Page 31 of Romancing Rem'eb

“Is that wise, Chief’s Fist?” Cas’zor looks suspicious of my request.

“Of course.” Rem’eb’s expression is slightly puzzled even as he gets to his feet. “I trust Tia. Come.”

They both exit, and I find the facilities in the room, along with a pitcher of water and a bowl for hand washing. After I relieve myself, I search the quarters looking for a weapon of some kind. Or I try to. My hands feel numb and tingly from whatever they’d given me in my sleep. When I knock over a stoneware bowl by mistake, the door opens again and Rem’eb looks in.

I pretend to collapse on the ground with a weak smile to distract him.

“Tia!” Rem’eb rushes to my side, pulling me back up to my feet and supporting me with a strong arm around my waist. “Are you not well enough to walk? Shall I carry you? We do not have much time.”

“Time? Time for what?” I cling to him a little more than I probably should, and it’s not only because my legs are wobbly and slow to respond. It feels good to let him hold me. It feels right. Like my chest could start resonating at any moment.

And I don’t know if I’m scared for that to happen or if I’m excited about the prospect.

“We are escaping my village,” Rem’eb says in a low voice. “I am taking you back to the garden above.”

The garden above? “The fruit cave?”

He nods, even though I know he doesn’t know what I’m asking. “Where we found you. And we will retrieve your suitor as well.”

I make a happy sound and bounce in place. The urge to kiss his cheek happily—or kiss more—rushes through me and I force myself not to. If I kiss him, I might never stop, and the realization feels more weighty with every moment that passes.

If I’m here another week, I know without a shadow of a doubt that I’ll resonate to him. It’s a gut reaction I have, an instinctive feeling. Something is going on with my khui. It’s not ready to resonate, not yet, but it feels as if it’s waiting for something. I’m alert to its presence in a way I never was before.

“Can you walk?” he asks me again, and I nod.

He seems pleased with this response, and the color of his skin shifts to something muted and dark, matching the shadows around us. The only thing that remains the same color are the garishly golden loincloth, the necklace with the claw around his neck, and his bright reddish mane. But at a glance? It might be enough for him to slip away unnoticed.

I manage a few steps and then we emerge from the room into what looks like a large, somber chamber. There’s a pool of water with a trickling fountain in the center, surrounded by mushrooms of every shape and size. A garden of some kind, I realize. The ceiling overhead is nothing more than a decorative lattice with an intricate weave, made out of the same strange material the door was made from, and through the holes in the lattice, I can see rock overhead. The chamber itself has a few stone benches set along the walls, and one large seat at the head of the room that looks like it belongs to the man in charge. There’s a golden banner behind it with a woven pattern that looks like a double starburst—or twin suns.

“Come,” Rem’eb says, taking my arm and leading me through the room. “We must travel as far as we can this tide-fall.”

The stranger arrives again—Cas’zor—and carries a large pack and a long tube that looks like a waterskin of some kind. He hands them both to Rem’eb, settling them over his shoulder. “Hurry.”

“Are you sure you will not come with us?” Rem’eb asks the man. “Everyone will be furious when they have found out what you have done.”

“I have done the right thing,” he tells us in a stiff voice. “Let them be angry.”

Rem’eb hesitates, clearly torn.

“They need a voice of reason right now,” Cas’zor says. “And your female needs your help.”

Rem’eb looks over at me and that decides him. He nods, adjusting the pack over his shoulder and looping the canteen over his head. “We will go as fast as we can. You have my thanks, Cas’zor. I will not forget this.”

“Be safe.” He nods at Rem’eb and then leaves us.

Rem’eb clasps my hand again. “Come. I am taking you to your suitor and then we will return both of you to the surface. Tell me if I move too fast for you. We must make haste.”

Then he tugs me behind him and races out of the room, with me dragging along after him.

At first, my legs tingle and I worry that I don’t have shoes, but the floors in the cavern seem to be smooth and there’s a cobbled street. I’m able to keep up with him, and the more I move, the stronger I feel. It takes everything I have not to gawk at my surroundings, though.

There’s an entire city here in the vast stretch of caverns.

Everywhere I look, there are more of the square houses made out of stone bricks, just like the ones back in Croatoan. Here, though, there’s so many that I can’t count all of them. They line up in neat rows along the main street, and it’s down this street that Rem’eb pulls me along. The huts here have no roofs that I can see, but they’re so familiar to me that the sight makes me ache. The doorframes are not privacy screens covered in leather like back home, though. Here they’re doors just like the strangely made one in my old cell, and some even look to be made of metal.

Tubes of light made out of the same strange wavy glass are located along the street itself, and the ceiling high above glows with faint light—more of the strange moss, I think.

I want to stop and examine them, but there’s no time. “Where is everyone?” I ask, confused. Rem’eb has never indicated that there’s anything but a bustling city around him, but this place looks deserted and terrifying. “Is it the middle of the night?”

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