by Bowes, K T
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The Boy Child
Darkness consumed my chamber as Limah creaked the heavy door open. Nudging me aside with his hip, he prevented me proceeding before him. The sharp knife slipped from its holster at his belt and he spun it in his hand twice before settling it in his grip. The flame flickered on the torch in his other hand, sparks shimmering as it reached the end of its life. Lifting it high, he examined every corner of the room without entering further, his head cocked as he listened to the sound of silence.
“It’s safe,” he concluded, his voice seeming too loud. He waited until I entered and then closed the door behind us. It took seconds for him to light candles and brighten the room, yet I hung by the door, my boots running parallel with the threshold. “There’s nothing to fear.” Limah’s lips betrayed his amusement as he jerked his head towards the bed. “Rest and I’ll stand guard.”
I shook my head and my eyes widened until they ached in their sockets. My index finger jabbed towards the bed. Limah laughed. “You wish me to check for monsters, my Lady?” He licked his lips, enjoying my discomfort. I halted in the action of nodding, not sure I wanted to add humiliation to my list of faults, but desperate for him to declare the space free of usurpers, anyway. Shrugging, he bent to his knees and lifted the cover. “I don’t imagine the colony balling you beneath your bed,” he muttered. “But this is an age of firsts, so who am I to challenge strange notions?”
A commotion sounded in the corridor outside and Limah tensed. He rose upright in a single, fluid motion, his palm already on the hilt of his sword. Rough voices accompanied the sound of pitiful mewling and armour clanked against fast moving legs. “Move!” Limah shouted.
My tired reflexes failed me. The door hit me broadside as it flew open and I saw a tall male with gangling limbs raise his hand as I flew sideways. The sandy floor stripped the wind from my lungs and left me gasping as a cacophony of sound filled the chamber. Closing my eyes, I awaited death.
Breath coasted across my face and a wet kiss landed on my cheek. A pincer grip settled around my chest and the sounds of sobbing filled my ears. Popping my eyes open I saw dirty hair and a raggedy tweed cap. “Sorrel!” My lips formed the words though my voice failed me. He smelled of pine and sweat, fear leaving its own pungent aroma in the air. Sighing, I wrapped my arms around his scrawny neck, grateful for the glimmer of friendship in my tumultuous world.
“I saw the Swift take you,” he sniffed, tears and slime mingling beneath his nose. “I followed the Master and watched her stab his leg.” Sorrel’s head popped up from my embrace and his gaze cruised Limah’s body from boots to head. “I saw it,” he whispered, an element of wonder in his voice. “He should be dead.”
With a hefty shove, I pushed his head from my breast and forced myself into a sitting position. My eyes implored Limah to explain my predicament and spare me the embarrassment of miming. I knew he understood when he waved a hand towards the armed guards who flooded the room. “Stand down,” he ordered. “The Queen knows this boy. Increase the guard and set a watch on every entrance, including the hidden north facing door. Go back to your post with her majesty’s grateful thanks.” He widened his eyes at me, the cocoa irises glinting in the candlelight. When he jerked his head, I surveyed the amassed group and gave a reluctant smile. A pathetic roll of my wrist attempted a regal wave. I heard Limah snort but the small army departed anyway, their boots scraping against the dirt floor like the sound of thunder. Their armoured vestments appeared ridiculous on their gangling bodies and the downy hair gracing the chins of the males denoted their youth. Females accompanied them, drowning beneath the chest pieces as though losing a battle against gravity. Teenagers, all of them.
Sorrel fixed his arms around my neck and nestled in again, comforted by the absence of warriors. I shoved him away and saw his brows knit with disappointment. “Have you forgotten, Este? I rescue you and then you kiss me,” he insisted, puckering lips covered with slime from his nose. I turned my face away as he launched towards me. Edging sideways, I shook my head to emphasise my disagreement. He pushed himself upright and stared at me. “Say something!” he insisted. “I’ve spent a week tracking you, Este. At least congratulate me!”
“You tracked us?” Limah stiffened. “We left no trail, boy. How did you find us?” His hand strayed to the hilt again and I heard the metal sword rasp against its sheath. It appeared by degrees, candlelight reflecting as star bursts from its dented surface. “What trouble have you brought to our door?” Two of his giant strides brought him to my side and he peered down at the waif. “Are you bewitched by her pheromones?” His nostrils flared in disgust and he finished drawing his sword like he had many times to subdue persistent palace boys.
The noise of the blade jolted my senses, the force rocking my body in the sand. The precision of its cutting edge held a peculiar ring of truth and I stared at it as some ethereal thing shifted within me. Limah’s gaze moved to me as I raised a hand to my chest. His ruined eyebrow rose and I ignored him as the sensation began again. The gentle tug recommenced in my breast, urging, cajoling and calling. It blossomed like the flare of a lighted wick, the flame renewed and whole. I had begun to imagine that my heart felt a tie to Limah and had tried to lead me back to him in my wanderings. But Limah stood before me and the call was for elsewhere. The dark and frightening pit opened up in my inner vision, occupying the space where Sonora’s hive once lived. I recoiled but refused to pull away again and leave another part of my self entwined in its midst. I discerned a faint light glowing far away in the blackness and experienced a spark of possession leave me and wind towards it. Whatever it was, I wanted it.
I swallowed and looked at Limah with confusion budding in my eyes. He cocked his head as I shook mine from side to side. “What is it, Este? What’s wrong?”
Pointing to my heart and then at the door, I mouthed a sentence which paled his sun kissed cheeks to the colour of death. “Something is calling me.” He leaned forward, squinting to read the words as they left my lips for a second time and his breath caught in his chest.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Emotional Battles
The door closed behind the last curious guard as he led Sorrel to the dining hall for food. I sat on the bed and my fingers writhed against the coarse fabric covering the mattress. Waiting. Always waiting for some other person to dictate my direction and knock me off course.
Limah didn’t disappoint. He paced the room like a caged beast, muttering curses as he turned with acute precision before narrowly missing contact with the walls on either side. Back and forth. Back and forth. His actions invoked a terrifying memory of Bliss and it forced a clenching sensation in my heart. I’d hidden her favourite corset and her breasts lolled inside her bodice, threatening to spill over the delicate neckline. She’d cursed and raged to the amusement of the palace boys, especially the ones who helped me hide it. We’d choked with laughter until she produced the slender branch. We cried then. At the welts she left on our bodies and the state of the corset when persuaded to dig it out of the flower bed. She stuffed her fluid, rolling flab into its rigorous embrace and then whipped us all again.
I squirmed on the mattress as my tender backside remembered the sensation of switch on skin and I missed her. I yearned for her whiskery kisses and rough hands. My mind returned to the lessons she’d taught and the freeness in my spirit she’d fought to tame. If I never saw her this side of the third dimension, I would make her proud and vindicate her efforts to shape a better character.
I lifted my head to find Limah stationary. He stood with his fingers pressed together at his heart. I watched as his world crashed down around his ears. He inhaled and his speech came slow and cajoling as though careful oratory might change my mind. “Estefania,” he began, then paused. I quirked an eyebrow and he shook his head. “I’ve spent my life devoted to your safety and well-being. This is your purpose, Este. You must believe me.” He spun on his heel and dust kicked up in his wake as he resumed pacing. �
��The colony will accept you, a suitable mate will come and Sonora will release me.”
My lips parted in surprise and his eyes flickered a guilt response. He stammered, gathering his words around him like a protective cloak. I saw his error and he knew it. Casting around for something to aid communication, I found nothing. The sand around him settled and the idea came. Dropping to my knees, I spelled out the sentence in the Melitto alphabet, using my fingers to carve it in the dirt. Too many questions. Not enough time.
“You are bonded?”
“Yes.” He swallowed, his throat convulsing with the action. “To her and now you.”
My written question mark and knitted brow drew him closer and he squatted next to me on his haunches, smelling of hyacinth and pine forest. “I bonded myself to your mother when I vowed to fulfil my father’s destiny in his stead.” He paused and ran a shaking hand across his face. “She bonded me to you.”
He thought he’d escaped. I saw it written in the disappointment which lined his face. I hung my head and leaned forward to write the single word. “Sorry.” Sitting back on my heels, I screwed my toes up inside my boots. My sigh shook my body and the sense of calling pulsed in my breast. My fingers drifted to touch the burning space and Limah’s brows furrowed. “You feel another hive?” His voice held despair.
I shook my head to indicate no. Not a hive. My eyelashes fluttered at the memory of the place the old drone took me to. Darkness engulfed me and I shivered, more so because I knew it imprisoned my destiny. “Somewhere else,” I wrote in the sand, brushing my hand through the apology and smoothing my canvas. Limah nodded and I repeated the action, flattening the sand into a gently undulating page. My finger shook as I explained myself. “It urged me in a loop back to this place. But it’s not here. The boy’s arrival and the sound of your sword has invoked it again. I must find it.” I swallowed, not wishing to convey the crux of my new knowledge. The thing in the pit belonged to me and our separation hurt. I wanted it. Needed it.
Limah leaned back with a groan and buried his face in his hands. “You made me your Counselor and I did not object. I believed you’d raise your own colony from the remains of the swarm Sonora left behind.” He pinched his lips together with scarred and shaking fingers. “I can’t counsel you on this, Este. Already I’m out of my depth.”
My brow furrowed and anger burgeoned. It allied with petulance and I tapped the side of his head. When he looked up, I jabbed my finger at his sword. Limah rose, power in the muscles and sinews which drove him upright. The blade sang in the silence as he drew it free and palmed it. I felt the air change around the movement of his hands as he offered it, but I closed my eyes against the sight. The sword changed nothing after the initial pulsing in my chest. The feeling fizzled away like melting snow. I pushed the blade aside with my hand and hissed as the skin split against the edge. The old and battered second-hand war horse still possessed a savage bite.
Limah’s expression morphed into temper and confusion as he took it back, sheathing it at his side with deft and angry movements. I smoothed out the sand and used my other hand to write, licking blood from the cut on my palm. “A sword, but not that one,” I wrote. “It makes the same sound.”
Limah growled and kicked the rock wall. The candles he’d lit flickered beneath the air current induced by his jerky movements. “They all sound the same!” he snapped. “It’s the noise a sword makes, Estefania!” He swore and slapped the rock face with his palm, wincing when the sword gave an answering clatter against his side. “This is your colony!” he shouted, his tone laced with agony. “This is your destiny.” I watched any hope of freedom slip from his shoulders and land at his feet. He asked once before if I would deny him a wife and children and his humour shrouded my understanding, cloaking it beneath feigned exasperation. I had joked in reply but saw no humour in my ignorance now. He’d meant it. In response, I had bonded him again as my counselor when freedom should have represented his just reward.
“You wish to marry Taia?” I clapped my hands to get his attention after I had scrawled the question. Limah strode over to look at the words and shook his head.
“Perhaps once, Este. But not after her betrayal of you. I don’t need a woman ruled by jealousy and hasty vengeance. There are plenty of those to choose from.” He sighed and slapped his palms against his thighs, turning away in exasperation. “I should thank you.” He laughed as I cocked my head to the side in mimicry of a curious bird. Limah’s lips quirked upwards into a rueful smile. “You’ve saved me from the curse of a nagging, grasping wife, Este. Well done.” He bowed low and shame budded, sending a pink flush into my throat and cheeks.
Smoothing out the sand in front of my knees, I wrote a sentence I knew I’d regret. It went against every fibre of my selfish nature, reflecting the sweet taste of my beautiful simile. Besides, I reasoned, he left me no choice. “I release you.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Bonded
I didn’t expect Limah’s reaction to my gift. Unsure of what I thought he might do, I watched as a cruel laugh slipped from between his lips. His fingers balled into fists and sullenness shrouded his broad shoulders. Stalking from the room, he slammed the door behind him. Dust and pebbles cascaded around my head and I coughed against their invasion of my lungs. I imagined gratitude but as always, got none.
Lying on the bed, I closed my eyes and shifted to find a comfortable position. Relief at the thought of escaping my reluctant subjects vied with trepidation and fear. The outside world offered pain and terror, coupled with the certainty of death. Neither seemed attractive. The line between the Outer and my virtual world had died with the ruination of the hive. Yet the dark place promised to revive it, even though it terrified me beyond understanding. The absence of Limah’s help made the prospect of any quest impossible, not that I knew where the pit or the strange sword lay. The sound of a blade and the presence of a small and useless boy presented the only clues. Squeezing the bridge of my nose between thumb and forefinger, I smelled the metallic scent of blood in my palm and allowed the sadness of my lost state to wash over me.
“Este!” I jerked from a slumber devoid of dreams or comfort to find Limah sitting on the end of my bed. The hard line of his jaw cast a dark shadow over his throat and he kept the handsome side of his face in my eye line. I shifted on the lumpy mattress so I could look at him. The groan died on my lips, but the irritated exhale sounded loud and harsh in the silence. What more could he want from me? I’d given him back his freedom.
Limah turned towards me and I saw both halves of his face, the perfect and the ruined. He represented a man whose life bore as much division as his face, a life disfigured by another’s enslavement. My mother’s. Tucking my hair behind my ears, I pushed myself upright and waited for him to speak. “You wore your boots to bed,” he said, the comment light hearted and confusing in the context of his earlier, temper fuelled exit. He tapped the scuffed toe and flicked the dangling lace with his forefinger. “Like a true warrior.” His eyes smiled, crinkling at the edges where the sun had kissed his skin into wrinkles. I knew then he would let me go and sadness tinged my soul.
“You will remain here?” I jerked on his sleeve and mouthed the words, embarrassed at the rapt attention he bestowed on my moving lips. When he shrugged, I felt the surge of hope begin in the cavernous empty halls of my breast where Sonora’s hive once mirrored its activity.
“I don’t know.” Limah scratched a hand through the bristles on his chin. “But if you intend to pursue a sword, the least I can do is teach you to use one when you find it.” His lips rose at one corner. “It will prove little use otherwise.”
I swallowed and my head bobbed on my neck in acceptance of his offer. Limah clasped my shin in his strong fingers and squeezed, communicating something deeper than his agreement. The sense of solidarity in the tender action pricked at some lost feeling of friendship within my soul. I swallowed to resist the instant tears which pressed behind my eyes, eager for release.
“We
begin first thing tomorrow,” he said, rising and walking towards the door. “I’ll teach the idiot boy too, though I hold little hope for his skill in battle.” His gaze rested on my face and he gave a swift jerk of his head. “Get some rest, Estefania. Tomorrow I will make your body ache so hard, you’ll wish yourself dead.” The door clicked shut behind him.
Throwing myself back against the mattress, I sighed at the lumpiness. In defiance of Limah’s observation, I unlaced my boots and kicked them onto the floor. An hour later it seemed no amount of shifting and turning could create a comfy nest and I gave up. I contemplated exploring the labyrinth but rejected the foolish plan. The pull in my chest slept and refused to offer further clues as to my destiny, perhaps assuaged by Limah’s promise of aid. Irritated, I rose from the bed and pulled the blankets from the mattress, intending to create a more pleasant bed on the sandy floor.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
A New Skill
“Don’t move in straight lines!” Limah bellowed, the skin pulling tight around his scar as he grimaced. Again he pitched me onto the ground and a jet of sand flew up. Rocks bit through my clothing and bruised my flesh. Every muscle and sinew ached for relief. I lay on my back with my arms outstretched, my borrowed sword gone wherever Limah’s skilled blade flicked it. I’d heard it hit something wooden and then silence. “Get up!” Limah’s boot nudged against my thigh and I opened my eyes to see his double-bladed weapon almost touching the end of my nose. “Again, Princessa!” he snarled.