from our mountains. They vary in shades of blues, purples, and the rarest green. Some of them are as big as you when you are seated. They are polished and mounted, reminding us of the glory of En’el and her consort Esh’nahahl, and their first and foremost daughter, Inara Tahli. The city is grand, blending the beauty of our most ancient traditions with those advances we chose to keep.”
“Chose to keep?” she whispered.
He inclined his head in agreement, slowing his pace as he came to more treacherous ground. He navigated over the worst of it, rocks sliding beneath his feet as Cha’lii clung tighter to him, before he spoke again.
“Many generations ago, more than I can accurately count, our people were a great power. We shared the glory of our culture among the cosmos and explored beyond the limits of our own world. We harnessed great powers of creation and destruction, and we were respected and feared. Our planet was a seat of learning and trade then, by what our histories tell. We grew arrogant, drunk on our power, so much so that we did not recognize when Inara Tahli began to turn on us with terrible storms. What we have now are vestiges of what nearly destroyed us then. We lost many great cities, several them swallowed by the seas, and standing upright upon the sand plains before the desert winds consumed them. We attempted to correct the program, but our planet never truly recovered. What we could save demanded a great sacrifice.”
“What sort of sacrifice?”
“We had to determine what was truly valuable to us as a species. Obviously our planet, our culture, and our children. The unimportant things—the technology that wasted our resources, the very things that sent us into space, and those that caused great destruction—were decommissioned and used for other things. We expelled all offworlders and made them sign agreements to leave our world restricted and in peace. In the end, we had to decide what to keep… and to create something new. A generation of scientists worked ceaselessly to create the ultimate weapon to guard our people.”
“The a’sankhii?” she asked.
“Yes, the a’sankhii.” Rhyst took a breath. He was about to reveal a great secret of their people, but she needed to understand just what his people sacrificed and what they had gained to understand where she was going.
“You will never see them, because they are hidden deep within the internal chambers of the temple of Esh’nahahl, but there exists a room called the incarnation chamber. Young males, who are honored to serve as the hands and eyes of Esh’nahahl for their san’mordan, volunteer to submit to the incarnation pod. It is an egg that closes all around you. It changes the male within it to be the ultimate defense for his san’mordan and city. We have no armies anymore, only the a’sankhii. Your people may be a great force in numbers, but they would never stand long against the full force of a city’s a’sankhii and the hunger of Inara Tahli. To protect our world, we have had to become merciless. It will be a harsh place for an offworlder.”
“I’m going to be straight with you—knowing that we’re going there kind of scares me,” she murmured.
“You are wise to be afraid.”
He was also afraid. Despite the calm facade that he maintained so not to unduly alarm her, he did not know what the king would decide, and his mind turned frequently to it with worry.
Silence fell between them, for there was little that could be said. Nothing that could offer comfort. He could not lie to her, and telling her what he had did little to settle her fears… or his. In fact, she was more afraid than ever, and struggling to control it despite the full strength of her formidable will being exercised upon it.
Unable to delay the inevitable, Rhyst took the remaining distance in three leaps as they crested the final mountaintop that separated them from Emsha’fa’teln. The waxing sun hit the buildings, making them shimmer like the rarest polished jewel. The sight was one of beauty, but that beauty was dimmed by the knowledge of what was to come.
“Behold, Emsha’fa’teln, the jewel of En’el.”
Chapter 23
The city was unlike anything Charlie had ever seen. Even from a distance, she could see graceful spires and sweeping architecture that rose into the sky. It was as beautiful as Rhyst had said, but at the same time, it was also terrible knowing that her fate would