Starfire Read Online Free PDF Page B

shoulder. Surprisingly, the gentle connection steadied her.
    “That’s something I don’t understand,” he said. His soft voice rolled over her like a physical presence. Soothing, comforting. “I thought Lemurians were immortal. What happened to all the women warriors? Why did they die?”
    Selyn shrugged. She’d often wondered the same thing, though in her heart she knew the truth. For the first time ever, she spoke her mother’s tragedy aloud.
    “After they were exiled from Lemurian society rather than treated as the heroes they were, when they realized they couldn’t escape their jailers, they gave up hope.” She tilted her head so that she could see Dawson, watch the emotions that flickered so openly across his expressive face. Already she’d learned to read him, in spite of the dark beard he wore.
    “After so many years toiling in the mines—victimized by the cruelty of the guards, with no hope of freedom for themselves or their daughters—they began to choose death. Within a couple of years, all of the women warriors had passed beyond the veil.”
    “Were they pregnant when they were sent into slavery?”
    Eddy’s question hung there—a question Selyn knew she must answer. She shook her head. “No. The guards used rape as a form of intimidation, a way to control the women, to subjugate them. They were warriors—women used to fighting demonkind—and they fought the wardens with every bit as much passion as they’d fought during the DemonWars, but they had no weapons. Their swords had been taken away and destroyed. They were physically smaller than the males guarding them, and, without weapons, powerless against them. Sexual assault was demeaning and terrifying, but they might have continued to fight, except almost all of them became pregnant. That was unexpected, and it changed the dynamic of their existence.”
    She shivered, remembering the terrible stories of the wardens’ cruelty. Remembering her mother’s mixed emotions—the love she felt for her unexpected daughter; the absolute hatred for the man who had forced the pregnancy on her through a brutal act of rape.
    Selyn swallowed past the bile that rose in her throat at the telling. “The Lemurian fertility rate is historically very low, and yet, one by one, most of the women conceived, and most of the babies were daughters. The few boys who were born were taken away by the guards, never to be seen again. But pregnancy meant the women had new life to consider. The option of fighting the guards no longer existed, because it meant putting their unborn babies at risk. They gave up the fight and turned their energies to raising daughters who would one day avenge them.”
    She raised her head and realized she was telling her story to Dawson. The others listened just as attentively, but her words were directed at him. “We are those daughters,” she said. “We who call ourselves the Forgotten Ones.”
    Dawson nodded. “Forgotten no longer, Selyn. All of Lemuria will soon know about you, about your mothers and the role they played in your world’s history.”
    “I hope so. That is my wish. My prayer. My mother’s prayer as well.”
    “They don’t still rape, do they? Not their own daughters?” Eddy’s gaze flicked to Dawson, then back to Selyn.
    “No. The sexual abuse stopped as soon as most of the women had conceived. They’d achieved their purpose by changing the dynamic, by making it impossible for the women to fight. At first it was to protect their unborn children, and then it was to keep the children safe. In a way, it was as if the pregnancies were part of the punishment, though our mothers loved us and were always good to us. Pregnancy made it easier for the guards to control the women warriors. The beatings, though … the beatings continue, and there have been some deaths among us. We number one hundred, now. There once were almost a dozen more.”
    Eddy glanced once again at Dawson. Then she squeezed Selyn’s hand.