Chapter 4
Iave
I woke to the sounds of Kalani restlessly moving around the small camp I’d made for us last night.
She was pacing at the edge of the water with her hands clasped behind her back, her legs eating up the ground in graceful strides.
It had taken me a minute to get used to creatures walking on two legs, but I now found the way that she moved beautiful.
It was even economical and quick and I had the realization that with those long legs, she might be a fast sprinter that could take a Naga by surprise.
She was clearly bothered by something, worried about my injury?
No, likely she was worried about the female we’d been forced to abandon.
It didn’t sit right with me either but in the daylight, with pain lighting up my body, I could admit that visiting the Shaman was probably a good idea.
I couldn’t use my left arm like this, and to be effective with my ax, I needed both hands.
If it was just me I had to worry about, I might have forgone the healer, but I had to protect Kalani too, and for that I had to be at my best.
Without stirring yet, I appraised the angle of the sun just rising above the treeline.
I took in the shapes of the mountains rising uphill, in the direction the river came from.
Yeah, I was pretty sure I knew where we were, and the Shaman was only a few hours traveling from here.
I didn’t think Artek would be hostile toward Kalani either, and that was a different problem.
The Shaman was far too curious about all things new, and Kalani was all mine.
Another worry rose to the forefront of my mind, Artek was a refined, civilized kind of Naga.
He wore ‘clothes’ because that was the right thing to do.
Unlike myself, I just thought they got in the way.
Artek knew all about the ancient technologies scattered in the ruins that littered our planet, he even lived in such a place.
Kalani was my Goddess that fell from the heavens in a sky-ship, would she prefer a clean home like his?
With all those magical objects that the Shaman controlled with such ease?
When I watched her stride across the sand on the river bank in her sturdy foot-coverings it didn’t look like she was a female who required luxury, but she would deserve them anyway.
Her expression was pensive as she stared at the landscape around her.
She was holding one of my knives in her hands, spinning it through her fingers with practiced ease.
She knew how to wield a blade, that was obvious.
She was a warrior of her kind, confident in a crisis, not scared of blood or doing what needed to be done.
Even with those thoughts reassuring me, I still didn’t like the idea of taking her to Artek.
He was a charming male, beautiful even according to the whispered giggles from the Naga females at Thunder Rock.
He’d be kind and charming, everything that I was not.
I probably didn’t say more than a handful of words a day and my default expression was a scowl.
“Oh!” she exclaimed, followed by some more words that I couldn’t understand without touching her.
Once we had completed our mating, our spirit connection would stretch between us without that touch.
I’d be able to understand her, and others of her kind at any time, and she could do the same with my language.
I had a vague recollection of trying to explain this to her last night, only to fall asleep before I could say much at all.
In the daylight, I wondered if that wasn’t a blessing for now.
Kalani wasn’t happy with my choice to abandon this other woman, this Naomi.
What would she think if I said she was my mate?
It was cowardly, and nothing like my normal self, but somehow it was far different to charge into battle without fear than to tell this female what she meant to me.
Rejection would probably feel much worse than death.
Rising sluggishly from the improvised nest, I wiggled my tail across the sand to curl it around her ankle.
“Let’s go, we can get supplies from the Shaman too.
He always has plenty.” Artek was a capable hunter, but the Clans that surrounded his home brought him many things as a tribute for his aid and his knowledge.
He would have plenty of furs and food to spare to help us on our way.
A plan was slowly forming in my mind on how to locate the lost female.
For that, we’d need plenty of furs to keep us warm.
The caves beneath Orshala Peak that housed the Bitter Storm Clan could be damp and chilly.
My female might be a tough one, but that didn’t mean I’d allow her to be cold if I could prevent it.
Kalani took one look at the tip of my tail and the sigils that had lit up along my body the moment we touched.
She traced those with her eyes, lingering along my chest and injured shoulder.
“Okay, let’s get going? How far is it?” I didn’t like how she switched her eyes away from me to looked at the pitiful camp.
I much preferred it when she look at me than what I’d failed to provide for her.
“Not far,” I huffed, shuffling away from the nest while I gathered the very few belongings we had with us.
With my weapon belt tightening the packed leaves against my wound, I had to hold the ax in my good hand.
But at least I could keep my Sparker and waterskin stuck to my the belt on my hips.
I had no food to offer her this morning, but hopefully I could scavenge something for us along the way.
A healing body needed a lot of nutrients; I knew that better than most, and I didn’t like the idea of my Goddess going hungry.
She didn’t complain when I started down the river bank; staying close to me as I set the pace.
I started out strong, helped by the downhill terrain, but I started to run out of energy when we curved around the edge of the wetlands that stretched out for miles at the foot of the mountains.
The blood loss had made me weak, and with only some nuts and berries to fill our stomachs at this point, I wasn’t replenishing my depleted stores.
“Do you need to take a break?” Kalani offered quietly from my left.
She was scrambling over a pile of rocks, the tip of my tail clenched in her closed fist. She’d taken to doing that an hour ago without comment, but I knew it was because she’d noticed I was struggling to keep in contact with her so we could talk.
I felt ashamed at how weak I was right now, I should have moved faster and avoided this damn spear completely.
“No break,” I said, and then winced at how angry that sounded.
She gave me a sunny smile in response, and just kept moving.
Was she so used to males snapping at her that it no longer made her upset?
I growled under my breath at the thought, I didn’t like that.
Nobody should be mean to my mate, myself included.
I was just very used to being the toughest around, to the rough edges of my fellow hunters and friends.
I had never needed to be polite before, and I wasn’t sure if I even remembered how to do it.
She didn’t drop my tail as she leaped from a higher rock to the mossy ground below, sticking the landing like she’d done it like that a million times.
I liked how the purple sunlight made her black hair glow.
Her curls were close to her scalp, raised higher on top of her head, while the sides were almost completely shaved but left with these pretty geometric patterns.
She looked right at home in the foothills and the Serant woods.
My climb over the rock pile was far less graceful and punctuated by several pained groans that I struggled to keep quiet.
I didn’t want to tell her that the world was swaying around me, stars dancing in the corners of my eyes.
Some animals on Serant sweated as a means to cool down, and I’d noted that Kalani did too.
If I had the ability, I would be covered in a fine sheen of it by now, but all I could do was twitch my scales to improve airflow.
When we wound our way beneath a thick copse of trees, their gray bark and deep purple leaves taking away much of the sunlight I breathed a sigh of relief.
We were almost there, but it felt like I had slowed down to a crawl when we started to reach the edge of the treeline.
Kalani was no longer ranging ahead, she was right at my side as if she feared I was about to topple over.
I bared my fangs at her with determination, “I will make it.” The asinine female didn’t simply nod and let me struggle on, which is what a sensible Naga female would have done. She sidled closer and then she was suddenly curling her arm around my middle, tucking her shoulders beneath my good arm.
She couldn’t possibly mean to take some of my weight, she was a tiny thing compared to the bulk and length of my body.
Even other hunters would struggle to help me in this situation, though I had leaned on Zathar or Corin more than once when I’d been injured before.
Did she think I was so weak that she, a prized female, had to stoop down to a hunter’s level to help me?
No, it wasn’t that I realized almost immediately.
I shouldn’t expect her to have the same habits as a Naga female.
Kalani was nodding grimly, “I know, I know you will make it Iave. You are strong. I don’t doubt that.
A human man would have died from a wound like that.
I’m hella impressed you made it this far, okay?
Now lean on me, I can take it because I’m strong too. ”
Just those last three words alone showed me who she was.
In a flash, realization scorched me with how much the two of us were alike.
She might be a female, a female of a species called ‘hu-man’ if I heard her right, but our paths were similar.
She was the strong one, the one more comfortable carrying others than to surrender to help when she needed it. Just like me.
That made it easier to surrender a little of my weight to her, not much, but enough to make the final distance between us and the Shaman more bearable.
I wanted to laugh at myself for how confident I’d felt last night, wanting to deny even going here.
I would have surely died if she hadn’t insisted on seeking the Shaman.
When we broke through the trees, Kalani briefly faltered when she spotted the Shaman’s home.
I could understand that it was a shocking sight to anyone who’d never seen the place.
The Shaman lived inside the slowly rising mountain we were at the foot of, but unlike any normal cave, this one had an entrance sheltered by an ancient building.
The strange, transparent walls curved inside a giant web of metal.
Shaped like a bowl turned upside down, it was filled on the inside with hundreds of lush plants in a wild array of colors.
Somehow, I’d never visited Artek when the plants in his planthouse weren’t blooming as if they were always bursting with color for him.
They were still bursting with color if snow lay packed deep on the ground and all the trees had lost their leaves.
“A greenhouse,” Kalani murmured in awe, and then she put her foot in front of the other and got us moving again.
I didn’t know why she called it a greenhouse when the plants inside were purple and many other colors, and the panes that made up its strange walls were see-through.
But it was clear she’d recognized what kind of structure it was at a glance, that had to mean she came from a place where they existed too.
“What is this place, Iave?” she asked as we got closer and the indoor garden’s structure rose high above our heads.
She sounded confused as if seeing this building made very little sense to her.
The building made little sense to me either, why would you grow plants indoors year-round? What was the point?
“The Shaman’s home,” I said, and a panel in the side of the steamy, humid dome slid open to let us in. It always felt like magic, a little spooky, when Artek let us in like that. How could he know that someone was at his door without anyone even so much as knocking? It wasn’t right.
Kalani didn’t hesitate as she stepped inside, but I faltered a little, worried about what might happen when she met the Shaman.
My exhausted, sore body didn’t want to go much further, especially not on its own, but I forced myself to shrug away from her side and lead the way.
I would speak to the Shaman first, make sure he knew she was my mate before he could try anything with her.
If he so much as smiled her way, I’d punch him, healer or not.
My blood heated with a fierce, possessive anger just thinking about it.
When we made it through the plant-filled, humid space and to the door leading into the caves beyond I knew that Artek was waiting for us. I could hear the shiver of his scales on the smooth stones when he approached. The tunnels beyond were lit up by the many crystals embedded in the ceiling.
Then I spotted him, his pale white shape glittering with opalescence in the strange artificial light inside his domain.
The golden waves of his hair and the shimmer of his yellow-gold eyes was bright in the dark.
I held my breath and held my pain back as I shifted my eyes from him to my mate.
Searching her expression for any sign of admiration.