Page 47 of Serpents of the Night

Rage filled Payeri’s face as she rushed up toward them, her dark wings expanding wider and around as she stretched them to their fullest to capture the most air and hurtled toward them. An answering snarl shot through the air above them as Kitanara folded her wings and dropped with lethal speed. They collided in violence, dropping from the air with angry shrieks. Kehtal watched them in horror, his eyes widening frantically, worried for the guard. Her claws ripped at her opponent; her sharp teeth bared as they grappled. Blood bloomed from both combatants, their tails whipping against each other as their wings alternately flapped and entangled.

A shriek of warning lifted through the air from her. “Go! Do not wait for me!”

Kehtal nodded but his wings nearly folded around him as he watched helplessly with concern. Could they really abandon her? Would Lori blame them if they did?

Daskh dropped from above him, his tail slashing the air, whipping at him as Hashal stared down at him silently with large, frightened eyes from the male’s grasp. “Move, Kehtal,” he snarled. “She is a captain of the shinara guard. She can hold her own. We need to go—now!”

A sick feeling filled his stomach as the females continued to slowly plummet through the air, but he sailed back toward the gate in determination, following Daskh’s lead as they sped toward it. Together, they breached the shinara, the light of the lanterns briefly bathing them and Buosoa as well as she rose rapidly to meet them.

Though her expression was strained, she did not look back at the combatants. Instead, they shot upward as one, their wings beating the air savagely as they rose up the channel leading to the upper caverns.

The crack that echoed from below them was a death cry in the silence, one that was followed by the muffled sound of a falling body hitting the ground. Buosoa’s wings trembled, her gavo twitching with her concern but she did not stop. None of them stopped. The caverns whisked by them in a seemingly endless procession before they were suddenly struck by searing heat and intense sunlight like he had never felt. Kehtal’s flight faltered but he stabilized himself at Daskh’s warning shriek breaking the air around him. Although the pain of the sun was excruciating, they could not stop yet... not yet.

Though it felt as if the sun was blistering the membrane of his wings, Kehtal flew without complaint over the sand, the mouth of the Aglatha shrinking rapidly in the distance. Despite the pain tormenting him, a weight lifted from within him.

Soon they would find what they could of their ashlava and give her the parting that she and their unborn nestlings deserved. He did not dare hope that Payeri had been wrong.

His eyes closed against the blade-like streams of sunlight, his hearts shattering within his chest as grief and hope struggled within him.

Let her be alive.

Chapter 39

“The queen matriarch’s will is done.”

Payeri’s parting words echoed through Lori’s mind, dragging her slowly from the endless black seas of oblivion. She’d been set up. Worst, Zathexa had clearly meant to not just separate her from Slengral, but to kill her. She’d nearly succeeded, too, with Payeri cleverly placed as her assassin. Even if Payeri’s role was suspected, no one would think to link her actions to the queen matriarch who imprisoned her cousin.

If Lori had the capability at that moment, she would have laughed. Instead, she groaned and rolled over. Every part of her ached. But she was alive. She did not understand how. Nor did she understand how it was that she was lying on what felt like a woven straw mat. Her fingers jerked in surprise and then stretched out, feeling the surface beneath her as her nails and fingertips scraped lightly over it. It was so different from the cushion made of cured skins that she had come accustomed to in the shinara. The woven, fibrous plant material brought to mind the durable bamboo that so often was used to make various goods intended for outdoor use in the shops that dominated the pleasure and art zones of the cities back on Earth.

Seshana didn’t have bamboo though, or really much in the way of plant life outside of the low growing plants that managed to survive in the desert and carefully grown in special caverns close to the surface by the Seshanamitesh.

So, where the hell was she?

She should be alarmed that she lacked the energy to open her eyes and yet she was too tired to even be scared as her mind drifted in a casual observation of her surroundings—or at least what little she could determine from her other senses. Her nostrils flared and she detected a smoky smell in the air of some sort of fragrant wood burning.

There was a rustle and something large slid inside the room with her, followed by another that sounded just as large and heavy.

“She is human, I believe. But she is the strangest human I have ever seen,” a masculine voice hissed in intergalactic common.

Wherever she was, there had to be a human or someone from one of the colonies that taught the language to the Seshanamitesh holding her captive since she didn’t hear the muffled overlaying of speech that was common with translator implants. She was certain that was what she was dealing with. The slide of their long tails over the floor was unmistakable.

“Do you think it is natural? Perhaps she has merely adorned herself like our females are inclined to do?” another queried curiously.

The first scoffed in his throat in the strange half hum sound particular of the species. “If so, why just make herself all green? Perhaps she will tell us. She is awake, listening. It is why I asked you to speak their tongue with me before we entered. I hoped that waking and hearing something familiar would reassure her. What do you think, human? Has it worked?”

With considerable effort, Lori’s eyes slitted open briefly before snapping closed with a pained moan as sunlight stabbed them. Fighting back the nausea that threatened to rise, she licked her painfully cracked lips.

“W...where... am I?” she croaked and winced inwardly at the ruined sound of her voice.

She sounded as if she had been brought back from the dead. Perhaps she had. She didn’t know how she could have possibly survived the killing heat of the desert. The painful sunburn on her face and the places exposed from her torn TRS and clothing that tightened her skin told her all that she needed to know about how long she had been lying unprotected without Nashee’s ointment to save her.

Something massive shifted toward her, and she recoiled instinctively, curling into herself defensively before a soft, soothing hum filled the air. Fear clawed at her insides. She was lying there completely vulnerable in front of unknown Seshanamitesh without her mates there to protect her. And yet, with the strange song, she felt her muscles slowly unknotting in reaction.

“Do not be afraid,” the second voice whispered as the first male continued to lightly sing. “You were found by my hunters as they tracked a herd of gashthans that had descended from the mountain. You were laying on the flowering sands a short distance from the herd.” He shifted again as he settled beside her pallet. He sighed when she couldn’t help cringing. “It pleases me that you are not dead. Yuneril was afraid that he had not rescued you on time. His mate would never have forgiven him,” he added with a hint of wry amusement in his voice. “As for where you are at, you are among the Vehal in the Zir Mountains.”

She mumbled in confusion as a heavy fog began to descend once more over her mind. She didn’t understand. How had she gotten back to the mountains? Had she become that confused in the dunes? And where exactly were the Zir Mountains within the chain of mountains that she had seen? A tiny whimper escaped her, and the male murmured a gentle hushing sound.

“Do not strain yourself, human. There will be plenty of time for questions when you are feeling better. Rest for now. Yuneril has brought a fat dantha here to make a nourishing broth for you to drink when you are ready. Take your time.”

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