Page 11 of The Naga Princess's Soldier Mate

“I go where you go. It’s as simple as that,” I told her. Her mouth snapped shut, and she gave me a baffled look before she twisted to look at the Shamans again. She asked for their advice, and they huddled closer to discuss options. Seeing that they posed no threat to my angel, I pulled Erish aside to ask him about my sudden, unexpected crash yesterday. If I could, I would like to avoid such incidents in the future, and he had to have the answers. While we were at it, I needed to ask him where I could shave, it was high time I got rid of this out-of-control beard. I also needed a haircut if I wanted to look presentable as an escort for a real princess.

Chapter 8

Sazzie

“I wish I’d known about you, Sazzie,” Avrish said. The elegant and oddly hornless Naga female sat elegantly curled on a stack of soft pillows inside the main tent at the heart of the Training Grounds. Avrish taught the youngest pupils when they first arrived here, covering all the basic subjects like reading and writing. She was beautiful, with black scales dotted with pretty green and gold freckles along her shoulders and back. A bright green streak also livened up her black hair and matched the vibrant hue of her eyes.

This Naga female was the most exotic creature I’d ever seen, besides the humans, of course. I did not even know what Clan she had come from originally, and she had not explained. There were more Naga in the camp with colors from Clans I did not know. Come to think of it, I did not know what Clan the Shaman Artek came from once, either. His white scales were just as exotic as Avrish’s black scales. But Avrish seemed even stranger because of her missing chin horn and the way she was so sweet and gentle with the younglings who came to her for classes.

The excitement from yesterday had died down, at least on the surface, and normalcy had returned for their young students here beneath the main tent. We were sitting at the back of the class, curled up on pillows, while, at tables at the center of the tent, students were bent over their work, scribbling with ink and quills or working on glowing relics with clever fingers. It was a sight that still awed me every time I saw it, ever since I first arrived here two weeks ago.

“It wouldn’t have changed anything,” I said to Avrish with a shrug of my shoulder. Avrish was completely free of any scars, her scales smooth and shiny all along her front. I couldn’t recall when I’d last seen an adult female without any scars from challenges and duels—unless it was right after a molting, but that was also when scars were most likely to form, as our scales were still soft.

“Of course it would have,” Avrish told me. “If a Shaman had recognized your differences, they would have brought you here. Raised you differently—better.” I touched the small, delicate horn that grew from my chin. Itwasmuch smaller than the horns of my peers and often a point of mockery. I recalled that time when Artek was a young apprentice, visiting with his mentor. I remembered a loud verbal disagreement the former Water Weaver male had with my mother. Afterward, I’d been punished by my mother, though I couldn’t recall what I’d done wrong.

I shook my head. Just as my mother had been unwilling to allow Corin to continue training as a Shaman, she would have been unwilling to let me go. “My mother would not have released me. I think Artek’s mentor”—I was sorry to say I did not recall his name—“tried. But it was in vain.” Regardless, I had made it here, to adulthood. It was fine.

Avrish gave me a sad but understanding smile, her hand reaching out to curl around my fingers. She moved slowly, yet still, my first reflex was to bat her hand away. I knew she did not wish to harm me, but the survival instincts were hard to restrain. The way she just gently squeezed my hand made me feel odd inside my chest—warm, cherished. Similar to when Reid held me in his arms, but very different at the same time.

“Erish told me he ran your genes,” Avrish explained, and at my confused look, she began to clarify. “Genes tell your body what you are like, how you are built. They’re a blueprint—a plan. Your genes are a little like mine—not quite as pronounced, but similar.” She touched her hornless chin, which marked her as exotically different. “Somehow, your genes more closely resemble those of Naga females from the past—the way our ancestors were. We call that a throwback. That’s why you’re not like the others. You don’t like fighting; you don’t feel territorial or aggressive the way they do. And it’s not because there’s something wrong with you, Sazzie. It’s because there’s somethingveryright.”

I didn’t know I needed to hear those words until she said them, but I did. And when my eyes welled with tears, Avrish did not condemn me for it; instead, she squeezed my hand again in support. She explained much more about the past, particularly what Naga females had been like before the calamities ravaged our planet. It resonated with me, made me feel whole, and suddenly made me feel less like a failure and more like the female Reid saw—the one who made his eyes go all shiny with admiration and desire.

Why had I been avoiding this talk? It seemed silly now. When Avrish and I had to say our goodbyes, it felt like parting ways with a sister—or, better yet, one of my brothers whom I actually loved. Or maybe Avrish was now filling a spot in my heart that had once been filled by my father.

I was still feeling melancholic and sad when Reid, weighed down by several bags of supplies, escorted me to the edge of the clearing. We were staying behind, and, as Chen had firmly suggested to me, we’d head toward Haven. That was Reid’shome, and though I feared I might not be welcome, I didn’t have any other options. I had not told Reid yet that I thought Zathar might turn me away because he feared I was too violent. I already knew what he’d say to that, anyway.

“This is going to be a sight to see,” Reid said as he slung his arm around my shoulders and casually tugged me against his body. I’d never been held like that before—hugged from behind, his chin resting against the crown of my head, his solid bulk curved against my back. He’d pulled on more clothing: a shirt with long sleeves and a pair of ‘boots’ to protect his feet. Despite that, I could still feel every ridge and curve of his muscles against my spine, feel the strength of him.

Another change was his face. Gone was the odd growth of hair on his chin and upper lip. He’d shaved all of it off while I’d been with Avrish. He had even cut his hair shorter. It looked… neater, less wild. It made his face look sharper, and once I got used to his bare chin, I had to conclude I liked it. There was no sign of the barely-clinging-to-life male I’d first laid eyes on when Corin and Min-Ji brought him here. This was the male who had haunted my dreams after I’d seen a glimpse of him four months ago at Thunder Rock village.

I had only seen him very briefly, but I hadn’t forgotten a single thing about him. He was dressed now just like he’d been then, and the haircut was the same, too. I recalled it that well because I’d never seen a male with hair that short before, and it had baffled me. It had baffled my peers, too; they’d muttered about it for days, just like they had discussed his black arm markings, those strange sigils.

I was trying to distract myself with what he looked like now, and what it felt like to be in his arms so casually. It was a little daunting to think about what lay ahead of me, what my future would look like. So I didn’t. But that got thrown in my face when the last of the Shamans climbed inside their skyships, and the humming of the ancient machines became too loud to ignore.

After morning class and my talk with Avrish, they had struck down the center tent, where most classes and the communal cooking and eating took place. Other tents and canopies had been taken down that morning with shocking efficiency. Now, all that the Shamans had to do was take their skyships up into the air and fly away.

“Won’t the Thunder Rock females and those Bitter Storm warriors see them when they fly away?” I asked when the worry suddenly sprang to mind. If they found out the truth about how the Shamans moved their camps, how closely they lived like our ancestors had… It would cause complete chaos back at the village. Then, word would spread. It could mean the breakdown of trust between the Shamans and the Clans.

Reid’s arms tightened around my middle, just enough of a squeeze to tell me I had his full attention and that he wanted me close. “They are going to fly as low as they can in the opposite direction, from what I understand. They must fly low regardless, or they will risk getting struck down by the EM field higher in the atmosphere.” My eyes started to glaze over from those difficult phrases, and I felt like an idiot for not understanding.

“A Shaman went to distract the delegation from Thunder Rock, but there is nothing they can do about Bitter Storm,” Reid said,and he pointed with a hand toward where a smoke plumerose over the woods. My stomach clenched painfully in my belly. Was that where the Bitter Storm warriors had made camp? It was unlikely that, if they saw the skyships, they’d tell anyone, as they were hostile to every Clan. Was that going to be enough to protect the secret?

Then the first skyship rose in the air, one of the small ones with a sleek shape of black metal. Metal, not the sharp black obsidian of which all hunters made their weapons, but metal like the blade that hung from Reid’s belt, and that he wore around his neck, the strange squares he called dogtags. It was a heavy material, and I could not wrap my head around the idea that it could float in the air like it weighed nothing.

Then, a second rose, followed by the medical skyship Reid and I had spent so much time on. That one was huge compared to the other two, and, when it shot away over the treeline at dazzling speeds, all I could do was gasp and stare. Every other skyship followed the first one in a mad aerial dance I did not think was possible: ships rising into the air rapidly, some shooting off in a straight line, some skimming the tops of the trees. Others took a neat little spin, or looped with joy around the clearing before they followed the rest.

The humming of the relics was not as loud as I expected it to be; it never rose higher than a fireant’s buzzing. It filled the clearing, but as soon as they shot away over the woods, the sound disappeared. In less than a minute, the clearing was empty, leaving behind a dozen flattened, brown areas in the moss. Some of those areas were big, but most were no bigger than a home at Thunder Rock. The moss would reclaim those spots in a few weeks, and no sign would remain that the Training Grounds had ever been here.

The empty clearing mirrored the empty feeling inside me. I felt abandoned, with nowhere to go that would feel safe. Then Reid lowered his head and brushed his mouth over my shoulder in one of those ‘kiss’ things he liked to do. “Let’s go; no sense in lingering. Chen drew me a map. It should take us a few weeks to get back to Haven.” I wasn’t alone. Reid was with me, and he had been adamant that he’d never leave my side.

“I will follow you,” I told him. He was technically the one who was a stranger to this planet, but he was so confident and strong. When I remembered how safe he made me feel, it was intoxicating. After talking with Avrish, it also felt far less like I was flawed for wanting that—for needing it. It felt easy to slide my hand into Reid’s and follow him into the woods with nothing but supplies strapped to our backs.

“I don’t know that we’ll be able to avoid Khawla’s notice,” I said to him in a low tone that would not carry. The Master Scout was unpredictable; he might not give us away, but he might warn his mate, Kusha, where I was to give her the advantage. Bitter Storm’s plume of smoke was easy to circle around, though, and we knew exactly where the Thunder Rock females had made their camp.

“Khawla is the leader of those blue guys?” Reid asked, and the glint in his eyes told me he knew exactly how disrespectful it was to speak of Thunder Rock that way. I wanted to bristle, but then I recalled that I’d left my Clan; I’d become an outcast by choice when I had refused to fight for the throne. I lowered my shoulders and simply nodded before carefully summing up what I knew of the male.

“He is mated to one of the biggest contenders for the throne, Kusha. They have two young children together, I believe. Khawla is our Master Scout, uncannily good at hiding and at finding things.” I tapped a claw to my chin as I contemplated what else I knew about the male. He was older than my brother by a handful of years, so they had not been in the same training groups. I vaguely recalled that there had been a bit of a stink about his mating with Kusha because nobody had seen the mating marks. “Khawla is pretty calm and steady, a stickler for the rules, if I recall,” I finished finally. “I don’t know if he’ll try to help his mate or let us go…”

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