Chapter 2
A little hut perched among the high cliffs with the wind howling through the branches of its roof. Two twisted trees clung to the rocks with gnarled roots, and their tortured trunks formed the tiny structure’s twin backbones. Bundles of thatch tied onto their branches kept out the wind and rain.
Aimee and Marissa found Chris Sebastiani standing in the doorway. She shouted toward the shadows where the forest undergrowth swayed in the wind. “And don’t go too near the cliffs. And be home by dark. Your father will be back tonight.”
Aimee glanced toward the forest. “Was that the twins?”
Chris nodded. “They disappear at dawn and don’t come back until after dark most days. I hardly see them anymore.”
“They must be growing up fast,” Aimee remarked.
“I was hoping to see them,” Marissa told her. “I haven’t seen them since you moved up here.”
“None of us have.” Chris waved toward the door. “Come inside and sit down. What took you so long to get here? It isn’t that far to run.”
Aimee and Marissa exchanged glances. “We didn’t run. We walked.”
Chris’s head whipped around. “What for?”
Marissa hesitated, but Aimee replied, “Marissa didn’t feel like rushing. The woods are so beautiful at this time of year.”
Chris went back to her work. Aimee and Marissa sat down in two chairs opposite the little fireplace in the back wall of the house. “How have you been, Chris? I can see the mountain air agrees with you.”
“Everything about it agrees with me,” Chris replied. “It agrees with me, and it agrees with the twins. I don’t know how I stayed in the village as long as I did.”
“That’s what I just said,” Aimee told her. “You never should have come down in the first place.”
“Yes, we should have,” Chris countered. “Turk’s mother is getting old. If she hadn’t seen the twins when they were small, she probably never would have seen them. Now that they are running through the woods all day, they don’t want to sit around the village. Besides, it gave me a chance to get to know Turk’s family. I won’t get that chance again.”
“How is Turk?” Aimee looked around. “Where is he?”
“He joined a patrol to the Ursidrean border,” Chris replied. “He still has duties with the warriors even though he lives up here.”
Aimee frowned. “I wonder why I didn’t hear about that.”
“He’s on his own assignment,” Chris told her. “He doesn’t travel with a detachment of warriors the way he used to. He travels alone most of the time and answers directly to Caleb.”
“What does he do out there all by himself?” Aimee asked.
“He carries communications from Caleb to Donen and back again,” Chris replied. “He meets Faruk, who is Donen’s right hand man, on the border. Faruk hands off Donen’s messages to Turk, and Turk carries them to Caleb. Then he carries the answers back and delivers them to Faruk, who carries them to the Ursidrean capitol to give to Donen.”
“That’s an awfully complicated way of communicating,” Aimee remarked. “There must be a faster way.”
“Do you mean like whipping out your cell phone and sending the person a text?” Chris asked. “This is Angondra, not Seattle. The Ursidreans have advanced communications technology, but the Lycaon don’t, and none of the other factions do, either. If they want to communicate, they have to do it the old fashioned way, and Lycaon runners are the fastest on the planet.”
“Don’t forget,” Marissa added, “these factions have been at war for centuries. They’ve never communicated at all before. Maybe when the peace negotiations get a little farther advanced, the Ursidreans will share their technology with the rest of us to make communications faster.”
Chris prepared them a meal, and they caught up on news from the village. “Carmen is pregnant now,” Marissa told her.
“Really?” Chris exclaimed. “I hadn’t heard.”
Marissa laughed. “How could you hear? You’ve been in self-imposed isolation up here for who knows how long.”
“I haven’t been in isolation,” Chris argued. “I’m just not living in the village where every tidbit of news gets passed from hand to hand in seconds. How did you find out?”
“Caleb told me,” Marissa replied. “He found out from Faruk, who found out from Donen, who is in negotiations with Renier.”
Aimee laughed. “Now that’s what I call the bush telephone.”
Marissa smiled. “Don’t laugh. He also told me your cousin Anna is with the Ursidreans now. She’s mated to a friend of Faruk’s named Menlo. She’s with Emily in the Ursidrean capitol.”
Aimee gasped. “How did that happen? Why didn’t you tell me before?”
“We were too busy talking about Chris,” Marissa replied. “And I only found out this morning. The Avitras captured Menlo off the Ursidrean border. They were going to hold him for ransom and then kill him. Anna helped him escape, and they traveled together back to Ursidrean territory.”
Aimee shook her head in wonder. “Amazing. I always knew Anna and Frieda didn’t belong with the Avitras. There’s something shifty about those people.”
“They’re all right,” Marissa told her. “We just have the same prejudices against them that all Angondran factions have against each other. I’m sure Aquilla had a good reason for doing what he did.”
“That’s not the only news from your cousins,” Chris interrupted. “Your cousin Frieda has been found.”
Aimee started out of her chair. She couldn’t contain herself any longer. “What? When? How? Where?”
Chris held up her hand. “Slow down. She’s with the Aqinas. That’s all I can tell you.”
Aimee stared at her. “If she’s with the Aqinas, how can she be found?”
“The Aqinas came out of the water when Donen and Renier met on the frontier,” Chris told her. “There was another human woman there. I met her at the Romarie crash site, but one of the Romarie survived the crash long enough and attacked her. I thought she was dead, and we left her there when the Lycaon rescued us. Maybe you remember her from the ship. She was a Latina woman from Texas. Her name is Sasha Marquez.”
Aimee nodded. “I didn’t think she survived the crash.”
“You don’t know how surprised I was to see her with the Aqinas,” Chris went on, “but they said they had another human woman with them who just came to them a few days before. They described her, and Emily recognized her. Frieda is living with the Aqinas. She’s found happiness there, and she’s not coming back.”
Aimee scratched her head. “This is amazing. I thought Frieda was gone for good.”
“That’s what we all thought,” Chris replied. “But she’s alive and well. Don’t ask me when we’ll ever see her again, but at least she’s happy where she is.”
A twig snapped outside. Chris frowned toward the forest.
“Is it the twins again?” Marissa asked.
“It’s Turk.” Chris waved toward the trees. “What’s he’s doing back so soon?”
A shadow fell across the doorway, and Turk crossed the threshold. He nodded to the two visitors. “Good to see you, again, Turk.”
“What are you doing here, Aimee?” he asked. “Shouldn’t you be on patrol?”
“I took a leave of absence to visit Chris,” she replied.
He gave Chris a kiss. “I can’t stay, darling. I have to run back to the Ursidrean border before dark.”
Chris’s eyes popped open. “Why? Can’t you stay even one night?”
He shook his head. “This is an emergency. Donen, Faruk, and Menlo are on their way to rendezvous with Renier. They're all going to Avitras territory.”
Aimee stiffened. “The Avitras? What can they do there?”
“They’re going to try to talk Aquilla into joining their peace agreement,” Turk replied. “The Lycaon have to be there. I wish there was some way to send a message to Caleb. He should be there instead of me, but there isn’t time. I have to leave right away.”
Marissa stood up. “I’ll go back and tell him.”
“There isn’t time to walk back,” Aimee told her. “By the time you got there, the other Alphas would be long gone.”
“I won’t walk,” Marissa replied. “I’ll run it. Then Caleb can run out to the border and meet up with you, Turk.”
“But you said....” Aimee began.
Marissa cut her off with a chop of her hand. “This is too important. I’ll make it.”
Chris looked back and forth between her friends. “Do you mind telling me what the dickens is going on?”
Marissa faced her. “I’m pregnant. That’s why we walked here instead of running, but I’ll be fine. I can still run as fast as I ever did, and Turk’s right. Caleb shouldn’t miss this meeting. If you can convince Aquilla to join your peace agreement, this could be the biggest thing to happen to Angondra in years. We’ve all waited so long for peace and been through so much. We can’t miss this chance.”
Turk hesitated. “Are you sure?”
Marissa headed for the door. “I’m sure. I’ll be there in no time, and Caleb will meet you on the border.”
Turk turned to Chris and Aimee. “Aria is coming with Donen, Emily and Anna are coming with the Ursidreans, and Carmen is coming with Renier. They think all these human women will help convince the Avitras to bid for peace.”
Chris stepped forward. “That settles it. I’m coming with you. You come, too, Aimee. The men won’t turn their backs on the chance at peace with all of us there to convince them.”
Aimee nodded. “All right. I’ll come with you, but what about the twins? They’re out there in the woods somewhere. What will happen when they come back and find both you and Turk gone?”
Chris tore a strip of bright red cloth off a bundle by the door. She tied it to the crooked tree branch over the doorpost. “This is our signal to the twins to go back to the village. Marissa can tell Turk’s mother and sister the twins are on their way down to the village. The twins will go to their grandmother’s house until we get back.”