Enthralled by Tiffany Roberts
Chapter 5
The Tangle waspeaceful around Takarahl. The beast songs were unconcerned, even pleasant, and a warm breeze rustled the leaves overhead, allowing scattered, flickering beams of sunlight to break through. What glimpses of the sky could be caught were either soothing blue or dappled with fluffy white.
Only lingering droplets on leaves and the puddles in places the sunlight would never touch evidenced the recent storm, which had kept Ketahn and Ivy in their den for another full day after he’d shared his plans with her.
There was no hint of the corruption festering understone only a short distance away, where Queen Zurvashi’s rule crippled the vrix of Takarahl.
Ketahn held himself unmoving in a shadowed hollow well above the ground. His vantage allowed him clear view of the rock formation jutting from the jungle floor below.
The rock was circular from above, though its rough sides had clearly never been shaped by vrix hands. It wasn’t strange in that it was a huge, solitary stone amidst the roots and trees; there were many large rocks and stony outcroppings throughout the Tangle. But none matched this one, most of all because of the deep, smooth-sided pool resting atop it. The cool water, flowing from an underground spring, ran ceaselessly over the pool’s edges and fed into a small stream.
It was like a giant cup that never emptied. The Gods’ Cup, some called it.
Lifting his gaze from the stone, Ketahn scanned the jungle. Though this place was known to the vrix, especially in legend, it was rarely visited. The clearing around it had shrunk in the years since Ketahn had first come as a broodling, and the path bridging it to Takarahl was very nearly lost to jungle growth.
But if all went as planned, it would receive several visitors today.
Ketahn had arrived early this morning, after a brief stop at the hidden passageway that ran beneath Moonfall Tunnel. Midday had already crept by. Such waits would not normally have bothered him, but each moment had made him more aware that he was apart from Ivy. His yearning for her always made focusing difficult, and that difficulty was heightened by the fact that she was alone and too far away for him to protect her. All he could do was remind himself that caution was the best means of returning to her safely and, soon enough, putting all this behind them.
Well, remind himself of that and hope that he would be able to return to their den today. The risk of what he intended to do was immense, and he expected he’d soon be told how much of a damned fool he was. As long as he was able to communicate with his friends, as long as they agreed to help, as long as they would care for Ivy should Ketahn’s plan result in capture or death, the risks were acceptable.
They had to be.
The sun was halfway between midday and sunfall by the time Ketahn heard a distinct sound—blackrock striking blackrock, a high, sharp clacking that echoed between the trees in a brief but distinct beat.
Ketahn extended a pair of arms out of the hollow and answered with a series of clacks of his own, produced with a blackrock knife and a loose spearhead. A third rhythm sounded from nearby, ending in a brief but familiar flourish that marked it as having been made by Telok.
Despite the uncertainties awaiting him, Ketahn smiled. He hoped it was not foolish to imagine a day in the near future when more vrix knew what a smile was and what it meant. He hoped it was not foolish to long for a day when more vrix would have reason to regularly wear such expressions.
Movement beyond the edge of the clearing caught his attention. He watched as three vrix prowled through the undergrowth, moving slowly so as to produce as little noise as possible. The lead vrix, with bright green markings on his black hide, stepped into the clearing several segments ahead of his companions.
Telok.
Rekosh and Urkot emerged nearly side-by-side, keeping stride with one another despite the differences in their builds; Rekosh was tall and spindly, while Urkot was short and stout.
The three vrix studied their surroundings with alert eyes. Ketahn was glad to see it. He’d expected as much from Telok, who’d hunted in the Tangle for most of his life, but it seemed that Urkot and Rekosh had not lost their instincts after years of living and working understone in Takarahl.
“Where is he?” Urkot asked, his low voice barely carrying to Ketahn over the spring’s gentle murmuring.
Telok grunted and angled his gaze up. “Somewhere high.”
After a final glance around the clearing to ensure there were no unexpected guests, Ketahn emerged from hiding. Telok’s eyes snapped to him immediately.
Ketahn tucked away the spearhead and knife and climbed down. Though there was a great deal to trouble his thoughts, Ketahn’s spirit rallied as soon as he was standing before his friends.
“A few moments more and I would have found you,” Telok said with a chitter, folding his lower arms across his chest as he planted the butt of his spear in the dirt.
Ketahn chittered, thumping a foreleg against Telok’s. “If you must believe that to hold your mind together, I will not argue.”
“The two of you stand here and jest,” Urkot grumbled, “while the Queen’s Claw prowls this very jungle in search of you, Ketahn.”
“We cannot fault a fool for finding amusement wherever he turns,” said Rekosh, his mandibles twitching with a soft chitter of his own.
Ketahn fought the urge to smile as he stepped to Rekosh and Urkot, brushing a foreleg against each of theirs in greeting. “You have already called me a fool, and I have yet to share my plan.”
Mirth danced in Rekosh’s eyes. “What have I told you? Always a thrill in your company, Ketahn.”
“Would that the Protector had beaten some sense into you both.” Urkot stomped on the ground. “The queen is in a rage, and you, Ketahn, are the source of her anger.”
“Is that not the usual way of things, Urkot?” Rekosh asked.
“He is right to be concerned,” said Telok, who kept his eyes on Ketahn. “This is a rare mood, even for her.”
Ketahn’s mandibles sagged. His mood fell along with them and then beyond, and he made no attempt to combat the change. As much as he wanted to enjoy this time with his friends, there were pressing matters to attend. He strode to the brim of the Gods’ Cup and dipped a pair of hands in, scooping up water to pour into his mouth. The cool, clean liquid was refreshing; there was little water as pure as this in all the Tangle.
Urkot moved closer, placing a rough hand on Ketahn’s arm. “It is more than the queen that troubles you, as though she weren’t enough.”
“Indeed.” Rekosh came close also, leaning a shoulder against the exterior of the rock formation. “Else you would not have left your mysterious message.”
“And it is only by chance that I happened to check the undertunnel today.” Telok caught some of the spilling water in his cupped hands and splashed it on his face with a content trill. “And even then, we might never have understood it.”
Rekosh lifted a hand, palm skyward with long fingers slightly curled. “The Hunter, the Shaper, the Weaver; parched, even the Eight must quench their thirst.”
“Sounds like a nonsensical shard of some sacred writing,” said Urkot as he rinsed pale stone dust from his hands. “And Shaper guide your hands, Ketahn, but your marks were barely readable.”
“Writing has never been a talent of mine,” Ketahn replied, turning away from the pool. “I learned only at the insistence of my mother.”
Rekosh chittered. “We know. You complained about it every day when we were broodlings.”
Ketahn grunted. “That seems an exaggeration.”
“My memory seems to match Rekosh’s,” said Telok.
When Ketahn looked to Urkot for support, the broad shouldered vrix only twitched his mandibles and said, “One would never believe you a steady-handed hunter based on your writing alone. More likely a hatchling playing with a lump of charcoal.”
Ketahn swiped a hand through the air and hissed. “The stone upon which I left those marks was small, as was the charcoal with which I made them.”
“Of course,” Rekosh said. “How could we expect your best work under such conditions?”
Though Rekosh’s expression was unchanged, Ketahn heard what Ivy called a smirk in his friend’s voice.
“Surely you must have called us here because you prefer our barbed insults to the spears of the Claws,” said Telok.
“Difficult to choose between the two,” Ketahn replied. “At least I feel no guilt in retaliating against the Claws.”
“Do not pretend you feel any with us, either.” Telok tapped Ketahn’s leg with his own.
“Truly, Ketahn, what brings you here?” asked Urkot.
“Anywhere within an eightday’s travel of Takarahl is somewhere you ought not be at present,” said Rekosh. “Furious as she is, the queen is likely to scent you even from here. She will burst out of the ground like a monster of old to devour you at any moment.”
Ketahn longed to find the humor that was undoubtedly in those words, but it eluded him. Zurvashi really was as some monster out of legend—huge, powerful, merciless, and without end to her appetites. But this was one beast the Eight were unwilling to slay, and no mortal vrix seemed able to stand against her either.
He refused to surrender to her regardless.
“I do not ask this lightly, my friends,” Ketahn said, meeting the gaze of each of his companions in turn. “I need your aid.”
Those words came out dry and raw; they had been expectedly, disappointingly difficult, because their simplicity was deceptive. They felt like an admission of weakness, an acceptance of inadequacy.
Telok’s mandibles twitched and drooped, and he tilted his head. “I cannot recall you asking for aid even once in all the time I have known you, Ketahn, for as often as you have given it.”
“Do you see? I was right.” Urkot tapped his fingers against his chest, but there was neither malice nor arrogance in his gesture and voice. “Something is wrong. Something apart from the queen.”
Rekosh made a thoughtful buzz, regarding Ketahn with narrowed eyes. “I knew something was amiss when you came to my den to weave. Had we not received that unannounced visitor, I would have extracted the information from you then.”
“Regardless”—Telok scanned the edges of the clearing, high and low, before looking back at Ketahn—“we are all here now, and it is best not to linger.”
Ketahn nodded, not realizing the gesture had no real meaning to his friends until he’d completed it. “Rekosh is right.”
Urkot growled.
“I always am,” Rekosh said, then cocked his head. “About which part, specifically?”
Now Ketahn searched the edges of the clearing. The Tangle, ever dangerous, had never felt so threatening as it did with Zurvashi as his enemy. “I would do best to be beyond her reach. Far beyond.”
Urkot absently brushed his lower hand across the surface of the rock formation. “You mean for us to help you flee?”
“I do. I will require supplies for a long journey.” Ketahn released a huff. Even now, the words caught in his throat. He did not want to share Ivy, even the idea of her, with anyone. “Supplies for…several travelers.”
“Several?” Rekosh pushed away from the stone to stand straight. “Ketahn…”
“Do you…do you mean for us to come along?” Urkot asked.
“I cannot ask that much of you.” Ketahn extended three legs, brushing one of them against each of his friends’ forelegs. “But I cannot deny that your company would be welcome.”
“This relates to whatever it is you have been hiding, does it not?” Rekosh asked.
“It does.”
“You have kept something so grave from us?” Urkot huffed and stomped again, sending up a faint cloud of dust. “We are here to share your burdens, Ketahn. A web cannot hold with but a single thread any more than a tunnel can stand with a single support.”
A gust of wind swept through the clearing. A branch snapped somewhere nearby, creating more noise as it fell through leaves and other branches. All four vrix turned their heads toward the sounds, and all four were motionless and silent for several heartbeats afterward, watching, listening.
“The wind,” Rekosh whispered. “Ever eager for mischief.”
“We must not tarry much longer,” said Urkot, turning back to Ketahn.
“The wind bears the scent of another storm.” Telok’s voice was low and distracted. When Ketahn glanced at him, Telok was looking skyward to where the gaps in the jungle canopy displayed far more cloud than earlier.
“A storm is certain,” Ketahn rumbled.
“Come then.” Rekosh eased closer, curiosity sparking in his eyes. “Tell us. Else our imaginings are bound to be far worse than the truth.”
“I…” Ivy flashed through Ketahn’s mind’s eye, and warmth flared in his chest. All his desire and adoration for her flowed through him freely, and his instincts—to protect her from everything, from everyone—flared in response. Any male was a threat, a potential challenger.
But not these males. Not his friends.
A long, slow breath escaped him. He shoved aside some of those instincts and glanced at his friends’ faces. “It will be easier for you to see for yourselves.”
“Have you recently developed a fondness for riddles?” Rekosh asked, leaning closer still as though to study Ketahn’s eyes.
“I have kept something hidden from you, and I mean to amend that, but it is not a thing words can rightly explain. Come to my den tomorrow near sunfall and all will be made clear.”
“We shall come, Ketahn,” said Urkot, crossing his forearms before his chest to invoke the Eight; the gesture was incomplete due to his missing lower left arm.
Rekosh and Telok mimicked the gesture.
“What do you need of us until then?” Telok asked.
Ketahn told them the items he hoped to obtain. Though some certainly must have seemed strange—especially all the blackrock, leather, cloth, bone needles, and waterskins—none of his friends questioned him. Nor did they question the directions he gave them to find his secluded den.
“You must smuggle those items out of Takarahl a little at a time, so as not to arouse suspicion,” Ketahn said afterward.
Rekosh clicked his mandible fangs. “You need not point out the obvious, Ketahn.”
“I will not, when you no longer have that far off light in your eyes.”
“Pay no mind to that.” Rekosh waved a hand. “I was simply wondering as to the nature of this secret. Who have you been hiding away? A secret mate, perhaps?”
Ketahn was not sure how he held his calm in that moment. Rekosh had guessed it with apparent ease, but he would never guess the full truth—that Ketahn’s hidden mate was a creature from somewhere amongst the stars.
“You will see soon enough, Rekosh, and it will be more shocking than any of the gossip you have ever heard in Takarahl—and it will seem more unreal.”
“Even more so than the rumors that the queen has an identical broodsister locked away in her chambers who she bleeds a little every day?”
Ketahn cocked his head to the side. “What? Rekosh, what nonsense is this?”
“Ugh.” Urkot thumped Ketahn’s hindquarters with the tip of a thick leg. “Please, Ketahn, do not excite him. It is I who must always listen to his chattering when he is in such a state.”
Rekosh, Ketahn, and Telok chittered, but the humor faded all too quickly. The storm scent, though still faint, was stronger now than it had been only moments before. Much as he would have liked to linger and speak with his friends of less weighty matters—or return to Ivy—there was more to be done.
“We had best depart,” Ketahn said, “but I must ask one more thing of you before we do.”
“Anything Ketahn,” Urkot said.
“Whatever you need,” offered Telok.
Rekosh gestured, quite gently and gracefully, for Ketahn to continue.
“When I set out for my den, I will leave another message in the undertunnel. Should you not find one by the time you are ready to depart tomorrow…I ask that you make the journey to my den regardless and care for what you find there as though it were the most precious thing in all the jungle.”
Because as far as Ketahn was concerned, Ivy was the most precious thing in the jungle—the most precious thing in all existence.
“Ah, it is a secret mate, is it not?” Rekosh buzzed. “Perhaps a previously unknown heir to Takari’s bloodline?”
Urkot tapped Rekosh’s leg. “Enough, Rekosh.”
“Where are you going now, Ketahn, if not straight back to your den?” Telok asked, narrowing his eyes.
Ketahn released a slow, heavy breath, stood a little straighter, and glanced toward Takarahl. He curled his hands into fists. “I go to have an audience with the queen.”
Utter silence gripped the clearing; even the spring seemed to go quiet.
“Shaper, unmake me, you damned fool,” Urkot growled.
At the same time, Telok pressed a hand over his face. “By their eightfold eyes…”
With those words, the conversation seemed complete. Ketahn chittered, though he felt little amusement. The weight of his friends’ gazes was immense, but he knew he could rely upon them. He knew, come what would, at least Ivy would be safe.
In the end, that was all that mattered.