6. Chapter 6

"You are in luck," Thlung-Rhan informed me the next morning. "Vorag has indeed taken a liking to you, Khadahr Dzur-Khan. Your new mate's name is Majiil. Come and meet her."

Filled with excitement, temporarily forgetting my misgivings about the priests and the Temple, I followed Thlung-Rhan into a small room, where a gallis, no older than ten, rose from a bed. She looked at me with all the excitement I had just lost upon seeing her. "Khadahr Dzur-Khan, it will be an honor to be your mate."

I stared at her, appalled. "Is this a joke?"

"Does she not please you?" At the priest's words, the little gallis' eyes filled with tears.

"She is a child," I protested.

"I agree. You might need to wait a few years before you breed her, but in the meantime, you can mold her to your wishes and comfort," Thlung-Rhan said, and by the way he did, it took all my willpower not to pummel him to the ground.

"Is this what you do? Send children to be mated?" My voice sounded icy even to my ears.

"Alas, you know of our dilemma." Thlung-Rhan shook his head.

"What about all those gallies out there on the streets? Your servants?"

"They have already been promised, or Vorag hasn't seen fit to show us their mates yet," Thlung-Rhan replied.

"I will make you happy, I promise," the little gallis said, walking over to me and sunk to her knees, kissing my hand. "Please, Khadahr."

Disgusted by the priests and what they had raised her to do, I pulled my hand back.

"Do you take her?" Thlung-Rhan asked. "Because I did have another dream about her, but since you are here…"

"I will take her," I promised. "Your… gifts will be sent later." Right now, I was in the mood to send a few warriors and have him castrated as a gift .

I had no intentions of mating this child, but I wasn't about to leave her here to be bartered off like some kind of animal.

She walked with me to the gates, and I called four of my warriors over. "These males will take you back to my palace in Svengrod."

"You will not go with me?" she asked with wide-open eyes .

I kneeled before her to be at eye level with her. "Xan—little one—I promise I will have you looked after. You will be safe with me."

Her eyes brimmed with tears. "I want to be your khadahrshi. Please don't send me away. I will be good, I promise."

My heart went out to her, and anger built in my gut. What were those priests telling these young ones? She was nothing but a kid. "You haven't displeased me, xan, not at all. I just need… someone older than you."

"I will bleed in a year or two. I can give you young ones."

I balled my fists, and it took all my self-control not to run back to the Temple and kill Thlung-Rhan, and even more not to show my fury to the gallis. "Even that is too young, Majiil. You shouldn't be wed until you're at least eighteen."

Her eyes grew big. "That's not what the High Priest says. He says we have to do our duties by Vorag and give our males many children."

I unballed my fist and gently stroked her face, shaking my head. "One day, you will do your duty, I swear it. But not with me, and not for many years. In the meantime, you will stay with me, and I will have you raised as if you were my daughter."

Large, nearly violet eyes stared at me, taking me in, and it felt as if she was looking down into the pit of my soul. "I will be waiting for you at Svengrod, and you will see I will make a good mate for you. "

I sighed. The priests had brainwashed her, and it would take a long time to make her see how life was supposed to be lived. Time I didn't have right now. My presence was expected at the red fog.

"I will see you soon," I promised.

"I will be ready." She nodded solemnly, much too grown-up for a youngling like her.

"Make sure she gets the best room, teachers, and whatever she needs. Have Brinhor look after her. Tell her to treat her like my daughter."

"Sa Khadahr." One of the warriors replied.

Brinhor had been like a sister to my mother. She had been with my family for many years. She was one of the warmest people I had ever met, and I still thank the gods to this day that she had been too sick to travel when the catastrophe hit. She would know what to do with Majiil.

During the journey to the red fog, my mind churned with what I had witnessed, and I realized I wouldn't be able to stand by and allow this kind of atrocity to continue, but I had no clue how to stop it.

"You missed Tzar-Than and his cursed humans," Bzun-Lhan, the high priest, informed me when we arrived for our guard duty.

He was lucky that the sight of the red fog stunned me the same way it had ten years ago when I first laid eyes on it. The same way it did every two years when it was my turn to provide guards. The fog appeared caught in some kind of doorway. Its tendrils dissipated as soon as they made contact with Vandruk's air .

Tzar-Than and his father had been the first to discover it, and within days, all Khadahrs and their warriors had been stationed surrounding it, waiting for the inevitable invading army to show their ugly faces. We had been ready for it, filled with lust for revenge on the people who had been responsible for the deaths of our gallies. All of us had still been in mourning, wishing for nothing more than to bury our swords and knives deep in the enemy's bodies.

To our surprise, the first things that came through the fog were nothing we had ever seen before. There were round, oval, square objects; some flew, and some crawled. None of them made it more than a few paces before they evaporated into thin air right in front of our eyes. Before we could even attack them.

Then, the first beings came through. They were very similar to us, except their skin was rosy, olive, and all shades of brown. Mercilessly and without warning, we took them out, just like they had taken out our gallies.

After that, more came, not as small as the first ones, but still smaller than us. They, in contrast to the first, bore fearsome weapons that made loud sounds and created large holes in the bodies of the unfortunate warriors hit—most of them fatal. We didn't know what made the holes, like the strange objects that came through before the enemy warriors; whatever wounded our males and made the holes disintegrated into thin air just like their loud weapons, leaving them unarmed and ready for slaughter.

That's when we got our revenge, or at least some of it .

That's when they stopped sending anything through the fog. For years.

I heard rumors that Tzar-Than had captured one of them. But until Tzar-Than approached me with his idea of demanding human gallies from our enemies, I had never given it any more consideration.

Fury still simmered inside me from the Temple visit. Part of that fury transferred to Bzun-Lhan for allowing this to happen. But he was our High Priest. Vorag's voice on Vandruk. Being infuriated with him meant being infuriated with our gods, and our gods were a large part of our culture. Doubting one would let doubt in on the other.

I felt torn between my gods and what I knew was wrong—one didn't mate younglings to older males. For now, I kept my temper under control and retorted, "So your brother followed through with his plan?"

Bzun-Lhan and Tzar-Than looked like the siblings they were, but you could see why Tzar-Than had made khadahr. It was curious how two brothers could reach such power in different ways.

"Somebody needs to teach Tzar-Than a lesson. He cannot go against the will of the gods. The Khadahr Gathering needs to remind him of that," Bzun-Lhan spewed, bloodlust in his eyes.

"The last I heard, the Khadahr Gathering was still undecided on a course of action," I voiced, not liking to contradict the High Priest, but part of me wasn't so sure about how blasphemous Tzar-Than's plan really was. How could it be wrong to take gallies from our enemies, while mating younglings wasn't? I could not believe for one moment that this could possibly be Vorag's will. Not after what I had seen at the Temple and the splendor the priests lived in. That was in stark contrast to what our priests used to stand for.

"Our bloodline needs to remain impeccable," Bzun-Lhan continued, "if the khadahrs won't step in, I will have to resort to other measures." What did that mean? I narrowed my eyes. I was a Khadahr, battle-ready, and I knew a threat when it was made. The image of all the new Temple Guardians popped into my head. Was Bzun-Lhan ready to go to war? With us?

I didn't like the idea of diluting our bloodlines with the humans either, but I liked the priests' growing power over us even less. Still, I said, "I agree with you." A smile formed on his lips, and I raised my hand. "But I just came from the Temple and a meeting with Thlung-Rhan."

"You were looking for a mate?" Bzun-Lhan guessed. "Vorag didn't divulge one for you?"

"He offered me a youngling," I spat, hoping Bzun-Lhan might not be privy to this.

"It is unfortunate we have to resort to mating younglings." His tone was regretful, and he tried to look the part, but all I saw were his greedy little eyes.

"I assume you brought gifts for the privilege of receiving a mate?" Bzun-Lhan continued.

My stomach twisted. "Is that truly Vorag's will? "

"Vorag's will is not for us to understand," he intoned, and I wondered how many males he had convinced with that line. How many younglings had been mated to older males?

"Taking that into consideration, I wonder if Tzar-Than's plan truly is this outrageous." As I said those words, I realized that I meant them. That I was giving Tzar-Than's plan consideration.

Bzun-Lhan's eyes hardened as they landed on me. "Don't tell me you side with my bastard brother?"

I didn't like the tone of his voice or the accusation in it. The reference to his brother made him seem petty, as if his objection was simply born from brotherly rivalry rather than him representing the will of the gods. For the first time, I tried to see the male in him, not the priest, and I didn't entirely like what I saw.

I had known Bzun-Lhan all my life, just like Tzar-Than. After Bzun-Lhan became an acolyte, then a priest, and then rose to the high priest, I had pushed all memories of the male from me. The High Priest was the highest authority on Vandruk. We didn't have a king or emperor. Vandruk was made up of demesnes, each led by a khadahr. Decisions regarding Vandruk, as a whole, were made by the Khadahr Gathering in a democratic way. The High Priest, however, retained the most respected vote—something I had never questioned until now. Until I heard the petulant tone in Bzun-Lhan's voice and the detestation he still held for Tzar-Than—a trait most unbecoming for someone holding this office. Not to mention, I had seen proof of the growing number of Temple Guardians rivaling ours .

"I will side with whoever has the better plan for the continuity of Vandruk," I retorted more sharply than intended. "If Tzar-Than's plan works, it may be the answer to our prayers."

Bzun-Lhan spat on the ground. "Your prayers need to be reserved for Vorag. What you say is treason. Don't forget, it was the humans who brought this curse on us. It was the humans who killed our mothers, sisters, mates."

How could I ever forget? I didn't need Bzun-Lhan or anybody to remind me of that fateful day.

"It's been years, and we need to move on," I heard myself say, and to my surprise, I felt part of me meaning it.

Did I still want to kill all the humans? Sa. I desired nothing more than to give them a taste of what they did to us, but was that in Vandruk's best interest?

"We might yet still get our revenge, High Priest, but first, we need to ensure our species' survival."

His jaw worked hard, and hate sparked in his eyes. I just wasn't sure if it was meant for me, the humans, or Tzar-Than.

Somehow, our species had to go on, and for that, we needed children if we wanted to see another generation come and thrive. The few children born since the tragedy would not be enough to keep Vandruk's population from extermination. Tzar-Than had seen this and taken steps to stop our downfall.

I started to recognize the wisdom in his decision.

"I will judge for myself," I informed the High Priest, determined to catch up with Tzar-Than and assess the human gallies for myself. I left Bran-Vhul in charge of the warriors guarding the red fog and took two males to chase after Tzur-Than.