Star Side

Chapter 24

The divine beings talked. A lot.

It fascinated Gilrack. Talking was a higher form of communication saved for council meetings, classrooms, and other usually close-quartered situations where details were necessary and in an area where sound could be purified. But, in the tunnels of the earth, sound often bounced around, distorting words till they were useless. Most of the communication needed between his people could be conveyed in clicks, grunts, and other less easily corruptible noises.

But, up here in heaven, their words always came clear. The white tunnels and caverns didn't try to bounce back sound, as though the stone they were made of was asleep. Thus, he supposed he wasn't surprised that they dallied more in words, and what a plethora of them they had. It made his head spin wondering what kinds of things he'd never thought of that they conveyed. But, then, they seemed untrained and, perhaps, unable to emit mind sounds, so perhaps they made up for it with their words.

Still, after only a few minutes of following his maiden and the dead-eyed male, his ears had begun to ring. So loud. Did they have to talk so loud?

And then she yelled at him. It at least didn't hurt as much as the male's thunder stick, but it gave his brain enough knocking around to step back and shake it.

But it was for the best that she had shocked him. He hadn't been in his right mind from the moment her soft hand touched his surprisingly sensitive wing. Did, perhaps, their hands secrete a sort of claiming venom that evaporated once it touched his hot skin? No, he would have smelled it. Either or, that touch alone made him crave contact more than he'd had since he'd been a small child in his mother's nest. A craving that was enough to drive him mad. How could anything feel so soft and good?

The moment he confirmed that there was no way out of the strange chamber she had left him in, he found a comfortable position on the floor to gather his thoughts.

Because, for the first time since he came here, he had a mind unmuddled by pain, fear, exhaustion, or the divine maiden's scent. While the blue curtain of sparkles and air surprised him, he'd inferred from how the divine beings reacted to it that it most likely wouldn't hurt him, especially if he didn't go about sticking his hand in it. One of the first lessons learned as a nestling was to watch one's curiosity. In the endless ocean of the earth, a moment of free-reigned curiosity could get one killed.

Something his brother had never learned.

He winced at that thought, putting a hand between his horns. He'd been avoiding thinking about what his brother's actions meant for him. But even he had been captivated by the strange creature he'd brought back to him, wrapped in alien fabric and spilling wave after wave of prey thoughts. Gilrack had gone to where his brother said he had found it in hopes of finding more clues as to what it was, and perhaps a solid enough reason to get his brother to let it go before it caused them trouble, only to find himself captured by that deadly curiosity again

But, that lapse of danger had brought him here, hadn't it? Which, although it may very well be his death...it meant meeting the maiden.

He sighed inadvertently, even as he tried to push aside thoughts of her to focus more on his situation. If he got started, he'd be enthralled again and unable to think clearly.

He brought around one of his new wings to have a better view as he tried to maneuver it. It felt like learning how to walk just getting them to move right. They both fascinated and dismayed him. Soft wings such of these could only be a hindrance against the stones of the tunnels. But, then, his hardened frame and stiff joints had already spelled the end of his life underground. Should he enter, he'd only ever be able to live in the communal and royal chambers, and he'd made it his life to avoid those like the plague as it was. Wings meant he had changed to something more. They also meant he'd have to face his family.

Because wings weren't completely unheard to him. The histories stated that their ancestors had wings before they moved underground to avoid the onslaught of heaven. His mother also had them, though they were mostly ornamental as a sign of her queenhood. He'd only seen her actually use them to drift down from the platform to the city center below once or twice. He'd noticed her stiffer joints as well, but she'd always attributed it to age—

His stomach sank. Was that it, then? Had the air of heaven sped up his age?

No no, that implied that all his siblings of royal blood would stiffen and get wings at some point. And now that he was looking closer at himself, he'd gotten bigger too. One didn't grow with age, they shrunk.

This was all so very strange.

But it was better thinking about the strange than about the maiden. Because when she didn't fill his mind with rapture, she filled it with shame.

She'd seen him throw up claiming venom.

Just acknowledging it made his chest tighten and his body hot with embarrassment. Only the most prepubescent and weak of teenagers threw up claiming venom in front of females, and he had to do it in front of the epitome to end all epitomes of females. Dying in the metal tunnel he'd nearly gotten stuck in before meeting the maiden seemed a fine fate now.

He covered his face with his palms as he recalled that she'd even cleaned it up, as he'd been too weak and in pain to do anything about it. She hadn't looked disgusted either, hadn't even glared at him. Her mind's waves had only been sympathy and apprehension, as though more worried that the claiming venom would melt through her cloth to her skin than what it meant.

A thought struck him then. It had, like many of the thoughts coming to him, been drifting in the background of his muddled mind until now.

Perhaps the divine beings didn't use claiming venom.

It was possible. He'd seen their teeth while they talked and even the male's were blunt, harmless things. Small too. And when he'd sensed a flood of attraction from the dead-eyed male towards his maiden, he'd smelled no change, no sour note to imply arousal.

That thought both burned him with jealousy and cut him with fear. What if the divine maiden wasn't compatible? What if they were just too different? What if the gone to seed, dead-eyed male was a far better option of a mate then Gilrack? Strong, virile, capable Gilrack?

Then it wouldn't matter if he managed to get the thunder stick from the divine male's palms. The divine male would have defeated Gilrack without landing a single blow.

Gilrack rumbled angrily to himself as he curled on his side, his tail cold from lashing across the icy stone floor.

This was stupid. Here he was, trapped in the inhospitable heavens, stiff and pointlessly winged, and he was more upset over the idea of not getting the female he wanted than whether he'd ever get out of here alive.

Not that there was much to look forward to if he did survive...

He shut down that thought. It would only do the dead-eyed male good if he thought that way. The ugly, hornless, tailless, tiny, scrawny male past his prime that needed a weapon to be dangerous and dared to want for a female with beauty and grace beyond comprehension. Uck, he was almost a female himself. An old, ugly female.

Gilrack found grumbling more creative insults towards his new foe comforting and, before he knew it he'd fallen asleep beneath the blankets of his wings.