Chapter 2
Gemma
O ur estate in the Collis was picturesque, a perfectly grand home surrounded by sprawling, groomed gardens, set against the backdrop of regal blue-tipped mountains.
Or, at least, that was how I’d seen it before: perfect and immaculate.
A cobbled path led up to the house from the main road, passing between extravagant golden gates, running alongside the vibrant green grass of the front gardens, and curling into a circular driveway. There was a fountain just before the sweeping staircase up to the guest entrance, but the fountain had long stopped working and we didn’t have the money to repair the cracks in the stone from disuse.
After Father had returned from the war—a hero , decorated in glittering medals and fat shimmering jewels—once we’d packed up our meager belongings from our previous dwelling on New Inverness, the Earth Council had sent us here. I still remembered the first time I’d seen it. I’d been thirteen at the time. Experiencing the estate, in all of its perfect glory, I’d thought everything would be fine . I’d thought our lives would change forever. That we would be happy. That Mother wouldn’t be sad anymore.
Because how could she be sad in such a magical, lovely place like this?
There was a miner lingering near the gates as I approached. It had been a long walk back to the estate from the mine shaft transport but, truthfully, I didn’t remember much after Mr. Cross had ended our Halo call. It took me by surprise to find myself at the swirling steel gates. Once they’d been painted a gleaming gold. Now the grime and rust made them appear a muddy bronze.
“Miss Hara,” the Killup miner started, his hands twisting together when he spotted me.
“Mira is in with her tutor this hour, Sorj,” I informed him, continuing down the pathway between the gates. Father hated that Mira often looked for Sorj through the window at dusk.
“Miss Hara,” Sorj said again. Even though my thoughts were still pinned on Kylorr and the possibility that all of our debts could be gone , just as Mr. Cross had claimed, something in Sorj’s tone made me pause.
“What is it?” I asked, frowning, stopping on the road. My head was still throbbing. All I wanted was to go upstairs and sink into a hot bath. But I knew there was more work to be done. I had the ledgers to balance. Workers to organize to begin clearing out the new cavern of blue salt. And I needed to contact that potter on Dumera to see if the plates Piper had purchased could be returned.
Sorj shrunk back a little. His gray skin was darker in the evening light. The Killup male had always seemed wary of me. Piper said it was because of my face. She said I always looked displeased, that I had the expression of a pinched, stern, cranky tutor. Like Ms. Jada, our governess when we’d been young.
I made the effort to soften my frown as Sorj began, “I tried to speak to Lord Hara earlier, but he turned me away.”
Exhaling a sharp breath, I looked over my shoulder to regard the house in the distance. Rectangular in shape, the house had been constructed from white blocks of stone, though they had grayed with time. Columns flanked the grand entrance. Tall, floor-to-ceiling windows allowed light to flood into the sectioned off rooms. I could see a light on in the upper floor. Mira and Piper, no doubt, with their tutor. A tutor Father had insisted on keeping, though we could barely afford her wages.
Weariness was evident in my voice when I began, “If this is about Mira, you know that—”
“It’s not about Mira,” Sorj said, his tone sharpening. I looked at him in surprise. He blinked, as if shocked by his quick, defensive words. His lids closed vertically, unlike humans. “It’s about our wages.”
I couldn’t hide my frown when I said, “Do you need an advance? Because I’m afraid that’s not possible. Not right now.”
“An advance?” Sorj questioned. “We still have not been paid for the last cavern.”
My belly dropped.
“My father paid you for the last cavern,” I insisted. My fingers picked at the loose thread of my pants near my outer thigh. “I helped him divide up the credits myself.”
“He never paid us,” Sorj said, confusion and bewilderment passing over his expression. I’d learned to read Killup expressions quite well. They made up the majority of the miners we employed. “I can show you the credit records if you don’t believe me. But none of us have received our wages. Not since two months ago.”
Shit.
Shit, shit, shit!
“Miss Hara?” Sorj asked, his tone suddenly alarmed. “Are you all right?”
“I need to sit down,” I gasped out, pinching at the sharp jolt that suddenly spread between my brow bones as a wave of dizziness spiraled through me.
A moment later, I felt cool, strong, calloused hands guide me off the paved path. My feet met the pillowy softness of the grass. Engineered grass. It always stayed green. And, thankfully, it never needed to be cut. The cost for landscaping alone would have ruined us.
“Here,” Sorj ordered me. “Sit.”
I plopped down onto my backside, focusing on drawing in deep breaths. The air was crisp and sharp. It felt good against my suddenly blazing cheeks and stinging eyes.
Tilting my head back up to the sky, I saw that the sunset was gorgeous. Sunsets on New Everton, especially in the Collis region, were some of the best in the universe. Or so the Earth Council claimed.
And I believed it.
Streaks of lush purples, vibrant pinks, and bright ceruleans stretched across the sky and mingled like a braid. The strands disappeared behind the highest mountain of the Collis, the one that was named after my father. Mount Hara.
A brown bar of food was thrust toward me. Sorj knelt beside me, looking worried. In another life, I thought he and Mira would be good for one another. He would keep her grounded. She would make him smile.
“You should eat,” Sorj told me quietly. “You look faint.”
I couldn’t remember when I’d last eaten. No, wait, it had been at breakfast. Piper had looked on in pointed disapproval at the amount of cheese I’d eaten. Then she’d snipped snidely, “And you wonder why your dresses barely fit anymore.”
She was still mad from when I’d told her we wouldn’t be keeping the Dumerian plates.
I took the brown bar from Sorj’s grip. Miner’s protein. Nearly tasteless and very chalky but high in calories and nutrients.
I scarfed it down.
Then I sat there, my gaze alternating from the green grass underneath me to the sky overhead. Colors. So many colors.
“I’ll get your wages,” I told Sorj. “And all the other miner’s wages too.”
I didn’t know how. I didn’t know where the money would come from. But I would get the damn credits somehow.
“I’m sorry,” I added, my cheeks heating in shame. “I don’t know what happened.”
But that was a lie. I could tell from the shifting, careful expression on Sorj’s face that he knew it was a lie as well.
“I shouldn’t have said anything,” Sorj said quietly. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“If you’d never said anything, you never would have gotten paid,” I informed him, my voice hardening. “Don’t apologize for that. Ever .”
I knew he had family—his mother and sisters—that he regularly sent credits to. They relied on his work just as much as we did.
And Father likely gambled their wages away on another “investment,” I thought bitterly. What a slap in the face.
“Miss Hara…” He trailed off, his tone uncertain.
“What is it?” I asked, sighing, feeling my heartbeat begin to settle after its brief, dizzying spike.
“I know it’s not my place to say but…have you ever considered getting help ?”
My spine stiffened.
“I’ve managed it for nearly five years on my own just fine.”
His pointed look made my ears burn. There I was…hunched over in the grass. Exhausted. Stressed out. There was likely a crumble of miner’s protein dotting my lip, and I ran the back of my hand across my mouth just to be certain.
“It’s just a rough patch right now,” I added. “With the stolen shipment and the equipment breaking during the last excavation, it’s been…”
I trailed off. I didn’t have the energy to make up bullshit lies, mere bandages to wrap around a bleeding wound that just wouldn’t stop .
Eyeing Sorj, I wondered what it would be like to tear off that bandage, if only for a brief moment. To spill my guts to someone. To spill all the ugly truths I had been bottling away for the last five years.
The honest truth was that we were broke .
Flat broke.
With a Mount Hara–sized pile of debt on the verge of crashing all around us, owed to some of the most dangerous beings in the universe. Our home and everything we had would be stripped away. My father would likely drink himself to death, but he would be grinning as he did it. And my sisters…they would likely be sold off to the highest bidders to pay the debts, with no concern for their safety or happiness.
And me? I had no idea what would happen to me.
But would it even matter at that point?
“What…” I licked my dry lips. Lowering my voice, as if the house would be able to hear me from such a great distance, I asked Sorj, “What do you know about the Kylorr?”
His eyelids flared back briefly. Killup had gills on the sides of their necks. It was rumored that when they flared, they could emit toxins into the air, poisoning whoever breathed it in.
Maybe that was why I shrunk back a little when his gills rippled.
“The Kylorr?” he asked quietly, his gaze suddenly pinned on me, unblinking.
“Yes,” I said. “Krynn is not very far from your own home planet, right?”
“Why do you want to know about the Kylorr?” Sorj asked slowly. But I sensed the unease in his voice, the way his gills flared when he said the name of one of the most feared species in the Four Quadrants.
“Please, Sorj,” I said quietly. “Anything that you know would be helpful.”
Sorj swallowed. He cast a glance at the house, a thoughtful expression on his features, before his black eyes returned to mine.
“The Kylorr are descended from… rab’erise ,” Sorj told me, his mother tongue flowing effortlessly from him. “ Berserkers would be the closest translation.”
So like many warrior species—like the Dakkari and the Luxirians—their ancestors had been no strangers to violence.
To … bloodshed, I added silently, with a tendril of hesitation.
“Their rages are said to be unparalleled,” Sorj told me. “You never want to anger one. It’s a sure way to be torn limb from limb. My own ancestors would know that. We fought against them in an ancient war. Long ago. Even before your own home planet was discovered.”
“And how did your Killup fair?”
A sharp, warbling sound rose from his throat. “The old records suggest we sent an army of fifty thousand soldiers. None of them returned from Krynn. I’d say we didn’t fair very well.”
That had been the past, however. I was more concerned with the Kylorr now . Every species in the universe had a dark past. Mine included.
“Do you know about the Kaalium?”
“Yes,” Sorj said immediately. “It’s a region. A territory on Krynn.”
“Do you know what it’s like there? Is it…”
I wanted to say safe , but I couldn’t make myself form the word. Whenever I pictured it in my head, all I could imagine was red . Rivers of blood. A dark sky. Hulking berserkers with fangs and wings and talons and horns.
And one wants me in his bed, I thought, shuddering.
Sorj shook his head. “No. Not many are granted access onto Krynn, much less into the Kaalium.”
“Why? Why is it so hard to get there?”
“Because it’s one of the wealthiest territories in our entire universe ,” he said, his hairless brow furrowed, as if that were obvious. “Don’t you know that, Miss Hara? That’s where lore comes from.”
A jolt went through my body. “ Lore ?” I whispered, my thoughts racing. So maybe what Mr. Cross had said was actually true . That the Kylorr suitor was very wealthy indeed. Maybe he could pay whatever I wanted in order to save my family. Maybe the price I asked would be mere pennies to him.
I took a took breath.
“And is it true?” I asked him, my voice unwavering.
Sorj’s gills fluttered again, hearing that which had gone unspoken between us. Until now.
“Is it true that they feed on blood?”
I’d heard horrific tales of the Kylorr, mostly from the maids and housekeepers before we’d let them all go. The other tales I’d sought out myself in my morbid disbelief, thumbing through old, dusty tomes in the library or searching through universal databases on the Nu device.
In these tales—if they were to be believed—the Kylorr would pin down their victims, enclose them in their wings like a cocoon, and feed on them, sinking their fangs deep. It was said the Kylorr could taste fear. That they deliberately hurt their victims because they liked the way it tasted , that pain lingering on their tongues like a fine wine.
Sorj’s silence was answer enough.
I closed my eyes, drawing in a deep, steadying breath. The miner’s protein had turned to stone in my belly.
“Don’t,” came his voice.
When I turned to regard the solemn-faced Sorj, he said, “Whatever it is that has you asking me these things, Miss Hara… don’t get involved with the Kylorr.”
Just then, I heard my father’s voice boom out over the grounds.
“ Gemma, get in here! ”
When I focused on the front door of the house, I saw his imposing figure, lit by a golden, hovering orb that had stopped at his side. Something else glinted gold, but it was the crystal glass of whiskey in his hand.
And it wasn’t irritation in his voice at finding me with Sorj this late in the evening. I heard delight .
Standing, I looked back to Sorj, who was still kneeling in the grass. His gills had flared out at the sound of my father’s voice.
I gave him a small smile I didn’t feel.
I shouldn’t get involved with the Kylorr?
I might not have a choice, I thought.
“I’ll get you your credits, if you can give me a couple days. Don’t worry. I’ll handle it.”