Chapter 4
Chapter
Four
REM’EB
“ Y ou cannot keep one of the strangers,” I protest to my father. “It is against the laws. We are to leave the blue strangers alone.”
“This one is not blue,” Bel’eb the Mighty says, and there’s a hint of glee in his tone. “I am keeping her aside. She is for you.”
He makes no sense. “What do you mean, she is for me?”
“Our line is dying,” my father continues. “You have not resonated despite passing the wall for several turns. I think perhaps there is no woman of our people for you.”
“I am barely thirty,” I protest. He makes it sound as if I am one of the elders doddering about with canes. “I am in my prime.”
“But your chest is silent and it has been many turns. I am your chief. I have decided. This female is for you. You will feed her and care for her. You and only you will go in and out of her chamber. She will see no one but Rem’eb the Fist. And she will resonate to no one but you.”
My camouflage flickers, my colors rippling as the shock of my father’s words sink in. “This is madness.”
“Our line will continue, even if I must add strange blood to it.” Father lifts his chin. “Do you not want to go and have a look at her? Your mate?”
I stare at him with growing horror. This goes against all the rules of our people, everything we stand for. Our males protect our females, at all costs. We keep them safe behind the wall, only to come out when resonance occurs. While it is awful that we must be separate, ever since the rule was enacted, no one has died of the sickness. And yet here my father drags a stranger down into the safety of our tunnels. He is risking us all by listening to Kin’far the Exile. He cannot raid against the blue strangers. He cannot steal them.
If the rebels heard of this, they would riot . My father would be overthrown. I would be exiled alongside him, and it would not be the paltry exile of Kin’far, but a far more dire one. Ours would end in death.
I will not die simply because my father wants me to resonate. I have to find this stranger and somehow get her back to the surface, back to her people, without any of the rebels finding out what my father has done.
“She is probably hungry,” Bel’eb the Mighty says, leaning back in his chair and looking rather smugly pleased with himself. “You should take her some food. I imagine she is awake by now.”
It takes all of my control not to storm over to my father’s chair and shake him like the fool he is. My color flares again, showing him my displeasure. “Where is she?” I grit out. Why does my father create messes that I must constantly handle? Why can he not leave things alone? “Tell me.”
“Cas’zor the Worthy will show you.”
The warrior steps forward, his expression inscrutable. “Rem’eb the Fist, I greet you.”
I gesture, torn between defeat and disgust at my father. “Lead the way, then.”
Cas’zor the Worthy nods and crosses the room, heading for the doors. I pause to look at my father one more time, but the gleeful look on his face fills me with disgust. I should be close to him. I should feel something for him other than exasperation, but he left me to be raised by the warriors of the village rather than to care for me himself. He is my chief more than he is my father.
I follow a few steps behind the large warrior as he crosses through my father’s well-tended gardens.“Tell me you do not approve, Cas’zor.”
Cas’zor grunts. “I do not approve. But it is done, and your father will not change his mind.”
“Who knows about this? How many?” I imagine how the news of a strange female will spread over our village and it fills me with fear. We grow more fractured each turn of the season. Is this the crack that will make the entire wall crumble?
“Your father has not been the same since your mother’s death and the erection of the wall. None of us have, but he grows more troubled the more silver his mane becomes. He should be robust for another hundred turns, and yet he ages. His mind is no longer focused on protecting his people, and he listens too closely to the stories Kin’far spins in his ears.”
“I cannot keep this female. Someone will come looking for her.”
“I imagine they will, yes. The exile has been left in charge of the blue stranger and his female, and I do not trust him. I told Set’nef the Wanderer to be wary of that one.”
I nod. Set’nef is clever. He will not let things get too out of control. “Tell me Father at least keeps her somewhere nearby.” Preferably not in his home, because I will have to somehow sneak her away without others seeing her. It is a hassle that leaves me frayed and impatient, because I will have to drug her again and haul her through the lava tunnels while she is unconscious. She cannot know where our village is, or our people will be unsafe.
And if I am to be chief after my father, I must look after all of them when he will not.
“She is not far. He hides her in the deep storage.”
The deep storage. The long-dried mushroom rations that are tasteless and far too chewy, but that have been kept anyhow in case the mountain spews its fire again and the tunnels fill with heat, killing the mushroom gardens once more. Then, we will have no choice but to eat the too-fibrous mushrooms regardless. The deep storage food is in a cluster of huts near the edges of the village, where many of the empty huts reside, and very close to the chief’s equally empty residence. Once, I am told, these homes were all full, but now we no longer have enough people to fill them and many lie open and unused.
One hut in the back has a newly reinforced stem door, and a guard is posted in front of it. Even in this, people will ask questions. They will wonder what my father is keeping tightly under watch and will want to see for themselves.
As for me, it causes problems, because how am I going to steal this stranger from above if my father’s men crawl all over the building? I rub the calluses on the side of my knife-throwing hand, thinking. An answer will present itself eventually, I decide. For now, I must determine how much of a problem this female is going to cause.
Cas’zor approaches and nods at the guard, who steps aside. He hands me a tube filled with light-moss so I can see inside. “You must go in alone, Rem’eb. I have my orders. Only you can approach the stranger inside.”
With a sour churning in my gut, I nod. Of all my father’s scheming, truly this is the worst. I hold the tube out as I open the door, letting it lead me inside.
The darkness swallows me as the door closes behind me and it takes a moment for my vision to adjust to the contrast. At first I cannot believe what I am seeing. The legends of the strangers above talk of horns and naked blue skin. The female that steps into the light and gazes at me with wide, khui-blue eyes is nothing like those tales. Her skin is the color of a mushroom cap, soft and strangely plush for all that she has no fur. The mane atop her head is full of coils, springing forth around her round face like a cloud of smoke. She is slim and brown, delicate and yet inviting.
I was expecting an ugly creature that it would be easy to drop back onto the surface.
“What do you think, Rem’eb the Fist?” calls Cas’zor through the door.
Is it not obvious to him? It feels obvious to me. That everyone should realize that this is the moment—and the female—I have waited my entire life for. It does not matter that she is a stranger or most likely an enemy.“She…she is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen,” I tell him, humbled.
I raise a hand to my chest, knowing that I must surely be resonating, and I am surprised to find I am not. Not yet, then. It feels inevitable. No matter that my khui is silent right now. I know that it is simply a matter of time.
The wariness on her face eases at my words and she tilts her head.Is it possible that she speaks the language of the ancestors? Did she understand me?