Page 18 of Rhaz's Redemption
My mentor shook his head and left to join his son on the fallen log. The rest of us wandered around the village for some time after that.
I caught Zander glancing over at Beatrice many times throughout the morning, and I was about to have a word with him when Beatrice wandered from her friend group, but Zander’s gaze did not follow her. I tracked his gaze again and realized it was Fatima, not Beatrice he’d been looking at. He wore the same longing expression I’d seen on the other’s faces before they luminesced to their mates. I didn’t know the male very well, but Tarak trusted him and that was enough for me.
I didn’t know Holey either, but I was keenly aware of her every movement. We all were engrossed in the scene around us, but the moment the acolyte made her way to the ship everyone went still. She held the Priestess’s pendent in her hands which we now knew was the key to open our ancestor’s ship.
Once the doors opened the rest of us followed her inside the metal craft. It was dark and cold inside. It reminded me of the space between life and death, a feeling I knew all too well.
“This way,” Holey motioned for us to follow and the hallway quickly became cramped with everyone trying to get inside.
The acolyte stopped at what looked like a slanted metal table filled with raised symbols. She pressed one of the symbols and a dark square illuminated with the image of a sirret woman wearing a style of clothing I didn’t recognize.
“Hello. It is the year three thousand five hundred and seventy-six in the standard galactic calendar,” The female began. “I am Yara, the pilot of the ship we named Miracle. My crew and I set out from Ozinda six months ago looking for a suitable world for us to build a new home.
Ozinda has become a dark and twisted place, full of greed, poverty, slavery, and war. We believe that technology is at the root of the vile darkness that has twisted our fellow sirrets, which is why we chose to leave.
We didn’t choose this planet, but I do believe it chose us. Once we entered the atmosphere, our ship’s instruments stopped working, causing us to crash. Fortunately, this is a lush land, full of fruit, and workable soil. This is our home now. We will build a new future without technology, and we will live a simple life as we believe the goddess intended.”
We didn’t choose this planet, but I do believe it chose us. Her words hit me like a spear to the chest. That couldn’t be true. I refused to believe that fate chose this life for me. This miserable unending existence in which I was cursed to love from afar, have a sire who hated me, and a dead mother I could only see when I visited the gates between the realm of the living and the dead.
I pushed my way through the crowded hallway and stalked toward the exit. It wasn’t until I was outside with the cold breeze surrounding me and the sun hitting my face, that I felt like I could breathe again.
Holey’s voice filtered through the ship and even though I didn’t want to hear any more about these ancestors and the choices they’d made, I listened to what she had to say.
“Every priestess has vowed to keep this place a secret so the future generations wouldn’t try to use the technology our ancestors tried so hard to flee, I tried to keep the secret too, but it felt wrong. These people got to live the life they wanted free from the miseries of their homeworld, we should get the same choice to live the lives we want to lead. No more secrets.”
“What did Kahina say when you brought this up to her?” Tarak asked.
There was a long moment of silence before the acolyte spoke again. “I haven’t yet. I suspect she’ll figure it out soon, and when she does she won’t be happy about it. Protecting this secret is the only thing she has left.”
What Holey said rang true. I was surprised Kahina had been able to keep this knowledge from Dameron. He might be going mad, but he was still a clever male. The fact that the high priestess was able to keep this from him made me fear what she was capable of and wonder how far she’d go to keep this knowledge a secret from the other dekes.
I decided I’d heard enough. I did not wish to linger here in this graveyard of my people’s past. I had a job to do, a job I was dreading, but one that needed to be done nonetheless.
Chapter 10
Beatrice
My heart squeezed for the Sirret’s that surrounded me. Tarak looked so dismayed by the video he’d seen, and a myriad of emotions played on the faces of the elders and hunters gathered on the ship. Some looked away with tears in their eyes, some furrowed their brows in confusion, and some pursed their lips in anger. I searched for Rhaz’s face, but I didn’t find it. I heard someone walking out shortly after the video and since he wasn’t here I had to assume it was him.
“The lies should have ended generations ago,” Neelu said between gritted teeth. “Our parents and grandparents lived and died without knowing the truth of where they come from.”
“And we’ve lived our lives believing the goddess had cursed us, a goddess that probably doesn’t even exist,” Brexl commented in a somber tone. Taylor squeezed his hand and whispered comforting words in his ear. He turned and hugged his mate and she rubbed his back as he processed this new information.
“Exactly,” Axon huffed. “This is why we shouldn’t give our food in the offering. We need it now more than ever.”
“But what if the goddess does exist?” Lumod argued. “I, for one, don’t want to risk her wrath again.”
“What wrath?” Axon replied. “What did you do as a sietling that warranted such hatred from the heavens above?”
“Alright then, maybe some of us would like to make sure we lumines before we grow gray and old,” Lumod retorted.
“What does some fake goddess have to do with your luminescence?” Axon’s tone had grown bitter. He was getting more and more irritated that his brother shifter wasn’t seeing things as he did. But that was the trouble with religion and invisible gods and goddesses. No one could prove that their good fortune wasn’t due to the favor of the gods above, and no one wanted to risk their downfall by not paying homage to a god who might have control over their fate.
“That’s easy for you to say. You’ve already glowed for your mate,” Lumod growled. I’d never seen the easy-going shifter angry before. It was unsettling to see his features contort from a soft merman to a hardened siren with a mouth filled with sharp teeth.
Hai looked between them both and an expression of hurt and confusion crossed their face.
“Enough!” Tarak demanded before their argument could descend into blows. “This is a lot to take in for everyone, and nothing is going to be resolved through fighting amongst ourselves.”
