Текст книги "Alien god"

Автор книги: Ursa Dox

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CHAPTER EIGHT Wylfrael

The flight to my castle was mercifully short. I was in no shape for a long flight, even though the human female I carried weighed so little. I still wasn’t entirely sure why or how she’d ended up in my arms. I only knew that I could no longer stand about in the woods wasting time when I needed to check on the Sionnachans who lived here. Since I hadn’t killed her yet, and had decided not to leave her, it seemed the only option left was to bring her with me.

I can always kill her later.

But even as I thought the words, I knew that they were hollow. She was too small, too fragile, too brutalized by the snow. She’d come with the invaders, yes, but she’d raised no weapon against me. I wondered what my peaceful Sionnachan mother Sashkah would say, were she still alive to see me kill such a weak, defenceless female in my midst.

I needn’t have wondered. I knew what she would have said. It was something she’d told me many times throughout my life, whenever I got too brash or too angry or too proud.

Oh, Wylfrael, she’d murmur, stroking her hand over my hair, you have too much of the stone sky in you and not enough of Sionnach.

Violent spasms went through the woman’s body as I held her to my chest. My wings churned much more slowly than they should have, as if through sludge, even though the air was crisp and clear.

Once past the previously human-infested valley, everything looked and sounded and smelled just as it ought to have. The forest thickened beneath us, and ahead the Sionnachan mountains rose up in a dark, snow-peaked band. The sun had begun its descent behind the peaks, staining the sky a red so familiar I could have conjured it behind closed eyes no matter how much time I spent away.

Everything was just as I’d left it.

And yet, nothing felt the same.

I tilted forward, wings relaxing open to catch a drift of wind downwards. The woman in my arms tensed when she realized we were landing, another tremor going through her tiny frame.

I landed on my feet, wings sending the top layer of snow skittering away from us. We were in a clearing – an open space between the thick forest behind and the base of the mountains ahead. I was relieved not to see my castle. Good. That old Riverdark spell still holds.

The warlords of Riverdark were powerful mages. Back when he’d been alive, my father Cynewylf had brought one here. The Riverdark mage had owed him a great debt from a previous affair, and as a result he’d agreed to protect our family home with a shielding spell. It made the entire property invisible, even to those who knew where to look.

I placed the human down onto her feet. I watched her carefully, wondering if she’d collapse or try to run.

I had to hand it to her. She was made of slightly stronger stuff than I’d thought.

She chose to run.

She didn’t get very far. A few weak and wobbly steps were all she managed before she fell forward onto her hands and knees in the snow.

Seems her heart is stronger than her legs.

Sighing, I crossed to her and hauled her upright, keeping a firm grip on her upper arm.

“No more running,” I snapped. “I don’t have the patience for it.”

It was true. Now that the fighting had ended, the pain of my wounds was making itself known. If it had just been the human weapons, that would have been one thing. Barely worth bandaging, really. But Skalla had mauled me before I’d even begun battling the humans. Even before this whole thing had started, I had not been at full strength, still weakened from my first fight with my cousin.

The woman said something to me, and I growled in annoyance. I didn’t understand her.

They must be a young race. Or, at least, this language is.

I’d visited Rúnwebbe not long before my first battle with my cousin, and I’d given her a gift in exchange for a fresh bit of her web. She and her web collected whispers from all over the universe, and those whispers included language. But if this human’s language hadn’t existed in its current form back then, then the small pieces of web I’d absorbed into my ears would be useless where this woman was concerned. Only the source web in Rúnwebbe’s world continued collecting whispers, its threads updating as languages morphed and expanded. Once a bit was cut off and used, it could only translate languages that had existed before it got severed. Maerwynne did say I’d been gone for many mortal generations...

The woman spoke again, something that sounded like a question. A question I did not understand and could not answer.

If I want to understand her or interrogate her, I’ll have to see Rúnwebbe first. Get fresh webbing.

But one thing at a time. For now, I just needed to get inside my blasted castle before I bled out all over the snow.

I spoke the Riverdark word for home, mirreth, and then grunted in satisfaction when the castle shimmered into view. The castle was comprised of three ancient, gigantic trees. The trio of trees had been hollowed out, with rooms and stairs and walls built inside them by my father. The three shining, conical towers were connected by above-ground tunnels made of translucent, multi-coloured crystal – the shards of many trees melded together. Some of the tunnels ran along the ground. Others were high up in the air, suspended between the top floors of the towers.

Apparently, the human was not as satisfied as I was by the apparition, because she renewed her attempts to run with a vengeance. Her feet skidded and slipped in the snow, her whole body straining away from my grip.

“I thought I told you, ‘No more running,’” I said flatly, beginning to walk and hauling her along with me. She stumbled, and by the suddenly stubborn look on her tiny face, I wondered if she was about to stop walking beside me altogether. If she was going to collapse to her knees and force me to drag her or pick her up again. She seemed to decide against it, though, which was smart. If she had let all her weight go like that, my strength probably would have popped her arm out of its socket before I could stop it.

“Good,” I grunted as she walked, not exactly impressed, but something close to pleased by her actions. There was something to be said for walking with your own power, even when the path ahead seemed dark. Plus, I was glad I didn’t have to carry her kicking and screaming inside. What would Yllsha think?

It jarred me, the grief when I remembered that Yllsha, the endlessly competent Mistress of Affairs who’d run this castle when I’d last been here, was long dead. Though I felt as if I’d only seen her days ago, she would not be here. Neither would Notto, the Master of the Grounds, with his flashing eyes and smoky, rumbling guffaw.

Who was left?

Would anyone even be here at all?

I opened the green door to the centre tower and pulled the human inside with me. I had no idea what would greet me here after being gone for so long.

But by the stars, I was about to find out.

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CHAPTER NINE Wylfrael

The door closed behind us with a soft thud. The entrance hall was just as I’d left it – a wide, tall space with dark green, shimmering walls. The floor, like the tunnels that connected the three towers to each other, was made of hundreds of shards of trees melded together. The colours had been chosen and placed carefully, creating a large pink, silver, and purple starburst in a deep green sky. I could see the floor’s design clearly – there was light. Firestones flickered along divots and shelves in the natural shape of the walls, casting a fractured orange glow over the interior.

So, someone is here, then.

Firestones only burned for a dozen days or so before they had to be replaced.

Ahead of us was a curving staircase that led upwards to the higher floors of this centre tower, called the Day Tower. White sotasha fur carpet spilled down the steps like a stream of foaming water. At the back of the hall, another door led into the kitchen and laundry areas, and a door back there led outside to the gardens and barns.

“You can stop that, now,” I muttered, casting my eyes sideways and down at the human. She was still fighting against my grip, her strange eyes darting back and forth, her breath coming fast and quick between red lips. I frowned, tugging her close and leaning down to inspect her face. Had her lips and skin not had a blue and grey tint earlier? When I’d first found her in the snow? I was sure of it, but now her skin was all pink and crimson, her cheeks flaming and her lips darkest of all.

Perhaps humans had colour-changing hide? I’d met other races with such a feature. I raised my free hand, drawing a fingertip along her cheek. Her pulling and struggling ceased instantly. Her eyes went wide – so wide I could see that the golden-brown part in the centre was actually a circle, with white all the way around. Strangely enough, the black of her eye also seemed much more pronounced than it had been outside. Swallowing up the warmth. Colour changing eyes as well? To what purpose?

“What is the meaning of this? Your shifting skin and eyes?” I asked, drawing my finger along the hollow of space below her left eye. Her skin shocked me with just how soft and delicate it was, plush and supple, blooming heat beneath my touch.

I knew asking her questions was pointless right now. But I couldn’t stop myself. I needed to understand her, and by extension, the humans who’d invaded my world. She did not answer with words. She merely trembled for a moment, staring at my face. Then, her lips flattening into a grim line, she raised her hand and knocked my finger away.

I let her do it, having found no answers in my exploration of her cheek. When my finger dropped, her hand flattened against the side of her face, pressing against the places I’d touched her. As if trying to shield herself from further touches. Or trying to press comfort upon a wound.

Had that simple touch hurt her? Stone of the sky, humans were even weaker than I’d thought.

I made a conscious effort to loosen my grip on her upper arm. Just in case.

I did not have more time to dwell upon the human’s physical fragility. A sudden clatter of movement upon the stairs drew the woman’s attention along with my own.

“Sionnach preserve me! Is that... Is that you, Lord Wylfrael?”

A young Sionnachan woman stood upon the stairs, her upper half in shadow, as she’d halted, presumably due to shock, partway down where the firestone light only reached her legs.

“Yes,” I replied in the Sionnachan tongue. “I’ve returned.” Far later than I meant to...

“Oh... Oh, my! Shoshen! Shoshen!”

The Sionnachan woman bounded back up the way she’d come, her bushy tail a furred orange flash, continuing to call for someone I assumed was named Shoshen. A muffled, questioning reply came from somewhere up above, to which she barked, “The lord’s returned, you great bumble wit! Get down here at once!”

The commotion we’d brought had now clearly extended to the upper floors, as I heard the distinct sound of something dropping and smashing, followed by a string of panicky curses. A back-and-forth conversation ensued before two sets of Sionnachan feet in slippers began making haste down the stairs. The two stopped before me, panting slightly.

“Forgive me, my lord,” said the young woman. She flattened her pointed orange ears – ears so similar in shape to my own – in a show of deference. A quick whack of her tail against the other Sionnachan’s bottom had him flattening his ears as well.

“Yes, forgive us, Lord Wylfrael,” said the other Sionnachan, a young male who looked like he’d just entered adulthood. He seemed slightly younger than the woman with him. “We were not... Ah. We were not expecting you.”

“Nor was I expecting you,” I replied.

“Of course,” the woman said, her ears returning to their upright position. “When you were last here, the Mistress of Affairs would have been...”

“Yllsha,” I supplied. The absence of Yllsha, and Notto, and every other Sionnachan I’d known in this castle, pressed down on me like a physical weight. I was immortal. I had watched Sionnachans with their mortal blink of a lifespan die before. I’d lost many loved ones during my life, including my own parents. But I’d been there for those deaths. I’d presided over the Sionnachan death ceremonies. I’d gotten my chance to say goodbye. But this? It did not feel like Yllsha and the others were dead. It felt as if they’d just... Vanished. And that if I waited long enough, they’d walk through the kitchen door into this very hall, Yllsha reprimanding Notto and Notto grinning his cavalier grin.

It disoriented me. Yllsha and Notto still felt very much a part of my current life. But to these two before me, they were faceless ghosts of history.

“I am Aiko, my lord. I am the current Mistress of Affairs. This is my younger brother, Shoshen, Master of the Grounds. Yllsha and Notto are our ancestors.”

“Both of them?” I asked, surprised. I wondered if the human registered the shock in my tone of voice, because I felt her gaze snap to me from the side.

“Yes, my lord,” answered Aiko.

“They were our great great great... Forgive me, Lord Wylfrael, I do not know how great they were,” Shoshen said. “But they were our very far-back, very great grandparents.”

A soft chuckle escaped from my lips. The human jerked in my grasp, as if the sound had burned her.

“So those two finally gave in and married, then,” I said, the shadow of a smile still playing about my lips. I sorely wished I had been there for the wedding, and to meet their children and grandchildren. But this helped – meeting Aiko and Shoshen. Now that I looked closely, I could see some of Yllsha’s sharp yet warm competence in Aiko’s firmly raised chin. And though he seemed more timid than I’d known his ancestor to be, Shoshen had an echo of Notto’s mirth in his eyes.

“Speaking of marriage... Forgive me if the question is impertinent, my lord, but is this your... your...” Aiko’s green gaze fell on the human, who tensed under this new observation.

I clenched my fangs, halting a groan of irritation. They think that, like my father, I’ve found my mate on Sionnach.

“No,” I said flatly. “She’s one of the invaders who arrived during my absence. The others are dead or gone. She is the last of them.”

“Oh! So... she’s...” Aiko’s ears twitched as she clearly sought the right word for the situation.

“A prisoner.”

Aiko and Shoshen both inhaled sharply. The Sionnachans were peaceful and cooperative. They had no dungeons, no real crime to speak of. The word “prisoner” only existed in their language to use in a metaphorical sense. Prisoner of the mind. Prisoner of the heart.

Shoshen darted a look at his older sister, but she merely raised her downy orange arms in front of her, clenching her hands into fists and then opening them flat in a quick movement that meant “yes,” or “acknowledged.”

Though I knew she did not understand what I’d said, the human chose that moment to wrench herself from my loosened grip, as if in revolt against the idea of being a prisoner. With an annoyed sigh, I let her go, remaining in my place as she darted away from us. She ran to the base of the stairs, seeming to consider ascending, but no doubt realized that would trap her further. She hurried to the back of the hall.

“Oh! Oh!” Aiko said, her tail puffing up in panic. “Bring her back, Shoshen!”

Shoshen advanced slowly, his arms out to the side. The scene was an absurd one. Aiko and Shoshen were acting like a wild burrowbird had flown into the house. It made me laugh for the second time.

“She’s slow. She won’t get far.”

“My lord?” Shoshen said, turning back to me with a questioning look, waiting for explicit instructions.

The human used that moment of distraction to clumsily wrench open the door. She ran into the kitchen and out of sight.

My laughter died, giving way to cold impatience.

She’s slow. But wily, this one.

“Ready rooms for us upon our return. I want her in the highest chamber of the Dawn Tower. I will stay in the chamber directly below hers.” I strode across the hall. It was only when my feet slipped slightly on the smooth tree tile that I looked down. Melting snow had mixed with my blood, leaving wet silvery streaks along the floor. “I will require bandages.”

Aiko gasped.

“My lord! The blood! In all the commotion, I hadn’t noticed!”

“Apologies for the mess,” I said, frowning at the streaks on an otherwise spotless floor. “I can tell you’ve worked hard to keep things clean.”

“Do not apologize for that, Lord Wylfrael!” Aiko sputtered. “Please, rest now, and let Shoshen retrieve the prisoner!”

A mirthless smirk played about my lips. Shoshen looked like a strong enough Sionnachan lad. But he was young even by a mortal’s standards. A dewy, unsure innocence in his wide eyes made me think my escaped human, weak though she was, might be able to evade him.

“Prepare the rooms,” I reiterated as I resumed walking across the hall. My voice hardened when I reached the kitchen and saw the far door flung open, tiny footsteps leading out into the snow. “I will bring her back.”

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CHAPTER TEN Torrance

I staggered out into the snow without a plan, simply needing to get as far away from those people, those aliens, as I could. Some dull, distant part of me recognized I wasn’t thinking straight. That shock and trauma and adrenaline had reduced the rational part of my mind to a blubbering mess, allowing panicky instinct to take over. I just need to get away. If I can only be on my own for a bit to fucking think...

I trudged through shin-deep snow, knowing I wasn’t fast enough but not having any clue as to what to do about it. Any minute they’re going to come out that door and follow me...

I didn’t allow myself to look back. Just kept ploughing forward towards the treeline, grown dark and ominous. The sun had nearly entirely set, a bloodied streak of crimson glowing behind the mountains under an otherwise dark and starry sky. This planet had no moon, and I found the absence of it disorienting in the extreme.

How the fuck did we not know there were alien people so close by?

I’d seen the towering structure shimmer into existence, as if out of thin air, myself. Whatever shielded it must have also hidden it from our ship’s scanners. No way would the military have just let that go without investigating it if they knew how close it was to our base. They probably would have taken the aliens prisoner to study them...

Which is exactly what was happening to me, wasn’t it? I was the alien here. I was the one out of place. The one they wanted to trap. Maybe to study. Maybe to punish.

Why else would the winged one have saved me? I knew I couldn’t have gotten out of that snow alone. When I’d come to, he was there. He was the one holding me upright.

Saved me...

The phrase didn’t feel quite right. I doubted his actions were benevolent. He had to have hurt, probably even killed, some of the other humans to have forced them into such a quick retreat. An obscene amount of money had gone into this mission, and only a threat of terrible, existential proportions would have made the crew abandon it.

He didn’t save me. He just didn’t want death to take me out of his control.

The thought made my movements flighty and frantic. My lungs were cold fire, my throat agony, my legs on the brink of collapse.

I’m not going to make it much further.

I cried out in horrified shock when the snow directly in front of me rose up, like a tidal wave, freezing into a two-metre-tall barrier that blocked my path.

How is this even real? Even the snow doesn’t want me to leave!

Not knowing what else to do, in a defeated gesture of anguish, I kicked at the newly-formed wall. It accomplished nothing, which infuriated me, making me want to kick it again and again and again.

A sound from behind me, a single growled word, stopped me. The voice was gruff yet somehow smooth, like tearing silk, and I knew who’d called to me before I even turned around.

I turned around anyway.

Light spilling out from the open door behind him made him into a brutal silhouette. A winged shadow of carved stone and leather, velvet and ice, all black apart from the pinpricks of blue on his skin and the arresting flames of his gaze. One of his arms was raised. He flicked his hand in an almost leisurely gesture, and I heard the snow wall topple into a useless heap behind me.

It was him. He made the wall...

The snow wall had fallen, but I knew that I was more cornered than ever before. He didn’t need to speak for me to understand what his hand and his eyes and the looming archangel shadow of his body told me.

The night air was still but heavy with meaning, the truth loud in the snow-drenched silence.

He said nothing.

You cannot run from me, is what I heard.

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