So I was right—he wasn’t so worried about my safety, but rather what losing me might mean to his and Kiro’s quest.
“That’s not entirely true, and you know it.”
Entirely…. There was a whole lot of possible hurt in that one word. It was certainly a warning that attraction was no indicator of anything stronger.
Although as one of the stained, I should hardly be surprised at that.
I gripped my knife tighter. The glass blade gleamed with blue fire in the blackness, making the lifeless walls glow with an almost metallic sheen. Though my footsteps were soft against the dusty soil, they seemed to echo ominously in this place. If there were anything—or anyone—living in the deeper recesses of this tunnel, they would hear my approach.
The wind stirred, assuring me that I was alone, that none were near. Which was comforting, and yet at the same time, not.
I slowly continued. The air grew hotter and that terrible stench stronger. Sweat trickled down my spine and stung my eyes, and it felt like I’d been creeping through this awful place forever. But Trey would have undoubtedly badgered me into returning if too much time had passed.
In the darkness up ahead, something loomed. I paused, my heart racing in both expectation and fear. Whatever it was, it wasn’t moving. And the gentle wind certainly gave no indication of danger.
I frowned and unhooked my blaster. The knife might be the better weapon for close fighting, but right now I was more than happy to simply shoot, thereby eliminating the necessity of the latter. I crept closer, and the looming shadow revealed itself to be a smooth wall of earth and stone. A created wall, not a natural one.
On the left-hand side of it, at the junction of the barrier, the tunnel’s wall, and the floor, was a hand.
A small, stained hand.
A child’s hand.
And one that was unattached to a body.
Horror filled me as my gaze darted back to the pile of rocks and earth. Did the rest of the child’s body lie beneath it? And did I really want to uncover it?
The answer was a decided no, but such cowardice wouldn’t provide the answers we needed. And there were answers here to be found, I was sure of it.
I sheathed both of my weapons and then stepped closer to the smooth wall and pressed my hands against the earth. Like the walls that surrounded me, there was no life in this smooth mound of compacted earth and rock. I pushed against it as hard as I could, but other than a few bits of dirt falling across my fingertips, it had little effect.
Which left me with one choice. I stepped back and called in the wind. It howled past me and literally exploded the blockage into pieces, throwing me backward with the force of it and sending stones ricocheting across the darkness.
“Neve?” Trey’s voice was faint. I really had gone deeper into this tunnel than I’d intended. “What just happened?”
“I cleared a barrier. I’m okay.”
I pushed up into a sitting position. The dust was so thick I tugged my shirt over my mouth to filter some of the muck from my lungs. It took forever to clear, even with the air doing its best to draw the cloud back down the tunnel, away from this area. I climbed upright and carefully edged forward. In what had been the heart of the rock fall, I discovered a body.
But it wasn’t the body of a child.
It was thin and long, with skeletal limbs and crusty lavender skin, and a build that oddly reminded me of an ant’s even though it was clearly humanoid. I followed the line of its remains and spotted its head.
It was then that true horror hit me.
I might never have seen the likes of this creature before in real life, but I’d certainly seen many a picture of them in the few history books I’d read.
What lay before me was the remains of an Irkallan.
10
As I’d feared, the Irkallan weren’t in hibernation. And the fact that this body was here, lying so close to the severed hand of a stained child all but confirmed that they were not only active again, but also behind the plot to bring down Winterborne.
I didn’t want to believe it, I really didn’t, but there was no denying it now.
History had certainly given witness to the fact that the Irkallan could breed with humans—the staining still coming through so many of us was evidence enough of that. And the witches who’d been kidnapped had, if medical evidence and Saska’s comments were to be believed, been forcefully impregnated in an effort to produce stained children. Those children were then raised by a queen they had no choice but to obey thanks to the existence of the silver bracelets.
There was no royalty left in Tenterra, Gallion, or Salysis. But the Irkallan lived and worked in a similar fashion to the insects they partially resembled. Not only did they exist in an apiary—which was exactly what Pyra had told me when I’d been questioning her—but there was also a caste system in place that had workers of various levels, soldiers, breeding females, and a queen who ruled them all.
The Irkallan might have been defeated, but they hadn’t given up their dream of domination over all other races. They were merely undertaking a longer-term, camouflaged, and decidedly devious action this time.
Freedom, help us….
There is more to find beyond this body, the wind said.
I wasn’t entirely sure I could handle finding anything else, but I nevertheless stepped over the Irkallan’s remains and walked on. After a dozen or so steps, I noticed a thick trail of black on the tunnel’s sandy soil. I bent and touched it. It felt hard—crusty—and though it had no scent, I had a fair idea what it was.
Blood.
Blood from a child whose hand had been severed, perhaps?
I closed my eyes against the pain and horror that rose—but once again, the former was oddly distant, an echo that seemed to be coming from someone else. And it wasn’t Trey, as it definitely had a feminine edge to it.
Could both the sensations I’d experienced in the shower and the emotions hitting me now be coming from Saska? Did the connection that had flared so very briefly between us out there on the storm-held terrace somehow linger?
I’d never heard of such a thing, but then, I wasn’t overly versed in the ways of psychic talents or magic, even if I did possess the ability to use the latter.
I brushed the soil from my fingers, then rose and moved onward. Twenty feet later I found the rest of the child’s remains. She was naked and lying facedown on the ground, her small body so badly stained there was only a tiny patch of pale skin on her left rump. Her right hand had been severed and a large pool of dried blood surrounded its stump. Her other hand was whole, but there was no bracelet on it—just the grime marks on her wrist to indicate where one had been.
The Irkallan had been here. They’d retrieved the bracelets but left the bodies where they lay. There would be no remembrance of a life lived for this child, no ceremony to cast her soul on to its next journey. Nothing but inhospitable soil and a spirit destined to endlessly roam this unforgiving darkness.
I wanted to rant and rage against the utter inhumanity of the whole thing. Wanted to weep not just for this life, this child, but for the others who were still out there, still under the control of the Irkallan.