my door and entered; his obeisant posture especially pronounced.
“What is it?” I asked from my bed, my voice rough from the worsening cough.
“The Ikma Scabmal Kama,” he said. “She is injured and seeks an audience with you. The maikshel attend her in the throne room.” When he saw he had my attention, he gestured farther down the hall. “The sight-capture room sparks and smokes. We will attempt to quell it.”
“Fires and injuries? All I wanted was a nap,” I muttered. I didn’t wait for him to respond; dragging myself from my bed, I pulled on simple robes before rushing through the halls.
Two guards lay collapsed on the floor while two healers squatted beside the Ikma. They muttered chants and placed steaming poultices on the Ikma’s chest, as her cough had returned with a vengeance.
“Where is she hurt?” I asked and knelt by her side, holding her hand and looking at her face. A grimace gathered wrinkles around her mouth and eyes, but her penetrating gaze remained powerful.
“She is fine,” the Queen said between pants. “Raxthezana is gone. Had you to do with this treachery?”
“No!” I said and looked to the doorway, seeking a eunuch or servant to corroborate me, but it was empty. “I’ve been resting in my private rooms, as you suggested.”
Searching my Queen’s face, I saw a strange torment in her eyes as she studied mine. Sniffing, I noticed an odor wafting off of her; it was the fragrance of hatred mixed with fury, but a thread of fear wove its way around her, and I frowned.
She coughed, then moaned and touched the side of her head. I could see a significant bump forming.
The eunuchs arrived with a hover-cot to carry her to the fortress’s healing chamber, and she retched when they lifted her onto it.
Confused, I let go of her hand and looked around the throne room trying to decipher what had happened. The guards stirred, and I helped the first one sit up. He sported a swollen jaw and vivid bruising under his eyes.
“What happened here?” I demanded.
“The Ikma Scabmal Kama struck Raxthezana,” he said. “And then someone hit me.”
“But what else?” My voice had a metal edge.
“She had a prisoner that escaped,” he said, rubbing his jaw with a wince. “She flew into a rage at Raxthezana upon hearing that news, but then she fell, and I was hit. I didn’t see what happened after that.”
“She told me Raxthezana was gone.” I said, narrowing my eyes.
The guard gave a humorless laugh. “It is not the first time he got lost in this fortress,” he said and grunted as he pushed himself to his knees and crawled over to shake the other guard’s shoulder. Looking around, he grimaced. “It seems to be endemic.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, growing angrier by the jotik.
“There was an argument earlier about misplacing Raxthezana,” he ground out with a sideways glance. “When the Queen commanded me to fetch her prisoner, I got to the War Room and saw only severed bonds and a filthy mess. It was the Queen’s personal prisoner, judging by the tools of raxfathe I saw scattered about.”
Sparks lit up my thoughts. He continued.
“After I came here to inform the Queen, she confronted Raxthezana and then smote him. I didn’t see who hit me,” he said. “But they can’t have gone far in so short a time.”
Headache pounding behind my eyes, I rubbed my forehead with a thumb.
Not only had the Ikma Scabmal Kama known about CeCe; she’d been torturing her. When the humans’ technology VELMA told me Raxthezana had found her earlier, he’d already stolen her from under the Ikma’s nose. But how came he to be in the throne room, and where was CeCe now? Had another of the hunters snuck aboard my ship? There were too many missing pieces.
My illness slowed my progress, but I hastened to the War Room while the Queen’s injuries would be treated in the regeneration chamber.
Furiously chill winds beat upon the tower passageway as I made my way down the winding stair. I entered the lower level’s door with relief and marched to the War Room.
As the guard had described, loose bonds hung from the arm posts of the raxfathe stand in its place of honor at the head of the War Room. The potions used to preserve the entrails were missing but for a lone vessel lying on its side. Bloody bandages lay twisted on the floor, and a partial footprint stained the stone. It was unquestionably a human print.
Stepping back with revulsion, I couldn’t erase the image of a small human hanging from her arms while the Queen spilled her intestines into the raxfathe sling.
But if VELMA was correct, that meant the Queen had been torturing her from around the time Esra had landed. How could she still be alive? And how had the Queen hidden her from me for so long?
All the stolen moments I’d flown to Ikthe when I thought the Queen distracted and preoccupied, or the times she insisted she was too tired and commanded me to leave her alone—all had been a farce.
Snatches of recent conversations played out in my mind. Do avoid the tower passageway. The Goddesses have given us a boon. We have yet to discuss the aliens.
Perhaps she’d intended to trick me into revealing the presence of other humans on Ikthe, for she already knew of at least one from my “attempt” to kidnap Raxkarax. She wasn’t expressing concern for my illness when she told me to avoid the tower passageway. If I’d taken the tower passageway, I would have been too near the War Room and could have discovered her prize. Her “boon” from the Goddesses.
Fisted claws piercing my palms, I left the War Room intending to confront the Ikma when the scent of loamy peat wafted across my nose. Startled, I turned left and paused at the stairwell. The temple was up and to the right. The shel pool was down and to the left. Following the smell, I went down and entered the torch-lit hall, noting the layer of fresh compost material and the displaced shovel at the rear of the pit.
Walking further into the room, my weak steps echoed against the stone floor and walls, the sound overlaying the subtle crackling from the shel.
At the end of the pool, I spotted faint stains that could be from any time, but when I looked into the shadowed corner of the chamber, I spied the bottles and vials used in the Queen’s raxfathe ritual.
“Holy Goddesses and Death claim us all!” I said and approached the clutter. An abandoned bandage lay crumpled next to the elaborately woven raxfathe sling, but the sling bore a blackened boot print and several jagged tears, having been vandalized.
Turning to stare back at the shel pool, my mind jumped from scenario to scenario, but there was only one explanation. Yet it was so fantastical and improbable that I could scarcely comprehend it.
A barking cough seized my chest and throat, and I endured it until it passed, then made my way to the small armory.
The sanding machine sat amidst small piles of shavings; normally the armorer would have cleaned up her station. Studying the wall of weapons and the stashes of unfinished armor pieces, I turned yet again to the shel pool.
The Theraxl people had a long and storied tradition of arming their strongest warriors with blades of woaiquovelt and shel-inhabited armor plates. Only those males who’d proven themselves capable of withstanding the harsh conditions of Ikthe and the chronic pain of the parasitic shel could be armed thusly. Rigorous training in the mental arts as well as martial forms and combat, all joined to create the perfect hunter. Successful initiates were brought here, to the shel pool, amidst ritual and celebration, to receive their allotment of shel and armor—never to be parted.
In spite of the weakness in my limbs and the difficulty breathing, I remained in the shel chamber trying to grasp the enormity of everything that had transpired.
If the Queen had, indeed, performed the raxfathe on CeCe, then she had acted outside the edicts of the Ancient Writs and Ways, and was unequivocally accountable before the Tribunal. Furthermore, in all of my efforts to maintain the illusion of loyalty to my Queen, I’d lost the allyship of the hunters, the humans and VELMA, while the Queen had gone to great lengths to hide a defenseless human from me.
No one had ever survived the raxfathe. CeCe must have been close to death after all this time.
The stoic and brooding hunter whom I knew as bookish and unsmiling had stolen the Queen’s wounded and dying prey, brought the female alien to this sacred place, and thrust her in the shel pool—gifting her with the ability to withstand most injuries and illnesses, increased strength and stamina, faster reflexes and mental acuity, and significant longevity—without the Goddess’s blessing, the Queen’s permission or the people’s ceremony.
The guards didn’t know who hit them and the Queen only knew that Raxthezana was gone. But I hadn’t sensed lies from them.
They simply didn’t know the full truth.
CeCe, likely using stealth mode in her own suit of shel armor, had taken out two Theraxl guards, evaded the Ikma, and accompanied an Iktheka out of the fortress without being noticed or caught.
Not only had Raxthezana stolen the Queen’s prey. He had taken the weak human and created his own ikthekama. A female bringer of death. A she-hunter.
I didn’t know if I could be forgiven for my choices, but one thing was certain.
The Ikma Scabmal Kama would seek vengeance for being made a fool.
And CeCe the she-hunter may seek a vengeance of her own.