Undying (Valos of Sonhadra Book 7) Read online

  “You sayv’d me.” She looked down, the corners of her mouth falling. Before he realized she was doing, she laid her hand his arm. “Sorry forun ing.”

  Orishok stiffened under her touch. Her palm was warm, a sensation he hadn’t truly experienced in so long. And she was doomed; she’d been doomed from the moment she came to Bahmet. Not all creatures died immediately at his touch — the treeclaw would have fought it for hours before succumbing — and it seemed Quinn was more resilient than her appearance suggested.

  “Will you come back to Bahmet with me?” he asked, flattening his spikes as he gestured toward the city.

  “Bahmet?” Quinn removed her hand. The loss of her warmth pained Orishok, but such feelings were no longer for him to know. Her gaze settled on the path of death. She tilted her head, and when she looked back at him, the little strips of fur over her eyes were angled down. She pointed at the dead vegetation. “Wut haa pend?”

  He glanced at the ground. Her expression was beyond his ability to decipher; what did she think of this? Of him? “That is death. That is...Orishok.”

  Slowly, he dragged his foot aside. The plants he touched withered and dried out.

  She gasped, lifted her hand — the one she’d touched him with — and stared at it. Her rounded eyes flicked briefly to his.

  “Come back to Bahmet, Quinn. I will see to your comfort, before...” Death had been his existence. His world. Why was the thought of hers more painful than any of the loss he’d already experienced?

  Because we were already damned.

  Her gaze lingered on her hand, as though she were waiting for it to wilt like the vegetation on the ground. Finally, she shook her head, looked at him, and brought her hands together with fingers laced. “Quinn and Orishok? Wee s’tay tew geh’thur?”

  He did not know her words, but her gesture spoke clearly. Though he longed for more contact with her, it was possible that further touching would only speed her death, and he had no wish to hurry that process.

  “I will stay with you. Quinn and Orishok,” he said.

  She smiled before casting a worried glance in the direction the treeclaw had fled. “I nee’d my shews.” At his questioning glance, she gestured to her bare feet. They were small and pale-skinned, with little toes and short nails. How could a creature so soft and frail still be alive after his touch?

  Quinn pointed toward the thicker brush. “I lehft’em att thuh s’treem.”

  The treeclaw wasn’t likely to return any time soon, but there were many other dangerous creatures in these woods. Were the precious moments of life she’d lose in retrieving her foot coverings worth it?

  “Puh leez?”

  He tilted his head to the side as he regarded her. His understanding of what she’d said was limited, but her tone and gestures implied this was important to her. Who was he to deny the requests of the dying?

  Orishok stepped aside and waved her on. “Lead me.”

  Her expression brightened. “Thayn’kew, Orishok.”

  She walked past him, keeping her gaze downcast to carefully pick her way through the undergrowth. Her step faltered several times as he followed; each time, she hissed in pain and muttered to herself. Were the undersides of her feet as delicate as they appeared? What was such a creature doing here?

  He watched her walk, his attention claimed by the way her tattered clothing pulled taut with her longer strides, accentuating the curve of her rear and her graceful, shapely legs. Something stirred in his heartstone. Quinn was small, fragile, and strange, but she was wholly feminine. He could not deny the appeal of her form.

  They emerged from the trees and approached the stream. Orishok hung back, watching for more predators, while she searched the grass for her foot-coverings. This stream had followed a different path before he was changed. His people had camped beside it for many nights when Bahmet was yet something beyond their imaginations, waking in the morning to drink from its cool waters and watch as the sun burned off the night’s mist.

  Quinn’s voice rang, though it was a sound with no words. She disappeared in the tall grass.

  Orishok tensed, spikes rising. Before he rushed toward her, she emerged from the greenery, holding her foot-coverings over her head. She wore a triumphant expression.

  “Fow’nd them.” She returned to his side and lifted a foot, hopping as she pulled on the covering. She nearly fell over when she repeated the process for the other. When she looked back at Orishok, her eyes drifted to his shoulder. “H’oww doo you doo that?”

  “I do not know your words, Quinn,” he said in her tongue. He looked to his shoulder spikes.

  She touched one. Reflexively, it flattened. “That. Itz liyk itz uh liyv.”

  A chill pulsed across Orishok’s heartstone; touching him could only do her more harm.

  Her curiosity was clear, though he did not understand it. Did he wonder at the fur topping her head, the odd white parts of her eyes, or the flat teeth in her mouth?

  “Those are part of me. They are Orishok.”

  Quinn’s brow fur dropped again. She pointed toward the spikes. “Orishok?” Lifting her hands, she pinched the skin on the back of one. “Quinn.”

  He took hold of one of the shoulder spikes and raised it. “Orishok.” Releasing it, he trailed his fingers over the ridges and plates of his exterior. “Orishok.” Kelsharn had wanted his warriors to instill the fear of death as they marched toward his enemies, and this shape had become natural to Orishok through his long years of guardianship over his fallen tribe.

  Her lips parted as she watched him. “You are liyk lih ving s’tohn. And your fayse?” she asked, waving a hand over her face before pointing to his. “Noh’z?” She touched her nose, then her mouth. “Mowth?”

  Orishok closed his eyes. He hadn’t worn his old face since long before he was alone. What need had his tribe to remind each other of what they had been, of what they could never be again? Why, when they could barely remember to begin with? He focused on his heartstone, on the memories pulsing within it, and shaped his face, changing the rigid armor plate of the mask back into a semblance of the features he’d possessed in a different existence. Heat rippled over his skin.

  “Oh.”

  He opened his eyes. Quinn stared at him with awe.

  Slowly, he trailed his fingertips along the ridges of bone protruding from his brow, following them over his cheek and to the skin below. “Orishok.”

  “You can shaynj,” she said softly and reached toward his face.

  Orishok pulled back, turning his head away. “You should not touch me, Quinn.”

  She frowned and lowered her arm. “Wye?”

  He responded only to the confusion on her face, gesturing at the withered grass beneath him.

  She toed the dead vegetation then placed a hand on her shoulder, covering the place he’d grabbed to keep her from falling. “You tuh’chd me bee for.”

  Orishok frowned, ignoring how strange the expression felt after so much time. “Sorry,” he said, using her word. What else could he say to her? How would she understand?

  “I feel fyne. K’old,” she lifted one corner of her mouth in a half-smile as she rubbed her arm, “buh’t fyne.” Her lips fell, the lines of fur on her brow drew close together, and she lowered her hand to her stomach. “G’ess I’m prih tee hun gree, tew.”

  “I do not know those words,” he said. Was it the beginning of her end? The first of her suffering before he’d be forced to lay her to rest beside the others? “What is hun gree?”

  “Hun gree.” She rubbed her stomach, raised a hand to her mouth, and gestured as though she were placing something within and biting. “F’ood. Quinn nee’dz tew eet.”

  Orishok cast his thoughts back over impossible years, through countless mist-shrouded days. Kelsharn had given them his language, after changing them, and that language contained numbers that could easily track how long it had been...but Orishok never truly understood them, and he loathed speaking the Creators’ tongue. He knew only t
hat it had been far longer than he should ever have known. He returned to the great hunts, to communal fires and roasting meat, to the fruits of the hills and forests.

  For an instant, he recalled the taste of hot, juicy meat, the sweetness of mountain berries, the cool refreshment of water, and then the tastes turned to ash in his memory.

  Quinn was alive. She was not a valo, not the twisted plaything of Kelsharn. She needed to eat.

  “Come, Quinn,” he said, and he began walking downstream.

  Chapter Four

  QUINN FOLLOWED ORISHOK, watching with fascination as the plants he touched — even the blades of grass that lightly brushed his legs as he walked — withered and died. Now that she thought about it, she realized that he’d avoided contact with her since the beginning, had always kept a wide distance between them. Even when he’d placed the glowing stone in his chest and buckled over in agony, he’d warned her away.

  But they had touched.

  She felt no different. Other than hunger pains, she was fine; she’d survived a crash from space and wasn’t even sore. Maybe he only affected plants?

  So why did he look at her with such despair on his face? Even if it weren’t for his frown, it was evident in the muted glow of his eyes.

  She looked at the back of his head as he walked. Seeing him without the mask had been startling. His skin was slate gray, darker around his eyes, brow, and lips. The protrusions of bone over his eyes, along his cheekbone, and on his chin looked like rock, and his flesh had a similar rough texture. More bony ridges ran from his forehead and over his skull in two lines, one over each eye, some large enough that they might be considered horns.

  But, despite his alien features, the shape of his eyes, nose, and mouth...they were familiar. They were human. Sure, his teeth were sharper than she was used to, but why would that unsettle her any more than everything else she’d already seen?

  He slowed to a stop, glancing over his armored shoulder — probably to make sure she didn’t bump into him — and then pointed ahead to a tree. Its branches were long and relatively low.

  “F’ood,” he said.

  Quinn looked up. Cantaloupe-sized, acorn-shaped growths hung from the branches in clusters. They were yellowish brown with bumpy exteriors, almost like pinecones that hadn’t opened. “What are they?”

  “F’ood,” he repeated. “Rum’aht.” He turned toward her and pantomimed picking a piece and breaking it open.

  “Rumat,” she repeated. As low as the branches were, she wasn’t tall enough to reach any of the fruit. If he touched them, they’d probably rot, so she only had one option.

  She walked to the trunk. Its bark was relatively smooth, though its surface was irregular, with knobs and broken branches jutting from several places. Deep gouge marks suggested the tree had been climbed by something with large claws. Quinn shuddered.

  “I swear, Orishok, if one of those things is up there, I am going to kill you.”

  “I do not know your words, K’win.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” she muttered, looking down and positioning her foot at the base of a broken branch. She found handholds overhead, exhaled, and pulled herself up. Her shoes threatened to slip on the bark, and her grip was tight enough to make her fingers hurt, but — somehow — she made it to the first of the long, thick branches. Hooking her arms over it, she grunted as she swung her leg up.

  Straddling the branch, she grinned down at Orishok. He tilted his head and watched in silence.

  Quinn scooted forward, leaves shaking with her movement, until she came to the first bundle of rum’aht. Leaning forward, she pressed her stomach against the wood, reached down, and struck the melon-sized growths until they fell, one-by-one, to the ground.

  She stared at them. How many could she carry back? Orishok wouldn’t be any help. Not if he killed everything he touched.

  Clinging to the branch, she shimmied further out, yelping when it dipped and bounced. It wasn’t a long drop, but the lurching in her stomach was unpleasant. Taking a deep breath, she glanced at Orishok.

  He’d moved closer, hands extended as though he meant to catch her, his glowing eyes wide. “K’win?”

  “I’m okay.” She repositioned herself. “I fell from higher than this,” she muttered. After falling from the sky — even now, all she could remember was the flickering overhead lights in the corridor, a horrible wrenching sound, and then the bright, overwhelming blue of outside — it was comical that she was afraid of a seven-foot drop onto long grass, especially when the sheer drop-off from the path into city hadn’t fazed her.

  Still, pain was pain. She’d never been a fan of it, and this was plenty high enough to break an ankle or an arm. Just because she’d been lucky before didn’t mean she should push her good fortune.

  When she came to the next bundle, she gripped the stem that connected them to the tree and wiggled it. The wood splintered as she worked it back and forth and twisted. Finally, the whole bundle fell, landing heavily below.

  A deep, rumbling call echoed over the trees. Orishok snapped his head in the direction from which the sound had come, shoulder spikes flaring. To Quinn, it sounded almost like a pig — albeit a five-thousand pound, pissed-off pig.

  “Ebas should go, K’win.” He interlaced his fingers. “K’win and Orishok. Saal Bahmet.”

  “Okay.”

  He didn’t have to tell her twice. If the other creatures on this planet were anything like the one she’d already encountered, she didn’t want to meet them. Swinging her legs off the branch, Quinn balanced her weight on her middle, adjusted her hold on the wood, and lowered herself. Something ripped. For a moment, she hung with her feet dangling, and then she let go. She dropped the last couple of feet. Her legs bent when she landed, and she nearly fell backward before she caught her balance and stood.

  “Damn.” She parted the fabric of her jumpsuit near her stomach, where a preexisting tear had widened to expose a large portion of her abdomen.

  Orishok had moved, positioning himself between her and the source of the distant call. “Go. Halas et akar.” He pointed to the ground with all his fingers and flicked his wrist.

  Follow the path of dead vegetation. That’d be easy enough. She gathered the loose rum’aht in her arm and grabbed the bundle by its branch.

  The animal call sounded again.

  Quinn kept her eyes on the ground as she hurried along the path, glancing up occasionally to scan the woods for danger. The crunching of dried-up plants indicated Orishok followed close behind. It was nerve-wracking; she swore the beast’s calls were getting closer, despite her forward progress. Had they really wandered so far from the city?

  She hated feeling so helpless. For three years — since her conviction and sentencing — that had been her life. A prisoner, an object, a test subject; she’d had no say in anything, no rights.

  Still, as thrilling as this taste of freedom had briefly been, did she really believe she could’ve survived on her own out here? If it weren’t for Orishok, she’d have been that monster’s breakfast. It had been stupid to run.

  The journey back felt like an eternity, but it couldn’t have taken more than half an hour. Overhead, the sun had reached its zenith, warming the air pleasantly. She was surprisingly relieved at first sight of the barren ground and narrow clifftop road leading to the city.

  With the mist burned off, she could make out everything clearly. Tall, dark stone buildings of varying heights marched higher up the mountain, the farthest of them fuzzy with the blue haze of distance.

  She stopped just before the cliff road and turned to Orishok.

  He halted, meeting her gaze, and pointed toward the city. “Bahmet,” he said, “the city tes akar.” Once again, he interlaced his fingers. “K’win and Orishok.”

  Quinn glanced back at the city. Bahmet. She’d heard him say that word before, but hadn’t realized it was the name of his home. She nodded. “Yeah. Quinn and Orishok. Together.”

  ORISHOK STOOD AT THE window watching Quinn. She
was sitting near the heat stones, her legs folded together, leaning over a riverfruit. Now that she was back in the warmth, her skin had a gentle pink undertone. Her head-fur was clean, pale, and shimmering, like the moons on a cloudless night, and her movements seemed normal — at least compared to what he’d seen from her since yesterday.

  She grunted, knuckles white as she struggled with the fruit. It would be so easy to open it for her, but his touch would ruin the fruit and leave her hungry. She simply didn’t seem to possess the strength to open it on her own.

  He considered her again, sweeping his gaze over her body. Her clothes were even more tattered now, revealing bits of pale flesh, and her face was scrunched up in a determined, if strained, expression. Without a doubt, she was too soft for this world. Somehow, that only made her more endearing.

  Quinn dug her fingers into the fruit’s skin, clenching her strange, flat teeth and pulling. Finally, with a growl, she raised the riverfruit over her head and slammed it down on the floor. It split in half.

  “Are you kih ding me?” She turned her accusatory gaze on him. “Why dih dunt you t’el me?”

  He raised his hands and curled his fingers. “We have enough strength to tear the riverfruit open.” Once again, he gestured as though breaking one of the fruits.

  She snorted. “Sum huh’elp you are.”

  Orishok held a palm up, fingers curved like holding half of the fruit, and made a scooping motion with his other hand. “The inside is soft, Quinn, and sweet.”

  Quinn set half of the riverfruit on the floor and cocked her head to stare at the other piece, prodding its insides with her finger. She plucked out a pebble-sized seed and lifted it for inspection. “Luukz liyk an ah pell see’d frum hoh’m, ohn lee bih gurr.”

  “That will crack your teeth. Do not eat the seeds, Quinn.”

  She glanced at him. “Why wuud I?”

  Placing the seed on the floor, she returned her attention to the fruit and dug her fingers into its soft flesh. She scooped out a chunk, brought it up to her mouth, and hesitated before slipping it between her lips.