Wren moved to comfort Raider. "I'm sure they are."
"Then why?" Raider asked, his gaze following Graydon as he stalked to the door.
His coli needed rest in a place where she could heal. Not to stand around while her secrets were spilled without her consent.
"Her body is acting like they are," Wren said as Graydon stepped into the corridor.
Raider glared at the seon'yer he shared with Kira. "What is that supposed to mean?"
"That if we don't find Elena and Jin before too long, they won't be the only ones we lose."
Six
Elena - Tsavitee Planet
Elena slunk along the edges of the cavernous room that had been her home for the last week, careful to avoid the pockets of Tsavitee clustered in the middle of the room. Meal times were always a feeding frenzy around here. The most dangerous part of the day as the horde competed for their share.
To survive, Elena had been forced to scurry around like a mouse.
Not that there was anything wrong with scurrying. She was a champion scurrier. Just ask Tommy, her nemesis, occasional friend, and fellow ward of Aunt Selene.
It was just that she was tired, cold, and hungry.
The last week had been a lesson in exhaustion. Her belly had almost forgotten what it was like to feel full. She'd barely gotten more than a few minutes of sleep at a time for fear of what would happen if a Tsavitee happened on her in a moment of inattention.
She'd already killed five of them since arriving. A skyling, two cannon fodder, a class one drudge and a class two war drone.
After that last one, the rest of the horde had left her mostly alone.
A stalemate that Elena suspected wouldn't last much longer given the arrival of a new group that her fellow pit dwellers all seemed to fear. She just needed to look at the way the rest gave the group and their leader a wide berth to know how dangerous the situation was.
The person at the front of the group had to be their leader. Taller than the rest and willowy—a word Elena had a certain fondness for due to the images it conjured up—the stranger oddly reminded her of Aunt Kira's friend Odin.
It wasn't in their looks since Odin and this person couldn't be more different. For one, the stranger wasn't wearing an eye patch and didn't have green eyes. They had black eyes that matched the hair of their angled, chin length bob.
The similarity lay more in the androgyny of their features. Their gender ambiguous and impossible to guess, making Elena wonder if that was a trait all of their species held.
The Sye as Aunt Kira would call them.
Elena wasn’t supposed to know that last part. One of her aunt’s many secrets.
This person was colder than Odin though. Their expression almost cruel as they looked arrogantly at the Tsavitee.
The seven, all children or very close to it, were arrayed around the Sye like an honor guard. They were roughly Elena's age. A couple slightly older and one or two a few years younger. The age spread was around twelve to eighteen or so if they aged like humans. With the Tsavitee you never knew. Some aged as slowly as the Tuann. Others had an accelerated aging process.
There were three generals among their number. A male around eighteen or seventeen. Another near Elena's age of fourteen. The last was the most interesting. A female. About fifteen.
If only Auntie was here to see the answer to her question of whether there were female generals or not.
The rest were an assortment of species. A yellow, so named by humans for the way they bled yellow blood. A wraith and a telepath who hovered at the back of the group. Along with two others whose appearance didn't match any Elena had studied in Aunt Kira's files.
Unknowns—which meant their species hadn't made an appearance during the war.
The children stared straight ahead, ignoring the rest of the Tsavitee as they waited.
Elena tucked herself further into the depression in the uneven surface of the wall, relying on the grayish mud she'd slathered all over herself for camouflage. The pit she'd been dropped into had a lot in common with a damp cave. Water dripped from the ceiling and walls, the moisture it left in the air and cool temperatures ensuring those inside never felt truly warm.
A ripple went through her fellow pit dwellers as they received some signal Elena missed.
The children remained motionless as the Sye tilted their head to look up at the grates in the ceiling. Elena followed their gaze, finding Lothos and the general who'd thrown her in here observing them.
Lothos nodded at his companion. The general lifted a container, dumping several coins through the grate and onto the floor of the pit.
Elena's fellow pit dwellers stared as the Sye looked over their shoulder to address the oldest boy. "You know what to do."
The boy gestured at the other children as the pit erupted into chaos. Blood flowed as the Tsavitee descended on each other, fighting over the limited number of coins. The children hung back, playing it smart as they allowed their much larger opponents to exhaust themselves before entering the fray.
All but the oldest boy, who threw himself into the midst of battle without hesitation. He laid about him with fist and claw, his face expressionless as he decimated the demons and war drones who got in his way. He reached a cluster of coins, bending down to grab a handful before stalking toward the nearest wall.
Elena didn't get to see his exit as a pair of Tsavitee crashed into the wall next to her, savaging each other with their claws. A strangled scream of surprise escaped Elena as she pressed herself as far back into the nook as she could go.
Blood sprayed as the larger of the two swiped his claws across the other's face, leaving ribbons of flesh hanging.
A howl issued from the injured Tsavitee. He hurled himself at the larger one's head, winding his body around it as he shredded everything in reach.
He got lucky, his claws ripping through an artery.
A gurgle came from the bigger Tsavitee as he stumbled, falling to the ground. The coin he was holding rolled to a stop at Elena's feet.
For a split second, time slowed. The surviving Tsavitee's startlement matching Elena's as they stared at each other in complete shock at the unexpected encounter. An instant later, her gaze shifted to the pair of children creeping up behind him, their daggers already raised.
Elena didn't give herself time to think or second guess, bending down to swipe the coin off the ground just as the children struck. The Tsavitee never had a chance, dead before he could scream.
Elena darted across the room toward the wall the general boy had disappeared through. The children, a yellow and a wraith, pursued her as she fled through the chaos.
A Tsavitee hit the ground at her feet, already dead.