Tika's parents knew they were never to rise from The Cellars into Hrrm's Hive, that it was strictly forbidden.

     Yet, they starved. They understood they would pass into comas and die within the day if they didn't get nourishment, then what would become of their beloved daughter, Tika? 

     They sensed food directly above them in Hrrm's Hive, and they knew precisely where it was. One of Hrrm's Hive's "guests" had thrown his dinner into the hallway in disgust, and no one had come to clean up quite yet. 

     Two strides from the passageway leading to The Cellars, and they would have the food in their grasp.

    Two more strides, and they would be back in The Cellars.

     Hidden several levels below them, in the tunnels, Tika stayed telepathically linked to them both.

     She understood how weak, how close to death, they both were.

     If not for that, they would have been aware of Cremal.

     They weren't even able to take a single stride.

     It was an irony thing.

     Cremal picked that exact moment to come at the food herself.

     Cremal spotted Tika's parents.

     She barely broke her stride.

     Through Tika's telepathic link with her mother, Tika watched Delphi's guard crack her father's head open like an egg.

     Tika then saw the club came at her mother's head even as her mother saw it herself...

     at which point, the telepathic link with her mother broke.

     Also, though, in that moment...

     Tika's mother granted Tika the gift, the burden, the Criolin had once granted her.

​     That was Delphi's last conscious anything.

CONTINUE