Darayan Read online

  Darayan didn’t know what overcame him, but he snatched at the locket stone and broke it off her neck as she fell to the floor, away from his grasp.

  “Don’t you ever touch my things!” He shouted from a place deep inside him. He was possessed by the need to keep the necklace close, to keep his mother close. It was the only thing he had ever found of hers after the night of her death. Didn’t she know what it meant to him?

  Archibel was sobbing on the coppery rug, her knees bent sideways and her hands holding her body up, however, she kept her face down as she cried and cried.

  “I just found it in the drawer tonight,” she sobbed, “I forgot I put it on, I didn’t know …”

  There was a small moment of silence and that’s when Darayan heard the words he had never heard in the entire eighteen years since his mother had died. She simply muttered them in a half-sob. “Why do I even love you?”

  Something fell in the pit of his stomach, Darayan thought his knees had buckled under him but he was still upright. Did she just say ‘love?’ Dread filtered through him; she had finally confirmed what he suspected.

  “Why don’t you want to love me back?” This time, she stood up and got to him. She was so close he almost staggered back in fright. He witnessed her messy tears and after a long exhale, she spoke again. “You’re a coward. That’s all you are.” And in the blink of an eye, she reached calmly for his military jacket and quietly exited the room.

  He wasn’t expecting her to leave the house, but with a slow shut of the wooden front door, he realised she did.

  “It’s the middle of the night, Archibel, where are you going?” He said to himself and remained standing there. Alone.

  He didn’t chase her. The most patient woman he knew had somehow hit her breaking point. Maybe he should give her space.

  He didn’t know why he didn’t go after her. Tomorrow he would definitely regret the decision, but right now the ringing of Kaianan’s name was still strong in his ears. It was taking up too much of his brain to concentrate on anything else. It had been over three years since he had seen her. And after Jahzara took his memories, he couldn’t even remember if he told her goodbye. He hated to think of the moment when she realised that her two best friends had left her, when she was only fifteen and preparing to ready herself for the Period of Enlightenment.

  “Enough,” he told himself, clutching tightly to the stone in his hand.

  It was enough. Enough of focusing on the past, on the fact he remembered nothing about his Gorgon life, and on the memory of his mother, which was affecting everything about his future.

  The woman was dead and gone; it was time for him to concentrate on calming those emotions before they drowned him.

  Archibel ran; she ran from Darayan, ran from the hope she had of him falling in love with her, and ran from the life that had become so far removed from what she really wanted that it seemed like an alternative reality in which everything that happened was from a nightmare. Staring down at her feet, she doubled-checked if she had fastened her boots tightly enough, only to realise she had put Darayan’s large, black military boots on instead. She looked so out of place. His camouflage jacket was longer than her short nightdress and the boots almost reached her knees.

  But it was too late to go back to re-dress. Anger still consumed her. If she saw Darayan now she would decidedly rip his head off. One foot after the other she moved, away from the Sari capital, away from the fake life and away from him. Who was this man turning into? She’d loved Darayan since the day she met him, and for almost sixteen years she kept that information to herself, but the boy she fell in love with was becoming someone not as he used to be.

  She remembered the first time they met.

  She was eleven and she’d run smack-bang! into him. He was a scrawny little kid of six, and she’d thought highly immature. But that day, when they were in the Layos Markets, full of Gorgons bartering fresh Ebel, and vegies … and she was thieving food again from Sprindles; he had somehow helped her escape. Two delicious pumpernickel loaves rested under her arm, but the bakery owner, a grumpy old Gorgon man, had seen her. Darayan had tripped him over, seconds before the man nearly attaining Archibel and throttling her.

  “I’m Darayan,” the young boy said when he had found her down a lane catching her breath. He was nothing like the tall, dark and handsome Darayan of now, but his dishevelled hair and big green eyes were still magnetic.

  “What do you want?” She said scathingly.

  “Nothing. Why did you steal? Are you hungry? Daley can make you something to eat? She’s like my grandma.”

  “I don’t need your help. I am fine on my own.”

  “Yes, you do. That man nearly had you in chains.”

  “Shut up.”

  “She’s making Ebel stew …” he said to her back as she turned to leave. “Might go perfect with the pumpernickel?”

  Archibel stopped walking. A stew was too good to pass by. She had been starving for days. “Will—er—will she—this Daley lady—turn me in?”

  “No, of course not … Here,” Darayan offered her his hand, “come on, it’ll be getting cold.”

  After a few deep breaths, she took his hand and never looked back. Her days of homelessness were over. And it took all but a few weeks for them to become inseparable. Archibel taught him how to spar, given him all the knowledge her Sarinese family had given her. She felt like she finally belonged.

  ‘I’ll always have your back Arch, cause I know you’ve got mine.’ He had said one afternoon.

  Her vision of them disappeared. His hollow promise lingering on her thoughts. Why was he, after all this time, still shutting her out?

  “Not used to seeing you here, Polie?” She heard the voice down the pier of the dock. The dock? Woah. How far had she actually run? Past the red brick residential area, down the yellow dirt street of the square, sandstone compound and barbed wire fencing of the Sari barracks, to end up at the creaky pier of the dock. The reflection of the moon on the still water was the only light for her to determine her whereabouts.

  “Not in the mood to stop for a chat?” The voice said again and this time, Archibel stopped. From the shadows, the figure approached her.

  Gingery grey hair, longer than hers, fell to the man’s knees. His robe the dirty orange colour of the Sarinese monks. The moonlight washed over him and the huge nose that spread across his face, then onto his beady eyes and thin mouth as he stepped closer immediately registered with Archibel.

  “Wederin. What are you doing here?” She masked her surprise. Wederin she knew when she attended service at the Najramah Temple; he was a Spirit Advisor. The Sarinese people, a Homo captiosus people, who retained preform physicality but developed religion alongside their aura capabilities, were strong believers in the multitude of good and evil spirits. They believed in gods that paraded through their markets, temples and the air of the Siliou, deciding what they should do to the constant sins being carried out on every corner.

  The good spirit, the God Suradika, would balance the Siliou and spread harmony amongst all aura users, and gave the Sarinese Topazi exceptional ability in the Siliou. The evil spirit, God Burakar, would strike discordance through the Siliou: closed off from the spirit world, from the Holom Galaxy Burakar threw natural disasters at the planet.

  This was all weighed against how the people behaved and either god could strike at any moment.

  The Sarinese payed homage daily; placing a leaf folded into a plate filled with small flowers and incense around each building, each market stall, and at lane entrances in the hope the good spirits of Suradika would see this as a dedicated homage to repentance and that the evil spirits of Burakar would avoid harming them.

  Wederin was carrying a tray of several leaf plates and there was something unusually suspect about the way his round, gangly face regarded her.

  “You know,” he began in a low voice, “I wasn’t certain it was you,” he was approaching her now, the incense from the leaf plates sw
irling around his black eyes, “until I really got a good look at you at service this morning. It is true then. Burakar has descended on us. You are not who you say you are. Not Polie. Are you, Archibel?”

  And there it was, after three years of hiding in an all too familiar place and after so many sightings of her relatives and being recognised but somehow obscuring the truth and getting by, her cover was finally blown. She had risked everything coming back here, moving to another isolated part of her home world, away from the family that she abandoned at five years old—and, without letting him know, she had put Darayan in significant danger.

  “You do know the time for change is upon us? Suradika needs to protect us, we need another cleansing,” Wederin whispered.

  Change? Cleansing? What the Holom was he talking about? She needed to warn Darayan.

  She went to open her mouth to ask him to explain but the city sirens began sounding. Archibel glanced behind her. It was all a blur after that as she abruptly fell to the ground, immobile.

  Darayan’s chest lurched at the alarming sound. His first thoughts brought him to Archibel. Where was she? The city’s alarms were in overdrive and the commotion outside on the streets had the Sarinese people running wild.

  “Come on, Duke!” Amid the crowd, one of his squad members, Selwel, was pushing past civilians toward him. Darayan, standing at the front door of his sandstone home, still in his night clothes, slammed the front door behind him and ran for Selwel.

  “We’re under attack,” Selwel said when Darayan got to him, “we need to get to the barracks.”

  “Who is it?” Darayan said as two Sarinese bumped into him.

  “I don’t know,” Selwel said and began running into the crowd, Darayan on his heels, “the alarms are normally meant for severe attacks, invasion or Felrin presence. I have no idea what’s going on.”

  Darayan, as a Layos-born native, was a lot more athletic and agile than his shorter Sarinese squad member and got around the crowd easier. The hundreds of Sarinese, either in dirty-orange robes, or dark nightrobes and casual wear, were all screaming: “Burakar has come!”

  Darayan’s mind switched back to Archibel. Fear was tightening in his chest. He didn’t know why; she was a talented Sarinese Topazi, she would be fine. Wouldn’t she?

  He looked to Selwel, who finally caught up to him. “Polie left during the night to go for a walk,” Darayan lied, “I’ll need to find her.”

  “She’ll be at the temple, most likely,” Selwel said over the top of the shouting. “Best you suit up first. Find out orders and search for her when things are stable.”

  Darayan wasn’t sure if he could wait that long. But first things first, he needed to get suited up in his armour—which was no burden: it was practically weightless due to the craftsmanship of the Sarinese blacksmiths—and strap on some blades. Being unarmed wouldn’t help him find Archibel in the slightest.

  Darayan saw the barracks in the distance; the square sandstone building stood out against the night sky and the thick sandstone wall had multiple Sarinese guards lined along it as Sarinese Topazi infantry funnelled in.

  As they entered D Wing, the other five members of their squad were already getting suited.

  “Having a nap were you, Duke?” Timmowa, the shortest Sarinese man on the team, looked Darayan in his sweats up and down.

  “It was my bedtime. Don’t you people ever sleep?”

  Timmowa muttered back something profane, Darayan simply ignored him and began vigorously strapping his blades in.

  Selwel’s hazel eyes shot him a look of concern.

  “You’ll get a chance to search for her,” Selwel said as if reading Darayan’s mind. “Just wait for orders.”

  Archibel was groggy, she had no idea where she was. Her head was throbbing and her ears were filling with noise; screams she finally identified, as her hearing became clearer. What was going on?

  “How many more can be let in?” Someone was saying—was it Wederin? “We have a hundred Spirit Advisors on board already. We must mov—”

  It was like a crash underneath her. Everything was sliding left and the sound of snapping metal creaked up through the steel floor she was laying on. A large door clanged shut. Archibel needed to get her wits about her now, and when her arm slammed into another steel wall, she was able to determine she was on board a large Sarinese transport ship. Continuing to rotate another three hundred and sixty degrees and stopping on top of the window now under her, she realised the ship was parked in dock, metres above it. However, the water below was swirling violently at them, and it didn’t seem to be a gale-force wind.

  What the Holom was pulling on the ship? There was nothing there.

  Darayan had listened to Selwel and made his way from the barracks to the docks, as instructed. Several huge transport ships were trying to take off from the long pier of the docks, but something wasn’t allowing them. They were becoming crushed by the water below.

  He was running alongside his comrades as hundreds of soldiers raised their artillery—ranging from automatic bow shooters to jet fire spears—for attack. Archibel was nowhere in sight as the spray of weapons began. That’s when it hit him.

  A soft, sultry sound, like a lullaby. Actually, exactly like a lullaby. Like the ones he remembered his mother played to him. Smoke rose out of the water into the atmosphere. He hadn’t realised the soldiers alongside him had stopped running. They had stopped moving altogether. Darayan turned around, confused.

  “MOVE! QUICKLY! WE MUST SAVE THE SHIPS!” He shouted to them, but no-one paid attention. They were transfixed—robotic. “I SAID WE MUST SAVE THEM!”

  Not a single answer nor look his way. The music kept playing. Everything was slow motion to Darayan; and it wasn’t until he glanced back over his shoulder and experienced the sight he did, that his breathing dropped away.

  What the Holom was this?

  To his amazement, hundreds of huge, grey, transparent, fish-like creatures reared up out of the murky water’s surface.

  “Fish?” Darayan frowned. “That dock hasn’t been habitable for years after the poison spill,” he said to himself. The huge grey fish, swirling in smoke, opened their mouths: enormous teeth and jaws widened. “What are they doing?”

  Not a moment later, the creatures were clenching their thick, solid fangs into the transports themselves, and when the Sarinese soldiers kept on marching forward the length of the pier, the fish creatures snapped at their ginger bodies.

  “No!” Darayan shouted.

  Huge teeth ripped through preform flesh; red and deep purple blood flew skyward. Shock spun through him. His heart was racing. Why were the Sarinese not responding? What the Holom was he going to do?

  His squad members fell into sync with the other civilians and military on their way into the water: he realised they had no control over themselves. No way to prevent becoming mincemeat at the jaws of the vicious sea beasts.

  “Move!” he shouted in vain, making his way through the crowd and to his squad. “Selwel,” Darayan latched onto his friend’s shoulders and pulled him to the ground, “do you want to end up like one of them?” Selwel’s eyes were glossy and frozen. “Look at me!” Darayan’s heart pounded in his chest, “look at them!” Selwel pushed against Darayan and stood, moving his body back in line and toward the edge of the water.

  “They are all dying!” Darayan said to his friend, desperation consuming him as he seized Selwel’s shoulder from behind. “Listen to me—”

  Darayan wasn’t ready for it; as soon as he’d turned him round, Selwel’s fist connected with Darayan’s jaw and he fell to his knees.

  Selwel kept going, a few more feet forward, and when the Sarinese solider in front of him disappeared into broken pieces of flesh and bone, he was next.

  “SELWEL!” Darayan yelled. With one swift clench of a beast’s jaw Selwel’s head was torn from his shoulders. The memory of Darayan’s father’s death somehow seized him. Only a small fragment: his father’s hollow, blood-wrenched face com
ing to a slow rest next to the smashed vehicle on top of his chest as his mother’s scream ripped through his ears. Anger boiled within him.

  But Darayan had forgotten that memory. Forgotten what those people meant to him, really, aside from the pendant sitting in his pocket. Tears slid from his eyelids as the last of Selwel’s remains were swallowed whole.

  Hands on the ground, struggling to breathe, Darayan turned away in disgust and fury.

  Unsure how he did it, his aura pulsed through him, dusty orange sparks flew out from his circumference, barely touching the Siliou.

  What was this? How long could he keep watching the Sarinese become fish fodder? He heard the sound of a Vector slicing open, a Felrin cruiser paraded through the night sky, and Darayan prayed they ignored the illegal transports and saved them. He began running backward through the transfixed Sarinese.

  And that’s when he spotted her. Metres in the distance. Through the window of an upturned ravaged transport, laying half-conscious on her side. Archibel.

  Principals Ree and Prudence piloted the Felrin cruiser approximately thirty thousand feet above Sari. Principal Prudence smiled. The Chimaera were working their way through the Sarinese people, consuming as many as their hungry mouths could attain.

  “Get closer,” she ordered Ree, who nodded and obeyed.

  “You’d think after all the lenience we have shown them they would comply with regulations,” Ree said animatedly. “To think they still went behind our backs and developed those transports. What do people think prohibited means? How many times must we wipe species out before they learn not to develop spaceships?”

  “I don’t think the Sarinese were ever going to listen, Ree,” Prudence mused. “They’ve been vying for the Aquamorphs to take reign again.”