Page 25 of Stone Awakened

Since he now knew that I didn’t judge him for his differences, it seemed the male felt freer to express what he was thinking. “So he is,” he said to Amar, reaching out a hand to ruffle Amar’s wild tufts of blue hair. “I will help,” he added, and he sounded very determined, almost defiant. I thought he might fear that I wouldn’t let him help, I didn’t want him to because I didn’t trust him enough, but I guess I had to give him some kind of task.

In a way, I supposed I had to trust him, he already knew we weren’t treating the kids as we were supposed to. He’d heard Jett call me dad a few times, he knew about our family tie, and he knew about my relationship with Aggy. He had more than enough information to go to Carator or Or’tal and rat us out, maybe he already had, I didn’t know. Maybe this was how Carator’s guard had concluded Aggy was an impostor, he knew too much, but he seemed willing to help, so I had to work with that.

“Yes, you are. You need to make it look like we’re all still here if anyone comes to check on us. You need to act normal,” I said. I gestured at the courtyard, and we started walking that way, Jett bouncing ahead of us as he rushed onto the cracked pavement, his wings out and ready for a take-off he had never practiced.

I saw his face fall, he’d clearly hoped for a more glamorous part to play, but I wasn’t going to trust him with the location of the kids. Not when I couldn’t be sure if he’d ratted on us or not, even if my instincts were telling me that he had not. He nodded as we crossed to the center of the courtyard, “I can do that.” His head tilted left and right as he tried to assess how to make it look like we were still here, his eyes settling on the broken dummies pushed up against one wall.

“Thanks, Uron, I won’t forget about your help. About your will to change,” I said while tucking Amar more tightly against my side. I walked to one of the courtyard walls, I intended to go over it, aided by my wings. In broad daylight, I couldn’t actually fly anywhere with the boys, we’d be spotted from the ground immediately. A little aerial lift over that wall would work though.

Truthfully, it wouldn’t matter much at this point if Uron couldn’t keep up a pretense, or if he ran to Or’tal to tattle. By the time they started to search for us, I’d have the boys safely out of the way. It would just make breaking Aggy out a little more difficult, but I was up to the task, failure was not an option.

“Okay Jett, we’re just leaping over that wall, a good solid push with your wings should help boost you over.” My son eyed the tall wall with eager excitement, backing up for a running start. He paused to give Uron a wave, and the young guard gave Jett an encouraging smile, as far as a mouth full of that many teeth could look encouraging.

Jett ran at the wall, leaped up, and beat with his wings. I timed my push just right, catching his behind in one palm and throwing him, that was enough to get him on top of the wall where he held on with a proud look on his face. Beating his wings just enough to get his feet onto the top. In seconds, I was over that wall with a well-timed stroke of my wings, my feet hitting the dusty ground beyond it.

The space was clear, a dusty stretch of land, surrounded by a few deserted outer buildings, some of them partially collapsed. Jett bravely leaped down from that wall, wings stretched out to break his fall. Then the three of us were off, darting for cover behind buildings, and stacks of crates, one time we crawled beneath a parked vehicle.

I’d hide them, and then I’d turn back for Aggy.

*

Agatha

I was pacing across my cell, my feet burning, my calves aching, and my skin so numb from the cold that I couldn’t tell if it was warming up in here or not. I thought it might be morning, but I couldn’t tell for sure, there was no light to go by. Unlike in the rest of the palace, no wall sconces flared to life to signal the end of the night cycle.

Had Sunder woken up the boys and shared a bit of breakfast with them? Had he spoken with his brothers on the Vagabond? I hoped Sunder was sitting tight with the kids, waiting for his backup to arrive. I wasn’t entirely sure how many people were on the Vagabond. After seeing all those armed guards inside the grand hall… I was worried this plan was too simple to work, did it rely too much on brute strength? What if his brothers were outnumbered?

Nobody brought me any food, just like nobody had brought me dinner, and my stomach rumbled angrily. Yes, I wasn’t mistaking it, it was warming up. That meant daytime. I climbed onto the slab of concrete that was meant to pass as a cot in here. There was a set of bars high up in my cell, on the outer wall. I had felt a cold draft coming in through it all night, but as I grabbed the bars and peered outside, I still saw nothing.

It wasn’t a window then, just some kind of vent, not that it had helped to keep the damp out of this darn place. My hand slid across something slimy, and I winced back, feeling disgusted. In the pale gloom, I could vaguely tell that it had to be some kind of alien moss, green and viscose. I wiped my fingers on my skirt and they tingled, feeling even more numb than the cold warranted. Huh, interesting. I wondered if that was a human-only response or something more. Maybe that stuff was poisonous.

Vaguely something tickled at the back of my brain, and for the next hour, since I had nothing else to do anyway, I racked myself, trying to figure out what it was. It came to me when I rubbed my still numb fingers over my wrist, where I normally wore my com device. The moss, a native species to Arakon, was some kind of analgesic. I had read about it on my datapad that same evening I’d learned about the Jukjuk.

Not, if I recalled correctly, the kind that could knock a person out. You’d have to use massive amounts for that, but it was a numbing agent that could help with topical pain. Great, so I remembered, but what use did I have for this information?

The cynical thought had just crossed my mind when I heard the door to the cellblock creak open. A beam of light fell onto the stone floor, a shadow silhouetted, just like last night. This shadow was huge, with a jagged head, and wings flaring out like a giant bat. My breath stuttered in surprise, and I rushed for the bars to my cell, peering through them to look at who was approaching.

I could barely believe it, was it really him? How had he gotten in here, and so quickly? Did that mean his brothers had already arrived? Were the boys safe? Did he have them with him? So many questions were rushing through my head, but all that vanished when he stopped in front of my cell. He looked so good, I was so happy to see him. It was as if I could already feel his warmth radiate at me through the bars.

“Aggy,” he said, his voice like a balm to my soul, I was so happy to see him. “Stand back my Fire, I will break open your cell,” he added, and I reluctantly backed away from his warmth. He had a soft glow emanating from the com on his wrist, enough for me to see his face. He looked tired to me, but also like the most amazing thing I’d ever seen. After that energy-sapping cold all night, I just wanted to curl up in his arms and cry.

He set the hooks that tipped his wings against the sides of the door frame, his big hands curling around the bars. With a huge grunt, he heaved, his arms corded with muscle straining against the weight. With a snap and a groan, the old, slightly rusted metal gave way, the hinges breaking open. Sunder tossed aside the broken door with a grunt, which I found incredibly sexy for some bizarre reason. As if my cavewoman instincts were super impressed with his show of brute strength.

I threw myself out of the cell and straight into his arms, “Sunder! I’m so glad you’re here.” Who cared if that was very damsel-in-distress-like? I was currently the damsel in distress and Sunder was my knight in shiny armor, even if his armor was a little dented and cracked these days.

He caught me, his arms and wings curling around me and enveloping me with warmth. In response, my body started trembling, finally warming up again. It told me more than anything just how close I’d come to hypothermia, I wondered how bad off I would have been if he hadn’t arrived when he had.

“My Fire,” he murmured against my hair, “You are freezing.” Yes, I was, but he was making it all better. I lifted my face from his thick pectoral, my tingling fingers reaching for one of the horns crowning his head. I yanked his head down, and our lips met in a fiery kiss. He was often the rational, more level-headed of the two of us, but not this time. He dove into that kiss with a kind of desperation that matched my own.

When he pulled away from our kiss, my mouth was a bit bruised, but my blood was pumping again. Our eyes met in the low glow of his com light, and he was the first to speak, cupping my face with one big palm. “Aggy, I lo…” his words were interrupted by the retort of a laser pistol going off, and his entire body jolted against mine.

I screamed, frantic when he stumbled forward and started to collapse. I was going to end up crushed beneath him if he fell, but that didn’t matter, he’d just been shot! Over his shoulder, I could see a green-skinned figure and a taller one with the typical silhouette of a Rummicaron. The glint of a pistol barrel in his hand.

Sunder caught himself on one hand, and the clawed tip of his wing joint, caught his weight so he was crouched over me. I didn’t miss the way he made himself big, a target, and I feared for his life. One shot, he said one shot could kill him, just like with a human. Had he been fatally hit? I couldn’t tell, he didn’t seem to be bleeding. “Hide Aggy,” he murmured, brave male that he was, and with a push from his free hand, he send me skidding along the cold, damp floor until my shoulders collided with the back wall.

“So… You’re a traitor then, pity,” Carator said, “So much potential wasted between the two of you.” He made a tsking noise with his teeth, shaking his head, while the single guard with him moved to flick on the light inside this darn dungeon. I flinched, my eyes hurting from the brightness that flooded the space.

It was in the light that I finally saw what had happened to Sunder. He had turned and was standing in a defensive crouch in front of me, wings flared, his tail lashing the air. His shoulder bore a blacked, ashy mark with a small ‘crater’ at the center. No blood was dripping from that spot, it looked more like a scorch mark a stone wall might show after being hit. Eyes wide, I couldn’t dare hope that something had changed, that his illness had somehow been overcome. That was almost too good to be true.