Stranger Skies (The Borderlands Saga #1)

3. Flesh Prison

Silva woke to alien smells and sounds. Her hearing was duller than a wolf's but sharper than a Terran's. The sounds of a fire crackling, bacon sizzling, people outside chopping wood, talking, laughing — all the sounds of a morning on a farm — assaulted her.

There were too many hearts. The rhythms were off. She was used to one heart per body; now she had...two? Three? They thrummed in her ears; she could not escape the beat of them. Her chest felt as if it would explode.

She couldn't divide the smells. There were so many. A cacophony of scents invaded her nose. She knew she smelled bacon, for the sounds had told her she would, but the rest was a mishmash: horse, cow, pig, snow, dirt, fire, must, sunlight. Her first coherent thought was gratefulness that her sense of smell was intact, no duller than a wolf's, but then she lost coherence as the pain registered.

The weight of her own bones nearly crushed her. Heavy blankets rested on her and scratched her skin, which was far too sensitive, pushing her into a mattress that was lumpy and poked her in odd places. Her head pounded and every muscle ached, like she'd been stretched out violently and beaten back into shape with a hammer. The thrumming of her three hearts beat out a constant tattoo against her senses, overwhelming her. She was drowning in this new reality.

She thought she whimpered. The darkness made this all too frightening but should she open her eyes? What would assault her sight?

She forced her eyelids open. They were gummy and glued together; fuzzy colors danced in front of her until she blinked a few times and then the fuzziness resolved itself into shapes. She gazed upon the hell she was in, searched for escape.

It was a room, illuminated by the single window and the orange glow of a roaring fire to her left. The fire was in a pit and above it there was a funnel-shaped hole in the ceiling, for the smoke to go out. Above the fire was a grill, on which rested a cast iron pan — the source of the bacon she had heard and smelled. A table sat a few feet away — worn wood, with six chairs of the same material sitting around it. The opposite side of the room contained a kitchen area — counters and cupboards and what looked like a lack of indoor plumbing's answer to a kitchen sink. There were two exits from the room — one beyond the table and chairs, which Silva guessed led outdoors, and one behind the fire, which looked as if it led to the rest of the den — house. The room was empty of life, save Silva.

As if summoned by that observation, a woman entered the room from the hallway behind the fire. The woman was tall, with red curly hair tied in a low ponytail that spilled down her back over her dress of simple homespun, dyed purple. Pointed ears sat on either side of a pointed face — her features were almost...what was the Terran word? Elfin. The woman's eyes were violet with gold flecks, striking against the deep, dark brown hue of her skin. When she saw Silva was awake, her generous mouth broke into a wide, happy smile and the skin at the corners of her eyes crinkled.

"You're awake! Good. Scoas was worried that you may not wake up at all — the wise woman said you had a concussion. I'm Natai," she added, obviously seeing Silva's confusion. "Scoas is my husband. He and our children found you out in the snowy fields, a few nights ago. How did you get there?" Natai had come closer to the bed now, and looked at Silva earnestly.

Silva didn't know what language Natai spoke but she understood everything perfectly. Apparently she hadn't lost all her powers.

She tried to speak, to answer the earnest curiosity of the woman whose family had saved her life, but found she had too little breath. Nor did she know how to respond in the proper language. She ended up whimpering like a wolf cub.

"Oh, forgive me — you must be thirsty. I'll get you some water." Natai bustled out the second door in the room, letting in a blast of cold air as she went.