arms again and looked down, my helmet light joining the others’ lights in the circle at our group’s center.
“You didn’t want to bring me,” Esra said, looking up at Naraxthel. “All the way back then. At the beginning.”
“I wasn’t aware of the extent of the danger, but even then. No,” he said.
“Well,” Amity said, hooking her elbow with Natheka’s and looking at all of us. “They didn’t have humans. Or even know what to expect, I’m guessing. I think we have the advantage.”
“I agree,” Natheka said and covered Amity’s hand with his own. “Our mates will protect us and the woaiquovelt. We’ll traverse the Black Mist Chamber and reach the pool of the Waters of Shegoshel in safety.”
“I have a question,” Joan said. “Are we going back the same way or is there another exit?”
“A sound question,” Raxthezana said, and I smiled. I loved his voice. The cadence of his speech. The respect with which he addressed anyone. “It may depend upon what features were destroyed or changed after the quakes. But there are other exits from some places we will pass through. My preference is to return to my ship; it will ease our travels by a great margin.”
Joan nodded. When I glanced around the group, it occurred to me that Raxthezana and I were the only ones not standing beside each other. Without a second thought, I crossed the circle in a few steps and wrapped my arms around him. Startled, he paused before embracing me, and we held each other for long moments. I reveled in my silent but public announcement of my adoration for him, and after another minute, we finally broke apart.
“Ready?” I asked my mate, and even though I couldn’t see into his eyes, I knew he peered into my soul.
“I am ready,” he said. “Let us away.”
As the mapmaker and navigator, he led us into the vertical fault, the Narrows, that would take us to this mysterious chamber.
“Girls’ channel,” Esra announced.
“Black Mist Chamber,” Pattee said. “Theories?”
“The first that comes to mind is toxic gases,” I said. “Black damp is out in the absence of a coal mining operation. Raxthezana didn’t mention fires or explosions, so firedamp is out.”
“That leaves stink damp and white damp,” Joan said. “But no one mentioned suffocating as one of the symptoms.”
“I think it’s pertinent that they experienced auditory hallucinations,” Esra said.
“But please don’t assume they were hallucinations right away,” Amity said. “We can’t make human assumptions in an alien world.”
“Amity’s correct,” Pattee said. “There could be alien entities that exist outside our known understanding of the universe,” she continued. “Or it could be something as simple as a special tea inducing a state of meditation. They could have accessed altered consciousness. For all we know, there could be a ritual they perform before they enter.”
“Good point. Too bad the scanners won’t work,” Joan said. “But we should have VELMA scan for fungi now. Spores can travel far; there could be a mushroom forest in the chamber. Airborne psylocibins could cause hallucinations of all kinds.”
“Gases, fungal spores, something they ingest, or unknown entities,” I said. “Anything else?”
“What about plain old ghosts?” Amity said.
“What?” Esra barked a humorless laugh.
“Other than Raxthezana, the hunters are very spiritual,” Amity said. “Maybe the veil is thinner here. Maybe they’re more in touch with—you know—the Other Side.”
“Based on Raxthezana’s descriptions of what the hunters said, the Other Side doesn’t sound very welcoming,” Joan said. “Maybe we should focus on positive energy before we enter the chamber.”
“No kidding,” I said. “Speaking of energy, though: sonic waves, light waves—wind tunnels or weird cave formations. They could all contribute to the phenomena. Hopefully we can record whatever happens.”
“Did I see a particulate sampler when we were sorting our gear?” Joan asked.
“Yes, actually,” I said with a smile. “I raided the cache you set outside your pod, Amity. It seemed like it could be helpful.”
“If you hand that over, I could run it right now,” Joan said, and I pressed the panel in my armor where I’d stowed it earlier.
Handing it to her, we both stopped walking so she could assemble the tubing.
“I’ve got one T-sampler left,” she said. “Other than that hiccup a couple sleeps ago; I think they’ve been helping VELMA extend our comms. I was thinking I’d save it for the Black Mist Chamber and cross my fingers.”
“Why’d you sign up for Kerberos 90?” I blurted. “Bare-bone rock is no place for a botanist.”
“I wasn’t doing great, CeCe,” she said. “You knew that.”
I sighed. “Okay, yeah, I guess I did. I will say that for the co-directors,” I said. “They didn’t hedge. While it was a fictitious mission, they did not try to dress it up. It sounded as bleak and unwelcoming as they could make it.”
“They wanted people who left their ties behind,” Joan said quietly. “I think the materials were pretty clear on that score.”
“Yeah, they were,” I said.
“So—in that vein,” she continued. “Why did you sign up? You had friends. Family.”
“I thought you would have guessed, Joanie,” I said, my voice gentle. “I didn’t want you to go there alone.”
“My God, CeCe,” she said with a sniff and looked back at me. “You really know how to party.”
My laughter took us all by surprise.
“You have no idea,” I finally said, gasping for breath and shaking my head.
Resuming our walk, which in some cases was more of a sideways crawl, our conversation dwindled. The passage must have been created a long time ago by an immense earthquake, the mountain splitting downward into a giant groove and the two halves shifting apart. Very little water made its way in this particular fault, or its narrow opening would have widened, the ground would have smoothed over, the walls would have been shaved and rounded of its roughness. Rather, the path we walked was littered with uneven terrain and tumbled rock; the walls we caressed were sharp and jagged, prone to scratching our skin if we removed our gloves, and according to the results of Joan’s particulate scan, the air was full of rock dust.
“No sign of airborne botanicals or toxins so far,” she said after several minutes. “I’ll check every ten meters.”
Chemicals flooded into my bloodstream, and I felt the irresistible urge to run again, but this time I had to quell it. Trapped between two walls and between Raxthezana and Joan at the front and my friends behind followed by the other hunters, I had to maintain the slow and steady pace we had adopted.
“Raxthezana,” I said, pinging him privately. “The shel want to run.”
“I’m sorry, CeCe,” he said, his voice intimate in my ear.
“Can you distract me?” I asked.
“Of what shall I speak?” he said. I didn’t imagine the deepening of his voice as he continued. “How visions of you populate my dreams when I sleep? Mayhap I should tell you how your embrace gives my stony, broken heart wings of the strongest ikadax or that when we sit beside the evening’s fire, I watch your mouth when you speak and desire to bite your generous lips—to taste your breath, your tongue. Knowing that your body heals beneath your armor, I long to lay you bare and witness your muscles move beneath your dark skin when you stretch your length under me. I imagine palming your breast, your waist, and lower.”
Steps faltering over a tricky path, my gasps sounded harsh in my ears. But “Keep going,” I said, unapologetic.
“The things I will do to you, CeCe,” he said with a growl. “I’ve never hungered for a female as I do for you.”
Licking my lips, I stole glances at my companions ahead and behind me, thankful for once that my helmet concealed my heated cheeks, blown pupils, and shallow breaths. “What will you do for me, Raxthezana?” I asked, my own voice husky.
His low chuckle rumbled into my chest as if he held me, though we were several meters apart, our private communication the sole bubble of space we shared in the depths of a black mountain.
“The things I will do for you,” he said, interest pitching his voice with a heated question. “I’ve never mated with a human. This will necessitate an in-depth study. Will you scream if I lick at the nub between your legs? Will you pant and beg if I explore your slick entrance with my fingers?”
Whimpering, I didn’t realize he heard it until he chuckled low and long.
“I see,” he said. “You will whimper when I play. What other noises will you make for me?”
“I don’t know,” I whispered. “But I can’t wait.”
He groaned. “This twice-goddess-cursed planet and her Queens,” he uttered. “But we will wait until you feel you are ready.”
“I want to be ready now,” I said. “But if I’m honest, I think I’m still acclimating and healing.”
“Your dauntless spirit enamors me, huntress,” he said. “If I believed in goddesses, I would say you had been created for me. Prepared and sculpted as if by someone who knew my secret desires.”
“I don’t know what I believe about God,” I said. “But I do like to think Someone—or Some few—watch over us. When I lost my mom, I wanted to believe she was somewhere better. And happy.”
“Ahh my heart,” he said. “If I could believe such, I might have found comfort when little Ikfala passed so long ago.”
“One of my friends said you weren’t spiritual,” I said.
“Ik, I do not speak of the Goddesses or Their will,” he answered. “I do not lay praises at Their feet nor blame at Their garden gate.”
“But you admit you had a dream,” I said. “I thought it was a hallucination brought about by oxygen deprivation, but when I was swimming up from the bottom of Lake Wazakashe, I saw two women who could have been the goddesses of your people. I haven’t told anyone about that until now.”
“Thank you for sharing this with me,” he said. “I may not be spiritual in the sense of the others, my people or yours. I have seen Pattee at her worship and heard Amity’s prayers in the heat of battle. But I recognize that there exists spirit. The spirits of those I love and my own. I desire to honor these spirits with respect for their own wills and their own intelligence and desires. In that way am I spiritual.”
We shared silence for a few paces before he spoke again.
“Do you wish I believed?” he said, a quiet stillness in his simple question.
“I don’t wish you to be any different than you are,” I said. “I can’t explain the connection I feel to you, or the attraction I felt from the very first time I saw you. But please don’t change for me. I fell in love with you: the Raxthezana who scoffs at deity and makes his own plans and drives his own destiny.”
I thought I heard the smallest gasp.
“Is this true?” he asked. “You feel love for this hunter? For me?”
“It’s true,” I said, emotion thickening my voice. “It’s inevitable. Inescapable. I love you.”
He sighed in my ear, and I thought I felt the shel settle and calm under my skin at the sound.
“Do you wish to escape your love for me?” he said, but I could tell he used his playful tone.
“Never, but something tells me there is no escape,” I said, teasing him.
“I have learned there is a human word called “fun”,” he said. “I imagine it would be fun to hunt you should you try to escape. You would be my most challenging prey, and my victory would be hard-fought and hard-won.”
“Did you just throw down the gauntlet, Raxthezana?” I said. “Because it’s on.”
“Oh ho, my mighty huntress,” he said with a laugh. “Your armor might be on now, but it won’t be when I catch you.”
I didn’t correct his misunderstanding of my words. No. I was thrilled at them, and I hoped that we could survive this twice-goddess-cursed quest, to use his phrase, and the political mess that followed. Because if Raxthezana wanted a hard-fought battle, he would get one. But I had the feeling we would share a joint victory. After all, to love was to triumph.