Oh, Jesus.
That’s when I remembered that they could smell sex on you. My hurried splashes in Gahn Thaleo’s little bathroom cave hadn’t been enough.
“Nazreen,” Oxriel said quietly, leaning down towards me. “Are you alright?”
“Of course,” I blustered. “Why?”
“Because you smell…” Perhaps wisely, he chose not to finish that sentence. “But you do not look happy.” His sight stars quickened. “Do I need to kill someone?” Zoren tensed as well, as if prepared to spring into battle at Oxriel’s word.
“God, no! Don’t even joke!” I said, swatting at him.
“It was not a joke.” His adorable face was stony with seriousness. I remembered how viciously he’d fought in the vaklok. Oxriel might have been a cutie patootie, but he could take somebody down like nobody’s business.
“I’m good, Ox,” I said quietly. “I am happy. Or was. What happened this morning is what I wanted. What I chose.” I blew out a breath between my lips. “Things are just a bit complicated right now.”
Oxriel and Zoren seemed to accept this as Valeria called us into the shuttle. No one else had overheard our conversation. But Tilly and Fiona had questions for me, knowing that I’d stayed behind to be alone with Gahn Thaleo. I remained tight-lipped, awkwardly fending off their queries until they gave up.
Then, I settled in for the flight back, and for the rest of the week in Gahn Errok’s mountain.
17
THALEO
Ithrew myself into my duties as a form of distraction, but still I felt Nazreen’s absence like a physical presence. Which made very little sense, but there it was. There was a heaviness to the time without her, a cold emptiness that expanded constantly until I worried there would be nothing left, not even air to breathe.
I spent much of my days and nights tracking the borrog’s burrowing, but this, too, made little sense. The burrow entrances and exits were appearing in what seemed to be random patterns, so far away from each other as to boggle the mind. Either this borog could tunnel further than we’d ever thought such a creature capable of.
Or there were two.
Borogs were typically very solitary, territorial creatures. They did not even remain with a mate. Once copulation was complete, they separated.
I tried very hard not to compare that reality to mine and Nazreen’s.
The burrows had not moved closer to my mountain, so I did not worry the people of my tribe for now. But my men, whotracked the borog with me, were aware of the oddness of the burrowing patterns, and I sensed more unease in them with each passing day.
My men were all strong. Brave. They’d fight for their people.
But there was no good way to kill a borog. Almost its entire body was impervious to attack, scales like armour. Its only point of vulnerability was hidden on the underside of its throat, and in order to access it, one had to get entirely under the creature and risk being crushed. If not crushed, one then had to shove a blade deep into that narrow place of softer flesh. This could kill the borog. But then the warrior risked being crushed again. And even if he had the good fortune to escape that possibility twice, he still would have been doused in the creature’s terrible blood.
Borog blood was poison to a Deep Sky body. It burned through flesh like liquid fire. I vividly remembered – and often vividly dreamed – of grasping Gahn Seerak’s arm and pulling him to safety before the borog collapsed upon him.
But it had not been safety at all. Because the borog’s blood had spilled all over my uncle’s upper half. His chest, his throat, his face were destroyed beyond recognition. Even now, I could feel the echo of that toxic acid burn upon my hand. The hand I’d used to pull him free. The Vrika’s blood that I’d sloshed desperately upon him had healed the small burns on my hand. But they had done little for Gahn Seerak. The damage was far too extensive.
He named me Gahn with a mouth that could barely speak before he died.
It was a brutal death. Painful. Some days, I wished I hadn’t pulled him out. That I had let the borog collapse on him, killing him mere moments after the blood had touched him. But I had pulled him out. Because at that point, I had still thought that I could save him.
So the unease among my men was not unfounded. Even before someone might get the chance to slip beneath its belly, it could do irreparable damage with its claws, its tail, the sheer colossal size of it. There was no guarantee a warrior would even be able to reach that poisonous, vulnerable place.
The unpredictable nature of its burrowing made it harder to plan. I had hoped that it would continue to burrow away from us, but that did not seem to be the case. If it suddenly appeared closer to us, there was a chance my tribe would have to leave our mountain and seek refuge somewhere else. I’d swallowed what little pride I had before, when I’d submitted to the alliance with Gahn Errok. I would do it again if my people’s survival depended on it. I would go to Gahn Errok for assistance, ask him to provide my people with shelter away from its fresh burrows.
But I did not need to do that yet. For now, I flew the Deep Sky on Yeralk’s back, day and night, pretending that I was not counting down every moment to Nazreen’s return.
18
NASRIN
The week in Gahn Errok’s mountain was one of the longest of my life. It terrified me how much I missed Thaleo. I’d told him that it would be good to have this time apart. That we should get used to it.
