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“Everyone!” S’bren calls out, jogging ahead. “Both R’jaal and T’ia are resonating! And not to each other! Come and see!”
“Oh boy,” Tia mutters, and I echo that sentiment.
Did I think I felt like I was under a spotlight a moment ago? That’s nothing compared to when everyone gets to their feet and gathers around us, hugging R’jaal and Tia and greeting the newcomers with gestures and trying to talk to them.
“They don’t understand our words,” Tia tries explaining. “We don’t have their language and they don’t have ours.”
More people arrive, and I see the ones that must be another clan—this one with a pelt on their lower arms and legs and a tail similar to the ancestors, but not the four arms. How strange. I shrink closer to R’jaal, because it feels like everyone is staring directly at me and I know I look like a mess. I haven’t seen a mirror or a comb in forever, much less a bathtub. My clothes are a couple of furs hastily tacked together and my feet are clad in wet, snow-covered fittens.
R’jaal beams proudly at the others as they stare at me, his arm around my shoulders. “My fine mate, R’slind,” he says, introducing me to a blur of faces. But then he looks a little puzzled, too, when he spots a woman by the fire, seated next to what looks like a man with scales. “I thought there were just human strangers? And so many of them?”
S’bren is there with an answer again. “Yes! And a few taters, as I’rec calls them. He is taking charge of them since they have not lived before now and they lack skills.”
“Not…lived?” I ask. That makes no sense.
“Yes, they are cones.” He rubs his chin, thinking. “No, wait. That is not correct. P’nee!” He cups a hand to his mouth. “P’nee!” He turns back to us. “My mate will know. She is very smart.”
A human woman in a pretty, quill-decorated tunic comes up to us. She has a toddler on her hip and her blonde hair is pulled back from her face with a decorated piece of leather. Immediately, she hands the child to S’bren, who lavishes the small face with kisses. “Hi,” she says to me, beaming. “I’m Penny, S’bren’s mate. Our baby is Brenna. Tell me your name again?”
“Rosalind.” She seems nice. Nice and smiley. Then again, S’bren seems nice, too. Everyone seems nice.
“The humans and the taters,” S’bren says. “What are they again? Cones?”
“Clones,” Penny corrects with a chuckle. “You were close.”
But Penny’s words still make no sense to me. “Clones?” I echo. “What do you mean?”
An uneasy look crosses her face. “Did you…did you not get one of the bracelets? Everyone else had one.”
I’m silent. There’s a roaring in my ears as I remember the strange watch-like thing on my wrist when I’d woken up. Whoever took me to the tunnels below stole it when they stole my clothing.
“Bracelets?” R’jaal asks.
“Maybe it doesn’t apply,” Penny says hastily, giving her mate a nervous look. “Right, S’bren?”
“I saw the message,” her mate says, ever-cheerful. He presses another kiss to his child’s fat cheek. “M’dok’s friend—the one that brought D’see here—dumped many taters and humans here because they are clones. D’vi says they are duplicates of real people and that is why they do not have their memories. They were grown in a bag.”
“Not a bag,” Penny says tightly, her expression full of apology. “A lab.”
No memories.
Duplicates of real people.
The bracelet.
My stomach flips queasily.
“Oh god, she’s gone white. Is she going to faint?” P’nee shoots a panicked look at R’jaal. “Did you guys not know? Everyone else knows!” She turns and races away. “Liz! We need you over here!”
“R’slind?” R’jaal clutches me against him while the world spins. He strokes my hair, murmuring words of comfort to me as the blood pounds in my ears.
I’m not a real person? That’s why I can’t remember things? I’m a clone?
I don’t realize I’m whimpering until a new pair of hands grab me by the shoulders. A blonde woman with bright blue eyes and a crown of braids peers into my face. “Is she pregnant yet? Is that why she looks like she’s going to puke?”
“Not pregnant yet,” R’jaal answers, rubbing my back. “We have yet to fulfill resonance. Is she all right?”
Everything is still distant, like I’m in a tunnel with the constant roaring around me. The edges of my vision threaten to go black and I have to keep blinking it away.
“I think I freaked her out,” Penny says apologetically, peering in at my face. “I don’t think she knew about the clone thing. Should I get the healer?”
“She’ll be fine,” the blonde says confidently. “Suck it up, buttercup.”
She’s so self-assured that it pushes some of my panic away. “I’m…I’m not a real person?”
“Oh, is that what they said?” She turns and glares at Penny and S’bren, who make themselves scarce. “Assholes. No wonder you’re losing it. You’re real, girlfriend. You’re real, this place is real.” She nods at R’jaal, who stands behind me. “He’s real. Resonance is real.”
