Regali (A Walker Saga) (8 page)

“Not even close
,” Brace muttered.

I smiled at my loyal mate.

“So who are you and where do I get eyes like that?” Lucy grinned at her savior.

“I am Ria, Queen of the beasts. I rule the jungle of Artwon, which is a small country of Regali.” She paused. “And I inherited these eyes from my father.”

“Damn.” Lucy smiled even bigger. “I just want to follow her around like a puppy.”

She looked at Colton. “You must be struggling; try not to hump her leg.”

He opened his mouth to reply but was cut off.

“Why do you speak in the tongue of the gods?” Klea, the leon
, growled at us from where she stood rigidly looming over Ria. “Our Queen is born of god and mother-to-nature. You speak in their language.”

“Actually
, this language originates with Walkers. They’ve spread it throughout the worlds during their constant travels.” Brace moved in to stand at my back, his warmth and presence encasing me.

“Walkers.” Ria sounded startled. “What do you know of Walkers? Is that why you wear the marks? I thought they were purple.”

Okay, definitely not the first time she’d heard of Walkers.

“That
’s why the color of your eyes is so familiar,” Colton said. “It’s almost identical to the color of Nos’ eyes.”

“Indigo
,” I breathed. “Yes, you’re my half-Walker.”

Great, she was the Queen
. Should be easy to get her to leave.

Hours later we were up in her tree-house. Apparently Magenta had sent us straight to beneath her royal dwelling, probably hoping we’d be attacked by her guards. During our time on Regali so far I’d explained the important facts to Ria: my mission to gather the half-Walkers, the Seventine release, and finally how important it was that we attempted the ritual which would hopefully suck the freed back in and permanently seal the doorway. Ria had listened, asked questions that did more than hint at the cunningly intelligent mind she possessed. But in the end we’d reached an impasse.

“I am Queen
. There is none to take over my duties, and I cannot just abandon my people,” she said for the third time. “And while I appreciate what you are saying is universal, what would be the point of saving Regali if Artwon and its inhabitants are lost during my absence?”

“Who would rule if you died?” I asked.

She faced me. Her almond-shaped eyes blinked a few times in rapid succession. “If I died, normal protocol would be followed. We have rules and rituals in place for this. We have no precedent for a ruler to simply create a hiatus.” She smiled. “No matter how important the issue.”

“Besides
, we have nothing but your word. Why should we believe this tale you weave?” Klea growled, which I was beginning to understand was just the way she spoke.

The beasts, as Ria called them, didn
’t have vocal cords suitable for speaking English.

“I believe them
,” Ria said simply.

I was totally digging how chilled out and confident she was.

“They speak of my father’s words and they know his name.”

I reached for my necklace then and flicked the clasp. Brace and I wore permanent marks, but as the yellow light emerged, so did Colton’s black tribal and Ria’s indigo pattern.

Klea stopped her growling and pacing, and just stared at her Queen. And I couldn’t blame her. The indigo pattern matched the purple tones of Ria’s eyes. She looked even more stunning. I glanced around but there was nothing reflective in the simple tree-house.

“Go to the lake, Ria
. You need to see your face,” Klea said to her.

“Wait
,” I said, before reluctantly handing over my world necklace. I never usually let it out of my sight. “You will need the moonstale light.”

She disappeared out of the open doorway
. It looked as if she just stepped off into nothing, and we were very high up. But then I noticed the vines catch her, lowering her to the ground.

“Coolest power ever
,” Lucy said.

I reached out an arm and hugged my tiny friend. “I’m so glad you’re okay.” It had been a close call.

“I feel fantastic,” she said. “Remind me to take those flowers with me when I leave.”

“Don’t let them hear you say that
. They take offense to murder.” Ria reappeared behind us.

Her tone was light, but there was truth behind those words.

“Are the plants sentient here?” I asked.

“Plants are sentient everywhere
. You just have to learn to listen.” She ran her hands over the ivy blocking the doorway. “But I have special abilities courtesy of my mother. She is one of the tree spirits. I am her only child.” Her eyes dulled as she spoke. “She doesn’t exist on this plane anymore. We communicate via the sacred tree only.”

“I
’m guessing that you’re going to be one of the more powerful half-Walkers.” Brace was leaning against one of the only solid walls. “You’re not only Walker, but the other half is a nature spirit.”

“Don’t you see?” I implored her. “We need you
; we need your energy. This might be our only chance.”

She gave Klea a quick glance, before turning back to me. “I wish I could leave. But we have many dramas in Artwon right now. The fringe are back, and I have discovered that they are not only gathering factions of Regali
, but they also work with Walkers. Together they plan to bring about the destruction of all packs.”

“What
’s the fringe?” I asked.

“They are those of our packs who have rebelled
. They do not like the way Ria lives: in peace. Ria has almost wiped out warring between our people. The fringe like to war,” Klea answered.

“How do you know Walkers assist them?” Brace moved to stand at my side.

“My father, Nos, came and showed me how they hid from my plants. While we were there, we saw men emerge from a black starry doorway. My father identified them as Walkers.”

“How many,” Brace spoke again, “and what was their clan?”

“Only two,” she replied, “and I believe it was Abanaith. Or something like that.”

Brace’s features darkened
. Quite a few of the Abernath clan were loyal to Que, his recently departed father, and Brace was having difficulty rounding them up and halting their activities around the worlds.

“If we help you with your problem,
would you consider leaving?” I knew it could be time-consuming, but I needed Ria.

She pursed her lips. “I do not know if what you ask is possible. But, if the fringe are not exterminated
then it would be
impossible
for me to leave.”

So she was promising nothing.

“Alright, then let’s get on our fringe-busting outfits and go do some pest-spraying.” Lucy jumped to her feet, her eyes bright, curls bouncing everywhere. She looked like the picture of health.

Of course Klea and Ria had no idea what Lucy had just said, but they joined the rest of us on our feet.

“First, we call a meeting of all the pack guards,” Ria said. “And then we go in with as much force as we can gather and take them down. Either they surrender or they die.” Her words were harsh, but her tone was still chilled out.

Kind of freaky, the way she so calmly discussed death.

“And I’ll deal with the Walkers,” Brace finished.

Ria led us through the jungle. The plants simply parted for her as she walked. I couldn’t even imagine having that kind of power over nature. And it wasn’t just that. As she walked, she touched each plant and they curled around her. There was some type of love-love relationship going on there. No wonder humans were drawn to her. Her aura was so warm and inviting. All shades of yellow. After walking for a long time in the sauna of a jungle, we finally reached a reasonably large clearing.

“This is the center of the packs
’ territories.” Ria sank onto the ground. “Please avoid that vine.” She pointed to a large mass of vines with small black berries. “It is a little temperamental.”

Remembering the
calia flowers, we moved as far from those brambles as we could before sitting in a semi-circle.

“So how many different packs are there in Artwon?” Lucy asked, leaning forward to rest her elbows on her knees.

“There are six. The leons.” Ria smiled at Klea. “The small cat people are the jags.” As she said this a pair of black-furred creatures swung into the clearing. They did look like cats with short coarse fur, whiskers and pointed ears.

“The
eaglets, flyers.”

In they came, from high in the canopy. They were the strangest combination I’d seen so far. Standing as tall as a man, they had wings and arms. Their finger-tips had razor
-sharp claws, and a mass of feathers coated their bodies. All the while with a human face … well, a human face topped off with a beak.

“The
slimes are the reptiles.”

I pulled my eyes from the
eaglets to see the slimes. They emerged from the bushes around us, and I had to suppress my shivers. They were built like snakes, with long slimy bodies that looked to be scaled, but they had human-shaped heads, and claw-like arms and legs. A long forked tongue emerged as they looked us over.

“The
munks are our tree flyers,” Ria continued.

Their cooing noises preceded them as they swung in. They were monkey
-like creatures … no, not really monkey. More like an ape and human had merged with each other. Short dark fur coated their bodies, which were the closest in shape to human.

“And our most ferocious, the
bera.”

I almost got to my feet as the seven
-foot-tall bera entered our clearing. They were the epitome of a grizzly bear, but with a humanoid face. Not many things I’d seen topped out Walkers in height and strength, but there was something scary about the bera.

“This is the strangest thing I’ve ever seen
,” Lucy whispered to me.

The members of the
different packs started to move closer to us to join in sitting around the semi-circle. I couldn’t take my eyes off them, searching out each individual feature. Suddenly one of the jags let out a loud screech. I winced as its brethren followed its noise, and suddenly they surrounded Colton.

Ria
stood. “You’re a wolver?” There was a question in her voice as she faced him.

He slowly stood also, his aim
clearly not to startle the jags, who were closing in on him.

“What
’s a wolver?” he asked.

“They were a pack who warred themselves to death
. We have not seen them in many years.”

“I
’m a Walker,” Colton said, his pale blue eyes flashing in warning as the black cats closed in. “I’ve never been to Regali in my life. But I do shift into a wolf, a canine animal.”

“Yeah
, a dog, like woof-woof, you know?” Lucy piped up.

She was still teasing Colton, but I could see her moving closer and getting her hands up to defend him.

“No, not like a dog. I’m a wolf. Completely different,” Colton said as he stepped in front of her, edging her out of the jags’ sight.

Ria turned and spoke in growls to the small cat people. They stopped the screeching and started to calm down.

Klea was at her Queen’s back. “I thought you smelt familiar when we first met. It is similar to the wolver, but there are many subtle differences. The jags probably missed this. Their sense of smell is not quite as developed as the leons’,” she said as she grabbed one of the jags by the scruff of the neck and threw it backwards.

Then s
he growled what sounded like harsh warnings, and all of the rest moved away.

Once the packs had calmed down and taken
their seats, Ria moved into the center of the clearing.

“I have found the fringe.” She project
ed her voice out into the clearing and silence descended faster than you could blink an eye. “I know we have been waiting for this moment for a long time and finally I know how they have managed to avoid capture and stay undetected.”

Growls, screeches, chirps, cheeps and many other noises rang out in a chorus of song. Or speech. I couldn’t tell.

“I need to prepare you all, though. They wear the skins of our dead.” Ria choked out these words. “They use the pure essence of our loved ones to hide their evil ways.”

I was sure that tears rolled down the faces of almost all of the animal-people in our midst, although it was hard to
gauge expressions on their furred, scaled and feathered features. Sorrow rose in an engulfing emotion and I found a few stray tears rolling down my own cheeks at this outpouring of pain.

Brace reached up and
, with both hands resting on my face, he used his thumbs to brush away the salty wetness. He gave me a gentle kiss on the lips for comfort, nothing more. I stared at him, unable to pull my eyes away until Ria broke the sorrowful silence.