Undying (Valos of Sonhadra Book 7) Read online

  Quinn didn’t belong here. That air of death clung to her for reasons he could not determine — and that troubled him deeply — but she was a living creature. Not one of the Creators, as he had feared at first, but something else.

  She seemed to be learning his tongue quickly, and he was deciphering hers faster than he’d thought possible, but he doubted all his questions about her would ever be answered.

  In the morning, he would have to send her away. He did not know how long it would take for death to take hold of her — she’d shown no signs of illness, as far as he could tell, only weariness — but it was inevitable. Eventually, this place would kill her.

  If not Bahmet, it would be Orishok himself, though he did not want to do her harm.

  He looked out into the mist — thick enough now, and so illuminated by the moonlight that he couldn’t clearly see the next building — and called up his early memories of these mountains, before Bahmet was a place. Before his people had known the name Kelsharn. Before his people had become valos.

  They’d built their dwellings of hide, wood, and bone, and hunted many beasts, and gathered the fruits of the land. Sonhadra had provided, though her price had often been high. Before he was made into death, Orishok had seen so much of it...

  It had been at least a century and a half since he’d spoken to another being. Not since Voroki had turned her empty eyes upon him, frowning sadly, and ceased her movement forever.

  What matter was it if he could not understand most of what Quinn said? Her voice was pleasant to listen to, and not simply because she was alive. It’s sound was lyrical, rich and full, and her tone varied easily from one strange word to another. She filled her voice with emotion like he hadn’t heard in so long. In some ways, it was like the songs his people used to sing, when their throats were their own. Capable of radiant joy or crushing despair, or anything in between.

  Kelsharn had silenced those songs.

  Orishok’s shoulder spikes rose as he recalled the shattered statue in the square. Quinn had done that. She’d come into Bahmet, mysterious and unannounced, much like when Kelsharn had arrived, but her first act — whether intentional or not — had been to destroy an idol of Orishok’s Creator and restore his heartstone. Were his people not gone, they’d have carried her to a mountain peak and sung her praise as a hero.

  She had come to Bahmet cold, weary, confused, and afraid. He could not pretend to understand what she was or know where she’d come from, but those emotions were familiar. Since Kelsharn had departed, Orishok had patrolled this city and kept out the living, keeping vigil over his fallen brethren. But now...

  This time, he could not do his duty. He could not turn Quinn away.

  Chapter Three

  QUINN WOKE GRADUALLY from a deep sleep, drifting out of a haze of grogginess. She was aware of it, and that awareness confused her — for the last three years, she’d slept with her back literally against the wall, and had snapped to alertness at the slightest sound, at least on the increasingly rare occasions when she hadn’t been drugged into a stupor.

  She opened her eyes and frowned. The room was brighter than she remembered. Lifting her head, she looked at the window; the tops of the surrounding buildings stood amidst a light mist, lit up as though by morning sunlight. She glanced down and ran a finger over the edge of the blanket that was wrapped around her. It wasn’t one of the thin wisps of cloth they’d handed out in the prison on Earth, or the crinkly, uncomfortable things from the Concord. This was...nice. She was warmer than she’d been in recent memory.

  Though reluctant to leave her cocoon, Quinn sat up, immediately hit by painful pressure in her bladder. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes and glanced upward, inhaling sharply when her gaze locked with two pinpricks of burning green light. Everything from the night before rushed back to her mind.

  She was on an alien planet. In an alien building. Sitting fifteen feet away from an alien.

  Panic tightened her chest and threatened to speed her heart. Orishok stood at the window — she must have been pretty well out of it to have not noticed him when she looked that way after waking up — still clad in his black, obsidian-like armor. Had he been there, watching her, the entire time she slept?

  Freaking out won’t help right now.

  Quinn swallowed and inhaled deeply, settling her hands on her lap. She’d surely hit her head at some point during the crash. That explained her poor judgment, didn’t it? Or maybe — even better — this was all just some dream or hallucination, and she’d wake up in her apartment—

  No. Not there. The prison was real, the Concord was real...

  It had sure as hell been real. If she had to choose between this unknown world and the Concord, she’d pick this place without hesitation.

  All she could do for now was stay calm and roll with the situation.

  She didn’t look away from Orishok as she lifted her hand in a lazy wave. “Um...hi,” she said, voice hoarse.

  The points of light in the eyeholes of his mask expanded, shifting to her hand. “Um hi?” he echoed in his strangely-layered, raspy voice.

  Of course he didn’t understand. Quinn cleared her throat and smiled, offering a more animated wave. “Hello.”

  He seemed to consider it for a moment before waving back. “Tovuun.”

  “Great. Okay.” She pushed herself onto her feet and stretched. Only afterward did she realize that her muscles weren’t even sore. Had she really grown so used to sleeping on hard surfaces? Throughout her three years in a cell, there hadn’t been a day when she’d woken without some sort of discomfort or lingering pain once the drugs wore off.

  Orishok remained silent as Quinn folded the blanket and set it on the steps near the bed. She felt his eyes on her throughout, and finally stepped back and turned toward him, meeting his gaze.

  “Thank you. For this,” she said, sweeping a hand about the room. Then she pointed at the blanket and added, “and that, too.”

  “I do not know your ikarahl, K’win.”

  “You don’t know my...oh! Words? Is that what Ikarahl means? Words?”

  He tilted his head. “Ikarahl.” Lifting a hand with fingers and thumb pressed together, he gestured at his neck and then moved his hand up to where his mouth should be, opening his fingers as he drew his hand away.

  Quinn mimicked his gesture. “Words.” She smiled.

  “I do not know your words. Do you know mine?”

  “Not exactly,” she said, though he wasn’t likely to understand. How could she explain the translator and its function to him? She shook her head. “No.”

  “No.” Orishok shook his head, slowly, unable to match her range of motion with his armor on. “Ven.”

  “You learn fast.” She glanced over her shoulder at the entrance. “Thank you again, Orishok.”

  Turning her back to him, she walked toward the doorway. She didn’t know where she’d go from here, but this place — and Orishok himself — would be too strong a reminder that she wasn’t home, that she’d probably never be home again, and that part of her was actually happy this had happened. Better aliens than a lifetime of being a lab rat, right?

  “No,” he said, and in the moment it took for her to look up, he somehow inserted himself in the doorway. Quinn gasped, stumbling back a few steps. No way he could move so fast in that armor!

  He raised his hands, palms toward her, and gestured for her to keep away. “Mehi ureshel, K’win. Urevhal is korole taga et luveen.”

  Quinn’s gaze flickered between his eyes. A touch of fear tightened her stomach. She didn’t know what he was trying to tell her, but by blocking the exit, it was clear he didn’t intend to let her leave.

  “I do not know your words.” She pointed over his shoulder. “Quinn go.”

  “Mehi ureshel,” he repeated, gesturing with his palms. “Stay here.”

  “Quinn go,” she said more firmly.

  “No. Urevhal is korole taga et luveen, K’win.”

  She swallowed hard, looked away
from him, and took a step backward. “Okay. You...can go back.” She pointed toward the bed where he had been standing before.

  Though his eyes were his only visible feature, the confusion in them was clear as he tilted his head to the side. “Argok?” His gaze shifted briefly to follow her gesture.

  “You can go back. I’ll stay.” Guessing she wasn’t far away enough from the door for his liking, she returned to the spot in front of the centerpiece.

  Orishok lingered in the doorway for some time afterward, and Quinn felt him watching her. Finally, with a raspy, grunt-like sound, he left his post and walked toward the window.

  Though the Concord’s crash was fuzzy in her memory, and she had no idea where she was or how she’d gotten here, Quinn wasn’t about to trade one prison for another. It made no difference that this guard looked far more dangerous than the old ones. She feigned interest in the stand supporting the heat stones until Orishok reached the window. Then, while his back was still turned, she ran.

  All that mattered was speed. Her feet slipped as she entered the hallway; she slammed into the wall and pushed herself away, running down the dark corridor.

  “K’win!”

  Driven by fear, heart thundering, Quinn didn’t look back. She hurried down the stairway, turned into the ground floor hall, and pressed on. She burst outside, lifting an arm to shield her eyes as the sunlight momentarily blinded her. Squinting and blinking away the discomfort, she went back the way they’d come the night before.

  She didn’t spare a single glance for the statues.

  Please be the way!

  Orishok called her name again, his voice echoing strangely between the buildings and lingering mist; he was in the street behind her, too close. It didn’t matter that he’d done her no harm. Prison had taught her one lesson above all others — don’t trust anyone. Even if his reasons were alien, he had to have some ulterior motive, there had to be something he wanted from her.

  She ran through the square, leaping over chunks of the broken monument and the smaller statues it had destroyed. Arms pumping, breath sawing in and out, she finally found the city’s entry arch and the clifftop path leading back into the forest.

  She plunged through the tree line, weaving between trunks with no direction in mind save away. Rounding a larger tree, she flattened her back against it and closed her eyes. Quinn heaved in several deep, burning breaths and pressed her lips together, listening. Several minutes — though they felt like hours — ticked by. Opening her eyes, she scanned the area in front of her.

  By the light of day, the trees looked like the ones on Earth. These leaves were oversized, many with a purplish tinge near their stems, and the texture of the bark was odd...but it was almost enough to make her wonder if she really was on another planet. What if the Concord’s orbit had been broken, and it had plummeted back to Earth? Maybe this really was a dream.

  Quinn dug her fingers into her thighs — the pain seemed real enough — and heard nothing. No approaching footsteps, no snapping branches.

  No inhuman, multi-layered voice calling her name.

  She remained in place until she couldn’t hold her bladder any more, and found a spot to finally relieve herself. When she was done, she wandered deeper into the forest. What was she going to do now?

  Hunger and thirst were her top priority.

  “And how do you intend to deal with those?” she muttered to herself. She hadn’t been a survivalist back home; she’d never even spent a single night outdoors. She was screwed. And, as though her inexperience weren’t enough, everything here was alien, unknown, and potentially deadly.

  As she picked her way through the trees, she paused. The sound of running water drifted to her from somewhere up ahead.

  “Please be what I think it is.”

  She picked up her pace, ducking under low branches and fighting through tangled undergrowth until she finally came to the bank of a stream. It was lined with tall grass on either side, its clear water taking a meandering path through the trees. Though it was perhaps ten feet across at its widest, it looked shallow enough to wade through.

  Dropping to her knees, Quinn cupped her hands and dipped them into the water. Her skin prickled with its chill. She lifted them to her mouth and drank greedily, repeating the process until her thirst was satisfied.

  After glancing around to ensure she was alone, she removed her shoes and stepped into the stream. Cold water flowed around her calves. She walked farther in, stopping when it reached her knees. Bending forward, she splashed water over arms, legs, torso and face, scrubbing away dried blood and dirt. She gently prodded her scalp through her hair, searching for a wound, but found nothing.

  Whose blood was it, if not her own?

  Quinn couldn’t recall much from immediately before the crash. She’d been gazing up at that spotless white ceiling — the lab. The drugs they pumped into her veins had left her disoriented, an unwilling test subject who was, nonetheless, unable to resist.

  She remembered the guards dragging her along one of the corridors, and then...

  Had anyone else survived the crash? Were guards out in these woods now, searching for surviving prisoners? Quinn doubted that any of the inmates would go willingly after this taste of freedom...and she didn’t doubt the guards wouldn’t hesitate to use lethal force. She knew she wouldn’t allow herself to be caged again.

  “What the hell am I going to do?”

  Clean but shivering, she needed to find a place to dry off. She turned toward her shoes and froze.

  The spindly creature on the bank rose over the grass when she looked into its dark eyes. It stood on at least six long, multi-jointed limbs, and curled its rear upward to raise six more up over its head. Each was tipped with a pair of long claws. Its body was narrow and leanly muscled, its head built around wide, toothy jaws. The creature released an unsettling, warbling call as a violet frill rose around its neck.

  Quinn screamed.

  ORISHOK STOOD AT THE border of life and death; one more step and his foot would, for the first time in centuries, tread upon grass.

  We shall not venture forth from Bahmet, the remnants of his people had decided, we will no longer be the tools of our Creator.

  He could have caught up to Quinn, could have overtaken her. But what then? She hadn’t understood when he told her it was too dangerous outside the city, and if he touched her — even fleetingly — she would die. He wasn’t sure what had frightened her, but now one of his deepest concerns had become reality.

  She was so small, looked so soft. The forest would show her no mercy.

  If he followed her beyond this point, everything in his path would die. Grass, trees, flowers, the tiny animals that dwelt in dirt and upon leaf. He stared into the vibrant wall of life and hated it; he would go into the forest, and leave his trail of decay, and be reminded of what Kelsharn had made him so soon after regaining his memories of what he’d been born as.

  Unless Quinn truly was like the Creators — and she’d demonstrated none of their power, thus far — she would not survive long out here. Orishok’s kind had dwelt in tribes before they were changed because no single being could withstand Sonhadra’s trials. Quinn was without a tribe.

  Her scream pierced the morning sky and reverberated within Orishok’s heartstone. Though he did not understand most of her words, he understood the terror in her voice.

  Spikes flaring, he charged toward the sound, thrusting aside his concern for the consequences. Fallen branches and leaves snapped and crunched beneath his feet. He should not have hesitated at the edge; if his delay cost Quinn her life, it would be one burden too many for Orishok to bear.

  Sound from ahead caught his attention — the rapid movement of bodies through the vegetation. He altered his course toward the commotion.

  Quinn broke out of the foliage closer than Orishok had anticipated. Their eyes met, and his heartstone dimmed; he had time enough only to flatten his armor spikes before she crashed into him, her skin coming into direct co
ntact with his. Despite his horror, his reflexes took over, and he gripped her upper arms before she fell.

  Her eyes were wide, displaying more white than he’d so far seen, and she spoke quickly, breathlessly. She gestured wildly behind her. There was still movement amidst the trees beyond the thicker brush, drawing rapidly nearer — cracking branches and rustling leaves. He recognized the beast’s pulsating cry.

  Ikesh’salek. Treeclaw.

  Orishok swept Quinn behind him and turned to face the beast as it swung into view. It skidded to a halt in the rotting leaves and undergrowth, raising its frill when its eyes fell upon Orishok. The treeclaw displayed its pointed teeth and leaned forward, nostrils flaring.

  Orishok extended his arm-blades and raised his spikes. He’d only once hunted these creatures, before he was changed. He’d seen two of his tribesmen fall that day. But he was different, now. Sonhadra was different.

  The treeclaw snapped its head back and scrambled to put distance between itself and Orishok, hissing through its teeth. Its frill coloring pulsated in agitation. Quinn said something, and the treeclaw’s attention shifted toward her.

  Orishok growled and stepped forward.

  Releasing a shrill screech, the treeclaw darted into the brush, upper and lower legs thrashing wildly. Its retreat was anything but quiet. With the beast having fled, there was nothing to focus on apart from the truth of the situation.

  I have killed Quinn.

  Was she of this world? Would Sonhadra take her if it had not birthed her?

  He turned to face her, ignoring the trail of brown, dead undergrowth that marked his passage. She stood with her arms crossed over her chest, shivering. The fur atop her head was wet, water dripping from its ends, and her tattered clothing clung to her petite frame. She stared in the direction the treeclaw had fled for several moments before she raised her wide eyes to Orishok.