Night Song (The Guild Wars Book 9) by Mark Wandrey (best ereader under 100 .txt) 📕

He had eyes again, and he opened them, and he was back. On the Paku, not dying, not burning, though hyper aware of every follicle pushing fur through his skin.

“Isgono?” he asked, his voice clear and grating on his own ears.

“Shadow.”

“What…I…” He needed to see his siblings. The vision clung to his edges, and dread spun in his stomach. Before he could push off from the bench, Isgono’s hand pressed heavily on his shoulder.

“What did you see?”

Space twisted around them again, and the dim echo of a howl rose in the back of Shadow’s mind. He braced himself for the burning, and the falling, but then Isgono’s head snapped up and to the side. The Sei had felt it, too, the vision wasn’t climbing up to drag him back inside it again.

“We…” Isgono breathed, a purposeful cadence, and Shadow unconsciously matched him. “We are no longer in hyperspace.”

Alerts and announcements sounded around them, but Shadow couldn’t register if they were in Human or Zuul. The words faded, the room of scent boxes coming into overly sharp focus.

“How?” Shadow managed, the word heavy in his mouth.

Isgono tilted his head, ears twitching, his eyes never leaving Shadow’s. After a long moment, he shook his head.

“Tell me what you saw,” the old Zuul said, his expression unreadable.

Some part of Shadow knew he should find his father, find his siblings, find out what had happened. The aftereffects of what he’d seen twitched through his nerve endings, skin jumping and fur twitching. He should go, and he knew it, but with Isgono’s eyes steady on his, he couldn’t so much as push off from the bench.

“The three stars again,” he said, “blinking like the lights in Eshtoo. And then a battle…no, one of the stars went out, then everything became small ships exploding, and…” In fits and starts he managed to communicate the vision, almost slipping back into it each time he had to grope for the right words.

Isgono made him repeat some of it in Zuul, his expression and body language too neutral to offer any cues. When Shadow finished, his chest tight as though he’d completed the obstacle course between levels, they sat in silence for an undefinable length of time.

Only then did Shadow realize the alarms had stopped, though he couldn’t pinpoint when that had happened. Had they stopped all over the ship, or only in this isolated room of scents and scenes from the Zuul world of origin?

Shadow decided he should either ask Isgono about the alarms, or tell the Sei that he needed to find his unit, but the moment he opened his mouth, the older Zuul launched away from the bench.

Shadow tracked his teacher’s trajectory, noticing the subtle motions of tail and limb that directed Isgono to the far corner of the room with minimal points of contact. Again the Earth-raised pup dropped his jaw, and this time Isgono held up a clenched fist, signaling silence.

For a moment, he allowed himself to wish that Drake were there, knowing his brother would explode, splitting the tension with action or a demand. He tried to summon the same rush of impatience, then registered that Isgono had pulled something new onto the wall screen.

“An…insignia?” he asked, relieved to be distracted.

Isgono traced the projected shape, his back to Shadow. Three glowing points in a blue-black background were arranged in a wide triangle. A shock of recognition thrummed through his gut—they were the three stars of both his last visions. Shadow pushed himself off the bench, bouncing off different scent boxes without taking his eyes off the wall display.

He steadied himself next to Isgono, and noticed the subtle line of a thin, looping filament spiraling between the three points of light, twining them together.

“Cho’Hosh, Day Song,” Isgono said, ignoring Shadow’s question. “Vo’Hosh, Star Song.” The old Zuul lowered his muzzle for a moment, then lifted it, nose twitching. “Krif’Hosh, Night Song.”

“Day Song,” Shadow repeated, tearing his eyes from the image to study his teacher’s face. “Your clan. Are these others…family?”

“Of a sort.” Isgono’s ears flicked rapidly. “And not as you would consider it in Human terms.” He sighed. “The Songs are to Ja and many of the Zuul as the Four Horsemen are to Earth and many of the mercenaries. It is a poor comparison, as the Songs…they go back long before Human history. They are Zuul history. The gods tell us…”

Something uncomfortable writhed deep in Shadow’s stomach, and he realized the older Zuul was…hesitant. Perhaps even scared?

“The gods?” he asked eagerly, the words blurting out despite his realization.

“You said your vision smells of death, and one of the points of light faded before the ships began exploding. Our gods are never entirely clear, but we know the Three Songs are the stable point the Zuul rest on. We hold a balance for the Zuul everywhere, even those who have never seen Ja, and perhaps for the galaxy in its entirety.” The last he added almost casually, the weight of the galaxy nothing compared to the needs of the Zuul.

Too many questions crowded against Shadow’s skull, and with the dread pooling through him after the vision and the alarms, he couldn’t begin to untangle them before Isgono spoke again.

“Years ago, one of the Songs ended. The ripples began, the ones that would become waves, become tsunamis to pull the Zuul from their certainty into the chaos of the disconnected. The Seis hoped we could mitigate some damage, save some few before the storm. Without Night Song, Day and Star Song could only do so much. But now, I wonder if we might do more.”

“Why?” Shadow managed, his heart racing.

“Because we have not lost Night Song after all.”

“I…how?”

“Because I scent it on the wind.” Isgono leaned close, tilting his head and taking a deep