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This is an excerpt from The Elavale, my fantasy novel.



Wil

 

“The Age of Unconsciousness was a beautiful first step in Goa’s bright future. A necessary ignition that would restart the flames of human inspiration. Despite the absence of flexion, I would contend that the Tetral’s hands were indeed always present throughout this period of godless strife. Make no mistake, the Tetral have always had the power to refine us—from the lowliest of scrap to the most precious of gems.”

From The Abridged History of Goa, Vol. 1, by

D’geris Luvenar Ecquellio Maunstrade, His Presence of Illumination

 

916L, the Month of Solus, Age of Consciousness

 

The rain pellets mixed with the blood from Wil’s face, chilling his hot, throbbing skin. He spun in the mud, his full beard and long hair clogged with dark muck. A plump woman with an exposed midriff, and a lithe man with a hand of half-missing fingers provoked their teenaged son; the boy kicked Wil in the ribs. The family wore black linen masks with cut-out eye holes, soaked to become slick imprints of disfigurement.

Wil grabbed the boy’s leg on the next incoming swing and threw him aside. The man with the disfigured hand tackled Wil. Struggling and spinning, they kicked and grasped at each other. The man pinned Wil face-first, kneeling on his back.

“Feed ‘im slime!” the woman shouted. “Feed ‘im filthy, icky slop!”

“Tell the boy to get up,” the man said, breath short.

“Get up, wily boy! Get up, belan-meat!”

The boy got to his feet, then charged, screaming in a cracked voice of rage.

The mud flew. Wil coughed on nose blood and spat sludge. The slippery floor gave none an upper hand, but it was still two against one, and Wil took too many blows to the body and face. He was pinned, the boy striking his side, the man kneeling on his arm. He blinked through soaked hair and dirty water, blew mud from his mouth, and saw the glint of his trowel. In one powerful move, he reached with his free hand, grabbed the trowel, and drove it backward into the man. Blood flashed in the cruddy afternoon light as he pulled the tool back. The man recoiled and stood up, holding his shoulder, crimson seeping through stubby, clipped fingers. Wil swung the small spade at the boy, missing, but scaring the boy away.

“I’ll cut your boy!” Wil yelled, his own adult voice cracking. “Get out of here! Go on!”

The man spat. “Take the barrow, woman. Boy, come.”

The ambushers took Wil’s trundle of freshly picked dustroot and wheeled it down the ditch into the forest. Wil lay on his side, trowel extended, abdomen screaming against his age’s compromises. When they were out of eyeshot, he dropped in a heap of exhaustion, letting the rain pelt his body.

Thinking of the crop field, his heart left his body. He yelled to the sky in defeat, wanting nothing more than to grab the trowel and charge after them. But when he lifted his torso again, the pain crackled up his back and he dropped again. He opened his eyes, panting, a chunk of his soul taken with the root. A swath that meant no bread, no dairy, and no produce for his family.

Where did they come from? 

The encounter had dashed his hopes that he had found peace in a remote, quiet village. He hadn’t recognized their voices. How many people was the Magnus letting in now? The old fat fool. Scarier than anything else was his wife’s reaction. She’d try to console him, try to explain it off, but in the end, he knew there would be some amount of disappointment he could never rectify.

Stop thinking like that. Evie’s not like that.

After a while, when the blood from mouth wounds threatened to choke him, he leaned over and spat a dark glob. He looked at the trowel on the ground, remembering things he’d done to vagrants before. Before Tesh, before Evie.

Evie . . .

He grabbed the trowel and slammed it into the mud, bowing his head and sighing. He couldn’t pursue them in this rage. He shouldn’t. But if he allowed them to leave uncontested, would they come again? Would others come? His forty-seven-ell-old body ached as he stood. No, if he was to do anything further, he needed his brother, Hess.

He closed his eyes, trying to imagine opening his door and Evie’s reaction. He could feel his entire body drooping, but began the slow walk back to his house.  

He hadn’t fought like this in ells.

A day after his ninth birthday, Hess had slapped him on the cheek for trying to take the last klumpa, their favorite fruit. In a spin of screeches, they fought until their father emerged and carried both boys into the house for punishment. A nine-ell-old squabble over sweet nectar. Though he’d taken punches with four times the amount of weight since then, somehow that memory had always trumped them.

Wil staggered up the mismatched path of embedded boards back to his porch. The palm of a hill cupped his home, standing at the base of a grassy knoll. Three quill-like buckus trees stood atop the knoll, their foliage rubbery coils that formed a green cylindrical mass. Through their trunks came Tesh’s ubiquitous silvery haze, which, when combined with the rainfall, brought an ancient gloom to the dark green countryside. The brush and groundcover throughout the village kicked up the scent of mint and sage, reminding Wil that while his life was fragile and broken, nature went on unobstructed, perhaps even jovially.

He stopped before his front door and braced himself on a porch strut, dripping and disoriented. Evie had built their house with nothing but the forests around them and her collection of woodworking tools. It was a small two-story with intricate designs engraved around doors and windows. She’d created a “family seal” comprising a mallet and grains, and carved it into the front door. They attached her shop to the side of the house, soaked sawdust creating a path from its door and scattered shims below the windows. Workbenches and dull saw blades adorned the cut grass, boards and hewn trunks leaning against the shop. Little figurines lined the home’s patio and windowsills, half-painted, marbled, unfinished. The torrent of rain inundated everything.

When he opened the front door, an aroma of aparra seeds and glush puffs hit him, laced with horrible dread. He gingerly removed his muddy boots and flung his garments to the floor in their entryway. He entered the small kitchen, standing under the threshold in his loose undershorts, sopping hair, thick hairy chest against pale skin, and a blood-smeared, muddy face.

Evie sat at their table for two, in a cramped but neatly organized kitchen made primarily of stained wood. Behind her, a pot was bubbling over a dustroot burner. She looked up from her book and laughed. Then she noticed the blood.

“Wil!” she exclaimed, jumping up, angling carefully to protect her protruding stomach.

“Ambushed,” he said in his gruff voice, letting her examine his face.

“Ambushed?” she asked incredulously.

“A family. Three of them. They took a quarter of our dustroot.”

He looked down, as her eyes pained him. So, she took his face in her hands and refocused him.

Crow’s feet grew off her pale blue eyes. She wore her black hair in a bun, joined by little streaks of gray. She grabbed him and pulled him into a hug. Despite getting slimed by his muddy face, beard, and hair, she held his icy body, and they stood listening to the rain batter the roof.

She led him upstairs to their bathroom, lit a fire under the bathtub as it began filling, and began cleaning his face to dress his wounds. He sat on a kitchen chair in front of the vanity as Evie swiveled around him, constantly catching her pregnant belly, dabbing at scratches with a cloth wet from a bottle of old pesky, wiping mud, and rinsing detritus in the sink. After the tub filled, it was quiet except for the creaking of Evie’s movements and the occasional squelch of a wrung cloth.

Wil watched himself in the mirror, trying to take Evie’s silence as one of compassion. His brown hair was almost the same color as the mud being wiped away, as if Evie wasn’t able to rinse every stain—

Don’t be dramatic.

His blue eyes met hers, and they kissed.

“Do you know who—”

“No,” he said.

“It makes little sense,” she said. “Here? In Tesh?”

“I’ll find them.”

“And do what?”

“Have a little faith in your husband. I’ll bring Hess.”

“At least tell the guard.”

“What’s Tiffo going to do? Laugh?”

Evie groaned. “This is the consequence of your pointless feud. Tiffo’s not the only member of the guard.” She cupped his cheeks and looked at him. “Wil.”

He sighed, touching a cut on his lip, wincing. “I’ve got to secure what we already have. Put it under lock before the caravans arrive. Then we can deal with them.”

Evie finished dabbing at a spot and leaned quietly against the counter.

“I’m sorry,” Wil whispered, hands clasped at his knees, jaw strained.

She looked at him for a moment. “Don’t say that. How’d we get here?”

The tension released, and he looked at her.

“How’d we build this place?” she clarified.

“Well, you built it.”

“Wil,” she said, kneeling and placing a hand on his thigh. “We’ve been through so much to get here. A barrow of dustroot? Why’s that going to stop us now?” She smoothed his beard with a hand. “I believe in this family. We’re just getting started.”

He gave her a flat smile and took her hand, squeezing. His voice was stilted. “Thank you.” He took a beat, feeling the smoothness of the top of her hand with his thumb, drinking in her aura like medicine. He stood, almost losing his towel. “I believe in this family, too. But I also believe in food on our table. Dust to power our lights. Luvens to pay our debts.”

Evie shrugged. “If it comes to it, we can just live with your parents.”

“True,” Wil said, feeling some of his old energies return. “They will be dead soon; the house will be ours.”

“Wil!”

He flung off his towel before stepping into the tub.

 

***

 

The rain had receded, leaving a sun-dried mud field. The silver haze inhaled and exhaled throughout the countryside, little wisps and bigger clouds that smelled like chalk when one immersed themselves in their mist. Evie had always said rain healed wounds. Wil rotated his shoulder and stretched his neck. He wished rain could fix debt, too.

He walked outside, mug of tea in hand, and winced at his bruises. Evie was still asleep. The quiet of the morning allowed him to think and self-deprecate without distraction. Before dawn, every morning. Only this time, he was looking at three quarters crop instead of four. Their dustroot engine churned away on the side of their home, giving energy to their lamps. Maybe they could live without it for a while. It wouldn’t matter all that much, to be true; they used maybe one or two roots in six months.

But none of that would end up being a concern if he could secure the lost root.

What are you going to do when you find them? If you find them?

He worried Hess might be a little too engaged, as he was like to do, especially when it involved injustice.

He sipped his tea, a mint shrub and culis root blend Evie had perfected. One of the many perks of being married to an apothecary’s daughter. The warmth blossomed down his throat and into his stomach. Three days it had rained. Unusual for Tesh in the late cithtos season; the chilly rain would usually come for only an ura or so, then let up for a few days. By the time the relys season arrived, rain wouldn’t show itself until the next cithtos. Visitors had often scratched their heads at Tesh’s green lushness. But those who lived here remained convinced it was the undercurrents that gave life to the country. Long wells, aquifers, and sluices created by an ancient people, big chasms filled with groundwater, an unlimited supply pulsing upward like heart-pumped blood.

Squeaking grass heralded Hess’s arrival. Wil’s younger brother was a tall, lean man with a clean-shaven face and short blonde hair swept back. He was wearing tan linens and a leather tunic, its green paint faded. Hess’ hazel eyes were buried under an emotive, mischievous brow. His lip had a familiar scar on the right corner, a little white streak rising upward—Wil’s doing, with a stick he’d thrown when they were young and playing “war.”

Hess was looking out over the crop field as he made his way to the house . . . a sheathed sword in hand.

“I guess this wasn’t some ploy to get my free labor after all,” Hess said, smiling at Wil as he approached.

“Sadly, no,” Wil said, finishing his tea and setting the mug on the windowsill, next to a rough-hewn figurine. He folded his arms as the brothers examined the crops. “You planning on using that?” He nodded to Hess’s sword.

“If I have to,” Hess said, leaning the blade against the house. He saw Wil’s stoic face and shook his head. “I won’t cut down a teenager.”

“It wasn’t just a teenager.”

“Well, we’re not going in there unprotected.”

“It’s Tesh,” Wil said, giving Hess an older brother kind of look. Violence was unheard of here. “Besides, I already cut one of them.”

Hess furrowed his brow, then checked in Wil’s mug.

“With a trowel,” Wil added.

“There’s the missing bit,” Hess chuckled, tipping back the mug to get the dregs.

“Do you want some?” Wil asked.

“I might have skipped breakfast.”

“Come. Let’s eat before we gather it all up.”

After filling their bellies with horkbeast sausage grounds, pickled ghis weed, and toast, the brothers set out to harvesting the rest of Wil’s field. Wil worked fast and “violent” as Hess called it, curt movements and a lowered brow. He said little during their ura together.

“You know we could go find them and you could take out your anger on the people who actually did this,” Hess said, stretching his back.

Wil yanked a root with extra force, then caught his breath, staring into the dirt. “I don’t feel guilty pulling out roots.”

Hess watched his brother. “You can talk to me. If you want. I know how you get when you’re thinking about stuff.”

“Let’s finish this row.”

Hess waited for a moment before grabbing his collection sack and kneeling down again.

Wil scooped and pulled on the barked root, then twisted, ripped, and tapped the product to remove excess dirt. His hands looked like tree stumps, caked in dark brown soil. He stopped and looked up at Hess, now busily working. Truth was, if the vagrants made off with his root for good, the profits from his remaining crop wouldn’t be enough to cover all the season’s debts. That was certain. It could buy some time for Evie to finish a few of her projects, and he’d help where he could. But maybe . . . maybe this was a sign that they were to move. To become yet another villager to leave Tesh in search of an Aferitian destiny. Wil thought of the Aferitian auditor coming to the farm in a few weeks to collect a chunk of payment. Some little man, all alone in Wil’s domain. Wil could convince him. He’d have to.

How the scholars had found out such a disfigured, diminutive root could have such power was beyond him. A barrowful could power all of Tesh’s lamps and burners for three months. He sometimes wished the scholars were farther along in discovering a wider range of uses for it, especially now that he was a farmer, but figured maybe the simplicity was best. At least his field was a speck compared to those of the root barons in the Middledom.

Come afternoon, their shirts were soaked, and Evie had run out of opper juice.

“I swear we’ve picked thousands,” Hess said, dragging a bag full of roots toward Wil’s shed.

“If only,” Wil said, helping his brother heft the bag inside.

Once the sack sat neatly on top of another, Hess put his back to the shed and got some breaths out. “Did they really take that much? I’m sure I can put something together to help out. Mom and Dad, too.”

Wil clapped a hand on Hess’ shoulder as he trudged back to the field. “We’ll be okay. But thank you.”

“You’d think helping provide services for the country would be a little less expensive.”

“These farmlands are precious to Aferitia, especially here at the end of the fertile land. They don’t want to be under the barons’ short little thumbs.”

Hess cackled. “Typical of Aferitia to lose their tight grip once resources get involved. We should’ve settled in the Middledom. Maz Mallotte, The Carenthen. That place will become its own province if ol’ Gerry isn’t careful. Why didn’t we become barons?”

“I’m guessing it’s not very baron-like to lose a quarter of your crop to a teenager and his parents.”

They joked and prattled until the sun started its slow descent and the silver mist threatened all sides of the farm. The brothers wheeled the last barrow of the season’s yield toward the shed, placed the sacks on their piles, and shut the door. Wil ensured the lock was secure and vowed to sleep outside the two nights before the caravans came to town. They rounded the shed and leaned over the field’s fence, admiring their work. Beyond the field, the forest loomed tall and wide.

“So they went in there?” Hess said, nodding.

“Mm. Took the ditch path. Back ‘round that way.”

Hess put his back to the fence, leaning, giving Wil a familiar look of raised eyebrows.

“No,” Wil said. “Tomorrow.”

“By tomorrow they could cross the Switches and be halfway to Sorenbeach by now.”

“If these people are lazy enough to steal someone else’s work, they won’t travel all the way to Sorenbeach to sell. They mean to sell it here or in Gode Valley. I guarantee it.”

“Then let’s get them! Here and now!”

Wil remembered Evie’s urges to inform the Tesh guard of the theft, but he wasn’t in the mood to listen to Tiffo make Wil grovel for help. He looked at Hess, the forest, then his home, digging his boot into the soft dirt. He pointed a finger into his brother’s face. “Don’t get carried away.”

Hess guffawed, rushing to collect his sword. “Don’t forget your trowel!”

Wil grumbled.

Together, they walked down the ditch, curved around the field, and approached the forest wall. They passed through a plume of white haze, getting a nose full of chalk. Wil waved the mist away as they emerged into the dense green of the forest. Tesh forests were apparently older than Aferitia, almost suffocating with moist, thick air and canopy cover. The ground squished underneath their feet, a mixture of fallen needles from the tall spiral tree limbs above and the minty brush. Spirals derived their name from the ribbing that wound up their trunks like small, harmless auger blades, and produced hanging vines that intertwined to become enormous fluttering sheets.

Enervation is a horror novella. A group of scientists are joining other expedition teams to a remote, abandoned ecological facility somewhere near Whistler, BC. But when they arrive, they find the other teams gone. Priya Khatri is the team's botanist. Like everyone else in her group, she is dealing with a tragedy in her past that the facility seems to amplify in strange ways.



I wandered the floor, trying to assess a suitable area to lay my mat. There were generous lanes of space on the far sides of the pillars, with entrances to corridors and offices lining the walls. Defunct drinking fountains, a leftover janitorial cart, and deep sills for bright, opaque windows. Within glass offices, chairs and tables were pushed up against the window walls, blinds lopsided and kinked. Down a long hallway, there was a vending machine with its door open, cans scattered on the ground and hanging out of their coiled rows.

I stopped at a vine-covered windowsill near the front corner and took out my notebook and pen to examine one leaf. With the pen tip, I tilted the little triangle up and down. I named the specimen in my notebook, categorized in my own system of numbers. Hadn’t done much with English ivy in the past, aside from dreaming up future homes straight out of PBS Masterpiece shows. If we had time to explore The Labs later, I was sure I would find that one of the other botanists had already done all this. I still plucked the leaf and put it in my press.

The opaque window turned into the bright sliding glass door in my parents’ kitchen. I was standing there in the early morning. A shadow falling onto the floor severed the light. I stared at the ground, seeing myself shake his immovable body, calling out, crying.

My throat tightened and I inhaled stiffly. The bright kitchen had turned into a dinner night yellowed by our old stained glass hanging light. The smell of garlic chapati rushed up my nose. Laughter and the feeling of playing cards roughed by use. There was wetness under my eyes. I wiped it away and looked back to check if anyone had seen me.

“Here’s good,” I said to myself.

I rolled out my mat in the corner and began blowing it up. Feeling slightly light-headed afterward, I smoothed my sleeping bag on top of the mat and retrieved my little hand-sewn pillow—turquoise blue, with an intricate golden flower design adorned by arcing lines and a vibrant orange framework. I heard Mom’s voice for the thousandth time, pleading with me not to leave. I turned the pillow over so that the smooth side faced up. Instead of her chapati, I resigned to snack on a fruit granola bar.

I checked my eyes in my phone’s camera, then walked back to the fountain, chewing. Ben was sitting on a camp stool, holding a calculator-like device in one hand. A tube went from the device to a cylindrical instrument that he held with his other hand and dipped in the stagnant water.

“Hi,” I said.

He remained glued to the device’s small screen. “Hey.”

“You’re Ben, right?”

“Benjamin,” he said, looking at me. “Priya?”

“Mm-hmm. What are you doing?”

“Just getting a quick reading.”

“And?”

He smirked. “Well . . . to be honest, this one’s stumped me.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, sitting on the lip of the fountain.

“This water . . . it’s . . . well, it’s the most basic liquid I’ve ever encountered on a job like this. It’s maxing out my scale.”

“As in, the water needs to get a personality?”

He snorted. “Yes. Exactly that.”

I looked up. “I was going to ask you . . . see those vines up there? Where do you think they’re getting the water to subsist?”

He looked, squinting. “Follow the climb, I guess.”

“I have, to some degree. Yes, some begin at the ground here, but even then . . . I just find it odd how you can clearly see some climbers start high. Higher than anywhere they’d get nutrients. Unless there’s rainwater in an adjacent room or something. None of the skylights are cracked. There’s no standing water anywhere inside the lobby, aside from this fountain. I know it’s early observations.”

He withdrew the device and let the drips fall. “For now, all I can say is, don’t drink the water. At least in this building.”

“Really? I was just about to take a few gulps of this refreshing, leaf-ridden soup that’s been stagnating for eighteen years.”

“What do you do again?”

“I’m the botanist.”

“Ah. Makes sense now.”

“I guess we both can’t help putting ourselves to work. I just didn’t have one of those cool instruments.”

“Priya,” he said again, ensuring he’d remember. He reached out to offer his hand.

“Benjamin,” I mimicked, and shook.

We shared a quick smile before I feared my anxieties would overtake me. He started wrapping up his device, and I turned to look at Jaala. Instead, I found Lewman on the bench where she had been sitting. He was digging through a small, orange plastic case. I approached, trying to locate Jaala in the lobby.

“What’s that?” I asked, suddenly feeling like an annoying kid.

He didn’t look up. “Flare gun. Just making sure it’s serviced.”

“Did you see Jaala? I thought she was sitting right here.”

“Ms. Okoro? Not sure. Didn’t see her after we settled in.”

“Okay, thanks. I’m Priya, by the way.”

“I know,” he said, loading the flare and snapping the receiver back in place. He checked me with his drooping eyes, and I got the hell out of there before it could get any more awkward.

I should’ve just let Jaala be, but if I was going to be living and working with a bunch of people I didn’t know, I wanted to at least gauge their temperament. There was nothing I hated more than a dysfunctional working relationship.

I started walking down the northern hallway off the lobby. The corridor was tall and lit by a large window at the end where the stairwell rose. I was stepping on brittle leaves and a pile of old newspapers and magazines. I knelt down and sifted through a few covers, wiping grime and turning crinkled pages; a lot of National Geographic, Popular Science, The Smithsonian—standard lobby fare. When I turned the corner, I found the staircase in a tall shaft that went up in a mirage of stories.

“Oh, Jaala,” I exclaimed, bracing my sternum.

Jaala stood at the top of the first landing, her back toward me, staring into the corner. She turned around and smiled down at me.

I laughed a little. “Sorry, I’m Priya. The botanist. Just making the rounds, saying ‘hi.’”

Jaala continued smiling. “Hello, Priya.”

“What’re you doing?”

“What do you mean?”

“You just exploring?”

“You’re the botanist?”

“Er, yeah. And you’re gonna tell me there’s no harmful amount of radiation here. Right?” I waited for her to react to my horrible joke.

“I am. Jaala Okoro.”

I tried not to pause too much, but couldn’t help blinking in response. “I, uh, would love to chat about your field sometime. I think all that stuff is super fascinating.”

She was smiling with bright white teeth that cut through the shade of the landing. “I need to use the bathroom.”

“Oh. Yeah. Okay.”

She walked down the stairs and passed me, her head turning with me until she got far enough away.

I stood slightly perplexed, wondering if I’d done something wrong since we left Vancouver. I sighed and looked up through the tall shaft. Well, at least there were Benjamin and Renée.

 

When sunset came, neither the Alpha nor Beta Teams had shown up. I had been smiling too wide, over-explaining my job. I helped Lewman lift supplies, blew up Jaala’s sleeping mat, and even indulged Val for a few minutes as he railed about the Geological Society of America and all its faults. As the light from the opaque windows faded, my mouth dried, and I kept rubbing my forearm.

“We need to contact EverRain,” Val said as we all gathered by the fountain.

“We’ll check the rest of the building first,” Renée said. “Then The Spire.”

“Renée, give us a little more credit,” Val argued. “We were told two other teams were already here, robustly gathering information. And we haven’t seen a single person. They’ve clearly left already. I would just like to know why EverRain told us otherwise. Frankly, I’m a little relieved because ‘how many geologists does it take to look at a rock,’ and all that.”

She folded her arms. “EverRain has their reasons. Maybe they decided to keep each team’s research separate.”

“Y’know, there probably shouldn’t be any ‘maybes’ in this whole thing,” Val said, then he threw up his hands. “But, like you said, they’ve got their reasons. It’s not my problem.”

“You weren’t told beforehand about any of this?” Benjamin asked Renée.

“Look, I know it’s frustrating, but I trust EverRain,” she said.

“Should we at least wait ‘til morning to search the rest of The Site?” I suggested, glancing at the dark blue tint of the front windows.

“We should hike back to the MARV and radio EverRain,” Benjamin said. “We need confirmation. I mean, what if something’s happened?”

“Ms. Auclair’s been with the company a long time,” Lewman said, sitting on a camp stool and whittling a small stick. “If anyone could guess the answer, it’s her. There’s no evidence anything’s gone amiss; the other MARVs were gone.”

“That’s great and all, but I’d like to hear it from EverRain,” Benjamin said. “Hey, I’m fine if we’re the replacements, but we need to eliminate the possibility of injury or worse.”

“Understood,” Renée said. “Tomorrow, you and I will hike back to the MARV and radio them. The rest of you will search upstairs.” She scanned the room. No one had any objections. “At the end of the day, the other teams were never our responsibility. Lewman’s right; the other MARVs were not here. We have no reason to believe anything’s gone wrong. So let’s get a good night’s sleep and wrap this up so we can get to work.”

I looked outside again as Benjamin and Lewman got the propane lights up and running. EverRain had also provided us with handball-shaped lamps that ran on highly efficient batteries we could charge under the sun. With a tap under the base, the little lamps glowed with a dim yellow hue, providing enough light to get around; we wouldn’t be doing much at night anyway.

As everyone was settling in for the night, the sound of sleeping bags rustled throughout the lobby. I was sitting against the corner wall, legs in my bag, positioned so I could see the entire room. I opened my phone and swiped across my home screen, a habitual movement. With no cell service, I opened my photos app, smirking as I flipped through a dozen images of my mom and me just two weeks ago. My hair looked atrocious. Mom was so beautiful for her age. I hoped time would find me similarly. When I swiped to the next photo, my chest deflated. It was a picture of my dad, a grainy, color-faded, and warm-toned relic of the 70s. He stood in a navy blue suit, hands on the back of a kitchen chair, leaning down so his face wouldn’t be obscured by the hanging stained glass light. He was making a rare gasping face, a photo Mom always called a “glimpse into his soul.”

The photo was the one we blew up to stand next to his casket.

I let the phone drop onto my chest, and I closed my eyes. My fists balled up beside me. I was still getting those stinging shocks that pulsed out from my chest, crippling the will to move my limbs. Then I furrowed my brow because behind the razor sensations, I had seen something odd in that photo. Whether it was tiredness or mental breakdown, I should’ve just gone to sleep. But I lifted the phone again, squinting as my eyes adjusted to the brightness.

I wasn’t losing it. We had an arched threshold that led into our living room from the kitchen. The archway was in the picture, behind Dad and to the left, dark and red-tinted. I don’t know how I’d missed it before, but there was a weird smudge-like blob in the threshold. The longer I stared, I swear I was looking at the outline of a figure. Now it seemed so distinct, almost unmistakable. My mom was the one who took the picture. They never mentioned anyone there with them at the time. I zoomed in on it, my screen dimming as the dark pixels consumed everything.

I clicked the lock button, letting the phone rest again. In my mind, I saw him fall, and heard the corporeal thud. My eyes needed rubbing; I held the fingertips at the corners and tried to turn those thoughts into bubbles and push them away. My therapist had told me sometimes people conjured visual “artifacts” due to trauma—a funny little word for hallucinations. God, I was certain this trip would start the exorcism I needed. My fingertips went cold, and my breathing turned rapid.

It’s just the first night, Priya, for God’s sake. Calm down. Stop sensationalizing.

I lay for a while, transforming more thoughts into bubbles, finding the present. Finally, I put my phone back into my backpack and zipped hard. I wouldn’t touch it again. Tomorrow I’d hit The Labs and discover what the other Teams had analyzed, with or without a trace of their presence here. I burrowed into my bag and tried to get the sound of Mom screaming out of my brain.

Sometime later, I woke slowly to darkness. The silence of the empty, decrepit lobby. Shadows made shapes and masses seem closer and sentient. Why the hell had I put my mat and bag all the way over here? I looked around, staying as still as possible, listening. I could hear soft snoring coming from the fountain. The occasional creak of the building. A louder thump from above. I turned on my back, and looked up, waiting.

As my senses settled, I had the urge to check my phone for the time but recommitted myself. I had to pee, but the idea of getting out of my warm bag and venturing outside filled me with dread. I closed my eyes, brought my knees up, and lay for a while. A pointless effort. I sat up and began slipping on my hiking boots, then rummaged for some toilet paper.

As I was pulling on my parka and walking across the lobby floor, I stopped. Someone was sitting upright on the camp stool near the supply crate. All I could see was his large-framed silhouette from some of the faint moonlight coming down from the skylights. He lifted his head.

“What are you doing?” he asked, soft-spoken and echoing. It was Lewman.

I relaxed and lifted the roll of toilet paper. “Peeing.”

He didn’t respond. I smiled awkwardly, not that he could see it, and went for the doors.

Outside, the night air gusted across the field and courtyard, chilling my face. I stood on the front steps, admiring the untainted sky above, not even the faintest glow from any light pollution along the crests of dark mountain ranges. I inhaled graciously and couldn’t believe how clear the Milky Way looked, the long arm of faint splattered white. It was hard to focus my eyes on a singular twinkle.

I could hear the echoing rustles of distant trees, and a tapping of metal siding, but otherwise, the valley was all wind. God, was that really how loudly I breathed? I closed my mouth. The magic of the sky melted into the mysteries of manmade shadows.

The door opened behind me, making me jump. Lewman joined me on the steps.

“Just doing my job, don’t worry,” he said. He moved over to the stair railing, a flat marble structure, and sat on it.

I nodded. “Listen. There are no crickets. Or anything.”

He lifted his head. “Hm. Do crickets live this far north? In the mountains?”

“I . . . I don’t know.”

“Better hurry; it’s cold. Don’t go far.”

I walked down the steps and made for the corner. I had to admit, a nightly walk by myself did not thrill me. But I was a goddamn scientist. I went to Stanford for hell’s sake. Unfortunately, none of those affirmations did much for me as I crouched between two bushes and pulled my pants down. A breeze soared through the valley, making the darkened meadow hiss. I saw the single tree on the knoll across the meadow, certainly a hemlock now that I had gotten a proper look. Something in the distance crooned softly. I hiked up my pants before I dried myself and crunched back to the stairs, arms folded.

“Did you hear that?” I asked.

“Mm-hmm,” Lewman said.

I turned around and looked up at the black sheet that was the mountain range. We listened in silence for a minute.

Like a man struggling to get out of bed, the groan returned, distant, hollow, and echoing across the valley.

I swallowed. “You don’t think—”

“It’s a bear,” he said.

“Oh . . .” I felt my body shrink, then quickly jogged up to the landing. “That makes sense.”

There was another moan, shorter than before, like a huff.

Lewman stood.

“Is everything okay?” I asked.

“It sounds upset with something.”

“Would it come down here in the valley?”

Lewman eventually looked at me. “Not unless it smells food.”

With that, he turned and opened the door for me.

After I got back in my sleeping bag, I heard the bear once more, and it seemed to be getting closer.

 


This novel is the sequel to Daughters. Naon is a Khor'Zon Warlord, a prominent leader who made a terrible decision to clothe innocent civilians in Khor'Zon armor during a raid on the city she oversaw at the end of Book 1. Naon is a primary antagonist of the trilogy. This excerpt shows the repercussions she faces.



Naon’s wasp-yellow pupils and bloodshot black sclera returned her gaze in the dropship’s glass window. The pale skin under her eyes was raw with exhaustion, and tears responded to a constant itch. She could not remember what sleep felt like before Flonneburg. The gentle hum and rumble of the dropship could not rebuff the stabbing urgencies of her brain and Sanction’s boxy skyline. She had not been back for what felt like years. Towering pillars with golden windows, glossy spires like corrupting needles, constant drone swarms, and, rising above most of the buildings, the Lo’Zon’s palace. They had finally completed it—the Ovulith, they called it. An obsidian trapezoid, its angular planes reflecting the sun’s glare like water. Naon’s breath misted the glass and she sunk into her seat.

This horrid place, this cratered dirt-mound was her home now. “Earth.” What a stupid name. She would never again see the spiked plateaus and golden fields of Mengsha’ron, nor the majesty of Oro’nath. The Land of Rivers. The crystalline plains of Kiisk. Maybe there were still pieces salvageable, patches of land spared from gravitic chaos. She tipped her head against the glass in her slumped state, clenching and unclenching her fist on the armrest. It was the Warlord’s duty to show impenetrable resolve, to eschew reminiscence, to kill sentimentality.

But Khorsha was gone forever. Gone forever . . .

The dropship angled, causing her to shift in her eat. She opened her eyes, seeing one side of the Ovulith approaching quickly. A small hangar door revealed itself in the sheen, an invitation. The craft descended and was swallowed up by the maw, descending onto a runway lane. Once the whirring had died, the side door opened in a loud rush that made Naon wince.

“Welcome to Sanction, Warlord,” a young Preen’ch said, his boyish voice grating against her ears. “I’m to accompany you to the elevators. They’re just across the bridge here. Warlord?”

Naon took in a nosefull of air and sat up. “I heard you.”

She clung to the dour aura as she followed him to a wide bridge, flanked by towering hangar walls with exposed, polished rafters. She gave the surroundings a single, uninterested glance, licking dried blood on her lips back into a liquid state. Her right hip and knee twinged with each step. The retaking of Flonneburg had left her white Warlord armor dented and scratched—a pocked chestguard, a missing pauldron.

At the end of the bridge, a purebred Khor’Zon stood next to the elevator door holding a tablet. His thick, hairless brow shadowed seductive eyes. He wore ebony silk robes that fell to a train, sleeves held taut by middle finger loops. An ornamental chain circlet hung from his skull fin, its glittering emerald pendant resting in the center of his forehead. A simpler incarnation of Oro’nath garb. She could feel the material without feeling it, smell the odor without smelling it, bear the weight of it without bearing it. She remembered Seen’ai reaching for her hand, to take her onto the hardwood floor of her tenement to dance . . .

“We welcome you home, Warlord, with reverence,” the purebred Khor’Zon said, bowing. When he resumed his stance, he was not smiling. “And with retribution.”

“Is he here then?” she asked, all one word.

He took the tablet in both hands while crossing his arms in front. “Our Lord has been here for over an hour.”

Naon stuttered at first. “He was not to be here until three.”

“It is three, Warlord.”

“I know that. Why did he arrive early?”

“The Lo’Zon had a briefing with Sanction’s aerospace engineers—”

“Fine,” she snapped. “Just take me to him.”

He opened his arm, and the elevator doors parted. Once inside, the Preen’ch escort left her, and she was finally alone. The doors closed and she leaned against the wall. Taking weight off her legs relieved some pain. That filthy roach, that boy who tackled her in the city’s retaking, she wished he had endured a prolonged punishment. His headless body mocked her with such freedom. 

She closed her eyes. Even this monstrosity could not compete with Oro’nath. Highways as tall as buildings, weaving in and out, up and down. She traced familiar streets via mental taxi. Her mouth instinctually gaped when she recalled Ak’toh, the best ground meat delicatessen in the city. Seasoned beef wraps, fish fritters with a special cheese and pepper sauce, and the best part of the menu: the gloer bits. The small deer-like rodents were a staple of Khorsha cuisine, but Ak’toh deep fried their meat, tender enough to be gelatin. In her daydream, she turned, seeing a tall Khor’Zon with blue pupils standing next to her, smiling. Balien . . .

The elevator stopped, and the doors opened.

“A return I had prophesied since we traversed the stars,” said a high-pitched, raspy voice. “But not even your father could have predicted the state of such a return.

Naon’s eyes shot open, her veins hardening, her breaths shortening. Years of work burying the past erased by a voice.

Ghare, Mouth of the Lo’Zon, stood before her. His long fingers held the elevator door open, wrapped in black linen. The golden mask covering his face glittered, the mouth section designed in three vertical bars, the eye holes revealing festering skin and red pupils. He wore thin, charcoal plate armor, its creases lit by a black, ectoplasmic glow. His skirts were made of a greased woolen material that pilled and frayed. A tattered remnant of his Chalis garments hung from his armored upper back, a foot-long cape.

“Ghare,” Naon breathed, barely a sound. She blinked at echoes of his shrill laugh, remembered the weight of his body on hers, his hot breath against her ear.

“What did you last tell me?” he began, stepping inside. Naon slowly, begrudgingly looked up at him. “You said, ‘if I ever see you again, it will be because I have left every piece of myself behind. You will only see a skeleton, a corpse. A corpse with a dagger.’” He eyed her up and down. “Well, you certainly smell like a corpse. But where is your dagger?”

“I need to see the Lo’Zon.”

“This is how you greet me? After all this time? This is how you greet your old mentor?”

Naon’s eye twitched. “I do not have anything to say to you.”

“But I have much to say to you,” he rasped, stepping closer with an aura of violence, forehead tipped down. She backed up into the wall, averting her gaze. “Look at me.”

When she did, she saw dark green pus and dried blood at the edges of his eyes, graying black sclera, and bloodshot veins. Yet his neon red pupils were as vibrant as the first day she met him.

“I know what you want to do to me,” he whispered. “I can feel it against me like a caressing breath. Do it. Try it right now. Get it out of your system.”

“You are keeping me from the Lo’Zon.”

He pulled back, making a tsch sound. “You really are broken. I must admit I am a little jealous; no one is allowed to break you more than I did.”

“Does the Lo’Zon know who you really are? Does he know what kind of creature he has speaking for him?”

“There we go. That is better. Let us stoke those embers.”

“Maybe you should be the one meeting our Lord. You are the one who let that white-haired wretch escape the Chalis. She has probably told them everything they need to know about the Chalis. You let all of this happen.”

“I wondered what being a Warlord might do to you. This accent you have. For someone who hates humanity as much as you do, I am shocked to see you imitating them so strongly. You should have stayed in the Chalis where the pure blood belonged.”

“Yes, I am certain the Chalis was riveting. Still learning how to walk without your nanomachines?”

He gave a raspy chortle. “I am standing tall. Tell me, how is your standing?”

“This is what the war looks like, Ghare. This is my world, and out here, you are the pupil. The Chalis made you brittle. Seen’ai was right; you have become ‘stale.’”

Ghare crossed his hands behind him. “Seen’ai. I had almost forgotten about him. How sorrowful, Naon. I had truly hoped you would become something astonishing. Your mother would be so disappointed in you if she could see you now.”

“My mother? The child molester? The woman who hid me my entire childhood so that she could carry out her depravity? You would align her with eminence.” Naon stepped out of the elevator and closed their gap. “It has been twenty years, Ghare. You no longer know me. You only wish you had not been abandoned as a child. You wish you knew what it was like to have parents, to have anyone that cared about you. Where is the Lo’Zon?”

“Only,” Ghare started, “you cared for me once.”

“In your most degenerate dreams, yes,” Naon said.

He lifted his head, then scoffed. “Our Lord has been waiting for you. You must be terribly late by now.” He opened his long arm toward the end of the vaulted hallway he had been barring.

She left him, letting her face relax, exhaling like a dismantling air mattress. The immaculate walls and ceiling were as white as a clear sun, a stark contrast to the Khor’Zon’s obsidian obsession, an inner womb of porcelain. At the end, she stopped in front of double doors with no visible handles. She hesitated, her hand on the surface.

The decision that day to arm and garb Flonneburg’s inhabitants felt like a temporal schism, a moment with many branching outcomes. Had she never made the call, would Flonneburg have fallen without contest? How could the Lo’Zon not see her decision as anything but praiseworthy? Surely the devotion to his own race was immutable. Surely he saw how it might have affected the Calcitra to attack their own. They were humans! Their enemies. The conquered. Why was this even worth discussing? Her leaders, even the Lo’Zon . . . they were all wrong.

The thought stung her, made her heart race. She scrunched her brow and eyes, rubbed her temples with her free hand.

“May Orothaea bless you, Naon,” Ghare said, an light snicker at the end.

She pushed the door open and stepped into a pristine, pearlescent conference room. The only source of light came from a glass wall at the room’s end, a vista overlooking the city. Miles away, the Chalis was framed in the window’s center, its sheen matching a distant storm. A twenty-foot table stretched across the room, with a high-backed chair at the end. The seat was polished white, each side decorated with fanning geometric pikes.

The door closed behind her, encasing her in anechoic stillness. She stepped forward, idling near the table’s edge. For a moment, she wondered if the Lo’Zon was even here. The table seemed to stretch forward, tunneling. She remembered his mask looking down on her, offering her his hand. Embracing her. Her Lord. The one who had saved them. He had never shown her disdain, only praise. She was the only Purebred Warlord. Loyal. Pragmatic. Effective.

She cleared her throat. “Are you there, my Savior?”

Of course I am,” the Lo’Zon said abruptly, standing and pushing the chair aside. He moved down the aisle toward her, causing her to flinch and step back. “Who else would it be? Are you really going to start this with that kind of forced innocence?” His deep voice reverberated through his mask. “And has it been so long that you’ve forgotten how to bow?

Nanomachines constricted Naon’s body, forcing her to form a crude bow. The Lo’Zon had not moved his hands. He stopped his approach a few feet away.

Naon made a small gasp, straining her eyes at the floor. “Forgive me, Savior. I am over-exhausted. I am—”

“Lower,” he whispered.

Naon’s knees crumpled. The nanomachines held her face an inch from the floor.

“I . . . I am—”

“Making excuses,” the Lo’Zon interjected. “You’re weaving. Manipulating. That’s what you do, isn’t it? Oh, and you’re so good at it. Proud of it, even.”

He turned away. She collapsed onto the floor. Flooded with embarrassment, she pushed up and got into a kneel, wincing as she tried to adjust. Little scorpions continued to snip her spinal cord and lumbar region.

“S-Savior,” she mumbled. “Please release them.”

The Lo’Zon tilted his head. “You still feel them?” He looked away, muttering to himself. “Hmm. It’s new, this transfer of nanomachines. We’re still working on it.”

The pain fizzled out. She didn’t dare look up.

He soon stepped toward her. He wore his signature all-white chestpiece and armor, his faceless mask, form-fitting quilted pants, and slim footpads with molded traction. Glowing white triangles coming off the sides of his mask flowed and undulated as if without gravity. He crouched down and tilted his head, the center of the mask swirling like an iridescent oil spill.

“Did you know they finalized the body count?” he asked. “I want you to look at me, and tell me your best guess.”

“Please . . . just let me accept my punishment.”

“This is part of your punishment. Tell me.”

“A . . . a few hundred?”

The Lo’Zon scoffed. “Unbelievable. When I chose my Warlords, I didn’t pick brain-dead invalids who couldn’t calculate simple mathematics and probabilities. Don’t insult me. No, not a few hundred, Naon. Two thousand, six-hundred and twenty-three.” He gave a confused chuckle, then threw the nearest chair into the wall. The legs shattered upon impact. His prosthetic arm whirred softly as it powered down. “Most of them were civilians, Naon.”

“I did what I thought—”

“Exactly. You did what you thought. And what a failure of a thought that was. A Warlord who can’t follow simple protocols . . .”

“We had no time to react, Savior. I tried to do what was right—for us. It was foresight.”

He leaned in. “Don’t start.”

“Fine,” she said. “Intuition, then.”

“Do you know what you are, Naon?” he said. “You are a bull. Do you know this animal?”

“Yes.”

“But you probably don’t know about its hatred of movement?”

“I do not.”

His voice shifted to an open, explanatory tone, but Naon knew his point would not be.

“Years ago,” he began, “before the war, the humans would corral one of these bulls for sport. They would agitate the bull by waving a flag or a sheet in front of it. When the bull would charge, the person holding the flag would move at the last second. These bulls would become enraged at the wave of a sheet of cloth. A sheet of cloth, Naon.” He paced back to her. “Do you know what that makes the bull?”

“No, Savior.”

“A brainless idiot,” he said. His voice returned to its usual low grit. “You see, you’ve become enraged by cloth, Naon. These humans—they’re nothing. They hide in holes and shoot tin casings at us. A Warlord must maintain herself. A Warlord is not rash. My Warlords are impervious to spite, jealousy, and revenge. Are you my Warlord?”

She did not answer. The Calcitra used more than tin casings these days.

“How quickly you forget how your father died,” he continued. “Zexl the Sage. The ‘great Servitor of Quar’on.’ Leader of the outcasts . . . betrayer of the Lo’Zon. He would still be alive if he’d listened to me. It was his pride that sent him and his followers to the cells. His pride could not save him from getting shot in the head by some ground-sucking Khor’Zon who could barely hold a pistol.”

“He was not shot,” she mumbled.

“Excuse me?”

“I was there that day, Savior—”

The Lo’Zon swung, hitting Naon in the cheek with the back of his hand. She staggered against the decorative table, biting down and inhaling carefully. She knew if she looked up at him now, she would explode.

“Of course I know you were there that day,” he snapped. “You can believe whatever twisted outcome you want about him. My point is his demise was his own doing. He did not listen to my counsel.” His tone turned genuine, and he approached her. “Why did your personal desire conflict with our goal, Naon? You were my most prized tool. My purebred Warlord. I still remember the day I gave you your Warlord Mark. Imagine that. I hardly remember those ceremonies. You don’t have to like the humans, Naon. But we need them to make this work. I shouldn’t have to remind you of that. In fact, I’m insulted I have to.”

Naon sniffed and cleared her throat, her head still down. “I thought our brothers and sisters were more important than the lives of these disgusting Earthlings. I thought our people would understand that.” She was thankful she could make it through a full thought without being cut off.

“I don’t need to explain to you why losing that many workers and builders and farmers and engineers and electricians is so devastating. That’s why I entrusted you with the title of Warlord, why I gave you London, why I let you swap Outposts in a flash. I trusted you. I knew that wherever you went, whatever scheme you were working on, it was always for the building up of this cause.” He grabbed her chin and made her look up at him. “But now . . . when I look at you . . . all I see is incompetence. I see hatred masking your potential. You’re so caught up in this utter loathing for humanity that you forget poise, leadership, persuasion. You forget me. And to forget your Lord . . . to forget Orothaea? Naon, there is nothing without Orothaea. There is nothing without me.”

Naon swallowed and kept her jaw from chattering. “I am . . . sorry I disappointed you.”

He let go. “Don’t forget how much I hate apologies. I don’t care about your standing with me. I care about this entire invasion being worth it. I care about the long-term. The future. No matter how much you despise it, one day Khor’Zon and human will be equal and free. War is a stepping stone. A necessary, god-awful stone. A war I’m trying to win with as little casualties as possible. We cannot have mistakes like this again.” He made a sweeping glance of her body. “And for that reason, I have made the decision to revoke your Warlord Mark for the time being.”

What?

The Lo’Zon gripped Naon by the throat and lifted her off the ground. “No; when I declare a decision, it’s final. There’s no debate, no hesitation, no exclamation. And when you protest, it gives the impression that you think I have incorrectly decided.” He squeezed. Her hands pawed at his wrist. “I am done with half-measures and leniency. So, tell me, have I incorrectly decided?” He pushed her off the wall and released her.

She stopped herself against a chair, coughing until she could breathe normally. “I will do whatever you ask, my Savior.”

“Ghare will show you your new duties.”

Naon looked up at him, hoping he would say something more. But the mask stared back, unmoving. She bowed her head, calming her breathing. Twenty years of fulfilled duty. Of flawless service. She stood and walked toward the back of the room. The Lo’Zon’s voice repeated through her as she met Ghare outside.

“Ghare,” called the Lo’Zon.

“Yes, my Savior?”

“Send the engineers up again. The nanomachines need some work.”

“Of course,” Ghare said, bowing.

The doors closed and Ghare turned to face Naon.

“Look at me,” he said quietly. She did so without any kind of face, without any life. “For the first month, you will be working in the sewers. Depending how that goes, the next two months will be factory work—manufacturing drones. After that, if you’ve proven yourself, you will become Overseer of Nanomachine Production. So, you see, the Lo’Zon has shown great mercy, Naon.”

The words floated around her, but never entered. She stared off as Ghare walked toward the elevator and pressed the call button.

“Coming?” he asked, an outstretched hand gesturing to the open elevator.

Each step forward seemed holographic, like a Chalis simulation. She moved automatically, with a stilted gait, leaving behind fragments of herself. Ghare’s eyes were constantly bearing down upon her, likely hoping to retrieve a fiery reaction. But she remained silent all the way down.

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