Page 49 of Akur

She couldn’t look away from those eyes. It was like staring into wells of liquid darkness. They were unnervingly intelligent, reminding her of dissections she’d done in biology class, the way a cow’s eyes had stared up at her from the steel table. But where those had held a sort of peaceful emptiness, these eyes contained calculations upon calculations, wheels turning within wheels.

The Tasqal was humanoid in basic form, standing upright on two powerful legs barely visible beneath its robes. But its face—God, its face was pure nightmare fuel. Underneath the hood of the robe it wore was a wide and flat face like a toad’s, with a lipless mouth that seemed frozen in a perpetual sneer. Its skin was a mottled dark green with patches of brown, covered in what looked like pulsating boils. Each one glistened with yellowish fluid that made her stomach churn. The sight was both repulsive and strangely hypnotic, like watching a slow-motion explosion of something foul.

“Give me one reason,” Akur growled, his voice thick with centuries of hatred, “why I should not end your miserable existence right here.”

The Tasqal didn’t struggle against the blade at its throat. Didn’t show an ounce of fear. Instead, it regarded Akur with an unsettling calm that made her awareness increase. Something was wrong here. Every instinct she’d honed through years of reading people was screaming that this wasn’t how a captive should act.

“Because what I have to tell you, Shum’ai,” the Tasqal said, each word precise and measured, “will change everything you think you know about your purpose here.”

“Pretty words from a desperate creature.” Akur pressed his blade deeper, drawing more of that dark blood. “Your kind has stolen mors from their younglings, turned living worlds to ash. Every breath you draw is an insult to the dead.”

The Tasqal remained perfectly still. She was sure its mouth twitched. Sure there was a ghost of a smile there. “That, Shum’ai, is precisely why I am here.”

She took a step forward before she could stop herself, drawn by something in the creature’s tone. “What do you mean?”

“Stay back,” Akur snarled, not taking his eyes off the Tasqal. His voice dropped low, dangerous. “They’re dying. Their own biology turning against them. And in their desperation, they’ve only grown more cruel. Stealing females from world after world, forcing themselves—” His blade drew more of that thick dark blood as he forced it deeper. “You’ve brought nothing but death to the galaxy.”

For several heartbeats, the Tasqal said nothing. The only sound in the room was Akur’s labored breathing and the subtle drip of dark fluid down its throat. Then, “You are right, Akur the Undefeated.”

Akur went rigid, his lips pulling back in a snarl that revealed teeth meant for tearing. The use of this title seemed to enrage him further, and Constance could feel the heat rolling off him like an invisible torrent, almost like an indication of his anger.

The Tasqal’s gaze shifted to her then, his focus seeming to strip away her defenses layer by layer. “I do not deserve his mercy, but I plead with your human sensibilities. Listen to what I have to say.”

“Don’t let him into your mind, Constance.” Akur’s voice was rough with barely contained violence. “They are manipulators. Masters of twisting truth until you question your own reality.”

She’d spent years learning to read people, to see past their masks and defenses to the truth beneath. But this creature…this being that had orchestrated the destruction of countless worlds…everything about it felt wrong. Because she was trying to apply human psychology to something that had evolved along completely different lines.

Taking a careful step forward, she placed her hand on Akur’s arm. His muscles were coiled tight like steel cables beneath her touch, thrumming, ready to react. This close, the Tasqal’s presence was overwhelming. She didn’t step back.

“Maybe we should hear what he has to say.” The words felt like betrayal in her mouth, but they needed information. Needed to understand why they were here, what this creature wanted from them.

Akur’s growl vibrated through her palm where it rested against his skin.

“You can kill him after,” she added softly.

For a moment that stretched like eternity, she thought Akur would ignore her completely. Then he released the Tasqal—letting it drop like a bag of trash—before stalking behind her. His footsteps were heavy, each one like a drumbeat, the only other sound in the room apart from her pulse roaring in her ears.

The Tasqal rose, adjusting its flowing garments with meticulous care. The gesture was so oddly human that it made her skin crawl again.

“Why are you here?” She crossed her arms and refused to rub the tiny hairs along them that stood on end. She was good at this. She’d catch every detail—the way the Tasqal smoothed its robes, the subtle twitch in its left eyelid, the almost imperceptible way it kept track of Akur pacing behind her. This creature, for all its alienness, still gave off tells. “Why did you bring us here, and what do you plan to do with us?”

“What do I plan to do with you?” For the first time, the Tasqal’s voice changed. It wasn’t subtle either. It became something darker, something more honest. “I planned…to kill you.”

The temperature in the room seemed to plummet. Even Akur’s burning heat couldn’t ward off the chill that settled in her bones. His pacing stopped abruptly, and she could hear his fingers clenching and unclenching on the hilt of his blade.

“Not you, Shum’ai.” The Tasqal’s eyes flicked to Akur briefly. “The Hedgeruds would have taken care of you aboveground.”

Constance’s throat went dry. Her heart seemed to stutter in her chest as the implications sank in. “But me. You planned to killme.”

“Yesss,” the Tasqal hissed, but there was something almost like regret in that alien voice. Or maybe she was imagining it.

Her arms tightened across her chest, heart still hammering against her ribs. “You’d take me from my planet, put me in stasis, risk everything to capture us again…just to kill me?” Her eyes narrowed as she studied the creature before her, looking for any crack in its composure. “Even for you monsters, that seems excessive.”

The Tasqal blinked—a horrifyingly slow motion where its entire eyes disappeared beneath folds of skin before emerging again.

“He means he planned to kill you in the way they kill all the females they take.” Akur’s voice was lethal silk behind her. “By disease. Inescapable once they seed you with their young.” The raw hatred in his tone made her shudder, images of other women’s fates flashing through her mind.

The Tasqal made that unsettling sound again, like bubbles popping in its throat. “Even you, Shum’ai, are wrong.”

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