Chapter 5

Calsa woke slowly. Every muscle in her body ached. She took a deep breath as she opened her eyes slowly. She was laying on her stomach, her arms clenched tightly around the pillow, the blanket just above her lower back. Her brow furrowed when she realized she was naked ... and in Alt's bed.

Memories from the previous day sprang to her mind suddenly. She squirmed as she remembered what she and Alt had done. She could feel the stinging scratches he had given her along her side. All his bites were livid on her skin. She let out a slow breath, wondering what was going to happen now. She'd spent so long playing a boy that she almost believed it.

Gradually, stiffly, Calsa slipped from the bed. She fished out a tunic from her drawer, pulling it over her head with a low groan. She'd taken the final ritual twice in one day, gotten away without any injury each time, only be bruised and scratched up by her teacher. She truly didn't know how she felt about all of it. She'd made herself forget that they had ever been together before, made herself forget that she'd ever wanted to be with him.

Her stomach growled angrily, stopping her thoughts. She could smell food. Alt was apparently cooking something. Gulping the dry lump in her throat, she left the bedroom into the mainroom. Peering around the corner, she peeked into the kitchen.

Alt wore his pants, his thick, powerful torso bare. She'd seen him shirtless a million times, but now her body tingled to see his tanned skin. She blushed when she saw the scratches she'd given him along his back. He'd cleaned them since they had drawn blood.

"Finally awake?" She was startled when he glanced at her, knowing she was there though she hadn't made a sound.

"Kind of," she responded softly. She slipped closer to him to see what he was making.

He grunted, suddenly wrapping his arm around her waist, pulling her against his body. She gasped, uncertain. "I'm sure you're hungry." His voice was somehow different. Before, he'd always spoken down to her. He'd always had a certain tone, stern and all knowing, but now it was soft, informal.

Calsa nodded without a word. Her body so perfectly nestled into his side. She found her head leaning against his shoulder, not even remembering having relaxed. He turned slightly, tenderly kissing her lips. She kissed back, thinking it felt so strange and yet so perfect.

"Are you feeling better?" he asked softly, his large hand slipping up to gently caress her hair.

"Sore," she admitted quietly, blushing a little.

He smiled. "Well, that's to be expected. I tried to wake you up yesterday so you could stretch, but you were pretty adamant on not opening your eyes."

"Yesterday?" Calsa glanced at him.

He nodded, still smiling at her. "You've been asleep a whole day and two nights." He turned to remove the food from the heating coil, using a wooden spoon to scrap it all into a steaming heap on a plate. "I'm sure taking the ritual twice was draining." He handed her the plate, ruffling her hair fondly.

She looked up to his eyes. They were different like his tone, softer. She looked down, taking the plate from him. She sat down at the small table. He sat in the opposite chair, still smiling at her. She just stared at her food despite how hungry she was.

Finally, she couldn't take it anymore. "What happens now?" she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

He raised a brow. "You're Ha'trin now. You come with me on all my assignments until I think you can go solo..."

She shook her head. "I don't mean that." Her eyes met his.

He sat there silently, looking at her. He finally took a deep breath, turning his eyes away. "I hadn't thought that far ahead," he admitted quietly. They sat in silence for a moment. It was agonizing. Then he looked up her. "I guess it all depends on what you want to happen now."

Calsa thought. She thought long and hard. She could tell Alt was doing one of his little meditations to help with his patience. He had to do that a lot. She'd been a stubborn student, at least for the first year.

"I ... I don't know," she whispered. She leaned back in the chair. She kept staring at her food. Her body was begging for it, but she didn't feel like eating.

"What don't you know?" Alt asked gently.

She let out a breath. "You're the best thing to happen to me since I became an orphan. This place is my home. I don't want that to change."

She glanced up at him when he moved, coming to kneel in front of her. He laid his hand against her face, staring deeply into her pale orbs. "That won't ever change. Whether you want us to continue as we were or as we were the other night, I'll always be here for you, this will always be your home. Those won't change."

Calsa smiled. Alt stood, ruffling her hair again. "You should eat. We can talk more later." He turned away to go back into the bedroom but stopped a moment, looking at her over his shoulder. "Oh, and while you were out, Jerako passed his ritual. Since he's your friend, I thought you'd like to know."

When he was no longer in her sight, she dug into the food like it was last meal she was ever going have. By the time Alt had emerged from the room fully dressed, she'd finished her food and was already sprawled out on the couch asleep. The tunic she wore barely covered her long, slender legs, having been pushed up to just below her ass.

He had to resist the urge to kneel down next to her and wake her with his teeth, nipping and biting her. Instead, he gently covered her with the blanket on the back of the couch. He remembered after he had taken his ritual, he'd slept for days, his body having to adjust to losing all its inherent magic. He wouldn't dare wake her now. So he caressed her hair fondly before standing to leave.

Calsa woke slowly, her whole body still aching. But her instincts told that there was a strange presence in the house. She opened her eyes, peering around the room. It was dark. She slowly sat up, realizing she'd fallen asleep on the couch.

Something moved in the shadows, making her stare intently at the corner. The fire in the hearth made all the shadows in the room dance, but there was one in particular that didn't move like the rest. Before her eyes, the shadow moved, oozing along the ground, silently coming to pool near her feet.

"Mordock?" Calsa whispered, not sure if it was who she thought it was. She backed up against the couch, her hand groping for a weapon, any weapon, on the small table beside the couch.

The shadow shot up, suddenly becoming solid, forming into a humanoid face. "I'm surprised you knew," Mordock said quietly, his body forming rapidly until he was standing before her fully solid.

"I was guessing," she admitted, relieved. "Why are you here?"

"Grand Master Sanlis told us he had information about the anti-shifting device," he responded, his eyes quickly flicking over to the bedroom door to make sure that Alt was asleep. "So I volunteered to come and look. It is truly a wondrous discovery. It will go a long way to helping us, and in helping me convince more of my kin to help in this war." He then moved to sit beside her on the couch, letting out a sigh. "But really I wanted to come make sure you were alright."

Calsa looked at him carefully. He seemed genuinely concerned for her, which was an unusual thing coming from a shadowshifter. "I passed my test," she said, smiling. "I had to take it twice."

Mordock grunted, a hint of fondness in his eyes. "I had no doubt. I knew you could. When you meet so many people, and live as long as I have, you learn to see things in people. You can almost see their future."

"Can you?" Calsa blinked in surprise. "See the future, I mean?"

He smiled a little. "I wish. Would make things simpler as much as it would complicate matters."

For a moment, Calsa stared at him, not sure what he meant. "Is my mother alright?"

Mordock nodded, giving Calsa some relief. "She's well. My kin in charge is keeping her safe. He made sure the Templiks stopped torturing her, told them if she has not talked yet, then there's nothing she knows. They bought that. If he keeps up with that story, then they'll eventually see fit to release her. You'll see her soon enough, little one."

Calsa leaned over, giving him a kiss on his cheek. He raised a brow at her, but didn't respond. He, as all his kin, spent their existences around humanoids; he knew their customs.

"That's for being so nice to me," she whispered, blushing lightly.

"It's rare to find one like you, little Calsa. I do what I can for those who deserve it." He stood then, going to the fire mantle. There were various sculptures of gods and goddesses that her species worshiped there. Mordock reached out and took one that was very obviously female. "Tazono, goddess of harvest," he said idly while he toyed with it.

"Dear Calsa, do you know why there has only been one other female Ha'trin since they started the draining ritual?" He did not turn to look at her, his eyes still on the statue he held.

She shook her head, but realized he wouldn't see it. "Something about women can't lose their magic? But I did."

"Not quite," he said, his voice just barely above a whisper. "Women are vessels for all that exists. Women take, amplify, and then release back into the world something more than what they received." He glanced at her, noting her confusion. "Take, for example, life. It's really a very simple matter. They take the life force from the man, drawing it into their own bodies. They nurture that energy, they amplify it, let it grow, and then release it back into the world as another being. It is also why women are so emotional, they take the emotional energies they sense around them and amplify it. So, too, do they do with magic. It's why if you were to take a male and a female of the same magical knowledge, the woman will always be more powerful. Men excel at all they do with their bodies, with the physical things in the world. Women, they take into themselves the power that exists around them and put it back out greater than what they were given."

He gently set the statue back on the mantle. "You have lost your own magic. That is a very dangerous thing for a woman. Now, it is not your magic that you should fear. It is the magic of others."

Calsa blinked, still bewildered. "What do you mean, exactly?" she asked cautiously, her eyes narrowing.

Mordock looked at her. "You can draw the magic out of others. You can hold it in your body, amplify it, and release it with a disastrous ferocity. Since you have no magic of your own, you will start to leech it out of others. Among the Ha'trin, there is no threat of this. But should you face a Ha'tinre, I just wanted to warn you to be careful. The only other female Ha'trin in their history became corrupted by this power she was able to wield. She turned to the Ha'tinre, became one of them instead. She would draw out their magic and use it to do terrible things. I see in your eyes there is no such greed in you, but there is still a desire for vengeance. Heed your Master. Do not fall to such emotions."

"How do you know about that?" Calsa asked, a little shocked.

Mordock shrugged. "I'm old. I've been around."

"You knew her, didn't you?"

Again Mordock shrugged. "I did. I saw her go insane with the power she had. Lacking her own magic which would have kept what she could take into herself in check, she was able to take in more and more magic until she ended up killing herself with it, but not before she did many terrible things. I don't want to see it happen again. Not with you."

"Why would you care so much?" Calsa asked a little suspicious. "You don't have to fear such things."

"This is true," Mordock replied, sitting down beside her again. He looked into her eyes. "Does not mean I don't care what happens to the fleshlings I take an interest in. My kind cannot exist without yours. We cannot exist in our true forms forever. We have to take solid forms to feed our true forms. We may live forever, but we are all intimately bound together; all that exists cannot exist without the others. It's always been that way. All the worlds were seeded by a common ancestor. Without each other, nothing would be here. Space would be empty. Even your world seeded another far away. It would not surprise me to think that the humans fueled your existence. Perhaps even the Ra'asz. And for all that, I cannot turn a blind eye to what goes on among the fleshlings. We all need each other to survive what is and what is yet to come."

Mordock then stood slowly. "I best start my return journey. You should continue your training, ensure that you are ready for when the time comes that we shall have need of you."

"How long will that take?" Calsa asked with much enthusiasm. She wanted the Reds off her world.

"We must make certain we are so deeply entangled into their own hierarchy that they can never weed us all out, no matter how many of us might get found out. During that time, the various resistance groups have been instructed to stay out of sight, let the Reds think they have fought us back." Then Mordock turned, looking at her with a soft expression. "It will be long enough for you to have your child in peace."

"What?" Calsa blinked in surprise. She stared at him blankly, not sure she understood what he was talking about.

"I have lived long enough to know the signs, little one," Mordock said quietly, an all-knowing tone to his words. "It is no surprise to me that you and Alt would finally give in to your feelings. I saw it in him when he looked upon you. I also know he is not the kind to shy from fatherhood."

Without warning, his form began to dissolve, his legs changing to shadow, dancing in time to the firelight. "Remember to continue your training, young Calsa. You will need it." And then he was gone.

Calsa peered around, but the shadows moved as they would normally in the firelight. Now that he did not want her to see him, she would never be able to pick him out. He was probably already out the door, slipping through any little cracks.

Despite her exhaustion, Calsa found she could not return to sleep, not after Mordock's words. She continued sitting on the couch, mulling over his words. Why she was even surprised that such a thing would happen, she didn't really know. The only reason she had been lucky enough to avoid this situation in the past had been her lack of nutrition, but now that wasn't an issue. Her hand idly lay over her belly as she continued thinking. She really didn't know how she felt about this sudden news. She'd been a fully fledged Ha'trin for not even a day before becoming with child. What kind of a harlot did that make her? What would the others think of her? Would they even respect her after this? She knew that those who were her own species wouldn't mind; among her kind, though the males were stronger, they practically worshiped their women. But it was the others, like Jerako who was a halfling, that she worried about.

"Can't sleep?"

Calsa nearly leapt out of her skin. She hadn't noticed the grey of dawn outside the windows. Alt came into her field of vision, peering at her closely in concern. "Are you alright? You look pale."

"Mordock was here," she said softly.

Alt glanced around quickly. "In here? Sneaky bastard. Didn't trip any of my traps. It's a good thing he's on our side." Then he looked at Calsa again, sitting in a chair. "What did he want?"

It took Calsa a few heartbeats to gain her voice and even then it was barely above a whisper. "He wanted to know if I passed my test. He told me my mother is well. He said I need to continue my training."

Alt fixed her with a look she knew meant he knew she had more to say. Many times when she had done something wrong, she had tried to omit mention of it, but he had always known. He knew her all too well for her to try and keep anything from him. She couldn't meet his gaze, which made him all the more suspicious. "What else did he say, Cal?" His voice was stern as she had always known it.

An eternal moment passed in silence. Finally, Calsa stood up, still not meeting Alt's eyes. "I'm going to sleep," she stated, turning to head into the bedroom.

"Cal." His voice was authorative, making her stop. "I'm still your teacher. You need to tell me if he said anything important."

"Can you be a father, too?"

"What?" Alt blinked. Her response had been so quiet that he wasn't sure if he had heard her properly at all.

Calsa turned, looking up him. He had followed after her, stood only a step away. He was too bewildered to even move at the moment. But when she placed her hand over her belly, he knew he hadn't misheard her. "I'm pregnant," she whispered.

Alt moved so abruptly she could only gasp, feeling his arms wrap around her. His lips pressed against hers with such a passion that she couldn't help but melt into him. There was much more than just lust behind this kiss. Barely breaking contact, Alt lifted her off her feet. She wrapped her arms around his neck, feeling him carry her into the bedroom.

He sat on the edge of his bed, holding her in his lap, his arms wrapped tightly around her, keeping her against his body. She nuzzled her face into his neck.

He took a deep breath, breathing in her scent. "Are you sure?"

Calsa looked up him. He almost seemed hopefully. She knew Mordock had not lied when he said he knew Alt would not shy from this. She buried her face against the curve of his neck again. "I guess we'll find out soon," she mumbled.

After a moment of intimate silence, she looked back up at him. He could see the concern in her eyes. "Will the Grand Master get mad?"

"Sanlis?" Alt raised a brow at her, surprised she'd even ask. He sneered. "I don't care if he does. I don't care if anyone has a problem with this. I'm next in line to be the Grand Master, so I can just tell them to go to hell. Though I don't know why anyone would care. The Ha'tinre have relationships and families amongst themselves all the time. I think it's only from the lack of women in our order that has prevented the same." He then held her tighter, kissing her with all the love he had for her, making her melt into his powerful physique. "Whatever happens, I am yours, if you'll have me," he said softly in her ear when he was finished stealing her breath.

She pressed herself closer to him, kissing his neck. "I think you were mine from the moment we met," she teased with a giggle.

"Oh? You think so?" he chuckled, nipping her ear. "You were just lucky I was in such a good mood!"

Her giggle was interrupted by a yawn. He leaned back, laying out onto the bed, holding Calsa atop his body. In his protective grasp, she felt safe, cared for.

Their species were still young enough to have most of their primal instincts, and right now Alt's instinct was to make certain that his female had everything she needed. He wasn't so densely muscled for no good reason, he had been designed that way for generations before him for the sole purpose of defending his woman and offspring from the wild animals and other males. They had only just started entering their industrial era when the aliens had landed on their world. It had been the Ha'tinre first, though Ha'tinre did not care to rule worlds. But with them they brought the concept of male rule, of rape and murder and war. Before that, women had ruled, making all the decisions, all the laws. They were the ones who chose their mates, sometimes they even chose more than one male. They had been a nurturing society, but now they were in chaos, their evolution forever changed. But he still considered it an honor that she had chosen him.

Alt's thoughts were brought back from his old history lessons, feeling Calsa's svelte form shift on him. She was already asleep. He kissed her on the forehead, very gently laying her back against the bed. Slipping out from under her, Alt left the house, going to watch the tabi graze as he often did when he wanted to think. The creatures lived such simple lives, with no concept of evil or cruelty.

"If you're out here, then there's something on your mind." Alt jumped, cursing himself. He had sworn he would some day know Sanlis was coming before the Grand Master had the chance to sneak up on him. His old master had laughed at him, telling Alt that would be the day he would give up his status as Grand Master.

Sighing, Alt didn't meet Sanlis' gaze. He idly flicked an insect off the fence that kept the tabi from escaping. Sanlis leaned against the fence with him, a brow raised. "What did that bug ever do to you?"

Alt shrugged. "Might bite someone."

Shaking his head, Sanlis patted Alt's shoulder. "That's not like you. I thought you'd be happy. Cal is the first woman in over a thousand years to have the Draining work on them, and she even survived the full ritual twice in a single day! You were right about her. She is a very tough young woman. So why do you look so ... conflicted?"

"Let's just say I was a little too happy about that."

"Ah." Sanlis caught Alt's meaning immediately. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Well, I suppose it was bound to happen. Living with her for three years, I'm actually impressed you didn't give in sooner. When I was your age, I doubt very much I could have done that. Though now it will be interesting to see what comes of your union."

Alt glanced at his old teacher quizzically. "How do you mean?"

"Well, if I'm reading you right, my boy, she's with child and you're worried that the others won't accept her." Sanlis shrugged. "Though I'd be less concerned with that and more concerned what kind of a child she'll bring into the world." When Alt bared his teeth, Sanlis continued. "If you recall, when a child is born to two Ha'tinre, they are born with the very magic that courses through their parents. They are born into the order, without a chance to make a decision. They tend to be more powerful, but are more at peace with the power within them. Our order is proof of that. This will be the first child to be born by two parents who lack any inherent magic."

"I see your point." Alt looked down at the ground.

Sanlis chuckled, patting his ex-student on the back fondly. "Don't look so concerned. She chose you. That's an honor. And from what the shadowshifter told me, you two will have enough time to have your child. He told me it could take up to two years before they're ready to call us into the battle. By that time, more of our order will have snuck onto the world, and if the Clan of the Plains were as sincere as you said they seemed to be about getting their kin off the world, they'll come to us directly soon enough. We'll have an army and we'll sweep them off our world like the filth they are."

"Calsa will be happy for when that day comes," Alt muttered as if he was speaking to himself, a brief expression of adulation flickering across his face.

"I think we all will." Sanlis turned away. He paused for a moment, letting out a sigh. "You know Bezin didn't survive his ritual?" Glancing over his shoulder, Alt was genuinely surprised. "One less of us, a dozen more of them. Sometimes things can seem so hopeless. And then there's the little things that suddenly make it all worth the suffering, like expecting a child with the woman you love." He walked away without waiting for Alt to respond.

"Damn street runt! Get back here!" The Templik guard snarled, realizing that his coin purse was in the small nimble hands of Calsa. She darted among the people, hoping to get herself lost in the crowd. She was small enough that the guard would have a hard time seeing her.

"Cal!" She heard her older brother's voice in an alley. He motioned to her to hurry. She ran over, handing the coins over to him. "Good job. Let's get out of here!" He took off down the alley.