Two Moons of Sera (27 page)

Elgon’s rumbling growl woke me. He stood by the flap of the
hut, crouched down, ready to spring. Keene had slept outside, but now I wished
he was inside with us.

I lurched for the priestess cloak and threw it on, pulling
my hair out of the opening on top, the way Velka had shown me. It was hot
beneath the fabric, but I could see better than I expected. The cloth was solid
in color but tiny holes made it possible to peer through the veil without
anyone seeing in.

As Elgon’s growl rose, I hurried to him and placed a hand on
his back. Was I calming him or hoping he would protect me? The fear of being
caught, captured, and thrown off a cliff gripped me.

Sev’s head poked through the opening. “Good.” She gestured
to the cloak. “Come.”

“What’s going on?”

She rolled her eyes in an almost comical response. If I didn’t
know how deadly she was, I might have laughed.

I pet Elgon again before kissing him on the head. ~
Stay
here Elgon,
~ I spoke in Sualwet.
~
No monsters outside, okay?
~

Night had taken over the sky, and the two moons shone
brightly overhead. Had there really been a time when there was only one? If
there was a picture of me on some ancient cave wall, I guessed anything was
possible.

“All called,” Sev said. “Keene gone already. We must walk.”
She grabbed my elbow and wrenched me forward out of my reverie.

“Walk where?”

“To A’ailia. The Qutha’ia have called congress. All go or
die.”

“This place is insane,” I muttered, walking alongside my friend—or
captor. I still wasn’t sure which.

“Girl with Fish feet. Yes, insane.”

At that, I had to wonder whether Sev was even able to make a
joke. If not, I was kind of mad at her. The last thing I needed was to be made
fun of.

Past the large fire, I followed them to a cave entrance
behind Keene’s hut and stepped inside. Once my eyes adjusted, I could see it
wasn’t a natural cave at all, but an excavated tunnel that bored straight into
the mountain.

“What is this place?” I wondered.

“Road to A’ailia. We walk.”

“Did someone make this?”

“Many, many died to dig, but the Qutha’ia would have it
done, and so it was.”

“Your Erdlander is getting much better.”

“Walk faster. We are late. Keene though it better to arrive
after others.” Sev scowled at me and strode ahead with her long legs.

Between the giant cloak and my unfamiliarity with the
landscape, I struggled to keep up, but I didn’t get the impression she would
wait for me. The floor of the tunnel was even and cool, similar to the stones I
found on the beach as a child, smoothed over a thousands years of tides beating
against the shore. How many souls had walked this path? How many had been as
afraid as me or as angry as Sev?

We walked for so long I lost sense of time. Was it was still
night? Deep within the mountain, the air was cool, and even with my cloak, I
shivered. The darkness completely obliterated any chance of me seeing, but Sev
created a small orb of fire, which kept us company on our walk. Tor had done
that once. It seemed like a million years ago that we explored the cave he
lived in and he revealed his past to me. At least, what he’d known of it.

I wished we’d never gone hunting that morning. How different
our lives would’ve been had we just stayed in his cave for even one more hour,
long enough to have never met Lace and Lock in the forest, to have never ended
up here? What would we be like, still living in the forest somewhere? I had
gotten my answers and finally knew who the Erdlanders were. Thanks to Velka I
now had more answers than I’d ever wanted, but I was no better off for it. Life
had been better when I didn’t know, when I had Tor by my side.

“You think loudly,” Sev said, breaking the silence.

“Sorry.”

“What thoughts?”

“Nothing. Never mind.”

She stopped and turned to me with a raised eyebrow. “You
love your Tor?”

“Yes.” The admission came easily, and there was no question.

“Then take him from the Fire. It eats souls. Keene escaped.
A better man now.”

“Why do you work for them if you dislike them so much?”

“I am blood.” She gestured to the band imprinted on her arm.

“But you don’t like them. So why not leave like Keene?”

Sev grimaced in the firelight. I thought she wasn’t going to
answer, but when her face relaxed, I saw a sadness hidden away in her. “No.
Keene is blood. I.... Keene special; Qutha’ia would punish him. I stay. He is
forgotten.”

“So you’re protecting him?”

She nodded and picked up her pace. “We approach,” she
whispered.

The cave narrowed as we traveled, forcing us to walk single
file.

“Soon,” Sev whispered before snuffing out the fire which had
been lighting our path. “Stay close.”

I stumbled as the jolt of black pitched me forward in
blindness. Throwing my hands out, I gripped the sides of the tunnel, their
solid surface giving me security and direction. I used my internal senses to
find Sev. In my momentary hesitation, she’d slipped far ahead of me, so I kept
my hands on the walls and hurried to catch up.

The damp rock dripped with condensation, and the farther we
went, the warmer the air grew. At first I thought the heat had come from Sev’s
fire, but the flaming orb was too small to account for the rising temperature.

Soon a murmur began in the distance, and a dim light glowed
in the tunnel. As we neared, the murmur became an echoing roar, and the heat
blazed.

“Where are we?” I asked loud enough to hear myself over the
din.

“Silence, head down. Watch, but no movement away.” Sev’s
voice betrayed her tension. She stood straight, rising to her full height, and
held the bladed staff in front of her. The woman who had slowly become a friend
disappeared, and in her wake was the fierce warrior I first met.

We stepped out of the cave and into an opening deep within
the mountain. High overhead, the ruby moon illuminated the hundreds—maybe
thousands—of A’aihea crowded together here. The mountain’s inner walls
stretched high above us, narrowing the sky overhead to a fraction of its
expanse. We were inside the top of the mountain, inside the volcanic crater,
which released smoke and fire into the sky.

From my cove, I’d often watched this volcano fill the
heavens with its exhaust—ash and black clouds so thick they would blot out the
noonday sun. In those days I’d dreamed of traveling far enough to explore this
very mountain, and now, within its belly, the violence of the earth radiated a
heat so extreme I wanted to turn and run.

Sev led the way through the crowd and as I passed, A’aihea
in various stages of undress bowed their heads and let us through. Watching
them through the veil of my orange cloak, I noticed it was me, not Sev, they
bowed in deference to. The experience felt otherworldly, like a story from an
Erdlander book: real only in the author’s imagination.

Against the rocky cliff of the far wall, a waterfall of
lava, identical to the fire into which I’d lost Tor, beckoned us closer with
its warm glow. My feet stumbled, and hands from the crowd righted me.

“Stay close,” Sev hissed over her shoulder as we stepped
through the last of the crowd. She greeted a few of the other cloaked
priestesses by name, but when I heard “Velka” on her lips, relief washed over
me. At least one other person I could trust was here.

Still covered with fabric, Velka’s hand reached out to me,
and I took it. The contact reassured me.

A row of priestesses stood together at the front of the
crowd, and I remained at the end, tucked close between Velka and Sev. Before us
was a clearing beyond which the wall of fire undulated with life, and at the
far side of the fire stood Keene and five others with tattoos marking their
lower arms. Sentries—bald, tall, and intimidating, but none as imposing as
Sev—held them back from the crowd.

“Why aren’t you over there?” I whispered to Sev.

“Keene. I am not to guard him.”

“Because he’s your brother?”

Her eyes darted to the side, meeting mine for only a moment.
“Weakness is seen in our bond.”

“It’s not weakness. It’s family.”

Velka squeezed my hand without saying anything.

Before us, the wall of fire rolled from one side to the
other, the movement parallel to the natural flow. I stepped back to shield
myself from the sweltering heat, but Velka gripped my hand and pulled me to her
side. The temperature became unbearable as outlines of bodies appeared and
coalesced from the fire, from Within. They came slowly at first but sped up
until the flames arced out, bulging forth with three dimensional shapes.

Figures dripping with fire took shape and stepped forward:
nine, ten—twelve in all. As the flames dissipated, these Qutha’ia stood
resplendent with glowing white skin. The heat from being Within must have
boiled their flesh to so high a temperature that it rendered them with a
glorious incandescent glow.

I raked my eyes over them, looking for Tor. They were all
nude, all hairless, but as their temperature dropped, I began discern
individual features. My breath caught, and for a moment, I thought the world
would fall away.

Before me, almost close enough to reach out and touch, stood
a towering, hairless Tor.

His long hair was gone, burned away in the fire’s searing
heat along with his scruff of beard, but against his cooling flesh, the scars
of his youth stood out, each one a testament to the pain he’d endured. A scar
ran through where his eyebrow had once been, raised up into a pucker of pink
flesh against the tan hue of his body. More angry scars traveled down the
length of his arms, but it was the patch of old wounds across the molten flesh
of his stomach that wrenched me in two. If not for Velka’s steel grip on my
hand and Sev’s body pressed up against my own, I would have toppled forward
with grief.

He was
there
, right in front of me—so close, yet no
recognition shone in his eyes.

All the air evaporated from my lungs as I took in the sight
of him. His muscled frame stood tall and proud, but his blue eyes were missing,
replaced by the cruel orange glow of the A’aihea.

The A’aihea Queen, the Qutha’ia who had seduced Tor to the
Fire, stepped forward—tall, curvy, and dominating. She spoke with the flowing
affectation of the A’aihea, and while I couldn’t understand her, the gloating
pride in her voice as she gestured in Tor’s direction sickened me. Bile rose in
my throat as I watched, helpless. She spared no glance at any of the people
standing in devotion before her, barely acknowledging the individuals composing
the mass before her.

I hated her.

I hated her for taking Tor from me, for banishing Keene—her
own child.

Soon she stopped speaking, and one by one, rows of A’aihea
flocked before her to offer gifts of pottery, jewels, flowers, and other
devotions at her feet. Her eyes raked over the bounty, ignoring the people who
gave it.

As I watched, my body ached to act. I searched Tor’s face
for any sign that he could see me, or anyone, but his focus remained entirely
trained on
her
.

Velka squeezed my hand again just as an idea began to form. “Don’t,”
she cautioned. “You will be killed before he even realizes you were here.”

Her whisper stayed my hand from pulling the shroud from my
body.

Once the gifts were all presented, the Queen spoke again.
The crowd roared in delight and excitement as I stared at the man I’d loved and
lost. He stood motionless, his mouth set in a hard line, not the casual smirk
or thoughtful concentration I remembered. He looked alien, so unlike himself,
and yet I had to believe my Tor still existed somewhere inside this unfeeling
statue.

Bodies pressed forward, forcing me closer to the cascading
lava flow. Its heat seared my eyes, but my undying hope kept me staring ahead.

The Queen again gestured to Tor, and he stepped forward
before dropping to his knees next to her, staring unseeingly ahead. If I could
touch him, if he could hear my voice—would it remind him? Could I make him see
beyond the Fire?

Tor held an arm out to her, dropped his head, and closed his
eyes in supplication. One of the sentries presented the Queen with an object,
black and ominous. She spoke again, holding it above her head. The crowd around
me cheered.

“What’s going on?” I hissed to Velka.

“Quiet. Watch.”

As if I could look away.

The woman pressed the object against Tor’s neck, burning his
already scarred flesh in the shape of a triangle. The crowd cheered, and I cried
out. The bunching muscles of his neck spoke to the pain he felt, yet the Queen
brought the object against his skin over and over, until his bronzed skin
turned gray.

The torture of seeing him, of being unable to speak to or
touch him, couldn’t compare to the pain that pierced my heart every time she
branded him. When he finally looked up, the flame had left his eyes, and pain
shone brightly in blue.

“Stop!” I pulled against Velka and Sev’s hold on me, but
there was nothing I could do to get away from them, and no one heard me over
the crowd’s careening excitement. “Tor!”

I sobbed his name as he flinched away from the pain of the
branding. When the Queen finished, Tor sagged back on his feet, drained of
strength.

A harmonious chant broke out through the crowd, and even
Velka and Sev were caught up in its power. The Queen began dancing to its
rhythm. At first it was only her, but soon others began to move as the siren
song’s magic pulled them in.

While Velka and Sev were distracted, I wrenched my arm away
and vaulted forward, throwing myself toward where Tor had fallen. When my
clothed hand reached out to touch him, the orange fabric turned to ash, letting
my bare skin rest on his shoulder.