Tamn Read online

  “Tamn? Are you awake?” My brother spoke above me. I blinked until his silver hair came into focus. His eyes were steely granite, not the pale green our Hanea’s were…had been. The voices inside me screamed in protest at the reminder of our lost sister, but I pushed them aside as I sat up.

  My brother had kept a wary eye on me ever since I threatened his mate. I wanted to drive him away now, before the voices came back in force, before I became the monster that slaughtered innocents again. Instead I held my breath as Min clasped my arm and helped me to stand. “Time to move. Var caught our scent again.”

  I unsheathed my scythe. “Time to hunt again, little brother.”

  “Not this time. Captain wants us to regroup to the caves. Might even go to the wreck and see if we can salvage anything.”

  “There’s nothing left,” I hissed, cringing at the thought of that endless, empty sea we crashed into. Scans had shown no life near the shore, though much of this world was covered by it. The water we broke through had been heavier than the waters back home. They were too thick, too still, too…wrong.

  Yet if there was wreckage from Datura 3, it would be there. We had watched pieces fall through the outer sphere. I knew the others wanted to return, look for survivors, as foolish a prospect as it was. The miners especially were concerned about the chole dust.

  Min took a step back and hesitated. “Tamn, I know we haven’t had time to talk about what happened…”

  They burned us…burn them! Rule this world with fire!

  I pressed a hand to my head, shutting my eyes to drown out the voices. For one terrible moment, I saw Qeya’s wide eyes as she watched the ship attack what was left of Home World. The voices fell silent and I opened my eyes to find Min with his arm around his mate Qori, whispering.

  “…others are worried, Min. We cannot keep to the center of this valley anymore. Not when he keeps leaving a trail of bodies like chum for the behemoth.”

  “I know. Already told him Captain’s plan.” Min glanced over at me, as though deciding whether to trust me before pulling Qori in to press his lips against the gills at her neck. “We swim together, we drown together, remember?” He looked at me as he said this and I understood the unspoken demand.

  I will keep you safe, little brother, a part of me wanted to reassure them. Qori belonged to him and they were all I had left now; the only reason I didn’t walk alone into the heart of this bleeding hostile world and let the monsters pick me apart.

  “We swim together,” I repeated. No one else was drowning on my watch, not ever again.

  Qori patted Min’s chest reassuringly before offering me a lopsided grin. “Taking the stern again, brother?”

  I flipped my scythe and returned her confidence in me with a terse nod. It was the best I could do.

  After living on the run for so many days, we broke camp swiftly before filing in line. Remin and Adi disappeared to retrieve their explosives. I watched the miner’s retreat long enough to catch Adi’s dark green gaze cling to mine.

  My skin itched for chole at the influx of unwanted emotion, but I ignored the impulse to take a sniff now. Not when my brother and his mate were watching, expecting me to be the Tamn they remembered.

  Captain took the helm as we began another long march into the forest, while I picked up the stern. So much green was strange and overwhelming to our eyes still. We were used to the deep cerulean and smoky blues of home world.

  Blue like our blood spilling, running down my scythe…

  “Get it in gear,” I snarled under my breath and tried to focus on the shifting undergrowth behind us.

  Adi shouted just ahead. “They’re onto other prey, shifting to our right flank!”

  “Head for the caves now!” Captain called back, “May be our last chance to escape them.”

  One thing I had learned for certain about our enemy, after watching them hunt: they prized a clean kill above all else. The hunt was their priority, so while they happily chased us in circles and beast dens, they often left us for their usual prey. No matter how many took fresh meat back to camp, one or two always remained on our trail, often watching us from the trees.

  While my crew followed Captain’s order without question, I hung farther back to follow the herd skirting us.

  “Look out!” Adi’s voice called from further ahead. How in the blue core had she got so far ahead of me and why was she bringing attention to herself?

  “Tamn, wait!” Min called too late.

  I broke into a run, imagining all the things I wanted to yell at the reckless miner. The beastly snarls turned into the high-pitched wails they made prior to attacks. At first it sounded as though the Var were going in for their kill and then I heard a child’s cry.

  My vision turned blue as my blood ran cold.

  Green fern and vines blocked my path, but I swung my scythe in the swift arcing motion I had used since I could first pick up a blade. The vegetation offered gaps, enough to see a blur of motion ahead and the blast of a miner’s weapon. All thoughts of vengeance and Var fled my mind, replaced with surging hope.

  Please…please…

  A flash of red hair glimpsed through the green of the forest. I picked up my pace.

  For once the screaming voices of my past selves were silent.

  I broke through the clearing to the battle happening before my eyes, too dumbfounded to take another step, another breath.

  A miner shot beams of energy a color I’d never seen while urging Kahne and Bruv behind him.

  “It’s not real.” It couldn’t be real, because I was just as cracked as Adi said, as my brother was afraid to acknowledge.

  Time had been meaningless ever since the crash. No wonder my past lives rose to the surface to take control. It had been easier to let them, to relive their worst memories.

  But now…

  The ancestors do not control us, they never have. My father’s voice filled the violent void with calm reassurance. We are part of each other because to remember teaches us how to be better. Do not make our mistakes, Tamn. Evolve.

  The children we had believed lost were huddled in a circle facing the beasts, who were trying to cluster them into a tighter ring, to more easily pick them off. The children might have bested the creatures individually, but they were overwhelmed by the sheer size of the herd.

  Save our future, my father urged me as I surged forward, as the world sharpened to clear focus. Qeya blazed a beacon at the center of everything clicking into place. I almost didn’t feel the beast’s claws rake against my side. I clicked the gears in my chole dagger and thrust my fist against its head as the blade seared to life. The pain called the violent memories to rise.

  Evolve, I commanded myself, before their voices could return.

  They do not control us. Father’s words rang in my head as I disrupted the pack with a cry, forcing them away, slicing them apart.

  “To remember teaches us to become better,” I ground out as I ducked, bringing my scythe in a smooth arc above, then low, dropping two more beasts. Behind me, I could hear my brother, his mate and what remained of our crew joining the fray.

  And then one of the children called, “Qori! We’re over here!”

  Qori swung in from the treetops, cutting a line through to the children. Min followed and I struggled to keep up as the herd nearly broke through the children’s last defense.

  “Hang on, Qeya!” I didn’t recognize my voice. Amid snarling beasts and frightened shrieks, Qeya cried, her head twisting madly to find me.

  My call brought more attention than I was prepared for. It might have been because I already reeked of gore I alone of the group hadn’t bothered to clean off. But it was all I could do to keep the bleeding nekkers’ jaws off me. Just as another leaped in the air, wings fluttering with jaws widespread, a blast of miner tech pierced the side of its head and knocked it down. I spared a moment to glimpse Adi in the treetops, moving her arm to aim for another beast with a smile.

  For the first time in recent memor
y I felt more grateful than annoyed at her timing. I threw up an arm to ward off the next attack. The alien’s teeth sank through my biosuit. Pushing my frustration, I pressed my dagger in its side.

  Evolve. Emotion wouldn’t help me reach Qeya any faster. With each calming breath, I found enough focus to reach both within and outside myself.

  I could recall some battles in every life with painful clarity. I remembered the looks on the faces of men and women I had destroyed. I could still see the black clouds rising in the air above cities razed on my command. But most battles were a blur, like this one. When I trained the children on Datura 3, it was for moments like this, when only muscle memory and instinct kept you alive.

  So while my current self was vaguely aware of my strategy, I was a little mad and not much older than the children I was trying to rescue. Receiving the memories of those who lived before us—Ascension—was part of the reason my people ruled home world.

  Before the bleeding Core World Wars.

  I was bred to be a war machine before I Ascended, but nothing prepares you for taking in the knowing of lifetimes in a moment. Or after, as you adjust from your old naïve way of thinking because voices in your head tease you for being a child. Qeya hadn’t been meant to become Orona before she was fifteen. The war made it necessary. Her Ascension had brought us much closer together than I was prepared for.

  All room for thoughts like these ceased when a blood-curdling cry broke past the others.

  I whipped toward the cry and saw Qeya falling to the ground. Lost for good this time? No coming back again for either of us…

  But then I saw her spin around, facing me though she was unaware of me yet, her lips parted in shock.

  I fell into my training and instinct to reach the survivors, my crew falling into a circle we made smaller with each kill. Until at last, there was nothing but the sound of dying breaths in the air, and Qeya wasn’t beside me anymore. Her back was to me and she looked so small, huddled desperately over the broken body on the bloody ground.

  I shuddered, afraid to look too closely at the child I had somehow failed to save and waited for the inner voices of my past to raise up in protest. All I could hear was soft muttering pleas, the tremble in her breath. Her hands glowed and shook with power, but I could almost feel her fear and sorrow.

  No one understood the Orona like I did. Most of my lifetimes had been spent near if not with her. I couldn’t recall the years before we had been marked by our parents. The few times I lost her were the darkest memories from this present life, the ones filled with mad whispers and screams. Qeya was the healer of our people, but I always needed her light to guide me home. A life without her was worse than death. I knew that now.

  “No, Menai!” Qori, my brother’s mate, wailed somewhere nearby us. It was one of her little brothers lying dead on the bloody floor.

  “You must be certain, Orona,” Min added with the same need. And Qori was pleading, demanding the Orona bring him back. “Heal him! I know you have the power.”

  “I can’t, Qori, I can’t heal the dead.” Qeya’s voice fell over me like a tide, pulling me closer. I wanted to comfort her and growl at my brother’s mate. It wasn’t fair to ask this of her.

  Qori raged and Min held her back with his arms, struggling to comfort her while also warning, “They could be watching us as we speak.”

  I nearly hissed at the reminder of the Var. I hadn’t thought of them since before the fight began, but surely they were out there somewhere, watching and assessing our numbers. Qeya looked to the trees as well, as if sensing our unseen enemy. But then she looked at the broken body of a boy I had trained since infancy. So often Qori’s little brothers had been a pain in my gills, but they never failed to lighten the mood of the crew.

  Qeya cupped Menai’s face with her hands and I felt the brush of her power against my skin. She cried out and I moved to hold her back in place, marveled at my hands touching her.

  She’s here. You aren’t dreaming and this isn’t a memory.

  Her energy was pushing out, seeking to fill the small body beneath her. I tried to lend as much of my strength as I could and shuddered at the rush of foreign images assaulting my mind. I could see Qeya and Menai together, then the boy’s memories and will to live.

  Qeya struggled to mend the damage in his body, but to truly rebuild him would mean sacrificing his soul. I recognized this the same moment she let his soul go. Menai’s pain became Qeya’s. She was pouring too much of her aura into him. It was tearing her apart. She screamed as I pulled her away and into my arms.

  I squeezed my eyes shut as she buried her face into my chest, tightened my hold of her.

  She’s real. She’s not dead.

  My hearts sang as she spoke my name.

  “Tamn!” She tilted her head back to look upon me.

  “Qeya,” I began, choking on air and the feel and scent of her. The gills on the sides of my neck stretched and flared as I drank in her scent. My hands found her waist and dragged her up, flush against me. I was still a little mad, maybe, too much at least to care what the others might think when I dared to press my nose against her gills. She shivered and I felt a tidal urge to beg her to claim me.

  As she returned my embrace the missing piece in my mind clicked back into place, allowing grief and guilt to pour back in. I recalled the endless sleepless nights and the blood staining my biosuit red. Who had I become without her?

  Evolve, my father’s voice echoed in a whisper.

  “Qeya!” This time I said her name like a prayer. “We saw the attack from here. Pieces of the Datura have been falling through the outer sphere and I thought you…”

  You were dead and I was dead without you.

  “Tamn, everything will be all right,” she whispered as she pulled back, took my head between her slim hands and rubbed the wetness off my cheeks.

  I tensed, embarrassed. I never showed this kind of weakness in front of the others. Couldn’t afford to. But Qeya…

  Qeya is alive and that’s all that matters.

  IV : War

  I should have spoken up when Bruv asked “Where’s my father?” but couldn’t think past the way Brunan looked when he died. Had Brunan thought to send his memories to his son before passing? Such a thing had not happened in at least a dozen Royal lifetimes.

  Your fault.

  Thinking about it was too difficult. Thinking about anything was too difficult. It was easier to let Captain and the others handle the boy. Too easy to fall back into the violent weapon I had become. I held Qeya’s hand in mine to keep from reaching for the chole dust tucked into my belt.

  My eyes found Adi against my will, standing with the other two miners. The male who had been with Qeya’s crew glared at me with such hatred it was everything I had not to cross the distance and accept his unspoken challenge. How dare he look at us like that? How dare he look at Qeya at all?

  Thankfully, my attention fell to Qori as Captain pulled her from her little brother’s broken body. “We can’t leave him! He’s just a boy.”

  I flinched and Qeya squeezed my hand reassuringly.

  Captain spoke firmly, “Menai is dead and we can’t carry him with us or we’re dead too.”

  Just like Brunan…

  A dull roar began in my head, drowning my crew’s words in a vision of bloody violence. I could almost see how easily the Var would pick us off. We were vulnerable, standing in the middle of their butchered prey. The skin at my bare neck itched and I twisted to look at the trees around us. The sooner we left this place the better.

  Captain agreed apparently. “Where is this cave you spoke of?”

  The children had found a base? Of course, they would have needed shelter to survive this long. I grinned bitterly at the knowledge they were smarter than us.

  Arvex led the way to their cave using Menai’s crudely drawn map. Captain and the others deferred to him, as if the spoiled brat was already their king. I couldn’t believe how easily they accepted him when the last time w
e met, Arvex cared only for lazing about with my sister.

  Before they Ascended, my father’s voice was quick to remind me.

  * * *

  Qeya had questions, of course she did. They were carrying basic equipment, one of the children was even carrying a beast’s jawbone for a weapon. As much as I needed to know how they survived this long, with so few supplies and no chole, her need was greater. I told her what she wanted to know and only what she needed to hear.

  “Natives here attacked us as soon as we came into their territory. We were ambushed without warning.” My pulse skipped a beat, words catching in my throat.

  Not completely without warning. You knew. You wanted the fight, a deep voice snarled. The voice of a murderer, without compassion for innocents who got in the way. I tried to speak without slipping into the rage that was like a second skin to me now, clinging to my father’s voice as I continued. “Bruv’s father was injured, sacrificed himself so we could get away…”

  Your fault.

  I jumped as Qeya reached for my arm and squeezed. Tears filled her golden eyes and the howling darkness faded. “You should have been the one to tell Bruv.”

  I scanned the surrounding forest and caught the young Royal walking to the back edge of our group, purple-haired Kahne silent a step behind him. “Didn’t he already know?”

  “He received no memories.” She squeezed my arm, drawing my gaze as we began to climb up the slope beginning the ascent to the ring of mountains bordering the valley. Her tone was soft but sure, far beyond her fifteen years. “You were with Brunan when he died. You can give his son the peace he needs. Bruv looks up to you.”

  How little she knew about me now. I changed the subject, uncomfortable with the idea. Easier to rattle on about what our scans showed of this young world. I wasn’t in any shape to counsel the younglings. I didn’t deserve the privilege but her words made me want to. In Qeya’s presence, I felt grounded to myself again, not Huran or Kelvan or the other past lives I have led.

  You always have a choice, another voice spoke calmly to me, a voice I barely recognized as my own.