Page 1 of Family Found

Chapter 1

Inkiri

Before

There is a saying on Aër: love lives in the mind as much as it lives in the skin and under your tongue. Two years ago—almost three years now—I didn’t understand what that meant, but I remember the day the seeds of understanding were planted.

It was stormy, the kind of weather that makes your horns throb when it comes and when it goes, sometimes even while it lasts. A constant drizzle saturated the air, overpowering the moors’ normal scent of peat and moss. We were huddled in a shelter we’d erected to keep us hidden from sight. This was the Kankarraz side of the border, Koa Esher territory, and we didn’t want them to know we were here.

Vergis was sitting on a rock, the hood of his Earth-made cloak drawn low over his face. Nokim was barely managing not to pace, and Fellisse kept guard opposite me, watching the Lugarran side of the border. We were waiting for Lissir. He was late.

Nokim looked my way. “He will be fine, won’t he?”

“I could always hop into town.” Vergis sounded unconcerned, as he so often did, and he straightened to let us know he was ready to go.

I growled, an automatic reaction, but I pulled myself together. “No. You would stand out too much, Vergis. With your clothes.”

Those would give him away as someone from far away, and if anyone knew the fashion, they would know it was human-made stuff. What I didn’t say was that Vergis was likely to turn heads with his looks alone, never mind his clothes. None of us were willing to risk him being taken by guards and brought before the Koa Esher, not when he was not a trained Raikenga. Not when he was hangu and a mage, and too attractive to easily blend in on top of that.

Vergis sighed and gave that odd human shoulder jerk. “Whatever. I wasn’t going to parade around town, but suit yourself.”

And so we waited, time stretching out like a lure made to catch our worries. The wind changed a few times, but it beat the rain into my face for most of the waiting. That was unpleasant, but I was Raikenga, and my place was here, in the rain, to wait for our spy to return to us.

When it happened, it interrupted the waiting altogether. I felt the change even as the rain picked up, the relentless wind forcing me to squint. It was like vertigo but not, a tingling feeling, an urgent need that came from deep inside of me. I didn’t know what the feeling was, couldn’t say if it was pain or pleasure or something else entirely. I gasped.

For a moment, the confusion was all-encompassing, and the world around me grew distant. I had never felt anything like this. What crystallized from the many conflicting things I was feeling was a blood-deep need. After a while, it settled into a throbbing, pulsing sensation, and I was once more able to see the world and make sense of it. I looked around, not knowing then what I was looking for, and then I realized what this had to be: a mate call.

A mate call. Stories had made them sound like this felt, yet the reality was different. Feeling it was different.

I took a step to the side, swaying back against the tarp of our shelter even as next to me, Vergis hissed and stood.

“What the—something is happening.” He switched to his oddly accented English. Something was happening to him as well, something maybe similar to what I was feeling, but in the moment, I was too overwhelmed to properly examine it, to make sense of it.

The new need that filled me burned brightly, and I looked around, desperate for something, and in my desperation, I very nearly missed Lissir, who was drawing his own hood back to let us know it was him approaching and not someone from the Kankarraz side.

“He… Lissir.” I pointed.

“Vergis?” Nokim was torn between taking care of Vergis and going out to Lissir, and Fellisse was clicking to soothe Vergis, who looked like someone had hit him too hard, his eyes wide and his hands balled into fists. He shook as if with cold, but he had assured us that his cloak was “waterproof” and “windproof” on top of that.

Fellisse put a hand on my shoulder. “Inki?”

I nodded, clicking back. “It’s… I will go out to him. Do you have Vergis?”

Fellisse and Nokim nodded, and I walked into the rain and wind, my feet light, although I knew I needed to be going elsewhere. I needed…the one who wasn’t here. My mate. I knew he lived out there, knew it by the absence, by the way my skin ached to touch him and my tongue to taste him. By how my mind wanted to learn everything about him, starting with his name.

Lissir pulled his hood back down, but his clothes, more a trader’s finery than sensible clothing for the moors, were soaked.

“Sorry. I met a merchant from Rowazza, and he was enamored by the sound of his own voice,” Lissir said when he reached me. He tilted his head. “Inkiri?”

“You… Did you meet with your informant?” That was why we were here. So Lissir could meet the informant. It felt unimportant all of a sudden.

Lissir nodded. “Yes, and he has given me outpost locations all along the border. What is wrong? You don’t look well. Will you be able to head back across the moors?”

I grinned at Lissir, then hugged him. “I feel him. My mate,” I whispered in his ear. “He’s…on Earth.” How exactly I knew this, I wasn’t sure, but as soon as I said it, I felt the truth of the words. My mate was on Earth, and I needed to go to him. I needed to meet him.

“Huh.” Lissir pushed me back. “Then best not hug other hangua. How do you know he’s on Earth? Is he a mage like Vergis? Are you saying you are feeling a mate call pulling you to Earth? That makes no sense.”

“I…don’t know, but I feel him. I know it’s Earth. Where I need to go.” I looked back at the shelter. If my mate was on Earth, I’d need to get Vergis to take me. It was the fastest way.