He finally spoke. "The rooms are empty."
How did he know that?
We approached a room, and it opened to a torn membrane like entering the stomach of a large animal.
"She isn't here..."
But we hadn't even entered the room before he was turning fast and pushing me behind him.
"I can see you," he said pointedly in front of us, but there was no one there.
A voice from the hall echoed, "It's rare to find a species that is capable of detecting me before I strike." Laughter bounced against the walls, and I blinked several times, uncertain of what I was seeing appear from within the air itself.
I gasped, covering my mouth before I fell to the floor, before the image of Estreldez's Moon God.
Chapter eight
Yueril
Everyroomwasempty,but there was a heat signature following me. The blur of heat kept moving, making it difficult for my eyes to pinpoint where it was, so I kept moving. I would check where they kept the worm first to see if Belder was still there. Her scales, like mine, made finding her by heat alone more difficult without being in closer proximity. Checking behind me, whoever was following us kept hiding behind the heat of my treasure, which blurred my vision and left me in awe every time I gazed at her.
Once I was as certain as I could be that the room was empty and my treasure was beside me, it was clear the heat in the hall was not hers but that of the one who followed us. The intense flicker of light made my eyes itch, much more concentrated than the flow of heat from many species. Even my treasure's jewels were like a beautiful flame that dissipated in the air, flickering and cycling through pulsing ebbs and releases that I could stare at for eternity. Mesmerized as I was when she had slept in my arms, uncaring if my second lids would burn or blind me should I find myself staring for too long.
I quickly placed myself between her and the intruder as it approached, hissing in warning through rows of fangs, and flexing my scales with uncertainty as the male's laughter echoed off the walls. The way his body stung my eyes, I knew I could not continue to locate him for much longer without ruining my heat sensors. As my regular vision returned, I squinted and confirmed my suspicions that his body acted much like the deserts of Trillume, creating mirages in the sweltering heat and confusing our sense of direction. My poison wouldn't work indirectly if it burned up before reaching his blood stream, but a single scratch should suffice.
As the mirage appeared before my eyes, my treasure fell to her knees with a gasp at the golden male, and softly she mumbled, "Great Goddess blessed..."
I lifted a brow ridge at the male covered in blades and jewels. His long blond-white hair floated behind him with invisible heat waves, his arms covered in curved blades that sprouted from his skin and spanned beyond his elbow. Large yellow-blue crystals flexed from his shoulders, a fan of jeweled daggers displayed like the ring of a star's rays, much like the treasure behind me.
"How refreshing to know my mate has lied to protect her image on the planet that she discarded me from. Still pretending she is descended from the moon goddess herself, is she?"
I wasn't following what he was saying, but the way my treasure trembled before him made me hiss with displeasure. If he thought she was his mate, he wouldn't be thinking at all soon enough.
He waved me off, but only took a single step closer before stopping again, keeping a safe distance from me to assess what kind of threat I was. Smart. My claws itched to pry open his jaw wide enough that he'd have trouble smirking again before my poison took his life for challenging me, for taking Belder, and for striking fear into my treasure. My posture was straight, and my tail relaxed beside me to focus on what needed to be done.
I was a warrior, and was trained in the ancient trill hunt—before the meat-breeding plants made many of our warriors complacent with the ease of our food from the markets. Once I lured my prey into false security, my close-combat training was all I needed to defeat them. He believed he was powerful and in control of this duel, which served my purposes just fine.
"You've come to be in possession of something that belongs to me, and I've made it a point to prove to my mate that she is no goddess. She will regret the rising she severed my mating glands and took the planet for herself." A sinister gleam glowed in his yellow eyes as he grinned with a twisted sort of resolve. I've seen that look before in warriors that have been pushed too far and lost their minds. I'd had to cull my own warriors in the desert from the sickness. He was not speaking of my treasure as his mate. It was someone else, and he would lash out at anyone that reminded him of her. For a brief moment, I pitied him. If my own mate betrayed me, I would be no different from him. Broken, and my mind twisted.
"The Almder doesn't own the clan..." my treasure spoke up with shaking breaths.
"Does she not?" he asked, bemused by the interruption.
"What does this have to do with me?" I challenged to change his focus back to me.
"You've taken my property, and it costs me fewer lives and trouble to kill you and sell the moon flea for parts rather than to let you go and send the wrong kind of message to those that would wish to take my place.
"You see, it's rare that I get to talk to anyone before I kill them, and a dead worm tells no tales. I plan on ruining the Almder of Estreldez by showing the fleas that follow her how she cannot keep them safe, and one day they will rise up to lead themselves like the very slaves worthy of one day destroying me," he explained with deranged excitement before laughing in warped delight.
"You want to be destroyed," my treasure's soft voice hit the heart of the issue and why this male was so dangerous. He had no fear or moral compass to give him pause.
"It won't be by you, sweet moon flea," he assured. "I've found there are many buyers for an estreld's loh, from merely decoration, to grinding them up and using them for creating more effective clothing to absorb and deflect radiation for species that do not process it well. Even a few use our skin as an aphrodisiac. Beauty and function, the fabric and jewelry, even glow when in contact with radiation. The last buyer even created a robe with radioactive materials so that the loh are constantly heating and glowing for both warmth and glamor. I'll earn a pretty credit from your flesh. And," he paused to assess my own skin, "I'm sure scales such as yours would do nicely as well."
I grinned at him, unaffected by his taunts. "My scales are not for sale, but perhaps you'd like to know what it feels like to have your skin used as an accessory." I flicked my claws against each other to sharpen them. My claws were perfect for flaying flesh, and I felt my tongue barbs push to the surface on instinct that there was a meal ready to be shredded.
The damaged mind of the outlaw before us was merely amused by my statement, uncaring of the real danger I posed to him. The only thing that stopped me in that moment from making him my next meal was that he had similar features to the treasure behind me, and I struggled with whether she would appreciate that eating him would save our skins or if it would forever imprint the image of me destroying something so similar to herself.
I would never eat her... my lip twitched into a smirk, remembering the taste of her sweet release from my tail. At least, not without her permission, I thought as my tail fidgeted behind me. It was a trial to stop it from moving too much when she was so close, but it was an advantage for my meal to forget I had another limb at my disposal. One with a large claw unsheathed for a fight at the end of it.
