Page 97 of King of Serpents

Therxian inclined his head. Her words made sense. And yet anxiety had been gathering within his belly as the separation stretched onward and clawed at his mind.

“If she is still in the palace, where might she have gone?” Healer Zhia asked as she slowly straightened, lifting an unraveled scroll from the ground.

Where would she hide? The baths? That seemed a bit too obvious as it was a direct descent from the royal residential area. And yet, it was also the logical choice if she wanted to comfortably wash away the blood of the male within the warm water. It was also directly connected with an entrance that led out into the sleeping ruins of the elder shinara which would give her a place to flee if she needed to escape. He had not explored the shinara with his mate, but he understood the way her mind worked. She would take advantage of the open and unfamiliar territory.

With a word, he rolled back on his coiled tail and turned toward the corridor entrance. His hearts thudding in his chest, he hurried through the hall. He did not pause at the smaller hall that led to the cooking chamber, and he ignored all the wings of the palace as he directly descended until the corridor opened up in the warm glow of the baths. The singing crystal was activated.

Alex could not activate the singing crystals.

Therxian’s head whipped around, his gavo fluttering anxiously as he tasted the air, searching for any recent signs of his mate’s presence. She had to be in the palace somewhere. His mate was far too clever to be caught.

“Alex? Alex, answer me,” he demanded, and he whipped through the chamber, his tail coiling anxiously behind him. “Where are you hiding?”

“She is not here,” a weak voice responded.

Therxian turned toward it. Carried away by the frustrated demands and suspicious nature of his instincts, his gavo extending fully as he hissed menacingly at a pale, thin Uralial lying on a ledge, his body half in and half out of the water. “Where is she? What have you done with her?”

“I have done nothing. But she is safe,” the Uralial replied blandly, his tail lazily stirring the water around him.

“That is all you have to say?” Therxian spat. “Why would I trust you or anyone with the safety of my mate?”

“Your mate?” The male tilted his head appraisingly as he peered at him curiously. “Ah, yes. You must be him. The mate who is also the prince. You have finally come. I was asked to wait here for you and tell you that her companions retrieved her. The hybrid and his human.”

Therxian scowled, his eyes narrowing on the male. Companions? A hybrid Uralial with a human? Was it possible? Therxian’s gavo twitched. He seemed to recall that Alex was desperate to find the companions she had lost when she fell from the sky. Was the Uralial speaking of them? His own mate had been injured, that the other human would have been as well came as no surprise. Perhaps they had taken sanctuary with the Uralial. If so, the male was smart to hide the female with those of the waterways. The elusive Uralial would have hidden them where no Seshanamitesh would find them.

He scrutinized the male, looking for any sign of deceit. The Uralial did not flinch or even react. As unsettling as it was, it eased Therxian’s panic. He did not see any deceit in the male’s eyes or hear it in those few uttered words. He merely met his gaze with a tired lifelessness that was more eerie than threatening. Perhaps more disturbing, however, was the male’s emaciated state. It was no wonder Therxian had not scented his presence. The male was barely breathing. He was no longer producing pheromones at all. Slowly the male’s eyes lowered, and Therxian’s gaze dropped, noting his sister’s scroll spread out before him. That had been in the queen’s nest!

Therxian hissed in affront, his tail coiling as he prepared to spring forward and rip the scroll from him—

“Therxian, stop!” his mother’s weak voice somehow managed to ring out across the chamber. She frowned at him as Jathella and Buosoa helped her approach, as Kitanara followed behind with the healer, watching anxiously. The queen’s eyes drifted over the male before dropping to the scroll. She stared at it for a long moment, and her gaze once more rose to the male, her eyes narrowing. “Therxian, cease reacting like a simple male. You were raised to be held to higher standards than that. Look at him.”

Therxian frowned in frustration, and yet... he paused, his gaze focusing on the painted male figure. He stared at it for several beats of his hearts as recognition stirred and took life within him before lifting his eyes back to the withered Uralial.

The male was frail, his body sunken in on itself, the lines of his face drawn taut over bone and what was left of the muscle clinging to his frame. His green eyes were sunken and no longer luminous, the great gavo-fins and massive major fins that had once might have been magnificent tattered as if clawed in duress, and his moon-colored scales were faded and graying—but it was him. The male from the scroll.

“You are him.”

The male’s hand sorrowfully traced back and forth over his sister’s image, and a sad song vibrated from within his chest.

“Not anymore. Not without her,” the male replied weakly. “Luoa is dead, even if my body has not yet realized it. Without Vorahna, there is no Luoa. But what hurts the most is that I never knew what happened to her. Just that she never returned. I came back and waited. I still wait, though I know that I wait for a ghost. You and your mate are more fortunate.”

“She died,” Therxian rasped, and the male inclined his head.

“I suspected as much. She would not have stayed away. Can you tell me how she died?”

Therxian dipped his chin regretfully and looked over at his mother.

Luoa sighed heavily, the tip of his mangled tail dragging slowly in the water. “I wish to hear it before my end comes. Unfortunately, that will be sooner rather than later.”

She looked at the male sadly. More than that, however, he saw the raw pain of the grief that she had privately continued to nurse deep within her hearts. Not only for the loss of her daughter and many sons, but that of one who knew the loss of a mate.

“I knew my daughter well. She would not have wished her mate to suffer so,” she whispered. To his surprise, however, she shifted her weight in Jathella’s hold and reached forward to lay a hand upon the long, dull fins on the male’s head. “Be at peace, my son.”

The male’s dim eyes lifted to her, and for a brief moment they almost seemed to brighten. “Thank you, Mother,” he rasped.

“After all this time, you are still pheromone-bonded,” Therxian murmured. It was a ridiculous observation. He had heard of the dead males occasionally found in the desert, but he had never seen one. He had never seen first-hand the ravages of a lingering scent bond slowly killing a male.

The male laughed drily. “Seshanamitesh. Always one to state the obvious while still managing to completely understate the issue.” His gaze lifted and fixed on Therxian. “I am more than just pheromone-bonded. A pheromone-bond is a passing issue that can be eased with a few uncomfortable weeks while it dissipates. I am dying because we were truly mated. Even though it was in secret. I knew I loved her the day I met her. The great water extends to the side of the cavern into which the palace is carved, and there are many old outlets into it that have long been sealed. I worked one loose and explored the palace only to discover the only female I would ever mate here in this very chamber. We met for many lunar cycles afterward. I knew that eventually we would be discovered, but I had hoped... it does not matter anymore what I hoped. Foolish hopes,” he muttered. “But when we discovered that she was gravid, I could not help being optimistic about the future. A new beginning for our species.”