Page 62 of I Married Amreth

“Company?” Aku echoed, his face and voice hardening. “More off-worlder ships came?”

“I’m assuming that’s what this means,” I said carefully while calling up the holographic display from my bracer to show the camera feed from my drones. “Give me a minute.”

At first, it didn’t show anything, even when I set the scanner to the widest radius. I recalibrated the device to scan on the frequency provided in the message. Within seconds, it detected a camouflaged vessel a short distance away. My stomach dropped when the zoom in revealed a Nazhral ship.

“Fuck! That can’t be good,” Ernst said.

“Who are they?” Aku demanded, with a glimmer of suspicion and betrayal in his yellowish-brown eyes. “What are they doing here?”

“Based on the vessel, they belong to a species with a rather bad reputation when it comes to smuggling and piracy,” I explained cautiously. “But I have no idea who they are, or why they came here. We’re all finding out together. If we were up to no good, I would not be sharing this with you in real time.”

Aku appeared embarrassed for implying we might have been double-crossing them. He gave me an apologetic look, and I smiled, indicating I wasn’t offended. Under the circumstances, he had every reason to be suspicious of off-worlders.

The drone followed the ship discreetly. Thankfully, I had set all of them to stealth mode to avoid causing any distress to the fauna while surveying the land. As it didn’t possess the advanced anti-detection systems of a military-grade drone, I worried that our targets might detect it. However, as the intruders had no specific reason to suspect we were onto them, they blissfully went about their business, apparently not scanning for potential threats.

To our collective shock, their ship headed straight for the Svast Temple. Aku uttered a series of swear words in his language. Enre bared his teeth, the same fury visible on his features. Even though this wasn’t my planet or my sacred shrine, I felt personally violated when I watched them land in a large clearing near the pathway that led to the entrance.

“Thank God there are no pilgrims there right now,” Ciara mused aloud. “I can’t imagine how ugly things might have turned otherwise.”

“It seems incredibly convenient,” Aku countered, the same anger visible on his face. “Just yesterday, over four hundred of our people were there. Tomorrow, hundreds more will arrive in the morning. How did they know to come today to be undetected?”

That was an excellent question that triggered many more, all of which would likely yield the type of answers I dreaded. But two passengers disembarking from the vessel sent another shockwave among us. Despite the model of the ship, it wasn’t a pair of Nazhrals who came out, but a human and a Raithean.

“What the hell?!” Ciara uttered under her breath.

Although stunned, I immediately directed the drone to capture their images to attempt facial recognition. Unfortunately, as I didn’t have network access, I would need to transfer the data to my contact later to try and identify them.

Both intruders walked the short distance up the path to the water by the entrance of the temple. The human remained on the edge while the Raithean went into the water. He waded through the shallow part, occasionally pausing for a few seconds before moving again. And then he dove into the deeper part, completely vanishing from view while his companion observed in silence.

“What are they doing?” Aku asked. “Who are they? And are they a threat?”

Frowning, I shook my head, failing to find a satisfying explanation.

“I’m not sure. They came in a vessel that does not belong to either of their species. But they could have purchased it used in a shipyard for a reasonable price. They don’t seem to be doing anything other than the Raithean getting into the water. It is salt water, correct?”

Aku nodded.

“As you can see, Raitheans are an amphibian species. They need to soak in salt water at regular intervals. So it might explain why he is doing this,” I said, although my tone made it clear that my own explanation didn’t come even remotely close to convincing me.

“Fair enough,” Aku said, his voice still dripping with suspicion. “But why our temple? There’s plenty of water everywhere else. Some of the areas they flew over on their way to Svast had large, unobstructed shores that would have been a lot more convenient for them to land in. This feels too deliberate.”

“Oh God!” Ciara suddenly exclaimed. “This is Kalmia! They’re here to kill us all!”

Chapter 15

Ciara

Apowerful sense of dread washed over me even as I spoke those words. My companions gasped, shock and confusion warring over their features as they looked at me in disbelief.

“What?!” Aku exclaimed. “Kill us all, how? What is that Kalmia?”

I licked my lips nervously as I ran my fingers through my hair, my mind racing as I observed the intruders. Raitheans were frequently referred to as Krakens on Earth. They possessed an upper body similar to humans, with a torso, two arms, and a head, but with thick tentacles instead of hair. And their lower body was made of eight tentacles like an octopus, but only half of them had suction cups.

“Raitheans—the male you see with the human—share similarities with certain creatures from Earth called squids and octopuses. They’re recognizable by the tentacles that form the lower half of their bodies instead of legs,” I explained.“Generally, they’re a peaceful species, but they also possess some extremely lethal abilities.”

“Like what?” Aku insisted.

“They can produce pearl-like growths that we call calcareous concretions,” I continued. “They’re usually shaped like small pebbles or stones. They can be smooth or rough, but usually with Raitheans, they look like red rocks.”

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