Up and Coming: Stories by the 2016 Campbell-Eligible Authors

Moon Dust

Originally published by Evolved Publishing, Edited by Philip A. Lee

Nilafay relished her stolen moments in the open air above the ocean’s surface. Today, she stretched out on the field of star lilies, letting her webbed toes spread as she absorbed the warmth of the sun. The lilies adjusted to her weight, undulating with the current to stay afloat. The five-armed creatures overlapped, creating what looked like an expanse of plants from above. Only from beneath could one see their tentacles twist and tangle in the water to absorb nutrients from the bacteria below.

A grouping like this was unusual, so dense it could hold a body half in, half out of the water. They were like her, born to live in the sea but drawn to the world above. As she lay there, the sun soaked the moisture from her pale, osmotic flesh, tightening her skin and heating her to degrees she only experienced among the star lilies while the water cooled her from below, keeping her from dehydration or sunstroke.

Adaltan’s head popped up through a small opening between the lilies. Water dripped down his bare skull, following the sharp lines of his cheeks. “What in the great wide sea are you doing up here?” He leaned forward and placed his elbows atop the lilies and widened his already large black eyes. “Trying to fry up to get out of the wedding?”

“Never.” Nilafay leaned toward his smile and stole a kiss.

Adaltan frowned and drifted away. He looked out of place above the surface. His elegant Sualwet features seemed somehow too refined for the wildness of the open sky, for a waterborne species made more sense in the darkness of the ocean. Sualwets had none of the bulk or hair of land-dwelling Erdlanders, and yet Nilafay was drawn to the surface again and again.

Nilafay leaned back, letting the back of her smooth head relax in the natural hold of the lilies. She stared up at the birds swimming through the air overhead. “It’s so peaceful up here. The quiet is what always astounds me. No pretending I can’t hear what people are saying two leagues over, no constant hum of movement. The only other place like this is the Domed City, but the streets are so crowded it hardly helps.”

“I think its eerie here. Let’s go back.”

“Oh come on. You’ve never even climbed on top.”

Adaltan narrowed his eyes at her before lifting himself out of the water and onto the lilies. It took a moment for them to redistribute and accommodate his weight. Though he swam with graceful ease, his long limbs and lithe body moved awkwardly above the lilies. “It’s so weird to feel them move under you.”

“They’ll stop as soon as you lie still.”

“You do realize you’re using a living creature as a cot.”

“If it were a problem, they’d have developed stingers to keep us off.”

“What about the Erdlanders? Don’t you worry about them seeing you?”

“We’re too far from the shore. And even if they did see me, I could dive back underwater and swim home before they could even do anything. They’re so painfully slow. It’s hard to believe we haven’t won the war yet.”

“You don’t know much about war.” Adaltan tightened his jaw and closed his eyes. When he looked back at her, his luminous black irises sparkled with moisture.

“I miss Alkatan, too.” She placed a hand on his arm.

This time he didn’t pull away. The memory of his brother, fallen in battle with the land-crawling Erdlanders, must have weakened his defenses. As much as Nilafay didn’t want to overstep, she was glad for the contact.

“If he were here, you’d be marrying him instead of me.” Adaltan’s voice carried an unexpected sadness.

“Only if they made me. If Father asked, I’d have chosen you.”

“Sometimes I’m glad he’s gone, just so I could have you.”

She squeezed his arm. “You’re glad to be marrying me; you aren’t glad your brother died. They are different things.”

“Are they?”

“If Father had told me to marry Alkatan, I would have come straight to tell you and we would have run away together. We could swim out beyond the coral reef and follow the narwhals to faraway continents not yet swallowed by the sea.”

“We could raid Erdlander ships for supplies and build a home out of a giant squid’s cave.” His smile spread as they contemplated adventure.

“You’d battle him for the territory, earning me as your bride.”

He reached for her, and it was as if the star lilies floated closer, bringing their bodies within reach. “I love you, Nilafay.”

“And I you.”

He placed a tentative hand on her hip and pulled her closer. His fingers against the tight material of her bodysuit cooled the sun-heated flesh beneath. “When we marry, you’ll be Nilatan.”

His breath fanned over her lips, and she inhaled the taste of him. Salty and dark.

“But you shall call me Nila,” she whispered.

He sucked in a breath and his full black eyes dipped to her lips.

“And I shall call you Adal.”

As his name fell from her tongue, he reached forward, pulling her tight against the length of his body, and pressed his lips against hers.

The intimate names and forbidden kiss sent shockwaves through Nilafay’s nerves. The movement of the living creatures below them seemed to dance with their unspent passion. They kissed, and Adaltan wrapped his long, lithe arms around her, bringing her flush against his chest. She’d never been kissed before, never been held so close and precious.

He pulled away, and Nilafay whined, wrapping a hand around the back of his smooth skull. “Not yet.”

“We have to go, sweet Nila.”

“I just want to stay here.” She rolled away from him onto her back and stared up at the sky. “The clouds move together like schools of fish. They dance in and out of patterns that make my mind dream of distant shores.”

Adaltan laughed. “My mother warned me you were a poet.” He took her hand and rolled into the water, dragging her beneath the surface.

Nilafay squealed as the long-reaching tentacles of the star lilies swept across her face, wrapping their silken fingers around her ears.

Underwater, Adaltan was even more beautiful, his dark eyes unusual even for a Sualwet, his long, lean body fluid as he moved through the water. He drifted away from her backwards, barely appearing to move as he flowed with the slight current.

“Time to get back to reality,” he said. “You have a party to prepare for.” His voice sang across the distance between them, carried to her ears on a channel of warm water. He winked, his pale skin appearing to shimmer in the sunlight before he darted away, back toward the Domed City.

Despite her delight over their impending marriage, she dreaded the evening’s engagement party. Her mother had arranged for other despotic families from outside the Domed City to attend. Even her distant cousin, Rustifay, who currently held the highest position in the Sualwet Parliament below the prime minister, would be there.

Her idea of a celebration differed greatly from her mother’s.

Nilafay would rather dance on the seafloor and swim with the narwhals. She’d rather go on an expedition journey for her honeymoon than be sequestered until her next egg-laying to see if any would hatch. As much as she fantasized about her time alone with Adaltan, the idea that she’d be locked away from the world until she produced a viable hatchling felt old fashioned and unfair.

The low numbers of children among the Sualwet had led the despotic class to cling even harder to the old ways. But instead of what used to be only a few weeks of confinement that should produce multiple children, she had friends who had been sequestered for months with no results. A worm of worry wriggled in her belly. What if her eggs never hatched? Would Adaltan leave her to find another wife?

The water cooled as she sank farther from the surface. Her thoughts and body weighted down with fear. Soon she had dropped to the depth of her home. She lifted the thin membrane that protected her sensitive eyes from the dryness of the surface world. The darkness of the deep came into sharp, spectacular focus. The music of the creatures that dwelled there alongside the Sualwet washed over her and called her home.

She swam along the outer homesteads, weaving through the tall seaweed. A sea slug jumped from its perch and wriggled after her for a moment before dropping back into the stalks. Eels in the distance had gathered near the entrance of the Domed City. Their bright electric sparks beckoning those who sought her home. They swam along the seeded path through the outer dwellings, a living aisle of light and welcoming.

At the entrance, she passed through the main gates and entered the airlock. The glass walls showed her the floating world outside and the gravity oriented world within. While she found passing from land to water delightful, entrance to the Domed City always left her disoriented. As the water drained away and pumped back out to the sea, she took a deep breath, pulling oxygen in through her lungs instead of through osmosis via her skin. Warm, stale air blew over her, drying her skin and clothing.

As soon as she stepped into the dryness of the city, she heard her housefille calling out.

“Nilafay,” the hushed voice carried across the air. “Where have you been? Your mother has been worried sick!” The young girl hurried over, her long skirts a symbol of her low status and servitude.

“Serishee, calm yourself.” Even though they were only a year apart, the housefille’s demeanor seemed so young. “I’m here now. Come, tell me what I’ve missed while we walk.”

“There’s no time for that!” Serishee hailed a rickshaw and climbed in the back, motioning for Nilafay to join her. “To Fay Manor,” she ordered before settling back into the seat.

“Why are we in such a rush?”

The younger woman eyed Nilafay sideways and stifled a laugh behind her hand.

They traveled in silence, sitting together but with the customary space between them that all Sualwets maintained except with family. It was so rare to be touched. Perhaps that was why so many of her people loved being out in the sea so much: the feel of the water against flesh was like an embrace.

Nilafay closed her eyes. The artificial atmosphere of the Domed City dried her out, and already she longed to be back in the water. The smooth rocking of the rickshaw almost reminded her of floating on the surface, but the bumps in the artificial road jolted her out of her fantasy.

She clasped her hands together and tried to recall each touch she and Adaltan had shared. They were so few, and she longed for each moment they would share together once they were married. It seemed an eternity between when they’d been betrothed and when their wedding would finally occur.

The rickshaw passed by the fountain in the center of the city before weaving its way back through the residential area. At the end of a long drive, Nilafay’s home shimmered against the nearly black sea that resided behind the south wall. Having a property at the edge of the wall elevated her family’s status. Not only did her father run the Domed City’s government, but her home backed up to the best view.

From her bedroom the view extended past the drop-off and into the deep. Fish and other creatures whose ancestors hadn’t seen the surface in hundreds of years flashed in the darkness. It reminded her of the night sky far above.

As soon as the girls stepped inside the grand hall, Nilafay’s mother swept out from the back rooms. She wore the ceremonial dress for the mother of the bride. A low-slung belt with links of pearls draped around her hips and dangled to the floor. On top, draped across her breasts, she wore a tight band of cloth decorated with matching pearls and quartz from the Sualwet mines.

“You’re late.” Her mother’s scowl struck Nilafay like a slap in the face.

“There’s time. It’s not like I have to do much to get ready.”

Her mother’s face darkened, and the corners of her lips dipped impossibly low, making her look like grouper or a ladyfish.

Nilafay bowed her head and hurried up the curved marble staircase to her rooms. She’d grown up in this house, but she hated it. Her parents maintained all the trappings of above-water status—trinkets and decorations that would be stolen by the tide if they lived outside the walls of the city—and yet they never used any of it. As a child she had to be careful with everything she touched, every movement she made. Those possessions were more precious than her childhood.

This was one of the many reasons she couldn’t wait to leave home. Adaltan already secured a place for them within the city walls but nearer to the entrance. Her parents disliked the lower status of the location, but she imagined they secretly expected they would move back in with them before too long and were simply humoring their youth.

In her room, she stripped off her bodysuit and stepped into the shower. It felt so strange to bathe after being in the water, but residual sea salt speckled her pale skin. She rinsed quickly, running her hands over her smooth head and hairless body to wash away the outside world.

Once she’d bathed and dried, she sat at the dressing table in her room and reached for the powder her mother had given her. The container of finely crushed pearls reeked of decadence and waste, but Nilafay knew better than to fight back over her appearance. Soon she’d be married and out from under her parents’ thumb, able to come and go as she pleased.

Her lips tingled as she remembered the exhilarating press of Adaltan’s mouth against hers.

She opened the powder and applied it to her head, lips, and face until she glowed like the bioluminescent algae that danced near the shoreline. Once the crushed pearls blended down to her neckline, she looked like she were rising out of the sea, her face shining in the moonlight. She applied black ink harvested from the octopus farm around her eyes, making sure to get it on the tables of her eyes so the large black irises loomed, threatening to take over her entire face.

The effect was stunning. Even she couldn’t deny the otherworldly effect the makeup had on her appearance as she stared at her reflection. She truly felt like the lady her mother had always tried to shape her to be.

Naked and painted, she removed her traditional jewels from the drawer and stood up. The long chains wrapped over her right shoulder and hung down to the opposite hip where they attached to a belt, much like her mother’s. However where her mother’s had been decorated with pearls, Nilafay’s were covered in rare obsidian. The effect of her pale, naked flesh beneath the links of silver and black completed her transformation from girl to bride.

As she looked at her reflection, her mother opened her door. “You look quite lovely, Nilafay.”

Her mother’s formal voice pulled her attention. When had she stopped being “Nila” to her family? When had she stopped being a child? The withdrawal of affection had happened so slowly that now she had difficulty remembering it ever having been there.

“Thank you, Mother. As do you.”

“Come then, if you’re ready. Your father is already at the square.”

They walked side by side, but not touching, down the stairs and out to the waiting rickshaw.

Serishee hovered nearby, her excitement barely contained. “Exquisite!” she squealed, hands fluttering at her sides. The long skirts flowed around her in ripples.

Nilafay smiled, but her mother ignored the girl completely, stepping up into the waiting seat and beckoning her daughter to join her.

Once Nilafay climbed inside, Serishee draped a dark cloth over the passenger part of the vehicle, and the driver pedaled them away.

Nilafay wiggled her toes, the thin webbing between them pulling gently with her movement, grounding her in this body. Otherwise she feared she would float away and swim through the air of the city as she did in the sea. She felt like a pufferfish, swelling with excitement until its body expanded to its limit.

“Try to stay calm tonight,” her mother said as the rickshaw stopped.

Nilafay’s heart dropped.

The cloth covering them was removed from the outside, and when she stepped out of the seat, the world glittered around her. The fountain at the center of town had been completely redecorated since she’d been there earlier in the day. Lights trailed in the air between the buildings, sparkling and reflecting her elation.

Her mother wouldn’t ruin tonight for her. No Sualwet dictum of sedate behavior would dampen her joy. The street was filled with people she’d known all her life and many she didn’t recognize, dressed in all manner of styles. Tables lining the edges were filled with succulent foods and wine. Even musicians were setting up to play. Soon perhaps there would be dancing. Nilafay felt like the princess in her childhood tales. She was Misula spinning in the whirlpools with Tritan. She was the Goddess of the Deep birthing all life from the bottom of the sea.

Just as she imagined she couldn’t rise any higher, Adaltan stepped toward her from the other side of the carriage. His gaze washed over her, and she gravitated toward him with the undertow of his adoration. His black eyes blazed behind the ink painted around them. His chest and head had been powdered to match hers, and black fabric decorated with pearls covered his waist.

As soon as she came within reach, he took her fingers in his own. “Nila. My gods, you are beautiful.”

His whispered words soothed the angry pounding of her heart, making her lightheaded at the sound of her private name on his lips. She wanted to reach up and kiss him, feel the skin of his bare chest against her, and wrap herself around him until they were one.

Her father’s low grunt broke the spell, and she dropped his fingers from hers.

They wouldn’t touch again until the end of the evening, until after her father had given his speech and the dancers had performed. Not until the food had been eaten and the wine was almost gone. Only then would the couple be presented to the crowd together, to stand side by side and be announced. For the purposes of the public, this would be their wedding, the official joining of the Fay and Tan households. For Nilafay and Adaltan, though, tomorrow would be the real day of their nuptials.

At the end of the night, Nilafay sneaked away from her parents and met Adaltan in an alley behind the musicians.

“You could not be more radiant if the ruby moon shone down directly on you.” He whispered, winding an arm around her waist. The skin of his palm pressed against the small of her back, and her strength wavered. For a moment the world spun as if she were caught in a riptide, tumbling head over feet out into the deep.

She closed her eyes and let her body drift toward his cool touch. When their chests touched, the chains draping her torso the only thing separating them, his grip tightened.

She placed her hands on his cheeks and stared at all the unimaginable love he gave her so freely. “My beloved, Adal. Tomorrow I’ll be completely yours.”

She placed a chaste kiss on his lips and pulled away. The magnetic pull between them drew her back, but she knew that if she stayed, she’d never leave his embrace.

“Tomorrow,” he growled, his voice lower than usual.

Nilafay always woke before anyone else in her house. She wondered if Adaltan woke early or if he’d sleep through her morning antics once they lived together. Her wedding was coming that very night, and after the touch they’d shared, she couldn’t be more ready.

That morning, instead of listening to music on the tonifier or rushing to eat so she could get to classes, she pulled on a bodysuit and sneaked out of the house before anyone could notice. She needed to feel the sun on her face. No one else understood her fascination with the world above. All they thought of when they imagined the land were Erdlanders.

Nilafay had no interest in the hair-covered hominids who lived above the surface. She’d never seen one and never wanted to. Her only interest was in the sky and the air. Sound carried completely different in the uncontained world above—none of the vibrating song of speaking in the water and not the flat, dead sound of the city.

Above, the wind breathed with life. Animals and birds filled her senses, and the warmth of the sun felt unlike anything she’d ever experienced beneath the water. Sualwets were cold in body and soul, and when the sun shone down on her, working its way into her body, into her very cells, she felt like it was putting her back together. As if something had been missing until it kissed her face.

Instead of heading back to the star lilies, Nilafay swam closer to the coast and waded out of the water right onto the shore. She’d never been there before, never dared come to land, but today she would be married and sequestered for gods knew how long. She wanted one secret thing that would belong only to her, something for her alone to hold on to.

She lay in the sand, feeling each grain as it pressed against the thin material of her bodysuit. The clouds moved above, swaying in lazy patterns that sparked her imagination. Before long, she fell asleep, the warmth of the sand mirroring the sun’s, pulling her into a safe embrace.

When she woke, someone was sitting next to her. She didn’t open her eyes but rather felt the presence, the small movements of another body shifting the sand. The smell clearly signaled this was not a Sualwet. Rank and foul, it reeked of compost and dirt.

Fear surged through her body, sending her heart into a panic.

“I can tell you have awoken,” the person beside her spoke in guttural, disjointed Sualwet. “I am not here to hurt you. Please, sit with me.”

He did not move while she weighed what to do next. To acknowledge this person would be to interact with what had to be an Erdlander man, a proscribed act which could easily land her in jail. But refusing to acknowledge him struck her as a foolish way to deal with the situation.

She opened her eyes and turned to face the stranger. His head and chin were coated with hair, as she’d read of his people. It had been trimmed short. He was older and his body bent forward over his knees. She felt no threat. In fact, he appeared almost comical with his loose-fitting clothing and furry appearance.

She sat up.

“My name is Rhine,” he said. “Dr. Rhine.”

She nodded and narrowed his eyes at him.

“I will not hurt you, if that’s what you worry about. You are not the first Sualwet I’ve met. I’ve had many Sualwet friends.”

Her breath escaped her. She’d never heard of a Sualwet meeting with an Erdlander for any reason other than war.

“You don’t believe me.” He smiled and his teeth glimmered. Despite the fur, his manner reminded her of her father for a brief moment. The way he once used to be, when he called her Nila and held her on his lap, talking or reading to her for hours.

“I’ve simply never heard of such a thing,” she said.

He tilted his head at her. “I’m sorry. What did you say?”

“I’ve never heard of Sualwets and Erdlanders being friends.”

“Ah, well, it has happened. I’ve been lucky to meet many kind Sualwets.”

“Is that how you learned to speak?”

“Yes, and I studied very hard.”

“Your accent is strange and off-putting.”

He laughed a loud, offensive sound that set her teeth on edge. “Well, it’s not my first language. I was raised speaking Erdlander.”

The way he pronounced his race sounded like he had shells grinding and smashing together in his mouth as he spoke.

“Would you like to see beyond the beach? I’d be happy to show you the wonders of my country.”

His offer tempted her. She often swam far past the boundary of her father’s permission. Even lying atop the star lilies would be a scandal below. But to walk on land, under the heat of the sun? It was unheard of, and consorting with an Erdlander was completely against the laws of her people. “Yes, I’d quite enjoy that.”

Dr. Rhine’s smile lit his eyes like the twinkling esca lure of a deep-sea anglerfish.

They stood, Nilafay unfolding easily, while the Erdlander grunted and leaned on his thigh to straighten.

“Will it be safe?” she asked.“ Erdlanders do not much like Sualwets.”

“We’ll keep away from the city. But I’d love to show you the forest, and perhaps my home. You might like to see the gardens.”

“You have gardens?”

“Yes, dear girl.” He walked toward the line of trees separating the beach from the dark forest beyond. “But instead of seaweed or the stalky vegetation you grow, we have flowers of every color and vegetables that grow as tall as me.”

Nilafay felt the ground change beneath her webbed feet. The silken sand grew hard and rough, its grains growing into painful pebbles. The sparse trees thickened, becoming larger, closer together, and more menacing. “Perhaps I should return.”

Dr. Rhine frowned. “No, dear girl. You should not.”

Terror seized her stomach. She looked around her and realized she had followed him far enough into the thicket that she could no longer tell which way the sea lay. “Where are we?”

“Where we have always been. We are at war!”

Her panic soared.

Large, hairy bipeds in dark clothing stepped out from behind trees and rushed toward her.

Nilafay ran.

She ran through the densely packed trees, grinding her sensitive feet against the ground. Tears built behind the membrane covering her eyes and distorted her vision. The sun hid above the canopy of leaves to darken the terrain. She stumbled and fell, slicing her hand on a sharp rock. The yelp of pain slipped past her lips before she could bite it back. The next thing she knew, rough, dry hands grabbed her arms, and a loud shout assaulted her ears.

A painful whack struck the back of her head, and she tumbled into darkness.

Darkness slipped into pain with ease. For Nilafay, it felt like the two belonged together. The dark was so complete she could have been at the bottom of the Drop, only her and the prehistoric monsters that dwelled in those primordial depths.

The pressure against her body was wrong though: her lungs inflated with oxygen instead of absorbing it through her flesh. Dry air breezed across her skin leaving her parched.

Her eyes flitted open—only a spark at first, the light a fresh new attack on her senses. It flashed to her brain, reigniting the painful throb she had thought couldn’t get any worse.

“Where am I?” she squeaked out over a thick, dry tongue. Her words sounded scratchy.

“Ah, you’re awake.”

A large, warm hand touched her head. The intimacy of the contact repulsed her. She tried to shift away from it but couldn’t move.

“Shhh, don’t pull now. You’ve been strapped down to keep you from hurting yourself when you wake up. Give yourself a minute to adjust. You’re fine.”

“Where am I?”

“At my home, just as we discussed.”

Nilafay forced her eyes open, squinting until her vision adjusted to the glaring light. Dr. Rhine stood next to her, his large hand still atop her head, his other resting next to her on the strange bed she’d been strapped to. Her legs and arms were immobilized, her head held down with a strap across her forehead. The restraints were tight and bit into her flesh.

“What happened?”

“I’m afraid you stumbled into something you had no idea about. I don’t think you ever intended to be a traitor, but that is what you now are. You are here to aid the efforts of the Erdlander people. Dear girl, we owe you a debt of gratitude.”

“No.” She pulled against the straps, desperate to wiggle loose from her confinement. “I’m not helping you. I need to get home.”

“That’s not possible. You came to us, remember? You came on our land and entered our forest.”

“I thought you were a friend.”

“I am! I’ll keep you safe from the death we’ll be delivering to your people, and I’ll help you fulfill your destiny. You see, we’ve had a series of disappointments with our other test subjects.”

He gestured across the room, and Nilafay turned to look. Along the wall were a row of cages. In each one, a Sualwet man sat chained. One met her eyes, pain and fury in his gaze. Another appeared to be sleeping—or dead, she feared.

“Our females simply could not conceive after your male’s genetics were introduced,” Dr. Rhine continued. “Even the eggs we extracted and attempted to inseminate directly were dead ends. Those that became fertilized grew, but none survived long enough to take a breath. You see, dear Nilafay, what we required, was a Sualwet woman and access to her eggs.”

“You want Sualwet children?”

“Oh no, we want Erdlander children who possess some of your better Sualwet characteristics.” He stood up and walked to her feet, forcing her to look down her body to see him. She had been stripped of her bodysuit, but a thin sheet covered her. “Our aim is to create a stronger, hardier race of Erdlanders who can succeed us when we’re gone. A race who will finally obliterate the Sualwet from the sea.”

Nilafay’s mind spun. He wanted Sualwet children who would kill Sualwets? Did he expect her to mate with one of the men in the cage? His words, spoken in his harsh accent, didn’t make sense.

“When can I go home?”

Her question was answered with laughter. “Oh, certainly not anytime soon. We’ll need to wait for your body to give us enough eggs to fertilize and incubate.”

Dr. Rhine turned to a man sitting at a table near her. She hadn’t noticed him before, but his features were strong and handsome. No facial fur distorted his appearance.

Rhine spoke in his abrasive foreign tongue quickly and loudly. She couldn’t tell if he was scolding the man, but his companion did not appear submissive. Instead, this man nodded and replied, his own words sounding more like the scraping of a rickshaw under the weight of an indulgent Sualwet.

The assistant handed Rhine a syringe.

“This should stimulate your body to produce more eggs than usual,” Rhine told her.“ Our scientists have been studying Erdlander female cycles and believe the same medication will work on you.”

Nilafay struggled as he plunged the syringe into her arm muscle, the contents burning as he emptied it into her veins. The straps holding her in place tightened against her as she tried to pull away.

“In a few days,” Rhine said, “we’ll be able to extract them and begin our work. Until then, we’ll make sure to keep you comfortable.”

He handed the syringe back to the man at the table, and after a few more moments of their awful talk, Dr. Rhine returned his focus to her. “Nilafay, this is my assistant, Dr. Vaughn. He’s going to unstrap you and settle you in to your new”—he paused and gave a wicked smile—“accommodations.” He gestured to the cages and placed his hand on her bare foot.

She tried to pull back, but the strap holding her leg in place forced her to suffer the touch.

“You behave.” He squeezed her foot, and she bit back a growl.

When Dr. Rhine left, the other man approached her. The first thing he did was undo the strap holding her head in place. As soon as it was removed, she attempted to sit up, only to find another strap around her ribs.

“Please, let me go. I have to get home.”

Dr. Vaughn’s heavy brows lifted, scrunching the skin between his eyes and hairline. He looked so strange with all that head fur, like he was weighted down so he didn’t bounce to the surface.

He pointed to himself. “Vaughn.”

A tear broke through the gap between the membrane over her eyes and the world.

He pointed to her. “Nee-la.”

She shook her head, more tears falling. Hearing her private name fall mutilated from his lips was almost more than she could bear. She wanted Adaltan. Her Adal. He was the only one who should ever speak that name.

“Steell now,” he said before unstrapping the restraint over her chest. “Steell, pleese.”

She nodded and held still, her body rigid, desperate to flee while she forced it to stay in place and wait. Once he undid all her restraints, she could use everything she had to break away from this horrible place. The bright lights still burned her eyesight, and tortured Sualwet eyes gazed at her from behind cage doors.

She would run, find her way to the ocean, and get home. She would tell her father of this horrid place, and he would rise from the sea and avenge all those who had been wronged here. She would marry Adal and have the life she’d always dreamed of, one free from her father’s control. She would forge her own life but heed her father’s warnings more closely now. She’d obey his rules about Erdlanders from now on, even if it meant not returning to the star lilies.

Those beautiful moments of peace beneath the sun and the more rare, sacred nights under the ruby moon—they all seemed so far away.

When Vaughn undid the final strap, she launched off the table and ran toward the door. Her legs were weak, the gravity strong. It felt like the earth was trying to swallow her whole. Since she lived in the Domed City, her muscles were more used to walking than swimming, but the weight of her body never crushed her down like this.

She stumbled and reached out for something to hold onto. The door looked so close, but as she made a final lurch forward, she fell to the ground.

“Don’t,” Vaughn said from behind her. He approached the cage nearest to where she lay, and opened the door. “Een.”

His Sualwet hardly resembled the actual language. He distorted the words with his oversized tongue so much that she barely understood. But when he nodded to the door he held, waiting for her to enter the prison he clearly intended to be her new home, she had no difficulty following his meaning.

“No.” She shook her head and lowered herself to the floor. “Gods, no. Please, let me go!”

He approached, a soft light in his eyes illuminating what she desperately hoped was kindness.

“Een.” He grabbed her ankle and dragged her across the smooth floor until she lay at the entrance.

The tears demanded release. She looked up at him, lifted the membrane covering her eyes, and let the sorrow fall. Tears fell as her dreams of the ruby moon shattered into nothing.

Vaughn crouched and reached for her face. When his hand cupped her cheek, she allowed the contact, hoping to reach any part of him that might choose kindness over imprisonment.

“Please…,” she whispered.

He leaned forward and placed dry, cracked lips against hers. Before she could react, he shoved her into the prison and locked the door.

Nights passed, one after the next. She judged it to be night when Rhine and his minions departed, leaving her and the three other captives to wallow in their grief and filth. At first, she tried to talk to her companions, but they never responded. Either they were too afraid or too broken to bother.

The eldest had dark spots on his head and deep, sallow rings under his eyes. His lips had dried and cracked, and his skin appeared so delicate and thin. Nilafay worried it might crack and all of his insides would gush out.

Her fellow captives said nothing to comfort her whenever she cried. They watched passively whenever Rhine injected her with unknown chemicals or extracted eggs from her body and placed them in Petri dishes or test tubes.

On the sixth night of her imprisonment, the old Sualwet died. His breath no longer joined the rhythmic pulse of their small group, and his heart no longer added to the unified beat.

“Jisquekai,” said the prisoner in the cage next to her, and he began humming a funeral dirge. His voice filled the horrible room, bouncing off the exam table and shelves of torture tools. The specimen jars full of half-formed offspring from the Erdlanders’ experiments rattled, and the singer’s voice rose to a tortured wail.

Nilafay and the other remaining prisoner joined in the song, adding harmonies and discords as they sang. No one slept that night. Instead she and her two living companions mourned the passing of a man who had never deigned to speak to her, even as she sobbed and pleaded for someone to tell her where they were and what the Erdlanders wanted.

As she eventually cried herself to sleep, she held her arms around her middle and wished it was Adal.

The other Sualwets had never spoken to her, and as grief for this unknown prisoner washed over her, she understood why. The depth of her pain at losing him was so immense, so overpowering, it threatened to rip her soul in two. She hadn’t known his name until the other spoke it. She had never even heard his voice except for the times Rhine or Vaughn demanded his response, usually following screams. How much more devastating would her loss have been had he shown her kindness, had they forged a bond between them?

She rocked back and forth in her cell, singing while tears slid down her cheeks. Eventually the prisoner in the adjacent cage came close to the bars separating them and reached his hand through the opening. Together, they sang, holding hands.

In the morning, they continued their song even when Vaughn arrived. He ignored them while setting up the morning’s tortures. When he noticed the body of Jisquekai, he shrugged, opened the cage, and dragged it out. Arms and legs askew, the corpse lay on the floor while Vaughn went to the door and said something to a guard.

The two Erdlanders lifted the body and placed it on the exam table.

When Vaughn stripped the body and picked up a scalpel, the prisoner beside me dropped my hand with a screech and slammed himself against the bars at the front of his cage. He screamed and cursed the Erdlander, but Vaughn ignored him. No doubt he didn’t care. He certainly didn’t understand.

Nilafay watched Vaughn slice open the body which had once contained Jisquekai. She couldn’t look away. There was a tragic lack of bleeding. His heart no longer beat, so his blood lay stagnant in his veins.

Vaughn dissected the man piece by piece, then weighed the organs and jotted notes on a pad. By the time he had finished, Nilafay felt as hollowed out as the dead man.

“Swim strong, Jisque,” she whispered.

Vaughn faced her and smiled, his hands covered in blood, his teeth bared. He made a for gruesome sight.

She backed away, huddling at the back of her cage on the small, worn mattress on the floor.

That night, the prisoner in the cage next to hers sat against the bars, their fingers intertwined as they fell asleep in silence.

Telling time became impossible. The progression of one day into the next never stopped. Rhine and Vaughn never missed a day; they never took a break. The constant march forward toward their goal wore Nilafay down, and she began to wish they would either kill her or succeed in their gruesome task.

Some nights, Vaughn stayed after the others left. He would sit before her cage and speak in his mutilated Sualwet. She would nod and smile, baring her teeth the way the Erdlanders did. Eventually, she found herself unable to tolerate listening to his garbled words any longer, and over time she began correcting his pronunciation.

One night, he told her about his life, his family. He was to be married soon, and Nilafay shared stories of Adal with him. Perhaps if he knew she was to be married too, he might understand and help her. Maybe he would let her go. Instead, he pressed his lips together and left.

Vaughn didn’t return for nine nights.

Nilafay found herself missing his company. As much as she resisted, she enjoyed their conversations. It disgusted her that she had come to rely on his presence. She hated him, hated him more for the things he did when Rhine was around, now that she had begun to believe there was some good in him. He was soft, weak, pliant. And yet, she couldn’t help but wish he’d return.

The prisoner in the adjacent cage no longer looked at her, and Jisquekai’s cage remained empty. Lately, the Sualwet on the far end barely complained when taken from his cage. He did as he was told, nothing more than a trapped animal.

On the tenth night, Vaughn finally returned. Accompanying him were two furred creatures that walked on all fours. They stood tall, their black-and-gray backs reaching his waist, and they had watery eyes, long snouts, and pointed ears. Hounds. She had heard of how ancient Sualwets had once hunted these kinds of animals for meat. The hounds wagged their long tails, and their tongues lolled out of their mouths.

Nilafay thought they looked ridiculous, but the other two Sualwets scurried to the back of their cages. Vaughn left the hounds there to snuffle at the cage doors. She reached forward, stretching out her arm to touch their strange, elongated snouts.

As her long, thin fingers approached the bars, the hound nearest her took a deep breath, a long inhale that made its nose quiver and its ears fold down along its head. A deep rumble began in its chest, vibrating up its throat as its hair stood on end.

She froze, her hand hanging in the air, almost within reach.

The sound grew louder and lower, ripping through her mind like a parasitic worm. She shook. Her body vibrated with the timbre of the animal’s growl.

It lunged forward, and Nilafay tumbled back, jerking her hand away just as sharp teeth wrapped around the bars of her cage. Hot breath shot from the beast’s nose.

Why would Vaughn do this? Why would he bring these monsters here and leave her alone with them? He never glanced her way or said a word, and her loneliness froze in her heart. What had she done wrong to drive him away?

Why did she care?

She hated the yearning in her chest when thinking of the time he’d spent speaking with her. Even in the company of two other Sualwets, she felt so alone. The walls of her cage crept closer, and the confines of the prison shrank until she could barely breathe. She inhaled deep breaths in quick succession to keep from drowning in the dry air. The room spun and her vision grayed. Gods, she felt like she would either throw up or pass out. She didn’t even know which one to pray for as long as something happened to relieve the pain in her chest.

“Sit,” the prisoner in the cage next to hers said. His voice was full of scratchy tones similar to the way the Erdlanders spoke. He was drying from the inside out, just like her. Soon they’d both be shells, fossils of bone and flesh. “Come sit here and slow your breaths.”

She sat against the bars near him, and he reached over, taking her hand in his. His cool touch helped her remember who she was, and soon she drifted to sleep.

In the morning, she awoke to Rhine’s gruff voice.

“Another jikmae failure!” He slammed his fist against the examination table, rattling the metal slab.

Vaughn replied in their gruff animal language. Nilafay hadn’t yet learned enough to follow along, but she picked out the words girl, waste, and dead.

“No, please!” she cried and slapped her hand over her mouth. She hadn’t meant to speak aloud.

The two men turned to stare at her. Vaughn’s eyes met hers, and sadness reflected back.

Rhine nodded and spoke quickly to Vaughn, gesturing with his hands. It was as if she hadn’t spoken at all, but she knew that drawing attention to herself had sealed her own fate.

Vaughn seemed to argue, standing up to the older man for the first time. He spoke in his gruff way, the words breaking off in his mouth as he chewed on them.

Rhine smiled and laid a hand on Vaughn’s shoulder, sending a glance in my direction.

Hope surged in her heart. Maybe Vaughn would save her. Maybe he would reason with Rhine on her behalf. He’d finally stood up for her.

But her hope dropped into her stomach like a boulder falling from a cliff into the sea. It turned to dread and fear as Vaughn turned away from her pleading eyes and nodded.

First, they called a guard to take the hounds away then pulled the prisoner at the end of the row of cages from his cell. When they laid the Sualwet on the table, they placed a mask over his face and gave him a shot in the arm. Nilafay watched as his body went limp. Soon his chest no longer moved with breath.

She had to look away when they sliced into his chest with a scalpel, but she could still hear the sounds of bone cracking and flesh being pulled apart. They had killed him. They’d done it on purpose, not like with Jisquekai, who had already been dead when they dissected him. This time, they sought out this prisoner’s death, brought it down with a speedy vengeance and delivered it to a man who had done nothing but suffer the entire time she had known him.

She longed to reach out for the Sualwet in the cage next to her, but she doubted he would touch her this time. She had done this, she was sure of it. Somehow she had inspired a thought in Rhine which had led to this horror. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to plug her ears against the ghastly sounds of a body being dismantled for no reason but the pleasure of her captors.

When they finished, Nilafay turned to find Vaughn staring at her, his face pale and drawn.

Rhine yanked off a pair of plastic gloves dripping with the man’s blood from his hand. The pliant material made a sucking, smacking sound as it released each finger. He said something in Erdlander and threw the gloves on the table.

Nilafay curled on her bed, hands over her ears, trying to shut out the sound of the guards coming to collect the body. It wasn’t even a man anymore, just a body.

More than anything, she missed the water. Her throat hurt, and the tears she wanted to shed for her fellow Sualwet wouldn’t come. She longed for the glimmering stars as they swam above the surface of the water, their light fading to gray the deeper she sank.

She couldn’t sink deep enough to escape the things she’d seen. No matter how many leagues she put between herself and this horror, she would never get far enough away. But she could go no farther than the confines of this small cage she could barely stand in and the scratchy fabric covering the pallet she slept on. If the stars could fade away, why couldn’t she? Why couldn’t she hide from all of this?

She wrapped her arms tight around herself and pressed her face into the mattress. The tighter she squeezed her eyes shut, the louder her heart beat. She took refuge there, counting the uneven rhythm to herself as she sobbed her dry tears.

Eventually, she fell asleep. The room faded away, and she returned to the star lilies and her private refuge. She imagined letting her legs dangle in the water to soak up all the moisture her body had grown so desperate for. The moons shone above, and the ruby moon winked with a devilish smile, mocking her fantasy. Even in her dream she knew it wasn’t real.

There was no escape for her.

She woke to a hand on her shoulder. Rhine and Vaughn must have left, and her fellow captive had reached out. She sighed and placed her hand atop his, needing the comfort so much it brought a new wave of grief to cover her heart.

“Neela?”

She turned to find Vaughn touching her shoulder, his face ashen, his eyes filled with tears of his own.

She jerked her hand away and sat up. Her chest tightened at him being so close to her, and she pulled her legs up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them protectively.

“Here.” He held out a glass of water.

She wanted to say no. She wanted to reject his kindness and refuse to even look at him. But she was weak and so thirsty, drying from the inside out. She grabbed the glass and drank the whole thing in one gulp, letting water run out the sides of her mouth. She wanted to pour it over her head, roll around in it until she’d absorbed every molecule.

“More?” he asked, taking the glass from her hand. He left her in the cage and refilled the glass in the sink across the room. The door stood open while his back was turned, but she just sat, staring at her chance for freedom, unable to move. Where would she even go? Her desperation for another simple glass of water was more pressing than even the thought of escape.

Vaughn returned, leaving the cage door open.

She took the glass from his outstretched hand and drank it down again, finally beginning to feel like she could breathe again. When she handed the cup back, he placed it on the ground and stared at her, his round eyes so full of white she imagined she could see through them.

“I’m sorry,” he said, lowering his head.

“It was horrible.”

“Horrable,” he repeated, mispronouncing the word but nodding as he said it. “I’m so sorry.” He dropped his head to his chest and began to cry the tears she’d been so desperate to shed.

She sat and watched. What should she do? She’d never seen a man cry before, not even her father. It was a waste, inefficient. She expected to hate him for it, but instead it pulled her toward him. She uncurled her legs and reached out, running her fingers through the strange hair on his head.

He looked up at her, his eyes so wet they reminded her of home. When he leaned forward, she didn’t pull back. She tolerated the touch of his hand on her cheek and the rough feeling of his fingertips as they ran down her neck and shoulder.

More than anything, she wanted to feel, to not be alone or scared or here. Anywhere but here would be better. She’d seen too much, heard too much. It was impossible for her to pretend she was still the girl who had ventured to the shore on her wedding day.

Everything she’d ever been had been obliterated.

Vaughn pressed his lips to hers. She expected to stiffen and force herself to endure the touch the way she had in the past, but instead she closed her eyes and leaned into him, smelling the deep, harsh scent of his body. It had become so familiar. She found it comforting now instead of repulsive as she once had.

When he opened his mouth and deepened the kiss, she reciprocated.

He moaned and leaned against her, guiding her body down to the pallet she slept on, she let it happen. She took what he offered, letting him caress her body. His tears fell on her face as he pushed into her, and she wrapped her arms around his shoulders, needing to feel. She took everything he gave and lost herself in a moment of feeling something other than fear and loss. His whispered promises of love and protection worked their way through her, unraveling all the knots she’d tied herself into.

If she had been stronger, she would have told him no. But she needed something of her own. Something beautiful and special. Something to hold on to as she broke apart.

After they finished, he fell asleep wrapped around her, and she lay deathly still, staring at the open cage door.

As Vaughn’s breathing slowed and settled into the pattern of deep sleep, she counted the bars above her and traced the pattern of her prison with her eyes.

She slipped from beneath his heavy arm and tiptoed to the entrance of the cage.

Vaughn murmured in his sleep, and she turned back. She didn’t love him, but she regretted leaving him like this. No matter what he’d said, she knew he could never free her. Even if he did release her, he’d take her to his home, forcing her into yet another prison. There was no life here for her. Her home was beneath the sea with Adal.

But her heart lurched at the thought of what she’d shared with this strange man. She could never tell anyone.

She tiptoed out into the main room and closed the cage behind her. The clank of metal on metal woke Vaughn.

“Where are you going?” he demanded sleepily.

“Home.” Nilafay placed her hand on the bars as he stood and rushed over to her. “I have to go home.”

Vaughn grabbed bars and shook them, trying to open the locked door.

She knew they were unmovable. She’d been locked within for so long that any hope for a weakness in their design had fled.

“No!” He reached out through the bars and grabbed her arm. “You can’t. I love you.”

Nilafay jerked away and squared her shoulders. “I know.” She dared a look at her fellow captive, her only friend whose name she still didn’t know. “I love you too,” she whispered to his understanding eyes, the words a final good-bye.

The Sualwet man nodded in understanding.

“You bitch!” Vaughn screamed, rattling the cage. He roared for the guards, but no one came through the door.

Nilafay watched stoically as he exhausted himself and then left without a word.

She crept to the door, opening it slowly and peeking outside. The hall was empty, and a windowed door glowed with early morning light. Her every step echoed off the walls, no matter how carefully she walked. Her heart pounded so loud she was certain she would bring the guards down on herself.

The door opened without resistance.

Could it be this easy? Could she really be escaping?

Outside, the ruby moon hung low in the sky, and she could smell the distant brine of home. No one saw her as she took off at a run, following the scent of the sea. She broke through a line of trees and stumbled. Weak, dehydrated, and so heart-heavy it seemed as though the ground itself were pulling her down, she ran.

Nilafay ran.

As soon as her feet touched the water, relief swelled within her. Her hunger and terror dissipated into the sea as she sank down below the waves. She left the pursuing men and hounds on the shore and swam harder and faster than she ever had in her life. The world around her darkened as she dove deeper, her webbed feet propelling her far below the surface.

In the water, she could hear the distant song of her people and the pulsing life of the other water-dwelling creatures. She breathed it all in, filling her body with the bliss of finally being sated. The sea welcomed her home with its warm embrace, and she willed herself to forget everything she’d seen on land. She would never tell anyone how she’d gotten away.

Vaughn would be nothing but a dream.

Nilafay swam directly for the Domed City. Upon reaching the farms along the ridge of the drop-off, she delighted in the sway of the vegetation, which reminded her that she hadn’t eaten anything that tasted like food in what felt like a lifetime. How long had she been gone? Days? Months? Would Adal still be waiting for her when she returned? Would he still want her if he knew what she’d done?

It didn’t matter. She’d survived. She’d done what needed to be done to come through a terror no one else could understand. She walled her heart off, shielding herself from pain as she prepared herself to tell her father almost everything that had happened. She wouldn’t utter Vaughn’s name, and she wouldn’t tell them about the man she left behind. That shame would be hers alone to bear.

At the perimeter of the city, dwellings spotted the sea floor. She swam through them, and familiar smells of home welcomed her back. The Domed City loomed before her, impossibly huge and imposing. Home.

At the main gates, fatigue overtook her. Her high from escaping left, and she had no strength remaining. She began floating up, unable to keep her body in place. The floor drifted away, and she pushed herself to swim, to fight. She could make it. Her body ached and resisted as she forced it to work harder, to push just this final distance. She spread her toes and swam with a flail that barely propelled her forward, but soon she reached the airlock and collapsed inside.

Sterilized air whooshed over her as she lost consciousness.

She woke in her own bed. Serishee sat next to her, holding her hand. Tears streamed down her face.

Nilafay was certain her bedroom and the housefille were a dream and that she was actually still in the cage back in Rhine’s horror chamber. Her body shook. Terror and fatigue wracked through her.

“You’re safe,” Serishee whispered, squeezing her hand.

It was the first time the girl had ever touched Nilafay. Under different circumstances, the presumptuousness of such a thing would have upset her, but she was so desperate, so broken, that she reached for the girl with her other hand and sobbed.

Serishee came to sit on the bed next to her and wrapped her arms around Nilafay’s shoulders, pulling her into her lap.

She fell back asleep, warm and finally home.

When she woke again, Serishee was gone. Nilafay sat up and searched for her in the darkened room but found her mother instead.

Mother stood at the other side of Nilafay’s room, hands clasped together in front of her. “Your father would like to speak with you if you’re feeling up to it.”

No embrace. No welcoming home. No show of concern.

Her mother showed no emotion as she watched Nilafay struggle to sit up. She simply nodded and left her daughter alone to dress.

Standing took considerable more effort than Nilafay had expected. The dehydration, hunger, and the crushing gravity of the time she’d spent above ground had affected her body in ways she couldn’t compensate for. She stumbled across her room, falling to the ground in a heap, but the impact of the floor against her knees and hands almost felt good. Solid. It placed her in the physical world instead of feeling like she floated through air, never to land again.

Her father waited in the family chamber of the house, and she followed him to his office. Despite her weakness, she sat across from him and recounted everything that had happened—almost everything, at least. The day she met Dr. Rhine, his promise to show her the world above the sea, and the tortures inflicted on her. Her father’s scowl as she recounted her coastal adventure on the day she was abducted sliced through her more brutally than anything Rhine had done.

“That’s everything?” he asked.

She nodded, biting her tongue to keep from telling him about the Sualwet she left behind as she made her escape. Guilt ate at her from the inside out, clawing to burst free so she could be absolved. But she knew there was no absolution for what she had done, and only someone who had endured the captivity and horror she had—like the abandoned Sualwet in Rhine’s lab—could ever understand the decision to leave.

“You will show me where they held you. We’ll make for the shore tomorrow.”

“So soon?” her mother spoke from the corner of the room. She’d been there the whole time, and Nilafay hadn’t even noticed her.

Father narrowed his eyes first at Nilafay and then at her mother. “War waits for no one.”

“War?” Nilafay asked. She had no taste for war after what she’d just been through. War was what justified cruelty. What would it inspire men like her father to do?

“Yes. War. We have been at war for generations, but the enemy has never resorted to something as vile as this.” Her father gestured at her and frowned. “I won’t have others endure what you’ve been subjected too. Would you?”

“No, Father.” She bowed her head. She didn’t dare ask the words sitting on the tip of her tongue. Her parents would think her foolish and selfish to be asking after a boy when war loomed on the shore, but she couldn’t stop wondering where Adaltan was. Why hadn’t he come to see her?

“Leave now. You need your rest, and I have business to attend to.” Her father turned in his chair back to his desk, the screen display of his compdisc already glowing.

Nilafay left the office without saying goodbye. Her mother followed and closed the doors on the stark room silently.

“Mother, may I ask you something?”

Her mother faced her but didn’t meet her eyes. “What is it?”

“Will Adaltan be visiting? Will the wedding take place soon?”

Mother shifted to her other foot, an unconscious display of discomfort Nilafay had never seen before. “There will be time to discuss that later.”

“Yes, Mother.” Nilafay barely got the words out before her mother swept away down the hall, leaving an exhausted girl behind to climb the stairs back to her room alone.

Back in her room she collapsed on her bed and cried. Loud shaky sobs ripped through her and bent her into a ball where she could hold herself tight like a fry yet to hatch. Gods knew if she didn’t do it, no one else would. And for a sickening moment, she missed Vaughn.

Nilafay’s swim to shore with her father proved fruitless. She couldn’t quite remember the route back to where she had been held, and to make matters worse, as soon as she stepped on solid ground, her entire body shook from fear and panic. Her father’s men had to pull her home on a makeshift sled usually used only for those injured in battle.

She remained in her room for weeks afterward, refusing to leave to eat or speak with her parents. Shame and fear warred within her. She’d been unable to help the man she’d left behind, not once but twice. She’d left him there, and when given the chance to absolve herself by rescuing him, she’d failed. Her emotions made her weak, so she shut them off and shut everyone out.

Her parents did not speak to her, and Serishee brought her meals to her room but quickly left.

She hurt. Her legs ached, and her chest contracted tightly around her heart. Every movement felt like a great undertaking, and all she wanted to do was sleep. When she could muster the energy, she would cry.

Since no one visited her, no one noticed her body was changing. Her breasts had swelled, and her hips were gradually widening. Her distended middle now pressed against her clothing, distorting her figure.

Despite the impossibility of it, she knew she had become pregnant.

It was a monstrous thing. Not a clutch of fertilized eggs but a parasite, an invasion of her body. Rhine had done this somehow. Despite his anger over his experiments being failures, he managed to accomplish the thing he’d been willing to kill for. And he’d never know.

Part of her was thrilled to have stolen this success from him. Another smaller part knew the conception of what grew within her may have been due to Rhine’s experiments and drugs, but it wasn’t his success. Like all life, it had grown out of two bodies finding each other.

This child’s father was Vaughn.

Nilafay bent over herself, bile rising in her throat at the reality of what she had done. She had lain with an Erdlander, and not under duress. In other circumstances she wouldn’t have done it, but Vaughn hadn’t forced her. This child’s beginnings were her own choice, her own body. Its creation had meant her freedom.

Pride and love gripped her. This child was hers and no one else’s. She would die before allowing it to be used by Rhine or Vaughn. And so she hid in her room, staying covered so no one would see the changes happening to her body.

As time passed, her belly grew larger, faster than she had expected, but who knew what passed for a Sualwet pregnancy? Within her grew something never before seen, a mixture of two races never meant to be joined.

One day, her mother came to her room. “The physician is here to examine you, Nilafay.”

“Why?” she mumbled from her place under the heavy blankets Serishee had given her.

“To evaluate your health, why else?” The annoyance in Mother’s voice almost upset Nilafay, but after so long with no contact, no affection, no Adal, she just didn’t care.

All she had was the secret living within her.

“Where is Adaltan?” she asked.

“You will see him when your health improves. Now sit up for the doctor.”

Nilafay threw a pillow at them and sank farther under her clovers.

“You see, Doctor? This is what I was describing to you. Behavior more suited to a child. No way for a woman of Nilafay’s age to act.” Her mother’s scolding wasn’t even directed at Nilafay, as if she weren’t lying right there in front of them, which only made it worse.

“Trauma of the magnitude your daughter has experienced can affect much more than the body. Don’t worry, Lady Fay. Please, let me speak with her alone.”

“Very well.”

As Nilafay heard her mother leave the room, the physician sat on the bed, depressing the mattress so she rolled slightly toward him. “Child,” he said, “let me see you.”

“No.” Nilafay was ashamed of the pout in her voice but couldn’t deny it was there.

“Come now.” The doctor pulled the blanket away. When he saw her, he stood up, eyes wide in shock. “My gods…What has happened to you?”

Nilafay pulled the covers back over herself, covering the swell of her abdomen. She rolled over and faced the wall, ignoring the doctor.

Nilafay heard skirts rustle when Serishee shuffled closer to stand next to the bedside.“ Please show us,” Serishee coaxed.

Too tired to fight any longer, Nilafay sat up and dropped the covers to her hips. Under her nightgown, her breasts were round and heavy, and her stomach bulged out from her body.

“It’s…not possible,” the doctor whispered. “What have they done to you?”

Serishee sat on the bed and reached out a tentative hand. When she placed it on Nilafay’s stomach, the creature within rolled toward the touch, pressing out from within her body.

“Get away from it,” the doctor spat at the housefille. “Get her parents. Her father must know.”

Nilafay reached out and grabbed Serishee’s skirt, “No, don’t tell them!”

The girl hung her head and pulled away of Nilafay’s grasp.

“You should have told us when this began,” the physician chided her, disgust evident on his face. “This is a horror.” He gestured to her distorted body, shuddered and crossed his arms over his chest, as if protecting his body from infection.

She wrapped her arms around her middle, holding the impossible life growing within her close. “You can’t hurt it.”

The doctor recoiled. “Hurt it? We have to remove it! It’s unnatural.”

“No!” Nilafay screamed, jumping out of the bed onto weak, unused legs. She moved away from him in wobbly steps.

“What’s this I hear about her being pregnant?” Father bellowed as he and Mother burst into the room. When his eyes fell on Nilafay’s distorted body, his skin paled so white she could see the veins running under it. “Abomination. It’s simply not possible. Sualwets do not have live births! Are you sure it isn’t just an oversized clutch of eggs? Nilafay, have you produced your eggs since you’ve been home?”

She shook her head, and as if in response, the being within her rolled, pushing against her abdomen to make itself known.

Father clenched his fists and stepped toward her, as if any of this had been her doing. “What is that?”

“It’s not my fault!” Nilafay screamed, holding her stomach.

“What can you do?” He addressed the doctor, ignoring her completely.

“We can try to remove it, but such a thing hasn’t even seen in centuries. I honestly don’t know what’s growing in there, so I can’t guarantee the safety of such a procedure.”

“Do it.” Father turned his back without a second glance at Nilafay and left the room.

“No.” She shook her head, backing against the bedroom wall. This child did not belong to the Sualwet anymore than it did to Rhine. This life belonged to her, and the responsibility to protect it lay nowhere else.

The doctor ignored her and spoke to her mother. “I’ll have to speak with the other physicians. This isn’t something we can do lightly. Removal of the…ah, thing will be a difficult procedure, if we can do it at all. I’ll be back in the morning. Keep her calm until then. I’ll give you something to help her sleep.” They left together, leaving Nilafay alone with Serishee.

The housefille closed the door and skirted the edges of the room, not coming any closer to Nilafay than necessary, as if a live pregnancy might be contagious.

“Don’t let them do this to me.” Nilafay slumped against the wall. Prepared for an argument, she stared at Serishee, who moved next to the closet and pulled out clothing long and spacious enough to accommodate Nilafay’s uncommon silhouette. “What are you doing?”

Serishee spoke without looking at her. “My family isn’t like yours. We aren’t free to have the children we want. Our fry are collected and given to families of status, and only those remaining are returned. Out on the water farms, they call us ‘salmon slugs’: girls who swim upstream, aiming for the heights of those we serve but never able to see our own hatchlings.”

Nilafay recoiled. “Then why do you do it?”

“What else would you have us do? There’s no other work for us. We aren’t skilled unless we go to school, and our mothers, who are all housefilles, can’t afford to send us. Some of my childhood friends married to higher status, but I don’t know if I could live out in the tides. I’ve spent my whole life in this city.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

The girl stepped close and took both of Nilafay’s hands in hers. “Run. You have to leave. You know the sea. You have been above the surface. I can’t think of anyone else who could do it, but I know you could. Swim to the riptide and ride it north. My father went there once. He said the area was completely deserted. If you stay, they won’t just take your child from you, they’ll take your life.”

Nilafay jerked her hands back. “I can’t leave. I’m to marry Adaltan.”

Serishee‘s face fell. “Sweet Nila. They haven’t told you, have they? Adaltan won’t be yours. His family has forbidden the wedding.”

“What? Why?”

“You lived with Erdlanders. And when they find out you lay with one…”

“But I didn’t. They did something to me!”

“You may lie to them, but you can’t lie to me. I’ve known you too long.”

A strange relief passed over Nilafay. She swore to never tell anyone, but the secret deepened her loneliness, and having Serishee on her side gave her strength. She laid a hand over her abdomen. “He won’t have me?”

“He has no choice.”

“I have to find him.” She stood and took the dress Serishee held out to her.

“Nilafay.”

“No, he loves me. If I’m to leave, then he’ll come too. I know he will.”

The housefille frowned but didn’t stop Nilafay from changing clothes.

“Thank you, Serishee.” Nilafay pulled her into a rare embrace then tiptoed out the door.

Nilafay’s parents’ voices filled the entrance way. Their murmurs coated the walls and bounced off the marble floor. She felt certain they would find her and lock her in her room at any moment. Her father’s low voice chased at her heels, the words irrelevant as she considered the threat he presented. He really would risk her life just to get rid of what grew within her. It may be an abomination, it may be alien and unnatural, but it was hers.

It was the only thing she had left in the whole world.

Her pride had been stolen from her, her bravery shattered. Innocence and curiosity no longer guided her, only fear. And now her family looked at her with horror in their eyes that masked any affection they had ever felt. Would Adal look at her that way?

She stuffed the thought down, refusing to consider the possibility. Her bare feet made no sound on the cool floor as she crossed from the bottom of the stairs to the door.

Outside, darkness greeted her. The illumination inside the Domed City had been dimmed, simulating the night that hung over the world so far above. Funny that her people detested the Erdlanders so much yet maintained a simulation of their surface lifestyle.

She sneaked through the empty streets, passing darkened homes and parked rickshaws waiting to be used the next day.

At the ring of homes where the Tan family dwelled, Nilafay realized she had no plan. How exactly did she expect to reach Adal? It wasn’t as if his parents would just allow her to walk in. If his family had called off the wedding, she’d never be allowed to speak with him alone.

Darkness filled the windows as she approached the house. Her heart reached out, calling for him, unable to touch. She blended into the shadows and stared up at the rooms where she knew his slept. She’d never had to reach out to him before. it was always him chasing her down, finding her no matter how far she wandered. She didn’t want to be here playing the part of the desperate woman, but she had to know.

Did he still love her?

Could he love the life within her?

Would he make her choose?

She tried to make sense of it all, of everything she’d been forced to endure, but she couldn’t figure out how she’d gotten here. How had she ended up standing outside the window of the man she loved, pining and wishing for his attention? This wasn’t her. This wasn’t the person she wanted to be.

She strode forward, ignoring her fear, and knocked on the Tan family’s front door.

A disheveled househomme answered the door, his chest bare and his skirt in disarray.

“I need to see Adaltan,” she announced, pushing her way past him.

“You can’t just come in here.” He ran ahead of her, putting his body between her and the rest of the house but not touching her.

Desperate enough to forgo social niceties, Nilafay shoved past physically. The househomme didn’t dare place his hands on her. Instead he just ran after her as she searched farther into the house, calling for Adal.

“What is this nonsense?” a booming voice came from behind her.

Nilafay turned to find Adal’s father dressed in nightclothes, an unamused look on his face.

“I need to speak with Adaltan.”

“You need to go home. Your father will speak with you and tell you everything you need to know.”

“No. I’m not leaving until I speak with Adaltan. Adal! Where are you?”

His father’s frown deepened so far she couldn’t even see his lips behind the layers of wrinkles etched in his face. Soon, the entire household seemed to be awake. Adal’s mother and brothers all stood and watched as she screamed for her fiancé.

Not one of them took pity on her and told her where he was.

Exhausted and humiliated, Nilafay turned on them and ran. She had to get away from the eyes that followed her as she raced down the street. The Tans would contact her family, if they hadn’t already, which meant she had to get out of the city. She had to get out before they could find her and drag her back to Sualwet doctors who would cut her open and experiment on her just like Rhine had.

In her haste, she didn’t bother staying in the darkness or worrying that her webbed feet slapped loudly against the hard ground. When she reached the airlock, the late-night guards hardly noticed her presence until she’d already passed through. The moment she hit seawater, she shucked the dress, letting it drift in the water, and swam like her very life depended on it.

Serishee had told her to go north, but she knew if she ever hoped to see Adaltan again, she must return to the field of star lilies.

She swam hard, feeling the water slide across her strange, curvaceous body. Its warmth held her in an embrace so accepting she didn’t want to ever leave. And perhaps she wouldn’t have to. Perhaps this would be the life ahead of her. Adal, her, and this child could be together in the sea.

When she broke the surface, the night sky greeted her and the scent of flowers filled the air. She climbed atop the star lilies, letting them hold her weight.

Above her, the two moons made their trek across the sky. She watched them until she fell asleep, dreaming that the ruby moon had filled her body and would come to the world to save them all.

In the morning, she woke to find Adaltan treading water at the edge of the field.

“I always find you here,” he said.

“You came.” She rolled toward him, forgetting everything that had happened since they were last together. For a moment in her early morning fog, she was just a girl in love with the boy she would be spending the rest of her life with.

His eyes moved down her naked body but instead of the hunger she expected to find, all she saw was revulsion.

“How can you stand it?” he asked.

“What?”

“Having something inside of you. Can you feel it, moving in there like some kind of tapeworm?” His lips turned up in an ugly snarl.

She placed a protective hand over her stomach and sat up. She felt strong like this. The world, the moon, the universe, all existed within her body. Her ancestors had known this power.

“It’s just a child,” she said.

“It’s a monster, Nila.”

“It hasn’t done anything. It hasn’t even taken a breath. How can it be a monster?”

“You have to undo this. Whatever happened to you there, I can forgive it. I can let all of it slip by us and move forward. But that thing is…I don’t even have the words.” Hate shone in his eyes, distorting his features until she didn’t even recognize him.

“What they did to you is unforgiveable,” he went on. “To take you from us, to keep you from me, to hurt you, and then force you to endure…” He glared at her distended stomach again. “I’ve been so desperate to come see you, to hold you again. I missed you so much, Nila. Come home with me.”

“How? My father told the doctor to operate, to take the baby from me.”

“Of course! You can’t…you can’t keep it.”

“Why?”

“It’s not Sualwet. It’s not anything. You can’t pretend it’s a hatchling and raise it in the city with the other children.”

“I knew that as soon as my father realized what happened to me. Adal, listen. We could run, just like we talked about.” She reached out for his hand, but he snatched it away.

“Why?”

“Because they’re going to cut me open!”

“To get that thing out!”

“Don’t yell at me. You don’t have any idea what it’s been like. What this feels like!”

“I know, Nila. I know you’ve been through worse than most men who’ve been at the war front. I can’t even imagine what they did to you because when I do, I start seeing red and I can’t even think straight.” Finally, he took her hand.

“Then you have to understand. I can’t do it. I can’t kill something that isn’t even alive yet.”

“Why protect them?”

“I’m not.”

“You are. That thing is Erdlander.”

“It’s not. It’s not Erdlander, and it’s not a thing. It’s just a baby.”

Adal pulled his hand back, recoiling at the word. “Sualwets don’t have babies.”

“We used to, many, many years ago.” She reached for him, dropping her body into the water to swim closer to him. “It’s not so impossible to believe.”

“Why would you want some Erdlander’s bastard? Did you love him?”

“It wasn’t like that. They told you what they did to me!”

“If it was just some shot they gave you, some test they ran, you’d get rid of it. But if these barbarians had cut off your leg and put a fin there, you’d be begging the doctors to put you back right. I know you would. Why is this different?”

His words rattled her resolve. He was right. She had resisted everything they did to her, every experiment, every test. She had longed to be home again, yet now she was so willing to give that very home up. For what? For some medical impossibility? Adaltan was all she’d ever wanted. She loved him, and she’d longed for their life together to start since the first moment he swam past her almost ten years ago.

Almost as if in reply, the being within her rolled, pressing itself against her stomach, causing her flesh to undulate. She grinned, so proud that this life grew strong despite everything it had to overcome. But when she returned her attention to Adaltan, his face had paled to a shade of green.

“Nilafay, it’s disgusting.”

She knew, watching his horrified expression as the child squirmed and rolled and pushed against her body, that she would have to choose. She could have the life she’d always dreamed of, freedom and love, or she could have the child she’d never expected.

The decision came surprisingly easily.

“Adal, do you love me?”

“With depths unknown.”

“Then come with me. I know a place where we’ll be safe.”

He backed away, the water pushing her back as he drifted farther. “I would go with you. If it was just us. But I can’t with that.” He pointed at her belly. “Don’t ask me to love another man’s…another species’s…child.”

“But I do. I love it.”

“More than you love me?”

With tears in her eyes, she nodded.

Adaltan’s image wavered in her vision, and then as quickly as he appeared, he drifted down into the sea, leaving Nilafay alone and more determined than ever to protect the life she’d been given.

The noonday sun filtered through the clear water of the cove Nilafay now called home. Beneath the surface, she held her hatchling—no her child, as this strange, pink-skinned babe had never hatched. She sang songs from the distant Domed City and ran her fingers through her daughter’s swiftly growing shock of dark hair. The tresses drifted out in the water like tentacles reaching for the light.

When the hottest part of the day passed, Nilafay carried her baby out of the water.“ What shall I call you, tiny creature?”

The little girl cooed and kicked out with tiny toes.

“It won’t do to call you ‘It’ or ‘Thing,’ will it? We’ll have to settle on a proper name, one that will carry you through life with your head held high.” Nilafay sat in the sand and held the squirming baby to her breast. Her daughter calmed quickly and gripped at her mother’s skin while settling into nursing.

The air dried the water from Nilafay’s flesh, leaving her cool in the afternoon air, but the warmth of her child kept her comfortable. The last month had been anything but comfortable. Carrying the weight of the rapidly growing child had thrown off her gait and made swimming difficult. But still she had continued on, foraging for supplies she and her child would need once it was born.

Now that she held the baby in her arms, the love she felt burst from her heart. Every trial she’d endured, every abandonment she suffered had been worth it. While others might only see abomination, Nilafay saw a bright future when she stared into the silver eyes of the child she’d borne. She hadn’t considered herself strong before, but now she knew what it meant to carry life, and that gave her the strength to overcome anything.

A lifetime ago, she’d dreamed of freedom and adventure, of living far away from the rules of the Domed City. She’d wanted nothing more than to sleep in the open beneath the ruby moon. She had everything she’d thought she wanted and more.

Despite what the Erdlanders had been done to her, she could never hate them, not really. They were the reason she had this gift. Vaughn had been a means to an end, her body a sacrifice in exchange for her freedom, but looking at the drowsy eyes of their daughter, she felt no regret. As time passed, she even harbored a kind of nostalgia for the time she’d spent with Vaughn. Given time, could they have actually come to care for one another? In another world, where the differences between their races held less importance, she might have even allowed herself to really love him.

Her daughter drifted to sleep in her arms. “Sera,” she whispered, thinking fondly of her housefille who would never be allowed to have children of her own. “I think I’ll call you Serafay.”

Nilafay looked up to the sky, no longer so enamored with the moons as she once was. Instead the glittering stars that spread across the open expanse caught her attention. Their light rained down on her, sparkling in her daughter’s silver eyes like moon dust.

Avendui 5ive