Page 41 of Taken to Lemora
“I’M FINE!” I shout at her.
“Raingar?” There’s something funny about her tone. It quivers a little bit. It makes my horns hurt. When I was with her in the bed and everything had been right before everything went wrong, I lost another chunk of grey from my horns. But since then? Since I let Merquin carry her in that cart away from me, all bruised and sad and sorry?
Nothing.
No more flaking. Not even little scales. And right now, the black encasing half of each of my white horns feels terribly tight. It’s reminiscent of the moment I entered the atmosphere in Quadrant One. Like the outer shell is firming back up andhardening.
Anger and irritation swirl together in my chest, combining with the unsettling darkness that makes me glance up at the sky where pale lavender meets indigo. The underbellies of the clouds are always darkest.
My voice is quieter when I say, “Everything’s alright, Essmira.”
“Hm,” she says, and I know she doesn’t believe me at all. “I’m excited to tour the mines?” She says but her voice is pitched in a question.
I sigh and rub my face roughly, a weight suddenly heavy on my chest. “Good. They’re down below. Did you notice the view, though? It’s one of the best in my territory.”
The path turns and the hill slopes down and when we reach the top of the knoll, she smiles and the weight isn’t so heavy. “It’s incredible,” she offers and then she looks at me and it feels like everything might, just maybe be okay. “You must be proud.”
“You should be proud, too. You’re this clan’s miriga.”
“Miriga?”
Ohr! I curse under my breath. “Uhmmmmm,” I stutter. “It’s…a term of affection. Yeffa. Affection?”
She raises an eyebrow at me and sticks her tongue into her cheek. “You’re keeping something from me again, Raingar, and I don’t like it.”
I bark out a laugh, unable to help myself, and shake my head. “Don’t you start now. Otherwise, you’ll sound like me.”
She grins and her brown eyes glitter as she looks out over the sprawling green, yellow and purple mosses that clash in striking visions over the rocky topography. The purple sky above scatters everything in mist that, from this vantage point, looks like glitter. The yellow dirt path turns pink halfway down, the dust from the crystals in the fore mines tend to be.
The opening in the next large rocky hill is where this path leads. Creatures — mostly Lemoran — filter in and out of it in a steady stream. Rekkaru and Asgid, a few Hypha and even Twee and Holdar, the only known kits produced from a Hypha-Lemoran pairing —ghastlylooking things — help load and drive the pad pad carts that carry the unrefined kintarr to the processing station located just outside of my village. They don’t work the mines though. Dangerous places, kintarr mines. Only Lemoran have skin tough enough for them.
But that’s why I plan to show her only briefly what’s within and the entire time, I’ll keep her safe, close.
“You really won’t tell me?”
I smile sheepishly, a little embarrassed. “It’s a good thing, I just don’t think I deserve the title.”
“You? But your clan has been callingmemiriga.”
“Yeffa, but it’s a term that honors me in a way I don’t deserve.”
She softens and she’s already too soft for this world. “Raingar…”
“Nob, nob, nob. Don’t. Let’s just…let me show you the mines. They’re beautiful. Not as beautiful as you are…but still…they’re nice.”
She smiles even wider. “I forgive you, you know. You’re inexperienced and I can’t imagine what the rutting madness of Xiveri must feel like for you. I didn’t realize you’d be made so uncomfortable by my discomfort. I was trained to believe that males don’t care for the pleasure of females. I’m sorr…”
“Please!” I jolt a foot in the air and edge quickly away from her when she stretches her hand out to touch me. “Essmira, for the love of the cosmos, donotapologize. I deserve to have all four of my stones removed and fashioned into a necklace for you to wear as a sign of my contrition. If you apologize, I’ll have to give you the pillar, too.”
Her jaw drops open and she snorts with her mouth open wide. She cups her hand around her nose, like that might help the onslaught of hiccups that comes to her. It doesn’t. Instead, she just laughs and eventually, I break until we’re both standing there a few paces apart, chuckling at one another.
“While that was colorful, Raingar, I think you should leave the fashion choices to me.”
Laughing still, I cock my head toward the mine. “Let’s go. I have different stones to show you.”
Inside the large entrance, shards of old, previously mined kintarr gleams against every surface, against every stone. She gasps around at everything, including all the Lemoran who warmly welcome her while simultaneously shunning me.
I don’t like how many creatures surround her, but I’m quickly distracted when Mino and Olga approach me ranting about some problem with the new ventilation system I procured. It’s deeper in the mine structure and I’ve got no choice but to either follow them — and drag Essmira along — or ask one of the dangerous rocky Lemoran beasts to show her around in here. Out from underneath my watch! Blood flows directly out of my face through the soles of my feet at the thought.
