Letters to Minmodir

Downriver from Salina.
Outside the biosphere.

Minmodir,
Several sun cycles have now passed since the serpents kiss and the great lie that freed me from servitude, if only to perpetuate the mythos that this sad land now venerates more than the orb in the sky which still gives life. The land is lush and the water clear, but Aeviljoss’s legacy I cannot bear to tell you. The halfken. The shadow skimmers. They know not who they once were, and the chosen few still carrying Aevi’s uncorrupted DNA seem less human than the slithering, finny halffokl. We foster two creatures who, if allowed to procreate, will inevitably see their offspring’s offspring return to the deep and leave the land of men behind. What has been unleashed in fear will eventually eclipse the human race.
Donavan sleeps, fitfully, but he sleeps. He has an instinctive disdain for anything reptilian, and I sense his dreams are fraught with sinewy, fanged monsters who coil about him as they drag him to the black hole at the center of all we know. Salina’s temple whores were a hungry lot, and for all his Protectorate training, life outside New Ephesus is wild and raw. Commander Turza is a wise man, but perhaps his myopia for his chosen cadet has put us both in danger that will be our end. We still don’t fully know our mission, and now, after the bloodletting at Salina, I fear Donavan seeks my demise more than my camaraderie. That I only slightly injured him to prevent a host of nubile succubi from killing him bears little merit when the wounds on his throat are fresh and close to the carotid. And I took no pleasure in it, although his lengthened sleep patterns afford me a certain respite.
Perhaps the panacea (which it is rumored the protectorates will seek) is truly a myth set down to distract addled young ones from the looming knowledge that our stars are set in the bowl of a simulated sky, our days regulated, and our offspring—if we are chosen to repeat ourselves—is as predetermined as the pattern of morning following night.
I am told the verdant perimeter where we now travel is simply overspill from the effect of biospheres. The rest of Earth is inhospitable, tormented. You would tell me the ghosts of carnage past now haunt it. Perhaps we will end, as so many others must have ended, our bones consumed by the unrelenting wind and heat and the gnaw of Banamadr’s children. And should we prevail, what form will victory take? As sure as I know I write words you will never see, I believe I will never see the inside of New Ephesus on this side of the black hole’s event horizon. Yet, as sure as I believe when I set this gall and leaf to light, my message will reach you through the ether as even the black hole is the end of one place and the beginning of another. Take each pen stroke as a whisper to your heart, Minmodir.
I will see you again when the circles complete and we stand as one.
 
May the creator bless you richly.
 
Your Rellion. 

- Author Note - 
Rellion is a lead character from my yet to be published novel Ephesus Offense. Turned out with only her wits and an unproven soldier as partner, the only thing Rellion can count on is that there will be danger in the days ahead. The excerpt is a letter she has written to a mother she's not seen since she was traded to the very biosphere that released her to her destiny. 
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