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“Okay, I’ll admit it now. You were right. I don’t wanna get ahead of myself, but this place is unbelievable,” I say as I circle the fountain looking for arms and legs. “Who do you think she was?”
“An ancestral goddess, I assume,” he replies. “There were many worshipped by various clans. Notable people of noble Houses might be raised to a divine status in the years following their deaths. Then time would make them legends the longer they had worshippers.”
I catch a glimmer within a puddle of muddle at the edge of the fountain, and I’m drawn to it.
“Let’s see,” I murmur as I crouch down beside it. I remove my glove and swipe my hand through the muck to clear it. The water had gathered there because a plaque is indented in the ground, creating a rectangular impression. It’s gold, stamped with familiar Kar’Kali swirls of script. “Mak! Come read this for me.”
“It’s a quotation,” he says, coming to stand behind me. “As if someone said it. When my ashes return, let them mix with the sea that crashes on the cliffs at Ta’Nak Annir.”
I glance at the fallen head, whose eerie stone eyes gaze at nothing.
“She must have loved it here, then.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
MAK
There’s no denying it. My mate is enamored with Ta’Nak Annir.
From the moment we touch down on the ruined streets, she starts running around to investigate every little detail. I follow her around, feeling more like a babysitter since I mostly fuss over her safety and read the signs for her.
She spends half the time sharing historical facts with me, since she’s had her head deeply burrowed in my mother’s architectural book collection. The other half, she’s quizzing me on Archaic culture and religion, trying to uncover the mysteries buried in the rubble.
“What does this say?” she asks, as we stop in front of one of the many clay homes. Their construction must be durable because they don’t show cracking or signs of erosion.
“Residence of Bi’Rakvarra,” I read off. “It’s the family name. Or was, in any case.”
She pokes her head inside. “That makes me feel like a trespasser.”
While I did have high expectations for the city as an option, Frankie’s reactions are all I need to see to convince me that this seaside ruin will take the top of my list for resettlement. It’ll be less convenient than some of the places that were once inhabited by the Deadheads and their military machine of a population. Many of the cities here have advanced technology and public transport as well as a modern communications infrastructure built in to the housing and other buildings. Ta’Nak Annir will require us to set all of that up on our own.
But the thought of moving my people into the drab dormitory style housing that the Deadheads build for their warriors depresses me. There were problems with The Rightful Heir when it first became our home in space, and our forebearers seemed to take those challenges in stride. There’s a sense of history among these streets that we can feel connected to, at the very least.
“All these places are empty,” Frankie says, mildly disappointed after leaving the third clay home she ‘trespassed’ in. “How could it have been abandoned and nothing is here?”
“The Deadheads probably stripped it for all it was worth,” I say with a shrug. “They were a fastidious people; I’ll give them that. It might look primitive now, but it would’ve been moderately advanced at the time of abandonment. There would’ve been vehicles along the streets, both ground transport and aircrafts.”
“If they hated your kind so much and they cleared this place out…” She wanders down the road, eyes still seeking anything new that might catch her interest. “Then why is it still here? Why not destroy it? After all, they wanted Deviant culture to disappear, didn’t they?”
“Might be a question for our scientist friend,” I say, thinking of the enthusiastic young male. He would be thrilled to come here too. “Kiva told me they kept many of the written documents from before their regime, even as they actively lied about their history to their population. Even monsters can be nostalgic for the past, even as they twist it for their own ugly purposes.”
She stops in her tracks, turning toward me with a tender look. I once said her heart wasn’t soft, and while I stand by it, I know she is capable of the loveliest sweetness and empathy too. When she shows it to me, I get weak.
“It probably feels strange befriending them, doesn’t it?”
I catch up to her, and we stand in the center of the vacant street, just the two of us.
“Maybe I should’ve gotten over it by now,” I say, “but it is, yes. There’s guilt every time I see them, a reminder that they’re the reason for that blade under my pillow. I shudder to think what my parents would say.”
“Do you really think they could doubt you when the pact you made with the Deadheads got us here?” she asks. The last time we spoke about this, she touched my hand. I feel the pathetic urge to tell her every tragic tale of my life, if only it would lead to more comfort from her.
“I think my father might’ve made a similar choice, but he wouldn’t have treated them with the hospitality that I have. Even now, the elders of his generation have vitriol to spit over my leniency. But they only piss me off when they try to bring up the blood of my parents and throw it in my face. That their deaths should be used as a manipulation tactic disgusts me.”
“They do this at council meetings?” Frankie’s little nose wrinkles in irritation.
“Yes. Oh, I’m too young, too naive, too this, too that.” I chuckle. “Yet they are the ones who wanted a boy to rule, to hold me up as a survivor chosen by the spirit.”
“Should I be going to these meetings too?” She chews on her lip.
