Alien Soulmate
Chapter 1: The End at the Beginning
"He's asking for you," the doctor said, standing tall and solemn, already in his mourning blues. Their leader wasn't dead yet, but it would not be long before he was. Hours, perhaps. Certainly he would not live to see morning.
The chamber had been filled with people only hours before, all waiting for their chance to say their final goodbyes to Angen. There would never be another leader like him, and he had helped many of their people in the time he had been in control of the Sitheri clan. Not everyone had been allowed in, but most were content to stand in the waiting chamber, or press their hands against the closed door to Angen's room. They closed their eyes and then made the salute, the Sitheri sign of ultimate respect: closed fist over their heart which was then pressed to their mouth and then over their forehead. G'hiltin arhd fir d'livilt. Loved by heart and head. Loved entirely.
Angen's three children hadn't left the room since they'd been summoned there earlier that day. All three had their duties, but things had come to something of a standstill in the leader's last hours. The guards were still on watch because dropping their security in a time like this would be equivalent to suicide and would go against everything Angen and other generations of leaders had worked for, but the shift changes had been expedited so that each guard could come and give their respects.
For their parts, each of Angen's offspring seemed to be taking it differently. E'lira, Angen's only daughter, was quiet. She spoke with the doctor in hushed tones and relayed the information to her brothers without meeting their eyes. She was the middle child, but as the only girl in the family, Angen had doted on her shamelessly.
Females were a gift to the Sitheri. For whatever reason, their lines were more likely to produce males, and out of the 50,000 of them that called this corner of the planet home, only about a fifth were female.
As time passed fewer and fewer females were born to Sitheri couples, and to avoid intermarrying, they'd begun taking wives from other clans. But a pure Sitheri female was someone to be respected, and the daughter of the leader was the most powerful of them all. E'lira was beautiful, as well. Tall and willowy like her mother had been before, she had the tanned complexion of her father and a fall of inky black hair that she left unbound to tumble over her shoulders and down her back.
She wore the standard maroon colors of the leader's family, but somehow she made it seem more than that. It was no secret that there was a queue of Sitheri warriors who each wanted to claim her for their mate, but Angen had told them that when E'lira was joined to someone, it would be at her own choice.
E'lira had already been in to speak to their father, and she'd emerged from the room with her hands over her face and shoulders shaking to sit down next to her older brother until she could get herself back together.
Ithril was the youngest of the three of them. He had started pacing the waiting chamber as soon as the doctors had cleared out most of the other members of their clan. Every few minutes he would mumble something under his breath and then crack his knuckles, and it was hard to tell if it was a nervous habit or some kind of desire for a fight.
Ithril didn't do well with change.
He was the youngest, and he was more brash and outspoken than his siblings. Ever since the death of their mother two years previous, Ithril had been harder to contain. He spent his time in the arenas and the guards' training area, working on his ax wielding skills as well as his ability to shoot.
Angen had worried, saying that it seemed like his youngest son was in some way preparing for war, but Carver, the oldest, had always assured him that it was just how Ithril was. He hated sitting still and feeling useless and he was still missing his mother who had been one of the only people who could actually make Ithril smile.
Carver and Ithril were as different in temperament as they were in looks. Where Ithril was fair haired and stocky, built more like their father than anything, Carver looked more like their mother. He had gotten her height and her lean build as well as her dark hair, which he kept long and tied back into a low ponytail. He had their father's sharp green eyes, and he was more soft spoken and quick to think rather than to act.
Ithril rarely seemed to stop long enough to think, and while he was pacing, Carver was sitting down, eyes trained on the door to their father's room or the floor or one of his siblings.
He was three years older than Ithril and one year older than E'lira, and on her death bed, their mother had told him to look out for his younger siblings. She had warned him that there were hard times ahead and that he would be expected to help his father and make sure that things stayed together. And he had promised her. It was something he took very seriously, and so he'd put aside his own grief for the most part and was focusing on making sure that everyone else was alright.