2. Chapter 2

Our line needs to continue. Promise me. Those had been my dying father's last words.

I sighed deeply. I'm trying, father, I reminded myself , I'm trying . If I weren't, I wouldn't be here, throwing myself at the mercy of the priests to receive a mate to continue my family's line. Unfortunately, ever since the darkest day in our history, we Vandruks were forced to petition the priests for mates or beg them. Khadahrs didn't beg or petition; they took what they needed. Or they used to anyway until the cursed day of the cave-in that cost the lives of over three-quarters of our gallies. That's when the Temple had taken it upon themselves to decide who mated whom and when. I understood that the idea behind it was to minimize family-related breeding. The priests kept very close records of what they were doing, but the hard truth was that our species was doomed .

It didn't matter if the priests kept control over our breeding. Even if all the gallies on Vandruk only gave birth to female offspring, even if they gave birth once a year, it wouldn't be enough to keep our species alive. There were a hundred males to each gallis, maybe more. I wasn't that sophisticated with numbers, but I recognized doom when I saw it.

If we were lucky, our species would only hover on the brink of extinction. Even if it didn't tip over, there wouldn't be enough of us left to keep places like Temple City running. Eventually, our cities would lose most of their population, crumble, and die. It was a depressing thought and the reason why I hadn't come to Temple City sooner. After considering the senselessness of getting mated just to have more sons who would die mateless, one too many times. Lately, though, dreams had begun to plague me, dreams of my father's last moments and the promise he wrung from me. If I wasn't a male of his word, I was nothing.

I cursed Khadahr Tzar-Than because it had been after his visit that the dreams had started. His cursed visit. Had he not been like a brother to me, I would have gladly slain him right there in my great hall for the blasphemy he suggested.

He declared he was planning on going through the red fog, the fog responsible for the death of our gallies, to demand from the humans— as the alien species called themselves—gallies to replenish what they had killed. The red fog had appeared right after Vandruk's ground shook so violently that no male or animal had been able to remain standing, causing the cave-in. Later, we found out that the red fog was a door to another world, a door the humans had opened.

And now Tzar-Than suggested we mate humans , the very species responsible for our slow extinction. He suggested we have younglings with them and proposed that diluting our blood with that of a weaker species would save ours.

Preposterous.

Unconscionable.

The Temple was going to expel him for the mere mention of his idea. I remember saying, "They will never allow you to mate outside our species."

"Do you hear yourself?" Tzar-Than had accused me. "Allow me? Allow me? Me? A khadahr? Who is to deny me anything?"

I heard him. I heard him loud and clear, even louder now that I had been forced to humble myself and see the priests to beg for a mate. His words rang in my ears, just like my father's dying request.

I shook my head of the memories.

"I think I've died and gone to heaven," Bran-Vhal, my First Blade, said the moment the large gates to the Temple City opened. His words resonated in the expression on the faces of the forty warriors who had accompanied me.

"Your warriors need to stay outside Khadahr. You have my word that they will be taken care of," a priest said, greeting us at the gates and raising his hand to halt us.

His order was backed up by several Temple Guardians, armed to the teeth, standing at the ready to his left and right. But that wasn't what caught our attention. Even though the Temple Guardians looked impressive in their uniforms, which were the same colors as the priest's robe, my warriors could have taken them down. They might have worn the clothing, armor, and weapons of warriors, and they might even know how to use them, but they were used to the cushiony Temple life. I doubted they had ever set their foot out into the wildlands, or if they had, it had been years.

Nek, what caught each one of my males' attention, was the uncountable number of gallies walking down Temple City's streets. Gallies almost, if not already, of mating age.

It had been a long time—ten years—since I had seen so many gallies in one place. Not since the last Khadahr Trials, which used to take place every five years, ended in tragedy. I had forgotten how our streets used to be filled with them, their high laughter, how they called after their young.

"Khadahr?" the priest called my attention back to him. I hadn't even known that so many gallies still existed on Vandruk.

"What is this?" I pressed out between clenched jaws, having a hard time believing what I was seeing. Most of all, I found it hard to believe that all these gallies wouldn't have been spoken for already. Many desperate males wanted a family to band together, and if the outlaws found out, this place would be surrounded by them. Overrun. The gallies would be taken, raped, and sold. How in the gods' names were these priests keeping all these gallies safe? And their presence a secret?

"These are the gallies who have been entrusted to our safekeeping. This is what you came for, Khadahr," the priest said .

"Khadahr Dzur-Khan," I informed him, pushing my anger down at him for not knowing my name or pretending not to. There weren't many citizens who wouldn't have known the names and faces of all forty khadahrs. Our lands spread from north to south and east to west, encompassing all the land surrounded by the never-ending sea. If you were to travel the entire length of Vandruk, it would take months.

Our names and those of the khadahrs before us were etched into the holy stones inside the Temple the moment we passed the last test of becoming a khadahr. The test that gave us the scars that would mark us as leaders for all eternity. No male or gallies would mistake us for a common warrior.

"Khadahr Dzur-Khan." The priest nodded, acknowledging the correction. I wondered if Vorag had announced my arrival in his dreams, but I doubted our highest god would bother to announce my coming. Then again, the priests claimed Vorag appeared to them in their dreams to make his will known. And after all, I came to ask for a mate, something the priests also claimed to be ordained by Vorag.

"I have to insist you leave your weapons behind," the priest continued, clueless as to how much he was raising my ire.

The urge to turn and leave was strong, but my father's words rang inside my head. I had made an oath. No matter how much the priest's presumptuousness fed the fire of anger in my stomach. If I was going to keep my oath, I had to obey.

"I'll be back," I hissed at Bran-Vhal, handing my stone ax, bone sword, and knives to him .

"This too." The priest pointed at my necklace.

My necklace was nothing but teeth collected from the xythrax I killed during the Khadahr Trials. "This is no weapon, priest." I snarled. If this little male was afraid of some teeth, he shouldn't be inviting khadahrs into his walls. I could wring his scrawny neck with one hand.

"I'm here to see the High Priest, Bzun-Lhan," I stated, making it clear that my necklace would stay.

"I beg your pardon, Khadahr Dzur-Khan, but the High Priest left a day ago for the red fog."

"He left?" I checked incredulously. A High Priest hardly ever left his Temple. The only exception had been the quinquennial celebration, and that had stopped after the cave-in. Why would Bzun-Lhan go to the red fog? Why now?

An icy shudder moved down my back. Tzar-Than! Him and his foolish plan. He had to be the reason Bzun-Lhan left the Temple. Bzun-Lhan was probably trying to stop him from bringing human gallies to our world.

This complicated matters. "Surely there are other priests here who, in his absence, have the power to give me a mate?"

The priest folded his arms over his chest, his palms resting flat on the opposite shoulder as he bowed slightly. "You came in search of a mate?"

Why else would I come here ? I wondered but kept my tongue in check. These were priests, not normal citizens. I needed to apply more patience .

"You want to see Grand Master Thlung-Rhan." The priest nodded. "He is in charge during High Priest Bzun-Lhan's absence."

The gates closed behind me, and the priest led the way to the main Temple. I couldn't stop my eyes from roaming over the gallies moving about, wondering if one of them might be my future mate.

I had heard that the priests had been incentivizing every couple to surrender their daughters to the Temple's keeping. Promises of brides for their sons and prayers for the souls of their loved ones had been given. I just hadn't realized how many Vandruks had followed the priest's call.

Their numbers seemed overwhelming, but in all reality, I had to admit that there were probably fewer than a couple hundred—not enough to sustain Vandruk's population, not enough to spare us from extinction.

Again, my mind turned to Tzar-Than and his outlandish plan. Taking a human gallis as a mate might be the answer to our prayers. I wished Bzun-Lhan had been here. I would have liked to talk to our High Priest about this in more detail, even though I already knew his opinion about Tzar-Than's plan—he would want to keep the Vandruk bloodline as pure as possible, not diluted with the blood of our enemies.

The question, though, was, was it better to die with an intact bloodline or dilute it and survive?

A gallis walked by, no older than sixteen, sidetracking my musings. She was a beauty, with her long black hair and her ochre skin gleaming in the sun. I wondered what the human gallies looked like. Did they have black hair like ours? What were their lives like on Earth? Were they as cherished by their males as our gallies?

I watched the young gallis move with grace down the pebbled Temple grounds, remembering for the first time in a long time their sweet demeanor and dispositions. How caring and nourishing they had been. Would a human be as even-tempered and fragile?