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Voices hummed nearby, disturbing Rayen.
She stayed still, eyes closed, to discern where she was and who owned those voices.
Dry heat warmed her skin. That was familiar. It felt like a desert. She’d been in a desert before. Had awakened to a beast hunting her.
Her mind caught up to her body and memories came at her as fast as she could absorb them.
Albuquerque. Byzantine Institute. The Sphere.
Wraiths flying toward Callan.
Her heart came wide awake and pounded against her chest. She opened her eyes to soft light spilling in through a sheer window covering. The room wasn’t large or small, but comfortable. Just big enough for the bed she was stretched out on, and a few other pieces of furniture. Two chests with drawers stood against the stone walls. The chests were carved from wood and trimmed with paintings of warriors on horses and a rocky setting.
She sat up and felt lightheaded, but it passed quickly.
The floor was covered in a woven geometric red and white rug. A rocking chair hewn from piñon pine waited in the corner. The blanket covering her had been woven with lightning designs she recognized. They were the same designs that had been on the clothes of ancestors she’d met in a dream.
The entire room came into focus as a sharp memory.
She knew this room and furniture.
A tear plopped on her face and her happiness struggled to push past the pain.
She was home, which meant she’d never see Callan again.
Climbing out of her bed, she padded over to find clothes and fished out a dress her mother had made for her. The tears wouldn’t stop as her heart jumped from happy to miserable and back again, unable to make up its mind.
Once she had the pale blue dress and soft boots on, she walked out into the great room, the source of the low voices humming.
A man and woman stood up, staring at her as if she was a ghost. Next to them sat a boy who was V’ru’s age. His name was Torg. Beside him stood a fifteen-year-old girl named Aleah. They both had blue-green eyes.
Rayen’s brother and sister.
Her heart clenched at thinking of V’ru. Had he made it home, too?
Breathing hurt.
They all rushed her at once, hugging and crying. She allowed herself to enjoy being wrapped in the love of her family, being home again. She felt whole once more because little by little her memories were returning.
But she also had new ones from her time away. Now she knew what would happen to her family in the future.
How was she going to tell them what was to come? That they would all be exterminated like dangerous animals.
That conversation would have to wait for another day when her heart felt stronger. Right now, it was whimpering over all she’d gained and lost in one moment.
Her beautiful mother couldn’t stop stroking her hair. “Let’s let Rayen catch her breath.”
Aleah and Torg hugged her, then left when her father echoed her mother’s request.
Rayen panicked. “Don’t let them go outside.”
My father asked, “Why?”
“Sentient beasts.”
“The beasts can’t get past our barriers. They are safe as long as they stay inside the perimeter we protect.”
Safe for now, but at some point, all that security would fall apart. She stood silently, wondering if she’d have to watch her brother and sister die at some point.
How had Callan survived losing a brother?
“Come sit with us, Rayen,” her mother said, gently guiding her to a wide sofa covered with woven fabric. She gave Rayen a glass of water as the three of them sat down. “I was afraid you would never wake up.”
“How long was I asleep?”
When her mother tried to talk, but couldn’t speak past crying, her father said, “You just appeared, sleeping in your bed, ten days ago. Your mother found you, but you slept through everything we tried. Our elders performed a healing ceremony that should have brought you around. You didn’t even stir.”
Her father sat with his elbows propped on his knees, leaning forward. “I’m sorry about sending you to the shaman that night. We spent months trying to figure a better way, but when the elders came to us and said you, your brother, and sister would not survive unless we allowed you to fulfill your destiny, we ...” Her father looked away, blinking back tears before he turned to her again. “We didn’t want to lose any of you. I offered to take your place, but the elders said it would mean sure death for all of us. That you alone could fulfill your destiny.”
Her destiny, huh? If only they knew that she’d failed, because she never figured out what she was supposed to have done. She’d let her family and her people down.
Now she had guilt on top of heartbreak.
Someone had to shoulder the blame. She’d been the only one given an opportunity to save them, but she hadn’t come through so the end of their people would be her fault.
If she admitted that, would her father only feel worse for what he’d done? She might as well explain what she did know. “I understand that we have to follow our hearts and read signs in life along the way. As for destiny ...”
Torg came running in. “Father, an army is outside our barriers.”
My father jumped up. “That can’t be. No one has ever found us here. How many?”
“The guards say it’s at least five hundred. The leader demands we send out Rayen.”
“No!” Rayen’s mother shouted. “I won’t lose her again.”
Her father hugged her mother.
Rayen stood. “Let me speak to them. If they aren’t attacking, they may only want to talk.”
“People of the cities cannot be trusted. We’ve hidden here for many years to avoid them. They kill C’raydonians on sight.”
Had the K-Virus been released in this world yet? “Are our people infected with a virus, Father?”
“Some were infected, but not for a long time now. We tried to treat them, but they went mad and died.”
“It’s contagious, right?”
“Yes, but those of us who heal protect ourselves and others from the deadly virus if we know someone is infected.”
That meant eventually someone would get inside these defenses and contaminate the entire race. “Let me talk to the leader waiting outside our gates.” Maybe this would be her chance to protect their people. If she could convince the TecKnati to allow them to quarantine in this location and prevent a major outbreak of the K-Virus among the C’raydonians, maybe they would leave her people be.
Maybe that was the reason her destiny was to go back in time.
This had to be the way to save her people. She could only hope that Callan was able to save his. She had to believe in her heart that if she was here, then he had made it home, too. That would have to be enough.
Her father walked over to get his spear. “I will not risk my children again. Not for the entire C’raydonian race or anyone else. We’ll figure out how to save our people with you safely guarded.”
“Allow me to walk with you. I think this may be part of my destiny. Trust me on this. Please.”
My father lifted his spear and exchanged a look with her mother, who nodded even though she cried the whole time.
He held out a hand for Rayen and she joined him. Walking outside onto a fifteen-foot-wide ledge covered by an overhang of more rock, she looked around to find a circle of mountains enclosing a five-mile-diameter valley lush with plants, trees and a glistening lake.
Barns dotted the area. Horses grazed in a far section.
But they lived in a desert.
More memories bombarded her. Memories that had hidden the whole time she was gone now came rushing out to say hello. C’raydonians had found this canyon in the Sandia Mountains. Over time, they used magic to encourage the mountains to grow and completely enclose it, leaving only a narrow, ward-protected opening that allowed riders to pass.
From the outside, that warded section would appear like the rest of the mountain. From above, the valley looked like more mountain peaks.
How had the TecKnati found them?
She took in the hundreds of homes chiseled out of the face of the rock bowl. People moved around in the valley over a hundred feet below her. They tended to farms and animals. Some sat on ledges outside the entrance to their mountain-side homes, ledges furnished with hand-made furniture and plants in pots.
Looking down, she sucked in a fast breath. They were ten stories above the ground, and she saw no steps.
Before she could go into full-blown panic, her father took her hand, then he stepped off the ledge.
Following him had to be something she’d learned to do and trust, because it went against every instinct she had, but she also knew she would not fall.
They floated down.
Her pulse raced, but she trusted her father. They landed softly on the ground. He chuckled. “For a moment there, I thought you once again feared heights. Training with your powers cured that, but the look on your face when we stepped off had me worrying that your shamanic journey undid that work.”
More memories—some from her training—filtered in. She had power inside her to control levitating to their home or dropping gently to the valley floor, too. But no one here knew she could destroy a croggle with it.
They walked toward the narrow passage in the mountains. Two men and a woman, all appearing to be around thirty, approached from that direction.
The woman addressed her father, referencing the strangers outside their compound. “The leader has not spoken other than to demand your daughter be brought to the gates.”
Rayen’s father digested that, then said, “No one knows of my children. No one should know of our location.”
Her palms dampened.
Did they think she was infected? How would they know if they shouldn’t even know about this valley?
What ancestor of SEOH had found them?
She and her father continued walking through two lines of guards, who filled in behind them.
Her father paused to open two wards on the way. She felt the power sizzle over her skin. They were as well protected as they could be from TecKnati, but not from the K-Virus if a C’raydonian brought it inside this area.
But how would that happen?
Was this unexpected meeting how the infection would end up inside the valley? She hesitated for a moment, and her father stopped beside her, his face full of questions. What a hideous irony if her destiny ended up destroying her family.
Always follow your heart.
She searched hers, and it told her to keep going, so she started forward again, playing possibilities over in her mind.
A traitor?
The MystiKs had suffered a traitor inside their village in the Sphere.
If her people had one here, that might explain how the K-Virus would eventually be brought in to infect the C’raydonians. As soon as this was over, she would tell her father that they had to find a way to flush out a potential traitor for any hope of surviving.
First, she had to be on guard to push her father back inside if this turned out to be a trap.
The twenty-foot-tall passage that they traversed was wide enough for two people on horseback to ride through side by side. With sun shining on both ends, they walked through a dark tunnel.
As they reached the exit into the desert, heat blanketed her. She covered her eyes and squinted against the glaring sun.
When her vision adjusted to the light, she was prepared to argue that they had a right to live here and to warn that the first sign of aggression would be met with a power unlike anything TecKnati could imagine.
She wasn’t prepared for the deep voice that said, “Took long enough, but I found you.”
