Two Moons of Sera (20 page)

At Pod Thirty-four, everyone was sitting down to dinner when
I entered. All I wanted to do was grab Tor and tell him everything, pull him
back to Linguistics, and free Mintoch. My imagination had outlined our entire
escape, ending with me leading us out of the camp and into the mountains. The
Erdlanders would look for us but likely never imagine we would flee up toward
the Devil’s Daughters. Their fear of those peaks was as ingrained as mine.

But telling Tor would have to wait. The list of things we
needed to prepare swirled, and in my mind and I clicked through them all,
taking only seconds for each task. In reality, there were many conversations to
be had, and I still needed more time. While approaching the table where my
newfound and tenuous friendships sat, the lock clamped down on my lips,
strangling me, and my heart raced in protest. One more day of normality was all
I needed. So I plastered on a smile and forced my step to lighten.

Tor quirked an eyebrow when he met my eyes.

“Sera!” Elle called as she strode into the room, carrying a
platter of food. “How was your day?” Her grin was wide and sincere, all the joy
of her pregnancy and pending move to the City radiating from her.

“It was good—long, though.” I stopped behind Tor’s chair and
placed my hands on his shoulders, wanting to feel his warmth. My day had been
anything but good. It had been full of turmoil and revelations, and only by
sheer force of will had I managed to not burst into tears. “I had to be trained
in the Hub, and there’s so much to learn. My head is still spinning!”

The whole table laughed as my eyes widened and I exaggerated
my words. Lying was something I’d never done before coming here. Small
half-truths to my mother about exploring the forest beyond her comfort zone
were nothing compared to the falsities now dripping from my lips. I wasn’t sure
if I should be ashamed or proud.

The secrets in my stomach threatened to bubble up. Nausea
swelled. I shook my head. “I’m gonna clean up. I’ll be right back.”

After patting Tor’s shoulders, I turned to our blue door.

Inside, I sat on the bed. I wanted to get these godsdamned
shoes off. I needed to talk to Tor, tell him about Mintoch and what Traz and I
had discovered. I needed to scream and cry and break something. I wanted the
enemy to be someone I could hate.

Rather than give in, I dropped my head to my hands and
pulled at the roots of my hair. In a short moment of weakness, the wail
building in my throat bubbled out in a low moan.

“You all right, honey?” Elle’s voice interrupted from
outside my door. Kindness and concern coated her words, breaking my heart even
further. “We’re about to eat. Want me to bring you something?”

“No,” I croaked. I had to pull myself together, rein in all
this chaos for a few more hours.

“I’m coming in, okay?”

The door eased open, and Elle’s curly hair bounced with each
step. She was so sweet. I had dreamed all my life of a friend, of a sister,
like the ones in stories. I wished Elle could be that companion, but how would
she react if she knew about Mintoch’s imprisonment or who I really was? It
dawned on me then: I wasn’t just keeping
my
secret now. I had to protect
Tor, Mintoch, even Traz. The weight of responsibility bore down on me.

“Sera? What’s going on?”

Elle sat beside me on the bed and placed her small hand on
my thigh. I twitched, fighting the instinct to move away. People here touched.
The strangeness of it still made me uncomfortable. Tor’s touch was different,
special. This casual contact made my flesh crawl.

“Nothing, Elle. It’s... I’m okay. Really.” My lie hung in
the air like rotten fish, the stench almost visible. I was too upset to hide my
aching heart.

“I know you’re lying. You don’t have to talk about it, but
it might make you feel better.” Elle shifted her weight so she was sitting
sideways on the bed, facing me. Her presence was calm but expectant.

“It was just a long day. A lot of new things to process.”

She nodded. “It must be so hard, coming back from the forest
and being expected to just jump right back into work after being away for so
long.”

I nodded, dropping my gaze to my lap.

Elle took my hand in her own and grasped it firmly, offering
comfort and understanding. “Were they mean to you? Did they ask too much?”

“No.” I pulled my hand away to feign the action of wiping a
tear away. “Dr. Vaughn was with me almost all day. I’m just exhausted.”

Elle offered an encouraging smile before nodding. “All right
then. Let’s get you something warm to eat and Tor’s arms around you.” She
winked, making me blush, then stood and pulled me up from the bed. “Come on. No
sulking in here by yourself. Get some food and sleep, and you’ll feel better. I
promise.”

She was right. I needed to replenish my energy so I could
take on tomorrow.

Boisterous noise smashed into me when we entered the main
room; at least this time I expected to be bombarded with clamoring voices.
Still, the sound deafened me, and once I settled in between Tor and Ash, I
needed a few minutes to catch up on what was happening.

Conversation swung from gossip about people I didn’t know to
updates on projects I didn’t care about. Unable to focus on their words, I only
picked at my food. Despite my hunger, nothing spread on the table struck me as
appetizing. Just to get food in my stomach, I forced down some kind of brown
meat and nibbled at a few of the green vegetables available.

Fatigue was getting the best of me, and I could barely find
the energy to remain upright at the table, let alone eat. But I had to. For Tor
and I. For Mintoch.

Tor held my hand and eyed me with worry throughout the meal.
He didn’t react when I asked for my fourth glass of water, neither did he
release his hold on me to eat himself. Instead he warmed my skin, offering what
he could.

Eventually, there came a natural break in the conversation
as everyone devoured the sweet dessert we’d been given. When the dish reached
me, I turned it down and gazed longingly at our door.

“We’re going to bed,” Tor announced as he stood, still
holding my hand.

Giggles broke out around us. A palpable chill radiated from
Ash’s body and rolled over my skin.

“Sorry everyone,” I offered, unable to hold back a yawn. “I’m
just really tired.”

“Sure you are!” Jai hooted before falling into another fit
of laughter.

I pushed my chair in and found Traz staring at me.
Come
get me later
, he mouthed amid the chaos.

I nodded and ducked away to follow Tor to our room.

The door was barely shut before he began hurling questions
at me. I was so tired I didn’t even acknowledge him. Instead I slipped off my
boots, stepped out of my skirt, and slid out of the rest of my clothes.

“Today has been hell,” Tor said. “I’ve been so worried about
you!” He flounced on the bed in what would have been a comical way if there
hadn’t been so much to tell him.

“A lot’s happened.” I settled next to him while pushing my
arms into the sleeves of a short-sleeved shirt. Tor’s hand found its way to my
back, and the contact soothed me. I moved away, though. If I relaxed, I would
fall asleep, and there was too much to discuss.

“So what did you and Traz find?” he said.

“You were right. There are people living in the mountains.”

“See, there are no monsters.” He reached for my foot, pulled
it onto his lap, and began rubbing the tired soles as if to prove his point.

“The people up there are called the A’aihea.”

“A’aihea,” he repeated in a husky voice. “I know that word.
It means ‘fire singer.’ How could I know that?” His hands fell away from my
skin, drifting down as his thoughts overtook him.

“I don’t know.”

Tor smiled. There were others out there like him, people he
had never known who were a part of him. I never had anyone. The Sualwets feared
me, and the Erdlanders were a threat. Would the A’aihea be any different, I
wondered? Perhaps Tor’s connection to them would be stronger than his feelings
for me.

Today I had discovered so much about the A’aihea and myself.
Instead of trying to tell him everything, I pulled out the letter Traz had
helped me steal. “This is the report they wrote about the attack. Traz had the
facts right, but there’s so much more here, and it doesn’t make any sense.”

Tor took the paper from me. His eyes scanned back and forth,
but he handed it back to me with a grunt. “I don’t know what it says.”

I read him the report, and after a moment he asked me to
read it again. This was the only proof of a world that might accept him..

“The Nalastran Mountain Ridge. This is where we have to go.”
His deep blue eyes peered up at me, and within them shone a terrified
expression and more than a little hope.

“Yes. But there’s more.”

“More than this? What more could there be? We should pack
and leave before first light.”

“We can’t. I found something else.”

“From the A’aihea?”

I reached to the floor and grabbed my jeans. In the pocket
was the rock I had found. “This was in the same box as the A’aihea stuff. It...
burned Traz when he touched it.”

“It doesn’t burn you, though?”

“No, it tingles. I can feel it heating up, but it doesn’t
hurt.”

“Like when I touch you.”

I turned away, struck by the memory of his hand on me, how
the fabric had incinerated to ash, but his warm touch remained soft and gentle
against my flesh.

“Yeah, kind of.”

“Here, let me hold it.”

Tor reached out to grab the rock, but I pulled it away from
him. “Wait. Think this through. If it didn’t bother me, but it burned Traz,
what might happen when you touch it?”

“Nothing.” Tor’s jaw hardened. “Or maybe it’ll burst into
flames.”

“Right. So maybe this isn’t something we should do where a
lot of people are around. I just don’t want to burn down the entire pod!”

“So when I take Elgon out, I’ll—”

“Thhhhhrrrruup!”

“Yeah, you.” Tor smiled and scratched the animal’s head.

I returned the rock to my pocket. “There’s one more thing,
and it’s big, and I need your help. But first, we have to make sure we’re ready
to leave tomorrow night.”

“That soon?” Tor’s eyes grew wide and excitement glinted
behind the blue. “I thought you needed more time here.”

“Not anymore. I met a Sualwet today.”

“What?”

I told him all about the river, Mintoch, and the cage.

Tor stood up, anger and violence casting off from him. “What
are they doing to him? Are they still... still experimenting?” He stopped and
shuddered before turning to me. For the first time, I caught that glimmer of
disgust I’d always expected to find in his eyes, but it vanished just as soon
as it appeared.

I know what I am, where I came from, what I’m a product of.
It disgusts me if I think on it too long, but that moment of revulsion in Tor’s
eyes struck me just as deeply as if he had punched me in the gut. Tears came to
my eyes. He paced the room in a huff, his hands clenched in fists.

“They don’t seem to be experimenting on him,” I said, “but
they use him like—I don’t know—like a living barometer. It’s
awful
.”

“Then we’ll break him out!” Tor turned on me and growled.
Fury sparked behind his eyes.

I flinched and scooted back on the bed, drawing my legs up
to me. In the short time I’d known Tor, I’d learned how volatile he could be,
but never had I been afraid of him until now.

“We’ll go
tonight
,” he insisted. “Once everyone is
asleep, we can free him and run for the mountains.”

“Tor, we’ve barely slept in days. We can’t do it tonight. We
have to pack and rest. And what about Traz?”

“What about him? He has nothing to do with this.”

“Yes, he does. I have to tell him about Mintoch.”

“No. The more people who know, the more danger we’re in.”

“Look, if it weren’t for Traz, we’d have never found out
about the A’aihea.”

Tor stopped his frantic pacing and faced me. He huffed and
stilled, but the tight knots of tension within his body remaining hard. “I
guess so.”

“Plus we need to come up with a plan.”

“I already have one: wait ‘til everyone is asleep, grab the
kid, and run for the mountains?”

“For one, Mintoch is trapped in a cage in an underground
river.”

“I can break the wall. I’ll burn right through it if I have
to.”

“I don’t doubt that. But what are you going to do when an
entire river comes streaming into the Hub?”

“I can swim.”

“That’s not the point. Once we break through that wall,
there won’t be any way to get
above
water. So, unless you can somehow
learn how to breathe underwater....”

“Right....” Tor’s face fell, realization draining the
adrenaline from his body and deflating his gusto. After sitting next to me, Tor
slumped in on himself, thoughts playing across his features in slow motion.

Silence swelled as the sun set beyond the camp. I tried to
fight sleep, but the fatigue was too much. I couldn’t think straight anymore,
so I crawled under the blankets and slid over to my side of the bed. Only one
night together, and already I had a side.

After settling my head on the pillow, I submitted to my body’s
plea and closed my eyes. “We’ll come up with something. We have to,” I
whispered into the darkness.

Warmth snuggled against me as Tor lay atop the blankets. His
arm wrapped around my middle.

“We will.” He kissed my shoulder, and I allowed his presence
to lull me deeper into darkness.

A sharp intake of breath woke me. I hadn’t really heard it,
not even with my strange Sualwet senses. I’d
felt
it. Like the world had
been inhaled by the mouth of a destructive god.

The exhale shook my body. Its ragged release allowed no
sound to escape, only the pressure of a slow, agonizing breath.

Tor’s heavy arm lay across me, his steady breath
undisturbed. It took me a moment to orient myself, separating my body from the
erratic breathing pounding in my mind. When I was sure the noise wasn’t me and
Tor was safe, I stretched my mind’s eye out into the pod. Room by room, I eavesdropped
on slumbering forms. Deep steady breaths, snores, and mumbled dreams greeted me
in each chamber.

I hesitated before breaching the confines of the bathroom.
Privacy should be given, but if this sound came from in there, I had to find
out why.

Within, I sensed the shape of Elle, her energy pale, her
breathing coming in suffocating bursts as she clenched her teeth. I could
feel
her agonizing screams despite the silence. Pain radiating from her whipped me,
punishing me for breaching the security of the small bathroom.

I slipped from beneath Tor’s arm, climbed over him, and
crept past the sleeping mountain hound on the floor. The blue door creaked as I
inched it open, but neither of my wild men roused. After tiptoeing across the
pod, I approached the bathroom door. Waves of heaviness passed through it,
trying to block me from entering.

I had no idea what was going on, but whatever was happening,
Elle shouldn’t be alone. She’d been nothing but kind to me. Her smiling face
had welcomed me and helped me navigate this strange place without question. She
was happy to accept me for the person I pretended to be. What could bring such
purity so completely to its knees?

After bracing myself, I placed my hand on the door and
pushed. Inside, the room was black, and Elle’s hitched breathing continued. I
sensed her tension, felt the invisible walls around her push out, trying to
keep me at bay.

“Go away,” she pleaded, as if the darkness had drained away
her strength.

“Elle, what’s wrong?” My eyes adjusted to the dim moonlight
streaming through the windows. The night was cloudy, but I could see fine.

My curly-haired friend had hunkered into a ball on the
floor, hiding from sight in the small space behind the sink. A thick smell
wafted in the room, an unwelcome reminder of death.

“Elle, please, it’s me, Sera. What’s wrong?”

After entering farther, I allowed the door to swing closed
behind me. It clicked back into place as I stood over her. “Elle?”

Her sweat-dampened hair was down, the curls limp around her
shoulders. With knees pulled up against her chest, Elle had tugged her sleeping
shirt down over her legs so I could only see her toes peeking out beneath the
fabric. I slid to the floor, and the scent from earlier sharpened. It permeated
the room.

Blood.

“Are you... are you bleeding?” I asked, reaching a hand
toward her knee.

Instead of answering, Elle pulled tighter into herself, and
her breathing hiccupped into a sob. I spotted blood on the floor next to her—a
dark thickness that had settled into cracks between the tiles. With eyes
closed, Elle turned her head away from me and held her breath, a useless battle
against the incoming tide of pain.

“Elle?”

“No, nothing. Just... just go away.” A hiccup cut her off.

“I’m getting Sal.” I moved to stand, but she reached out and
grabbed my hand.

“No, no, he
can’t
know.” Her eyes blazed behind
unshed tears.

“Elle, there’s something wrong with you. We have to get
help!”

“There’s nothing anyone can do.” Her voice was flat, the
sound of a dead dream. “I’ll be sent to Life Services and I’ll never see Sal
again. Sera, this is the third time.”

“No one’s going to take Sal away from you, Elle. You’re
Matched.”

“It’s doesn’t matter. You can’t tell anyone.
Anyone
.
Promise!” Her grip on my hand tightened, desperation evident in her strength.

“You can’t just sit here. We have to get you help, figure
out why you’re bleeding. Come on, Elle, let me go get Sal. He’ll take care of
you.”

“Don’t you
get
it? I lost the baby, Sera. I lost
another baby. Oh,
gods
....”

After dropping my hand, Elle curled up tighter and slumped
against the tile wall. Her shoulders shook as silent sobs broke free. Trails of
salt streamed down her cheeks.

I didn’t know what to do. There was more to this than just
an injury. How did someone lose a baby? Sualwets sometimes had unfertilized
eggs, but that rarely mattered: there would always be more the next month.
Wouldn’t Elle produce more? My mother had never talked about Erdlander bodies,
and my books only briefly covered sex and childbirth, but this made no sense.
Why would something so small make her so sad?

“I’m getting Sal.” I stood up and strode to the door,
determined that someone who knew more about whatever was going on than me
should be here with her.

“No!” Her scream was almost silent but stopped me
nonetheless.

“You need someone, Elle. I’m sorry, but I don’t know what to
do and you need someone who does.”

She closed her eyes and fell back against the wall. “Get
Lace, then.” With tears dripping along her cheeks, she turned away from me.

I watched her shoulders as they shook. Despite my personal
dislike of Lace, I hurried to find her.

Overhead lights dimly lit the pod’s main room. The chamber
had no windows, although a small amount of moonlight spilled in from the
kitchen. The soft blue illumination felt artificial and cold instead of natural
and alive.

Lace’s orange door glowed a dirty brown, the perfect color
for her personality. With a steadying breath, I opened her door. I didn’t care
what she thought of me. Elle needed help.

Lace’s room was covered in fabric. The walls, the
furniture—even the window had fabric draped across it. Small objects hung from
the ceiling, making the room feel smaller still. The result was a warm,
welcoming space—nothing like I’d expected. I wouldn’t have been surprised to
find whips and chains mounted on the walls.

“Lace,” I whispered, stealing over to her sleeping figure.

She was sprawled on top of the blankets, facedown. Heat swam
around her sleeping form, and the empty space on her bed called out to the
exhaustion that lingered just beneath my awareness. But with Elle bleeding in
the other room, I instead knelt next to Lace’s head and placed my hand on her
shoulder.

“Lace. Come on, wake up.”

She mumbled in protest and rolled away from me. I climbed on
the bed and grabbed her arm, pulling her over to face me. “Lace!” I hissed. “Get
up, I need you.”

After sitting straight up, she pushed me, knocking me off
her bed and onto my back with a thump.

“What are you doing in my room?” she demanded.

“It’s Elle. She needs you.” Once in a sitting position, I
stretched my back. “And that
hurt
.”

Rather than answering me, Lace locked her eyes on my bare
feet. My
webbed
feet.

I had forgotten shoes.

“What the
jikmae
—” Her voice rose as she glared down
at me and stood, anger and hatred sharp in her trill.

Instead of retreating, lying, or panicking, I stood and met
her eyes. “That’s not important right now. Elle is bleeding in the bathroom and
won’t let me get Sal. She said she’d only talk to you.”

“She lost the baby?” Lace’s voice softened, and I nodded.

I had expected some kind of reaction to her seeing the truth
of who I was, but instead all I saw were the beginnings of tears.

“Come on.” She strode out of the room without looking back.

In the bathroom, Lace waited for me to enter before closing
the door behind us. There was no lock, but she took the small table used for
supplies and wedged it under the doorknob. Her face was pulled tight, making
her cheekbones stand out sharper than before. With her hair down, I expected
her to be softer, but she just appeared feral.

“Start the shower,” she commanded without looking at me.

Two small steps brought me to the glass door, which held the
water inside when the rain stream fell. I turned the knobs within, bringing
water from above.

“Make it hot.” Lace’s voice was even, without inflection.
She crouched on the floor next to Elle, whispering wordlessly. After removing
Elle’s shirt and pulling her limp body against her own, Lace hauled the
devastated woman upright.

“Come on, Elly. I’ve got you.” Lace struggled to move her,
so I wrapped my arms around Elle’s waist and let her weight rest against me. “I’m
going to take off your shorts now, Elle,” Lace said calmly.

As she peeled soiled clothing from Elle’s hips, her eyes
grew wide and she blanched.

“It’s bad?” I asked, unable to understand what was
happening. Losing a child must be hard, but it wasn’t born yet, and there were
always more. Sualwet mothers often had litters ranging from eight to twelve, so
losing just one couldn’t possibly be so devastating. And yet, as I stood with Elle
silently weeping in my arms and watched Lace wipe bloody ooze from her thighs,
I knew this was indeed a death.

“Can you clean her up?” Lace gazed up at me, the tears in
her eyes spilling over and running down her cheeks. Even sorrow didn’t soften
her, though. In place of pity or kindness, I saw anger and pain behind those
tears. This must have happened to her.

I nodded and opened the shower door. Steam filled the room,
saturating the air with thick heat. Elle didn’t resist as I ushered her naked
body into the stream of water. Her shoulders sagged, bones no longer strong
enough to bear her pain. Under the spray, I held her against me for fear she
might melt and spiral down the drain like the pink water running off her body.
My sleeping shirt drenched in her tears, clung to my body.

The closed shower door encased us in the stall. Elle’s head
rested on my breast, her height noticeable with her so close to me. Without her
usual buoyancy, her small stature seemed so weak. My arms circled around her
back, and I swayed, dancing with her under the waterfall. We rocked together,
and her silence boiled over until her sobs choked me too. Her pain entwined
with my body.

After a few moments, I pulled away and examined the damage.
Her figure was unblemished, no marks or injuries I could see other than the
telltale flow of reddish pink from her inner thighs. It was the things I
couldn’t
see that told me her heart had broken. Her eyes were locked away beneath
downcast lids, her breathing erratic and hitched, as if weights were attached
to her limbs, pulling her to the ground.

As she rested against the tile wall, I opened the door and
grabbed a washcloth. Lace knelt on the floor, sodden white towels stained
crimson on the floor next to her. She scrubbed the ground where Elle had been
sitting, the cloth in her hand wet from blood and tears.

Elle waited for me where I left her, head turned to the
side. I didn’t know this woman or understand her pain, and being this close,
this exposed, frightened me. The emptiness pulled me forward, crumbling the
walls between myself and others.

I wet the cloth and placed it on her cheek. Her face wasn’t
dirty, but I hoped the contact felt safe and comforting. Would she let me wash
her? She clearly couldn’t do it herself. With soft pressure, I smoothed her
cheeks and ran my fingers across her closed eyes.

As we stood in the water, I hummed the songs of my
childhood. The vastness of the sea flowed through me, an exploration of silence
in hymn. The notes passed across my lips like whispered promises until her body
was clean, all evidence of her trauma washed down the drain and surging away
from the camp. Perhaps this small death would join my mother, wherever she may
be.

I turned off the water and opened the door, Lace handed me a
towel and kept another in her hands to wrap Elle in. I pulled off my shirt and
dried myself as best I could before wrapping my hair in the towel.

“Put on that shirt.” Lace nodded to the sink, where a black
shirt sat neatly folded. “And those are for you.”

On the floor before me was a pair of slippers.

“Thank you.” I stepped into the soft shoes and tugged the
shirt over my head.

“Can you go get Sal and tell him to meet us in my room?”
Lace refused to meet my eyes as she spoke, her focus completely on Elle.

The room was spotless—no dirty towels, no blood stains.

“Where are the towels?”

“In the incinerator.” Lace pulled the second towel around
Elle’s shoulder and hugged her tight. “No one needs to know about this, all
right, Sera? We don’t have to tell anyone.”

“No. I’m good at keeping secrets.”

And for the first time since I’d met her, Lace smiled at me.
Sadness was woven into the moment, but a sisterhood of silence was born as
well, connecting us as women, as mothers. Connecting us in ways I didn’t
understand, yet they would change my life forever.