Memories flooded back to him of the day before. He’d arrived at Renwyn with the army, General Slash commanding them to find a way in. They set up their ray cannons, hitting it with as much force as they could. No one really expected anything to happen.
But then, it disappeared.
“Why did it fail?”
Aefin grimaced. “It was almost out of power, and whatever the army did to it used the last of its power early. That’s how the army got into the tunnels belowground.”
Roihan nodded grimly.
Elven warriors were at the top to usher them through the doors and unburden them of the men they were carrying. The hall was filled with people, elves, women, and children. Quite a few of the cyborgs were already standing in line outside an open set of double doors.
“Ahead is the line for the throne room,” an elven warrior informed him, urging Roihan forward while taking one of the men from him at the same time. “There you will regain your memories, and healers are waiting to help you with your wounds.” He indicated Roihan’s arm.
Roihan glanced at his free arm, where the blood from the Ardak bite had dried. The chip had dulled the pain, and he’d been so rushed he hadn’t noticed it.
Another elven warrior took the second man from him. “And mind your head. When you cross the threshold, it should return your memories to you. But it will give you a splitting headache, so I hear.” The warrior clapped him on the shoulder, giving him a pitying glance.
And indeed, Roihan got a glimpse inside the throne room through the double doors. There were several cyborgs with their heads in their hands, groaning in agony. He strode to the back of the line.
The cyborg in front of him turned, asking, “Are you sure you want to remember?”
“Yes. I need to find my wife.”
“How do you know you have one?”
“I get flashes of her sometimes. And others have told me.”
“Really?” The cyborg’s brows rose. Then he frowned. “But what if she’s . . .”
“Dead?” Roihan swallowed. “Then at least I’ll have the memory of her.”
“I think it’s a mixed blessing.” The other cyborg stared balefully at a cyborg who emerged from the throne room, his face covered with tears.
Roihan privately agreed, knowing he didn’t have a choice. He had to remember her.
The line moved quickly and efficiently. They were already allocating quarters to the women, children, and cyborgs who emerged from the throne room with their memories intact.
When he reached the front of the line, he crossed the threshold hesitantly, and it was as if someone had split his mind with an axe, cleaving it in two. He fell to his knees and cradled his head as if the force of his hands could keep it from rending apart.
His first memories blinded him with rage and grief. Thousands of horrible enormous cats came out of the ships that had descended from the sky in huge numbers. Beams of red light struck the people around him, killing them or paralyzing them where they stood.
Running, carrying his wife, Aria, trying to take cover.
Falling to the ground as red engulfed him.
Him dropping her and praying she would make it to safety.
His vision was the first thing to come back, and he searched frantically for her. At first, there were only fallen bodies and red light and cats, but then he found her. She had been captured, and he was helpless to do anything about it.
His memory jumped, and the Ardaks were picking him up and throwing him onto a cart with other captives.
Each new picture, new memory, was another cleave of the axe.
Flashes of cages assaulted him.
Men being taken.
The screams.
The cats’ laughter.
The chips.
Being counted as only one in two that survived.
The cats coming for Tordan just before him.
Praying that his king would make it and then praying that he wouldn’t since he knew Tordjin would rather die than become a slave to those monsters.
Then they had come for him.
He had screamed as they sawed off his legs, unable to move while the Ardaks laughed at his pain. He had screamed again when they replaced his bones with metal, welding it to the joints and reattaching his flesh with fiery pain that shot through every inch of him.
The memories changed abruptly, as if his chip realized he could only take so much pain.
Aria was following him around as a child, her eyes full of wonder when they landed on him.
But his life had been harsh, orphaned young, raised as a warrior in the royal guard. He had no status. Aria hadn’t cared. He didn’t deserve her. Couldn’t tell her he loved her, so certain she would find someone else.
But she didn’t.
Over the years, she had pursued him with single-minded obsession, her eyes dancing when she teased him. He had never looked at any other.
“You’d better make an offer for my cousin.” Tordan’s face swam before him in his mind. They were sparring with heavy wooden staffs, clashing with every turn.
Roihan stumbled, and Tordan knocked him to the ground. “What?”
Tordan put a heavy boot on his chest. “I said, you’d better tell Aria you love her. She’s starting to lose hope, and Stephan is planning to ask for her hand.”
“He . . . can’t.” Roihan got to his feet and clenched his fists.
“He’s going to. It’s becoming obvious that you aren’t going to ask.” Tordan’s steel-gray eyes bored into him.
“I . . . don’t deserve her.” Rage filled his heart at the awful truth.
“Perhaps you don’t if you aren’t brave enough to fight for her.” Tordan’s eyes narrowed.
Roihan tried to swallow against the bile rising in his throat.
Tordan dropped his staff. “Fine. I’m just telling you that if you don’t make a move, you are going to lose her.”
The scene changed, and everything went dark. He was looking at Aria, who was sitting on a stone wall at the edge of the forest.
He cleared his throat. “May I sit here?”
“Sure.” She shrugged as unhappiness radiated from her in waves. Something was very wrong.
They sat in silence for long moments.
“The festival is tomorrow,” he finally said, hearing the gruffness in his voice.
“Yes, it is.” She jumped off the stone wall and began walking down the cobbled path of the garden.
He hastened after her. “People will make matches there.”
“I suppose so.”
They walked along in silence again.
This is hard.
Until she began to run.
He chased her then, feeling like maybe he’d lost her already. He watched her skirt flutter, her hair flowing in her wake.
Finally, he stopped her, using one hand on her shoulder to spin her around. She looked up at him, eyes bright.
No words.
So, he leaned down and kissed her.
Her mouth met his with a cry, and her fingers tangled in his hair. Her kiss was the sweetest thing he’d ever known, tasting of strawberries.
Slowly, he pulled away. “Be mine.”
She hit him in the chest, not a girly punch, but one that made him step back. Tears filled her eyes. “It took you long enough.”
Then the vision dissolved, her face receding into blackness. When it returned, they were slightly older and her face was filled with grief. Shrieking as she’d held the baby’s blanket, torn and spotted with blood. Her parents had taken their children on a camping trip to the far side of the forest to pick berries before the summer set in. When they hadn’t returned on the seventh day, Roihan and Aria had set off in search. They had found them not far over the mountain pass, where they had almost made it home. But a pack of wild cats had overtaken them, and all that was left was the blood-covered wreckage.
He’d gone to her, held her while she screamed and cried, his own tears of grief blinding him.
&n
bsp; He remembered that he’d lost her then, as surely as if she’d been eaten, as well.
Weeks and months passed as he watched her grief consume her.
When the Ardaks had invaded, he couldn’t convince her to run, to fight. To her, it was fitting that they should be eaten by cats. So he had given her no choice and carried her out of the mountain . . .
When he came back, he was on his knees, and a healer was before him.
“Are you all right?” she asked patiently, holding a crystal over his arm, which was already almost completely repaired.
“No,” he replied, rising. “I’m sorry, but I have to go.”
Her glowing blue eyes met his. “Where?”
“Back to the Ardak base. I need to find my wife. I will also check on your princess. And Tordan.”
“You should rest. Aielle is the strongest and smartest among us. If there is a way to save him, she will find it. You’ve had a traumatic day and regained your memories.”
Roihan nodded. “That’s why I’m going. Thank you for healing me. But I can’t wait another second. I need to find my wife.”
She laid a hand on his arm to stop him, but he shrugged her off just as Valdjan and four other cyborgs stepped up behind him. “We’re going, too.”
“We have nothing else to do. We’ll help you find Tordan,” a cyborg he barely knew said. He searched his memory for the man’s name. Mordjan.
“And your wife,” Valdjan finished. “Who also happens to be my cousin.”
“She was everyone’s cousin.” Roihan rolled his eyes toward the ceiling at the memories of all her male cousins who had threatened to kill him if he hurt her. Tordan, Valdjan, Simban, Durstin . . . there weren’t actually that many but it had seemed that way at the time.
The elf let go of his arm, and he flexed his fingers as the low, nagging ache subsided.
“Thank you,” he said sincerely.
She smiled and reached up, unhooking a necklace from around her neck. “Take my crystal. In case you find Princess Aielle. It may be of use to her.”
Roihan raised his eyebrows. “Are you sure?” The crystal necklaces the elves wore seemed important.
“Positive.” Her blue eyes glowed brighter for a moment.
“Thank you.” Roihan took the crystal, placing it into his pocket. Then he turned to the others. “Let’s go.”
He turned back toward the front of the palace with new purpose, his long strides taking him back toward the Ardak base. Back to what was left of his home.
Chapter Four
Aria
She strode down the comfortable metal hall toward the ship’s docking bay where the exit was located. She didn’t want to leave.
“Cyborgs do not feel fear,” she insisted to herself.
When she reached the armament room, she opened her locker and ignored the apprehension coiling low in her stomach. It was either stay here and wait to starve to death or go out there and risk whatever dangers the general was keeping her safe from.
The choice wasn’t a choice at all.
She drew on her lightweight metal-and-leather armor over her uniform, which Ouirer’s armorers had made just for her, and then donned her belt, fitting it with a ray gun on one side and a knife on the other. Then, since she didn’t know what she would find outside, she grabbed as many weapons as she could carry—more ray guns, knives, throwing explosives, as well as some supplies in a pack.
When she reached the ship’s bay door, she almost didn’t want to open it. She worried that if the Ardaks returned, she might not be there.
And you might die out there.
But she came to a stop just before the bay doors, finally forcing herself to admit that she was terrified.
The Ardaks would be disappointed in her.
The life of one individual means nothing.
Without further thought, she took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. “Open bay doors.”
“Opening bay doors.”
“Will we be able to communicate after I leave the ship?”
“I do not know how far my signal will communicate through the mountain. Radio waves do not travel well through stone.”
She considered that for a moment. “Goodbye, CXV1.”
“Goodbye, Aria.” The ship’s reply held a note of wistfulness.
“Sometimes, I think you have more emotion than I do.”
“That’s because my self-evolving AI was never programmed not to have emotion, I was able to develop it from watching the Ardaks. They are highly emotional beings, although they would try to deny it. In contrast, your chip dampens your emotions automatically.”
Aria paused. Then why am I so afraid? But she simply replied, “Good point.”
Stepping onto the ramp that led to the outside, she took in the musty smell of dirt and rock and darkness. It was so different from anything she could remember experiencing.
When the bay door closed behind her, it was completely dark, so she switched to night vision. The path in front of her led around the cave and then disappeared into a tunnel carved into the far side.
She’d never been outside the ship before, but she knew it was inside a mountain. That didn’t prepare her for the reality of the darkness or the smell of dirt and moisture in the enormous cave that housed the ship.
She stopped just inside the tunnel, where it split into three smaller tunnels. She noted the intermittent, faintly glowing rocks in each of the tunnels, which told her nothing. She tried to see which one had the most tread, but they all seemed equally used. And each one had General Slash’s footprints.
She decided to follow the left first, and then if she didn’t find what she needed, she would come back and try the other two. After a while, the tang of blood started to scent the air, and she drew one of her ray guns. The first room she came to had an array of primitive weapons like knives, axes, and whips hanging from the walls.
Seeing that it was empty, she lowered her weapon and moved on. She passed metal door after metal door, all with tiny slots near the bottom and top. Even though she’d never seen one before, she knew that this place must have been a prison.
And the last room was where they had tortured people.
The people of this planet must have been exceptionally brutal. She shivered.
It’s a good thing the Ardaks came to rid them of their brutality.
The minutes crawled by as she continued on, finally leaving the prison behind her but unable to shake the phantom screams of the people whose blood lay within. Their pain followed her.
As the tang of blood receded, she breathed more deeply. The tunnel became wider, more traveled, and finally she approached a heavy, metal door.
Again, the heavy metallic scent of blood hung thick in the air, but it was different from what she’d smelled below. It seemed newer, fresher somehow, so she raised her ray gun and pulled out her knife. Most of her weapons training had been theoretical and direct download to her processor, as none of the Ardaks had wanted to fight a woman, but both weapons were comfortable in her hands.
The door was cracked open, and she pushed it just enough to reveal a weapons room. On the floor lay Blade and NightFang, two Ardaks she’d run into only once or twice, and from their heat signatures, they weren’t dead long.
She strode to their bodies and knelt beside them, disbelieving. “What happened to you?” she whispered, knowing they couldn’t answer.
“We killed them,” a voice said from the doorway behind her. “And good riddance.”
She stood and assumed a fighting stance. “Who are you?”
“Who do you think I am?” the cyborg countered, clear blue eyes examining her face. He unconsciously mimicked her stance, telling her he was a skilled fighter. His shoulders were wide, his body thick with muscle. His armor and weapons were much less advanced than her own, and she wondered why he still fought with a metal sword.
She shrugged. “I have no idea except that you are a killer.”
“Really?” His expression slowl
y turned from skepticism to concern. “You don’t remember me at all?”
She took in his dark blond hair, bright blue eyes, and his mouth that seemed to twitch at the corners in a secret smile. “Am I supposed to remember you?”
The secret grin faded, and he shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. I am Valdjan,” he said calmly, taking in her weapons. “And I’m not a killer. You don’t need those.”
She shook her head. “The Ardaks saved me. I am honor bound to avenge their deaths.”
“Is that what they told you?”
She raised her chin. “It’s the truth.”
“It is not even close to the truth.” His gaze fixed on her face, and his eyes never wavered.
He had to be lying. But the directness of his stare made her begin to have doubts, made her hesitate.
Then he drew his sword.
“However, if you feel the need to avenge them, you’re welcome to—” His words ended in a grunt because she had rushed him, knocking him backward several feet. She punched him in the face with one hand, reaching for her gun with the other. Her fist connected with his jaw, and she could have sworn he had a ghost of a smile.
He kicked her hand away from her gun, so she pulled out her long knife, and it clashed with his sword.
“A knife?” His lips quirked up at the corners, and there was a sparkle in his eyes.
“I know how to use it.” She thrust, and as he blocked it, she kicked him in the chest.
He grunted and stepped backward, bringing his sword down to block two more quick thrusts of her knife. He parried as she thrust again and again, his footwork and blade skills impeccable. Then he locked his sword against her knife, using brute force to push her backward against the wall behind her.
There was a sparkle in his eyes again.
He’s enjoying this.
“Why do I get the feeling you aren’t even trying?”
His lips curved upward into a grin. “I have no desire to kill you. I’m just testing your mettle.”
That made her angry. She sank down against the wall and punched him in the gonads before crawling out from between his legs as he grunted in pain.
“That . . . was . . . not cool.” He wheezed, one hand cupping his crotch.
Roihan Page 3