Every inch of my skin is alive, running liquid, tingling with the energy of him. He tosses back his wet hair, the beads of his ayila swinging heavy against his cheek, and it's all I can do not to take his face in my hands and taste those lips of his again.
I'm half a second from kissing him when he breathes, "Hold still. I want to try something."
I wouldn't move for a magnate.
The water around me changes to mist again; and then slowly, slowly, it condenses into long, thin tendrils, like glittering fingers, golden in the rays of sunlight. The fingers of water push back my hair from my face. They ripple over my neck, my shoulders, flowing down my body, laving the boltfire wound at my side, licking over my stomach.
I'm pulsing with energy, pressure building inside me. I release it into the air all around my body, and where the heat of me touches those water-fingers of his, they burst into steam.
Wonder and admiration flow from his dark eyes, a river of emotion, and the last streams of water surge and splash over us and away, trickling down to the earth where they soak in and disappear.
My clothes cling to me, wet and heavy. His soaked shirt hugs the lines of his chest and his shoulders.
His hands cup my waist on either side. "I have never done, or felt, anything like that," he says.
"Me neither," I say. "It was—beautiful. You're beautiful."
His expression changes—disbelieving, self-doubting. I have to kiss him right now, to show him how incredible he is.
A rabid bundle of fur and fury crashes into the back of my legs, and I stumble against Rak.
Deathspawn whirls, dropping a half-chewed chunk of some animal in the dirt. He crouches, watching us, baring his teeth, but he doesn't attack.
"He—he knows we're with Safi," I say shakily. I glance up at Rak. "He knows, right?"
Rak edges me toward the vehicle. "Just in case, let's move toward a weapon, yes?"
"Good idea."
But Deathspawn seems to lose interest in us. He flops down, pinning the dead animal under his front paws, and tears a long strip of sinew and tendon from the creature. I gag, and Rak laughs.
"Don't look if it bothers you."
"I'm trying not to. But I can hear the sounds—ugh."
"Just an animal eating his dinner," says Safi, sauntering around the corner of the vehicle. She's carrying another piece of the carcass, and Alik has an even bigger chunk. He tosses it toward the jacanal, grimacing.
"What did he kill?" asks Rak, his eyes widening.
"A sahramul," says Safi proudly. "Only the biggest herbivore in this area."
"A rutting sahramul," groans Alik. "The stupid jacanal managed to cripple it, but he couldn't finish it off. That's why he was complaining. Safi had to do the job for him."
"The hide on sahramuls is thicker than your skull, which is saying something," Safi retorts. "I'm impressed that he took it on."
"A sahramul, that close to us?" Rak's eyes rake the undergrowth. "We should move on to the village, then. They're usually with a herd, and they can be unfriendly to things that get in their way."
"You'll have to leave your pet here, Safi. The townspeople won't be as gracious to him as we are," says Alik.
"I know. He'll find me tomorrow." Safi casts a fond glance at the slavering creature as he rips another jawful of bloody flesh.
I shudder and turn my back.
When our clothes are dry, we gather our essentials—a pack and a gun for each of us to carry, leaving the rest where it is. There's a chance that the vehicle and everything in it will be gone tomorrow, stolen by other travelers or by scavengers—but we have the finance card and as much as we can carry of the best supplies. And the prospect of a bed is worth more to me right now than another minute in that horrible machine.
"Zilara, you need to cover your face somehow," Rak says.
"Here." Alik hands me a wide strip of dark cloth. "Wrap this around your head. You can pull it forward to cover the tattoo."
I drape the cloth over my head and pull it across my mouth and nose, the way some of the women and men in Ankerja did.
The walk to town isn't long, but as we near the outskirts of the place, a lump of dread settles in my stomach. What if there are bounty hunters here, or Fray rebels? I wrap my face more securely in the cloth Alik gave me—it's dirty and it smells of Vilor, but at least it hides my telltale tattoo. For a second I regret getting the rose-and-vine design permanently etched on my face—but the original constellation of birthmarks would have been equally recognizable.
Saghir is a step up from Ankerja. Paved streets, for one thing, though still no levitation tech—only wheeled transportation. The occasional transport barrow or personal vehicle rolls through town, and when one of them comes along, we shift to a single-file trek along the narrow, cracked sidewalk.
In Ankerja, the shops and shacks and tenement buildings clustered together like children huddling for warmth and support. Here, the stores and houses and blocks of apartments stand further apart, dusty alleyways and parking spaces slicing between them.
In one respect the two towns are disappointingly similar—the lack of color. Everything is sunburned and sand-washed to a uniform tan, with the occasional hint of drab pink or olive. When Alik, who is leading the way, turns to speak to Rak, I catch a glimpse of his eyes, and their brilliant blue is so striking I can hardly breathe. Does Safi ever notice his eyes? When I glance at her, she's inspecting the rows of stores and homes with sharp interest.
At Alik's signal, the four of us troop into the nearest clothing shop. The little man at the counter looks up, alarmed at the sight of Alik and Rak. "I told you young men not to come in here!" he exclaims, bustling around the counter to stand in our way.
"But now we have two young ladies with us," croons Alik.
The shop owner eyes my ripped shirt and shorts, and Safi's ragged top and exposed, bandaged midriff. He sighs. "You are in desperate need of clothing. I'll get you some things, but then you have to leave, quickly, before any of my regular clients see you in here."
"So particular you are, for a shop on the border of the desert," Alik says, flicking a fine shirt with his fingers.
The shop owner winces. "Please don't touch that. It's not for your kind."
Alik's eyebrows lift. "My kind? Oh. Did you hear that?" Though his mouth smiles, his eyes do not. "I wonder, good sir, what clothes would be the right sort for my kind. Something like this?" He runs his fingers over a fine, dark blue suit—outdated by Ceannan standards, but still a good-looking style, cut with broad lapels and the rakishly angled long-tailed coat that was the fashion a few years ago. I have a sudden vision of Rak in that suit, dark and handsome, and my heartbeat stutters.
"Hand off the merchandise, please!" begs the shop owner. "Don't touch anything, for the love of mercy—and I'll be back in a moment."
He scurries away to the back of the shop. When he's out of sight, Alik scans the ceiling and the corners of the room. "Security vid there and there," he says, pointing surreptitiously. "The angles should leave a blank spot—right about—here." He steps backward a few paces, snags a silky blue scarf from a rack, and stuffs it into his pants.
"Trying to impress us?" says Safi.
"Best place to hide a bulge," he says, winking at her.
"We have money, Alik," I say. "You don't have to take things."
"It's all good fun, darling," he says. "Just practice. Relax."
The shop owner returns then, a stack of serviceable shorts and shirts in his hands. "Here, these seem more suited to your—style." He quirks an eyebrow at me. What would he say if he could see me dressed up for a state dinner, in a gown created by one of Ceanna's finest clothing designers?
Poor man. He appreciates fashion, yet he's stuck in a shop on the edge of the desert, where he's clearly undervalued, judging by the lack of customers in his store. As I look around, I note that the shelves and racks are half-empty, and the finest clothes in the place are outdated, like the suit Rak touched. It's a store in decl
ine, without the clientele or the funds to keep it current and well-stocked.
"Thank you for your help," I say, smiling at the owner. "We're very grateful. After what we've been through, it's a mercy to find a kind face."
"Oh. Well then—happy to be of service." He smiles, a genuine one this time. "And may I suggest some boots for you, young lady? I have a few pairs that might serve you better than those—things—on your feet."
"Boots! Yes! Safi, help me choose some."
"Why?" She stares blankly.
"Because that's what girlfriends do. Come on!"
She shrugs and follows me and the shop owner to the shoe section, where she proceeds to turn up her nose at every pair I like.
"Those," she says, pointing to a plain, tough-looking set of boots. "They'll last you a long time."
"I don't need them to last a long time. I'm going home soon."
"Ah, really?" says the shop owner. "And where is home for you, lovely?"
"Oh, ah—I—"
"None of your rutting business," says Safi. "Enough questions. Let's buy these and go."
His smile gone, the shop owner collects payment for our purchases—including a tiny pack of makeup that I throw in at the last minute—and then he waves us out the door. Once I'm outside the shop, I sit down on the step and put on my new socks and boots, while Rak tosses my battered shoes into a garbage bin nearby.
"Better?" he asks.
"So much better. Too bad I won't need them after tomorrow."
"You never know," Safi says.
A few storefronts down, there's a tiny clinic. A bell jangles as we enter, but no one appears.
The front room is narrow, a few paces across, with shelves at either end stocked with bandages and simple wound repair kits—old-fashioned stuff, no nano-tech. Dirt stains the edges of the tiles, and a couple of beetles scuttle along the baseboards. Safi and I exchange glances.
"How are you feeling?" I whisper.
She shrugs. "Sore. Kind of faint."
"You might be better off sticking with Rak and Alik's patch job. This place hasn't seen a good scrubbing or germ eradication in a while."
As we edge toward the door to slip out, a woman comes out of a back room and steps behind the counter. She's thin, as everyone we've passed seems to be, and her eyes stare from sunken hollows under thin arched brows. Her hair, raggedly bundled at the back of her head, escapes around her face in tangled tendrils.
"You four look like a pack of jacanals dragged you halfway to death's door," she says, her voice raspy but not unkind. "What you need?"
"My friend here was beaten by some men," I say. "She had internal bleeding. We fixed her up, but we thought she should get checked out by a—by a doctor."
The woman snorts a harsh laugh. "I'm no doctor. Last doctor we had got taken by the Vilor. Guess they needed a doc, too. I'm the midwife."
"Oh." I glance at Safi.
"What'd they use on you, girl?" the woman says to Safi.
"Foam injection, nanite coagulant, and synthetic blood replacement," Rak interjects. "Then a stitch-up and two nano-patches."
The woman nods, still eyeing Safi. "Not much else I could do for you. And I'd have to open you back up to take a look at it. That what you want?"
"No." Safi takes a step back.
"Then the best I can do is to wish you luck and better health. You buying anything?"
Rak steps forward with the finance card. "Some bandages and nano-patches. The way trouble has been finding us, we may need them." He gives the woman a wry smile which she doesn't return.
"You Fray?" she says to him.
"I—I was," he answers.
"Hm. Tell your Fray buddies to quit blowing up bridges and wrecking our trade routes," she says. "Food's running low here. Tech, meds, everything getting scarcer."
"They blew up a bridge?" Rak frowns.
"Two weeks ago the Fray blew up the bridge across the gorge to the northeast. Tryin' to interrupt building transport routes for the new Peace-Keeper base up on Tawil Mountain. As usual the rest of us suffer. Nothing fresh coming from those big mountain farms now. We have to rely on what the Maraj villages can spare."
She scans his card and slaps it down on the counter. "Work crews are too scared to repair the bridge without guards to protect them, and those useless Unity and Peace-Keepers say they can't spare the men for a security team. So we're stuck with whatever bits of supplies we get. Sittin' here, waiting for the Vilor to come and screw us all to death." The words burst from her as if she's been holding them in, waiting for someone who would listen. Her fingers shake as she hands over the medical supplies.
Rak touches the back of her hand. "I'm sorry."
She jerks her hand away. "Go on, all of you. You better not have brought any more trouble our way."
23
Sobered, we troop out of the clinic. None of us speak as we make our way to the battered inn down the street. The gaunt gray-haired woman at the desk wears a string of beads in her hair, the Maraj ayila.
"How many rooms?" she asks, fixing each of us with a disapproving gaze.
"Two," says Rak, bowing slightly and adding a few words in his dialect. The woman's frown smoothes a bit, and after scanning the finance card he offers, she gives him the codes for two rooms. "Boys in one room, girls in the other," she says, squinting suspiciously at Alik. "No illicit revelry in my inn."
As we walk out of the lobby, Safi laughs, slinging her arm over my shoulders. "How does she know we're not coupled up that way? Girl with girl, and boy with boy?"
"Now that would be illicit revelry indeed!" Alik pushes his way between us and smacks us both on the backside. I yelp in surprise and Safi grabs him by the earlobe, twisting.
"Easy, Sky-born!" he says. "I yield, I yield!"
"You'll get us thrown out, Alik," says Rak.
Alik turns around and walks backward, a challenge in his eyes. "Come on, Maraj boy. Loosen up. Life's no fun when you're this uptight. Pull the gun out of your butt and have a laugh."
I smile, because Alik has a way of making everything seem all right and lovely and hilarious. But I know Rak has reason to be cautious.
"We'll meet you two in an hour," I tell him, taking Safi's arm. "We're going to get cleaned up—thoroughly this time."
"Wait!" Alik whips the blue scarf he stole out of his pants. "This is for you."
I raise my eyebrows. "I'm supposed to use that? I know where it's been."
"If you'd rather keep using the smelly Vilor cloth I gave you, be my guest," he says. "No guarantees where it's been, either."
Making a face at him, I snatch the scarf, our clothes, and the makeup kit and follow Safi into our room, as Alik's laughter echoes behind me.
I let Safi use the bathroom first while I wander around our room. It's grimy in places, but there aren't any scourgelings or bugs that I can see, and the bedding looks clean enough. Strange how my standards of acceptable accommodation have changed in the past couple of weeks. A month ago, I would have recoiled from a place like this. I would have positively refused to sleep here. And I would have turned up my nose at a boy like Rak, simply because he looked dirty, uneducated, and unpleasant.
I would have turned away because of his flawed exterior, and missed the big, brave, beautiful heart inside him.
How many people have I spurned that way in my lifetime? How many connections have I missed with interesting, ingenious human beings, because I was too shallow to truly see them?
Safi pushes back the folding doors to the bathroom, clad in her fresh clothes, her wet hair slicked back. "I'm a new woman," she announces, easing herself onto the bed and crossing her long legs. "Your turn."
I take a long time washing myself; and with a razor I scavenged from the Vilor supplies, I shave the parts that have grown hairier than I like. I bandage my wounded ribs, and I dress in fresh underthings, and I pull on simple black shorts and a loose white shirt, sleeveless and airy. Then I apply a hint of color to my lips, eyelids, eyelashes, and cheeks.
I don't use any makeup on my skin; it's too dry, and desperately in need of exfoliation and moisture—but at least the shower did it some good.
Staring into the pitted mirror, I look for Zilara Remay, polished university student and daughter of the Magnate of Ceanna, with her light brown skin carefully contoured, hair treated to ensure the liquid gloss of a waterfall. Instead I see someone new—dry skin, chapped lips, black hair tumbling in unruly waves around bare brown shoulders. A few cuts here and there. Scrapes and bruises. Leaner arms, more prominent cheekbones. And my eyes—golden brown as ever, but older now. Deeper. More alive.
Maybe it's my imagination.
I turn away from the mirror and open the bathroom doors. "I'm as hungry as Deathspawn," I say. "Let's go get the boys."
"Your scarf," Safi reminds me.
"Of course." I arrange the blue scarf so that it drapes halfway over one eye, covering my tattoo; but I leave the rest of my face uncovered. Why go to the trouble of putting on makeup if no one can see the results?
The men have the room next to ours. At Safi's knock, Alik opens the door—shirtless, toweling his golden hair.
He's beautiful, like the white stone statues that stand in the courtyard at university. Pale skin, the slopes and ridges of his torso sculpted exquisitely. His waist narrows, stomach muscles angling and disappearing into the low-slung band of his pants.
He grins, delighted at catching us by surprise. "Don't you two look enchanting! Come in. Rak's almost done."
"What took you two so long?" I say, sitting on the edge of one of the beds and picking at a stray thread.
Alik pulls on a shirt, keeping his eyes on Safi. "We had a disagreement. It's resolved now."
"Disagreement? What about?"
"You, Princess. What else? Seems Rak thought I was being disrespectful of you before, and I had a different view of the matter. As I said, it's resolved."
Rebel of Scars and Ruin (The Evolved Book 1) Page 21