Two Moons of Sera (24 page)

“Tor! Please!” I screamed, not caring what these women did.
I grabbed his cheeks and forced him to face me.

He looked straight through me, his eyes ablaze with flames.
He was lost.

“We have to go.” I pulled on his arm, his face—anything to
get him to move. Frantic, I punched him in the arm and screamed, but he merely
turned back to the cave wall.

“What are you doing to him?” I shrieked, squaring off
against the A’aihea women. If I couldn’t get him to break their spell, I would
have to break it for him.

The women only smiled and stopped singing. Heads bowed, they
stood like statues as the lava bubbled and rolled, taking on density and mass.
From its fiery depths emerged a figure. For a moment the being appeared to be
liquid, still pulsing with the flow of lava, but soon a woman’s frame
solidified.

The flames snuffed out with a whoosh, leaving us in a cloud
of smoke and ash. A muscular woman with skin almost as white as mine stood
stark naked between the sentries. Taller than the others, she matched Tor’s
height. Her smile looked almost predatory.

“
A’ai thouah
,” she cooed, her voice deep.

“
A’ai heyah
,” Tor replied.

My head snapped in his direction. The enthralled fire in his
eyes had gone out, and his stance relaxed—no longer the rigid frame of a man
entranced. Now he looked like the Tor I loved so dearly.

“Tor!” I rushed to his side and reached out to him. “We have
to leave here. This isn’t right.”

As I placed my hand on his chest, he stepped forward,
ignoring me.

The woman’s skin turned from white to tan, the color
deepening as her body cooled. I felt like my mind would shatter as her changing
skin and lazy, seductive smile entranced me.

“Who are you? Are you A’aihea?” I demanded, hurrying over
next to Tor. This was my place, by his side. He might be bewitched, but I wasn’t
going to sit by while they brainwashed him.

“Ahh, the Fish speaks the city man’s tongue.” The naked
woman spoke with a strange accent, elongating all of the vowels like taffy in
her mouth.

“What are you doing to him?” I demanded, forgetting to be
afraid despite the towering presence of the three A’aihea women.

“We do nothing. He has come home. We sing to bring the lost
home, and now he has returned. We have spared your friends, but you must go.”
She turned away, and the sentry nearest me stepped forward and grabbed my arm.

“
A’ai thouah
,” the lovely woman addressed Tor again.

He stood still, captivated by her as the sentry dragged me
away.

“Tor! Please!” I pleaded, but the sentry yanked me away
before I could touch him again.

The nude A’aihea spoke to Tor in a language I couldn’t
comprehend. That dangerous, seductive smile still curled her lips, and she
offered him her hand. When they touched, their hands sparked to life, wreathed
in fire. These truly were Tor’s people.

“No!” I screamed.

The blaze from their hands ignited the length of his arm and
spread across Tor’s entire body, filling the cave with an unbearable heat. I
stumbled against the sentry pulling at me, who stood impassionate with one hand
gripping my arm, the other clutching her staff.

Tor turned his head and looked my direction for the first
time since we’d arrived. His face was aflame, but I could still see his blue
eyes. Sparks lit them, but there was no recognition in their depths.

“I love you,” I sobbed, tears trapped behind my membranes.
If I let them fall, I feared I would wash away with the tears, until there was
nothing left of me but a desiccated husk.

A glint of recognition flashed in Tor’s eyes, and hope
cracked inside my heart. Maybe, just maybe, he would realize what was
happening.

But the recognition faded as flames encompassed him, pulling
him into their embrace, leaving me with nothing but the memory of his features.

Tor was gone.

He’d walked into the fire without so much as a glance back.
I know he saw me, despite the fire burning within his eyes and the spell of the
singing. I knew Tor was there—if only for a single moment—and he left anyway.

Wishful thinking would get me nowhere—he was gone. He’d left
me standing in the darkness, abandoned. In all my years of solitude, I’d never
felt more profoundly isolated than I did at that moment. Sound left my ears,
air left my lungs, and I was utterly alone. The finality of his departure
resounded in my empty heart.

Time began again, unwilling to allow me even a moment of
reprieve. Heat filled the space as liquid magma flowed down the far wall.
Colors danced and moved together, spilling from one to the next. Yellows and
reds blurred, and nothing remained still for even a moment.

And Tor was gone.

The poison of my heartbreak spread through my system. It
wrenched through me, twisting my soul, and I sought some kind of answer to the
questions I didn’t dare ask aloud. How could he do it? How could he leave if he
loved me the way I loved him?

The sentry broke my stupor, pressing the tip of her spear
against my side. Tor was gone. I didn’t care what she did, and I would bleed
until there was nothing left, but I would not move. Not without him, not
without some kind of answer.

“Go,” she growled as her spearhead ripped my shirt.

“Not without him,” I replied.

The flame that had once been Tor danced before me, and I
allowed its rhythmic pulse to dull my senses and hypnotize me. I would’ve given
anything to simply not feel. What would happen if I walked into it after him?

A strong hand gripped my upper arm and pulled me back toward
tunnel. This A’aihea woman was taller than me, and her dark skin bulged with
muscle. There was no point fighting her, and as my world collapsed around me, I
had no desire to try.

Tor was
gone
!

Tightening her gasp on my arm, she wrenched me to the side
and dragged me from the cave. At first I fought as hard as I could to get away.
I tried using my strength against her and twisting away from her grasp, but no
matter what I did, she just smirked and gripped me tighter. When I lost feeling
in my arm from her viselike hold, the futility of my battle drained all fight
from me.

Fear and loneliness weighed me down. My life consisted of
nothing but death, both real and figurative. My mother, Tor.... I would never
see Mintoch or Traz again. Gods, my
mother
.... I’d had no time to
properly mourn her, to even come to terms with the idea she was gone. Now, her
loss, compounded with Tor’s departure, was more than I could bear.

“Go,” the sentry demanded. She thrust me in front of her and
prodded my flesh with her spear tip, likely tired of dragging me.

I continued along and lifted the membrane from my eyes so my
tears could fall freely at last. I didn’t care if they saw what I was. I was
already barefoot. What could they do to me that could compare to the moment Tor
stepped forward and took that woman’s hand?

“You’re A’aihea,” I stated.

She shifted her staff to one hand, no longer pointing it
toward me.

“Sualwet,” she replied, stepping alongside me and nodding to
my feet.

The dark cave didn’t give her pause as she navigated through
the black tunnels and around a corner. Ahead, dim light filtered through the
waterfall, and the water from when I’d passed through earlier still dampened
the ground. It seemed so long ago that I had chased Tor through this dank
cavern.

“Yes.” I nodded, too tired to care what she thought.

Instead of impaling me with her spear as I expected, she
stopped and faced me. After picking up a string of my wet hair, the sentry
cocked her head to the side. “Erdlander.”

“Yes.”

She snorted and left me behind her. I stood for a moment,
allowing her to gain some distance. I could turn around, go after Tor, or find
another way through the cave.

But he was gone. I had to keep reminding myself that. He’d
made the decision to leave me. The idea that he had no control over the A’aihea’s
siren song was only a pitiful attempt to shield myself from shattering under
the weight of what he’d done. I gasped, and even the air itself seemed
determined to leave me. Pain tightened my chest, and I couldn’t breathe.

The sentry pounded her spear shaft on the ground. Ahead, the
waterfall churned against the rock, and I longed for the purity of the cool
liquid. The sea was so far away; it may as well have never existed at all, if
not for the memory of its peaceful embrace. My mother had been right: beyond
the cove was nothing but heartbreak and pain.

The waterfall washed over me with a rush of frigid
refreshment and, for a moment, I considered just staying still.

Too soon, the other side appeared and I was shoved out into
the bright sun with the sharp tip of a spear. The sentry stalked behind me, her
body surrounded by a fog of steam.

“Go,” she commanded, pointing to the other side of the clearing
where I had left Lace.

With the sun shining above us, I could see her clearly.
Dark, smooth skin covered her, and she lacked any hair at all, even eyebrows.
On her right arm, a tattooed black band wrapped around her upper arm. Along the
length of her bicep, a pattern of triangular scars traced a line all the way up
to her neck.

“What are you going to do with us?” I demanded, refusing to
take another step. Let her kill me.

Her lips curled into the shape of a smile but there was
nothing friendly about it. “Go.”

“No.”

She swung her staff wide and slapped me on the arm with it,
knocking me to the side. I stumbled, but caught her gaze, which burned with the
same fire I’d seen in Tor’s earlier. After stalking forward, she brought the
staff to her side. I ached to scream, but wouldn’t give her the satisfaction.

The moon was high, and fatigue reminded me that I hadn’t
eaten anything but a meal bar since she woke up, which seemed a whole lifetime
ago.

She growled, and a spark flared in her eyes. “Go.”

“What do you want? I don’t have anything!” I held my hands
out, knowing I had no value to her. They had taken Tor, I wasn’t a threat, and
I didn’t even have my bag anymore. There wasn’t anything else they could take
from me except my life.

“Go to others,” she said. “Others wait.”

Lace...?

“Go.” Her back straightened, her spear at the ready.

When we crossed into the forest, another armed A’aihea
woman, tan and glorious, stood over Lock, Lace, and Elle. They sat at the base
of a tree while the bare-chested guard glared at me.

My escort shoved me toward them and spoke with her
counterpart in hushed tones.

“Are you all right?” I whispered to my friends.

The second sentry greeted me with a growl. She pointed at
me, and a spark from her fingertip flew onto my flesh. It fizzled and went out.
She raised an eyebrow and stepped forward.

Her strange words danced through the afternoon air, but I
didn’t understand a single thing.

The sentry from the cave spoke to the one staring at me and
pointing to my feet. Her eyes flashed in recognition at the word
Sualwet
.

Behind me, Lock whimpered, and I heard Lace’s hand smack
against his skin.

“Come,” the first sentry announced, setting the butt of her
spear on the ground.

The others stared at me, waiting for their cue. What did
they think I could do? I had no more an idea about these people than they did,
but I was the only one who had ever lived outside the Erdlander city or camp.
To them I must’ve seemed like a great adventurer. In reality I was just a girl
with a broken heart.

“Where?” I demanded, standing.

“Come, now.” She turned away from me.

“
No
.” My voice was small, but I straightened my back
and widened my stance. They had taken Tor from me, but I was not going to let
them shove us off a cliff somewhere.

My escort turned back; her cruel smile had returned. Black
eyes bore straight into me, exposing the depths she was capable of. “Come.”

The second sentry spoke in whispered tones, but a glare from
her companion cut her off. She also had a triangular pattern on her arm but no
black band.

“Come to village. Others speak Erdlander more.”

The women walked away from us, their intention that we
follow, but my companions remained sitting.

“What do we do?” Lock asked, his eyes darting from me to
Lace and to the sentries.

“We go with them.” I brushed off my pants and reached out a
hand to help him.

“What are they going to do to us? Where’s Tor? What the
jikmae
happened to Tor?” Lock’s voice rose in pitch as I helped him up.

“We have to get out of here!” Lace scurried to her feet,
prepared to square off against the sentries, but she didn’t get the chance to
make her move before the sentry who had guided me spoke.

“Erdlanders! Come!”

Fire sparked in the dry air as the two women glared at us.

“We have to go. Come on.” I pulled Elle to her feet and began
walking. I could only hope the others would follow and not cause problems until
I could figure out what these women wanted from us.

I kept my head high despite the throbbing ache of losing
Tor. It burned in my chest, a slow acid working its way through me, consuming
me from within.

My initial escort met my eyes with a nod and led the way.
The second sentry waited for the others to catch up, prodding them to follow
with her spear, and finally took up the rear to ensure none of us tried to
escape.

“What the hell, Sera?” Lace hissed. “Where the
jikmae
were you? Where is Tor?”

“I’ll tell you later.”

“What do you mean ‘later’? There may not
be
a later.
If these A’aihea really are the Devil’s Daughters, they’re going to boil us
alive before they eat us. Maybe they’ll keep Lock alive long enough to try
breeding him, but then they’ll throw him off the peak into the sea.”

“That’s not very comforting...,” Lock mumbled.

I turned to glare at Lace, my voice barely audible as I
spoke. “Tor went with them. He left. Besides, we don’t have much choice.”

“Oh, my gods,” she raged as anger flushed her features. “
Men!
Sal and Tor and Lock, they’re all the same! You can’t trust any of them!”

“Shut
up
, Lace,” I hissed.

Her voice trembled as she snarled at me. “Why aren’t
you
angry?”

Lace’s instinct was to fight. It was how she coped, but that
wasn’t me. Fighting hadn’t helped me get through my mother’s death or the
horrible things I saw at the camp, and anger alone wasn’t going to get us out
of here. I needed time to think.

But Lace was wrong about one thing. I
was
angry—angry
with Tor, with myself—I just knew acting on that anger would only get us
killed.

“We have to find out more before we do anything rash. I
survived living at the camp without you ever knowing what I was. Trust me, we
need to follow them, get more information, and find out where Tor is.”

“
Jikmanae
Tor.”

“Yeah, well....” My voice caught, and the tears I’d been
swallowing ballooned in my throat, snuffing out my words.

We didn’t follow any clear path or direction I could
discern, and instead our route was haphazard. After a few miles, I was lost,
unable to imagine where the cave had been. The mountain range loomed in the
distance, towering over us despite the heights we had climbed. To make matters
worse, my feet bled raw from running through the forest and cave. The ground
had sliced into the webbing between a few toes, leaving them torn and tattered.

Every time one of us faltered, the rear sentry would use her
spear to remind us this wasn’t a friendly hike through the woods. We trudged
forward, bags strapped to sweaty backs, until the sun began to rise.

Our route wound around the first mountain. My ears popped
from the altitude, but we never slowed. Soon we were high above sea level. By
the time our escort paused along the path, the trees had thinned, and the air
had cooled considerably.

She pointed to a rocky path, which scaled the mountainside
ahead.

“We have to stop soon,” I reminded her, my exhaustion
nothing compared to that of my companions. “The sun will be out soon.”

Lock was out of shape, and Elle and Lace were now two days
without whatever medications and stimulants the Erdlanders plied them with.
They weren’t going to make it if we kept going at such a pace.

“No,” she replied, her face hard.

“We’re exhausted. We can’t keep walking. Someone will get
hurt.”

She shrugged and turned back to the path.

Without warning, Lace loosed a shrill scream and pitched
forward. She tackled the A’aihea woman, knocking the staff from her grasp. Lace
pulled her fist back to deliver a blow, but the sentry simply laughed instead
of fighting back.

“Lace, no!” I shouted.

Too late.

Flames burst from the sentry’s flesh, circling her arms the
way I had seen Tor do. Lace’s clothes ignited, disintegrating to ash at the
fire’s touch, and she shrieked in terror.

“Stop!” I rushed forward and wrenched Lace away from the
woman.

The second sentry kept Elle and Lock away, despite their
screams and Elle’s willingness to bleed at the end of the spear. I covered Lace’s
body with mine to smother the flames still licking at her form. The scent of
charred flesh and melted clothing surrounded me.

When I pulled away, she moaned, unable to move. Her skin was
raw, and blisters bloomed all over her exposed flesh. The clothes she had been
wearing had burned away, as had most of mine, but I was unharmed.

“A’ai heyah, sha lengna thah!”
the second sentry
shouted at me, her eyes wide and bright blue. She continued speaking and
gesturing at me, her agitation rising as she addressed the woman who’d set my
friend on fire.