Through the eyes of The One They Misplaced:

All falls still

As her gaze alights on me

The pastel color of a sunset

‘Heaven’s diamonds shine in your dark eyes’

Are my eyes dark?

I never know their color

Moment to moment

Blink to blink

Yet I perceive the tears

A blurry sheen

And through it

The droplets that cling to her lashes

’Why the tears, Child?

You know the ending

The fate of Seallaii

Is in your past’

She continues, no

The projection continues

A machine programmed to interact with me

As this woman might have

But I do not live at the right time for that

The tears are where they belong

I leave them unmolested

And force soft words through a stiff throat

’I knew Rose left her homeworld

And did not prod the right questions

Now I see it was for fear

She would not be allowed to go.

Seallaii was allied with notorious enemies

Grenswa, where gravity played games

And Shlykrii, where all had a price

Seallaii would not be seen interfering between them

Rose shared a bond with Fredo

But how little either understood it

They hoped to save Grenswa

I knew that, but now I feel it’

My gaze drops to my hands

Her tears are mechanical

Unable to touch me

Projection like the rest of her

’I knew the divisions of Grenswa

By color and pearlescence

The curses they believed in

The stigma placed on those termed foreign

But to hear Rose speak of Fredo as dead

And for Prince Hent to call him a monster

I want to set him straight

I want to infuse them both with truth

Rose took too long

To deliver her message

She left them no time

To discern its nature

Though helping in small ways

She dallied, too caught up

In what Hent thought

And worry for Fredo

He wasn’t dead

Yol would dismantle him

Piece by piece

And blame it on Hent

Because he wanted Niiq to be queen

The cursed Silver

Daughter of a downtrodden race

Loved by the first prince, now banished

When the king offered Rose

Anything she wished

She asked for Fredo

And they found him

Teetering on the precipice of death

Through their mental bond

Rose’s worry would not aid him

He needed hope, glee, and laughter

She attended the Harvest Festival

Danced with Hent

Happy in his arms

Hoping all would be well

But it wasn’t

The Shlykrii-nas came

Set fire to paradise

And shattered her paradigm

They killed the king

They took Hent

They killed more

They took Rose’

I pause as one tear escapes

Cold on my flushed cheek

’I know the ending

But at this moment I am Fredo

Awake but blind

Fighting in darkness

That is mine alone

Hurt, scared, and lost’

I look at the tiny collection of sparks

Weightless on my finger

It waits for my cue to resume

Spewing Fredo’s thoughts as words

‘I am listening’

I say

Gaze sliding between the two

‘Continue the tale’

Water dripped. Its high-pitched echo trilled on forever like the ripples beneath my feet. I sat, arms wrapped around my knees and face buried in the cocoon of my curved position, hovering over a bottomless lake.

“Breathe.” The voice was itself a breath, filling me. “In. Out. Breathe.”

I looked up, but mist obscured my view and stung my eyes. It ran down my cheeks like tears. “Who are you?”

“Inhale. Feel the trees of your synapses blossom. Exhale. Watch those leafy ideas shiver and fall, twirling in the breeze you send out to the world.”

“That’s very poetic and all, but who are you?”

“Listen to me, Rose of the River Guardian Menyaza and the royal house Mellecallii.”

I stood, blinked, and squinted, but I saw nothing except fog and water. “You know my name?”

“You know your name, and I am within your mind.”

Well, that didn’t sound like insanity at all.

Mist swirled around me as I crossed my arms, a hand supporting either elbow. “Where are you?”

“Did I not just say I am within your mind? We are within your mind.”

Scowling, I looked around. “My mind is experiencing disagreeable weather. Let’s meet elsewhere.”

A laugh cut through the echoes, two sharp bursts, trilling and feminine as the mist formed an image. It floated, incomplete and transparent. Wavy hair the light purple of taro root framed a woman’s face, eyes slightly bluer and very angled. She drifted with the wavering mist, an arm or leg visible for only a moment. She seemed gaunt and torn, as if much of her was missing.

I stepped toward her, and though my toes did not penetrate the lake’s surface, it rippled as if they had. “What are you?”

“I am a vedia.”

My heart leapt, and squeaky, desperate words burst from my throat. “Tell my sister where I am! Grenswa was attacked. The capital was in chaos before I was taken. They abducted the Opal prince, too, and—”

“I am not one of your sister’s vedia.”

More words waited behind my parted lips, jammed, impatient, and now irrelevant. A swift, cold breeze lifted the hair sticking to my face, and the mist dispersed for a moment, then coalesced again behind me. Goosebumps appeared on my skin.

A vedia would form a mental bond with a genetic royal, much like a mykta. While either could act as the eyes and ears of those with whom they were linked, mykta took energy. They served as swords, and vedia were shields, giving all they had and asking nothing in return.

Vedia were precious but mysterious, and the list of those to whom she could belong was incredibly short.

“Whose vedia are you?”

She floated with the mist, slowly sliding back in front of me. “I am unbonded, a satellite with nothing to orbit, a world with no sun, cold and dying. But you could be the star I have lost.”

I squinted. “You want to bond with me?”

She smiled and reached toward me, an apparition no more corporeal than a moonbeam, yet warmth radiated from her. An desire to help her washed through me.

My hand rose, stretching toward hers, but as our fingers touched, fire flashed. It carried all the panic and horror of Fredo’s nightmare and added a ravenous darkness. Its fangs snapped at me.

I stumbled back, hand retreating to cover my racing heart.

“Fredo!” I reached for him instead, to the place where he belonged in my mind. Somewhere far above me, it was still an amoeba-like void, but it was infinitely brighter than the darkness contained in this vedia.

Her thin lips formed a v like a gliding bird in the distance. “Who is Fredo?”

“My mykta.”

The void was too high, but this was my mind. Could I fly?

I jumped. The world jumped with me, and I got nowhere. The void hung further above than before, and the lake’s surface wrinkled against my heels.

“Ah, I see,” the vedia cooed. Her wispy, half-formed arm rose. “Mykta keep us safe.”

The void fell into her palm and shrunk. Her mouth was too small for the kind of bright smile she tried to put on as she offered me the pillow-sized cloud. Her teeth were Shlykrii-na sharp.

I snatched the void, both arms wrapping it. My hands were tied to a train racing away while my feet were glued to the ground, all my joints pulled asunder, about to rip free.

“Fredo, please, don’t push me away,” I sobbed into it, falling to my knees.

The vedia’s head listed to the left. “You do not know the way of your own mind.”

“Yes, so I don’t know why you would want to bond with me. I’m useless.”

“You are perfect.”

She sunk closer, a head and shoulders only, arms unseen, vague impressions I sort of felt around me. The mist that formed her face tickled my nose, and I frowned, trying not to sneeze.

“A vedia’s bond is stronger than a mykta’s. Closer. Here among the Shlykrii-nas, you will want one. You will need me.”

I exhaled slowly. Wind swirled, warmer than before, whipping my hair and pushing the vedia back.

“I don’t need you.” I held my head high. “I have Fredo.”

“He is a failure,” she hissed.

“Yet, I trust him more than I trust you.”

The vedia’s too-pinched features narrowed, and lightning crackled through the fog. As frigid as a glacier, the wind that I had thought was my ally came at me from all directions. It formed a myriad of serrated blades, hacking and sawing. I hid my face in my arms, skin torn and drenched in my purple blood.

“You cannot escape,” the wind howled.

I curled tighter in on myself, shielding my head with my arms and knees. Could I push her out of my mind? I had no idea how, but I had to try before she killed me in here. Was that even possible? What would happen then?

I had heard tales of vedia using the closeness of their bond to possess the body of their royal partner—their neqhol, their sea. Would she try to become me? Was her goal to crush my consciousness and parade around with my identity?

What good would that do her? Last I knew, I was in the middle of a battlefield on Grenswa, and I had likely been captured by Shlykrii-nas. She had said I was among them, that I would need her help.

“You will choose me,” the wind screeched.

Jealousy. This was jealousy. It was darker than Grenswa’s night, edges sharper than a shattered jar. She was broken and desperate.

Terror filled me, and I fled through the corridors of my psyche, screaming.

Could anybody hear me? Could anybody help me?

The wind vanished, and I shot up, no longer in the dream but still screaming. Tangled in vines, I rolled over the edge of a platform.

Soft carpet met my stomach after a drop less than the height of my knees. A blur of orange streaked away with a squeak before returning to stand behind my head. Its shadow blended with mine over the floor’s woven motif of white flowers.

“[You finally wake up, and then you try to smash Togdy. What kind of monster are you?]”

I was a monster. I was supposed to save Grenswa. Instead, I dawdled in delivering my message, leaving us no time to discover it was worthless anyway. With time to properly comb through the information, we would have spotted its flaws. We could have predicted alternatives and countermeasures and concocted defenses to deal with whatever situation arose. Instead…

Wae’s face flashed in my mind. Her Pearl companions. The Ruby who had shared his drink with me. The king.

So many people are dead, and it’s my fault.

Was Niiq okay? Timqé? What about the Onyx lordling? The medical ward must have also come under attack, and Lordling Joqshon wasn’t in a condition to put up a fight.

And Fredo…

A choked moan escaped as tears spilled down my cheeks.

“[Hey, come on. Togdy came all this way to see the Seallaii-ku they brought on board, and you turn out to be leaky?]” The voice had a grainy, growl-like quality, and I sniffled, turning over to look at its owner.

My heart leapt into my throat.

If a canine has ever stood over you, chin just above your nose, tips of their large fangs peeking beneath their whiskered jowls, then you know how scary a sight it can be.

“You’re a Dossea-na.”

He tilted his head, one floppy, spade-shaped ear dipping lower than the other.

Despite my realization manifesting aloud in Sishgil, he responded in Laysis, complete with its proper third-person references to himself. “[Mightily observant, yes, though we usually prefer Dossie because it’s easier to say, or you can call Togdy by Togdy’s name. Togdy’s age is twenty standard years. Why are you leaky?]”

Rubbing my eyes with my arm, I noted it was not cut up as it had been within my mind. Still, a thin bandage covered the patch of burned skin near my elbow from when I tried to drug Yol awake so he could answer my questions…

That sounded bad. Let me try again.

…from when I failed to awaken Yol so he could be useful for once.

I sat up. My side tingled. Another black bandage around my waist concealed the sword slice above my right hip. My feet were also swathed in healing cloth, sticky as I wiggled my toes. I still wore the fiery festival dress Niiq had made for me, and someone had cleaned it. No trace of mud remained, but they hadn’t managed to erase all the Pearl blood.

“[I really am a monster!]” I wailed and threw my face into my hands.

“[Togdy’s sure you’re not really as much of a monster as you think you are.]” His paw landed in the bend of my elbow. “[Even if you do snore like one.]”

I peeked at him. “[Seallaii-kus do not snore.]”

With a snort, he sat, fluffy tail curving around his haunches. A grin shone in his eyes and on his long muzzle. “[They do when they’ve had cake. True fact. Look it up.]”

“[I don’t have to. I’m living proof. We do not snore, cake or no.]” I flipped onto my hands and knees. We were about the same size this way, though his canine frame was leaner. It was hard to tell how much body he had beneath all that golden-orange fur.

His amber eyes slid thoughtfully to the ceiling. “[Maybe it has to be a certain kind of cake, like nexok cream cake.]”

I blinked, imagining the Shlykrii-na bovine called a nexok doing the backstroke in a pale pink pastry.

“[I’ve never had that kind of cake, but it sounds like it’s made with nexok milk, which is barely approved for Seallaii-ku consumption. It usually gives us indigestion.]”

“[Right, and your tummy snores.]”

“[It growls.]” I balanced on my knees so I could cross my arms. This room sure was cold. My skin prickled.

“[Well, Togdy’s not intimidated by your tummy at all. Unless it’s going to smash Togdy.]”

I quirked an eyebrow at him. “[You’re rude.]”

“[As if you’ve never been rude.]”

I opened my mouth to deny it, then recalled myself questioning Hent as to his race. I bit my lip instead, eyes darting about the room for any kind of distraction.

The bed I had rolled off was Seallaii-na—thin sod with pale purple yewn flowers. I extricated my calves from the vines and noted the blossoms’ disappointed droop. I was not their usual occupant, the one they wanted.

This recalled the vedia’s jealousy at my rejection, and I shoved the thought aside, shooting to my feet.

I fell. Several thuds highlighted my gracefulness, and the Dossie snickered.

“[You didn’t see that.]” I hauled myself into a standing position again. My heart hammered, blood whooshing in my ears. My vision fled for a moment. This was not Grenswa’s gravity.

“[It would be the polite thing for Togdy to ignore that hilarious flop on the ground.]” He stretched his chest in a bow. His pocket-riddled vest scrunched over his shoulders and straightened out when he shook. “[But politeness and propriety often make the universe more complicated than it has to be. You know, whole worlds are held together for plot convenience.]”

“[What?]” Almost falling again, I grabbed one of the silk tapestries that covered the walls. They rippled in a frigid breeze, suggesting that passages could hide anywhere. I didn’t see a door.

Togdy decided to explain his random claim. “[Grenswa’s an example. Its gravity is so wacky, it should fall apart, but if that world didn’t exist, think of all the wonderful tales and music we wouldn’t have. Like the love story of Jixon and Zaqhara or the brave ballad of Queen Mizazzki, though that one’s a tragedy. The whole royal family dies. Just goes to show the world doesn’t revolve around them, I guess.]”

Peeking behind the nearest tapestry, I gulped at the memory of an unconscious Hent carried away by Shlykrii-na soldiers.

When the Shlykrii-nas attacked Grenswa the first time, they took Queen Mizazzki. She died on their ship. It was her loss that drove the world into enough of a rage that they could fight off their enemies.

Is history repeating itself? Will Hent be the one to die this time?

“[Plot convenience isn’t a force of nature.]” I frowned at the Dossie. “[If Grenswa didn’t exist, we wouldn’t notice those stories were missing, or they would take place elsewhere.]”

“[Like your homeworld? Or Togdy’s?]” His tail waved. “[Togdy wouldn’t mind some of those epochs being part of our own cultural history, except some are tragic, as we already said. You can have those ones.]”

I looked behind another tapestry and found more plain silver wall. “[Why would I want an old, sad story that I could do nothing to change? It would just remind me of how helpless I am.]”

“[So grumbly. Togdy would say you woke up on the wrong side of the bed but already saw you fall off it, so…]” He moved his shoulders in a poor imitation of a shrug. “[What are you looking for?]”

“[The door. There’s way out of here, right?]”

“[That depends on your definition of out of here. You want out of this room? There’s a sliding hatch behind the tapestry that smells like yesterday’s roast fish.]”

Great directions, Dossie.

I sniffed one of the cloths. Only the yewn blossoms’ crisp scent caught my attention.

“[You want off this ship?]” he continued. “[You’ll have to take one of the shuttles, but from what we’ve seen so far, Togdy doubts you can fly one and also doubts you’d make it to one before they caught you and brought you back anyway.]”

I frowned at the walls. A tapestry in the corner seemed a little more crooked and wrinkled than the others. I rushed to it and swiped the glittery white silk aside.

Yes! A folding hatch made up this corner, seam sealed with extra thick rubber. Hairline cracks revealed where the panels would slide away into the walls.

It didn’t move, even as I pushed on it. I didn’t see any button, latch, knob, or sensor.

“[It won’t open.]”

“[Oh, it’s locked.]”

I sighed, forehead against the door. “[I love your explanations, Togdy. They are so useful.]”

“[Really? Because Togdy thinks Togdy would annoy Togdy.]”

I turned to him with a tight-lipped smile. “[Why are we locked in this room?]”

He lay against a pile of pillows in the opposite corner, front paws crossed. “[You are here because you’re Lady Alaysq’s new pet. Togdy is here because we were waiting for you to wake up, which you took forever to do, so Togdy napped a while. Then you rudely interrupted that nap.]”

Was he a pet, too, then? Not that I would submit to being a pet, whoever this Lady Alaysq was. The broken vedia perhaps?

I certainly wasn’t going to be her pet.

I didn’t expect a Dossie to like the idea of being a pet either, though. They were a headstrong breed, their planet beautiful and difficult to approach. It was said that every structure on Dossea was made of precious metals or gemstones. Only the wisest minds, bravest souls, and swiftest adventurers could navigate the explosive asteroid maze protecting their land.

I hadn’t studied them much, but that same maze stunted their progress in space technology. They didn’t have ships to fly among the stars. So, why was this Dossie here with the Shlykrii-nas who had attacked Grenswa?

“[You staring at Togdy with that incredibly fake smile is creeping Togdy out.]” His head lowered, and his tail fidgeted.

I padded across the room and knelt in front of him. “[Togdy, why are you on this ship?]”

He yawned, large canines flashing in the dim strips of light from above. “[That’s an awfully personal question to ask someone to whom you haven’t even introduced yourself.]”

“[Oh, right.]” I scratched the back of my head beneath my fancy bun. “[I’m Rose.]”

“[And…]”

“[And what? You want my life story?]”

“[You’re rather stupid for a Seallaii-ku.]” He sighed, and the look of patient disappointment he trained on me was a million knives driving into my chest. “[When you introduce yourself, you’re supposed to say how old you are. Age is very important. It determines a lot of things, and it’s especially hard to tell how old Seallaii-kus are.]”

Ah, a cultural quirk.

I made a mental note to look up a lot more about Dossea as soon as I could. “[I’m about eighteen.]”

“[A child Seallaii-ku. Awesome!]” He leapt, and his tail waved like a flag in a hurricane. “[Togdy’s older, so Togdy’s in charge. Want to go on patrol together?]”

“[Um, does that mean we leave this room?]”

“[It would be boring if we didn’t,]” he said through a canine version of a smirk as he trotted past me.

As he approached, the door opened.

“[I thought you said it was locked.]”

He stood in the doorway. “[Oh, Togdy rigged all the doors so they’re never locked for Togdy.]”

I cautiously ventured past him, worried the door would see me and slam. Such worry was in vain, though, and I stepped into a trapezoidal hallway undeterred.

Continued in chapter 34: Monsters We Have Vowed to Eliminate

Thank you for Reading!

Quick note: This is the second volume of River’s End. Find volume I here: https://theprose.com/book/1667/river-s-end-vol-i

The ceiling was narrower than the floor, like it was supposed to be a triangle but the top part was chopped off. The horizontal space was also a trapezoid. These offset, slanted-rectangular sections formed a zagged hallway.

The shape felt too familiar as I followed Togdy, his nails clicking on the floor grate. The catacombs of Menyaza were set up similarly. Those were cut into igneous rock, while these walls were smooth and metal, a brushed, dull gray. Tubes of white lights lined the junctions of wall and ceiling. The weightless fabric of my dress floated in the breeze that whispered from above and below.

It reminded me too much of adventures back home, where Fredo and I snuck through the tunnels, never knowing who or what waited around the myriad of corners.

I reached toward Fredo in my mind. It was still like being stretched too far, as if something constantly heaved at the back of my head. Distance wasn’t supposed to make a difference in a mykta’s bond, but maybe that wasn’t entirely true.

Maybe it was like your hand: Whether above your head or behind your back, it is still a part of you. It reports its feelings and obeys your commands, but stretch it to its limit, and you feel it. With time and practice, you’ll get used to it, but until then, it’s tender. It’s hard to ignore.

Fredo was not dead. That was what this meant, why I felt anchored back to Grenswa. He was there, alive and waiting for me.

How far from Grenswa was I?

Panic burst in my mind simultaneous with a breath-stealing epiphany. With every small step I took in this hallway, I traveled a fathomless distance in space. I might even have walked forward but moved backward, further and further from the world where I needed to be.

“[You okay?]” Togdy asked as I leaned against the smooth wall, a hand over my sprinting heart.

“[Yes, I’m just finding it hard to breathe at the moment.]” I didn’t entirely blame this on my train of thought. The air was much drier than on Grenswa and thicker than on Seallaii.

Togdy sat and gave me that over-patient look again. “[Don’t vomit. My pet says the ship is supposed to shift the gravity and atmosphere subtly between zones, but Togdy has seen so many puke their guts out—]”

“[You have a pet?]” I blurted. Had the gravity been as heavy as earlier, I would have fallen again, but he was right. It was lighter here. I could have pushed off the floor and swam through the dry air.

With an oversized nod, Togdy got up and resumed his trot. “[Togdy calls him Ishi, but he’s difficult to train, so we mostly let him do whatever he wants.]”

“[If he’s sapient enough to speak and explain how the ship works,]” I argued, following, “[then he shouldn’t be a pet.]”

“[Ho-ho, you’re funny.]” He didn’t look back at me, and I glared. Whoever this Ishi was likely didn’t want to be a pet any more than I did.

“[It wasn’t a joke,]” I mumbled, attention stolen as the hall widened into an octagonal room.

Except for being taller and wider, the space wasn’t really different from the corridor—plain walls, grate floor and ceiling, tubular lights. But it felt capacious, with a passage leading off each of the eight walls. My eyes focused on the two semi-circular desks in the center and their plethora of screens.

Screens like that meant information, and information was power, knowledge, the mightiest of weapons.

I scurried down the triad of stairs into the room and swiped a hand over a desk’s glass counter. It lit up, and Laysis letters reported mildly useless facts like the temperature. Cold. I already knew that. Today’s date…

I paused. This was a Sojourner’s date system. A whole number represented how many days had passed since launch, decimals breaking down partial days. A quick calculation put this ship at over five centuries old.

I shoved the notifications aside and navigated deeper into the file directories. Surely, the simple date system wasn’t unique to River Guardian Sojourners. Away from a planet with obvious phases, the years, seasons, and months meant little. The sleep cycle of the crew was the most important.

I found a map and pulled the file open so it took up the whole desk, showing all the fine details.

“[What are you doing?]”

I leaned over my discovery, fingers and eyes tracing more trapezoids and octagons. “[Research.]”

“[Boring.]” The Dossie’s tail thumped against the curved, hollow front of the desk.

It appeared to be made of thin, frosted glass, and I had an awful vision of him shattering it, screens crumbling and forever dark, never to answer my questions.

“[Togdy lets you out to do whatever you want, and you study. Seems like a legit Seallaii-ku thing to do.]”

“[This is an ark,]” I whispered.

“[Is that cool?]” Ears perked, Togdy jumped up to put his front paws on the counter. The map jerkily zoomed in and out in response.

I frowned at him, but amazement kept my eyes wide. “[This ship is of Sojourner design, but I didn’t know one had actually been made, and to be this old…]”

I turned back to the schematics. They had zoomed out far enough to display the whole structure.

Imagine a giant kite, one large enough to cover ten sprawling cities. Slice it into tiny strips but leave a thin stem down the middle to connect it all. Then twist it like a strand of DNA to create a spiky spiral.

Arks were meant to save scraps of dying worlds. Which world was this one meant for?

I zoomed up on the map again and inspected the zones, searching for matches to the habitats of Shlykrii.

That vedia was on this ship, wasn’t she? That Seallaii-na vedia. Did Seallaii have something to do with this after all?

My head hurt. My vision swam, and my stomach roiled. Bile rose in my throat.

One of the ship’s decks was labeled Nexok Mountain Range, another the Chuan Sea, another the Apim Forests—all well-known areas of Shlykrii. The deck below that said Abductee Holding Area.

I magnified the image further and looked for any mention of an Opal prince.

“[Hide,]” Togdy hissed. His claws scratched the glass as he got down and scrambled toward one of the hallways. “[They’re coming, and if they see you, they’ll put you back in Alaysq’s room.]”

As he disappeared through the doorway behind me, voices blended by echoes poured into the space. With a grimace, I closed the map, wishing for a tablet to load it on so I could take it with me. At a tap of the sleep button in the corner, the counter darkened, and I swung under it.

Footsteps cascaded into the room.

“[Where are the watchmen that are supposed to be stationed here?]” asked a steely, feminine voice, and they all paused.

As if in response, a shout and a yelp rang from the corridor where Togdy had gone. “[There you are!]”

The Dossie reappeared as an orange streak, and a Shlykrii-na trotted behind, tackling him as they reached the desk opposite the one I hid under.

“[Do you know how long we’ve been looking for you?]” he growled through a sneer. Conical wolf ears flattened against his head, and slender arms wrapped the Dossie’s waist.

I backed further under the counter. Hopefully, he wouldn’t look this way.

Togdy squirmed. “[You’d have been bored otherwise.]”

The woman cleared her throat. Togdy and his captor looked up, two sets of ears perking. Togdy’s were still floppy, framing either side of his furry face, while the Shlykrii-na’s stood straight, the same yellow-brown as his shaggy hair.

“[Commander Ferrina,]” he squawked as he scrambled to his feet, grip tight on the scruff of Togdy’s neck.

I tried to peek at the commander, but the desk’s frosted glass reduced the scene to a blur of colors. Probably a good thing since I didn’t want them seeing me anyway.

“[Ishiyae doesn’t appreciate it when you harass his pet.]”

The visible Shlykrii-na straightened, and most of the wrinkles in his soft tunic vanished. “[With all respect, Ma’am, his pet is not supposed to be roaming the corridors either.]”

“[Neither are you. Explain why both you and your partner left your post.]”

Shoulders drooping, he slid behind the desk, feet a handspan from my knees. Could he see me if he looked down?

Level with my face, Togdy winked at me.

“[Togdy messes with the programming of things when left loose, Ma’am. We’ve spoken with Commander Ishiyae about it, but if you could—]”

“[Ishiyae was severely injured on Grenswa. He is recovering, but he does not need to be bothered with your trifles, Watchman.]”

Armor clinked, and her shadow’s arm elongated on the floor. The watchman lifted Togdy, and the Dossie’s fluff billowed in the light gravity. His tail curled up over his belly as he disappeared above the counter.

“[Let Togdy go, Ferrina, or Togdy will curse you.]”

Imagining his bared fangs, I shivered.

“[Curse Ferrina with your cute Dossea-ku superstitions? We shall sweat into nothing from worry.]”

“[Togdy means it.]” His voice was further away, punctuated by a horde of stiff footsteps. “[We have a friend called a purritirr monster, and she won’t like your treatment of Togdy.]”

Ferrina chuckled. “[Stories have entered these ears about purritirr, invisible, always attacking the feet first so you can’t run away. How did you ever make friends with one?]”

“[Same as with everyone else. Togdy just introduced himself, and she happened to be nicer than you.]”

Was it a good thing that they were leaving? Togdy would be okay, right? Him getting caught wasn’t that big of a deal. They’d just lock him in a room, and he would escape again.

I, on the other hand, now faced the predicament of hiding under a desk within sneezing distance of a watchman’s feet, a watchman who would be none too pleased to find I had been snooping around his computer.

How would I get out of here without him noticing?

If I got caught, would they put me back in Lady Alaysq’s room? Or did a darker fate await a fake Grenswa-na prisoner wandering about this mysterious ark ship?

Not quite to any of the doorways, the commander crooned, “[Togdy, you know Ferrina likes Ishiyae, right?]”

“[You and everyone on this ship,]” the Dossie grumbled.

“[So, you know Ferrina would never hurt you because he would think ill of her.]” Her syrupy voice became clearer as she turned to face the desk. “[But the watchman here might hurt you if someone ordered him to, someone who would remain anonymous.]”

The watchman’s hand slid to the laser pistol on his thigh, and his fingers tightened around the handle.

“[Togdy would tell.]” His voice strained as if he struggled to get free.

The clink of armor sounded again. “[You’re a burden to Ishiyae, a burden to this ship. Watchman, shoot him.]”

Within a breath, the watchman’s weapon rose level with his shoulder. I slammed an elbow on his foot.

He shouted a word I didn’t know and stumbled back. A light shattered behind Ferrina and her captive.

“[Watchman!]”

He looked down and saw me, of course. Not like I was all that hard to spot, like a fire in the dark bedecked in red, orange, and gold.

“[What’s a Grenswa-ku doing up here?]”

I didn’t have an answer to that, to anything, only motion, so I launched myself at him. I grabbed his arm and twisted it behind him. He ducked and threw me easily in the weak gravity. I sailed over the counter and into the waiting arms of the four armored Shlykrii-nas that trailed Ferrina.

They weren’t normal Shlykrii-nas. They were huge, like the ones that had defeated me on Grenswa, unaffected by my kicks and grips too strong for me to wrench away. All I got for my efforts was a twinging side and the worry that the wound on my hip was worse than I had thought.

“[I am a Seallaii-ku River Guardian, and you will unhand me at once.]” This was an ark of Sojourner design. Surely that authority meant something here.

Ferrina raised an eyebrow at me, a thin russet line disappearing beneath bangs of the same color. “[If you’re a River Guardian, why do you look Grenswa-ku?]”

“[She doesn’t smell Grenswa-ku.]”

Ferrina’s right ear tilted toward Togdy. Hers were semi-floppy, tips pulled low by the weight of several golden hoops.

One of my captors sniffed my arm, and I grimaced.

“[Smells like Grenswa.]”

Togdy gave them the same patient look he had given me, and I was glad to see it wasn’t reserved for my level of ignorance. “[Yeah, she smells like she’s been around fish, but does she smell like she is a fish?]”

“[Grenswa-kus aren’t fish,]” the watchman huffed.

“[But they smell like they are, a bit. What does she smell like she is?]”

“[Fruit,]” the guard on my right answered, and the one on my left wondered, “[Does she taste like fruit, too?]”

I didn’t like this sudden downturn in topic.

Ferrina came closer, calculation in her large eyes. Her irises were deep and somewhere between red and brown, pupil a lightless slit down the middle. “[If you are Seallaii-ku, tell Ferrina to do something.]”

Gaze locked on hers and jaw clenched, I let out a slow breath, pouring my soul into the words, “[Let Togdy go.]”

She gasped. Her pupils widened, and her eyes fluttered closed. Her fingers uncurled, and Togdy plopped on the grate floor.

With a detached, nonchalant stance, she watched him scramble away. “[That is a problem.]” She turned back to me, focus narrow and as intense as a quasar’s flames. “[We’ll show her to the king. He’ll want to meet her.]”

She turned, knee-length tail flipping wildly, and the protective, bird-tail like flap of armor that dangled from her belt waved like a loose sail.

The guards followed her, holding me between two of them. My toes dangled above the floor.

Curiosity stilled me anyway, so I glided along, lost in a cascade of thoughts. Ferrina had asked me to give her an order, and her obeying it confirmed my Seallaii-na status. Did that have to do with my charisma?

I had tried to be as compelling as possible, but I hadn’t expected it to work and especially not to have the euphoric effect it had garnered. Could I order them to do anything? Did I want to see this king? Would my charisma work on more than one of them at a time?

My gaze fell to the elongated rifles strapped to each of the four soldiers’ thighs. Could I order them to take me to a shuttle, protect me, or forget me? Could I compel this king of theirs to turn the ship around and return to Grenswa?

Was that even a good idea?

I could instead find Hent and the others taken, load them in a shuttle, and fly that back to Grenswa.

Maybe I’ll run that by the king, with all my hope poured into it.

Pieces fell into place. Shlykrii-nas like Ambassador Lafdo were immune to Seallaii-na charisma, but that impassive nature was not natural for their kind. Long before Shlykrii-nas had ventured into space, their world had been different, with a strict hierarchy based off a pheromone system similar to our charisma. A drug had been developed to dampen their susceptibility to that kind of manipulation, and the lower castes had wiped out their rulers.

For centuries, every Shlykrii-na was dosed with this serum, termed Equal, and capitalism had reigned rather than birthright.

What if these Shlykrii-nas were without Equal?

That explained the watchman’s eagerness to fulfill Ferrina’s request despite knowing it would get him in trouble. Ferrina was higher ranked by birth, by physically having the pheromones of a higher caste than the watchman. Obeying her gave him a deep sense of pleasure, like an addict getting his fix.

Was that why her armor was different? I had seen a female Shlykrii-na on the battlefield dressed the same as the male soldiers, so Ferrina’s gender had little to do with her difference in attire.

Modern Shlykii-nas of high class valued lengthy fringe and delicate lace, and her armor displayed similar attributes. Her gear was less bulky than that of the giants surrounding me, less overlapped and more woven, intricately so. Her tail guard was long, hanging nearly to mid-calf.

Doors hissed open, and I blinked, assaulted by the scents of a rich banquet: warm fruits and basted meats, aromatic pastries and cakes. Tables lined the walls to either side, partakers loitering and laughing around them, all robed in soft silks and furs with many dangly, sparkly pieces.

Across the room, engines burned blue behind clear panels. Distant stars speckled the transparent ceiling. I might have thought it was awesome had my heart not pounded in my ears, trying to keep afloat in my raging torrent of terror, curiosity, confusion, and hope.

Basically, I was a mess inside.

At least I was appropriately dressed for a party. A Grenswa-na party.

Everyone’s stares turned to us. On the awkward scale, this was a fifteen out of ten. I still couldn’t touch the floor, so I couldn’t have run even if that brilliant idea had occurred to me.

“[Cousin Ferrina!]” The bellow rang through the room like a gong, and I flinched, gaze jumping to the speaker.

He looked like her, with the same russet hair and eyes slightly redder. His features were just as round, but a lot more of him was round. Did he wear an inner tube beneath his floor-length robe? Maybe he was just paranoid about drowning.

Lighter garb might have helped with that. The tassels that draped from his shoulders would have still reached the floor if he had stood rather than lounged sideways on a padded throne at the back of the room.

“[This Grenswa-ku must be special for you to have brought her to the king’s banquet.]” No malice rode his address, simply apathy tainted with mild intrigue and a bit of disdain.

“[She is not of Grenswa, Our King. Rather, she is Seallaii-ku.]” Ferrina’s eyes locked on the monarch. “[River Guardian.]”

Everything stilled. Silence swept the room like a swift assassin.

The king’s burnt-crimson eyes fixed on me. “[Is this true?]”

“[Wow, you must not trust Ferrina very much.]”

He threw her a brief glance. “[No, the king does not, and being a River Guardian is a serious claim. You have a Grenswa-ku’s scales.]”

I shrugged. “[Maybe they’re fake.]”

He stood and glided toward me as if floating atop a pond. “[Perhaps you believe River Guardians are the saviors of the universe, and you think they will save you now, will save your world.]” He stopped, tassels settling a moment later.

“[Seallaii will save Grenswa.]”

He grinned, sharp teeth like a host of daggers shining in the starlight. “[If they rise to the bait and try, what do you think awaits them?]”

“[Are you saying all this is a trap?]” I struggled against my captors to no avail.

At a backhanded wave from the king, they released me and filed behind Ferrina.

“[A trap and the strategy of a genius. Our purpose is to end the tyranny of River. We will destroy the River Guardians. That is why we call this ship the River’s End.]”

My heart hammered so loud, surely it shook the walls, but no one else seemed to hear it. I tried to swallow and couldn’t, a horrible burn in my throat. I couldn’t say anything.

The king took another step closer. “[Now tell us, are you truly one of those monsters we have vowed to eliminate?]”

Continued in chapter 35: I Know These Flames

Thank you for reading!

A girl’s voice. Sweet. Panicked. Excited. What’s she saying? Her words sound like bubbles popping through mud.

Gentle hands check my pulse at my neck, then inspect my spine. My shoulders. My hips. I don’t move. The smells of wet metal and fetid soil fill my nose, but I can’t find the strength to turn away from it.

“Carefully now,” a soft voice instructs. Hands push on me. I roll. A slushing sounds as my cheek leaves supple mud. I’m shivering, drenched and not exactly cold, but uncomfortable.

“Seallaii-na,” the gentle voice calls. “Can you hear me, Seallaii-na?”

If he calls me that, he must not be Seallaii-na. Where am—

Grenswa. A battle. Where’s Rosa?

My eyes shoot open, but I see nothing. Right, I’m blind.

I reach toward the voice. Grasp a shoulder. Haul myself to a sitting position. My head spins, breaths rapid and heavy. My gut heaves, and I fall to the side. Spittle drips from my lips. Nothing comes up. My stomach is empty. How long has it been since I last ate?

More hands are on me, rubbing my back. I just breathe. The voices are distant. I want to ask them where Rosa is, but air rushes in and out of my mouth with a hollow sound, no words formed.

I’m her mykta. I shouldn’t need their help to find her. She isn’t dead, or else I would never have reawakened.

She is in my mind, a distant star burning bright.

I stretch toward her. ‘Rosa?’

Fear. Not mine, hers, pools around me. I clench my jaw and try to see beyond it. An image forms. A face. Soft, round. Pale skin freckled beneath the shadow of a beard. Large eyes vertically split, irises the color of molten bronze.

He grins, sharp Shlykrii-na teeth flashing. Conical, fuzzy ears face forward, awaiting an answer.

‘Rosa, look at his ears. That’s a predator’s body language. Back away.’

Another face fades in, incomplete. The previous scene remains visible through gaping holes in her cheeks. The new visage is petite and framed by lavender locks cut beneath her chin like a vedia’s. Her eyes are bluer. Sharper. Colder.

‘So, you are Fredo. She does not need you. She does not want a failed mykta.’

‘Then let her tell me that.’

‘Why should she have anything to do with you?’

‘Because she’s terrified, and she does need me. You don’t even know her. You have no right to choose for her.’

Pain explodes across my cheek like being hit by a snowball coated in ice. I collapse in the mud, shaking, no strength in my arms. She can’t have actually slapped me. She is distant, just as distant as Rosa, but my face throbs. Something warm trickles from my left ear.

Hands are on me again, lifting me, voices everywhere.

“They’re both dead, the Onyx lordlin’ and the commander of the Onyx divisions.”

My heart twists. Beats faster.

“The commander’s crushed by a column.”

My fault.

“The lordlin’ bled out from a deep chest wound.”

Again, my fault.

“Shlykrii-nas,” a rumbling voice spits.

Dare I tell them what happened? That we fought off the Shlykrii-nas? They were retreating, and all three of us would have survived had it not been for Yol. Yol slashed Joqshon.

Because I tried to use Joqshon as a hostage. I held him still and let the assassin stab him.

I knocked over the column that crushed Yol.

I killed them. This isn’t mud and rain drenching me. It’s their blood, condemning me. Can’t the Grenswa-nas see that? How long before they point their weapons at me? They already tried to kill me once just for existing. Now that I’ve killed two of their own?

“We’re goin’ to lift you onto a cot,” the gentle voice tells me. “We’ll get you inside and patched and cleaned up.”

“I’ll walk,” I say. I want to run, but where to?

To Rosa.

Impossible. I can’t run through outer space. Every moment, she slips further away.

Will they take me to her if I ask?

Grenswa-nas have no space-faring vehicles.

I stand. The air is warm, but still I shiver. I pull the ripped toga tighter around myself. The fabric is slick, but it irritates the scratches on my chest.

Where am I supposed to go?

Small, cold hands take mine, and I tilt my head down as if I look at them.

“I’m Pullee.” The young girl’s voice rings sharp and a little raspy. “Rose called you Fredo?”

I nod.

“I’m glad you’re alive, Fredo. Rose’d be very sad otherwise. When the king said she could ask for anything, she asked for you.”

My breath stops, and warmth gathers in my eyes.

I swallow hard. “She does stupid stuff like that.”

“Lead him inside, Pullee,” an adult tells her. “If he falls, call us immediately.”

She tugs on my hand, and I follow, heart hammering. Do I trust them?

No.

Rosa loves Grenswa like some people might say their favorite animal is a scyuen. A scyuen will eat you given the opportunity. They have claws and a mouthful of fangs and venom for a reason.

Grenswa-nas are predators, too.

Pullee hauls on my hand again. As I step, mud squelches between my toes. This is just a little girl. Fragile. They trust me not to hurt her. They don’t view me as an outsider, not right now. They’re glad I’m alive.

Is it because of something Rosa did for them? Why would the king offer her anything? Because she brought a warning message? Did it help at all?

It didn’t help the Onyx lordling. I killed him. River Guardians don’t kill, yet I did. Yol was a monster, but Joqshon? He was terrified. He tried to protect those he loved. What he believed in. Now he will never move again. Those relying on him will have to rely on someone else.

I choke on my own breath.

Rosa. Rosa is counting on me. I have to find her. Rescue her. Bring her home.

‘Rosa?’ I reach for her again, but a wall made of lightning separates us. As I near it, the sting from the vedia’s slap rips anew across my cheek.

I straighten. Am I stronger than her? At the very least, I’m not riddled with holes. ‘Get out of the way.’

‘You are annoying.’

‘Not half annoying as you.’ I shove against the wall. Shocks leap into my skin, but I push harder. The barrier bends, crackling like glass.

Sharpness blooms between my ribs. My heart is gone. An empty void pulses where it should be, and I can’t move.

I fall from the wall and into darkness. Falling. Still falling. Heat tears through my chest.

‘Do you know it is possible to kill a mykta through our bond? I have done it before.’

When? Rosa doesn’t have a vedia or any other mykta.

‘It was a long time ago, and he was young. We both were, but he had decided to betray our neqhol.’

‘And who was that?’ I will my heart to beat. To drum louder than her nonsense. To plug the leak of warm, viscous energy gushing from me. ‘It couldn’t have been Rosa, so how did you survive ending the bond with that other royal?’

She laughs, but no mirth softens its edges. ‘As if you deserve to know the story. I will not share this star, not with you who cannot be trusted.’

Cannot be trusted? That stings more than any slap. More than any scrape or bullet wound.

‘Rosa can trust me. I’d give anything for her.’

‘Then leave. Stop fighting me and seal off the bond yourself.’ Clouds swirl in the darkness, a backdrop for her glowing image. ‘It will kill you, but you will not be a drain on her anymore.’

I gasp, motionless. Again, I am bleeding out.

‘You know a mykta requires a massive amount of energy to maintain, do you not? They siphon energy from their neqhol. They guzzle it like gluttons. It is like breathing for them. Cut off that flow for too long, and they die.’

I’ve heard that mykta draw power from their royals’ belief in them, but I’ve never felt myself steal energy from Rosa. Because our bond isn’t complete yet?

It’s the opposite now. Everything pours out of me and pools in this sea of darkness. Filling it. Overwhelming it. There’s a charge to this ocean, a tingle, like it’s about to explode.

‘Rosa!’ Every smidgen of hope floods my call, every scrap of my belief. In myself. In her. That she will hear me. That she wants me.

I sense her. It’s faint, but it’s my Rosa, like when I know she’s looking at me even when my eyes are closed. She’s scared. Her fear flashes through me and is gone again.

My sea vanishes, and I plummet. Choke.

The vedia’s clouds are on fire, and I know these flames. I know the crumpled ruins they form. My skin burns with the memory, and my eyes widen.

Everything pauses. Suspended. Waiting. Watching.

The vedia exhales. ‘You are not a mykta.’

No, but I can be whatever I believe I must be.

‘The keilan should have been killed.’

What’s a keilan? Rain in Menyazé, like mykta means tempest, vedia means wind, and neqhol means sea. Is that another group? Why are they killed?

I crash, something rigid at my back. I jerk. Gasp. My eyes snap open. Darkness. Darker than darkness. This is annoying. Where am I now?

“Calm,” an old lady says firmly.

I turn toward her cackled voice and try to sit up. “Where—”

Hands push me back, and I slap at them. A thud. Someone falls.

“I said calm, Seallaii-na. We’re only here to help.”

I still and allow them to lower me. Their touch is so tender, not like a predator’s is supposed to be. Their skin is rough. Sticky. Alien. My back presses against moist stone. A floor?

“That’s better. You collapsed, and it took three men to carry you, heavy Seallaii-na.” Is that a chuckle in her tone? Is she teasing me or genuinely annoyed?

“Fredo’d feel better if you called him by his name, Granny,” Pullee suggests. “And it’s better that they carried him in anyway. I think he’d’ve been too tall to fit through the cracks in the dollicia.”

Dollii? My breath hitches. She’s here? She’s hurt?

No, the little girl means the shields Dollii is named after, forged of the strongest metal and stone Grenswa can offer and designed to cover windows and doorways. That makes more sense. If shields covered the entrances to this building, the attacking Shlykrii-nas would have broken them.

I do wish Dollii were here, even if I know it’s impossible. She would have to stow away on a ship. Would she do that for Rosa and I?

If anyone can, it’s Dollii. But she’s not here. I’m alone.

Calm. I have to calm down. Be rational. Logical. Think. What am I supposed to do?

I force my breaths to slow. Deepen. Even out.

Pay attention. What is around me? I can’t see, but what do I feel?

My toga bunches beneath the small of my back, the top half of my body exposed. Scaly fingers rub salve into each of my cuts. It stings. It itches.

Pay attention to something else.

A breeze swirls by my shoulder. The little girl’s labored breaths. Grenswa-nas don’t breathe like that, not unless there’s something wrong.

Obviously, something’s wrong. Their world was attacked. Is that why this girl isn’t breathing right? Is the air in here not good? Or is there something wrong with her?

“You can sit up without punchin’ anyone now?” the granny asks, and I nod.

My arm won’t bend correctly. Gauze wraps it, restricts it, but I manage to sit anyway. Stale air dances with my movement. A warm, wet cloth wipes grime from my back. The aroma of spiced citrus surrounds me.

The rag drops lower, and the fragrance fades, pushed away by the sulfuric stench of death and fire.

Flames. Everywhere. Screams. Crumbling buildings. My tiny hands boiled and blistered.

No, I’m not there. I’m here, grown into a warrior. I can protect myself. Protect others. Think about something else. Anything else.

I exhale slowly.

“What’s that grimace for?” Granny questions. “Your back hurts?”

I shake my head. My shoulders hunch, and I bring my knees up to circle them with my arms. My left leg is also wrapped and won’t bend far enough. I rest my wrists and chin on my right knee.

It all hurts, but not as much as my heart. The physical sting is only because of the soap and salve, and that means the medicine is working, right? Even if it’s painful, the mud has to come off. Wounds must be treated before they become infected. They’re almost done anyway.

“Time for you to skedaddle, Pullee.” Air churns as the granny shoos her away. Sulfur battles citrus. I hold my breath but try not to grimace too much so the elder won’t notice.

“Why?” Pullee pouts. Why do I picture her with Rosa’s face, lower lip twisted out like when someone tells her to do something she doesn’t want to? I’m sure she looks nothing like Rosa.

“For decency’s sake, Pullee. He can’t keep wearin’ a muddy medical gown. For him to put fresh clothes on, he has to take these ones off.”

No one moves. My cheeks burn.

“I kind of want to see how he’s different.” Pullee grabs my hand and holds it up to show Granny. “He’s got scales like us, and so did Rose. I didn’t think Seallaii-nas had those. He looks just like an Amethyst, a really big Amethyst with hair like an Iron’s.”

“The scales are painted.” I yank my hand away. They feel weird, like gunk stuck on me. Rosa painted them. She took my hand and held it in her lap as a tiny brush added layers of shimmering purple to my skin. She swept my rebellious strands of hair away from my ears.

My stomach flutters.

She didn’t think anything special of it. So few people are allowed to touch her, she should think more of it. I’m not supposed to touch her either, yet I do. When it makes her blush or stammer, it means she notices me. It means she thinks of me as something other than a sidekick she dragged out of the dungeons.

I’m a person, a real person with real feelings and the right not to be gawked at by aliens. It’s enough that they cleaned every stitch of my body. They needed to, and I wasn’t conscious for all of it, but my skin remembers their touch.

I sit up straighter. “I can dress myself.”

A rustle sounds as the granny stands. “Understood, Seallaii-na. I’ll be in the hallway if you need assistance.” Soft fabric is set on my lap. She whispers, “I knew the scales’re painted. They don’t match the vibrancy of your eyes.”

My full attention leaps at her. It should look like I’m staring at her. Does it look that way?

“You can see my eyes? Do they look normal?”

“Shouldn’t they?”

My chin drops. How to tell her I’m blind. Saying it will make it more real. Should I even tell them? Lack of sight is a weakness a predator can take advantage of. They’re helping me now, but how long can I trust them?

“That focus,” she says slowly. “You can’t see?”

My eyelids slide closed. Should I confirm it? Can I hide it?

I shake my head.

“You should’ve told us. We can treat it. Come on, Pullee, we’re off to get some herbs.”

Hope swells. My blindness isn’t permanent. I will see again.

Cloth ruffles—a sheet across a doorway, most likely. How convenient it would be to see and confirm that, to glance about the room and know I am the only one in here.

Pullee’s muffled voice echoes in a hallway. “I’ll get to see him when he’s all fancied up then, like the Lady of Amethyst ordered, lookin’ all official like an ambassador of Seallaii?”

Ambassador? I can’t be an Ambassador. Should I protest?

Seallaii can’t know I’m here.

I should at least get dressed. Despite my claim, I’m not sure I can dress myself. The fabric Granny handed me is heavy and soft like velvet. There’s a lot of it, and I have no idea what the outfit is supposed to look like.

I stand, and the toga falls to my feet. At least that part was easy.

As the velvet unfolds, part of it disconnects and drops on the floor. I drape the remainder over my arm, then pick up the fallen piece. My hands trace its seams.

Pants. I step into them and tie the braided belt around my hips. Their light fabric moves easily. It drags the ground behind my heels, loose and long.

I’ll have to make sure I don’t trip.

The velvet is more difficult. A robe? I fling it over my shoulders and locate armholes. One hand slides into a sleeve that isn’t fully connected. The other misses the second cavity, tangled and awkward with a sleeve shoved in my armpit.

I pull back and angle down, getting it right the second time. Why have such long, wide sleeves if they’re open at the shoulder? They stretch all the way to my knuckles. At least they’re a lighter material like the pants. I’ll dunk them in everything. Especially since I can’t see.

With my arms properly in the sleeves, I hope, I smooth the robe. My fingers trace symbols pressed into the material around the neck and along the hems down my front. Flowers? Star bursts?

The robe ends at my knees and is meant to be worn open, I guess. There’s nothing to secure it.

I reach to pull my braid out of the back and find only the shaggy ends of my hair loose at my nape. Right, my braid is gone. Yol sold it. He was going to sell me off in pieces.

My fists clench. I shouldn’t have killed him, but I can’t undo it, and I don’t want to. I’m glad he’s dead.

That’s a horrible way to feel. I’ll be judged for it. If I don’t tell the Grenswa-nas I killed him, will they find out? Are there cameras? Did anyone else see? If they ask me about it, should I lie?

Lies only make things worse. They confuse and convolute. There’s already enough about my life I don’t understand.

You are not a mykta.

I know that, but I don’t know what I am.

The keilan should have been killed.

I’m panting. Can’t breathe. My left hand clutches the robe above my racing heart.

Pounding. That’s all I hear. I need to sit. Is there even a chair? Should I call the granny back? How? Do I just say I need her help?

Stop panicking. I need to think. Stay calm. Focus.

I sink to the floor, legs curled beneath me, palms on stone tiles. Their vibrations confirm what my ears take in. Footsteps. Voices. I’ll know if anyone tries to enter this room.

I need to go after Rosa, rescue her, but I can’t do that without a ship. Grenswa can’t give me a ship.

I can’t ask Seallaii for one.

The keilan should have been killed.

That explains a lot, actually. Even if I don’t know what a keilan is.

Continued in chapter 36: I Surrender

Thank you for reading!

A box floats to the surface of my mind. A trunk. An imagined container. I need its treasures.

I tug on the lid. There’s a section for my most precious memories and another compartment for the pieces of my lost past, the clues I’ve collected.

Things I wish I could forget—things I never want anyone to see—get shoved to the very bottom. The burning island should go there, but it’s also the biggest clue I have as to who I am. Maybe if I had the strength not to care, to throw it away and press it into the rotten morass at the bottom of the box, then it couldn’t escape all the time.

It’s the first one to greet me, called to the top by the smell of ash and death hovering all around. I shove past it, looking for another. My most cherished. My most confusing.

It’s only a memory. Why is it so vivid? It always is. Something shimmies and sparks across my skin, small hairs standing on end. It trickles into my gut in tiny explosions. It makes me want to run. To climb. To shout, but I stay still, glancing sideways at my Rosa.

She is ten and nearly equal to me in height, pink eyes bright above a veil. She always dons those when visitors come to the citadel. Loops of braids capture her rosy hair by either ear. Shimmering powder highlights her cheeks.

She returns my glance, one eyebrow lowering. “What’s wrong?”

I turn back to the double doors in front of us. What is this I feel? Fear? Excitement? It isn’t mine. It’s different, like heat that comes from within versus warmth from sunlight. This is the latter, radiating over me.

“Are you scared?” I ask her.

“I’m so nervous and excited, I could leap over four moons.” She giggles.

I snort. “It’s not possible to leap over a moon.”

“What about in a low gravity environment?”

I say nothing. Ignore the throb in my bones. The urge to spend this energy. To run.

She holds her hands behind her, tilting toward me. “My sister’s in that room. She barely acknowledges I exist, but today, this visit, she asked to see me. Why do you think that is? Did I do something good? Something bad?”

A hand lands on my shoulder. I turn. Lord Lokma.

“Walk with me, boy.”

I don’t want to. I want to stay with Rosa. I want to see her sister, future ruler of the world. This curiosity feels only partly mine. It pours into me and expands. Flourishes.

Lord Lokma’s grip is strong, dragging me beside him faster than my short legs can keep up.

“Stay with my children.” He leaves me in a study on the highest floor of the citadel. Dollii and her brother, Kunai, sit across from each other at a broad, stone table, open-four-way books stacked and splayed around them. Obeying their father, I slide onto a stool next to Kunai.

With a sideways glare, the youngest Lokma hooks his foot around my seat’s leg and sweeps it aside. I flip over backward and land in a low crouch. His icy gaze is not quite blue and not quite purple.

“What did Father say about being cruel?” Dollii stands.

As her twin whirls back to her, his nearly white hair flies just enough to reveal the bandage on his neck. The wrapping trails below the collar of his jacket.

He almost died last week.

“I’m testing his reflexes,” Kunai excuses. “If the kid wants to be a hero, he’s got to have the skills to back it up.”

Kunai and Dollii are older than me by more than a full set of seasons. He always calls me kid, always with some amount of affection. This time it feels like an insult.

I circle the table and perch on the stool next to Dollii. The siblings’ stares are locked, lavender and periwinkle, both as sharp as the Earth-na knife Kunai was named after. Their hair glistens the same yet different in the rays of sunset coming through the window. One gold. One platinum. Styled identically in overlapping twists. They’re quite the pair. Seallaii-nas are supposed to be born in pairs.

Do I have a twin? Did I?

“You know why the princess came, right?” Kunai begins.

“To visit her sister,” Dollii supplies.

“To give her a mykta because we’re not good enough.”

Dollii lifts a brow and one corner of her lips. “We?”

“The Lokma clan. Dissidents came into our orchard and attacked her, and we couldn’t do anything.”

Dollii sighs. “We’re children, Kunai. They were adults.”

His gaze flits to me, and I recall a dagger in my hand—his dagger, given to him by the Lokma weapon’s master. Kunai had drawn it as he leapt in front of Rosa, but a masked man had twisted his arm and cut him with his own weapon. I had snatched it, breath gone at the sound of Rosa’s scream and the shimmer of blood.

In the moonlight, that blood shone the same purple as my eyes’ reflection in the silver blade.

I slashed at the assailant’s arm, and he released Kunai. I grabbed Dollii’s weapon, too. Keeping low, I aimed at knees and any hands that reached toward me or Rosa until Lokma adults came.

I can’t answer Kunai or anyone who keeps asking as to what came over me. It’s similar to the tingle I got standing next to Rosa, as if someone else’s emotions and knowledge leapt into me because I needed it. We needed it.

The faintest of notions came with it, of being in a dream. Of never wanting to lose anyone again. Of doubting my own existence.

“Our days of adventuring are over.” Kunai flops on the table. “Now Rose will have a mykta following her around all the time. She won’t be allowed to be with us.”

“So melodramatic,” Dollii coos. “Did you like the idea of Rose following you all the time that much?”

Kunai’s cheeks turn purple, and his gaze cuts to me again. I duck my head and concentrate on a random book before me.

I can’t read it. Dyama words, one of Seallaii’s original languages. I flip the book over, opening it from a different side, and find the Sishgil translation.

“Are you ignoring me, kid? I challenge you to a duel.”

I stiffen. Fight Kunai?

“You’ll have to battle me first.” Dollii edges closer to me. My eyes widen, but I don’t look up. “The winner of our duel will fight Fredo.”

Fight Dollii? I wince and glance up.

Kunai grins. “Little would be accomplished by me beating my sister, not unless she’s done something to validate her warrior’s prowess. You’ll have to beat Fredo first.”

“Then let’s raise the stakes. Loser must grant the winner a favor. Are you ready, Fredo?”

I shake my head and scramble backward off the stool. Why isn’t she protesting this? Dollii is a ray of light from the sun. I can’t fight her.

She draws her dagger from a sheath secured to her waist, hidden in the folds of her silken overskirt. The near-weightless fabric billows as she sinks into a wide fighting stance and her gaze meets mine. She has a plan. Her lavender eyes beg me to trust her.

I do. Copying her stance, I nod.

“Begin.” She straightens. “I surrender.”

Kunai’s laugh bounces off the walls of bookshelves. “That didn’t accomplish anything. I’ll just be fighting Fredo like I wanted to all along.”

“You forget, I now owe Fredo a favor.” Dollii turns to her brother, dagger raised as she lowers her stance again. “I will fight in his stead. Are we ready?”

Kunai’s fists clench. “Do you know how much trouble I’d be in if Mother discovered I dueled you?”

“Not my problem. Are you going to take your stance?”

With a snort, Kunai swivels to me, heels clacking together on the stone floor. “I surrender. What favor do you want?”

What do I want? More than anything…

“I want to see what’s going on with Rosa and her sister in the reception room. But I’m not supposed to leave you two. Will you come with me to a secret lookout spot?”

Kunai rolls his eyes. “The passageways won’t open for us without Rose.”

I shake my head. “The citadel listens to me because I’ve been on so many exploring expeditions with Rosa.”

Dollii’s face tilts. “I don’t think that’s how it works.”

Regardless, the walls do listen to me. No one sees us as we watch the reception room from high above. We slide one of the ceiling’s glass panels aside so we can hear better.

White beams crisscross the horizontal pane of windows. Their shadows drape over the vast, marble and carpet room, darkening its peaches and purples. A dais rises at one end, showcasing an ornate chair and a dainty woman with curls the inky black of a kel’s wings.

Next to her stands Rosa. Four men line up before them, each one different and somehow the same, dressed in black, hair pulled into large braids.

“See, I was right,” Kunai hisses. “Those are mykta, just like the one standing behind the princess.”

I see him only now that Kunai points him out. He is one with the shadows, dark like a mountain blocking all light behind it.

“Let’s go before they see us,” Dollii cautions.

But I can’t. I have to get closer.

Pushing on the glass, I make the gap wider and shimmy through. Eyes glued to my Rosa, I cling to one of the curtains interspersed with the columns and climb down.

Rosa steps closer to the men, imperiously inspecting them. I inspect them, too, comparing. Frown deepening. I lack so much. They are older. Faster. Stronger. Probably smarter. Perfect.

I don’t even know what I am. Who I am.

Rosa is small, but her clear voice rings in the huge room. Dignified. Full. Sometimes I really can believe she knows everything. “Do you want to be my mykta?”

“It will be an honor, Sine,” the largest says. He could easily carry two of the princess on either arm.

Another nods, smaller but no less broad. “Right, an honor not only to bond with you, but to be taken in by the River Guardians, Sine.”

“They’re spies.” Rosa whirls back to her sister.

“They are not.”

“Is a Sine”—Rosa spits the title—“supposed to have mykta anyway? What if they steal River Guardian secrets?”

“Our Sine uncle has several mykta, and vedia besides,” the princess explains with a dismissive wave of her hand, “and none of them are spies.”

Rosa’s face twists. “Sine this. Sine that. That’s all they say. It’s not my name. I’m a person, and if they care, they’ll call me by my name.”

“Sine—”

“That’s not what my friends call me.”

“This is not about having friends.” The princess barely moves, yet I feel as if she does. She is the eye of a storm. No, deeper than that. Stronger. Pulling me in. “This is about keeping you safe. At first, a mykta might feel like an intrusion, but you must have one. So, choose one.”

Rosa’s face scrunches, and she turns back to the men. “I thought all four were to be my mykta.”

“Eventually, yes, but you cannot handle that yet.” The princess stands, hand hovering above her younger sister’s shoulder. She’s not supposed to touch her, but she wants to. And Rosa wants her to. “Choose the mykta who will be yours first, who will stand beside you today.”

“I choose Fredo.”

My breath stops. I can’t move.

The princess frowns, chin tilted at that pink-eyed idiot. “There isn’t one called Fredo.”

“Yes, there is.” Rosa points toward the curtain. Right. At. Me.

My heart beats wildly in my throat. It’s impossible to breathe. I still can’t move, and everyone looks at me, judgement in their eyes. How could Rosa choose me over those perfect warriors?

One of them whisks the curtain aside and prods me closer to the ornate throne and the glaring princess. Her eyes claim a deeper purple than mine, sharper than even Kunai’s. They leave me quickly, dismissive.

Flames of impatience whip at Rosa. I want to rush in front of her again, protect her, but the mykta’s grip on my shoulder is tight.

“This is not a game, Rose. You cannot just pick one of your friends. Choose a real mykta.”

“Fredo is a real mykta. He saved me when those miscreants attacked.”

The princess’ eyes slide to me, widening. They’re the same shade as Seallaii-na blood. Why does she have to look at me with such interest, with any interest at all? It was better when she instantly dismissed me, let me pretend I was invisible.

“This is that child?” Her perfect brows draw together. A jagged line appears between them exactly like Rosa’s does when she doesn’t quite believe something. “Being a mykta is more...”

Is she still talking? I don’t think so. A million unseen fingers walk across my skin. Climb up my nose and into my ears. Rip at my brain. I retreat, crashing into the leg of the man who holds my shoulders.

“Test him immediately.”

That’s fear in the princess’ voice. I feel it, too, not just my own terror. This is hers. It’s much too big and old for me. It stings.

Huge, dark hands snatch me up and tuck me under an arm. The ground rushes by as long strides carry me toward massive doors at the back. I don’t want to leave. I also don’t want to stay here within the princess’ reach.

I twist, and my captor’s orange eyes glare at me. Warning blazes in them. I fall still. Those imaginary fingers are back, and I have to get away from them.

“No,” Rosa protests. “I choose Fredo. You can’t take him away.”

“You will choose one of the mykta I presented or none at all.”

The door closes. I don’t hear Rosa’s reply, but I still feel Princess Silvika of the royal house Mellecallii. Flustered. Anxious. Arrogant.

I never want her in my mind again.

Noise crowds in and leads me back to the present. Music? Faint, it echoes through the halls. This shouldn’t be surprising on Grenswa.

I tuck the memory away and step toward the sound. It has a hollow quality. Too fast to be keening. Too forlorn to be anything else. It swells and patters like rain, gentle droplets growing heavier, more frequent, until their individual voices are no longer distinguishable.

Dollii’s voice escapes from my box of memories. “If just one droplet falls, do we call it rain? Don’t try to do everything on your own, Fredo. You’re not of the Lokma clan by blood, but that doesn’t mean we don’t care about you. That doesn’t mean we won’t help you.”

Can I get a message to the Lokmas?

These Grenswa-nas might help me with that.

One foot slides in front of the other, again and again. My leg twinges. I pause, but it holds.

I press on. The mosaic beneath my feet is sharp. Cracked.

New goals: Get a message to the Lokmas and get shoes.

A sheet flaps in front of me, space hollow beyond it. I grab the fabric and fling it behind me, imagining a corridor. The music is all-consuming here, bouncing everywhere. Overwhelming. I dive deeper. My hand runs along a wax-paper partition.

Keep walking. Don’t limp. Don’t let them see how weak I am. Or how hungry. I could eat a thousand-year-old tree, trunk and all.

I find breaks in the dividers. Other rooms. Moaning blends with the music. The dying and injured. I keep going, shoulders back. Head high. Another step.

Pain. Falling. My knees clack against tile.

The smell of everything rotten explodes around me, permeated with Rosa’s disgust and horror. It overtakes me. I wrap my arms around my stomach, trying to stop it, but acid churns in my gut. Bubbles. They race up my throat. I double over.

A splash hits the floor.

“Ew.” Pullee. I see her with Rosa’s face again, the way she scrunches her nose when she doesn’t want to touch something.

‘What happened?’ I demand, but Rosa doesn’t answer. The horror recedes behind the vedia’s electric fence, leaving me numb.

“Calm down,” the granny soothes as more hands pull me away from my mess. “Drink this.”

Soft petals touch my lips, cold liquid within. Water. A slight bitter aftertaste. Tea.

“Better?”

I nod.

She rubs my back. “What’re you doin’ out here?”

“Following the music.”

“Music’s a powerful medicine remindin’ our hearts to beat,” Granny says. How old is she really? Probably younger than the princess. Odd to think of that as old.

“I prepared this for your eyes. You can kneel?”

I do, left leg shaking. Throbbing.

Stop that! I can do this. It’s not hard. It shouldn’t be hard.

“Close your eyes.”

I obey, and it makes no difference. Will this really heal my vision?

Hope flashes.

Will it hurt?

Fear prickles, hair on my arms and neck standing on end.

Granny positions herself in front of me, a void in the corridor’s warmth. A scent smacks me, sweet and acidic like berries. My mouth waters.

I flinch as a warm, wet, soft cloth presses against my eyelids. She ties it at the back of my head and pulls it tight. Some of the medicine is wrung. It sieves through my lashes and drips down my cheeks like tears.

It tingles, on the verge of stinging. It must be doing something besides just smelling like a good breakfast.

My stomach grumbles. Smelling breakfast is not enough. I should ask for food.

There’s another commotion—running feet and shouts. Thuds. Paper screens ripping. With a frown, I rise as it races closer.

“You’re still here after all,” a new voice sneers.

“Have we met?” My stance widens, readying for action.

The newcomer stands less than two body-lengths in front of me. The air jitters at his hostile movements. His voice carries the same level of threat. “Your friend left you behind to finish destroyin’ us!”

I shake my head. “Rosa was taken against her will and is currently in grave dan—”

He rushes at me. The zing of a metal blade drawn from a sheath shivers across my nerves, and I drop lower.

“Lord Sjaen!” Granny screeches.

I let him get close. His arm careens downward, a whoosh ahead of it. His wrist falls into my palm, and much like the attacker had done to Kunai so long ago, I twist it behind him. The dagger’s tip points down so that if he struggles, it will stab into his own spine.

“Please don’t kill him!” Granny’s foot taps the tiles tentatively, one half-step closer. “He’s rash, but he’s the Lord of Ruby, and we lost the last one not too long ago.”

“I have no intention of killing him, nor do I have any intention of letting him kill me.”

He tries to turn. Something flops over my arm. Hair? He must have a ponytail. He’s Ruby. He should have red eyes, a rare color for a Seallaii-na, like Rosa’s father. Are they narrowed, trying to burn through my soul?

If they are, I have no way of knowing.

He yanks against my hold again and flinches as the knife slips a little into his back. “That fake Pink’s working with the Shlykrii-nas all along. She delivered a fake message.”

Wetness flings onto my face and drips on my arm. Did he spit at me, or is he crying?

“Because of her, I’s in Tils waitin’ for a stupid Iron when the island got attacked. I’sn’t here. I couldn’t help.” He’s definitely crying, voice distorted by tears. Something wraps my wrist. Right, Grenswa-nas have dexterous tails.

I don’t let go. “You should be glad you weren’t here.”

His every muscle solidifies, like water exposed to the cold.

I continued to explain. “That’s why you’re still alive and able to help now.”

His knees give out, and I let him fall. The motion pries the dagger from his fingers.

Can he hear me over his low sobs?

I speak louder. “You’re not much of a fighter. They would have killed you easily and without a second thought.”

“Like Joqshon,” he chokes out.

It’s my turn to freeze. Ice crawls up from my toes and fingers.

The Lord of Ruby stands, hair whipping wide enough to slap my hand as he whirls to face me. “They found him next to you. I bet you killed him.”

My mouth drops open, but other than that, I can’t move. The dagger slips from my grasp and clatters on the tiles. I feel Joqshon’s cold-but-alive form in my arms. I can’t stop the squelch of the blade sinking into him. Yol’s sinister laughter reverberates in my ears.

Lord Sjaen snatches up the fallen weapon, and I scramble back.

“You’ren’t denyin’ it. It’s true?”

I shake my head. Loose, choppy hair rustles at my ears. “No, I’m not here to fight you.”

He steps toward me. My heart races. If I run, he’ll catch me. I don’t know where I’m going, what obstacles there are to crash into.

I really don’t want to fight him.

“Why’re you here, then?” Another step forward.

I feel Kietyn’s powerful hands carrying me from the room when I wanted to stay with Rosa.

I smell the burning island. Smoke wafts from smoldering ruins. It’s just me. I’m alone. Lost. Shouts echo in the distance. Rescuers. Hope. Fear.

The keilan should have been killed.

But I am alive.

I see Rosa’s wonder when we first landed on this planet. It wiggles across my skin, just as beautiful as the shine in her pale pink eyes. As the smile lighting her soft face.

Rosa loves Grenswa.

I stand straighter, tilting my head down as if I can see the Ruby lord. “I’m here to do whatever I can to fix this world.”

Continued in chapter 37: A Million Colors and Every Bad Smell

Thank you for reading!

For an elongated moment, the Shlykrii-na king’s words echoed. Are you truly one of those monsters we have vowed to eliminate?

“[Why would you even ask her a question like that?]” Ferrina scoffed. “[She’s obviously going to say no.]”

The king’s stare remained on my face, eyes like fading firelight. A straight line of the universe’s darkest corner sliced that mesmerizing color. I needed to look away, but I couldn’t, as if those burning spears of black had harpooned my soul and laced through every segment of my attention span.

“[Why should she be asked, Cousin? To see if she will lie. Will you lie to a king while looking him in the eye?]”

To save myself, yes. But how to do so convincingly? If I now said I was anything but Seallaii-na, he wouldn’t believe me, and he would add to it by condemning my character. He would use it to prove us the monsters he had declared us to be.

I couldn’t give him more reason to drag my people’s reputation through the mud.

I couldn’t tell the truth either, not unless I was willing to die here, and I really didn’t want to die.

“[We all await your answer,]” he pressed, ears erect and angled toward me. His sharp teeth added a cruel glint to his smile. “[How patient do you think we are?]”

‘Rosa, look at his ears. That’s a predator’s body language!’ Fredo’s mental voice trickled from the far reaches of the universe. ‘Back away.’

I could only stare. My guard seemed so far, like an echo in a dream. There was something about this king, something that kept me still, as if that was right. He was right, no matter what.

“Charisma.” The word slipped out in Sishgil.

His ears twitched. “[Come again?]”

My eyes sought relief in a long blink. I shook my head, then squared my shoulders with a deep breath and stood at my full height, fists clenched. “[You think I’m Seallaii-ku because of their rumored charisma, because Ferrina did as I ordered her.]”

My eyes snapped open, and I glared at the king with centuries of historical prejudice poured into my stance.

“[You are Grenswa’s mortal enemies. You attacked us for no reason and ran with your tails between your legs when we fought back. We prepared ourselves in case you ever returned.]”

“[You’re saying you stole Seallaii-ku charisma? Or developed it yourselves?]”

I grinned. “[Your society is built upon your pheromones. The lower castes are enamored with the favor of the higher. Caste One rules because everyone wants to please you, and that is why you despise Seallaii-kus, because their charisma is even more powerful. You called the Sojourners who visited your world Caste Zero, didn’t you?]”

This was all ancient history, no longer how the world of Shlykrii worked. Yet, the king’s gaze narrowed, ears not so upright as they trembled. “[You did not answer the question.]”

“[Yes, we did both.]” I stepped closer, feigning bravery I did not feel. My stomach churned, but I had to make this convincing. “[We know your weakness, and now we can exploit it. I tried it on Ferrina, and it works.]”

“[That is disappointing.]” The king did not step back, too close to my face, and I fought the overwhelming urge to retreat. His breath reeked of bitter spices and meat. “[We had hoped to break the Opal prince and use him to break all of Grenswa, but if they would make themselves kings above any Caste One, they should be eliminated immediately.]”

Hent. All those taken. He would kill them because of my lie.

“[It’s synthesized,]” I admitted quickly. “[We studied the Seallaii-kus who helped us rebuild. We shamelessly stole from their bodies because we’re survivors. We concocted a perfume, which I tested on Ferrina, but I’m the only one who has any. The River Guardians chose to work with me because they have a thing for pink eyes.]”

My voice cracked on the word “pink” as Lord Sjaen bubbled up through my memories. What had become of him in Tils? He likely blamed me for the attack.

I wanted to smack my own forehead.

“[Yes, those eyes of yours are very pretty.]” The king caressed my cheek, and this time I did step back, skin crawling. How I missed my veil. He stayed with me, spongy fingers creeping up my jaw to my temple. “[The scales are…interesting.]”

I swallowed hard, wanting to claw at that hand, at his large, staring eyes. I knew I shouldn’t, but my elbows bent anyway, fingers curled.

Fredo screamed for me, distant, lost in my mind and abandoned. I froze.

‘You are not a mykta,’ the vedia charged, and my hands balled into fists again.

‘He is if I say he is,’ I growled.

‘He is dangerous.’ Something dark eked out of her and clouded my vision. ‘He is meant to destroy.’

‘So, he’d fit in fine among these Shlykrii-nas, like you?’ I batted at the haze in my mind, and it only grew thicker. ‘Do they not know you’re Seallaii-na?’

‘Where are you?’

I didn’t want her to know. Already she had invaded my mind, interfered in and insulted my bond with Fredo. I didn’t need to meet her in person. I didn’t need her thinking she could save me, that I would owe her, belong to her.

I imagined a cave in. Huge chunks of rock crashed against solid, unshakable ground and sealed off the passage from her to me.

A previously unnoticed weight flinched, flying off like startled birds, and the mental smoke dissipated. The scene cleared to reveal the king reclining on his throne’s plethora of cushions. Metallic threads glittered in the engines’ undulating glow behind him.

“[Grenswa-kus are rumored to be the best entertainers in existence.]”

I would have agreed with that except I was supposed to be one, and I would have to be an exception to that wonderful reputation. Any audience of mine would die of boredom or laughter.

Could those be viable weapons now?

Before I had decided, the king’s fingers snapped, and someone tossed me a rulina. The instrument’s hollow, log-like body landed in my hands with a musical thump. Nine metal strings shone blue in the light from the windows, pale and sharp against the smooth, dark wood beneath them.

The conical bow hit my arm a moment later, and I fumbled to catch it.

With a generous wave and a smile that reminded me of a scyuen toying with its prey, the king ordered, “[Entertain us. Play that instrument and sing us a song of your homeland.]”

He surely meant I was supposed to sound more amazing than a songbird and have no resemblance whatsoever to the screams of claws gouging metal.

Gulping in a breath, I looked down at the rulina and strummed the bow over the strings. In competent hands, the instrument would have had the voice of a raindrop plopping into a shallow pond. For me, it screeched like a tortured feline.

All around, ears folded back and lips piqued in grimaces, sneers, and snarls, but no one put me out of my misery by taking the noisy thing away. Instead, they cleared a space around me as I opened my mouth to spill a translated version of the song from the Harvest Festival.

“[When the wind rushes past ears scaled in azure, does it sound the same to those with eyes of green?]” The words were a strained whisper, following the melody decently but drowned out by the single, indecipherable note I strummed on the rulina.

The king laughed. “[Are you even trying? Ferrina could do better.]”

Ferrina preened, shoulders rolling back and scowl still in place. Her ears pivoted forward, gaze on me intent and challenging. “[Ferrina would at least dance.]”

Of course she would. She would also breathe fire and defecate glitter, but this was my performance, and my pride stung. No, I couldn’t play the rulina. Yes, I was way beyond too freaked out to sing. But I was trying, and they showed not a smidgen of appreciation.

I closed my eyes and envisioned the ambiance of the Harvest Festival. Music streamed from every direction and filled me, overflowing into movement. Ghosts of Hent’s arms encircled me, and I followed his lead.

The gravity was different, and Hent wasn’t really there. I leapt into a wall hard enough to evoke a yelp, and several Shlykrii-nas laughed.

Teeth grit, I shoved off the partition, tunelessly strumming the rulina with the full force of my ardor and frustration. A Shlykrii-na met me, chortling as he took my wrists and spun me around. This put a stop to the rulina’s screeches, at least. His long face called up thoughts of a melting statue, features wide and slanted as if designed for shocked scowls and nothing else.

“[Does the rain taste any different from fingers dipped in crimson...]” I continued to murmur the song as my partner shoved me away.

My back crashed into another, and his arms looped around my waist. The room was a blur as we whirled. He licked his lips, wet tongue close enough to my ear, its slosh and smack were all I heard.

Lyrics dead in my throat, I squirmed, and he flung me.

In the low gravity, I bounced more than landed. My wrapped feet felt every notch in the textured floor as I stumbled to a stop in front of the king.

“[That was an awful display.]” He lounged sideways again with only one ear twisted in my direction. “[Grenswa should be ashamed to call you one of its own.]”

“[Is that what happened to you? Is that why you live on a River Guardian ark, because Shlykrii is too ashamed to claim you?]”

He sat up, frown deep and eyes bright. “[You understand so little and speak so big. Shlykrii is the name given to the worthless scum loitering on our homeworld. We are the last of that land’s true owners.]”

Pieces of history slid into place, and I whispered, “[Not long before they had reliable space technology or that name, Shlykrii had a revolution. The lower castes learned to inoculate themselves against the pheromones, and they killed off everyone outranking Caste Four. The River Guardians must have given this ship to the refugees.]”

“[The Seallaii-kus feared Surra would destroy itself in that revolution.]” The king’s ears were huge in their full upright position. The vertical slits of his eyes dilated into ovals, giving him a softer, tamer appearance. “[They took a sample of every life form and environ of that world and launched our ancestors into space. Thanks to them, we have been homeless ever since.]”

“[That’s why you want to destroy them? Because they saved you?]”

“[It was their fault our ancestors needed saving. The filthy lowers used Seallaii-ku charisma in their inoculation.]” He stood up, a large, dark figure nearly a silhouette against the engines’ blue. “[If the Seallaii-kus did not exist, it would not have happened. If the Seallaii-kus had never come, it would not have happened. If the Seallaii-kus could control their curiosity, it would not have happened.]”

“[Curiosity is good. It motivates us to unravel secrets until all knowledge is revealed.]”

“[You sound just like them. Admit you are Seallaii-ku.]”

“[So you can kill me in good conscience?]” I scoffed. I thought about throwing the rulina at him, but that would have been disrespectful to the instrument.

“[Destroying a Grenswa-ku should hardly bother one’s conscience, especially such an awful specimen. Yet, the king would think twice about throwing away a Seallaii-ku who might prove useful. Some are repentant of their past atrocities, and they help us. Some, like the one who brought a tracer to Grenswa’s island capital so we would know where to strike.]”

The rulina slipped from my fingers and clanged on the floor as my jaw dropped. My mind whirred too slowly to stop myself from blurting, “[That in itself would be an atrocity! Do you know how many people died in that attack?]”

“[Seventy-three souls were lost from this ship. Five hundred and four Grenswa-kus were confirmed slain, another two hundred fourteen confirmed gravely injured, and thirty-two captured.]”

My mouth snapped shut, brows furrowing as tears gathered. The barest whisper escaped my lips. “[And Seallaii-kus? How many of them?]”

He grinned crookedly, one sharp fang exposed. “[There were only two Seallaii-kus present. One, Alaysq has asked to keep as a pet. The other has unpleasant memories of burning vistas, and he did not handle the battle well. The king is disappointed in him. He will be punished.]”

A murmur whipped through the crowd, but I barely heard it.

Two. Only two. Me and Fredo. I had been taken as a pet. Fredo’s earliest memories were of an island on fire where everyone died. Welts and blisters covered his tiny arms. The scene on Grenswa’s capital was too similar. Of course he didn’t handle it well.

My eyes widened. Was that why he pushed me out of his mind?

What did this king mean, saying Fredo would be punished?

“[Don’t you dare touch—]”

The end of my word turned into a squeal as the floor beneath me dropped like a trap door and gravity responded accordingly.

“[You must be the most boring Grenswa-ku in existence.]” The king’s voice followed as I plummeted, deep and echoic in this chamber beneath the floor. Two stories down, I sunk into soft muck, like pudding made of a million colors and every bad smell. “[Perhaps this will be more entertaining.]”

I couldn’t breathe. Well, I literally could. Air rushed in and out of my lungs, but it did little good, thin and practically devoid of the nitrogen I needed.

Gravity was weak, and the door wasn’t too high. Gaze on the silhouettes watching from above, I aimed to leap out of here, but my feet were stuck. My legs wiggled and twisted, hips sashaying. The bright orange and red of my dress dazzled as spotlights snapped on above like a pair of eyes blinking to life on either side of the trap door.

I only sunk deeper.

With a whirl of motors, the floor lowered. Water cascaded in from all directions, and I plopped on my side. The muck swallowed my arm. Cheek against the rainbow slime, I coughed and retched. The stench of a thousand sewers seeped into every fiber of my being.

It stung, both warm and cold, like menthol, and as soon as that feeling crawled into my core, it wanted out. It insisted, tearing through my stomach and up my esophagus. It pushed everything I had in front of it and threw it across the muck’s slick surface. Where the substances touched, smoke wafted, just as colorful, beautiful, and alarming.

It somehow smelled even worse, like manure dipped in turpentine and glazed with rotten milk. Add a sprinkle of Ferrina’s defecated glitter, and the scene would have been complete.

Actually, tiny shards of glass slithering through one’s colon would have been very uncomfortable. Would I be a bad person for wishing that fate upon her?

As tepid water spread across the floor, the gunk stiffened and expanded in branch-like fractals. It transformed into giant, warm snowflakes colored like abalone and woven in a reef-like structure. This new construction was slick and sharp as if made of oiled blades. As I extricated myself carefully, my eyes never left the slowly closing hatch above.

I leapt, hands above my head. My fingers curled around the hatch’s edge. Under my weight, the door hesitated, but the cold metal offered no traction. My grip slid off as the crack between the panels disappeared.

I screamed as I fell, more frustrated than scared, plummeting slowly in this weak gravity and thin air. They threw me down here where I couldn’t breathe and it smelled worse than anything’s behind, and for what? Entertainment, they said, but they weren’t even watching.

Unless there was a camera.

Smile, I told myself. Don’t give them the pleasure of seeing you break.

Then I recalled the reef at the bottom of this shaft was very sharp, and I was falling toward it.

With my arms extended in some attempt to direct my course, I glanced over my shoulder, and my eyes widened. My fake smile opened in a gasp as I hit water.

The reef had swung aside like the trap door, admitting me to a lake. Darkness claimed the waters not far below my feet, and I kicked frantically back to the surface because: One, it was creepy. Two, the air might have been thin, but at least it was better than breathing water. Three, those first two reasons were more than enough.

As my face touched the air, I gulped an unfulfilling breath, panted, and coughed. The splash from my entry rained gently on my head. My arms waved, keeping me afloat, but with the lack of precious nitrogen, my muscles cramped. I wasn’t sure how long I could keep this up.

What was the purpose of this place? How was this supposed to be entertaining? What could possibly be intriguing about watching me drown in dark, smelly water?

Jaw set, I glared at the closed door above, not caring how the spotlights stung my eyes. I would get out of here, even if I had to punch my way through a wall.

First, I would have to find a wall. The shaft I had come through ended at least a story above my head. So, I ventured left. Into the dark. My skin prickled, instincts warning I shouldn’t go where I couldn’t see.

After what felt like forever, my fingers brushed more reef, smooth like glass but vaguely pliable like the boughs of an ancient tree. At my touch, the material gave a low moan like the whistle of wind through a cracked window.

A screech answered the sound, piercing my eardrums and capturing my heart in the stiff, frigid hands of terror.

Images of kronlind floated to the top of my mind—those saw-like teeth that had nearly clamped down on Niiq and I. Ghosts of weeds stilled my legs as panic poured over me. I had been trapped, and had Hent not severed those vines and fought off those giant fish, I would have rotted in pieces in their bellies.

Hent wasn’t here to help me. I had no weapon. I didn’t even know if my charisma would work underwater.

Before I realized it, I climbed two body-lengths up the wall. Another screech bubbled through the lake. I tried to swallow my fear and be rational, level-headed, smart.

This wasn’t a kronlind. They hadn’t screeched like that, and this ship, this River’s End was an ark for Shlykrii-na creatures.

My oh-so-helpful imagination supplied gruesome facts about two dozen Shlykrii-na ocean predators.

So, how many of them can climb? I forced myself to reason as I felt around for my next handhold. How high can they leap above the water’s surface? If I’m quiet, will they detect me?

Light snapped on above, and I flinched. Grip lost, I fell half my own height before my hands found purchase on the shiny, rainbow reef wall.

“Right,” I grumbled, “because what’s the point of watching someone get mauled if you can’t see every gory detail?”

A splash gurgled behind me, and every hair on my body stood on end. Heat spread across my spine, and I glanced back. All I saw was ragged, gray fur before an arm thrice as thick as my torso wrapped around me.

Like plucking a berry, it yanked me from the wall and curled back on itself, retreating underwater. Shock held me motionless for several moments. As the sting from the slap against the lake’s surface swelled across my cheeks, sense gradually returned.

Eyes closed, I squirmed, and my hands pressed down on the vice around my middle. It was like a boa constrictor with long, coarse hair protruding from its spine. On its ventral side, infundibulum muscles created vacuums against my skin.

I slammed my knees and elbows into it, struggling harder as my eyes peeled open. As I had feared, this was only a limb of a much larger creature. The main body waited some distance below in darker water, blurry but vaguely peanut-shaped and covered in moldy, gray fur. Dozens more tentacles protruded haphazardly from everywhere, varied in size and all writhing. They churned the water into clouds of bubbles.

I couldn’t tell where its head was, but I had to stay away from its mouth, and the best way to do that was to keep as far from the main body as possible. I had to get free of this tentacle.

Thrashing, I dug my nails into the soft flesh around the suckers, gratified and encouraged when the creature flinched. The cinching of muscles squeezed me tighter. The mass of squishy, slimy flesh spiraled past my shoulders and trapped my arms.

As it neared my face, I bit it, teeth sinking into rubbery skin that tasted like moldy cottage cheese.

A low rumble shook my bones, and the main body surged toward me. I continued to wrench and wiggle, slipping my knees, then my toes within the coiled tentacle. With all my might, I stretched out, and the coil loosened with a sticky, ripping sound.

Shirking the limb from my shoulders, I shrank into a ball, elbows on either side of my knees. Then I straightened in a leap. My hands pressed together and cut the water. Like a hurled spear, I broke the surface and flew into the air, curling in again as I neared the ceiling.

Four stories above the lake’s choppy waves, I hit the partition that divided this space from the floors above, and a thud reverberated through the thin air. Yet, the ceiling was flat, slick metal with only condensation to hold onto.

I fell slowly. The torn, sheer cloth looped from my shoulder blades to my wrists fluttered like broken, burning wings.

As my toes tapped the water, another tentacle caught me, and this one had a mouth because of course it did. What better place could there be for a gaping maw with rodent-like teeth the length of my forearm?

“Stay away!”

I punched. My fist disappeared through skin and muscle and jarred against vertebrae.

I pulled my hand back just as fast, gagging at the stringy gore stuck to my fingers. At least the mouth stopped snapping at me. Jaw slack, it released a hissing whine. Dark gray blood dribbled from the corners of wrinkled lips, and the appendage limply splashed back into the water.

I scrambled atop it and ran, trying to fling the nastiness off my hand to no avail. I wished so very hard for a nice, peaceful shower.

One foot in front of the other, again and again, I saw no particular destination. Reckless leaps carried me from one arm to the next as they curled back into the water or whipped at my head.

Yes, they were properly called arms, I determined, as they had infundibulum all along their ventral sides. Technically speaking, tentacles only had a grouping of suckers near the ends. Where this creature had mouths.

Octopi mostly had arms, squids mostly had tentacles, and this creature had the creepiest, most annoying appendages in existence. What was this animal anyway?

Logic said if this was an ark designated for the preservation of Shlykrii-na life forms, then this creature should have been of that world. My panicked, nitrogen-deprived brain couldn’t find a match for this nightmare.

And the king called me a monster.

Would my charisma work on it? If the arms had mouths, were they heads?

Still running, I batted away more sets of jaws with the heel of my hand as I tried to calm my racing breaths, pounding heart, and frantic thoughts. My charisma would only work if I had a clear, simple purpose to convey.

Terror filled every bit of my being, but I was more than scared prey. I was intelligent and powerful, above anything this creature could defy with impunity.

With this thought held firmly, I grabbed the next maw that neared, palms cupping its cheeks as my teachers sometimes did when they wanted my full attention. It was mid-sized, only about as thick as my chest, teeth no longer than my hand.

Horrible that I could call that mid-sized.

The slick, moldy fur beneath my feet slid away as I gripped the smaller tentacle, staring down its throat. Either determination or disgust roiled in my gut. I inhaled deeply, thoughts clear and focused, ready to ride on my released breath.

I hit the water, hide stinging from the impact as the surface disappeared beyond a foam of dark bubbles. My shoulders crashed against the wall. A myriad of tiny branches stabbed into my skin and broke off as the arm shoved me further between the wall’s larger fractals.

Throughout my life, this was always where Fredo showed up and saved the day.

Actually, he usually saved me before this point, often before I realized I needed his aid. He was the best guard and best friend I could have ever asked for, and I had taken that for granted.

I had never needed him more than now, but I determined not to call out to him. I curled in on myself both in my mind and in this underwater grave. There was nothing he could do. Why make him experience that helplessness? Why force him to live through my last moments with me?

Surely, our bond wasn’t anything near complete. If he had any chance of surviving its end, I had to make sure he wasn’t here with me in my mind when I went.

I had never felt so alone.

As if from a great distance, teeth scraped and thudded. Flesh whipped the stiff reef as the arm strained against the opening, too broad to follow me in here any further.

It was nowhere near as loud as the flames in my lungs—sirens seducing the air from my chest to escape as a steady stream of tiny bubbles.

Ice crawled from my extremities, curious of the fire at my core, and I stared at my blurry hands. They no longer appeared corporeal, instead wispy and porous, nets made of flares, energy, and light.

A voice just as ethereal wrapped me. ‘What frightens you so? Where are you?’

‘I don’t need your assistance, evil vedia.’

‘You are dying. Let me help you.’

‘I notice you didn’t deny being evil.’

‘You are drowning. Su dropped you somewhere, didn’t he? Probably some simple puzzle to prove your intelligence. Unnecessary, since I have already claimed you. Let me see your surroundings, and I will give you the answer.’

Bitterness burned in my throat. ‘Don’t you want to see if I’m smart enough to figure it out on my own?’

‘I do not care if you are stupid. I only need you to keep existing.’

My bitterness grew thicker, like chains dragging me into some mythical underworld. I wished I could spit in her face. ‘Then I’ll die just to spite you.’

‘And your Fredo will die with you.’

My eyes snapped open, lips parting in a gasp, but water rushed in, and I choked instead.

The branches nearest my face crumbled. Their smoke swirled in the eddies from the creature’s thrashes.

Some simple puzzle, she had said. Did this snowflake rainbow moldy reef react to something in my saliva?

How was I supposed to use that? Lick my way through an escape route?

The mold had smelled like the fermented urine of some monster entirely made of curdled dairy. I didn’t want to know what it tasted like.

A crack shattered my thoughts. The wall’s broken fractals winked in the spotlights as they fell away, and that mohawked tentacle shot toward me.

Not yet! I haven’t made up my mind yet!

I dodged to the right but had nowhere to go. The arm took up the whole narrow cavity.

Rolling, I spat at the reef beneath me, and smaller branches withered. Slender ribbons of multi-hued smoke streamed past my face.

Faster!

Brittle branches broke within my grasp as I hauled my aching body through a slowly growing tunnel.

Fredo didn’t survive that burning island so long ago just to die because I couldn’t get out of something as stupid as this!

My tired, desperate speed wasn’t enough. The tentacle looped around my hips and pulled me back. I kicked, and those spade-like teeth speared into my side.

Continued in chapter 38: What Does One Spark Matter?

Thank you for reading!

Pain shoots through my side. A gravy-filled veggie roll slips from my grasp. My silent scream nearly drowns out the squelch of it hitting wooden boards.

My hands fly to the source of this agony, just above my right hip. I expect to find a knife or spear sticking through me.

The skin is smooth beneath my fingers, wet like everything on Grenswa, but unbroken. Is it bruised? With the way it burns and tears, it has to be much more than bruised.

I fall sideways, hands cradling my wound. Breath hisses through my clenched teeth.

“What’s wrong?” Pullee cries.

I can’t answer her. I can’t ask if she sees my injury or if my side looks as undamaged as my fingers claim. I barely hear her over the voices in my own head.

As initial shock fades, I recognize Rosa’s scream. This is her pain. Long, black teeth glisten in dim light.

‘Go away, Keilan. Your fake bond is in my way.’ This is the vedia from before, but malice is absent this time. Her voice floats, buoyed by fear.

‘This doesn’t feel fake,’ I snap.

My hand flattens on the wooden boards of the wagon’s floor, its grain rough against my palm as I push myself up. I am on Grenswa and safe for the moment. This is not my wound, and I can’t let it incapacitate me. I have to do something to help Rosa.

‘You think you are powerful, but you are too far away to help.’

This vedia sure is a bundle of sunshine and positivity.

‘If you’re closer, you do something. Save her. Please.’

‘The way she insists on clinging to you is in my way. Make her let go of you. Make her listen to me.’

I don’t trust this strange vedia, but Rosa needs help now. The vedia is there, and I’m not.

‘Tell me your name,’ I demand. I have practice making my mental presence small, unnoticeable. I’ve never had cause to do the opposite.

Within my mind, I stand tall, arms extended. I shield Rosa behind me. This is a shifting world, cities swept aside with a thought, but I hold tight to this stubbornness. To the threat I fully mean but have no idea how to carry out.

Does the vedia see what I want her to? Or does she see a frightened child with no idea what he’s doing?

I see her, face fractured and incomplete. She has no eyes this time. Her lips tilt in a smirk.

‘I am known as Lady Alaysq. Now, do as I said before we both lose this precious one.’

I stretch toward Rosa and concentrate on one thought. ‘Can you hear me?’

‘Fredo? Where are you?’

Hope and terror flash as bright as a pair of suns. As her attention lands on me, the pain rips anew, ten times as strong. I can’t feel my legs, as if they’ve been torn off. I collapse. My own shriek sounds distant.

I don’t let go of her, imagining her hand in mine. Small. Soft. Warm.

A buzz surges through my arm. It ripples across our palms and pours into Rosa. Her eyes widen, and the draw becomes stronger. I flinch. It’s too strong, like being struck by lightning, then having all that ripped away.

Almost all the energy is gone, a heavy coldness in its place. My limbs gradually turn to stone. My grip is listless and unresponsive, but Rosa clings to my hand.

Floating on the edge of unconsciousness, I don’t have the strength for anything more than a near-silent plea. ‘Let go of me.’

‘I need you, Fredo.’

A speck of warmth swells in my chest, pulled away an instant later with everything else.

‘I think...you’re killing me.’

Black, smoky fluid spills. Her horror. It fills the space as she tears away.

Then nothing. I feel nothing.

Slowly, the heat of this world sinks through my skin and simmers in my bones. It’s also raining. The droplets tap on my robe and exposed arms. They slide over the hands shaking me awake.

I can’t move yet. I can only breathe. Air rushes in and out, shallow and quick.

What happened? Did I give Rosa my strength? Mykta take energy. They don’t give any back. But vedia do.

Curved, black letters scrawled on pale paper leap in front of the chaos of my thoughts. They’re from an old book Rosa handed me not long after declaring me her mykta. Instead of the enthralling legends that spilled from one page to the next, keeping me up all night, this is a quote I thought irrelevant and forgotten.

“To give their entire soul and ask for nothing in return. That is the vedia’s strength and the vedia’s weakness.”

Fear pours through me, sloshing cold against the inside of my skin. I don’t know how to be a vedia, how to survive being a vedia. But is that what I am?

Because I’m certainly not a mykta.

Or am I whatever a keilan is? And who kills them? Why have I never heard of them?

My breaths slow. Thoughts buzz in my head, too fast for me to catch and make sense of. So, I don’t bother. I let them float somewhere above my consciousness. Rosa will give me the answers. She always does.

I reach for her shakily, terrified of her touch. Also craving it.

I find only emptiness. A never-ending tunnel. Scoured and burnt. Raw like flesh torn from bone, and I can’t stand it. I sink back into myself. Body heavy. Surrounded by heat and humidity.

The hands on me are weighty. I shift and try to shove them away.

“I’m fine,” I insist, but they help me sit up anyway.

A flat, hard board presses against my back. It creaks at the stress of my load. It keeps me from falling out of the wagon.

“I’m fine,” I say again and again. I want to scream at them to stop touching me with their scaly, cold hands.

I’m too scared to yell. To call out their ardor and offense. Sit quietly, Fredo. Don’t do anything to give them reason to shoot me again. Or lead me off a cliff. Or feed me to one of this world’s many predators.

I sit. Compliant. Trying not to scowl. My arms cradle my side. A slight throbbing twinge is all that’s left of Rosa’s pain. Is she safe now? Did the vedia help her?

I need you, Fredo, she said, but I let go. I made her pull away.

If not, I would have died.

Now she might be dead because I wasn’t enough to help her.

Guilt tastes like vinegar.

Fear, slick as oil, slides through it. If she is dead, won’t I die anyway?

“To give their entire soul...”

The wagon sways, wheels scraping over rock and grinding into mud. Wind teases my hair. Its short ends dance on my cheeks and tickle my neck. I swat at it.

My stomach growls. Where did the food I dropped go?

My hand searches the floor beside my hip, venturing further when it finds nothing but sandy wood.

“The food’s disagreeable to your body?” Pullee asks by my ear.

I freeze. Concentrate. Map my surroundings. From the vacuum of warmth by my right shoulder, she must sit on the wagon’s rail.

Tap-tap. Her heels beat against its side as the vehicle bumps along.

I shake my head. “Granny assured me all the ingredients in that food were safe for Seallaii-na consumption. I would like to finish eating it.”

“Then what happened?” She slides down next to me, knees clinging to the wall.

How much should I say? And how to explain?

Head tilted, I pretend to look at her. “Some Seallaii-nas have a connection in their minds. No matter how far apart they are, they know what the other one is dealing with.”

“The one you’re connected to’s hurt?”

“Smart girl.” I nod. “Rosa is with the Shlykrii-nas, and they’re hurting her.”

“They took Prince Hent, too. They’re hurtin’ him also?” She grabs my hand. Instinct says to pull away, but the desperation in her tone stops me.

I don’t know what to tell her. If they’re hurting Rosa, who should be a valuable ally, how are they treating the prince of their enemy?

I let her hold my fingers with her tiny hands. The hoofed toes of the leempree towing this cart puncture the ground at a steady rhythm. They tick off how long it’s taking me to come up with an answer.

Pullee’s face snaps back to the scenery, and she clambers onto the wagon’s rail. With the creak of leather armor, the two men sitting on the front bench turn as well. One coos to the leempree. The other slides off our transport. He sloshes through soupy mud, racing to the side.

As soon as the wagon stops, his companion jumps down and follows.

Do they hear something?

Wiping rainwater off my face with an oversized sleeve, I scoot out the back of the simple cart and trail them. Rocks pummel the bottom of my feet, and I grit my teeth. Beneath the blindfold, my useless eyes moisten as the stench of burning hair and flesh fills my nostrils.

I see fire. I can’t breathe. I stumble, arms seared and slashed.

No, that’s the past. Focus, Fredo. Keep walking.

One foot in front of the other. Toes slide through mud, wary of rocks. The ground slopes.

A groan, gruff and low. An old man in pain. Is this real? Now? Or more forgotten memories summoned by the smell? I hurry toward it.

“He’s pinned,” says one of the men from the cart. They both refused to give their names when introduced. This one has a nasally voice, so I dub him Schnoz. “Help me lift this slab.”

Feet splash and squelch on the ruined ground. Pebbles grind and clink, tumbling down the hill. Skin slides on rough rock, and grunts punctuate the older man’s groans.

One of the rescuers slips. A smack and a yelp rip the air as everything plops down.

I hurry closer and shove my way between Schnoz and his fallen companion. Stone is wet and warm beneath my fingertips. My left hand skims the lumpy surface and finds the edge. My right traces the slab’s side in search of a second grip.

“We could barely budge it. You think you can…” Schnoz trails off as my legs straighten. The rock angles to meet my shoulders.

“Get him out,” I say.

My left thigh twitches and burns, protesting the work. I press my heel further into the mud, jaw set. I wish I could watch them, see the moment they are safe. Instead, I listen.

My own breaths are the loudest sound, followed by the trill and rattle of insects reveling in their feast. The Grenswa-na rescue workers shimmy under the slab with barely a swoosh. Several pops of released suction snap as they tug the victim from the mud.

“We’ve got you,” they tell him as they skate back.

A small sigh escapes me. I can be useful. I can save, not only destroy. As I breathe in, their retreating wake hits me with a new scent. Strong and sharp. Lacquer.

They’re behind me. I let the slab fall, and that burning, acidic stench sweeps over all. It denies me fulfilling breaths.

A choked sob muddies a scream. “My masterpiece! You’ll ruin it, you monster!”

Monster. I flinch. He tears free of the rescuers and shoves me aside as he rushes back to the slab. My left leg refuses to catch me, and I fall.

“You’re injured,” Schnoz reasons. “We’ve to get you back to the medical ward.”

“He broke it!” the man wails. An artist. He painted this, and his own work nearly crushed him.

I crawl closer.

“I’d just completed it, and now look! I can’t leave it to be seen like this.”

I run my hand over the slab. It is smooth and rough. Layers caked on. Tiered hills and steep valleys. Is it beautiful? Will I become accustomed to this? Can I recognize beauty when I cannot see it?

My fingers sink into a wet, viscous substance. I grimace and pull back.

“You smeared it! Don’t touch it!” The artist smacks my hand.

“It’s a stupid painting,” Schnoz argues. “Come with us now, and you can return for it later.”

Snorts and sliding. The rescuers towing the artist toward the wagon. Smack. They get kicked for their trouble. Thud. They drop him, and he scrambles toward me.

“What’s it a painting of?” I ask, hand hovering over its surface.

He catches my wrist. “The life of the world. Don’t you dare snuff out any more of those flames.”

I choke on my own gasp. He knows I’m a murderer, that I snuffed out the lives of Joqshon and Yol. He’ll immortalize my guilt in his art, on display to be viewed by those to come, known forevermore.

Fredo, who was meant to save and could only destroy.

“Ah, leave him here,” the other rescuer says. “We’ve lost so much, what’s one more, one star among a thousand? What does one spark matter? Who cares?”

“I care.” So soft, I’m surprised they hear me, but I feel their gazes on my downturned face. I force power into my voice. “It matters to me.”

Wrapping an arm around the artist, I stand, throw him over my shoulder, and plod to the wagon.

“No, I’ve to finish—”

“We’re saving you,” I tell him as his rump hits wooden boards and I climb in to sit across from him. “That’s that. Now be quiet.”

The wagon rocks as Schnoz and Apathetic get on, calling for the leempree to return. Wood creaks as the equines press their chests against the towing handle. They don’t have harnesses.

With a whoosh, Pullee spreads a blanket over the artist. He curls up and turns to the corner. I hang my feet out the back, scraping mud from my soles and pant legs and too-long sleeves. Why does it have to smell like death and decay? Why can’t the crisp, cool breeze of Rokanaye Forest find me here, carrying the fragrance of berries and spring water?

Because I’m on another planet, dummy. I can’t expect anything to be like home.

Cloth hits my shoulders, soft as suede against the exposed portion of my biceps.

I shrug it off. “It’s too hot for a blanket, Pullee.”

“You looked like you wanted something.”

Normalcy. I want normalcy, but instead I say, “A pair of shoes.” That would be one step toward normalcy, at least.

She sits alongside me. “What’re shoes?”

“They protect your feet.”

She claps. “Soldiers goin’ into battle’ve those, but they call them greaves—armor coverin’s that go over their shins and the top of their feet with spikes stickin’ up from the toes.”

“That would be useful if you had to kick someone, but shoes protect all of your foot—the bottom, too—from sharp rocks and twigs or disgusting mud.” I scrape off another layer of said substance and fling it beyond the wagon.

“They cover your foot completely? Sounds like it’d be a prison for your toes.”

“Sometimes freedom is sacrificed for safety. Like with this old man.” I gesture vaguely behind us. “We’re bringing him back to help him, to keep him safe, but he wanted to stay. We traded his freedom for his safety.”

“I’d choose freedom,” she murmurs as her hand alights on mine. Her scaly fingers trace my scars.

I jerk away. “What is wrong with you?”

She gasps, and tears flow in her voice. “I’ve a condition, okay?”

Rough hands grip my shoulders and haul me back. As my spine hits the rail, a smelly, mud-covered leg presses against my chest, meant to pin me—either Schnoz or Apathetic. I could throw them both halfway across the world.

Instead, I make a show of glaring at Pullee and hope it looks that way. “A condition that compels you to touch people uninvited?”

The warm edge of a blade lines the hollow of my throat. I lean back from it, pushing harder against the rail.

“How dare you make Lady Pullee cry,” Apathetic snarls. He’s the one sitting on me.

I don’t move. Don’t fight. Wouldn’t Rosa’s tears have prompted me to do the same as him?

I didn’t mean to make the little girl cry. She just doesn’t have any manners.

“Because of my condition, I can’t really breathe,” Pullee explains, sobs still plain in her voice. “Usually, I can’t even be out of the water, but Rose made this medicine for me, and now at least I can be a little helpful.”

I know the feeling. I picture the labs deep within the citadel. A staircase adults had told me never to climb. Rosa beckoned me to follow her every day. My body moved on its own when she slipped, and I caught her, finding myself halfway up those stairs and too curious to go back down.

There was an outside, and I wanted to explore it. It only showed me how different I was. Not a Lokma by blood like the rest of the clan. Not a River Guardian like their honored guests.

I wanted to be something. To be useful. To matter.

“These scars mean you survived something awful, don’t they?” Pullee picks up my hand and holds it in front of my blind eyes.

I dare not breathe as the future ruler of my world slides to the top of my memories, blood-purple lips twisted in a grimace.

“We’re survivors.” Pullee’s voice echoes over the old scene. “Stuff’sn’t always easy for us, but we live on anyway.”

I hear Rosa’s sister. “What do you mean, everything about him is classified? If he is what I suspect, he will destroy our Sine. Do not let him near her.”

Needles in my head. Invisible. They pierce every part of me.

She opens her mouth to seal my doom, but Kietyn’s deep boom cuts her off. “You cannot order his execution without proof, Sil. He is a child, a precious thread connecting Seallaii to the future.”

The dungeons then. Bars and chains and darkness.

That is where the princess still believes me to be, safely locked away. What would she say if she learned I accompanied Rosa here?

Yet, I need River Guardian assistance. I can’t get off this world, can’t get Rosa back, without a ship. Can the Lokmas handle this without involving the royal family?

Seallaii needs to be informed of what happened here as well as of Rosa’s capture. Shlykrii also needs to be included so they can take responsibility for what they’ve done.

There must be some communication system in place. These Grenswa-nas can connect me to those who need to hear what I have to say.

The cart rocks as others hop aboard. The children of chaos all shout over one another. Wary of the knife at my throat, I strive to stay as still as possible.

“Pullee, go get in the water,” the Lord of Ruby orders as he leaps over the wagon’s side and nearly lands on my head.

“But—”

“Don’t argue. I see that pained look. You’ve been out too long.”

“Fine.” She huffs. “You come with me, Kral.”

Apathetic obeys the tug on his arm and releases me as he slips off the back of the transport to follow the stomping girl.

I sit up and do my best to avoid all the feet and swaying tails.

“Lord Sjaen,” I call, but he’s busy by the artist’s side. I doubt he hears me over the old man’s screams. Bone cracks.

“Stop thrashing. I need to get a good look at this.”

Is he a doctor as well as a lord? Or is he butting in where he doesn’t belong?

It’s not any of my business. It’s his lord title I need. He can arrange for an off-world message. Right now, he might be distracted enough to order someone to set it up so I get out of his way.

I stand, step into the chaos, and place a hand on the Ruby’s shoulder. “Lord Sjaen, I need to send a transmission to Seallaii.”

“No.” With a violent shrug, he slips free.

“Has Seallaii been informed at all of what’s happened?”

He whirls. Spittle lands on my cheeks as he hisses, “We don’t need more spies and traitors runnin’ us over. Grenswa can take care of its own.”

“You have spaceships, then?”

He pauses, air drawn to reply but trapped within. As he turns away, the artist’s scream sunders any notion of silence.

“You have to let me contact them.” My hand aims again for his shoulder. It finds the top of the artist’s head instead, and I’m smacked for it.

“Seallaii’s friends with Shlykrii. It’s no secret. You can’t be friends with us both.”

“I’ll contact Shlykrii as well. They’ll be held responsible.”

“You’re an idiot.”

“Take me to the king. Let him decide.”

“The king’s dead.”

The news hits me like a bolt of lightning, and I barely hear the rest of his denouncement.

“Most of our lords and ladies and their heirs’re also dead. Our Opal prince’s taken.”

It’s like it was the last time Shlykrii attacked, the hierarchy shattered. Rosa’s Uncle Sjaealam searched for the next living heir to the throne. Supported him. Helped the world rebuild.

Are they expecting something similar from me?

I’m not a politician. I can’t even see.

“Who’s in charge?” I breathe a few beats too late. The Lord of Ruby is no longer listening.

“We’ll have to amputate this hand,” he says as the artist shrieks again.

I grimace. “But he’s an artist.”

“Better a one-handed artist than dead. Bon, knock him out.”

A thud chases the old man’s screams away. A shink of metal scratches my ears as Lord Sjaen unsheathes a blade.

I don’t want to hear it. As I stumble back, my heel finds the end of the cart. I slide out and scurry away, wincing as blade strikes bone. I cover my ears.

Bad idea. I don’t know the area and can’t see. Denying my hearing only secludes me more. I crash into a doorway, hurry through it, and stumble into a crowd. A few of them nudge and shove me in return, attention elsewhere.

I peel my hands from my ears. The men’s hushed whispers possess an eager vibe, individual words smashed and indiscernible.

“Prince, here they come!”

Prince? If the king is dead, is he in charge?

I press my way through the crowd in search of this prince.

The shout elicits a roar of excitement. A song, I realize a moment later. Deeper vocals of the men rise and fall in harmony with a higher, feminine chorus. Claps and footfalls set a beat as the women draw nearer. Water drips and splashes from them in a cascade of bell-like sounds.

A baby cries, but it fits with the song. It chimes over the melody and rides the waves of the adults’ notes.

I’m at the front of the crowd of men. The women are near. They dance and coo. The one holding the baby stands right next to me.

“It’s a boy,” she says softly. Even the shuffle of blankets as she hands him over adds rhythm to their music. “You’ve a son, My Prince.”

“Thank you, Auntie,” the one who takes the child responds just as gently. At hearing his father’s voice, the baby’s wails fade into a giggle. “Niiq’s okay?”

“Still in her birthin’ trance. You’ll come to the underwater room and await her awakenin’?”

“Of course.” Relief and joy fill the words. A tamp of steps quicken the beat as the women clear a path for him.

No, he can’t go. I need him to approve my call home.

I should wait. This seems like the middle of an important ritual.

I can’t wait. I’ve already wasted too much time, and with every lost moment, Rosa falls further away.

What if he denies the request like Sjaen did? Calls me stupid and cuts off someone’s arm instead of believing how imperative this is? If this prince is the highest-ranking person here, I can’t risk him refusing to let Seallaii know what has happened.

My feet move on their own. They carry me swiftly, the kind of speed I know is hard to track with the eye. The kind that annoys Kunai and makes Rosa clap for me.

I pivot around the prince and snatch the baby.

Metal sings, and I feel the wake as the prince pulls a dagger from a sheath on his thigh. With the baby cradled in one arm, I catch the father’s wrist and twist him onto the ground. My foot stomps on his sternum.

Grenswa-na bones are flexible and difficult to break, but I hear a telltale snap. The prince cries out, hissing in pain. Too late to turn back. To make friends. I am a threat. A monster. Act like it.

I let the prince’s arm slide in my grip. My fingers roll the dagger from his limp grasp. It’s a heavy weapon, blade longer than my hand. It probably gleams.

I point its tip at the infant in my arms, jaw set as I’m bombarded by a myriad of gasps and bellows. Several would-be heroes rush toward me.

“Be still,” I growl, “all of you.”

Continued in chapter 39: In the Mists of My Mind

Thank you for reading!

‘Can you hear me?’

Fredo’s voice rang in my head, a symphony filling every void with sound. It was a torch illuminating every corner, chasing away the dark screams of pain. The agony in my side was still very present, but it ebbed, receding, there yet no longer in the front of my mind.

‘Fredo? Where are you?’

I thrashed, whirling until I saw him. My heart overflowed with burning emotions. He was a specter in the mists of my mind, translucent and weightless. Yet, unlike the vedia, he was complete, stance unyielding as if he could carry the entire world.

I flung my arms around him, but they passed through his chest as if I tried to hug a waterfall. He cringed and faded further into transparency.

‘No, Fredo, don’t leave me,’ I begged, immediately rewarded with the solid feel of hands on mine. I couldn’t see them, but warmth and safety encased my palms.

This was only in my mind. Beyond the world constructed by my thoughts, my real body drowned and a beast gnawed on my side. Through barely open eyes, I saw my purple blood stain the water.

It didn’t hurt as much as it should. Fredo’s touch staved off the ache in my lungs and the agony in my torso like a coat keeping out the cold. More than that, crackling energy poured into me, bubbling through him and pooling in my core.

It opened my eyes. My fingers twitched.

You must survive, it seemed to say, guiding my hand to the source of my pain. The heel of my palm struck the creature’s gum, and the tooth snapped at its root, coming free in my grasp. My weapon now.

I slashed and stabbed it into the tentacle, kicking furiously in retreat. The reef shriveled and crumbled at the prevalence of my blood. Rainbow smoke surrounded me.

Lightheaded, I knew I moved, swam, sliced and impaled anything that came near, but I felt as if Fredo carried me. I was oblivious to the scrapes appearing on my skin and the blood racing out of my body.

‘Let go of me.’

I couldn’t. I’d die if I did.

‘I need you, Fredo.’ I gripped him tighter.

‘I think…you’re killing me.’

The words burned, and I dropped his embrace like a hot coal. My hands shook. The shallow sea within my mind became intangible beneath my feet, and I fell, curled with my face to my knees.

Why say it like that, Fredo? Not that this…whatever this exchange of energy was hurt you. No, that I am killing you, as if I do it on purpose. Is that how you really see it? See me?

Both in my mind and in reality, I floated in an open expanse. A current pushed me through the water, but where inner me sunk, my limp, real body was dragged to the surface.

Air brushed my face. Good air, but I couldn’t bring myself to open my eyes. Racing thoughts sewed them shut and sealed my attention within myself.

The Shlykrii-na king said a Seallaii-na brought a tracer to Grenswa’s capital. He said there were only two Seallaii-nas there. If I didn’t bring it, did Fredo? The attack happened less than a day after he arrived. During the battle, he shoved me from his mind. Because he was guilty?

No, he wouldn’t have put me in danger like that. Maybe Yol put the tracer on him.

Yol wanted Niiq to be queen. He didn’t know anything about the impending attack until I told him.

The Shlykrii-na king thought he was in a position to punish Fredo, as if Fredo answered to him.

The burning island floated over my sea of thoughts, and flames replaced the mists of my mind. Fredo was the lone survivor of an incident that killed the ruler of our world.

That was all I knew of his origins. Was this where he belonged?

No Seallaii-na belonged here, but was this where he believed he belonged? Had he done their bidding so he could return to them and bring me here as well?

Pain writhed in my side, and I squirmed. Rough sand grated my cheek, and gentle hands stilled me before returning to probe my wound. Something cold sprinkled on it, and I rolled, stopped again by those quick, light hands. They pressed a bandage to my side, moving me minimally as they wrapped it.

I peeked at my savior, seeing only a blurry silhouette before my head fell to the side. There, right in front of my face, was my bag, the one I had brought with me to Grenswa, lost in the river, recovered in the king’s council chamber, and left in the room Niiq let me borrow beneath the Onyx tower.

How in the world did it get here?

Not that I wasn’t grateful. It had food, medicines, tools.

I couldn’t lift my hand to reach for it.

The ground shook, and I used my last smidgen of energy to fully open my eyes in time to see a new silhouette. My savior darted off, a blur I didn’t get to thank before the huge newcomer’s jaws parted. Drool dripped from its wide jowls, a bucketful of it plopping on my face.

Move! inner me urged. Don’t you want to survive to figure all of this out?

No, I didn’t want to know, not if it meant learning Fredo was evil.

The monster’s tongue—a large, gray, spoon-like muscle—scooped me into its gaping maw.

Isn’t getting eaten twice in one day a bit much?

Was it even still the same day? If not, it didn’t make me feel any better to think me becoming a meal was a daily thing.

“[Out! Out! Out! She’s not for chewing on.]”

At least someone agreed with me on that.

The tongue unfurled and released me in a roll across the coarse sand. This stuck to my slobber-covered self in patches of lumpy tan paler than my skin. I didn’t have the energy to dust it off or get up, arm shaking as I rubbed it beneath my nose. I hoped not to breathe in anything gross as I coughed.

My side protested all this movement. If pain were a sound, this would have been a room full of me-sized bells all upset because their building fell over.

Tears blurred my eyes. The dark form of the creature that loomed over me was huge and of the shape commonly held by those of the Proboscidea order, like elephants and mammoths. Its mouth was much broader, though, and it had a trunk for either nostril, both currently tucked at the corner of its lips. Its tusks curved over its fan-like ears and would have made great handrails if the one sitting atop its massive head had been equipped with hands.

The canine Dossie known as Togdy didn’t need them anyway.

I tried to come up with something intelligent to say, but my brain was half a jumble of insanity and half non-motivated mush.

Then, to make everything perfect, Paqo showed up. “What great blessings, a familiar face!”

My heart nearly leapt out of my body, but it was blocked by the million questions that popped into existence.

The one that made it out was: “What are you doing here?”

The skull-shaped silhouette with glowing eyes appearing less than a handspan from my face should have been ten times more terrifying than anything I’d encountered that day. Annoyance filled me instead as the machine’s head oscillated.

“Oh dear, that is not at all a proper greeting.”

“Hello, Paqo,” I deadpanned. “Isn’t the sky just a lovely shade of…” I paused as the machine moved and I actually saw the sky. Or what should have been the sky.

Land—squares of cultivated fields and orchards—painted the distance beyond a swirling sheen of thin clouds. The ground felt flat enough beneath me, but far to either side, its curve became apparent. This was the inside of a cylinder. Along its central axis, a string of star-like spheres hovered.

I sat up, arm pressed against my side to shove back the wave of nausea that threatened to drown me. My view rocked and churned, but I refused to give in to the blackness crawling from the edges of my vision. Instead, I focused on the details of my surroundings.

A lake shivered at my feet, trees behind me whispering to a breeze. The air was thick, warm, and smelled of sweet fruit and rich soil.

New tears gathered, nostalgic for home.

Blinking them away, I looked further. The cylinder twisted like a helix. The smallest refraction hinted at a window separating this segment from the next—likely another environ.

“A lovely shade of amazing engineering,” I breathed.

“Is engineering properly categorized in shades?” The Sentinel’s query shattered any lingering hope that its presence had been a hallucination.

“I’ll only answer that if you answer my earlier question about why and how you are here.”

“I followed a suspicious someone with the intent of questioning his intentions.”

My gaze swiveled to the machine. “The world was on fire and under attack, invading soldiers crawling everywhere, and you found someone even more suspicious to follow?”

“Keeping your word is proper propriety. I answered your question. Now answer mine about the shades of engineering.”

“Yes, of course engineering has shades. Otherwise I wouldn’t have said it like that.” I waved a hand, regretting it when the pain bells of my side went off again.

Paqo’s legs unfolded in a standing position. “Forgive me for assuming otherwise, but I have found organic beings err in their speech as often as they spout anything true or relevant. Now forgive me again, but I must follow the Dossea-na who is helping me track the suspicious person.”

“The Dossie is not helping you with anything,” Togdy called, he and his ride already several body lengths down shore.

“Togdy, you speak Sishgil?” The latter half of that sentence became a hiss through my teeth as I forced myself up and lightless heat covered my body. I breathed out slowly, arms reaching for balance as the world trickled back to me.

Togdy huffed. “It wasn’t Surra-nas who brought Dossies to space, you know.”

He was brought here by Seallaii-nas, I realized with a twinge of guilt.

Was that something to feel guilt over? Wasn’t it right to help them advance and expand their horizons? Or were these Dossies victims of more experiments like those Hent told me about?

I wanted to ask, but it was all I could do to keep putting one foot in front of the other, eyes set on the creature lumbering away. Its azure, armadillo-like plating glistened in the light that reflected off the lake. A thick tail covered in wrinkled, green-gray skin gouged its footprints into a smooth plane.

“But you must help.” Paqo marched along at the animal’s shoulder. “You are such a marvelous guide.”

“Yeah, of course Togdy is, but Togdy also wants you to go away. Togdy thought an ancient war machine might be cool, but now Togdy regrets speaking to you because you’re super annoying.”

Paqo balked, and daresay I hoped it would fall over?

But no, it ranted instead, marching faster so it could walk backward in front of Togdy’s ride. “What a rude thing to say. If one does not desire another’s company, the proper thing to do is try to rid yourself of their presence subtly.”

“Togdy already tried that, and you didn’t get the hint.”

“The suspiciousness of that bush is overflowing!” the machine exclaimed and took off.

I stood with my mouth open, blinking in Paqo’s wake as it disappeared into the orchard.

Something brushed the back of my thighs. I squealed as it curved around my side and tucked me into what felt much like a swing—a wet swing that stunk like feet trapped in shoes all day.

Bells clanged in my side again at the new movement, and I slipped into a blank void, the mists of my mind slowly seeping in.

This place was several layers beneath the rippling pond where I had been before as if I had dropped out of the bottom of the ocean and could peer up through its undulating waves. Two large figures—distorted, constantly evaporating and reforming—waited at opposite sides of the sky.

Fredo and the vedia.

I flinched from them and plopped back into reality with a gasp.

Toes dangling half my own height off the ground, I sat in the curve of a trunk, one end attached to a face and the other hooked around a tusk. I straightened quickly, cheek abandoning rough, warm skin dotted sparsely with hairs that felt like a wire brush. The trunk was also damp because, like a baby sucking its thumb, the young norahn kept these appendages in its mouth when not in use.

“You don’t look so good.”

“Thank you, Togdy, I’ll cherish the compliment,” I grumbled. “I’ll be doubly grateful that I don’t resemble monster feces, because that nearly happened.”

“That statement sounds like there’s a story behind it.” Togdy leaned further over the norahn’s forehead, front paws casually crossed. “Do tell.”

“Nothing big. I merely met the king and was almost devoured by some monster with tentacles and rodent teeth.”

“They fed you to the Napix rebalo?”

So, he knew of the monster. Napix was a faraway world I knew little about, but if that beast was any indication of what the rest of its denizens were like, I wanted to stay as far from it as possible.

“Cool! Togdy would’ve liked to see that. Did you fight well?”

I glared at him.

The Dossie’s ears pulled back. “What? It sounds exciting. Togdy’s day has been boring, though it was cool when Togdy snatched Baby Norahn here from the shepherdess. He’s a friend, and we adventure together, even if he does have a bad habit of chewing on random things.”

Could one really blame an infantile creature, one that was supposed chew the sap out of fallen logs, for testing the world against its developing teeth?

Togdy chattered on about some story involving electrical wires and a lot of bad decisions. While I attempted to giggle at the appropriate pauses, I was too tired to pay attention. My cheek returned to resting on the norahn’s trunk.

The creature’s gait was smooth and swaying, rocking me like a nanny’s arms. Despite its undesired stench and humongous size, the animal was gentle, and I was grateful for it carrying me.

Do you ride?

Wae’s question echoed to the surface of my thoughts, trailed by all the possible rides I had pictured. A Shlykrii-na norahn hadn’t been one of them, but it wasn’t a bad option as long as you didn’t mind how long it took to get somewhere.

Thoughts of Wae called up the memory of her broken body in my arms. Of the many slain on the island. Of King Ranjial bloody and motionless in the mud. Of Hent unconscious and carried off. Of the promise I had made to the dying, love-struck Pearl ladyling.

Fight for him. Bring him home.

I shoved the memory away, wide eyes looking for any distraction. We ambled through the orchard, trees laden with thuan fruit—of Shlykrii but not too nutritionally different from my favorite datto berries back home and approved for Seallaii-na consumption.

I grabbed one of the lumpy, yellow ovoids. My thumbnails slid through its grassy flesh, and I pulled the fruit in half to reveal a cache of small, gel-filled pods. They burst in my mouth, tart and sweet as a green grape.

They didn’t erase my unease.

The emotion felt odd, like wearing gloves broken in by someone else, and I took too long to realize that not all of this unease was mine.

I reached out to Fredo, hand extended toward where he loomed. Then the fingers on that hand curled in. Elbow sagging, my arm dropped.

He didn’t want me in his mind. He said I was killing him. Was that how he viewed this bond? Was he still dying even though I pulled away? Would reaching out to him only hurt him further?

What if he really was involved in the Shlykrii-na attack and in bringing the tracer to Grenswa? Should I have asked him about that directly? Could he have lied to me in my own mind?

Ug, just contact him already!

I meant to shout, but all that rendered aloud was a flustered jumble of syllables that had a lot of ah.

Togdy looked down at me with a questioning tilt of his head, and I waved with a forced grin.

“You’re weird.” He rolled over and rested his chin on the norahn’s tusk where it curled behind the creature’s ear.

With a deep sigh, I concentrated and drew in my next breath slowly. Water rippled beneath my feet again, mist swirling and thick. Fredo’s silhouette wavered to my right.

‘Fredo, what’s wrong?’

‘I’m busy.’ It hit like a slap. ‘Don’t distract me.’

I walked toward him anyway, swatting at the mist. He was just as far away as before, but with each step, I felt more from him: heart pounding, something small and precious held in one arm. He was in danger, moving, surrounded by shouts and whispers, but I couldn’t make out what any of them said. Pain, skin splitting. A wail unlike any I had ever heard.

‘What’s going on? Are the Grenswa-nas attacking you?’

‘I kidnapped a baby.’

‘What? Why?’

‘I needed them to listen to me. The Lord of Ruby insists Grenswa is fine on its own. That Seallaii doesn’t need to be told what happened. I wouldn’t risk the prince telling me the same.’

The prince. Timqé. He took Timqé’s and Niiq’s baby to get their attention.

Timqé would kill him for that. Fury had been a maelstrom in the first prince’s sapphire eyes after the incident with the Onyx. I saw the guards he trusted to accompany Niiq and I to the Harvest Festival, their wary glances at me and the weapons sheathed all over their bodies.

If Fredo had stolen Timqé’s baby, those weapons were naked now, gleaming edges aimed at my mykta.

‘Timqé would have helped you.’

Fredo shared a sense of understanding. ‘I should trust him, Rosa?’

I wanted to say yes, but a glimmer of guilt simmering in his silhouette held me back. Was that connected with the attack? Had he been involved after all?

‘I hurt him, Rosa. He could barely speak to call the others off.’

‘And Niiq? The baby? Are they okay?’

Fear blossomed in my throat. What if that baby was a Titanium as Niiq had worried? Or worse, Silver?

‘Fredo, what does the baby look like? Show me.’

I received no picture, not of the baby, nothing of his surroundings. Instead, he recoiled, lament seeping into the place where he had been.

‘Fredo?’

‘Do you know what a keilan is?’

He should have known that word.

‘Rain in Menyazé?’

‘Like mykta means tempest and vedia means wind, but they’re also people capable of forming bonds. Does keilan mean something like that?’

Not that I knew, but I hadn’t known of the awful experiments Hent mentioned either. The universe was a vast place, and for all my mentors professed to have taught me, I saw it through a peephole.

‘I’ve only been taught of mykta and vedia, but I think there is much no one bothered to show me.’

‘If you knew, you’d tell me, right?’ He sounded so small, so in need of reassurance.

Of course I would tell him. I told him everything, didn’t I? But what if…

I saw his four-year-old self from his nightmare, covered in wounds. His short, flame-colored hair waved wildly in an updraft. Did he really not remember anything from before that? Had he been on this ship?

I swallowed, answering too late. ‘Just like you’d tell me if…’

Fredo spoke at the same time, and I didn’t finish the thought. ‘Ask Alqysq, the vedia near you, what a keilan is.’

‘You know her?’ A chill spread across my back, squeezing my words to a shrill octave. I glanced over my shoulder and wished I hadn’t, that I had run instead.

‘You should not venture so close to him,’ the evil vedia warned, mist embracing me like arms. The fog grew thicker, and Fredo’s silhouette faded until I lost sight of it.

Continued in chapter 40: A Creature of Destruction

Thank you for reading!

As if fighting a strong current, my movements got me nowhere. The half-formed apparition of the vedia clung to me, eyes glowing like murder-mode Paqo’s.

‘Let go of me, Alaysq!’

She faltered, restraints on me loosening enough for me to take a few steps. Fredo’s form was briefly visible before her grip reeled me back. Cheek against mine, she smiled and folded around me as if I were a child sitting on her lap.

‘You called me by my name.’

I stared at where Fredo had been. Mist cascaded and churned, forming impossible shapes—none I wanted to see. I wanted Fredo to catch me when I fell, not this vedia. I wanted his grin and puns when I told him some scientific fact. I wanted him to tell me he was on my side and always would be, that he knew nothing of what these people had planned for Grenswa.

Tears dribbled down my cheeks, and a whisper escaped my trembling lips, so quiet, even I barely heard it. ‘What is a keilan?’

‘What he is, a creature of destruction.’

I locked my jaw. ‘That answers nothing.’

‘Do you know who Vedia was?’

‘The first vedia.’ My answer sounded like a toddler’s, and I scowled.

‘Yes, an experiment gone right. He was also the father of Mykta.’

True, and Mykta’s bond had been different than her father’s, more distant and more draining to her royal counterpart.

‘Do you know the name of Mykta’s mother?’

My eyes narrowed. ‘Are you implying that is who Keilan was?’

Alaysq nodded, cheek warm against mine. ‘She was older than Vedia, the same experiment but gone very wrong.’

‘What do you mean?’ I bit my lip. The early River Guardians manufactured the first vedia, but I had never heard there were failures.

‘The idea was for the heir apparent at the time to have one mind in multiple bodies. Vedia’s consciousness was supposed to vanish, and while that is not what he became—’

‘What?’ I stiffened, turning to her in wide-eyed horror.

‘Though capable of forming a bond, you have never been told this?’

I shook my head vehemently. ‘Are you saying that’s possible, that I could stamp out Fredo’s individuality and accidently take over his body?’

‘No.’ Her luminous eyes burned with terror and hate. ‘He is a keilan, and like his ancestress, he is more likely to crush you, leave you an empty shell.’

As if I was underwater again, I couldn’t breathe. My stomach rocked, sloshed by the waves of a tempest. If Keilan was so awful, why had I never heard of her? If it was so easy to tell that Fredo was one of her kind, why had our elders ensured he lived, trusting the Lokmas to raise him?

He would never hurt me, but…

‘Could he do it on accident?’

Before she answered, shouts and screeches wrenched me back to reality.

“Your silence only lends more to your suspiciousness. Speak in your defense, or I will have no choice but to continue detaining you.”

In the middle of a mud pit filled with squealing rodents, Paqo knelt on a humanoid form. The boy’s arms were captured behind his shoulder blades, and his tail whipped the machine to no avail. A crimson scarf covered the lower half of his face, but there was no mistaking the brilliance of scales against his caramel skin or the rainbow that was his hair.

And Ambassador Lafdo called my hair incredibly colored.

This was a Grenswa-na Titanium.

Though he made no sound, the scrunch of his eyes bespoke pain. Whether Paqo intended to hurt him or not, the machine was heavy and had been designed to kill Grenswa-nas. A simple twitch from the Sentinel now would snap the boy’s arms. Even if he zapped Paqo, all that weight would crash down on him.

I wondered if he realized that or just didn’t think of zapping things as a viable defense. It didn’t work on others of his kind.

“Please explain your presence. It is extremely rude to ignore a captor in this way.”

“What if he can’t talk?” Togdy suggested as our ride stopped to lick the fence. “Wouldn’t you just be cruel, then?”

“Excellent point, masterful guide.” Paqo knelt closer to his captive’s face. “If you cannot speak, please indicate that in some way.”

The Titanium fell still, leg flat against the mud so that I could see what lay beyond it: my bag.

“Is that your signal or are you simply fatigued?” Paqo questioned.

“Or maybe you killed him,” Togdy offered.

I slid off the norahn’s trunk, side twinging and straining my voice. “Let him go.”

“But he is a truly suspicious person.”

“He saved my life. He can’t be all bad.” I snatched my bag and knelt near the Essesntia’s face. “You did save me, right? You pulled me to shore and wrapped this bandage?”

As Paqo stepped off him, the Titanium remained motionless except for a flick of his eyes toward my injured side.

Instead of the sparkle that waltzed in Timqé’s irises, these held the fire of a million suns. A sliver of chrome bordered his pupil. Patches of neon scarlet, orange, yellow, cobalt, purple, and bronze spiraled from there, all encased in a circle of jade. His hair followed a similar pattern, every strand—at least on the side that wasn’t buried in the mud—tipped with fluorescent green. That same color freckled his gradient of scales.

Like Hent, he was a living sculpture, features stronger but with a similar delicate vibrancy. I tried not to get lost in the awe of staring at him and kept some amount of stern authority in my expression.

“You also had my bag.” I held up the item in question. “Care to explain how you got it?”

He retreated onto his hands and knees, and his stunning gaze flicked to the bedraggled pouch, then returned to my face.

“He took your bag!” Paqo exclaimed. “How highly unethical, first to steal the armor off a fallen soldier, then to take advantage of the chaos of war to further his thieving ways.”

I had done something similar as far as the Shlykrii-na battle attire was concerned, but this wasn’t the time to bring that up.

Gouges and scorch marks covered the hard, overlapping sleeves and shoulder plates the Titanium wore. Did they get there before or after he acquired the armor? Or did he inflict that damage upon its previous owner?

The Titanium frowned at the machine, muscles tense and ready to leap away. Yet, his eyes again returned to me, searching. Asking…what?

“Thief or not, what’ll you have him do about it now? No, the real question is why an Essentia was on Ledatiiss Island. Ready to explain, mystery man?”

He blinked, one foot pulling back, but Paqo grabbed his arm. Despite his wince, he made no sound. Even his footsteps in the mud were silent.

Mine were not as I stomped toward him and placed myself well within what I considered personal space. His eyes widened, so close, if he blinked, his colorful lashes would have touched my nose.

“Were you in contact with the Shlykrii-nas?”

I wanted a scapegoat, but he shook his head.

“Then tell us why you were there.”

He only looked at me, life pulsing in those brilliant eyes and scales. In deference to the scant oxygen in the air here, he breathed through his nose, too, chest heaving beneath a laced, leather tunic. His scales alone couldn’t keep up.

He wasn’t with the Shlykrii-nas, logic said. He didn’t belong here, wouldn’t last long here.

“Why are you on this ship?”

A solemn sheen glazed his eyes before they slid closed.

I shoved away from him. “Paqo, did the Shlykrii-nas take him like they took Hent? Could they not tell the difference between a Titanium and an Opal?”

Those impossible eyes snapped open, and heavy, mud-caked hair flew as the Grenswa-na shook his head.

“No? Then, how did you get aboard?”

Again, just that mesmerizing, frustrating stare.

“When I called his intentions into question, he ran,” Paqo explained. “After I saw Prince Hent carried off into the sky, this one tried to escape into the forest and grabbed a rope in imitation of the retreating soldiers. I did likewise and was pulled aboard a different transport, where the occupants fawned over me. They put me in a sorting room full of treasures, but I knew my civic duty was too great to wait for proper paperwork. I had to find this suspicious person.”

I raised a brow. “Your priorities are warped. Shouldn’t you have been trying to help Hent all this time? You think so, too, right, Titanium?”

He gave a small nod.

“Is that why you’re here?” I fished. “Why won’t you speak?”

“Perhaps he is mute after all?” Paqo suggested.

The Essentia’s brows rose, and I didn’t think that was a yes, but it wasn’t a no either.

“Maybe he likes guessing games,” Togdy supposed.

“Hmm.” I brought a finger to my chin, head tilted in thought. “The Essentia clans regard themselves as sovereign states. I’m not sure a lazy Titanium would go out of his way to help a prince he considers his enemy.”

My tongue stumbled on the last word as the Essentia’s stare bored into me. It was like a time-lapsed version of Hent’s, and I relived each occasion I had seen them change: his worried green when I first met him, his eggplant annoyance, orange indignation, golden fear, the honey color he hadn’t known, the ebony when he discovered what I was.

When I found him here, what color would he be? As much as I wanted to say azure, that bright color so similar to his brother’s that he took on when he genuinely laughed, I doubted it.

I needed to get off this ship, and Hent needed to as well.

I cleared my throat. “The king said there were thirty-two captured Grenswa-nas. Perhaps you came here to help one of the others?”

The Titanium’s gaze fell to my bag, then flicked to my bandaged side.

“Yes, you helped me, and I’m grateful, but, well, why?”

“Saving a damsel in distress is among the noblest causes in the universe,” Paqo touted, but I held up a hand. It actually worked and silenced the machine.

“A lot of primitive cultures believe the Seallaii-na Sojourners are capable of impossible things.” Togdy scratched his ear. “Maybe he saved you hoping you would help him.”

As if the Titanium had answered me himself, I didn’t look away from his burning, rainbow gaze. “I’m not a Sojourner. I’m on my own, but I will do everything I can to help. Do you know where they’re holding the Grenswa-na prisoners?”

Another nod.

“If Paqo releases you, will you show us the way?”

The nod was slower this time, but I didn’t doubt its conviction.

“What does a fake Sojourner want with those prisoners?” Togdy asked with a yawn.

A chill trickled through my core. It was akin to fear, a distant cousin that I couldn’t name. I was a fake Sojourner, not qualified for this, and if I messed up, I wouldn’t be the only one to pay.

My fists clenched. “I’ll free those prisoners and take them home.”

“What if you can’t?”

Peeling my gaze from the Titanium, I whirled toward the Dossie. Why was he being so negative? He sounded like he didn’t even care.

“What I can’t do,” I sounded out, “is do nothing to help them.”

“I do not doubt her cleverness,” Paqo added, and I cringed. “For instance, surely the Sojourners are tracking the signal from her purse. They will swoop in to our rescue when the time is right.”

“What signal? Where?” I pivoted toward the machine, bag held up as if it contained fire.

“It is a simple tracer signal. You likely stuck it on or within an object so it would not look suspicious. Seallaii-nas are so wise.”

“Which object, Paqo?” Flinging open the flap, I thrust the sack toward the machine’s face. “Pull it out.”

“Oh no, I could never rummage through a lady’s purse.”

“Your twisted priorities are sawing off my last nerves.” Both hands on the bottom of the satchel, I upended it and shook out its contents. “Show me which item is sending the signal.”

“Must you always be so overly dramatic? It makes it hard for others to find you likable.”

“Look who’s talking. Just be useful for once and point out the tracer.”

With a huff, the machine pointed to a vial, one of several clear tubes that weren’t within the silk pouches where they belonged. I snatched the tiny cylinder and twisted it to read the unfamiliar label hand-scrawled in Menyazé: Midkeilan.

Tears of Rain.

My heart stopped, whispered words escaping. “I didn’t put this in here.”

So, who did?

This Essentia? Why would he bring a tracer showing Shlykrii-nas where to attack? And why would the label be written in Menyazé?

Tears of Rain. It uses Keilan’s name.

No. Oh-no, no, no, no. Why did it point to Fredo? If I couldn’t trust him, I couldn’t trust anybody.

“The powers of Grenswa will most assuredly come to our aid,” Paqo insisted, arguing with something I’d missed Togdy say. “They will do anything to retrieve our Opal prince.”

The Titanium’s head listed, scales burning even brighter for a moment.

Fear jumped into me.

“That’s exactly why this situation is so dangerous.” I tried to force authority into my voice, but it was sheer as the wind. “The Shlykrii-nas know they can use Hent to get their way or break the people’s spirit. That’s why we must get him out of here.”

“If you can’t?” Togdy sniffed the back paw he had used to scratch his ear. “Do you have the strength to kill him if that’s the only way to save him?”

I gave the Dossie the sternest stare I had ever conjured and spoke through barely moving lips. “River Guardians do not kill.”

“They do when they have to.” He met my gaze with no remorse, no cowardice, only wisdom as old and deep as the center of the universe.

My own words to Ambassador Lafdo echoed in my head as if every drop of my inner mist whispered it.

Sometimes it’s necessary to prune off a few bad limbs to protect the whole plant.

Hent wasn’t bad. Cranky and misguided at times, but not bad, just in a bad situation.

Still, I understood what Togdy meant. In the end, the greater good and Hent’s own sanity considered, his death might prevent even more tragic outcomes.

This wasn’t the time to make that call. I was a child lacking the insight to make such decisions, and so was Togdy. I would hold on for as long as I could, resolute in what I believed was right. I would cling to hope because it was soft and warm. I would offer it to others and use it as padding against prickly fear.

Fear had enough spines. It didn’t need me sharpening them with what ifs.

Still, the thought lingered. If the only way to save Hent from being the key to destroying his world was to destroy him instead, could I do it?

Again, I saw his eyes, golden in terror when his father had warned Seallaii may ask for his life. In my mind’s eye, the color swirled to onyx, and my heart rent in two.

I choked on a sob, shaking my head and grinding out words. “We have to find him. Let’s not dwell on bridges we may never come across.”

Continued in chapter 41: Until My Dying Breath

Thank you for reading!

This was an awful idea. I have no clue how to care for a baby of my own kind, let alone an alien baby. They keep telling me it needs to eat, and I know that, but don’t Grenswa-nas nurse?

The moment I give up this hostage, they’ll attack me.

Plus, if he eats, he’ll have to poop, and I don’t want to have to deal with that.

He doesn’t move much. His tiny tail curls around my wrist, holding tight as if he fears being dropped. He kicks me every once in a while, particularly when I make a noise. Even through his soft blanket, he siphons my heat. It’s like holding an ice cube. An intricately detailed ice cube that never melts.

I wish I could see him and confirm the tiny features are real. I’ve seen many small things. A berry is little but packs a powerful punch. His fingertips are smaller than a berry, digits like short stems, but he can wrap them around my thumb. His skin is pliant and sticky, dotted with infinitesimal scales.

He coos. He sounds like a giggling flute.

I wish I could have shown him to Rosa like she wanted. But telling her about my sight is like telling her I’m broken. Irreparable. Useless. Maybe my eyes will heal by the time I see her again, and I’ll never have to tell her.

The damp cloth over my eyes is supposed to help, right? It’s itchy. Don’t mess with it. It’s not a prank or a trap. If they didn’t believe in its healing power, they wouldn’t have tied a similar one around the infant’s arm.

Guilt slithers as the memory rises: A screaming woman jumps at me, scratching. The wet, unfamiliar dagger slips, and the tip touches the baby’s shoulder. An unholy wail slashes my eardrums—two high-pitched, clashing tones like a pair of rapiers impaling me from either side.

The prince’s voice rings, choked on pain and terror. It is wrapped in earnestness and authority as he orders all to back away from me. Even the infant quiets.

The dagger is firmly back in my grasp, held higher and further away, ready to slice at anyone who nears again. Someone helps the prince stand, and he gasps as he rises enough to see the baby’s wound.

The reaction is odd, so familiar, yet out of place. For Grenswa-nas, who do not usually breathe through their mouths, it’s not a natural response, instead a learned quirk. It’s a habit, not a reflex.

I feel the fire in his glare even if I cannot see it. His words are sharp enough to fell an ancient tree with one swipe. “Return my child to me.”

I angle the dagger toward him. Its leather handle creaks. I hope it catches the light.

“I need to send a message to Seallaii and Shlykrii. When you set that up, I’ll return him.”

The prince agrees, insisting the baby’s wound be addressed. Of course, I let them. I’m not heartless. I don’t want the child to die.

Yet, I know my disadvantage. I am only one person surrounded by a crowd. This is a prince. Some of his retinue must be trained in combat. While I’m bigger and stronger, they are wily and swift. They’ve already nearly killed me once.

And I can’t see.

My heart races, breaths quick and short. Each movement of the crowd feels like a bug on my skin. They’ll jump me at any moment, crawl over me, pin me to the ground. They rip apart my every thought, attention sundered in a million directions.

I barely hear the prince telling me the transmission will be set up. It will take time.

“Please, don’t hurt the child.”

The fear trembling in his voice makes me want to crumble in on myself. Again, I’ve only proven I am a monster.

Lord Lokma would be ashamed of me.

I’m ashamed of myself. That I’m not eloquent enough to sway the crowd with a word or a smile. That I have to resort to threatening this innocent baby. Who keeps cooing at me.

I tilt my head as if glancing down at him and am rewarded with a squeal. Are all newborn Grenswa-nas this noisy? This responsive?

Regardless, hearing that almost-laughter fills my heart with inexplicable glee. My pacing pauses. My trapped finger wiggles, eliciting another squeal. Warmth glows from within me. It pushes my face into a smile against my will.

A noise. A footstep?

My smile drops. “Who’s here?”

Only the breeze answers, strong with an unfamiliar, bitter scent. It’s the mix of herbs being ground far below this balcony. The prince thought it would be safer for all if I waited here away from the crowd.

It’s not a trap. They won’t risk hurting the prince’s child. Calm down. The prince gave you his word.

Rosa thinks I should trust him.

I step forward, toes curling over the edge. I don’t think there’s a railing. How far up are we? The herb crushers sound distant. A drop that would kill. There should be a railing.

The wind whistles through a lattice to my right. Leaves rattle, smacking wet and heavy. Curtains whip above and on either side of me.

Tap-tap-tap.

I whirl, left ear tilted toward the sound. Another gust. More irritated leaves and dancing cloth. Another series of soft footfalls.

Or do I just imagine it? Paranoid. Crazy.

Now I’m thinking in circles. Sit down and figure out what to say in the transmission.

The floor is hard. What is it? Diamond?

If the Grenswa-nas had a race called Diamond, would their eyes and scales be clear?

Focus, Fredo.

“You don’t kidnap a Sine and get away with it.”

Does that sound like a dramatic enough opening line?

I’d be addressing Shlykrii more than Seallaii. I’d be speaking for Seallaii, and that’s not my place.

What is my place?

A fake mykta.

Something sharp touches my neck. A shadow drapes across my back. It blocks the daylight’s heat.

“You’ll hand that child to me.”

It is a trap after all.

I throw my weight backward as my hand slips behind the assailant’s wrist and pushes it away. My neck stings.

My head grazes his chest as he swivels around me. His shoved arm wheels wide as the other swings close. The air warns me, and I block, wrist striking wrist. He wears a vambrace with cutouts like a cheese grater, and the metal presses into my unprotected flesh.

His feet tap the floor with hardly a sound. He is airborne again, twisting at me like a drill. His blades sing for the wind. A low hum. I scramble back, focus on the sound, and catch his arm. His momentum flows to my feet, guiding them in a circular waltz as I fling him over me.

Tap-tap. He launches off the column behind me, blades leading. I duck, a punch aimed upward when he should be passing overhead.

My fist flies through empty air.

Something strong and slender captures my wrist—a tail—and yanks it behind me. A sharp tip meets my side, threatening to slide beneath my ribs.

The thick fabric of my robe rips against it as I turn, an arm crunching in my grip. He kicks. Again, I take the momentum and add it to my spin as I slam him to the ground. My hand slips past his elbow. His shoulder. Finds his neck.

Fire tears through me, and I’m thrown back. I hit the floor at least a body’s length away and roll, trying not to squish the prince’s baby. The child screams, but I barely hear him. My ears ring.

What was that? Electricity is intrinsic to the Grenswa-na immune system. Can they discharge it in an attack?

I cough, heartbeat irregular and jolting. My tongue is numb. I’m drooling, facedown on the smooth floor, a wailing baby cradled beneath me.

Something deep within tells me to protect him, but it makes little sense. This kid isn’t mine, isn’t my kind. Why should I care? Why do I feel like this world would fall apart if this attacker took him? Hasn’t he come to rescue the child from big, bad me?

My arms shake.

Over my own staggered gulps of air, he chuckles. “It works. You saw it, Master?”

No response. Who is he talking to? Not me, though from the angle of his voice, he looks right at me. He plods closer. I listen for another but hear only the baby’s cries.

“He doesn’t seem the reasonin’ type.” He’s next to my head. Too close.

I roll.

“You see the way he moves? A warrior through and through.”

The dagger sings again and clinks as it strikes the floor. A sliver of warm stone lashes my cheek as I grab at my opponent’s front.

“He’ll follow orders to the end without questionin’ them.”

He slinks aside, but I capture his vest. My fingers weave through the net-like fabric and haul him forward. It tears as he tries to bound away.

“It’s no use tryin’ to convince him of a cause.”

His tail chokes my forearm and forces my fingers to straighten.

A hum to my right. I lean out of the knife’s path. A foot finds my torso, and I curl in, knee blocking a second blow. My flat palm knocks aside a bladed third.

Not wanting to get shocked again, I drop back quickly, but he stays with me. Another leap. A barrage of feet from all directions.

Come on, Fredo, block. Counter.

I hit nothing. I can’t hear him over the baby and my pounding heart. He is everywhere and nowhere. I am clumsy and heavy.

Another knife zings past my ear.

“Enough!” I throw my foot in a sweeping arc.

It connects. There’s a sound like a deflating balloon. A series of thuds as my enemy collides with a lattice. Vines snap. Fabric tears. Several things pound the floor.

All falls still.

Is there another? Why didn’t they double-team me? Did they underestimate me? Is the other scared now? Will he retreat? Or is he more skilled and more cautious?

The title “Master” would denote such.

“He’s right about you?” An older, grainier voice, devoid of all compassion, comes from everywhere.

I whirl and sink into a ready stance, head tilted and ears on full alert. My eardrums are about to burst from the beating wrought by the baby’s cries. I rock him, wishing he’ll be quiet. He only squeals louder.

The omnipresent voice comes again. “You’re a mindless fighter who can only follow the plans others set out?”

“I make my own decisions.”

I chose to hold this baby hostage. No one told me to do that.

Because it was stupid.

A footstep. I spin toward it, but another clunks behind me. Or was that my imagination?

Please be quiet, baby.

I hold him closer and bounce him gently. Slowly, his wails fall into sobbing hiccups.

Doors whoosh open and crash against the walls. Authoritative stomps herald the presence of at least two.

“They’re right,” the one in the lead announces, stopping on her toes just in front of me. Her voice rings like the chime of a bell, delicate yet powerful. I retreat a few paces, left ear pointed toward her. “His color’sn’t definable.”

Hadn’t Rosa wanted to know the baby’s color? What does this woman mean it isn’t definable? Don’t their colors mark their race? What does that signify for one with an indefinable color?

Voice like a knife—small, sharp, and thrusting—the other responds, “Just like that girl to create such an absurd thing. It even has silver hair like its moth—”

A slap ends her rant, echoing into silence. “Watch what you call an absurd thing. He’s my grandson. You’ll afford him the respect that merits, Lady of Onyx, and if you can’t find it within yourself to speak of Princess Niiq with honor, then restrain yourself from mention of her at all.”

“Princess Niiq?” the Lady of Onyx seethes. “Timqé’s disowned and banished, even if you couldn’t find the strength to send him away properly. He’s no longer a prince, no matter how many—”

Another slap. “We’ve lost Hent!” The cry shatters on the name and rains in quiet sobs.

Even quieter, the Lady of Onyx inserts, “You’ren’t the only one feelin’ this way. We lost Joqshon.”

I flinch at the raw pain in her voice. It pours acidic guilt over my head.

“At least you got to hold him and whisper goodbye.” Her words are an ember buried deep in the ashes. Barely detectable, they burn nonetheless. “We can’t even find Hent’s body. My husband’s dead, and Timqé’s all we’ve left.” She draws a deep breath—again something that makes her seem normal when I know she is not. “The terms of his banishment stated that if he fathered an Opal child, he could be restored.”

The Lady of Onyx gestures toward me. “This’sn’t an Opal, no matter how much you wish it so, My Queen.”

“Who’s to say this’sn’t what an Opal infant looks like?” Beads and cloth rustle as the queen steps toward me.

“This’sn’t what Hent looked like.”

“I’ll say this’s what Hent looked like. I’ll testify it until my dying breath.”

“That’d be a lie, My Queen,” yet another female voice announces. It is soft and bright, like a ray at sunrise.

The newcomer strides toward me, and my unease doubles. When did I redraw the prince’s dagger? I point it at her.

She stops a little more than an arm’s length away. I feel her hurt almost like I feel Rosa’s. “You’d deny a mother the right to look upon her own child?”

I lower the weapon. “You’re his mother?”

She slides closer and touches the baby’s face. “My little one, you’ve Timqé’s eyes, his all-devourin’, livin’ blue. And your scales’re amazin’! Seallaii-na, could any gemstone match this brilliance?”

“I...can’t see it.”

“Oh, how rude of me. It’s an iridescent palest of blues, like you can see any color hoverin’ over it dependin’ on the angle.”

I try to hold the image in my mind. If I paint it vividly enough, I can show it to Rosa. Is it like oil floating on water? I can’t come up with a stone like that, but...

“The shells of many aquatic haliotis have a similar sheen. Like abalone. Earth-nas use abalone shells in jewelry.”

“A creature and a jewel,” the princess gushes. “Perfect. Abalone.”

“That’s to be his name, Niiq?” The Lady of Onyx snorts. “You’ll call him after some alien shellfish no one’s ever heard of?”

Niiq’s hair swishes as she shakes her head. “No, Mother. Abalone’s his race.”

“Idiot girl, you can’t just make up a race.”

“Watch me, Mother. Watch us.” No trace of doubt mars the statement. It is both a plea and a warning. Her determination and confidence are so dazzling, I can almost see them. I want to see her succeed. I want to help her.

The second attacker’s taunt echoes, and I scowl. I’m not a mindless warrior, only able to follow.

If the accusation is false, why does it bother me so much?

“Abalone could be better than Opal.” She glides closer, both hands on her child now. I don’t want to interrupt her. I want to hear her explain. “We don’t know anything about Abalone. Endless possibilities hover before him. He doesn’t’ve to fill a mold.”

Lack of expectations, she means. The child won’t know who he’s supposed to be. Like me. I know nothing about my origins, about what I am. It’s terrifying and confusing.

How can I word this so she’ll understand it’s not something she should want for her son? Should he live the lie of being an Opal? Probably not, but at least he would have something to aspire to.

Niiq’s arms slither around the baby, and she starts to pull him away.

My grip tightens. “I’m not stupid. I know I’ll be attacked the moment this child is safe.”

“Timqé gave you his word the transmission’ll happen, didn’t he? Then it’ll happen.” Is she pouting? I can’t tell, but I picture her with Dollii’s no-nonsense face. The one she puts on when Rosa suggests some crazy theory.

“Right, you’d show them my corpse’s slit throat.” I rub a sleeve over the slice on my neck. I don’t know if it’s bleeding or just wet, but I hope they can see it.

“Someone attacked you?”

“He’s still lying over there if you want to have your doctors look at him.” I gesture toward what’s likely a pile of leaves and ripped curtain behind me. “I’d apologize for kicking him so hard, but I don’t feel like it.”

The Lady of Onyx rushes a wide circle around me and drops alongside the mess. As she digs through soft-sounding objects, I angle so she isn’t completely at my back.

She freezes, releasing whatever she holds. “This’s an Iodine.”

That’s an Essentia race, right? The neon purple kind? Purple hair would be hard to miss. He must have been buried pretty well for them not to have noticed as soon as they opened the doors.

“He’s alive?” the queen asks.

Please say yes. I can’t have killed another one. Not when they’ve already lost so many.

The Lady of Onyx doesn’t answer. How hard can it be to tell if someone’s dead?

I step toward her but stop as another stranger approaches.

Really, Fredo, how many people do I know here? This is a whole world of strangers. Find a better way to refer to them.

“Seallaii-na, the transmission’s about to begin. Prince Timqé’s waiting for you to follow me,” Bell-toes announces. It’s a stupid moniker but fitting. He must have tambourines sewn in his pant legs. Just remember not to call him that out loud.

I still don’t know what I’ll say in this transmission. Even if I did know, I might not get to say it. Who are they contacting? The princess will take one look at me and order me killed.

Bugs crawl over my insides, touching things with their tiny pinchers.

Calm down, Fredo. I can do this. I have to. Deep breath.

I straighten my shoulders and nod in Bell-toes’ direction. One step. I’ll have to go around Niiq. Come on, Fredo, do something right for once.

As I pass, I shift the baby into her arms. Her smile is a bonfire. Her unspoken questions pop like embers.

“It’s a show of faith,” I whisper and move on. Don’t make a big deal of it. Don’t attract the attention of the wrong people and make me regret it. Just be happy.

“Thank you, Fredo.”

I stumble. She used my name, not Seallaii-na. Why does that mean so much more than her rote thanks?

With a tiny nod, I hurry through the doors, following Bell-toes. I wish he would walk faster, even run.

Behind me, the baby cries. It’s melodious but sharp. A hook laces through my soul.

The next room isn’t far. It has an odd static cling as if the insects from my stomach have called others to come explore my skin. Every hair stands on end.

“Where’s my son?” The prince’s question is an ax to the air and any shred of calm I have left.

I turn toward him. “With his mother.”

“With Niiq? You made sure it’s Niiq. She’sn’t some random woman who claimed to be his mother?”

I shrug as if I don’t care, but the gesture is a lie. “The queen called her Niiq. So did the Lady of Onyx. They have an odd relationship.”

He relaxes a little, and a small whine escapes. He must have triggered one of his injuries. One I gave him? Or was he already injured in the attack?

“Sorry for snappin’ at you,” Timqé whispers. “You’d believe I actually wished Seallaii-nas’d return?”

Regret and hope weave one blanket and drape over me. It’s not mine, like most of the time I know Rosa’s emotions aren’t mine. They’re not hers either.

It smells, and I wrinkle my nose. “If I believe that, then I also believe your wish came true.”

I listen carefully. Is there any way to block out the blanket? It’s unpleasant.

The prince’s nod sets off a chorus of jingling beads. “Rose claimed she’s a royal Sine and you’re her mykta. This’s true?”

“Yes.”

“You’ve how much influence on Seallaii?”

What should I tell him? Do I admit I’m nobody? Will he cancel the transmission?

If I pretend to be someone I’m not, that will crash down on me. If I claim to have power, this prince will expect me to use it. When I can’t, I’ll have made us both look the fool.

“None,” I answer in the smallest voice. It fits my status. “I’m not even supposed to be here, and if the princess recognizes me, she’ll have me imprisoned or executed.”

“Because you’re a traitor?”

The accusation stings, softened by the confusion that encases it. He’s not judging. He just needs to know.

“Because I’m nobody, and apparently for a nobody, bonding with their Sine is a crime.”

He nods again, swivels toward a console, and leans on it. “You’re expendable. Or worse, they’d prefer it if you died. They expected us to kill you. The message you brought’s false. Seallaii doesn’t care about us or may even’ve helped in this attack. Callin’ them mightn’t be the right thing to do.”

He presses buttons. Don’t you dare cancel this call.

“Rosa is worth a lot to them.” I pour every smidgen of confidence I have into the sentiment. The words grow stronger. “They’d never throw her away, and if nothing else, they’ll hold Shlykrii responsible for taking her.”

Is he looking at me? Stand straight, Fredo.

Beads rattle as Timqé shakes his head. “You believe your princess’ll order you killed if she sees you, but you want to call her anyway?”

“I have to rescue Rosa, and I can’t do that without them.” Be brave. Don’t let him see me shaking.

“What does Grenswa get out of this?”

“We’ll call the Shlykrii-nas out for what they’ve done, and Seallaii can make them—”

The beads sound like rain. “We don’t want anything from Shlykrii except to never see them again. I understand your desire to help your…whatever Rose’s to you, but as for Grenswa, we need to pick up the pieces we’ve remainin’ and rebuild. I’ll call Seallaii. I’ll call Shlykrii. I’ll say what needs to be said while you wait quietly in the background and hope your princess doesn’t notice you. In return, you’ll do something for Grenswa.”

I flinch. “What can I—”

“You’ll be this generation’s Sjaealam and support me as king.”

No, jaw, lock. Don’t drop. “Sjaealam was a Sine. He was River Guardian, and I’m—”

“You’re Seallaii-na. That’s all they’ll see. Please. You’ren’t nobody here.”

I stomped on him. I hurt him. Yet, here he is, asking me to be on his team. Saying I’m important.

My heart pounds. I want to help. Be useful. Be somebody.

I extend a hand in search of his shoulder. I want to feel his pulse, feel that he’s real. “No more sending assassins after me?”

Timqé steps back. “What assassins?”

“The Iodine stealth assassin he defeated.” The queen approaches amid a rustle of fabric and beads. “Understand, Seallaii-na, that unsavory creature of darkness wanted to abduct the child to use him in some maniac’s plot.”

I pivot halfway. “You didn’t send him?”

“You think we want you dead?” Timqé grunts. “How’d that help us?”

I don’t know what I think. I wish someone would tell me who’s on what side. Is there something I can rightfully punch? I really want to punch something.

My fingers curl with restless energy. Can they see them within my big sleeves? Are they even looking?

Never take your sight for granted. Look at everything and appreciate the fact that you can see anything because it’s so annoying when the light shines for everyone but you.

I feel it on my skin—a high contrast, warm like melting butter and cold like winter’s breath. Spotlights. For the transmission.

A bigger fear wallows in my gut.

“You didn’t leave Niiq alone, did you? There was a second assassin.”

Continued in chapter 42: Is This What They Call Bluffing?

Thank you for reading!