Ignis

by Lula Monk

  When his mind realized a moment later what he’d done, he squeezed even harder, but not hard enough to hurt her. He wanted to give her all the strength he could, all the refuge he was able to give by the presence of his body next to hers. Whatever tale she had to tell was large, the beasts of her mind now near enough to swallow her whole.

  And Ignis would not let her lose herself.

  “I know we made a deal,” he said. “Your darkness for mine. But if this is too much…”

  “No,” Clea said, reaching up with her free hand to wipe tears away from her smooth cheeks. “I’m already this far. Might as well get it out now that I’ve drug it all up in my mind.”

  Ignis nodded gravely, regretting having engaged in this foolish swapping of tales of woe. He knew it wouldn’t be pleasant for either of them; his own sorrow built in his mind at the thought of conveying Gylenda’s death to the Earth woman.

  But Clea’s sorrow was almost enough to eclipse his own, for the Earth woman had been nothing but strong until this moment. No part of her had faltered, not even when she’d had to flee from a dozen armed Ceph guards, orbs of energy exploding near her feet. Nor when she’d had to tend his ruined retched body for rotations on end.

  But this… this memory was about to be the end of her.

  Channeling an instinctual part of his soul he’d thought died with Gylenda, Ignis scooted closer to Clea, pulling her body close to his, his arm wrapped protectively around her shoulders.

  “I’ll hold you together,” he whispered against her braids. “When it’s too much to speak, I’ll keep the pieces form falling apart.”

  Clea sniffled, another bout of sobbing already causing her body to quake. But she held back, reining it all back in.

  She is so strong.

  “Kyesha was sick, the night of my party. Our dad made her stay up in her room, in bed.” Clea laughed, the sound hollow and full of sadness. “She was such a rambunctious and clever kid. He had to lock her door, from the outside. She’d had this habit, you see, of always sneaking out when she was supposed to be grounded. Even at that age, she was clever. Smart. Resourceful. But there were so many people over for my party… so many other things for Mama and Dad to have to keep up with and tend to… Dad just thought it would be easier to lock the knob and keep her hemmed in.”

  Another bitter sob escaped her lips. “The pitiful thing is, I think he did it to keep her safe. To keep her from getting around the other kids and getting worse. Getting sicker.”

  Clea breathed in and out deeply, gathering herself up. She sniffed. “Kyesha kept leaning out the bedroom window – the party was outside, you know? One of those garden parties, where all the kids had glow sticks and sparklers and stuff.”

  Ignis didn’t know. Didn’t know half the concepts she was talking about, but again he held his peace. Ignorance of the details didn’t take away from the depth or meaning of the woman’s story.

  “I remember wishing she’d just go away…” Her voice dropped to barely a whisper. “I wanted her to go away, so I could play with my friends. If I’d just listened to her… just gone to Mama an Dad… convinced them to let her come down to the party… maybe she wouldn’t have…”

  Ignis kissed the crown of her head, his lips freezing in the motion as soon as they landed on her braids. What was he doing? Why was he so invested in this Earth woman’s sorrow? Why did he even give a damn about her woes?

  Why did he even care about her?

  Another sob racked her body, and his heart clinched, his chest feeling tight.

  He didn’t know what it was he was feeling for the Earth woman – what emotion compelled him to keep reaching out for her, to keep comforting her – but the idea of pulling away from Clea and letting her weep on her own felt so foreign and wrong that he suppressed it.

  “There was a man,” she said suddenly, pulling Ignis’s attention from his own thoughts back to her tale. “My dad had done something… I don’t even know what. But he’d pissed the guy off pretty good.” She wiped snot from her nose. “He lived right down the street from us, and he’d always hated it. Living so close to black folks. I guess my dad pissing him off plus seeing all my family and friends having a big time right down the street… He snapped.”

  Ignis sucked in a sharp and labored breath, but he didn’t speak. He wanted to protest, to exclaim at an alleged man lashing out at women and children because he feared the color of their skin, but this was the moment. This was what was so hard for Clea to say, and he was going to give her the space to say it, undisturbed.

  “He got in our house,” Clea said, her voice no longer weak and woeful. Now it was hot. Enraged. “We were all outback, in the yard. I remember I was painting this big sheet Mama had draped over the back fence, glow-in-the-dark paint splattering all over my dress and my face. I was having such fun. And I remember looking back, seeing Kyesha for one last time.

  “She was still sitting in the window, thick tears sliding down her baby face, her chin quivering. And again, I’d wished she’d just go away… stop making me feel guilty for having fun. It was my birthday, and I was a kid. I could only see as far as my own happiness.”

  One last shaking breath escaped from the Earth woman’s lips. “And that’s when we heard it. When everything changed.”

  She was silent then, for so long that Ignis finally felt the need to speak. “What was it you heard?”

  Clea swiped at her eyes angrily, straightening up and pulling away from him. He felt the coolness of the air in the wake of the Earth woman’s absence, and it chilled him to his core. He wanted her against him again, wanted to smell the sweet scent of her scalp and breathe with her as one. But he knew the look on her face. Had seen it a hundred time since he’d purchased her.

  Clea had found her strength again, and it was white hot rage.

  “That son of a bitch had crept into our house and planted a pipe bomb. A fucking bomb, on our staircase.” She gave a bitter laugh. “Of all places, I never could understand why he picked the stairs.”

  This was a term with which Ignis was unfamiliar, and he couldn’t understand what was so bad about it. “What is a ‘pipe bomb’?”

  Clea broke away from her reminiscing, the shakes returning to her body as though he’d broken some spell over her.

  “Fire,” she said, her voice laced with sorrow and longing and anger. “It’s a device that explodes, sending bits of shrapnel shooting out in every direction.”

  Ignis’s blood ran cold. He didn’t have much experience with cold things, but he knew that was the best descriptor for the way that one word she’d spoken had made him feel.

  Fire, she’d said, her eyes narrowed at him and full of hatred.

  “What happened then?” he asked, not meeting her gaze.

  She cleared her throat, swiping at her eyes again. “The bastard had no way of knowing what the bomb would do. It wasn’t a big one, as far as bombs go, I guess. At least that’s what he told the police after, when they were loading him into the back of their car. He’d never stepped foot in a black person’s house, I’d bet. Especially not ours. And he had no way of knowing our gas-powered water heater was under the stairs.”

  It was Ignis’s turn to shake. He knew what combustible fuel did to fire, and he had the harrowing suspicion he knew what was coming next in the Earth woman’s story.

  “And your sister?”

  Clea shoulders shook. “Dad couldn’t get to her. The gas helped the bomb blow the first story to bits. But somehow…” she said, her voice full of both awe and anger. “Somehow, Kyesha’s room was intact.”

  “So she lives?” Ignis asked. As soon as the words left his mouth, he knew how foolish they were. How stupid. A woman wouldn’t feel sorrow over her living sister. Only her dead one.

  “No.” Clea began to cry freely again, and Ignis reached out for her. She resisted, but he reached out again, wrapping his arms around the Earth woman and pulling her against him.

  “I said I’d keep you together,” he said, his v
oice barely eclipsing the sound of her sobs. “Let me.”

  He felt her head nodding against his chest. But then she pulled back, and Ignis did not expect her next words.

  “It would have been better if she’d died in the explosion,” Clea whispered, her eyes staring off into nothing. “But she didn’t. She had been sitting on the windowsill when the bomb went off, still looking out at all the fun of the party. Still wanting to be down there with us. The force of the blast sent a dresser flying across the room, pinning her legs to the wall.” She paused, but only long enough to breath in a shuddering breath. She struggled to get out the next words. “Her upper half hung out the window. When the bomb went off, no one knew what to do. Where to turn. But I knew the only thing I was worried about was Kyesha.

  “I’m the one who saw her, her little kid arms dangling out the window. Stroking the air like water, like she was trying to swim away from the heat of the fire burning the house down around her. And Ignis, she was still crying. For me. Not our mom or dad. Me.”

  Again she stopped, and again Ignis held her close, unable to fathom what the woman had seen. Not just because he didn’t know what this ‘Mississippi’ looked like, but because he did not know how he would have been able to endure it if Gylenda had died a slow death, begging him to help her. To make her whole. To save her.

  Such a thing, and when Clea was so young… must have been beyond difficult to endure.

  “Dad tried to get into the house, to get Kyesha down. But he wasted too much time trying to get in… The fire grew so fast, spreading and eating through the walls of Kyesha’s room. And my baby sister knew it, could feel the heat of the flames biting in past her lavender walls and princess posters. She started screaming...”

  Clea stared off into nothing, as though seeing again in her mind the sights of that horrible night.

  “I still hear those screams some nights, in my dreams.” Another deep breath. “Finally, someone had the idea to drag a picnic table over to the wall, to try to reach Kyesha and pull her down. But none of the adults were tall enough to reach the second floor. Even with Kyesha draped out of the window like that... they couldn’t get her.

  “And all the while, the flames were reaching for her, catching alight on her nightgown and beginning to engulf her. I rushed over and clambered up onto the table. Climbed the man’s legs. His shoulders. I was just tall enough, just high enough for my fingers to brush hers. Her tears fell, dropping on my face. Blending with my tears. It’s like we were the same soul, both losing the same part of ourselves. Both of us dying.”

  “You can stop, Clea,” Ignis said, barely able to get the words out. He was so overwhelmed with sorrow for the Earth woman, but he was feeling something else too. Something more personal and darker.

  He thought of all the time he had carelessly let his flames free, sent them swirling out in the Earth woman’s presence. And how the sight of that truest part of himself must have brought memories of this death to her mind. This pain.

  But the Clea didn’t stop. It was as if having started her story, she couldn’t stop until it was all out.

  “I tried to reach up higher, tried to stand on the man’s shoulders. But he wavered, swaying back and forth. He wouldn’t let me go any higher, keeping his hands wrapped around my ankles. Even when I reached down to scratch at his eyes, so he’d let me loose.”

  Here a smile played at Ignis’s lips. Even as a child, she’d been fierce.

  “When I looked up for the last time, the flames were engulfing Kyesha. Thick plumes of smoke were billowing out, making my eyes sting and throat burn. But poor Kyesha… Her skin was on fire, blistering and weeping…” Clea was breathing hard, all the tears gone from her body. “As she died, she reached out for me again, calling for me. ‘Sissy,’ she’d said, her voice hoarse and cracking from the smoke and the pain. And then, that was it. Her body went limp. She was gone.”

  The silence in the room felt like a third person, and Ignis could hardly stand its presence.

  “All that,” he said, weighing his words carefully so as not to cause the woman more pain. “All of that, because of the color of your skin?

  Clea shrugged, sniffing. “A lot of stupidity and prejudice. Even though we were still poor, we left Mississippi after that.”

  Ignis embraced her, his powerful arms fastening around Clea’s own powerful frame.

  “You will never return to that place,” he pledged. “I swear it.”

  Clea began shaking again, and Ignis knew it took a great deal of resolve to calm herself. At last, she pulled away from him. “I’ve told you my story. Now tell me yours.”

  It took him a moment to summon the will, but he did.

  He told the Earth woman about his fierce love for Gylenda, about how they’d been pledged to each other as children but had come to love each other of their own accord. He told her about the warring between the Adrastan planets and the way Gylenda had always fought fiercely at his side. He told her about Cyndar and the Smolds, about the great blow Gylenda had landed on the bastard prince’s chest, thinking she’d felled him for good. He told her the last words Gylenda spoke to him before she died.”

  “Oh,” she interrupted. “I’m sorry… I won’t say it again.”

  Ignis nodded and continued with the rest. He told of his burning desire to bring Cyndar to justice for his crime. Killing a warrior from behind is underhanded and dishonorable. To do so on the battlefield is even lower still. Ignis also told Clea about the way the damnable bastard had gloated as he called his soul spear back, his men pulling him out of Ignis’s reach.

  He took a shuddering breath in, pleased that he’d been able to keep his own tears at bay long enough to tell the tale.

  “No wonder you hate the guy,” she said when his tale was done. “I’d hate him too.”

  “Good,” said ignis. “I am glad we are of one mind.”

  Clea gave him sharp look. “And why is that?”

  “Because you will help me get my revenge.”

  Chapter 17

  Clea

  A sharp knock sounded on the portal wall then, and for that, Clea was grateful.

  Her heart was raw and twisted from telling the story about Kyesha, and her soul was enraged by Ignis’s tale of his wife’s death. But she didn’t want to be involved in any plan of revenge Ignis had. She’d seen what the insectoid had done to him when he’d tried to attack Cyndar in the core; she’d tended to his blistered and broken body for days.

  But she had no way of telling the warrior she wouldn’t help him. Couldn’t help him, if she valued her own life.

  At the second knock, Ignis rose to his feet and went to press his palm to the portal wall. The green glow burst around it, and the portal opened.

  In the corridor was a Ceph guard.

  “It is time for your exercise, breeder,” it said, addressing Clea.

  She rose slowly, feeling the blood rush back to her numb feet. God, how long had they been sitting on the flat mattress? Hours?

  It had felt like days.

  “I’m allowed to go back to the Rim?” she asked the Ceph. Part of her had thought she’d pissed the insectoid off, and Slep was going to leave her rotting in this room as long as he could.

  Maybe he had given that order. Maybe he hadn’t. Either way, Clea hadn’t seen another human since Samantha left the day Ignis was brought to their chamber half-conscious and half-dead.

  The Ceph beckoned her forward. “It is time.”

  Clea went to walk through the portal, but Ignis stretched out his arm, stopping her.

  “Where are you taking her?” he asked, his voice a low growl. Dangerous. Feral.

  There’s my warrior, Clea thought proudly, even though she didn’t like the possessive way he was trying to control her movements.

  The Ceph reached out a tentacle and coiled it around Clea’s waist, attempting to pull her into the corridor. The Ardan still had his arm extended across her chest, and the opposing forces felt as if they would snap Clea in half.r />
  “The Rim,” said the guard, the suction cups of its appendage flexing across Clea’s stomach.

  Ignis nodded, removing his arm and letting the creature pull Clea past the portal. “Fine. But return her undamaged.”

  The Ceph grunted and yanked her down the hallway.

  To Clea’s surprise, Ignis ran out into the corridor. Placing both of his massive hands on the sides of her face, he cradled her head. His lips landed on hers softly, gently.

  “Come back to me safely, Earth woman,” he whispered against her mouth.

  Clea shivered.

  And then, as if remembering himself or perhaps confused by his own actions, Ignis’s face turned hard once more, and he marched back into their chamber, sealing the portal without another look back.

  Clea’s mind was racked with emotions, her body weary from crying and cleaning the soot of Ignis’s rage from the room. And yet, she found herself smiling.

  What was it about Ignis that captured her attention? That made her want to bear her soul to him? That made her willing to tolerate who he was, flames and all?

  For years after Kyesha’s death, even the small flame of a birthday candle would send Clea into a fit of tears. The state of Washington had paid for her to have psychological counseling, but it had barely helped. It was as if Kyesha’s spirit was determined to live on in Clea’s mind, keeping her safe from harm by making her deathly afraid of all things fire.

  And here she was, lightyears away from home and all that she knew, surrounded by aliens of every creed and kind. Sold as a sex slave to a massive warrior from another galaxy. Trying to help launch a revolution and overthrow a powerful intergalactic company. This was by far the most dangerous situation she’d ever been in.

  And her dumb ass wanted to play with fire.

  Clea blushed at the thought of playing with any part of Ignis.

  Keep your shit together, Clea, she chastised herself. You have things to do. Important things. Focus on those.

  The woman the Cephs chained her to was wearing the sequined clothing of an entertainer, and her dull and lifeless eyes confirmed it. But as soon as the pair was out of sight of the Breeding Sector corridor, the woman came alive.