Stealing Shiloh Read online

  “I’m good, Cryk. Great, in fact.”

  “Let’s keep moving,” Trov commands.

  I turn back and take a final look at the boulder, the rock that almost cost me my life. It stands still like a statue, awaiting its next victim. I’m just glad it won’t be me in its path again.

  Trov leads the way down the narrowing trail towards—you guessed it—another door. The hissing and potent smell of sulphur heightening.

  “Brace yourselves,” Trov snarls. “We do not know what lies beyond.”

  I want to tell him that I’ve actually picked up on a few things, but it would only lead to more questions and less progress. So I slam my lips shut and march towards the door. When our feet connect with the threshold, the door swings inward, allowing us passage.

  The hissing crescendo becomes almost unbearable, reminding me of what a pit filled with thousands of slithering parfyn flicking their tongues and snapping their jaws might sound like. When Nul passes through, the door slams shut behind us, and a green mist fills the room. I recognize it immediately.

  Xandix.

  An airborne poison so deadly that without the proper antidote, inhalers of the poison find themselves lifeless within a few hours. The hissing climaxes in a cacophony of noise as the green poison fills our lungs. I slam my hand to my ears, waiting for the sound to abate.

  As quickly as it came, the mist clears and the hissing halts, leaving us in an unnerving silence.

  “What was that?” Cryk questions after a coughing fit.

  “Xandix, a poison so potent that it will kill us within a few hours to a few minutes depending on potency unless—”

  “Unless what?” Trov interrupts.

  I level him with a shut the vekk up glare. “Unless…we can make an antidote.”

  Nul must have realized what it was, because he’s already scurrying about the room, looking for ingredients to the anti-xandix.

  My eyes dart around the area. Now that the mist—and my mind—have cleared, I see that we’re in some kind of makeshift laboratory. Cabinets line the upper walls, embedded into the rock and filled with deadly liquids. Roots and plants grow on the far wall, some alive and wiggling, reaching for us with their snapping petals. A roaring fire heats the space in the middle of the room, making it even more difficult to breathe through the smoke it’s putting out.

  A coughing fit takes me as my lungs battle the poison, but I swallow down the burn and focus.

  I have to save us.

  I have to do this, to win our mate.

  Finding my resolve, I turn to Trov. “Find me a crucible or a cauldron. Something I can mix ingredients in that can withstand high heat.”

  He nods. “On it.”

  I see Cryk looking around, frustrated and unsure. “Cryk,” I shout, grabbing his attention. “Help Nul extract ingredients from the plants.”

  “You got it,” he answers, before going to Nul’s aid. As General of Agriculture, Nul is in his element, but I can’t appreciate his skill at the moment. Right now, I have to hone my own ability.

  Opening up the far left cabinet, I scan the items beyond. I grab a bottle of ularic acid and carefully set it on a table near the fire. Next, I snatch a long fang hanging from a wall, careful to keep its tip away from me. The fang once belonged to a wokkren and is filled with vranyx, an anti-venom in this case, even though it is a venom itself.

  “I’ve got some kind of kettle,” Trov calls, holding up a dark basin as I set the fang next to the bottle of acid.

  “Great job. Place it directly on the fire,” I order, pointing to the flames. Knowing Trov won’t argue with me, I turn away from him and pull open drawer after drawer, searching for anything I might need. I grab a handful of cornif seeds and blood from a rare vantom bird.

  “Nul, do you have the fizylebree?” I ask, as my lungs forget to expand and the wheezing begins. I struggle to breathe, the air seeming as far away as my future mate as the world darkens.

  “Don’t you vekking pass out!” Trov roars, stomping over. He slaps my face, pulling me back from the brink of dark oblivion.

  “Thanks,” I mutter, and swallow down the burn in my throat.

  “Almost… Got it!” Nul exclaims with a shout. “The barbs nearly got me, and the petals had several rows of teeth, but here it is.” Nul deposits pollen buds into my open palm.

  “I think that’s everything,” I comment more to myself than the others. “Let’s make us an antidote, shall we?”

  First, I take the ularic acid and unstopper it. I find nothing to measure the amount needed, so I estimate as best as I can. I’m a perfectionist, so this wouldn’t normally be much of an issue, but with the poison infecting my body and exhaustion taking its toll, my steady hand has become a shaking mess.

  The acid hisses and steams when it hits the heated basin. I wait for it to bubble before adding the next ingredient. Taking a bakket, I use the side of the blade to crush the cornif seeds, then I drip the liquid from within into the mixture. Each drop sizzles when it connects with the acid. I grab the blood next and remove the stopper, then I find a syringe and draw the blood inside. “Put exactly seven drops into the basin,” I tell Nul, handing him the syringe. He nods, taking it from me. “Exactly seven. No more, no less.”

  “G-Got it,” he stammers.

  I grab the wokkren fang and a small bowl. Setting the tip in the bowl, I get to work. Like a human woodcarver, I use my bakket to shave off the venomous tip, ensuring each piece is almost the exact same size. I hand the bowl to Cryk. “Pour these in, one at a time, but do not touch them.”

  He takes the bowl from my outstretched hand as I get to work on the pollen. Narrowing my eyes, I line my bakket up with each pod and slice down the middle, just enough to open the pod, but not enough for its contents to expel.

  Gingerly, I pluck them up one by one and set them in my palm, careful to keep the innards upright.

  “Watch out,” I call, turning and heading to the basin. I look inside and see the colour is almost perfect, swirling black from the blood and cornif seeds.

  I knock the first pollen pod into the mix. It sizzles and sinks into the dark blend. I add the second, and a third, watching and waiting for the final presentation to let me know it’s done.

  “Just one more,” I whisper to myself, allowing the final pod to roll off my hand. It floats down to the mix. The moment it sinks below the crest of the murky depths, the antidote begins to bubble. The once dark black liquid turns bright blue.

  “It’s ready,” I announce. “Now we just need to get it into our bloodstream.”

  Cryk whips out a bakket. “I’ll go first.”

  “Not like that,” I choke out, as my lungs give way once again to a ferocious series of coughing. “It—” Cough. “It needs to be injected.”

  Cryk looks around. “How the vekk are we going to do that?”

  Nul slumps to the ground, his head held up only by his hands. He doesn’t have long.

  Think, Joss, think…

  I rub my temples, then pace the perimeter of the room. The plant area catches my eye and a notion pops into my head. “I’ve got an idea. It’s a long shot, but I think it might work.”

  “I’ll take a long shot over no shot,” Cryk croaks through a fit of wheezing.

  Heading over to the mavryn plant, I gauge how best to do this. The mavryn has eyes, four of them to be exact, and it watches my every move. A petal mouth opens and closes as I near, snapping at me, waiting to eat its next victim.

  I feign left and grab right, my fingers clenching under its chomping mouth. Yanking, I pull it free from its watery home and plop its roots inside the antidote. The plant screeches as the burning mix fills its roots. When its petals turn blue, I know it’s ready and I remove the plant and head to Nul. His head is lolling to the side, his eyes vacant and unseeing.

  “This is going to hurt,” I warn, before pushing the mavryn’s maw in front of Nul’s heart. It does what mavryns do.

  It bites.

  Nul screams, w
aking from his stupor. I watch as the mavryn drains its blue colour inside him. Nul’s scales flare as the antidote floods his blood.

  Knowing he’s cured, I stick my fingers around the mavryn’s teeth and extract it from Nul’s chest. Repeating the process, I cure Cryk and Trov, but I find I don’t have the energy to cure myself.

  I slump to the ground, my eyelids feeling heavy, limbs unresponsive.

  I try to plead, “Help me,” but my words get lost in my wheezing. Frantic, muffled voices penetrate my ears, except they sound so far away.

  They must have left me.

  I come to terms with their abandonment. I’d want them to survive this and send positivity to them.

  Then comes the pain.

  A sharp, stinging, excruciating pain.

  My howls catch in my closed throat, and my eyes fly open. My vision pieces back together, and my hearing heals. I look down at the source of the pain and see a mavryn’s maw chewing into my flesh.

  It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

  My Klan is crowded around me, wearing smiles on their faces as if they’ve just received the best gift Oxious could offer.

  “You did it!” Cryk rejoices, gripping my shoulder. “You saved us, Joss!”

  “I did?” Memories of exacting the same treatment on my Klan mates filter through the receding fog in my mind. “I did!” I clench my fists and roll my shoulders as feeling returns to my limbs. I take a deep breath and enjoy the expansion of my lungs. “Well, what the vekk are we waiting for?” I ask, standing up and turning to face them, grinning. “Don’t we have a mate to claim?”

  Five

  Nul

  I’m sandwiched between my Klan mates as we head through the next door, and I wince at that. They shouldn’t have to worry about babysitting me. I didn’t mean to freeze with the boulder. It just happened, like always. I overthink it, imagining every scenario and outcome and discarding plans that will and won’t work. Vekk, I even see the percentages of the likelihood of surviving like floating numbers in colour before me.

  It makes me good in battle, unstoppable actually, and where my Klan enjoys it—the blood and the fighting, which yes, I do enjoy too—I prefer the victory more. Knowing I have circumvented every possible bad outcome and handpicked the one that will help us win makes me feel incredible. I can almost see each warrior’s move before it happens, and in that split second, I know best how to win that fight. It’s a blessing and a curse, and sometimes makes me weak. My Klan never says that, but they have to think about it.

  I know I would if I were in their shoes.

  We all have our own strengths, I’m aware of that, but I should have never put Joss and me in danger like that. It was vekking stupid, and if we make it through this test, I will no doubt overthink and remember it for the next week or so, wishing I could have changed it. Lying awake at night, recalling what happened and being embarrassed, my failures haunting me like a recurring nightmare. My mind never switches off.

  Like now, I should be concentrating on the next room, but instead, I’m considering all the things I should have done in the previous task.

  As we pass under the arched stone door, which is darkened on the other side, Joss claps me on the shoulder from behind and gives me a reassuring squeeze. Out of our Klan mates, I am closest to him. While Trov and Cryk are outgoing and strong, we rely more on our minds. This mutual sharing of intelligence makes us close, so I know he did that as a gesture of forgiveness, telling me that we are okay. It settles me enough to concentrate on the next test, because they are getting harder and harder. We are going to need to give a hundred percent into each and every obstacle we face.

  The chance to show my Klan and my mate just how useful I can be makes me stand taller and stride with more confidence. If I can’t be useful, I don’t deserve her.

  And I want to.

  Deserve her, that is. I want someone to share my life with, to sit and talk to into the late hours of the night, to share my work and hobbies. To see her beautiful human face light up as I show her the wonders of the worlds and universes at our fingertips. I catch Joss’s eye and know he is thinking the same, that we are getting closer to our mate. To a chance at happiness, if only we can survive what is to come.

  The door slams shut behind us, making me jump and swallow. Breathing out slowly, I calm my racing heart and look around. Trov is striding into the empty room without any fear at all. Cryk lounges against the black rocky wall and waits to see if he dies. Joss is frowning, his eyes pulling down as he looks around for the next threat, the next test.

  I stand close to the entrance, waiting and watching, not wanting to step on any traps or trigger anything. Trov reaches the middle of the expansive cavern. It stretches on as far as my eyes can see, fading into darkness. As we walk, I can tell the ground is sloping upward, the rocks under my shoes slippery and jagged.

  One thing is for sure.

  We’re vekking climbing this thing. But so far, nothing is happening.

  Nothing protrudes out of the walls, nothing chases us, not even a noise sounds as Trov treads none too carefully across the room. I take a step after him, then still when the smell hits me, followed by a faint sound, a slithering, growing. One I’ve heard every day, the hiss and stretching of leaves as they burst from their roots, making me feel at home for a moment.

  “Stop!” I demand, and they all do, looking back at me then around as I tilt my head and listen. “Something’s growing,” I murmur.

  “Growing? How terrifying,” Cryk jokes. I throw him a glare, so he mimes zipping his lips.

  “I hear it too,” Joss adds, as it gets louder and louder until, suddenly, buds burst from the rock. Each gap and crevice overflows with life. It only takes seconds, a process which can take up to four sun rotations. I watch in awe as a jungle appears around us. Plants of every species and variety push together and stretch into the air. There are some that belong in cold climates, and some that thrive where it’s warm. Several species are so rare and hard to grow that it can only be done in a lab…so how are they here?

  And why?

  “Poisonous?” Joss inquires as I step towards them, stroking across the fur leaf of the ashwon plant, it lights up under my touch and I grin.

  “Some, not all,” I reply distractedly. My mind is blown at seeing all these uncommon and extraordinary plants. I want to study them, dissect them, and understand how they are all here, growing together. The others don’t seem to care.

  “Point out which and we leave,” Trov orders.

  “No, it won’t be that easy, something has to be here. A test of some kind,” I murmur, stepping across the floor, careful to not tread on any roots or stems.

  The hissing and growing noise has stopped at this point. The plants range from the size of my foot to as tall as the ceiling. Some are so thick that you can barely see the cave walls behind them. Everyone else is silent, so why can I hear something…

  “Vekk,” I whisper, as the noise gets rapidly louder, almost a roar now. My blood freezes in my veins when I finally recognize the sound…one I’ve only ever encountered in educational projections, but the sound, the one I am hearing now, haunted my dreams… “Run!” I scream, and turn to see my Klan. For once, they take me at my word and listen without question, sprinting towards the ramp and the unseen door I hope sits at the top, but the tall, thick overgrowth of the plants is slowing them down.

  Too slow, they are going too slow.

  I stop running, and cover my ears to block out the noise, trying to think. We won’t make it, there’s only a forty percent chance, not good enough. So we need to stop running, but then what? They will get us if we stand still, they are drawn to movement, but they can also sense heat…and blood. So no, ten percent chance of survival if we just stop.

  My eyes are locked on the struggling forms of my Klan, more and more plans are whizzing through my head until I have it—the way to win, the way to survive. Knowing what to do, trusting myself and the numbers with the giant, r
ed eighty percent flashing before my eyes, I step behind the thickest fenra I can find. It’s large enough to block my body and heat signature, like the tree is my own personal shield. Hopefully, it’s enough to save my Klan.

  Horror grips my insides as the black vines, the rare and deadly hubrek, burst from the ground like a serpent. A vicious mix between plant and animal, the sentient hubrek is deadly and only cares about one thing…feeding. Not many have tried to study them, they are too lethal, so what we understand about them is limited. The only two things that have been made quite clear when looking at the vast number of dead researchers who gave their lives to learn about the hubrek is that they are perfect hunters and only care about blood.

  Hubrek live in the dark, needing no light to see, and hunt from movement and scent, sensing the smallest vibrations, the tiniest droplet of blood.

  It makes this test one of the deadliest. Every warning I have ever heard about them flashes through my head, but I push them away.

  They slither across the floor, looking like thick, black vines from plants. I watch in terrified amazement as more and more pour through the cracks in the floor. They cover everything, killing every plant in their path, sucking them dry, consuming them as they stretch into the air.

  My Klan sees them and panics. Cryk tries to fly, but a hubrek vine lashes out and catches him. Black vines wrap around his ankle, holding him in mid-air. Cryk hangs there, slashing at them, growling in frustration and then in pain as they tighten around him.

  Joss is captured next, he ducks and weaves, fighting them, but one sneaks up behind him and wraps around his waist, dragging him into the air. Another hubrek vine wraps around his legs, making him immobile. But he doesn’t let that stop him, snarling and fighting against his attacker.

  Trov takes longer to subdue. After five vines wrap around his body, they finally take him down, trapping him on the floor. They slither across his body at the neck, shoulders, hips, and feet. Still, he tugs and roars in anger.