Mya looked around. His ship was not anything like she had expected. Although she was not sure what she had even expected. It was not though the big shiny metal disk about which her father had told her stories as a small child. It was much smaller, could perhaps manage only a dozen people. Its shape too more closely resembled a boat from which its name derived. It was dark, as black as the night sky. They would have walked right past it had it not been for him.
Being practically raised in the temple, the very idea of traveling to the stars boggled her mind. Seemed almost wrong somehow. Were not the stars and moons homes of the gods and goddesses? What right did mere mortals have to such aspirations?
She leaned against a wall, one that seemed barren of the lights and buttons with which the giant was playing at the moment. When they had emerged from the temple into the deepest darkness that happened when only one of Tavia's moon was visible in the sky just before the first of its suns, the red giant, rose over Rata's waters, the group was tired and bedraggled. Even she, who had endured far less than her sisters, felt the strain of the battle. But he had pushed them, moved them forward. Tam, he had a name too, she reminded herself. Some part of her wanted still to hate the man, who was after all one of them, the Morians, their destroyers. Yet he had fought so hard to save them, was so attentive to Soji.
She worried for her sisters. Soji was so quiet and withdrawn, and in the light of his ship Mya could see dried blood around her breasts and a nasty dark purple bruise upon her cheek. Rata wore a matching mark upon her cheek as well, but it was the deathly stillness that worried Mya the most. Her sister of the water had not moved at all since he had taken her down from the altar. She simply lay limply in his arms.
The boy clung to her, refusing to put her down even now that they had reached the ship. Aved had found lead them to a bench against another wall. Had run about finding medical supplies, asking Tam for what he needed and even sneaking out into the darkness for fresh water that might cleanse and soothe her wounds.
Mya felt useless at the moment. She smiled, but she had not been useless to them this evening. She had been the High Priestess of the air. For that moment, she had felt as powerful and gifted as Aved, Lano and her sisters had always said she was. It was her winds and clouds that had hidden them. Her winds combined with Soji's quakes that had toppled the altar.
Oh sweet goddess, it was they, who destroyed her temple. Not the Morians, but her High Priestesses that had torn it all down. A soft cry escaped her parched throat as she dropped her head in self-loathing.
She felt the gentle embrace of Soji's arms about her then, but they brought small comfort. The altar was destroyed, the temple likely to be as well by the time that the red giant raised its head on the rising. Their way of life was no more. The great chasm of uncertainty stretched out before her. She no longer even knew who she was. How could she be the High Priestess of the air without an altar or a temple?
"Tam says he is almost ready, little sister. He will send Leamus and Rata through the transporter first. Then you and Aved. He and I will take the ship to meet up with his friends from the Morian resistance force," she smiled but Mya noticed the hollow almost blank expression in her eyes.
She nodded, "Will Rata be all right?"
Soji shook her head, "I do not know. Tam says he is not sure. She endured far from than most people could take. But Tam says that she is strong willed, that perhaps the goddess can over time undo with their technology did. He is sending them to some place he calls Earth. Over three-quarters of it is her water."
"We should go with her then. Perhaps together we can heal her, bring her back from the edge as we did before," Mya pleaded.
Soji shook her head, "No, it is not safe. We cannot remain together. If we were all captured, fell into the Morian hands." She stopped and sighed heavily, "I am sorry this is all my fault."
"No, no, it is not."
"I was his counselor. He even told me of his plans. Of the treaty with the Morians. If I had listened with my heart to the goddess, if I had seen Versil as he truly was," her sister looked down at her hands. Mya realized that her nails still bore dark blue stains beneath them. Her lover's blood. Soji had taken his life herself. Mya felt her stomach roll. If she were forced to... If she ever had to face the choice to end his life, she doubted she could. No matter what.
She inhaled a cleansing breath forced her troubled mind back from that line of thought. Her sisters needed her now. While Rata might lie unconscious in the boy's arms, Mya feared that the wounds to Soji's spirit were far more threatening than the ones to her body.
"Listen to me, none of this is your fault," but her sister merely pulled away at her protests. She had never pulled away before, never denied them the comfort and solace they needed. And for the first time, Mya truly realized how very much their world had changed. The bonds that they shared as sisters were gone. As shattered as the altar to the goddess that they had served their whole lives.
She trembled as that uncertainty once more swallowed her very soul. Then she felt another set of arms about her shoulders. Stronger arms, wider shoulders to bear this new burden, a comforting chest upon which she had so often rested her head when she was troubled. Like her sisters, he had always been there. And if what Soji said was true, he would be the only one upon which she could rely in whatever lay ahead.
As she remembered the other dream that she had as she suckled at Rata's breast, just the previous rising, such a brief moment that seemed like a life time ago, she was both comforted by his familiar presence and frightened of how even this might change. But change seemed the only thing that was certain in her world at the moment.
She could shrink away from it, in doubt or self-pity as it seemed her sister was, or she could step forward and embrace it, confident that the woman, whose winds and fog could blind and army long enough to get them to safety could ride those same winds of changes into whatever the future held for them, confident in her goddess and herself. Looking back and forth between her sisters, one of them must embrace this new day. It might as well be her.
She nodded her head and wrapped her arms about her protector. "I am ready."
***
Tam wanted so much more time with the boy. He had shown courage, stubbornness and intelligence. He would have been proud to have such a soldier to serve under his command. But he did not have months and years to prepare the young man for a destiny far greater than his young shoulders could bear. He could only hope that his dark god of Fate and their sweet goddess of love would watch over them, protect them and teach him all that he would need to embrace the destiny that was beyond his control.
He passed the tablet to the young man, "This contains all that you need to know of Earth. It is a small planet, just beginning to make the technological advances that my people made many years ago. Their species share common ancestry with both our races. The place I have selected for the two of you is isolated."
He nodded towards the woman in Leamus's arms, "She will need rest, time to heal, if she might. Their planet is three-quarters her waters. I have selected an island in one of their warmer seas for this reason. Its waters are not as pure or healing as Tavia's but they are not as foul as my own either. Not yet anyway. I can only pray to the god of Fate that their race is wiser than the Morians in that way." He shook his dark head, "But they do not seem to be. Ruled as much by greed as my brothers, they are rapidly following our lead, destroying the most precious things of all from which their very lives come, their land, their waters, their air and one another."
Tam pulled his mind away from the other world; he had enough to worry about with the Fates of Morian and Tavia resting upon his shoulders. He could not worry about a path that was yet to be fully selected by a people that were such distant cousins of his own race. "But you could spend many months, years even, without seeing one of their kind. The tablet contains all the information on their history if you are interested, need to know. It also contains information on their flora and fauna. It will be different, but not so different that the two of you cannot survive there."
He smiled at the man, "Oh and I added a bit of that Morian anatomy lesson on there. Just in case. Next time you won't miss the heart." He handed the man another dark metal box, "In here are tools and weapons. Not much, but enough I hope. If you are found, push this button on the tablet. It will send a warning to me and Aved."
The young man shifted her weight, winced in pain and took the items. "What about that thing? Take it off her," he said motioning towards the metal collar about her neck.
Tam shook his head. Explaining this was not going to be easy, "It cannot be taken off safely. Once a collar has bounded with her life force," he hesitated, knew that neither of them would like the truth. "The problem is not the collar. Or its power. The problem is always how that power is used."
Leamus shook his head, "That thing comes off. I will not have her hurt like that, used like that again. She would not want it."
"I understand. My people have abused their powers for hundreds of years. Used the collar to control and abuse our women, even other races that are susceptible to its powers. But the truth is that the collar was meant as a beautiful bond between two people, as physical representation of what their souls shared. It can be that again."
He sought the younger man's eyes, held his gaze. "My brother did not have her fully under his control. It is her energy alone than sings through the collar. If as I suspect you are her true mate, it will be easy for you to find that music, for your soul to capture it and amplify it. Until as the prophesy says...two hearts sing as one."
He watched the younger man shake his head, saw the same denial rising up in him that he had since they met. Why did the boy not see? His words said one thing, but his every action another. They spoke of his true feelings, devotion of a true mate. How could he make him see that? The woman's life depended upon it. Quite possibly all their Fates as well.
He felt her soft hand upon his arm. His throat tightened as he looked at her. As he realized that the young man was not the only one that fought his destiny. His path was no easier, her heart closed to him even as her body sought even the slightest touch with him.
