Текст книги "Alien god"

Автор книги: Ursa Dox

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 28 (всего у книги 29 страниц)

OceanofPDF.com

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE Wylfrael

Two things kept me from going entirely insane while away from Torrance. The first was the fact that I could have short visits with her on Sionnach. The second was that Sceadulyr actually seemed to be sincerely searching for his mate. If he’d simply been toying with me, keeping me away from Torrance just to torture me, I was not sure I would have been able to stand it. But beneath his sarcasm and blustering, I could tell his desire to find her was going stronger with every sky door I opened.

I did not know if he cared about finding a mate to love or if he just wanted to restore his star map, but I did not really care. As long as he was not purposely slowing down or impeding our purpose, I could grind my fangs and force myself to continue.

We found the humans quite by accident, after five of what Torrance called “months” of travelling with Sceadulyr. It was a world neither he nor I had ever been to, and, besides the humans’ machine (which I instantly recognized as being the ship I’d seen on my world) there seemed to be no other sentient life here. It was a grey planet of cold mountains and jagged valleys, cold and barren. We did not spend long flying over the surface and were going to leave when the shining metal of the human machine caught my eye. As soon as I saw it, my rage came flaring back. Rage like I’d felt when I’d found them on Sionnach, but a thousand times worse. Because now, I knew what they’d done to Torrance. Now, I knew that they’d not only invaded my world, but also abducted and forced my mate into servitude, along with all her friends.

“You look like you’ve swallowed a poisoned sword, Wylfrael,” Sceadulyr called as he followed me in descent towards the humans’ machine.

Sword. I couldn’t even say the word now. I no longer carried a blade, and I’d left my father’s bloodstained sword on Sceadulyr’s world. I had no idea what had happened to it and never cared to find out.

Sceadulyr learned the cause of my anger quickly. Like last time, warriors with tiny weapons accosted us, shooting little rocks that pinged off my hide like grains of sand. I was much stronger than I’d been last time I’d faced the human forces, and their rock throwers had almost no effect. Sceadulyr was even stronger than I was, having not expended any power to open a sky door here. With a narrowing of his gaze, he landed beside me, washing shadows over the fallen rock things and sending them flying back through the heads of the ones who’d aimed them.

“Don’t hurt any of the unarmed females,” I growled as the warriors crumpled to the ground all around us. “I promised my wife I’d try to find them for her someday and keep them safe on Sionnach.”

For a moment, I wondered if Sceadulyr would argue, if he’d object to me giving him an order. I was not asking him not to harm the human females, I was commanding him, the underlying threat clear in my words.

But instead, he tossed me a lazy grin.

“Of course, Wylfrael,” he said. “I am loath to cause any further strife between you and your lovely little bride. The shadows know you’ve already done enough to hurt her.”

Fury and shame crystallized, then shattered inside me, sending cutting shards throughout my body. I did not have time to fully react to Sceadulyr’s taunt, because more warriors were spilling from the machine, blasting their weapons at us. Between Sceadulyr’s power and mine, taking care of them was short work. But a familiar sound was starting up. The same whirring sound that had indicated the humans’ departure from Sionnach.

“Don’t let them leave!” I snarled. I couldn’t use too much power subduing the machine, because I’d need to open two more sky doors very soon. One, for Sceadulyr. And another, that I would have to keep open for much, much longer, to bring the human women through one by one. Hoping Sceadulyr would listen and assist me in this, instead of using my own power to crush or disable the machine, I stormed inside it, through the opening the warriors had come out of.

Every warrior who met me on the way had his skull crushed and his weapon pulverized. The whirring sound sputtered, then stopped, and with some relief, I realized Sceadulyr must have used his shadows to get inside some necessary component of the machine. I found yet more warriors in a room with a glittering array of buttons and screens and killed them all.

Where are they?

Where were the women? Torrance’s friends? I could not leave without them.

I closed my eyes and stilled, listening and sniffing the air until faint human voices bled through the shining silver walls. I followed the sound, and the thickening scent of human women, until I found them, huddled together in a cowering group in a large open room with many tables and chairs.

Some of them screamed at my entrance. Others closed their eyes and scrunched smaller. Some of them prayed to human gods. A few others, trembling, as angry as they were terrified, lifted their chins and stared, as if daring me to kill them.

“I will not harm you,” I said softly, advancing slowly on the group. My approach alarmed them, and the entire mass of bodies and limbs pressed harder against the wall. They had no webbing and had no idea of what I said. So, I settled on the one word I knew they’d understand, the one word I hoped would make a difference.

“Torrance.”

The shouting and crying died down, like I’d uttered a spell of silence.

“Torrance,” I said again, gruffly this time, just the simple sound of her name wrapping tightly around me, making me ache.

One woman near the front of the group, one of those who’d held my gaze and not cried and screamed, straightened. Black hair with stripes of yellowish pink rustled around her shoulders as she spoke.

“Torrance? What about Torrance?”

What about her...

How could I possibly explain it all? Explain that she was my wife, my mate. My sole reason for living and also the reason I would someday walk happily into death’s darkness?

“Torrance,” I said again. I gestured back the way I’d come through the ship. “I’ll take you to her. I know where she is. Torrance. Torrance.”

I tried to keep my voice calm and steady. I knew enough about humans, having imprisoned my own, that they could be flighty in their fear. I couldn’t afford to lose one of them in the ship, or to have one hurt herself.

“Do you think he has Torrance?” another woman asked. She had brown skin and black hair that fell in tightly-wound, kinky curls to her shoulders. “Are we supposed to go with him?”

“Fuck this!” said another woman. “He’s just like the one who took Suvi!”

“The one who took Suvi?” I couldn’t stop myself from asking the question, even though I knew they wouldn’t understand. Suvi was likely another human female, and someone had taken her.

I had a feeling I knew exactly who it was.

Cursed skies, Skalla, you better not have harmed her.

I would have to deal with that later. Right now, I needed to convince these women to come with me. That, or essentially abduct them myself and hope my wife forgave me.

“Torrance,” I said again, once again gesturing out of the ship.

“He’s not like the one who took Suvi,” someone in the middle said. “That guy was crazy. He didn’t try to talk to us. Just snatched her and disappeared. He’s trying to talk to us, trying to lead us somewhere.”

“Trying to lead us right into a trap?” the first woman with the stripey hair asked.

“Do we have another choice?” asked the woman with black curls. “It seems pretty obvious he just killed all the soldiers and crew. We can’t fight him.”

I held my hands up in what I had meant to be a placating gesture, but it made several of the women scream, so I quickly lowered them.

I stepped backwards slowly, showing that I was not trying to get closer. Not trying to force them to go with me. It was a bit of a deception – if they did not come easily, I would take them anyway, for their own good – but it seemed to be working. Some of the women started to, ever so slightly, relax.

“I think we should at least go outside,” said the curly-haired woman. “See if Torrance is out there. How would he know her name if she wasn’t with him?”

I grimaced, hoping the fact that Torrance wasn’t directly outside waiting for them wouldn’t cause too much turmoil.

“We all go, or none of us do,” said the stripey-haired one.

“You have no choice,” I muttered. “I cannot leave you here.”

Though none of them understood, it was decided by a quick, whispered vote that they would all venture outside. Once they’re out there, and they see Torrance isn’t there, I must be prepared for them to try to run.

I led the group back out of the machine. When we passed the bodies of the soldiers, many of the women gasped and started crying anew. One of them stopped to vomit before shakily carrying on.

We stepped out of the machine and onto cold grey rock. As anticipated, questions of, “Where’s Torrance?” began to circulate.

None of them were running, though.

At least, not until they saw Sceadulyr.

He stepped out of a shadowy, hidden place by the machine, creating an uproar among the humans.

“Don’t let them run,” I grunted, lifting my hands and using my power to raise the grey stone into high walls that trapped the humans. One of them got away, the one with the brown skin, sprinting past me, her kinky black curls flying. She didn’t get far – I heard her gasp and shout when Sceadulyr grabbed her.

I hadn’t lost any of the other ones. They were all secured, now, in the centre of a ring of high stone walls that I knew they would not be able to scale.

“I can take her back to Sionnach first, then,” I said, turning back to Sceadulyr and the one woman who’d gotten past me.

But Sceadulyr did not look at me. Did not look as though he’d even heard me. He’d caught the woman by the arm, his pale fingers clasped around her bare wrist as she struggled to get away.

One by one, like candles being lit, the stars on his map returned, spreading outward from the place he touched her.

“I am afraid you will not be taking this woman to Sionnach, Wylfrael,” he said. A wicked grin unfolded on his face as his gaze finally flicked to mine. “It seems I no longer require your assistance. Consider the bargain fulfilled and your debt paid.”

Before I could say anything else, he’d scooped up the woman into his arms and launched into the air, his wings spreading like night as he created a sky door and went through it.

Well, that had complicated things. On the one hand, I was immensely relieved to be free of Sceadulyr’s deal. On the other hand, I didn’t think my wife was going to be happy about what had just happened.

But that woman was clearly Sceadulyr’s mate. She’d brought back his star map, and I had no right to intervene now.

Yet another thing I will have to deal with later, I grumbled, returning to the group of women I’d ensconced in the ring of stone.

They screamed and cried and fought, just like Torrance once had, but I accomplished my goal. One by one, I brought them through the sky door and back to Sionnach.

THERE WAS MUCH CELEBRATION upon our return. The human women in the group and Torrance all cried human tears of joy when they were reunited on the summer-warmed land of Sionnach. I hung back with Aiko, Shoshen, and Ashken as the women hugged and cried and laughed.

“We thought you were a goner! We had no idea you were still alive!” the stripey-haired one, whom I now knew was named Min-Ji, said, hugging Torrance so tightly I almost wanted to growl in warning to make her loosen her grip. But Torrance seemed happy, so I held back.

“No, I wasn’t. I mean, I almost was, but...” Torrance’s lovely gaze slid to me. “My husband saved me.”

A beat of silence.

“Excuse me, all this space travel must have completely fucked my hearing,” Min-Ji said. “Did you just say, husband?”

Through the rest of the afternoon, Torrance told her friends all about what had happened, or a version of it, at least. I noticed she left out some of my less noble moments. She didn’t tell them I’d imprisoned her, or that I’d gone on to kill her. Instead, the story she told was one that I wished we could have had. A story of two mates finding each other, learning to trust each other, and falling in love.

Perhaps that was the story we’d gotten in the end. We’d just taken a longer, thornier path to get there.

After Torrance had told her story, I suggested to my wife that we all go inside. Some of the women were looking frightfully pale, something I knew by now was not good. Who knew when they’d last eaten?

Torrance agreed, and together we led the others into the kitchen. The women found places to sit and stand while Aiko flitted about, looking pleased beyond measure to have so many people to feed. She passed mugs of sweetened milk and slices of bread out like it was the most exciting thing she’d ever done.

“I’m so glad you’re alright,” Min-Ji said, leaning against the counter beside my wife as I wrapped my arm around Torrance’s shoulders. “Now we just need to figure out what to do about Suvi and Marta.”

Torrance frowned.

“When I saw they weren’t here, I’d assumed the worst and that... that they hadn’t made it, the way I wouldn’t have made it without Wylfrael. What happened?”

I hadn’t had a chance yet to tell her of what had happened with Sceadulyr – the tearful reunion had taken precedence over all else.

“I believe Suvi is the human Skalla took,” I cut in. “Sceadulyr found his mate among this group – Marta, I assume – and took her back to the Shadowlands.”

“And you didn’t stop him?” Torrance asked, her eyes widening.

“She brought back his star map. She is his mate. I had no right to intervene.”

“But he just took her!” Torrance snapped, and the other women nodded vigorously, in agreement with her and unable to understand anything I said. “We have to get her back!”

“My priority in that moment was to keep the rest of the women safe,” I responded. “Engaging Sceadulyr in battle would not have accomplished that. He had not opened a sky door at that point, and he had more power. I likely would have died and left everyone at his mercy.”

“At his mercy. Like he has much of that,” she scoffed, crossing her arms over her chest, over the place I knew her scar lingered. “He only helped me to get access to your star map. He would have let me die!”

“Sceadulyr is many things, but he would not let harm come to his own mate,” I asserted. “She will be safe in the Shadowlands. Besides, beloved, she will starburn, if not now, then soon. And when that time comes, she will need him.”

“I still don’t like this,” she muttered. “We all should stick together.”

“I can promise to visit the Shadowlands to check on them, if that would make you happy,” I said, hating how upset she was by this. “But I cannot take her away from him. He would fight me, and now that he has a star map, he would follow me. No other stone sky god would support me in this endeavour, either, so he could easily rally allies to his cause to destroy me and this castle, putting all of us at risk.”

I’d almost killed Sceadulyr merely for dancing Torrance out of the room at the gathering. Stealing another stone sky god’s bride from his world entirely was cause for death.

“Well, what about Suvi? Surely this can’t also apply to her! What if Skalla hurt her?!”

“Man, it’s hard to follow what you guys are saying only understanding one of you,” Min-Ji lamented. “What’s he saying, Tor?”

Torrance sighed tightly, no doubt trying to figure out how to explain nuances of stone sky culture she only just was beginning to understand herself.

“We can’t rescue Marta,” she said. “There’s a lot to unpack, but basically, she’s that other god, Sceadulyr’s, destined mate. If Wylf tried to take her back, he’d probably die, and maybe even all of us, too, in the ensuing battle. But he’s promised to go check on them periodically to make sure Marta is alright. He says that Sceadulyr wouldn’t hurt her.”

Groans and cries of dismay went through the group. They disliked it as much as Torrance did, but there was little to be done.

“So, what were you saying about Suvi, then?” Min-Ji asked. “We can’t rescue her either?”

“If Skalla was still mate-mad, and he hurt her with his full strength, there will be nothing left to rescue,” I said grimly. Torrance shot me a look that my webbing could not translate but that I knew was something along the lines of, you are not helping.

But I wanted to. I wanted so badly to. I wanted to do anything for Torrance, and for her friends, if it would make her happy.

“I can go check on them, too, assuming they are still alive,” I offered. “I cannot know their location for sure, but if they are on Bohnebregg, I can at least go there and see what has become of them.”

“But... without the council’s power...”

“Yes. I know.”

Without the council’s power, I’d likely die facing a berserker Skalla if he hadn’t already died while killing his own mate.

“I don’t want that,” Torrance stammered. “I don’t want you to fight him if it means you might die!”

I brushed my fingers along her cheekbone, and she closed her sad eyes.

“I can try to avoid battle with him, if he is even there. I can simply try to locate Suvi and see if she is alive, then leave.”

“But what if she is alive and in danger? What if he’s still mate-mad or going berserk or both? We can’t leave her there,” Torrance pressed.

“Beloved, if he remained mate-mad for very long after finding her, if he was in the same state as when I last fought him, she will not be alive. If she lives, then he has calmed.”

It was the scenario I hoped for, but one I considered unlikely at this point.

Torrance took a shaky breath and turned to her friends.

“Wylf says he might know where Suvi is. He can’t take her away, but he can check on her, make sure she’s alright.”

She looked at me then, whispering, “Please, please be careful.”

BOHNEBREGG WAS MOSTLY how I remembered it – wide blue rivers, bright sun, gold-tipped rushes, and green stalks of grass swaying in balmy breezes.

Skalla’s palace, though, looked different. It looked like half of it had been smashed to pieces, and only recently rebuilt. I could not tell if that was a good sign or not for what I’d find. I circled the palace in the air, my gaze tracking over its sprawling pavilion-like structure on the banks of this world’s largest river. Memories rushed through me. Memories of Skalla and me, and of our fathers, flying through this sky, bathing in that river.

I could see nothing useful up here. I’d have to land. On silent wings, I did so, stalking through rushes and grass taller than I was, heading for the back of the property, away from the river. The sound of water trickled everywhere, which told me the palace’s many fountains were still working.

I came across one of those fountains now as I exited the swaying plant-life. At the back of the property there was a large garden with stones to walk on. A huge stone basin with a carved statue of a Bohnebregg warrior pouring water from a barrel back into the basin below, creating the sound of water. I remembered that fountain, though there was a crack in it now that I did not recall.

Slowly, keeping my eyes moving at all times, I circled around the fountain, heading closer to the main house. Most of the walls were open to the air in this palace, so I’d be able to see inside much of the structure just by walking around it.

But I didn’t get that far.

Because, stretched out on a bed of river reeds cushioned with soft leather, lying between the fountain and the house, was a human.

A very obviously pregnant human.

She was small, like Torrance, though there was no denying the swell of her abdomen. She lay on her back, one hand flung over her eyes, the other resting atop her rounded stomach. She was nearly nude, wearing only a Bohnebregg garment comprised of glittering metallic threads that barely covered her heavy breasts and dark gold pubic hair. The hair on her head was a bright yellowed-silver, and it spilled across the bed and over the edge.

“Suvi.”

I said her name out loud, though I knew it was a bad idea. But I knew Torrance would want details. She’d want me to talk to Suvi, find out what had happened and how she was doing now.

Suvi’s hand ripped away from her face, and wide, light grey eyes met mine.

She tried to sit up quickly, but was impeded by her stomach. I stepped towards her, to help her, but she sucked in a huge breath and screamed.

“Skalla!”

I did not have time to decide whether to stay or fly. Did not have time to consider the fact that her calling Skalla’s name was probably a very good sign that he was here, sane, and that she trusted him. I spun, and prepared to fight.

Skalla slammed out of the house with so much power, so much rage, I was certain he was still berserk. His wings sliced like blades until his body slammed mine, knocking me to my back.

Instinctively, I brought up my hands to block him from gripping my throat, remembering how he’d nearly strangled me last time. He breathed heavily, growls ripping from his throat, scales rippling with aggression, his one remaining eye fixed on my face.

But slowly, slowly, something came into that eye. Something I thought I maybe recognized.

“Wylfrael?”

He knows me.

I was not prepared for the rush of emotion I felt at that. The affection. The relief. I’d lost my parents and all the Sionnachans I’d once known, and I’d thought I’d lost him, too.

“It’s me, cousin,” I said. “It’s me.”

Skalla got off of me, pulling me up with him. We both turned around to find the bed now empty, Suvi having no doubt fled inside.

“I’m sorry I scared her,” I said. “It was not my intention.”

“What is your intention, Wylfrael? Why are you here?”

“I am here because my own human mate demands that I make sure her friend is alive,” I said. My relief at finding him sane, and his mate alive, was rapidly being replaced with anger. “You are one to speak of my intentions,” I hissed, “When you yourself crashed into Sionnach and almost destroyed everything. You almost killed me twice.”

His thick, scaly tail swept over the stone, his snout tightening.

“I barely remember that. I remember when the madness started, and with my last bits of reason, I went to Sionnach, because I trusted that you would do whatever it took to keep others safe from me.”

“I tried,” I said. “We fought over many worlds. I nearly died, and spent eons recuperating in some foreign desert, under red mountains. Then, you crashed into that world, too. I took you to Heofonraed, but they would not help me.”

“They would not help you either?” he asked, sounding surprised. “Not long after I found Suvi and rationality returned to me, I went to them. Suvi wanted to find out what happened to the other women. But they would not open their gates or hear my petition for information.”

“There is much that I must tell you,” I said darkly. I filled him in on my recent trip to Heofonraed with Torrance. Unlike the censored version that Torrance had told her friends, I gave him all the details on how they’d fooled me into killing her and how I’d gone to Sceadulyr after.

“Ill tidings,” Skalla said, turning his head to look at the house that his mate had retreated into. If not for the mangled eye, he looked almost exactly as he once had. His hair no longer wild and tangled, but oiled and smooth, tied into a long braid. The beautiful Bohnebregg prince I’d always loved.

“Clearly, the council thought you’d die. It’s an easy way to kill a stone sky god, to target his mortal mate that way. Cowardly,” his voice hardened, fangs flashing. “Pathetic. What is their purpose?”

“I don’t know. But I’ve warned every stone sky god Sceadulyr and I have come across in our travels, told them not to take their mates there or try to join.”

Skalla ran his hand down his braid and hissed a sigh.

“This can mean nothing good. This is something we will have to address, and soon. His gaze softened, turned far away. “Right now, I have little room in my head or heart for anything but her and the babe.”

“I understand,” I muttered, already wanting to return to Torrance’s side and forget everything that was going on with the council. “Congratulations, by the way. I couldn’t help but notice.”

Skalla grunted.

“I am going to ignore the fact that you saw so much of my mate’s body just now. Otherwise, I’d have to kill you.”

“You already almost did. Twice.”

Skalla fully faced me.

“I am sorry for that, Wylfrael,” he said, and I could hear the honest regret and pain in his words. “I am endlessly thankful that I was not successful. I would have come to Sionnach, to see what became of you, but I have not been able to tear myself away from Suvi, especially now that she carries my babe in her belly.”

“I am just glad you and I are both alive. And Suvi, too. I admit, I feared I’d find something very different here today. Torrance will be glad to hear the news. All the women will be. They are all together, safe on Sionnach.”

Skalla smiled, stretching his snout.

“And that news will make Suvi happy. I would take her for a visit to Sionnach, but I find myself concerned about bringing her through a sky door while pregnant.”

“Perhaps I could bring some of the other women here to see her?” I suggested. Skalla’s grin widened.

“Yes. Bring them any time. Suvi is healthy, but even with me here, I fear that she grows lonely. Being around her own kind, especially as the birth nears, would do her good.”

“Then it is done,” I promised. “I will bring them as soon as they wish to visit.” I doubted that would be long. As soon as I told them of their friend, I was certain they’d all be clamoring to come see her, Torrance at the front of the line.

“We will look forward to it,” Skalla rumbled. “Will you stay and take a meal with us, or will you return to Sionnach now?”

“I will go now,” I said. “I want to get back to Torrance.”

Skalla was already heading towards the palace, no doubt feeling the exact same way.

“It is good to see you, Wylfrael,” he called as he stepped into the shade of the pavilion. “Until we meet again.”

I took off into the air. But when I opened a sky door, it was not to Sionnach.

I had one more world to visit before I could finally go home.

OceanofPDF.com