Chapter Thirty-Two

Repeated knocking on my door pulled me out of whatever dream I was having and back to reality. I grumbled a few choice curses as I pulled myself out of bed, fully expecting to find Zafir outside my door with some bullshit request or another.

“What?” I demanded with a groan, yanking my door open. The sudden light made me squint and, after a moment, my eyes adjusted to find Rel standing in the hallway. A very surprised, very pink Rel, for some reason. “Rel? What are… oh. Right. Training?”

“… Elara .” Rel raised his thumb and forefinger to his temples obscuring most of his face. “Where are your clothes?”

“Hmm?” I glanced down at myself, then back to Rel. “I was sleeping. Why would I wear clothes in bed? That seems silly.”

With that, I pivoted and teetered back into my room, listening as Rel released an aggravated sigh before following me. I opened my closet and peered at the contents, not quite sure what to grab.

“Underwear first, perhaps?” Rel suggested dryly. I glanced over my shoulder at him, only to find his gaze was focused partway down my back. “You know…many humans believe our coloration to be indicative of the clan we come from. They aren’t entirely wrong…but it is more accurate to say our coloration is determined by region, depth, and manner of light source. It’s become more muddled over the years, of course, as clans inter-wed. But…I can’t say for certain if I’ve seen someone quite that color before.”

“Regional? Hmm…what does that make your region, then?” I murmured, more curious about him than I was about myself.

“Deep ocean caverns on Syldra—thus the increased number of…” he paused to point at the glowing section of his arm. “I don’t think there’s a word for it in the human language. If we’re going to try and be scientific about it…let’s call it luminescent epidermis.”

“Mhm…so deep ocean and caverns. Glowy bits. Following so far.” I nodded

“For once I find myself agreeing with Xilen…” Rel suddenly appeared beside me, hand on his hip, as he peered into my wardrobe. Then, he glanced down at me with an amused smile. “Shouldn’t you be trying to cover yourself? Perhaps yelling at me to look away?”

“That seems childish.” I blinked at him. “Do I come off that way?”

He laughed and placed a hand at the small of my back, nudging me in the direction of my dresser. “No, Elara. It is how your average human would react. They are quite… shy about their nudity and will try to cover themselves with their hands.”

“That’s just silly. They don’t have enough hands for that.” I pulled open my dresser and grabbed a black sports bra and matching panties. “What should I wear, Shorts and tank? Or am I going to be using my suit? Oh, and breakfast?”

“No breakfast.” Rel’s entire demeanor changed, his tone deepening and his eyes narrowing. “I’ll save you the indignity of vomiting all over the floor. Once your session is complete, I will make you a recovery meal.”

“Hmm?” I frowned slightly at him, wondering why he was suddenly so serious. “Vomit? I’ve never…”

“If you are hit hard enough in the stomach, you will,” Rel answered quietly, closing the distance between us. Then, he cupped my face in both hands and rested his forehead against mine. In a soft, low voice I almost couldn’t hear, he said, “I need you to trust me, Elara, and trust that I have your best interests in mind.”

Oh, he smells really good… I swallowed and took a moment to steady my thoughts, steering them away from where they wanted to wander. “I trust you, and I prefer if you take this training serious anyway. I won’t learn anything otherwise. Though I think I’m a pretty decent fighter…”

“You can be a decent fighter and totally helpless against the Syldrari,” Rel informed me, taking a step away. “I’m sure your current skill level is more than enough to deal with the average human—and maybe even some of those who are augmented.

“However, Syldrari… we don’t require augments . Any augments we have are for convenience, aesthetics, to please a partner,or to please a queen. And, even then, we prefer the permanence of using guided evolution instead of augmentation in the human way.”

“The human way?” I echoed. “Then what’s the Syldrari way?”

“Syldrari augmentation is usually used to give existing Syldrari their clan’s new evolutionary traits,” Rel replied after seeming to contemplate his word choice. “For example, if a queen deems it necessary for her clan to have armored tails, that new trait will only appear in new offspring—unless it is retroactively applied to existing clan members via augmentation methods. However, those armored tails would still be natural, as they would have formed the same way—just at an accelerated rate.”

“Whereas human augments are mechanical- and tech-based. I get you.” I adjusted my tank top, then walked over to Rel. “In other words, Syldrari are the designer lifeforms that humans wish they could be. You have near complete control over who and what you are, both as a species and on an individual level.”

“And yet we still have new frontiers to explore…” Rel mused, before giving me a smug smile. “And, of course they wish to be like us. It’s only natural, as they were designed in our image…the poor imitations that they are.”

“So, back to the regional coloration discussion?” I suggested amusedly, running my fingertips along his arm. The human military overhearing his superiority comments was the last thing I needed. Much to my fascination, my fingers left a trail of pink in their wake.

“Natural camouflage.” Rel shook his head. “The R’selkti’s region is composed of rock and lit primarily by bioluminescent flora. The ceilings of the systems are reminiscent of the night sky.

“For comparison, Xilen’s birth clan comes from one of the great reefs and a shallower depth. That is why she and Ceyoh are both so colorful.”

“And for me…?” I trailed off, watching his lips tug into a slight frown again.

After a moment, Rel answered, “I would prefer to keep my hypotheses to myself for the moment, as you already dislike the implications of other topics. However, I will say that your unusual color is another reason to keep your changing body hidden. You will get far too many questions if you don’t.”

“Implications I’ll dislike?” I sighed heavily. “What else is new? Anyway, I suppose we should do this whole training thing. Which area did Zafir say we should use?”

“A subterranean one. He doesn’t approve of my chosen method but has no valid argument against it, either.” Rel followed me out into the hallway and towards the elevator. “He doesn’t want to check if you have full armor stashed away somewhere, either. You’ll be using your suit, and I will be fulfilling the role of a fully-fledged Syldrari soldier—with some rules in place, for now. I won’t be using energy or elemental weapons yet, and I won’t be using elemental abilities either.”

“We’re working purely on my physical ability for now?” I questioned.

“Yes. After hearing that most of your training was done on your own based on books given to you by an individual whose motives are questionable at best…” Rel trailed off, clearly aware he didn’t need to expand on that line of though any further. Instead, he shifted gears. “I had wanted to work on reintegrating your…‘feral’ before diving headlong into training, but I’ve been informed that ‘isn’t possible’ right now.”

Not possible? More like Zafir has a reason to keep us fucked up. Wonderful. I made a sour face and shook my head. “Yes, well, I’m just glad to know there’s a chance. I think some of the others would be against it, since they’re still scared of it, but it sounds to me like something that should be done.”

“I wonder…” Rel murmured as we got on the elevator.

“What?” I turned to face him.

“Your team was all ‘around’ the site of the first Resonance Incident, and they all show signs of cellular dissonance. They also didn’t question your assignment as leader…” Rel continued murmuring. “Have you met any of these other survivors?”

“One. Zafir’s lucky I put her in her place instead of outright eviscerating her and hanging her from the top of our old HQ.”

That seemed to break Rel’s concentration. He stared at me in disbelief. “Pardon?”

“Just thinking about her makes me want to kill her. Can we talk about something else?” I crossed my arms and narrowed my eyes at him.

“Why?” Rel stopped and stared at me. “There must be a reason she makes you feel that way.”

“Her presence is offensive,” I scoffed and glanced away from him. “I can’t put my finger on why. It’s been a while since I met her. I was less…”

I heard footsteps from behind, and a moment later Zafir spoke up, “Less ‘you,’ so your reaction was instinctual and lacking the ability to process specifics.”

“Coming to observe?” Rel eyed Zafir. “I won’t change my mind.”

Zafir waved his hand dismissively. “I’m a researcher, of course I’m coming to observe—it’s my job even if I disagree with your chosen method. Plus, someone should be there to render medical assistance if necessary.

“As for Elara’s feelings regarding Sydney, we’ll get to gauge them soon enough. She’s being moved to the other wing of this floor. Her feral hasn’t had any outbursts since her meeting with Elara.”

Rel raised an eyebrow. “Is that so?”

“Elara picks up on tricks from aggravating Syldrari she meets a little too quickly,” Zafir answered sourly, giving Rel a ‘you know precisely who I’m talking about’ kind of glare. “If I didn’t know better, I would think mimicry was one of her abilities.”

We got in the elevator and Zafir swiped a keycard as I leaned back against a wall. Rel’s demeanor remained…odd. I didn’t quite have a word for the peaceful, threatening, yet relaxed way he was carrying himself. It was as if his state of being had completely changed—yet he clearly hadn’t taken a moment to meditate.

“This arena should suffice,” Zafir spoke as he stepped out of the elevator and motioned off to his right with one arm. “I’ve instructed the others to stay upstairs so that you and Elara can freely unleash. In the event Elara releases…certain traits…I would prefer her teammates remain unaffected.”

“I don’t want to use that power in a fight. That’s cheating.” I snorted, crossing my arms. Like hell I’m going to use queenlike what-ever-the-fuck in a fight. If I’m going to fight, I’m going to fight.

“You may not have a choice in the matter.” Rel motioned loosely as he passed me. “It’s unlikely you have full control over your varied abilities. There is likely a breaking point where that control vanishes. Which, we are going to find out.”

Uh… I don’t like the sound of that… I kept quiet as I followed Rel into the arena, and we waited for Zafir to get to his safe position of observation.

“Ah, and Zafir,” Rel spoke, glancing toward the viewing deck, “Elara requires a new alarm clock. She appears to have fried hers.”

“I did?” I blinked at him, and he outright laughed. “What?”

“You didn’t notice the smoking plastic box by your bedside?” Rel mused with a mischievous smile. “I’m glad to know you find me so much more important than your observational skills.“

“Right…” I tilted my head. If that was true, I didn’t recall such an issue occurring previously. “So, I should suit up?”

“It would be best, yes. Otherwise this will be over rather quickly.” As Rel spoke, his voice changed to something both more melodic and mechanical sounding as his armor twisted and slid into place. Much like with Jysel, it looked as if vines had burst from his back and covered him in that strange armor. The color of his was different, being a dark blue-gray with pale blue glow shining from within the crevices. “Now then—try to kill me.”

“…what?” I raised an eyebrow.

“How else will I gauge your ability?” Rel spread his arms to either side. “Give me your all.”

Fine … I summoned my suit and gauntlets, then took an offensive stance. after a moment, I launched at him and faked a punch, before shifting to knee him in the gut.

Sensing motion to my upper left, I spun into an upper roundhouse kick and hit his forearm with the ridge of my foot.

He was holding a sword. Great.

I remained close and attempted to disarm him, not exactly keen to give him space to swing the weapon. Then…a strike to my midsection sent me flying backward into the nearest wall. He didn’t give me time to recover—he sped toward me, sword in hand, and sliced from my right shoulder down to my left hip.

The suit protected me from the sharp edge, but I still felt the brunt of the force. And it made me mad . I shouldn’t have been so slow. Launching at him again, I tried my damnedest to land a strike against him, but he easily blocked and dodged everything—going as far as to discard his sword after a point.

Then…he did what I wasn’t quite expecting. He took the offensive, and at a far greater speed than I could track. The first several hits shocked my feral into waking up—clearly startled and frightened as to what was going on. Then, it tried to lash out. I shoved the damn beast back down and tried to block Rel’s next attack, but I was too slow. His fist connected with my jaw and snapped my head back, making me stagger.

A feeling of cold washed over me, my senses muddying. Then, before I quite knew what I was doing, I rushed Rel, lightning crackling in my wake. I leapt into the air and swung an ax kick down at his shoulder—and it landed. He looked up with a faint smirk, utterly unfazed by the kick, and the feral recoiled. I bared my teeth in a snarl and attempted another punch, but he grabbed my arm and tossed me into the air like I weighed nothing. His elbow connected with my stomach, and I felt something crack—but he wasn’t done.

Several more strikes and I collided with the wall again, this time crumpling to the ground. I coughed, trying to get up, and bright blue blood splattered from my mouth. My head spun as pain surged through multiple parts of my body. Some dark part of me wondered why he would dare strike his queen, but I buried that piece of shit thought as I coughed again.

“Well, well,” Rel remarked as he slowly walked toward me, his armored legs filling my vision. “As I thought. Human martial arts are quite useless.” He paused, crouching beside me, and placed a hand on my back. “Stop trying to get up. Now that we’ve established your weakness…I have much to teach you. The first of which: how to mend yourself.”

I know exactly how to make him submit … The thought echoed blearily through my head. I threw a mental dagger at the damn thing. I refused to manipulate anyone with whatever queenlike powers I had.

“Good girls listen when someone is trying to help them,” Rel gripped my jaw and made me look at him, and I finally registered his armor was gone. “I didn’t hit you that hard in the head. Focus. Breathe. You need to feel every little thing that hurts if you’re going to fix it. Ah, and take off your suit.”

I hesitated before doing as he said, and letting the suit disappear. Rel gave me a small smile and wiped some of the blood from my mouth.

“What now?” I asked bitterly, sounding a little rougher than I expected. Had he kicked me in the throat at some point? After a moment, I realized we weren’t where I’d crumpled against the wall. “Wait a minute—”

“Zafir will have the footage of your feral taking over if you want to see it.” Rel placed his hand on my head. Then, he continued in a quiet voice, as if avoiding being heard, “Now, listen carefully. One of our greatest strengths is the ability to mend our own wounds in battle. With the correct resonance of internal sound, you can put yourself back together. Our skeletal structure is made of a material that is vastly different from a human’s. We are natural harmonic conductors, if you will. Listen and feel while I heal your broken rib. It won’t be pleasant, unfortunately.”

That was a fucking understatement. I screamed as bone-deep pain echoed through my entire body. My rib shifted, and I would have sworn I could feel every strand of bone that reached out and reknit themselves into place.

When it was done, Rel waited and let me catch my breath. I rolled over and retched a few times from the pain, but nothing came up. After a moment, I groaned, “…I think leaving it broken may’ve hurt less…”

Rel placed a hand on my back and stroked it softly, a low, soothing sound I could barely hear coming from him. It sounded something akin to a song, but not quite. When my head stopped spinning, I plopped my ass down on the ground and gave him a begrudging pout.

“Did you manage to feel how I put you back together?” Rel asked with a small smile. How he could seem both concerned and not at all concerned, all at the same time, was beyond me.

“Think so…” I grimaced. “Did the feral do anything stupid?”

“Only in the sense that your feral lacks any form of organized fighting skill. It appears to be purely bestial.” Rel chuckled. “Now, I want you to try healing your arm. It’s not cracked or broken—just deep bruising. The same frequency will suffice.”

“Uh…but how do I…” I made a face and pointed at my throat. “I get the impression you didn’t make the sound from here.”

“You…heard it?” Rel narrowed his eyes, then glanced over his shoulder. “Zafir?”

“News to me.” Zafir shook his head as he came into view. “We need to hurry this up. I’ve got security asking if they need to come in, or if they need to bring in a med team. Imbeciles thought you killed her for a moment there.”

Then I must look like shit . I grimaced. “Well?”

“Hmm? Ah. The sound you heard wasn’t vocal, no. As I said, we are harmonic conductors. If you stimulate your cells correctly, it causes a reverberation with your skeletal structure, which in turn hastens your cellular turnover. Which you can focus at your injuries to heal them. It is a mental ability, not a vocal one.”

… right . I thought for a moment as Rel placed a hand on my forearm. He briefly did the thing again but stopped when he seemed to think I got the idea. Here goes nothing …

I concentrated on the feeling and sound I’d heard, attempting to mentally mimic it the way I would normally try to match notes when singing along to a song. Then, a sound akin to the resonating sound left by a struck chime echoed through my being. Instead of fading, it persisted, and I felt my entire body tingling in response. Then, sharp pains and dull aches in dozens of places as I did my best to do as instructed.

“I said your arm not your entire body, but well done.” Rel patted me on the head and gave me an amused smile. “Well, that answers one of my questions. You most certainly knew—once—how to do that already. That is the sort of knowledge that is more like…muscle memory or instinct than anything else. I’m afraid the Syldran word doesn’t translate.”

So …I didn’t lose it with my memories ? I wondered, stretching my arms tentatively. Then, I shot Rel an odd glance. “I believe you said something about useless human martial arts?”

“Yes. I am going to begin your training from scratch.” Rel rose to his feet, then offered me a hand. “But first…we should shower and have breakfast. I anticipated that things may go like this, so I left the cafe to Ciheri today.”

“Shower…oh.” It finally registered that Rel had quite a few smears of my blood on him, and I felt damp patches in a considerable number of places. “Just how badly…”

“…did I defeat you? Well, the humans aren’t entirely unjustified in thinking that I killed you. If you were a normal human…” Rel trailed off and gave me a pointed smile. “I do hope you understand this was for your benefit.”

“And I hope you understand that half the battle wasn’t even fighting you,” I grumbled, walking past him. Zafir grew a few shades paler when he got a good look at me. “Oh, don’t you start too.”

“Rel, you may use Elara’s shower once she’s finished. I’m afraid the public showers are currently occupied,” Zafir remarked thoughtfully, and I considered pivoting to punch the fake human right in his damn mouth. “I’ll compile the data I recorded and share it with the two of you while you have breakfast.”

With that, Zafir walked off and Rel fell into step with me.

“Well, shall we?” Rel offered, giving me an amused smile. “You will have to shower by yourself, of course. I know we can’t both fit in that contraption.”

… right. Because that’s what I’m so concerned about . I rubbed my temples. “You said Syldrari will heal like that on the battlefield? How…”

“Our training involves repeated breaking and healing ‘bones’ so we learn to cope with the pain of putting ourselves back together. We can ‘play dead’ while healing and then get back up when the enemy’s back is turned,” Rel offered as we stepped into the elevator. “Of course, this doesn’t work in Syldrari versus Syldrari situations as we can hear each other healing. Most other species aren’t evolved enough.”

“Huh.” I shook my head. “That sounds…horrible. Logical in a sense, but awful to go through.”

“Iri rarely go through it—most are content to stay safe and pampered, while letting others fight,” Rel stated dryly. “If you insist on remaining personally involved…then you may need to go through that training yourself. I would rather not break you repeatedly, in that fashion at least, but if I deem it necessary to your survival then I will.”

“Right. Because I have a choice in how ‘personally involved’ I get to be,” I scoffed, deciding to ignore his inviting insinuation for the moment. “I assume you have a change of clothes?”

“Of course.” Rel nodded, giving me an entertained smile. “Now, just how difficult was your internal struggle, I wonder? I felt your thoughts weren’t fully on our battle.”

“Ugh… I don’t want to talk about that.”

Rel smile turned into a grin as he leaned down. “But you should. I intentionally put you in a situation where your survival instincts should have kicked in—yet all you did was ‘go feral’ as the humans say. Meaning, your other battle you alluded to was with yourself.”

I let out a bitter laugh. “Yes, well, apparently my ‘survival instincts’ are ‘go feral or go queen.’ I’m not particularly fond of either option.”

“Ah…good,” Rel murmured

“ Good ? What part?” I asked, dumbfounded.

“You controlled your urge to use that power. Consider, for a moment, the manner of problems you could face if you used that power on a battlefield.” Rel motioned with one hand and shook his head. “There are all manner of problems you would encounter if you unleashed that ability on an enemy and their army—and you would never be able to fully trust those new followers.”

“No shit. That would be one of the most idiotic—” I fell silent as Rel turned and leaned over me, his grin broadening.

Rel spoke in an amused, yet dangerous tone, “Why, yes, it would be. Yet most queens don’t think deeply on it—if at all. They believe they are entitled to have the other sexes worship the ground they walk on—as this is what my mother has taught them.

“Then there is you, whose brainwashing was either eradicated with the rest of your memories…or you were never discovered. I am leaning toward the latter, given what little I’ve learned, as you simply don’t appear to exist in any known database.”

“Is that a problem?” I challenged him.

“Only in the same sense that a puzzle is,” Rel murmured, drawing a finger up my throat and to my chin. Then, he smiled and stepped away moments before the elevator dinged and the doors slid open. “Ladies first.”

“Honestly. Sometimes I can’t tell what you think of Iri,” I remarked, shaking my head as I led him out of the elevator and down the hall. Then…it finally occurred to me that the shower was adjacent to my bedroom, and I sighed. “I won’t bother telling you not to peek. I suppose it means we can continue our conversation while I shower, at least…”

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