It also felt like one of the hardest things.
She and WroOth left. He kept her moving swiftly along the path to the dolmath den, his hand on her arm at all times. But the sun was bright, slanting through the leaves, the wind cool and pleasant. It was almost possible to forget how dangerous this place was. Or rather it would have been if the loud reptilian screeches and avian calls didn't make it remarkably apparent how many predators roamed these parts. The deep throaty roars and harsh cackles that echoed through the air added further punctuation on this point.
Somehow they made it unscathed to the dolmath den. It was situated in a jagged stone hill surrounded with much slimmer trees on rocky ground. The scent of sesame seed oil permeated the breeze here, the air somehow heavier as if it were the heat of the day in a pleasant summer. The sort of day where one lolled in a hammock and didn't worry about a thing.
Shaking her head, Amelia blinked. "I could swear they might put me to sleep here."
"It isn't the dolmaths doing that, dear heart. It's the not sleeping for two nights." WroOth approached the largest of the chasms in the rockface and slid back the thick string-like moss that obscured most of it like a curtain. "This is one of the main entrances. Do you want to look inside first?"
She stepped closer, ducking down to peer inside. It was too dark to see much. Yet even with that, as she got nearer, she noted several dark blue forms farther in. The rock walls themselves were quite coarse with numerous outcroppings, and it appeared to open up farther in. Filmy webs clung to the walls farther in as well. "You don't have to stay with me," she said, standing. "I'll be all right."
"I have no intention of leaving you here alone." He set his hand on his belt, shooting her an annoyed glare.
"You have better things to be doing and much less time. Am I at risk at all? Do they have any natural predators that might come in here? Natural predators that could hurt me?"
WroOth shrugged. "Nothing diurnal. A creegha bird might sometimes sneak in, but they won't hurt you unless they're in a pack of four or more."
"They eat dolmaths?"
"Smash them and eat the scent glands to get high. Similar to a violent dolphin pod with a pufferfish."
She shuddered. "There's an image. Anything else that might come in then?"
"Not in this region."
"Then I'll be all right alone. I won't go farther in. I won't leave until you come back to get me. Give me a couple hours. I'll call if I need help."
He grumbled, shaking his head. For a long moment, he stared at her. Then he sighed and threw his hand up in the air. "Have it your way. But if you die, little sister, I will never forgive you." He then indicated the space around the hill. "I will remain within earshot. If you even think something is an issue, you call for me."
"I will." She bit the inside of her lip as she braced herself. It was time.
It took another deep breath before she could force herself to step inside. The cave engulfed her in its darkness. She closed her eyes, counting backward from ten, forcing a breath and pause between each number.
This sesame oil scent was sickening this close, perhaps more for the memories than its actual odor. Memories flashed through her mind, heated and multi-layered. The hook-fanged spiders. The night in the palace. The corpses. That horrible sense of helplessness. The pain. The scars burned and ached. She squeezed her fingers and rubbed at her wrists and forearms.
Focus.
Focus!
Dolmaths were harmless. They fed off warmth. Some people came to them to gain relief from insomnia and experience deep and pleasant dreams. They were soft as velvet. Sweet even. Any harm they caused was unintentional. Yes. Unintentional. They were like cats. Except they didn't kill things. They just scurried and snuggled.
Her breaths continued to come fast, her chest remained tight. She pushed through it, keeping her back stiff against the rock wall. The cold braced her.
If she sought out that cold bead in her mind, she wouldn't have to experience this churning fear. The agitation. The tightness.
But that cold bead terrified her. There had been such horror in dealing with the loss of her elmis. Not in the moment. But afterward. There was no caretaking that she could do while in that state. No good that she could do that did not require killing.
She shuddered. That loss of herself was almost more terrifying than being here with the dolmaths.
No. If she was going to get through this, it needed to be just her. The part of her that she knew. Not the cold.
She pressed her back against the wall.
There was no need to think about what that cold was though or why it did what it did. She was here in this place right now to overcome a much smaller issue. She peered deeper into the cavern.
All of the dolmaths continued to sleep. The cave went on and on. She rubbed and twisted her fingers as she tried to work up the nerve to touch the one nearest her. It had a much darker blue band along its abdomen, and it had curled its forelegs up over its mouth like an infant, the other legs wrapped tight.
She could do this. She would do this.
Another wave of panic swept over her. She leaned back, gritting her teeth as the tightness returned and the cold intensified. It hurt to breathe. Thousands of thoughts swirled on the edges of her mind, threatening to pull her in again. She dug her heels in as if that could help and then forced herself to look down at that one little dolmath in particular.
* * *
Naatos dropped the libno. After only two hours of hunting, he had found the needed prey. It was in its prime, its scales a rich green with almost perfect bands of black and grey along its spine and tail. When he landed though, he realized that only AaQar was present in the camp. His brother sat on one of the logs near the fire, struggling to shape a round grey stone into some sort of vessel. His pallor had increased, and his muscles strained. Barely any light flowed from his hands.
"What are you making?" He crossed over and picked it up. The coarse stone grated against his hands.
"A secure vessel for the serum. It needs a good seal if we're to store it properly and let it ferment." AaQar rested his elbows on his knees, half-slumped. "I'm trusting you'll find the rest of the items we need. You remember how to make it?"
"It isn't especially complicated." He placed his hands on either side of the stone, but for a breath, he too had to focus harder than usual. The energy spurted forward, sharp in its drain of his resources and more painful than usual. He restrained the grimace. The burn in his spine, the ache in his chest, and his own difficulty breathing made this all much more unpleasant.
At least there was an appropriate vessel now. Heavier than usual. But solid and secure. Had he been in the mood for showing off, he would have turned it into glass and given it a lined stopper. As it was, he was just grateful to have completed it without losing the form.
AaQar watched him closely, his expression not hiding his knowledge that that is ordinarily what Naatos would have done. "I'm afraid I have more bad news for you, brother," he said. He nodded toward the vessel he had set aside at the start of their first night there. "I've completed my most rudimentary tests regarding the ilzinium, and these levels are abnormally high. You aren't going to escape this time. None of us are. The only way out is through. We all will have to shut down and let our bodies expend all our resources to purge this."
He stiffened as he glimpsed the darkness of the liquid. AaQar had set up a crude metric to make this test. It often underestimated. By this standard, the Grey Season was all but upon them, and the levels of ilzinium were greater than any that had ever existed in his time.
"If you continue with your plans to pursue the surge, you are signing your own death," AaQar continued. He kept his gaze fixed on Naatos. "I know that you resent the idea of being powerless. I suspect that leaving our fate in our would-be executioner and newly-discovered sister is equally despicable to you, all the more because of how gentle she has been. What happened in the dungeon is only a taste if my intuition is correct on this p
oint."
"If I do not pursue the surge, then I will linger and diminish for days," Naatos said. "I will be barely of any use in protecting any of you. At the rate it is working within me, within two days, I will not be able to carry even you to the suphrite. And what then? Two weeks and three days from there?"
"If you follow through with this, you will at best spend all of your strength. At least if you do not attempt the surge, you will be able to support Amelia for those days. Help her to manage at night and to deal with the dolmaths. If you take it easy, you might even put off your collapse for another three days."
He scoffed. "She could not manage two days."
"You should have more faith in her."
"Where is she?"
"With WroOth at the dolmath den." AaQar indicated the general direction.
He scowled, barely able to restrain the grimace. His fingers curled against his palms. She shouldn't have to deal with this. It had been his fault. And it choked him.
He needed to find her and—fix things. Somehow.
27
To Love and Protect
Amelia fought to keep her focus on being in the cavern with the dolmaths. Those invasive thoughts returned with more strength though. If her eyes were shut, they were even stronger.
Gritting her teeth, she drew in a sharp breath. If they wouldn't stop, then she might as well fight harder. The books had laid out various tactics for this. There was a way through.
She let the scenes come and played them back, stopping the end and playing her own. She didn't have to be rescued. She stopped them. Cassio didn't slash her with his great silver claws in a panicked state. The hook-fanged spiders retreated to a circle around her.
The walls of that pit rose up in her mind. Too high to jump. So sheer it would be hard to climb. How had Naatos gotten her out of there? He'd jumped in to save her.
Save her.
The words twisted in her mind like a dagger. Bile crept up her throat. She hated that almost as much as she hated the spiders.
And her mindreading had leaped out then through the necklace, seeking out Naatos of all people. Yes, he was her betrothed, her nulaamed at the time. Yet it felt like a violation of its own. Even worse given that her mindreading had apparently shot straight into Shon's and Matthu's heads and created a monster in Matthu's head known as the elmitho.
She shuddered, shame rising within her and suffocating her with the fear. Her throat was thick, her mind foggy. She hadn't meant to.
What difference had that made? Matthu had survived only by a miracle, and now he needed yet another to survive the gunshot wound.
Let him be all right, she prayed. Please.
So many miracles needed. And such silence.
The spider faces returned to her mind's eyes, ferocious and insistent.
Grimacing, she pulled back against the stone and tried to force them back once more, shoving their faces away with a gloved hand that could not be pierced.
Her mind had betrayed her. Her body would too if it had its way. Her will was the only thing she truly had.
Yes, her will. The one thing that might bend but would never break. The one thing that couldn't break or else…
The thickness in her throat intensified as she gasped in as deep a breath as she could manage. The air was too thick, smelled too much of dolmaths. Nothing moved. The daylight was only feet away. Yet it felt like it was forever.
Stay, stay, stay.
She ground her hands into fists and thrust them against her thighs, jamming them down and fighting for her breath.
She was a mindreader after all. A Neyeb. Changing the scene was not as hard as building the wall, but she did it. Little piece by little piece. And when she needed a break, she returned to the memories with Goodly, Lovely, Perfect, and Angel.
The pounding in her head increased, but the space within her thoughts was gradually clearing.
* * *
Naatos found WroOth a short distance from the dolmath den, creating palisade pieces from a copse of light-wooded trees he had recently felled. WroOth looked up as he approached, carving knife in hand as he worked on cutting points. Blood stained the corner of his mouth, and he had a far more wan look than usual.
"What are you doing out here?" Naatos demanded. He gestured toward the opening in the hill. "Is she in there alone?"
WroOth gave him an almost bleary look of confusion. "That's a problem for you?"
He seethed, glaring at him. "Get up. Get back to the camp and take care of yourself. You look like death standing. Can you even make it back?"
"Of course I can." WroOth coughed into his sleeve and then gave him a sharper glare. "And she's fine. She is working through her trauma. You can't—"
"Get back to the river. I don't want AaQar left alone. He's nearing collapse. I'll deal with Amelia." Everything was falling apart. He could feel the pieces sliding away. Not just sliding though, splintering, fragmenting.
WroOth's features tightened as he stood. "I'll take the first load back."
Naatos was only half listening as he headed toward the cavern.
* * *
Yes, her thoughts were clearing. And that was good. There was space here for what she needed to do.
If she wanted to survive and do her part in this family, she had to—
She opened her eyes.
When had she started thinking of them as her family?
It was only reasonable that she help to keep them alive. This was a hostile world even to them. She could not expect to survive on her own. Yet here she was. With these thoughts. And these beliefs.
They had become family to her, closer than her adopted parents, than Josiah, than almost everyone other than Uncle Joe. Oh. Uncle Joe.
She covered her face with her hands. At least she did not have to find a way to protect him in this. At least for now. She might never see him again, but he was safe. Safe from Naatos. Safe from Libysha. Safe from Ecekom.
Being stranded on an empty world with her greatest enemy and his three brothers wasn't what she had anticipated as a solution or fulfillment of the prophecy, yet here she was. Falling in love with—
The moss curtain flung up. "Amelia, get up, we're going."
She started at Naatos's stern voice, then scowled at him as the dolmaths rippled in frustration at the loudness. Most scurried back, though the dark-banded one remained near her foot. "What are you doing here?" Her heart raced, and her nerves prickled like they had been set on fire.
He took one look in and around. He then seized her and flung her over his shoulder. "You have no business being in this place."
"Naatos!" She lashed out at him, then grabbed a fistful of his hair. "You put me down immediately."
He carried her out of the cave and back down the path, wincing as she yanked on his hair. "You are utterly willful, brazen, foolish, and—"
"Naatos, I'm not going to argue with you while I'm hanging upside down. Put me down."
He fumed as he carried her back. "What were you thinking?"
"I am getting past my fear of spiders so I can handle the dolmaths. Exposure is the best method."
"Exposure is what got you here."
"No, you are what put me there. Now put me down and let me go fix it."
He halted, his arm still over the back of her thighs. "If I had known…"
The tension radiated out of him and into her like rumbling peals of thunder. She placed her hands on the small of his back and pushed herself up. "I know you didn't know. As far as I'm concerned, you shouldn't have been feeding anyone to spiders. That's a horrible way to kill anyone. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. Not even you. But that's over and done with. Now please, put me down and let me go back."
"I'm going to protect you."
"Right now you're ticking me off. There is nothing you can do to fix that. Okay? And if you're trying to apologize, could you let me at least stand on my own two feet?"
"Do you promise not to run back there?" He resumed his previous pace.
"It's a simple question, Amelia."
"Just because you are bigger than me doesn't give you the right to manhandle me, all right? If you want this marriage to work, then we need to have a better understanding about all of this. I don't like being picked up. I don't like being carried unless it's an emergency. And I really don't like being slung over your shoulder."
"I'm sure you don't."
"What would you say if I took your hunting knife and stabbed you in the backside if you don't let me down?"
"I'd say that that is an even more foolish thing to do."
"Just like you carrying me like this. Naatos, I understand that you want to help me get over this fear. It's your fault I have it, but you can't fix it."
He stopped short. The muscles along his shoulders and back had become as rigid as marble. "I can fix anything."
She rolled her eyes, still braced against his back. "No, you can't. And neither can I. But I am going to stab you in the butt if you don't let me down."
"If I had known—"
"Naatos." She grabbed for his knife.
He set her down. "Leave the knife alone, Amelia."
"Will you leave me alone and let me take care of this dolmath situation?" She smoothed her hair back from her face.
"What is your plan exactly? AaQar said you stayed up all night trying to touch one, and you failed."
"I am farther along than I was. I have to do this, and I have to do it on my own. If you want to stay nearby, that's fine. But you have to let me do this."
He glowered at her. "I did the harm, so—"
"That's not how this works. And you know that, Naatos." She rubbed her forehead, her temples throbbing. "Please. If you want to help me, let me focus. Let me do this and not have to feel that you feel bad about it too."
"I told you I would protect you."
She folded her arms. "If it alleviates your guilt at all, I never believed you anyway."
His frown deepened.
Wilderness Untamed Page 27