Sundamar kept in line with her steps as she spoke.
She continued, “I don’t know what brought me here. If it was the workings of some celestial being, a creator of some sorts, I’ll never know. One day, I was in—on a ship, the next day I was in a shipwreck and here.”
“And in my sights,” Quist added.
Her lips twitched before her face went grim. “Not at first. Most of the people on the ship I was with didn’t survive. Before you found me, before I was hiding and before I found the stone, I was with a few survivors—the humans I told you about. We crash landed that same day, and me and Charlie and Preta, two other women who were with me, and s-some guards—our group was in charge of scouting the nearby terrain and finding water and food.”
Both her valos had gone silent and when she didn’t continue, Sundamar grunted and finally replaced the broadsword still in his hand back into its sheath.
“How long before I found you was this?” Quist asked.
“Hours. Dawns in your time, I think, hours in mine. It was still day when I was with them. We were attacked by forest beasts.”
“I know.” Sundamar scowled and it put her on edge.
“How?”
“I found the remains of a being like you, the bones, among an ak’rena nest after I followed a bloody trail. There were footsteps scattered about, and what looked like plucked fruit strewn across the ground. The tell-tale signs of a fight.”
“Oh.” She chewed on her lip, suddenly feeling horrible. “Do you... did you happen upon...” she didn’t know what to ask for, “any intact corpses? Orange jumpsuits? Female bodies?”
“Like your clothes? No, only stripes of blue and white. As for the sex, there was nothing but blood and bone. Not all of it was of your kind.”
She hugged herself and hoped the others, the ones who were nice, had gotten away. Yahiro stopped for a moment and squinted her eyes, searching for the crash site. Quist brushed his wings over her back, comforting her.
“You won’t see the killing ground from here,” he said.
“I’m not looking for that. I’m looking for the ship I crashed here on.” She glanced at Sundamar. “Did you come across a metal structure? It would be jagged, burnt along its sides and would have a skid trail that went on for half a mile?”
“No.”
She returned her attention to the landscape but found nothing.Once my belly is filled and I’ve gotten a little sleep, once this agonizing tug lets up and I procure a weapon, I’ll come and search for you.Yahiro balled her hands into fists and swallowed before turning away.
That pull to keep going tugged at her and she continued up the stairs.
***
QUIST
His eyes trailed after Yahiro and Sundamar as they ascended, his own feet lagging from the effort. He had never once, in his long existence, taken the winding, endless trail to the city. The wings on his back hooked inward and he followed after them.
No wonder my brother envies the other valos with wings. I’d envy them too.It had never been a thought to plague his mind but now that it was there, it stayed. He didn’t feel right jumping off the side and hovering when his brother and Yahiro couldn’t.
He tucked his member back into his pants and kept his eyes on his family. That damning tug, the invisible one that had set him on the path to find his female, had grown worse the closer they traveled to the City of Dawn. Quist glanced up, already knowing that Galan awaited them at the top.
There had been moments of reprieve when he and his brother mated the female, where the pull had almost vanished. It was blissful, that quiet. When it was quiet, his thoughts weren’t scattered and he was able to focus. When it happened the day before, all he saw was her, all he had felt washer, and it had been sublime.
Despite mating her again, it hadn't vanished. He roved his eyes over the smooth curves of her body and wondered if he should try again. If she’d let him. Quist cursed his cockstand to the deepest shadowed pits on Sonhadra.
His steps became a little more forceful.
What he felt now was strangling. They were nostalgic and were akin to something he felt when he was first created. When he was in the presence of his Creator. But unlike that painfully raw feeling, it was softer. It didn’t stop him from wanting his vengeance and it didn’t stop him from pursuing everything in his midst.
It didn’t stop him from hardening his feathers into a thousand blades. This pulse thrummed.
The taste of sweet blood in his mouth.
Lusheenn is near.
