Page 11 of Rhaz’s Redemption (Shifters of Valo Prime #6)
The stone path was lined with goddess statues that had been carved from wood. Tarak gently ran his fingers along one such statue, mesmerized by the sight of it, and by the history it represented.
Orsu stood next to an unlit firepit that was surrounded by wooden bowls.
“Hey take a look at this,” Julie pulled out a jar that had been hidden under a crumbled stone shelf and handed it to her mate. Orsu opened the lid and his eyes widened after he sniffed its contents.
“This is amazing,” he commented. “We’ve been using this same spice for generations.” Orsu looked up from the jar and took in the sight of the cook fire with a new sense of appreciation. “I always imagined we’d be so different from our ancestors, but maybe we’re more alike than I thought.”
Drovo walked slowly along the path with Kayla and rested his hand upon a large tree. “They sing a sad song of sorrow and loss. No one walks among them anymore. They don’t understand why our people would build their home here just to leave it.”
His eyes became glossy with unshed tears and Kayla ran her hand up and down his back in a comforting gesture.
“I don’t understand it either,” Drovo whispered to the trees. “They didn’t need to lie to us about our origins.”
Taylor held Brexl’s hand as they walked past the other couple. Brexl didn’t show any emotion on his face, but that wasn’t surprising. He, more than any of us, has always been able to hide what he was feeling.
Axon walked with Ashley and there was a clear display of anger on his face.
That was an emotion I understood well. I’d been angry since my mother died.
No, I’d been angry for much longer than that.
I first felt the rage that lives within me when I saw my sire strike my mother across the cheek.
I was only eleven seasons old and I wanted to hit him back, but my mother wouldn’t let me.
I looked around the clearing at the crumbling stone buildings that used to house our ancestors and tried to imagine what it would have been like to live here. I’d lived in the mountain for so long, I’d nearly forgotten what it was like to live out in the open like this.
This village wasn’t as safe as the valley, but perhaps they would shelter inside the caves nearby if a pack of wild animals ever tried to attack them.
I walked along the path looking at the small homes, overgrown gardens, unlit firepits, and finally stopped at the spaceship that none of us were supposed to know even existed. I ran my fingers along the metal shell and the reality of our situation finally started to sink in.
We were never supposed to be here. The broken ship was proof that we’d crashed on this world and we’d struggled to survive among the wildlife ever since.
I looked down at my hands and let my claws extend out from my fingertips, claws that I wouldn’t have if my people hadn’t crashed here.
I could have had a normal life, and yet fate had decided that my generation would be the first one who should get these cursed abilities.
Not the generation before us, and not the one after, our generation. Me.
“It’s a lot to take in,” Nahrul, Jax’s sire, placed his hand on my shoulder and looked at the ship as well.
“Life could have been different,” I commented. Then my gaze shifted to Jax who was sitting on a fallen log looking contemplative. What would his life be like if our ancestors hadn’t crashed here? He’d still have his tongue, his ability to speak.
“We do the best we can with the life we’ve been given,” Nahrul had caught me staring at his son. “Jax has found contentment with what fate has given him, maybe it's time you settle into your destiny too.”
The elder shifted his gaze to Beatrice who was walking with Fatima and Anusha. They talked softly among each other, commenting on everything they saw.
“My destiny is to convince my sire to let us keep our offering this year,” I replied.
“Your destiny is to accept the gifts the goddess has given you. You are a hunter who cannot be killed with a luminescence mate who looks at you with hope in her eyes. What more could you want?”
I shook my head, unable to accept what Nahrul was saying. “Our paths are not intertwined. I will not let Beatrice be bound to a male like me.”
“A male like you?” Nahrul furrowed his brow. “And what kind of male is that?”
“Don’t make me say it,” I growled. “You know, as well as I, the anger I harbor in my chest. The rage my sire passed down to me.”
“You are nothing like Dameron,” Nahrul argued. “He isn’t half the male that you are.”
“I wish I could believe that,” I lamented as I looked at Beatrice again. I knew my own inner workings better than anyone, and I was not a worthy male.
My mentor shook his head and left to join his son on the fallen log. The rest of us wandered around the village for some time after that.
I caught Zander glancing over at Beatrice many times throughout the morning, and I was about to have a word with him when Beatrice wandered from her friend group, but Zander’s gaze did not follow her.
I tracked his gaze again and realized it was Fatima, not Beatrice he’d been looking at.
He wore the same longing expression I’d seen on the other’s faces before they luminesced to their mates.
I didn’t know the male very well, but Tarak trusted him and that was enough for me.
I didn’t know Holey either, but I was keenly aware of her every movement. We all were engrossed in the scene around us, but the moment the acolyte made her way to the ship everyone went still. She held the Priestess’s pendent in her hands which we now knew was the key to open our ancestor’s ship.
Once the doors opened the rest of us followed her inside the metal craft. It was dark and cold inside. It reminded me of the space between life and death, a feeling I knew all too well.
“This way,” Holey motioned for us to follow and the hallway quickly became cramped with everyone trying to get inside.
The acolyte stopped at what looked like a slanted metal table filled with raised symbols. She pressed one of the symbols and a dark square illuminated with the image of a sirret woman wearing a style of clothing I didn’t recognize.
“Hello. It is the year three thousand five hundred and seventy-six in the standard galactic calendar,” The female began. “I am Yara, the pilot of the ship we named Miracle. My crew and I set out from Ozinda six months ago looking for a suitable world for us to build a new home.
Ozinda has become a dark and twisted place, full of greed, poverty, slavery, and war. We believe that technology is at the root of the vile darkness that has twisted our fellow sirrets, which is why we chose to leave.
We didn’t choose this planet, but I do believe it chose us.
Once we entered the atmosphere, our ship’s instruments stopped working, causing us to crash.
Fortunately, this is a lush land, full of fruit, and workable soil.
This is our home now. We will build a new future without technology, and we will live a simple life as we believe the goddess intended. ”
We didn’t choose this planet, but I do believe it chose us .
Her words hit me like a spear to the chest. That couldn’t be true.
I refused to believe that fate chose this life for me.
This miserable unending existence in which I was cursed to love from afar, have a sire who hated me, and a dead mother I could only see when I visited the gates between the realm of the living and the dead.
I pushed my way through the crowded hallway and stalked toward the exit. It wasn’t until I was outside with the cold breeze surrounding me and the sun hitting my face, that I felt like I could breathe again.
Holey’s voice filtered through the ship and even though I didn’t want to hear any more about these ancestors and the choices they’d made, I listened to what she had to say.
“Every priestess has vowed to keep this place a secret so the future generations wouldn’t try to use the technology our ancestors tried so hard to flee, I tried to keep the secret too, but it felt wrong.
These people got to live the life they wanted free from the miseries of their homeworld, we should get the same choice to live the lives we want to lead. No more secrets.”
“What did Kahina say when you brought this up to her?” Tarak asked.
There was a long moment of silence before the acolyte spoke again. “I haven’t yet. I suspect she’ll figure it out soon, and when she does she won’t be happy about it. Protecting this secret is the only thing she has left.”
What Holey said rang true. I was surprised Kahina had been able to keep this knowledge from Dameron.
He might be going mad, but he was still a clever male.
The fact that the high priestess was able to keep this from him made me fear what she was capable of and wonder how far she’d go to keep this knowledge a secret from the other dekes.
I decided I’d heard enough. I did not wish to linger here in this graveyard of my people’s past. I had a job to do, a job I was dreading, but one that needed to be done nonetheless.