CHAPTER 44

There was a tiger lily on her pillow again when she awoke. Mia stared at it for a long time; its presence tamed a bit of the apprehension stealing into her. She had slept with Draven. She was married.

That twinge twisted in her gut again, excitement, but uncertainty, too.

She had never been married before. It had only ever been a distant thought that, one day, she and Brian would tie the knot. But things had been hard, starting over in Rockford, and he had never asked.

She rolled toward the flower. Her body ached in places she had never had aches before, reminding her that her new husband had been insatiable the night before. Three times he had awoken her with caresses and gentle strokes until her body hummed with need, and then sent her over the edge straight to heaven.

A soft knock pulled her out of her reverie.

“The Prime has sent a change of clothes...and breakfast,” Kenahi's amused voice sounded on the other side of the door.

Mia grimaced. She wasn't ready to get up and face the day. To face what she had done. She glanced at the window. Sunlight shone brightly inside, announcing it was, indeed, well past breakfast.

“And since you...neglected cleaning the Oltec, I'll instruct you on that this morning, before you see to your duties.”

Mia stiffened.

He expected her to continue as Topure?

“Mia?”

Apparently, he did. The mostly pleasant feelings she had awoken with disappeared, replaced by frustration and a tiny bit of hurt.

Everything had changed for her last night. Did it mean so little to him? Uncertainty filled her and her eyes watered.

Another knock, this one a little more insistent.

“Give me a moment,” she called, working hard to keep the emotion out of her voice. Not only were tears threatening, but she was naked beneath the sheets, her hair matted from the night's activities. She fought the wave of panic that tried to set in and dressed quickly, finding her way to the bathroom and allowing some of her rationed supply to run cold water over her face. She swallowed against the lump in her throat and inhaled deeply.

She wasn't being fair. Her emotions were all over the place. She had made a huge, life-changing decision and it was scaring her. She was vulnerable and her instinct was to fight back against what made her so, instead of seeing it logically.

Of course Draven would have her continue as Topure. He would hold her as accountable as he held himself. There would be no easy way out of the consequences of her decision, even after what they had shared.

He was right, too, she realized begrudgingly. There was already a division among the women, leniency for her would only increase it.

She had to get a hold of herself.

Ten minutes later, she had managed her emotions enough to open the door. Kenahi leaned against the far wall of the hallway, a bored look on his face. He grinned when he saw her, but his expression quickly sobered.

“What is wrong?”

Well, so much for her efforts. Her eyes watered again.

“I'm alright...it’s just been a lot.”

Kenahi frowned, a pucker between his brows.

“I'll leave these with you,” he handed her a bundle of clothes. “When you are ready, there is food in the sitting room.”

Mia sniffled and then retreated into the Prime's room. This was silly, what was wrong with her? She dressed in the clean clothes and found her way to the sitting room. A plate of fruits, nuts, and warm bread waited for her. When she sat, Kenahi sat across from her, his face like stone. He watched her for a long time.

“Mia,” he finally spoke at last. He met her gaze, his green eyes intense. “The Prime is respected and well loved. As a leader, he has saved us when our hope began to fade, but none of that matters if you have been mistreated. The consequences for that are well established among our people.”

Mia blinked at him. He was dead serious.

A little place in her heart thawed. Oh, she cared for these people, the Livarians. He would protect her, even against his Prime, even though it would kill him to go against the man that had saved them. It was no wonder her heart had been so easily captured by their plight. She wondered if there had ever even been a time where her heart had not been leading her in this direction.

“You misunderstand,” she told him, a small smile curving her lips. “I have not been mistreated. I am just a little overwhelmed with...everything.”

Relief washed over his features and he leaned back in the chair. “I do not think that I understand women,” he admitted.

She smiled wider, remembering his distress when she had cried over stabbing the tentacle creature.

“Where is Draven this morning?” Things would be better if she could see him. Talk to him.

Kenahi gave her a wary look.

“He is in the city.”

“Doing what?”

He watched her, struggling with something before finally speaking.

“Another has gone missing. It is the same as with Phyn. He was not on a team and not outside the compound...he is simply gone.” the muscles in his jaw tensed. “There is no evidence. The Prime is leading the search team.”

Suddenly, she wasn't hungry anymore. Draven hadn't mention anything about it.

“Do you think it's the Y'kil?”

Kenahi leaned forward. “Mia, the Y'kil aren't real. I'm not sure why that Kirich is obsessed with them, the decaying mind is an odd place. I'm going to give you a bit of history,” he told her.

“The Kirich are plagued with a disease, we call it the wasting. It slowly eats away at the mind and body. They mature, well past puberty, without any troubles, and then begin to decline rapidly. Some of the harsher components of Livarian society claim it is because they never belonged to this world. That our very air is toxic to them.”

“Is it possible? Could they have come through the doors?”

“Records and stories confirm that the Livarian people occupied this world first and for a long while before the first Kirich appeared. It has always been assumed that they came through one of the doors before they were sealed, as our people once traveled back and forth.”

Huh. She supposed that would make sense, but even if it were true and ancient Kirich came to this world through one of the doors, she didn't see how it related to their current problem, to the Y'kil or whatever was hunting the people now.

“Many years ago, a Livarian team discovered a treatment; not a cure, mind you, but a treatment that managed the symptoms of the disease. The process to make the treatment was intricate, and well-guarded. The Kirich are a long-lived race without wasting; thousands of years compared to the average hundred-year lifespan of Livarian. They gathered power and wealth in their lifetime and kept it among their own kind. It created an imbalance between our peoples. Having control over the treatment evened the odds a little, but there was a problem. The components used to make the treatment are highly addictive. The Kirich became dependent, and that is not a place that any race wants to be. The researchers did, later, find a treatment that was not addictive, but it was not as effective, leading to only a slightly longer lifespan, closer to our own. By then, the damage had been done.” He fiddled with a loose string on the arm of the chair. As fascinating and sad as the information was, she still didn't see how it related to their current problems and the missing men.

“When the war started, one of our first moves was to limit the production and trade of the treatment.”

“Jhudur said the war started over the key to the doors.”

“The key was part of it, but insecurities, religious differences, and mis-managed resources were also motivations and we had all three in abundance. My point is that the Kirich people were deep into their reliance on the drug used to treat their disease. So much so that they refused the alternative. Jhudur has had ten years of scrounging and seeking out the remaining stashes and now his luck has run out and he will do anything, anything, because he believes we know how to replicate it. He is dying, and, as far as the wasting has progressed, it will be soon. His mind is failing...between that and his need for the drug, there is nothing that he can say that can be taken for the truth.”

She opened her mouth, but he held up a hand.

“I understand you feel compassion for him, but he is dangerous and unstable. What you did the other day was stupid and risky. He's attacked three of our guards so far. We should have saved him from his misery and ended his life. He is a drain on our resources, and he will be dead soon anyway.”

Because she had asked. Draven was holding Jhudur instead of executing him because she had asked...begged him to let the man be.

“So you think Jhudur killed your men?”

Kenahi shook his head. “Not directly. The wounds were from tooth and claw, so unless there's a side to Jhudur that we haven't seen, something much bigger and much more dangerous took them.”

“Something like Y'kil?”

He glared. “Something like any one of the predators of Callaphria.”

“Uhuh, and then who strung them up on pikes?”

He gave her a look.

“You think Jhudur found the bodies of your men and then staged the scene by the door.” There it was, that was why no one was taking the Kirich and his talk about Y'kil seriously.

“Why would he do that? Think about it, Kenahi, it makes no sense.”

“To lend credence to his tale? Because the voices in his head told him to? Who knows?”

“What if you're wrong?”

Kenahi blinked at her.

“What if at least part of what Jhudur is saying is the truth? He seemed desperate to give warning.”

Now he rolled his eyes.

“Yes, and the Y'kil are waltzing around the forest mimicking the wildlife and looking for unsuspecting hunters to solve their riddles or lose their soul.”

His words rung in her mind. Something about what he said tugging on a string in the tangle of her thoughts. She tried to focus on it, but it was like trying to grip sand, the harder she squeezed the more it ran through her fingers.

“Look,” Kenahi leaned forward again. “I'm going to give you the truth. We think something has come through the portal. Whatever it is is large enough to take out a well-trained Livarian. We know this because the small game in the area have disappeared and the local predators are agitated. But it isn't a mythical beast risen from a children's tale. We knew something was going on, Jhudur simply showed us where the trouble came from. Draven has put two teams on monitoring the door and has two more hunting for the creature. We will destroy it the same way we destroy any threat.”

Mia thought about it. It made logical sense, but there was still something nagging at her. If she could just put a finger on it.

“That explains the deaths, but not the fact that the missing men just disappear. A creature wouldn't care about being that sneaky.”

Kenahi inclined his head. “No, it wouldn't. And that is the only reason the Kirich is still alive.”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you know what the Kirich's biggest accomplishment was before the fall of the world? A drug, produced in response to their need for the corpah. This drug, once injected, makes the mind easy to manipulate and open to suggestion.”

Oh, she knew about that one. It was what Jhudur had used on her to lure her from the compound.

“Jhudur is not alone. Somehow a group of his people survived the Attaphus virus. They have infiltrated the compound at least once, and they are using this drug to lure the men out, one by one. In that drugged, defenseless state, they are vulnerable to whatever is out there. We are still at war,” he rubbed a hand over his face. “They followed our last retrieval team somehow, that's how they got in.”

“You're hoping Jhudur reveals their location.” It wasn't a question. She thought Draven had spared the Kirich for her because she had asked. She had been wrong.

And what would happen when he found Jhudur's people?

She didn't have to think hard about it. She remembered the look on his face when he found her. Murder had been written across it. If the Kirich were a threat to the Livarians, Draven would eliminate it.

“He already has,” Kenahi told her. “Come now, if you're finished with your breakfast, I will teach you about the Oltec.”