T.C. McMullen's Disillusionment Series

Retribution Excerpt

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Retribution
Words and chapters subject to change during editing.
©2013 T.C. McMullen
 
 
 
 

Retribution

 

 

Prologue

 

 

Uneasy silence stalked Tryn in the blinding darkness of sleep, a feeling of anticipation. A shimmer of light grew in front of her, took shape into a man. He walked toward her, the scene nearly opaque, like night, a place meant for peace and rest. Her heart soared when details formed and his handsome features grew clear, eyes as blue and stormy as she remembered them, the features of her son.

 

“Thank you,” he said.

 

Tryn studied him, wondering if her eyes betrayed her, and wanting to reach for him, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t make herself move at all.

 

“I know this is not easy for you, remembering me and allowing me to speak with you. But I need your help with this. Shani still does not understand and Kira listens not at all. I thank you for finally being open enough to hear what I need to say.”

 

“I would never turn you away,” she said.

 

He smiled sadly. “But you have. Not to be pondered now. I understand grief clouded your soul and my efforts to contact you were mistaken as painful memories, but that is healing now. You mustn’t mourn for Dad or me. We’re not lost to you, not forever. For now, though, I’ve discovered something, something that could remedy the threat you are facing yet again.”

 

“The Pure Ones,” Tryn said, feeling as much but hoping not, wishing those who called themselves “pure gods” would stop terrorizing her planet and her people.

 

“They are growing more desperate than ever for the resources that are not theirs,” he said.

 

Despair twisted through Tryn, tearing at her soul. “Without you…what can we do? What?”

 

“I’ve found help,” he said. “The Lofty Ones are not the almighty. But there are consequences to receiving this help.”

 

“Consequences?”

 

“There really is no choice now. The Lofty are intent on taking Earth. So you and the others will have to withstand the examinations.”

 

“What? What examinations?”

 

He bowed his head, so forlorn. “I can’t tell you. I should not even speak with you about it now. But they are not examinations anyone can prepare for.”

 

“What examin—?”

 

He shook his head.

 

“How do I know what to do if you don’t tell me what will be examined? Taren how?”

 

“I’m not here to tell you how. I’m here to tell you there is a chance for hope. You must hold the borders until help arrives. Hold the borders and direct the people.”

 

“No Taren. You have to tell me what to do.”

 

“Do what you’ve always done, Mom. Do what’s in your heart. I have confidence all will go well. Just hold the borders, direct the people. Kira and the others will help.”

 

Distance whisked him away, or maybe it was her it took away.

 

“I’m sorry I can’t help more,” he said. So faint.

 

“Taren, what do I do!”

 

“Hold your borders.” A whisper.

 

Damp night air poured in around her and she bolted from her pillow, shaken by a feeling of falling, a feeling of loss, of dread, of fear. She clutched her chest, gasping for breath. The dream had come again. This time though, she kept the memory, saw him in her mind’s eye as if she had just met with him, held him in her view. She swallowed fresh grief and heard a whisper in her mind. She had to hold the borders of Neridu. Somehow.

 

She launched from bed, ignoring the still star-speckled sky visible through the small side window of her room, and tugged her work clothes on, intent on checking all the databases and getting in touch with the Station in orbit around the planet to see if there were any new readings on the Pure Ones.

 

 

 


 

 

 

 

Chapter One

 

 

Taite stared at the gaping oblong mouth, slimy gray whiskers sprouting out at all sides. The thing’s dead eyes stared back at her, pale gray unlike the dark gray slime covering the entire body almost as disgusting as the horrible dank smell permeating from the odd creature. She turned the knife handle in her hand, glancing at the clean blade but having no idea where to sink the tip first.

 

“Go on,” Soniat said, hovering at Taite’s left elbow.

 

“I can’t imagine living on this,” Taite grumbled.

 

Soniat chuckled. “You have eaten it. We bake the cat quite often. Or fry it.”

 

Taite wrinkled her nose. “Oh. Well—then, can’t someone else, you know, remove the head, the tail, and the gray stuff?”

 

“Skin, Taite, it’s the skin. You have said your talents are within the kitchen. Valentar has told us your dishes are quite good.”

 

“Yes, when I’m handed already cut, select portions of…meat,” Taite said, holding her hands above the dead, whiskered creature, not having any idea how to get usable meat from it.

 

“And now you are going to learn how to make those select portions,” Soniat said and sauntered away to her side of the cleaning counter. Most of the evening meal had already been served to the guards and watchers inside the Great Hall of Nikkar, but Taite hadn’t eaten yet. Whatever she prepared would be for herself and the few who weren’t there for the night meal. Like Rylan.

 

Taite slumped her shoulders.

 

“You want me to dig my hands into this…fish, and you don’t even have enough pity to talk me through it?”

 

“We’ve shown you the process dozens of times. Now it’s time for you to decide you’re going to do it.” Soniat swiped her knife around another creature’s head, stripped the gray slime off in a few well placed yanks, finished cutting the meat and disposed of the head, spine and other inedible parts in one plunk to the bucket. “Get busy, Taite. It still needs to bake.”

 

Taite glanced down at the bucket not far from her feet. Everything from the creature would be saved and used if at all possible. Her stomach pitched at the thought. She was much happier without knowing all the background details of where lamp oil and the like came from. When she pulled on a blouse, she didn’t need to know some poor animal was shaved naked for her, or what animal had given its life to fill the plate on her table.

 

“Don’t take all night,” Soniat nagged.

 

Taite sighed, half closed her eyes, tilting her head back from the horrible task, and poked the knife into the gray matter. She groaned, when the tip hit bone, and quickly scooped up a fork to turn the thing so she wouldn’t have to touch it anymore than absolutely necessary.

 

~*~

 

Rylan grunted from the solid punch of drako knuckle to his chest that threw him across the cavern and against the rock wall. The medicine dropper flew from his hand, and he plummeted to his stomach, coughing once to restart his jarred diaphragm.

 

“And he likes you,” Aiden called out. He stood a safe distance away, just outside the entrance of the cave. “It rolled a few reaches to your right.”

 

Rylan raised up on his hands and knees, not sure which—his cousin or the drako—he disliked more.

 

“I’ve politely requested you leave me be,” Elek said, shifting his position and turning his snout to Rylan’s face. “Since I have given proper warning, I will defend myself.”

 

“You stupid drako,” Rylan grumbled. “I’m trying to help you. The drops are helping to reduce the scarring.”

 

“I’ve lived many hundreds of years with my near blindness. No need to change it now.”

 

“Except they—I—can help change it now when they couldn’t before. I give up.”

 

“Can’t,” Aiden said, his voice sounding hollow from his hiding place beyond the cavern entrance. “Should I try to help distract him?”

 

“Don’t even...” Elek raised his huge head and whirled toward Aiden. “I may be half blind, but all my other senses still work a lot better than yours, youngling.” In that instant, the drako vanished into the dark color of the cavern.

 

Rylan sighed. Elek still hadn’t accepted the fact that Rylan, despite his “young” age, could see him even when he camouflaged himself. Rylan forced his legs to carry him toward the fallen stopper and squelched his groan at the aching pains worrying through all his joints. Dealing with the cranky, old drako on a daily basis with little help from anyone was taking its toll on him. With the cold dropper in hand, full of yellow liquid and as long as his forearm, he turned and faced the cantankerous beast again.

 

Elek had curled himself into his usual resting pose, obviously figuring he’d tricked Rylan. Rylan spotted the glint of Elek’s large horns, the tips not fully concealed. Another thing the giant drako wouldn’t acknowledge was that his ailing sight interfered with his ability to camouflage fully. He couldn’t completely melt into a background he couldn’t accurately see, and the daylight was just faded enough to have the bottom half of the cavern a shade lighter than the top. His horns nearly stuck out as clearly as they did when showing their true golden color.

 

Rylan decided to play into the drako’s cockiness. He sighed, grumbled under his breath that he hated when the beast left without a proper goodbye, and moved to walk past Elek’s snout. At the last second, he whirled to the right, wrapping his left arm around the base of Elek’s horn and reached his other arm out to squeeze the dropper just enough to splash the liquid in when Elek flashed his eye open in surprise. With that done, Rylan sprang over the snout, managing to grasp the opposite horn in time to not be thrown free when Elek shook his head.

 

Rylan kicked off from the wall, tightened his right arm and switched the dropper into his left. He spouted a few shouts and curses at the beast, and Elek berated Rylan and cursed him to face every nasty god the drako had ever seen. A few whiplash snaps of the neck and Rylan managed to get a splattered drop into the huge eye. With the deed done, Rylan let go and fell with the force of gravity to the hard stone floor at the entrance.

 

He lay there, staring at the green vines draping down from the hill above, tiny white blossoms twinkling in the sunset.

 

Aiden appeared above him, leaning over a bit, and smiled. “You got it.”

 

Rylan glared at him and ignored the offered hand, choosing instead to climb to his feet on aching knees himself. If they didn’t need to help him when he really needed it, to…oh…maybe tie the old beast down so Elek couldn’t move, he didn’t need their help when the torture of caring for Elek was over.

 

Half way down the hill, he decided to make a visit to Shani and hoped she could ease the aches that had been building for more than a month. Possibly for the entire six months he and his sisters had been trying to blend into the culture of the Inaut.  

 

~*~

 

The soft mountain breeze drifted down from the high peaks, leaving its howling strength on the sharp ridges and only lightly brushing through Shani’s short hair. She finished snipping the thyme at her knee and lifted her face to the breeze, so unbelievably fresh. Even after so many months, it still surprised her. No dust or human stench fouled it, so much more untouched than even the rural areas she knew from back home. In the next second, she was reminded just how far away from her birth home she really was.

 

She still tensed at the sight of the Inaut warriors, large sheathed swords strapped at their sides, sheathed knives on opposite hips with the tips secured tight to their thighs by leather bindings. Some carried short swords on their backs, or throwing axes. Some blades had black handles, some obviously made of bone. But even without their weapons, they were an intimidating breed.

 

It took great effort to keep from groaning when a handful of them streamed from the training room toward the lower level of the Great Hall, the door just a few reaches in front of the large herb garden now hiding her.

 

Before her rescue from certain death, she had spent years learning how to heal injuries caused by accidents and natural illnesses. Here, she had to deal with friend-inflicted injuries. Things that could be avoided by simply not sparring with real weapons or with all out muscle power from people who were lethal weapons even without anything more than their hands. It seemed barbaric. But at the same time, the Inaut were the most respectful and spiritual people she had ever met.

 

They worshipped no gods, though. Instead, they prayed to the spirits and believed that everything had a spirit, water, air, earth, fire, animals, plants, and humans. She had no idea what to believe anymore, only that her faith in the great gods had been shattered when they tried to kill her and her siblings because of their heritage. A heritage that still seemed impossible.

 

She bundled the thyme carefully in a clean cloth, gathered the other bundles of herbs she had collected, and headed for the small door not used by anyone but the kitchen workers or, like her, the healers.

 

With intentions only of escaping to the small healer’s room she practically lived in, she kept her head down, but didn’t manage to escape the view of everyone.

 

Rylan called out to her before the kitchen door swung closed. Shani turned, holding the door open with one elbow and scowled at Rylan’s obvious discomfort when he hurried to her.

 

“Please tell me you and Aiden weren’t sparring again,” she said.

 

He shook his head and pushed her through the door. “Elek,” he said. “Kira hasn’t been helping me with him this week.”

 

Shani stopped still, terrified at the thought of Rylan alone with the huge black beast.

 

“Aiden’s been with me, but he doesn’t have the same calming effect Kira does,” Rylan said with a grumble.

 

Shani huffed. “I would think not, he probably does just the opposite.”

 

Rylan shrugged, then groaned from the act. Shani pressed her hand to his shoulder, but released him when he winced again. He averted his eyes. “It’s been a rough week. Elek really doesn’t like the eye drops.”

 

Shani glanced over him, noticing the bruise budding beneath his left eye. She nearly dropped her herbs, so concerned about him.

 

“Calm down,” Rylan said, catching two bundles as they tumbled. “I’m just tired of aching, is all, and hoping maybe you can do something for it without anyone else knowing.”

 

Shani scowled at the thought of how much he hurt, glanced up and down the hall, and nodded for him to follow her. She had some herbs that would help him sleep and was a skilled enough healer to remove at least his surface bruises. She led him to the small ground floor room just up from the kitchen and eased the door open to darkness. The minty green smells of plants washed over her. Filled with fresh hanging herbs, all at different stages of drying, the room always refreshed her. Rylan coughed as if the strong odors overpowered him.

 

She touched the solar bar at the center of the room and the glassed ring that framed the door and ceiling came to life. She gestured for him to sit on the low table. He frowned at it, somehow still looking handsome despite the furrowed expression and bruises on his face, like only her brother could. No wonder he had all the young women in the city coming to the Great Hall more often than they normally would. Or at least that was what Blaine told her.

 

Rylan made small talk, asking what she was collecting all the weeds for and scrunching his nose up when she promised to make him a pain relieving tea from those weeds. She giggled at him and rubbed her hands together to warm them. She had acclimated a bit to the cold climate, but no one liked cold hands.

 

He jolted back from her palm when she raised it to touch his cheek. She grabbed the collar of his coat and pulled him closer again.

 

“Gods, Rylan, are you really that defensive?”

 

“What are you going to do to me?”

 

“Touch you,” she said.

 

He squinted his left eye, studying her cynically, but then let her press her palm to his bruised cheek. When she felt the heat of what Kira told her was her life force bonding with his, she closed her eyes and focused on willing any damage to his flesh and blood vessels to mend. It took more effort than she had hoped, and Rylan tensed as if in pain, but it lasted only a few moments.

 

She leaned heavily against his shoulder. After flexing his fingers, he softly leaned his head against hers.

 

“Don’t go getting yourself hurt again,” she whispered.

 

“Ah, no worries. With Taite to keep me well fed, and you with your magic hands, I’m fine.”

 

She sighed. “I wonder…I really wonder if any of us are fine in this strange world.” A place that had first felt free and like a paradise was so very different now with its strange customs, foods, and…everything.

 

Rylan patted her hand. “We will be.”

 

 

 


 

 

Chapter Two

 

 

Something wasn’t right in the air, a hint of unease from somewhere near, one Taite couldn’t read. She stirred, sliding her hand from under warm covers, but the soft cushions were not her bed and her head was not on a pillow. She snapped fully awake to the view of Valentar’s cozy sitting-room and the fireplace heaped full of glowing cools. Daylight dripped in through the east window, pale and meek, telling of another overcast day.

 

She moved to sit up, but caught her arm in a tangle of blanket and felt Valentar’s arm slide from her shoulder. They were both still on the settee in his home, quite a walk away from her room in Nikkar’s Great Hall.

 

“I fell asleep,” she whispered with frustration, and looked up at him.

 

He scrubbed his face with his hands and rubbed the back of his neck. “Looks that way.”

 

“I asked you not to let me do so.”

 

He grinned. “I highly doubt you were the first to fall asleep.”

 

She tugged her fingers through her hair, forcing the loose locks into a manageable mass, twisted it around itself to secure it, and quickly looked about for her boots. It was true, he seemed to have more trouble staying awake after nightfall recently, despite having lighter duties since being reassigned back to Nikkar.

 

“You could stay and eat,” Valentar said.

 

“I shouldn’t be here even now.” She laced the leather bootstraps as quickly as she could, still fumbling with the odd workings of the strange footwear.

 

“No one but you worries about this,” he said. “Marry me, Taite.”

 

She froze where she stood, out in the open of the large room, too aware that Tarista, or Deredan, or Alaynie would rise from their beds at any second, and if any of the three saw her there, the whole of the city would know. Valentar rose to his full height. She couldn’t help but look at him, so handsome even first thing in the morning.

 

“You know I love you. I belong to you,” he whispered and lifted her chin so he could peer into her eyes.

 

She nearly cringed, the fight against him so difficult. “As I do you,” she said.

 

He hummed in her ear and kissed her so deeply she clung to his arms to keep from being swept away.

 

“Then why? Why do this to us?”

 

She stepped back. “You just asked me to marry you. Yet marry is what we do in my culture, but yours, it’s something different.”

 

“Same principle,” he said.

 

“But I don’t understand it all yet. I don’t know…” And it was much more than not understanding the culture. She eyed him shyly.

 

He brushed his palm over her cheek. “Understand I love you and go do what you must.”

 

“I need to be at the kitchen to help prepare the guards’ morning meal. And Tryn will be expecting me directly after.” She frowned, not looking forward to another day of failed training.

 

“Your flavor of cooking is much appreciated, but they would survive without you. And after that, you’ll do fine.”

 

“Oh, yes, fine like I do every other day. I really don’t understand why she doesn’t give up on me.” She paused at the door, glancing at him again. It really was far too tempting to stay, to stay always. It would be so simple.

 

“See you tonight,” he said.

 

“Tell Tarista I’ll prepare the evening meal,” she said. Cooking was the one thing she could always do exactly right. Even with the strange foods in the new land. And Valentar always did the unpleasant parts for her like carving the meat from bones.

 

He bowed his head to her, leaned on the open door, and took her hand in his. “I’ll look forward to it all day.”

 

Taite stepped back from him. “Will you be here?”

 

“No shifts with the guard today,” he said. “I’m a free man.”

 

Taite hopped forward and stole another warm kiss, loving how she could curl up against him, fully wrapped in the safety of his arms. She moved away, holding both hands to her heart and forced herself to turn. Guilt tugged at her consciousness for a moment, guilt for not telling him why she refused his proposal again.

 

She hurried through the quiet streets, tripping only once on the uneven stone steps down the hill to the main path, hoping to make it into the Great Hall before the shift change, and again wondered why her vision of herself in the not so distant future had her crying on the Great Hall’s roof with a more vicious feeling of loss and loneliness than she had ever felt.

 

~*~

 

Rylan leapt from the tree, diving to grab the red rag out from Blaine’s hand, hardly visible in the dim light. He ran before his feet fully hit the ground, jumping off the boulder, almost at the designated tree, registering too late the crack of a stick to his left. Aiden plowed him over and tore the rag from his hand at the same time he tapped the back of Rylan’s head.

 

“You’re dead,” Aiden said, a grin of satisfaction blooming on his face. “And I win. Again.”

 

Rylan groaned, out of breath, and fully sprawled on the dewy ground. “Why do I even try?”

 

“Because you’re getting better,” Blaine said and held a hand down to help him up. “I didn’t know you were there this time.”

 

“And why can you two use your powers against me, but I can’t use mine?”

 

“Ah, cause you’re more likely to kill one of us,” Aiden said. “You’re more dangerous than a charged laser pistol.”

 

“Then don’t use yours, it’s only fair.”

 

“Then he would lose,” Blaine said with a chuckle and jerk of a thumb toward Aiden.

 

Aiden glared at his twin.

 

Rylan dusted off his trousers and looked east. The overcast sky was growing brighter, nearly at the rising hour. Tryn would expect to find him in his room. “One more,” he said. “And I get to pick the destination of the winning spot this time. Only fair, you two able to blast or freeze me at will.”

 

“One of the usual spots,” Aiden said.

 

“Of course,” Rylan agreed.

 

Aiden glanced at Blaine and they both shrugged.

 

“Go for it. We’re ready when you are. You the first carrier?” Aiden waved the rag.

 

Rylan yanked it free of Aiden’s grip, already planning his route. He strode a few steps away. “Blaine gives the mark.”

 

He studied his cousins from the corner of his eye, tensing every muscle in his body, poising himself to lurch straight ahead with the hidden intent of dashing left instead. Aiden stood with his feet side by side, no indication of what he would do. Blaine never cared. He played the games just for entertainment, but Rylan wanted to win at least one.

 

“Now!” Blaine shouted.

 

Rylan dashed left, then curved back right, furious that both brothers managed to jump on his tail. He ducked a hit from Aiden, rolled under Blaine, and ran for the hill. Despite all their guard training, he still had one advantage.

 

“Not the drako!” Aiden yelled.

 

Rylan nearly laughed. He ran for Elek, the huge drako lazily watching them from his spot on the hill, his gold eyes catching more than they had for years after intensive care in reconstructing his vision from Tryn and Odelia. And the drops Rylan tortured himself to apply. Rylan ducked under Elek’s left wing, but didn’t mount like Aiden obviously expected. Instead he ran full around, coming out in the direction he went in, dodging Blaine again, but Aiden had far overrun. Rylan dashed down the hill back to the place they’d just been. Ice appeared on the ground ahead, but he managed to jump it.

 

Aiden sprang into his peripheral vision again. Only gods knew how he could run so fast. Rylan feinted left, dashed right between the two, intent only on reaching the spot without losing the flag or getting tapped on the head just once.

 

In the next blur of an instant, Blaine was in front of him. Rylan doubled over, tackling him and somehow managing to rap a knuckle to the back of Blaine’s head. Blaine held his hands up, defeated. Aiden’s thundering footsteps charged from behind. Rylan tucked and rolled, almost tripping Aiden.

 

The mark was just ahead. Rylan scrambled to his feet, knocking Aiden to his knees as he did so and sweeping the rag out of his cousin’s reach a second before Aiden had it. Rylan shrugged his head away from Aiden’s slapping hand and jumped for the tree. Aiden tackled him, but not before the rag hit the tree. Rylan scrambled from Aiden’s hold with a hoot.

 

“No you didn’t!” Aiden said, hopping to his feet. “I had you.”

 

“You never got the hit in, and I still have this.” Rylan waved the red rag, more vibrant in the brightening daylight.

 

“Well, you didn’t take me out either,” Aiden said.

 

“But he did hit the mark,” Blaine said, joining them, less out of breath despite wearing his usual heavy coat.

 

“Ry, look south. Something isn’t right.”

 

Rylan turned instantly from his cousins, knowing not to question Elek, but saw only the trees of Nurla forest. He walked backwards, searching the sky.

 

“I don’t see anything,” he said. Both Blaine and Aiden followed his gaze to the sky.

 

“There,” Blaine said and pointed nearly straight up where bright flashes lit the upper side of the low cloud cover, but not like lightning.

 

“Spirits.” Aiden said. “That’s too odd. What is it?”

 

Rylan continued to walk toward Elek, but didn’t take his eyes from the flashes. “Explosions,” he said, but couldn’t understand how since they were not like any he’d ever seen.

 

“When was the next flight in from the station?” Aiden asked Blaine.

 

“Not for a few days,” Blaine said.

 

“I don’t like this,” Rylan said. “What makes explosions like that up there?”

 

A scream of energy and zip of some dark craft flew out of the clouds, followed far too closely by a larger, sleeker airship firing white-hot plasma blasts. Aiden swore and ran. “That’s a Pure One, Niribarian, the big one. Move, come on!”

 

Rylan had no idea what they had to move for, but realized in the next second that Aiden was running for his horse. When he mounted, he spurred it, not toward Nikkar, but toward the desert, the same direction the ships had gone.

 

“I guess we’re going to help,” Blaine said, hurrying to catch his own mount.

 

Rylan wanted to argue, not wanting to get near a Pure One without Tryn or one of the other well-trained Dreovids, but Aiden was racing toward trouble.

 

“Elek,” Rylan called, but Elek had already risen from his slumber. He dipped his giant head, enabling Rylan to jump up with a little boost from his horn and then Elek was in the air. He soared upward so quickly Rylan lost his breath, forced to hold it until Elek leveled out. The white plasma booms flashed ahead and the smaller craft spun from a hit, plummeting downward in a plume of black smoke.

 

Rylan tapped Elek’s scale hard to the right when they were above Aiden and Blaine. Elek dove down to within shouting distance.

 

“Just what are you planning to do here?” Rylan yelled.

 

Aiden pointed at the circling airship. “We can kill him if we blow up the ship. Get busy!”

 

Rylan focused ahead again. “Cover!” he ordered Elek. In the same second, Elek seemed to vanish into the flying colors and shadow around him. Rylan hunched low, hiding behind the drako’s camouflaged scales as much as he could.

 

The Pure One’s ship was fully intent on the smaller one lodged helplessly in the pale sands of Enil Desert. Rylan tapped Elek’s left side, seeing Aiden take right and Blaine down the middle. In the next flash of a second, a ball of fire exploded around the Pure One’s craft and a rain of ice speared it. Rylan leaned to the right, to the brink of falling, and readied his aim.

 

The cloud of smoke and steam cleared. The ship’s cannons were white hot and aimed directly at him.

 

“Dive!” Elek dropped so quickly Rylan lost contact with his scales. The hot blast of plasma screamed far too close for comfort. Rylan grumbled, sure he was crazy to follow his lunatic cousin into such a battle, then flat out determined to not let the plasma cannon fire again. Figures scrambled around the fallen craft in the sand. The Pure One’s ship took aim on it again.

 

Rylan tapped Elek’s scales even as he studied the flying thing. It had an odd sort of glowing on both thrusters, what he figured to be the force keeping it airborne. Elek swooped up into the clouds with Aiden and Blaine closing in on the area from below.

 

Rylan leaned out into open air again, not hesitating when he swung his hand. Molecules exploded on the rear of the craft, shattering half of one wing. Not exactly where he meant to hit, but close enough. He swung again, taking out the other, then the center, then what he thought could be the windshield, and the plasma cannons until all that was left was a plummeting half shell of metal.

 

Aiden blasted it, as did Elek, turning it into a flaming ball.

 

Rylan looked down, shocked at first, then hit with a flick of terror. It was falling on the downed craft and the figures scrambling in the sand.

 

“Get out of the way!” Rylan screamed, directing Elek toward the falling fireball.

 

Blaine shouted out a command to duck and a sheet of ice tore from the clouds, pouring down into an arch over the survivors. The fiery metal crashed into it, shattering it, but not before being thrown off course enough to not hit the survivors.

 

Rylan jumped from Elek’s back, stumbling in the soft sand, trying to hurry. A man and a woman scrambled at the edge of the crater. In the next flash of a second, the blazing craft exploded, blasting deep into the sands, casting out an impenetrable veil of debris. Rylan flew back from the force, coughing on grit and smoke.

 

“Rylan!” Aiden yelled.

 

“Here,” Rylan called the moment he could. Blaine answered too and they both appeared in the cloud.

 

“There were survivors,” Aiden said. “Where are they?”

 

Rylan wiped the sting from his bleary eyes, finding the dark form of Elek first, then reorienting himself. He started ahead again, the sand a different shape than it had been. He reached the edge of the double crater and looked into the terror stricken eyes of a beautiful young woman. Her brow was bloody, her dark hair coated in pale sand. A man moved behind her, pushing her upward. Rylan held his hand down to her.

 

She stared at him, looked at his hand.

 

“Come on,” Rylan said, desperately wanting to get them out of the hole in case either craft exploded again.

 

She reached tentatively out. Rylan grabbed her hand, frustrated when she didn’t grasp his, but her hand was small and shapely enough for him to get a good hold and heave her to the top, passing her off to Blaine before reaching back for the man. He too didn’t seem to know what the outstretched hand meant. Rylan hooked the collar of his strange shirt instead and hauled him up. He wasn’t much heavier than the woman. Rylan dragged the man with him, huddled close to Aiden and Blaine, then Elek was above them, his wings blowing the sands back, then acting as an umbrella against more.

 

Rylan dropped to his back when they reached the near foothill, his lungs aching from breathing the sand, but he took only a moment for himself. The woman’s breaths were harsh, labored.

 

“Take it slow,” Blaine said, rubbing her shoulders. She clutched her throat.

 

“Something’s wrong,” Rylan said, and in the next second, she dropped to her side, unconscious.

 

The man scrambled to her, shaking her shoulders. “Nabilah, Nabilah, rise.”

 

Rylan scowled, wondering if the man was really so brainless. He shuffled over to her, to feel for her pulse and breaths.

 

The man scoured him with a horrible look. “Do not touch her!”

 

“Are you crazy? We just saved your behinds back there,” Aiden said. “If we don’t touch her now, she could die.”

 

“We want to help,” Blaine said, his tone much more gentle than Aiden’s, as always.

 

Rylan shoved Aiden aside, certain his blunt way of speaking would get them nowhere.

 

“We can help her if you let us,” he told the man.

 

The man looked at Nabilah, then Blaine, and lastly his dark gaze fell on Rylan. He was an ordinary looking fellow, although frail and nothing like those Rylan had grown accustomed to seeing in Nikkar. He reminded Rylan of the scribes of his homeland, the men who did nothing more than write down what a governor told him to write. He never cared for them much, but also didn’t wish them harm.

 

“Please,” Blaine said. “I need to see if she’s still breathing.”

 

“Breathing,” the man said and scooched back clumsily on his knees. “Yes, do so.”

 

Rylan didn’t stop staring at the man. He seemed concerned about Nabilah, but not upset. Rylan wondered if he was callous or maybe in shock.

 

“What’s your name?” he asked.

 

The man jerked his gaze from the scene around them. “My name?”

 

“Yes. I’m Rylan. This is Aiden and Blaine. What’s yours?”

 

“Navon.” His dark eyes darted to the side. “It is nice to meet you.”

 

“Ah, yeah,” Rylan said. “You feeling all right?”

 

“All right?” Navon said.

 

“In one piece,” Aiden added.

 

Navon frowned.

 

“Are you injured?” Rylan said with a glare at Aiden.

 

Navon stared blankly at him.

 

“He has to be in shock,” Rylan said then. Blaine dusted his hands off.

 

“She’s breathing, pulse is a little rapid, I think she just passed out.”

 

“We need to get them checked,” Rylan said and stood. “Come on, we can get you back to our city.”

 

“Not so fast boys,” a voice Rylan knew too well called out to them from a near hill.

 

Rylan squeezed his eyes closed in a forced blink before he dared to turn, dread stampeding through him. He wished he could hide from Tryn when she strode too confidently along the sands from a small metal air ship he had seen stationed on the roof of the Great Hall. He’d never witnessed its use before and wished he still hadn’t.

 

Two others followed her, white sands kicking up with their quick steps. The first was a burly high guard judging by the rust-red jacket he wore, the other a healer with short-cropped hair he had seen a few times with Shani. The healer quickly stooped down over the unconscious woman, gently introducing herself as Matany to Navon before she organized her few tools and looked after Nabilah. 

 

“You three,” Tryn said. “What in Creation’s name are you doing out here?” She settled her heavy steel-blue gaze on Rylan. “You are supposed to be asleep in your room.”

 

Rylan scratched the back of his gritty neck, hating the feeling of being a child again, but to Tryn, he was just that.

 

“No disrespect, Greatmother,” Aiden said. “But if he was, these people would be dead. We weren’t doing anything wrong.”

 

“Not up until you recklessly risked all your lives, and Elek’s, at least,” Tryn said. “Get on back to Nikkar and report to Kira. I’ll take these two where they need to go.”

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