Page 72 of Rhaz's Redemption
“Dameron,” she turned her attention to the Savrix. “If you, and those who are loyal to you, don’t leave immediately, you’ll never burn another offering for the goddess again. She’ll never hear your prayers, and never know your voice. You will suffer for all your days, and I’ll make sure that when you die, that you will never find your way to the city of souls.”
“Traitor!” He cried.
“I am loyal to the goddess alone!” Holey seethed. “The same goddess who will not recognize you when you die, if you keep pushing me.”
“Where do you expect us to go?” he pressed on. “The forest? We won’t last a day!”
“Yet, you sent them out there when they were just children,” my voice carried through the snow covered field. Now everyone knew the truth. Dameron sent the shifters out into the wilderness expecting them to die.
“There’s an old village half a day’s walk from here where you will find a limited amount of safety and supplies.” Holey instructed. “You and your hunters will go there. You will go and never return to this place.”
“What village?” He asked.
“Don’t!” Kahina begged. “Don’t tell them.”
“Our ancestor’s,” Holey promptly ignored the priestess. “They didn’t come here through some miracle of the goddess. They came here on a ship, just like the human’s did, and that ship is located in the first village they ever built on Valo Prime. There you will find recordings of them explaining everything from why they left to how they ended up here.”
“Liar!” Dameron looked as if someone had stabbed him in the gut. Everything he’d ever known about his people and their history was a lie. His whole life was a lie. His past and where his people came from, his present, and the fact that he’d hidden his shifter abilities, and now his future hung in the balance too. Will he fight and risk losing absolution from the goddess, or will he go and try to pick up the pieces in the village his ancestor’s built?
“It’s true,” Kahina sighed. “Our elders did not want us to know about the ship, but what Holey says is all true.”
“Why did the elders come here?” Trivix asked.
“They wanted to start a new life away from technology,” Holey began. “They believed technology had corrupted their people. So they left the first village they built in hopes that we’d never find the ship again. But that culture of fear has made us not only afraid of technology, but of change in any form. Is it that fear that drove you all to exile the shifters just because they were different. They are not bad, and they did not cause the stiffness.”
“Liar!” Dameron shouted then reached out to grab me. I wasn’t fast enough to stay out of his reach, and this time he pinned me against him so I wouldn’t be able to get free.
“Let Kahina go and recant everything you said!” He demanded.
Holey looked to me and then to Dameron. Pain filled her expression and she began to loosen her grip on the priestess.
“Don’t!” I shouted. “What Holey says is the truth! I’ve seen the village myself!”
I wouldn’t let Dameron get away without consequences on my behalf.
Holey tightened her grip on Kahina again and squared her shoulders. “What I say is the truth. No more hiding! No more lies!”
Dameron growled low in his throat and brought his knife closer to my skin. This was it for me. This was the end. Rhaz was dead and soon I would join him.
I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and readied myself for my final moments, when suddenly Dameron’s grip on me loosened. He dropped the knife he’d been holding, and when I turned to look at him, his mouth hung open in a silent scream.
What had happened? Who had saved me from this monster?
The Savrix collapsed to the ground and standing behind him with a bloody knife in his hand was Rhaz.
“Beatrice,” he breathed my name and dropped the knife to the ground. I rushed toward him and we collided in a tight embrace.
“How?” I asked. “I saw you die. You stopped breathing and everything.”
“I may have forgotten to mention what my true gift is,” Rhaz gave me a bashful look as if he were embarrassed by this slight oversight.
“What do you mean?”
“I might be a badger shifter,” he explained, “But my true gift is that I can’t die. I've been stabbed, crushed, drowned, and a number of other things, but each time I’ve come back to life.”
“You can’t die?” I could hardly believe it, which felt silly in a way. I was standing in the presence of aliens who could shift into animals among other things.
“Nope, not yet at least. Hopefully, as I age, my healing abilities will slow down too.”
