hope kept me staring ahead.
The Queen again gestured to Tor, and he stepped forward before dropping to his knees next to her, staring unseeingly ahead. If I could touch him, if he could hear my voice—would it remind him? Could I make him see beyond the Fire?
Tor held an arm out to her, dropped his head, and closed his eyes in supplication. One of the sentries presented the Queen with an object, black and ominous. She spoke again, holding it above her head. The crowd around me cheered.
“What’s going on?” I hissed to Velka.
“Quiet. Watch.”
As if I could look away.
The woman pressed the object against Tor’s neck, burning his already scarred flesh in the shape of a triangle. The crowd cheered, and I cried out. The bunching muscles of his neck spoke to the pain he felt, yet the Queen brought the object against his skin over and over, until his bronzed skin turned gray.
The torture of seeing him, of being unable to speak to or touch him, couldn’t compare to the pain that pierced my heart every time she branded him. When he finally looked up, the flame had left his eyes, and pain shone brightly in blue.
“Stop!” I pulled against Velka and Sev’s hold on me, but there was nothing I could do to get away from them, and no one heard me over the crowd’s careening excitement. “Tor!”
I sobbed his name as he flinched away from the pain of the branding. When the Queen finished, Tor sagged back on his feet, drained of strength.
A harmonious chant broke out through the crowd, and even Velka and Sev were caught up in its power. The Queen began dancing to its rhythm. At first it was only her, but soon others began to move as the siren song’s magic pulled them in.
While Velka and Sev were distracted, I wrenched my arm away and vaulted forward, throwing myself toward where Tor had fallen. When my clothed hand reached out to touch him, the orange fabric turned to ash, letting my bare skin rest on his shoulder.
“Tor?” I begged.
Distant eyes greeted me. Pain and enchantment glazed over his eyes, drowning him deeper into the A’aihea’s world. Together we knelt, surrounded by the dancing, shouting maniacs who had done this to him, and I reached up to lower the shroud hiding me from his sight.
“Sera, no!” Keene’s hand stopped me, as two sentries trailed behind him. He screamed as they grabbed his arms, pulling him away from me. “You can’t! Not here!”
But I had to know. I had to know if what I believed in my heart was right.
As Keene struggled against the sentries’ hold, I pulled the veil from my face. Tor’s eyes met mine, and the fire that burned deep within him cooled.
“Tor, can you hear me? Please!” I brought both hands to his face, cupping his cheeks, begging him to see me. “Tor?”
“I....” He faltered as recognition flashed across his features. After tearing his eyes from mine, he looked down at his arm. Shock and fear greeted me when he returned. “Where—where am I?”
“Come with me.” I tried helping him to his feet, but an ebony hand fell on his shoulder, keeping him on his knees.
“A fish out of the pond,” the Queen declared. She inspected me, her eyes as black as her skin, blacker than the night above, burning me in place.
Tor shook his head, glancing from her to me. Bewilderment etched his features.
“You being here does confuse,” she said.
“No!” Keene roared from behind me. He overpowered the sentries holding him back and rushed forward, pushing me out of the way as flames surrounded me.
The burning tingled, igniting the remaining fabric covering me. I shook off the cloak, letting it fall to ash.
“You will not!” Keene crouched over me and glared at his mother.
The Queen spoke then, harsh inflection in the A’aihea’s beautiful language. Her grip on Tor tightened, nails digging into his
flesh. Keene retorted, but I ignored them and hung onto the last thread of hope that my love could come back to me.
Around us, A’aihea danced and kissed. Some fell to the ground, exploring their burning bodies in twos and threes. The stars above twinkled with amusement at this carnal display.
I crept to Tor’s side, his confused gaze still trained on me.
With a crack, the Queen slammed her hand against my face, throwing me to the ground. Fire enveloped her hand as she focused her attention on me. A wicked smile dominated her features as she approached me one slow step at a time. “Fish do not come here. Fish are for hunting, for feeding, for roasting.”
Flames shot from her, encircling my body. The ruined tatters of my cloak vanished in the heat, but I did not burn.
Over the din of the celebration, I heard Keene’s scream and Tor’s bellowing horror as he finally realized who I was. But I did not burn.
I calmly stepped toward the Queen. My fingers reached through the flame, and I took her hand in mine. She pulled away in shock. Fury distorted her features, reshaping her elegant form into a better representation of her soul. Still, I did not burn.
She screamed, primal and feral in her anger. As she reared up to attack like a stalking cat, a shot rang out into the night. Blood splattered across my face, and the Queen lay silent before me, a hole in her head and wet blackness pooling around her. Before I could search for where the shot had come from, screams filled the air, replacing the chanted song as more A’aihea bodies fell to the ground, lifeless.
Keene took my hand and pulled me from his mother’s body, away from Tor, but I slipped from his grasp and knelt before the man I’d come so far to find.
“Tor?”
Another shot rang out, and people ran toward the wall of fire, slipping into the safety of Within.
“Sera!” Keene shouted. “We have to go!” He reached for me again but stopped before touching my arm.
A low growl resonated from beside me as Tor glared at the hand about to make contact.
I looked up to find Erdlanders rappelling down from the crater walls. Soon we’d be overrun, and only those who could hide Within the Fire would be safe.
Two Moons of Sera Page 28