Ashes and Rain: Sequel to Khe (The Ahsenthe Cycle Book 2) Read Online Free PDF Page B

only we corentans know the stories of the time before they came. The creatures are gone now. Every one of them. We own our world again.”
    “Creatures from another world,” Fundid said and laughed. Her sisters laughed with her until they realized Azlii, Nez, and I weren’t sharing their emotion.
    Fundid leaned forward then, her eyes narrowed, her shoulders high. “What game is this you’re playing? Your lies are an insult to our history of friendship and trust.”
    Azlii bolted to her feet as if slapped. She glared at Fundid, then reached up and undid her collar, showing her neck. There were emotion colors there — the ocher of impatience, the brown-purple of exasperation, but not a trace of the brown-green of shame. Not even a corentan could lie and not show shame colors on her neck.
    Fundid stared a long time. Her shoulders dropped back to their normal position.
    “For seven cloaks, I need the whole story.”
    “Pftt,” Azlii said, and sat again. “Eight cloaks. One in apology.”
    Fundid’s lips pulled tight, but she nodded.
    Azlii cleared her throat. “The Powers, or the lumani, as they called themselves, discovered they couldn’t reproduce on our world. They were growing old, and wanted to find a way to keep their hold on us. They devised a method of mating with doumanas.”
    Two of the Bethon doumanas shuddered.
    “Unfortunately for the lumani,” Azlii said, “they picked the wrong doumana for their experiments. She destroyed them. In the process, the energy center in Chimbalay was also destroyed. It’s been rebuilt now.”
    I laced my fingers together in my lap, and made myself listen as though this story had nothing to do with me.
    Fundid still looked skeptical, but she couldn’t deny the truth of Azlii’s neck, which had shown only the colors of a disturbing memory as she told the story.
    “How did this doumana destroy the lu… lu…”
    “Lumani,” Azlii said. “But that is another story. And will cost you additional.”
    I could tell Fundid wanted the tale, as did her unitmates, but her mind was clicking in other directions at the same time. She stared ahead at some sight that wasn’t there.
    Azlii leaned forward and touched Fundid’s hand. “You have a question.”
    The touch drew Fundid back from her thoughts.
    “Every year, the Powers sent us directions on what color dyes to use, how much raw cloth to weave, how many cloaks to sew. Who will tell us that now?”
    Azlii clenched her hands tight in her lap. The Bethon doumanas didn’t seem to notice, each with her eyebrow ridges raised now in worry. One pleated the ends of her beautiful hipwrap with her fingers.
    “You could decide for yourself,” Azlii said evenly.
    Fundid blinked. She sat quietly for a long moment — so long that her unitmates fidgeted in their seats, settling and resettling. Nez and I followed Azlii’s lead, sitting as still as trees.
    Slowly Fundid stood and undid her collar. The orange-yellow of confusion showed on nearly all of her spots. She looked at one of her unitmates.
    “My Second will bring the cloaks. We are done here.”
    “There’s more to the story,” Azlii said, clearly surprised at this turn of the conversation. “Sit, and I will tell you.”
    Fundid shook her head. “I’d hoped you would tell me the rumors were false.”
    She turned and walked out the door of her own dwelling as if she had found herself in a strange land and was lost.
     

     
    The shunned doumanas still stood at their lonely corners outside Fundid’s dwelling. I could see Nez was trying not to stare, but she couldn’t stop herself.
    “What do you think they did?” she asked, her voice low.
    I shrugged. My mind was crowded with angry thoughts. I pushed the strap of the carrying bag filled with two of the lovely cloaks higher onto my shoulder. Azlii and Nez carried three cloaks each, in similar bags.
    We took a more direct route back across Bethon, crossing a fallow field of rich, dark loam. I angled Azlii off until we