The Mercenary's Bounty

by Kristen Banet

“Not really. They ain’t poppin’ out children all the time,” Bryn said, yawning himself. “I’m so ready to get off this ship. Anyone want to play some cards?”

  “Nope.” Matesh got up, beginning his escape. Cards with Bryn was like giving money away. The rogue was the best with cards in the Company and knew how to swindle them.

  “Copper only,” Alchan ordered. “Seriously, Bryn. You can’t steal everyone’s money.”

  “I ain’t stealin’ nothin’. Y’all just need to get better at cards.” Bryn chuckled. “Anyone?”

  “I’m in.”

  Matesh began to chuckle himself as he ducked inside. Zayden was going to be pissy later when he had no small currency left. Well, the fool knew what he was signing up for. If Bryn was the best at cards in the Company, Mat’s old friend was the worst.

  “Nephew, I feel like she went to hide in your bedroom,” Leshaun said behind him, coming inside as well.

  “How’s she doing, really? Is she going as slow as she claims?” He worried, but she hated when he talked about her Andena and how she was doing now. It was why he just didn’t bring it up anymore.

  “She’s doing better than she thinks, but she has no confidence in it. Go, help her. Your amanra needs you.” Leshaun smiled at him. “Take some books from my cabin. I think you might reach her better than me right now.”

  “Do you like her?” he asked softly. “You’ve always been worried about the sort of females I used to…” It became another one of those moments he felt like a boy, but this time he was asking for it.

  “I think she’s everything we prize in females. A strong temper that can attract strong males. We like our women when they push us around. It’s in our nature. She’s a warrior, something I know had been a sticking point for you. Many of our free females are warriors when it’s called for, but not by nature, because many of our most fearsome women were lost or are still in hiding. She is a warrior in soul and that’s something you’ve always wanted. A female who will fight with you, and let you be the warrior you are.”

  “You didn’t answer the question.” He wasn’t letting his uncle get away this time.

  “I like her, but I worry. She’s everything we prize in females, and yet so very different than any female I’ve ever known.” Leshaun considered him. Mat felt like he was being judged. “You can’t treat her like every other female, Mat. Remember that and I think you two will be happy for a very long time, even as she continues to build her mayara. Forget that, and I think she’ll hurt you and I won’t like her very much anymore. It’ll be your fault, too.” With that, his uncle patted his shoulder and walked around him, heading into the dining area.

  Mat stored that piece of advice, promising himself he wouldn’t forget it. He headed for his uncle’s cabin, slipping inside and stealing two books he knew well. Both were legends and religious histories, things every Andinna learned young from their parents and local priests. Things that would only help her in the long run to understand their people. He hurried out with them and towards their shared cabin.

  Once he got to the door, he leaned against it, thinking about her. She would be curled up on the spare bed, head over a book, her hair falling over her face in a way that made her mysterious and self-conscious.

  He opened the door slowly and found her exactly as he thought he would.

  “Hey, Mave,” he called. “You ran off earlier. Everyone was looking forward to seeing you for training.” It was a white lie he knew none of them would deny. The Company knew the game of trying to make a freed slave more comfortable. They might not be looking forward to spending time with her, but he knew none of them were averse to it either, except maybe Alchan. That was between Mave and Alchan.

  She blinked twice before really registering he was there. He waited, not wanting to encroach into her personal space until she invited him. What he did in their private cabin wasn’t what he did in public because he knew she didn’t appreciate the attention.

  “I didn’t want to train with everyone,” she muttered, not looking up from her own book. “Tell your uncle I’m sorry. I’m not up for more lessons today.”

  “He wanted me to see how you’re doing, that’s all. Anything you need help with?” He glanced at the page she was on and saw she was working with her Elvasi writing. “Were those giving you trouble? Or maybe I can do your lesson today…”

  “What?” she looked up, frowning. “You want to do my lesson?”

  He showed her the books, hoping she didn’t get angry. “I figured I could help you with Andena today.” Another thing he brought to her other than his body. Another piece of worth he could have that wasn’t just sex. Another reason for her to keep him. He knew why his uncle suggested this now. It was helping him too.

  “And what do you suggest as a lesson?”

  “What does Leshaun make you do?”

  “Recite it out loud for him. In Common and in Andena. I hate it.” She curled her lip at the books and he looked down to see if he had grabbed the Common version as well. He hadn’t, so he went with another idea.

  “You’ve memorized the glyphs, right?”

  “I’ve been trying,” she answered. “Why?”

  “Have you tried just…reading?” He wondered if his uncle was right and she was moving along. “If you know the glyphs, you should be able to just read.”

  “I can’t pronounce half the words right!” She growled and shoved her Elvasi book away off her lap.

  “I’m not asking you to pronounce them,” he said quickly. “Just read them out in Common.”

  “What?” She frowned at him again.

  He took a deep breath. “Just read it and tell me what it says in Common. That’s all. If you get stuck, we can work it out. You’ve got a small book here, right? Your alphabets are written in it. And glyphs. We can keep adding to it and you can keep studying the book.” He looked over her face. “Get your book. Read for a little while. Write the glyphs you don’t know, then together we’ll work them out.”

  She nodded slowly. He knew this was a different lesson than she got from his uncle, but he didn’t want to force her into thinking about pronunciations. He just wanted to prove to her that she did know something. He knew she would have trouble, but he also knew that she wasn’t going to be completely helpless.

  He watched her get to work, reading out in very broken-sounding Common what she was mentally translating. It was something.

  “Good, keep going,” he ordered softly, grabbing her weapons from the chest in the room. He pulled them out and began to sharpen them, taking care of them for her while she worked. He only stopped to correct her when she was completely wrong and had her write down what made her stumble so they could go back to it when he felt she had enough to go over.

  It felt like ages, but finally, he was done with the swords and put them aside.

  “What do you have?” he asked, moving closer to her again.

  “They’re ones I don’t know yet. I’ve been collecting them. One of them has a root I know, but I don’t know the other piece of it.” She gestured at it. “Andena is weird. Some glyphs are sounds to form a word. Some glyphs are the entire word, or some obscure thing. I don’t know how you keep it all straight.”

  “We live for thousands of years and spend the first hundred of them becoming fluent in the language. We have time.” He could see the frustration in her eyes. She was a female who was used to seeing an obstacle and blowing past it or living to learn with it not impeding her. This was hard for her, no matter how fast she was picking it up, and she didn’t like it. She couldn’t brute force it.

  “I don’t have time.”

  “Yeah, you do. Come on, let’s teach you some new words. Just me and you. You haven’t let me help you with Andena yet.” He smiled as he scooted closer. She groaned, but made space for him. He noticed she didn’t put up much of a fight. Like every time he sat next to her like this, he wrapped a wing over her, making sure there were no distractions.

  “I just wish I could do th
is faster.”

  “You don’t give yourself enough credit. From what my uncle says, you’re learning quickly.”

  “Everyone is speaking Andena and I don’t understand, and it’s frustrating because I feel so…” She swallowed. “Alone.”

  He moved some hair from her face and leaned in to kiss her temple, avoiding her horn. He felt so guilty for his uncle’s little trick that he knew he needed to tell her. Not yet, though. If he undermined his uncle’s plan, she would get pissed off at all of them instead of pushing herself to jump in and take her place the way she should. He wanted so badly to see her become a closer member of the Company. He’d thought they were doing well, but she had slowly locked herself away again, creating that emotional distance he had seen in her when they met. Now it wasn’t about survival. Now he knew she was protecting her insecurities from the other Andinna, males she had all her problems exposed to.

  And here she was, telling him how she felt.

  “Na al Sema, ut vahne,” he whispered.

  “I don’t know what that means!” She pulled away from him. “Why is everyone always talking in Andena when I don’t know what you’re saying? It’s not helping!”

  He swallowed and reached to her, not letting her jump away. He knew the problem now. Really knew it. She was hearing Andena and writing herself off as being unable to understand it. He knew better. After three weeks on the ship, she knew more than she thought she did, but she was trying to protect herself by hiding. “Mave, stop. Stop avoiding the language. Listen. You know some of this.”

  “I am listening!”

  “No, you aren’t.” She snarled and he growled back. “You know what I said, at least most of it. I can explain the rest. It’s not a problem, but stop believing you don’t know any of it. Now, listen.” He went slower this time. “Na al Sema, ut vahne. You know what part of that means. Think about it. Listen to it. Na al Sema, ut vahne.”

  Finally, a small light entered her eyes, but the insecurity was there in her posture. She had an idea, but no idea whether she was right or wrong. Because of that, he knew she would rather remain silent. Mave hated being wrong.

  “Tell me,” he crooned, trying to ease it out of her.

  “By the Skies…” She worked over what he said to her. Finally, he knew she actually heard him and was paying attention. She had it.

  “By the Skies, you are strong,” he murmured. “We have no word for ‘are’. If someone is something, we just say ‘you strong’ or ‘you weak’ or whatever you need. Et is ‘me’ or ‘I,’ while ut is ‘you’.”

  “What is kind?” she asked softly. He watched how her face softened as she asked the question.

  “Nola,” he answered.

  “Ut nola.”

  He could only respond with a grin, kissing her slowly. “I would rather be called many things other than kind.”

  “Don’t make me learn annoying or arrogant in Andena yet.” She chuckled. “Thank you for that important lesson.”

  “Hm…” He considered for a moment telling her, then decided she could go ask anyone else. He wasn’t giving her the keys to yelling at him in three languages. She was fairly good at yelling at him in two and his Elvasi was terrible, so he barely understood when she used it. “Keep reading. Tell me when you need anything. And stop forgetting that you have learned, Mave. This is hard, yeah, but it’s not impossible. You are picking things up. You are.”

  He watched her go back into the book, writing out glyphs she had a hard time with and comparing them to a list of ones she knew already, the basics. She would ask him something, like what word could possibly be made out of the glyphs for blood and life.

  “Birth,” he answered. “Birth is a combination of blood and life.”

  “Oh. That seems…”

  “Obvious? Yeah, our language seems really complicated, but it’s not.”

  “It’s hard to guess that, but then you say it and it seems so obvious,” she agreed. “This is going to take me years to figure out, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, and that’s okay. There’s still things I need to learn in Elvasi. The only reason I’m this good at Common is because we work a lot in Olost. But when we were in Anden? Well, let’s say I didn’t make my uncle proud with my education.”

  She considered him and he stayed seated under her weighty stare, refusing to run from any judgement she had. He did lower his eyes, after a moment. He got the response he wanted, an elbow to the side. He chuckled, leaning back and stretching out a little as she continued her work.

  Honestly, I could watch her do this for a century and I don’t think I would get tired of it.

  The thought hit him like a punch to the gut. He wanted the century of watching her become perfect with Andena, learning every single little thing they had in their language.

  And he wanted more. He wanted her in every part of his life. He just needed to make that happen.

  4

  Brynec

  “Good mornin’,” Brynec said as Mave sat next to him for breakfast again. Every morning, she sat down right there next to him and every morning, he tried to talk to her. He’d been glad - Skies, more than glad - to help her the day before with her wings, the first time she’d really spent any time with him since the first few days on board.

  “Good morning,” she replied.

  “How’re you?” he asked, hoping for more. Yesterday, she had run off on him after the wing workout, and he still wasn’t sure how to stop it from happening again. They had been having a good time and she was so happy over her progress.

  She eyed him before turning away quickly. “Good.”

  “So, I’m in charge of yer wings now. With ya moving into exercises, ya need someone with ya at all times. And that’s me.” He knew the sooner he laid that out on the table for her, the more time she would have to adjust to the new reality.

  He watched her face morph into something akin to dread. He knew she hated to be touched. He had learned that very quickly when they met, but that couldn’t stand in the way of her learning to fly. He and Leshaun were the best to help, and Leshaun was too old to be doing the physical work she needed done.

  “Oh. Well.” She moved uncomfortably in her seat and he just watched. “They’re sore from yesterday.”

  “I bet they are,” he replied, wondering why the conversation seemed to be moving like molasses. “Today we’re stretching in the morning, working them in the afternoon, then stretching them before letting you sleep.”

  “Okay. And how long will I need to do this before going to the next step?”

  “The next step would be some very short-range gliding and that could be months. Focus on this now.” An older voice said it before Bryn had the chance to.

  Bryn looked away from her to see Leshaun walk in, eyeing him. Probably wanted to yell that Bryn wasn’t speaking Andena like everyone else walking in. He hated that damned idea. He didn’t like how dejected she looked when the entire Company started off in Andena. It made her look lost.

  “Well, eat up,” Bryn ordered her, grinning. “Then we can go work.”

  “Months.” She sighed heavily, looking away from him.

  “You know, if you work extra hard at it and we keep your wings healthy, it could be even faster. It’s just about how hard you push yourself.” Bryn wanted to give her some hope. He watched her touch the new scar on her neck, her eyes focused on some distant place, and knew exactly where she was mentally. No one else in the Company understood like he did. He might not have been in the pits with her like Matesh and Rain, but he was the one who knew what hundreds of years of slavery did to someone. “Mave, ain’t nobody going to stop ya from flyin’ except ya now.”

  His comment startled her enough that she jumped. “I’m going to eat on the deck,” she mumbled quickly, grabbing her plate.

  Matesh was speechless as she launched out of her seat and left the dining area before anyone really could think to stop her. “What did you say to her?” he demanded. “Bryn, seriously, what was that?” />
  “I got it,” he answered, grabbing his own plate and standing up. He had pricked Matesh’s protective side with her running off like that. He followed her out to the deck, sitting next to her on a large crate, staring out over the sea. “Why ya run?” he asked gently. “Was it what I said? It’s true, Mave. The Empire ain’t comin’ back to put leather around yer wings or a collar around yer neck. And yer makin’ progress.”

  “I feel lost,” she whispered. He watched her eyes, a light blue-grey that he could have sworn were more grey inside but now more blue. She had that type of eyes, where they changed with the light. “I don’t know what I’m doing, Brynec. Matesh keeps saying, ‘Oh everything will be fine,’ but I have no idea where to go from here or what I’m doing. I’m…lost.”

  “I was too, when I finally convinced them to let me join. Didn’t know up from down, and they wanted me flying in a year.”

  “Everyone didn’t hate you,” she muttered.

  “Excuse me?” Bryn jerked back. “No one here hates ya, Mave.”

  She didn’t respond. If she were another Andinna, he would have poked her in the side to get her attention, but she wasn’t another Andinna. She’d gut him for it.

  “There ain’t no hate here,” he repeated. “Where do ya get that impression?”

  “Why else would they all speak in Andena when I can’t understand or join in?” she asked, a demanding note in her tone that made him wince. “I know I’m a damned outcast, an ensam. I get that. I just thought this would be different.”

  “It’s not about hating ya,” he quickly said, unable to not answer her. She was an insanely dominant female. She didn’t ask. She stated and it got done. He wondered what sort of fools were going to fall for her. He liked her, but she was nearly too strong for him. A lot of huge males like Matesh would adore her. Those were probably the sorts of males she would end up with. They would all love a female who was snappy, fierce, and dangerous, able to toss even the biggest Andinna males around. “Maybe it’s about trying to help ya.”