“Force information? Torture?”
His jaw tightened. “We’re not animals. But there are some who would feel the need to be persuasive.”
I shivered and rubbed my arms.
“Or they might, with the right persuasion, offer you a place among us, given your history,” he added.
My history. As a surfacer? As a former thrall? “You mean the way they did with you?”
His eyes flickered. “Yes.” The admission had a heaviness to it that made me wonder. What had he endured before they had accepted him as one of them?
Of those options, only one was acceptable to me. Only one didn’t lead to obvious torture or dismemberment of some kind. I needed to convince them to give me back to the Itlanteans.
In order to do that, I needed information.
“Tell me more about the Dron,” I said. “Their conflict with Itlantis. I still don’t understand it fully.”
“I doubt you’ll find anyone who does,” he said. “The whole history is shrouded in myth and mystery. But the short version is this: Itlantis attacks and kills us. We attack and kill them.”
I approached the tray he’d brought and examined it. The offering appeared to consist mainly of seaweed in various forms. As I ate, I gestured at the blankets hanging on the wall. “These tell a story, but I don’t understand all the pieces. Can you explain it to me?”
Nol leaned against the wall and tipped his head back. “As you know, we have five divisions. Twenty years ago, a series of tragedies regarding the conflict with Itlantis caused political disagreements. The famine was causing starvation. The people were tired. The Dron agreed to withdraw rather than continue to seek conflict, and they’ve been withdrawn ever since, holding their borders but not expanding them.”
“Does this mean they want to end the war?” I thought of Garren. He hardly seemed an advocate for peace.
“It’s complicated. The Dron are not exactly a unified bunch. Each division has a different opinion. They share the same core values—the safety and continuation of our people, and a mistrust of the Itlanteans—”
“Mistrust? You put ‘hatred’ very diplomatically.”
“Can you really blame them, Aemi? They’ve been hunted and killed for centuries.”
“It isn’t exactly a one-sided war,” I shot back. “The Dron have killed Itlanteans.”
I felt like we kept having the same conversation again and again. I was exhausted with it.
“The difference is that the Itlanteans are a gold-tipped boot, and the Dron a spider beneath it,” Nol said. “The Dron are not the threat to the Itlanteans that they are to the Dron. Itlanteans are afraid of the Dron, but they aren’t in hiding from them.”
“The Dron aren’t blameless. You can’t blame Itlantis for fearing them. They’ve killed my people too.”
“Your people?” He paused. “When did you really start seeing yourself as one of them?”
“I am one of them.”
He shook his head, and the gesture infuriated me. He could deny reality all he wanted, but I was Itlantean by blood.
I pointed at the blanket that showed the city. “And this one?”
“The Cataclysm,” he said. “We heard about it when we were with Merelus.”
“Do the Dron have the same story?”
He nodded. “They do.”
“Do you think it’s true?”
Nol tipped his head to the side. “I don’t know. The surface air isn’t poisonous like the Itlanteans believe. Who’s to say what really happened. The Dron say the Cataclysm changed the surface forever, and made the islands and world above unsafe, which is why they remain in the sea. But they aren’t afraid to venture above, or live in their floating bases. We aren’t as given to suspicion and superstition.”
“No?” Again, I thought of Garren and his words to me while I was a prisoner on the Dron warship. The Dron, I knew, wanted blood. They were afraid. They saw the Itlanteans as monsters, and after hearing their stories, I couldn’t say I entirely blamed them.
I finished eating, and Nol took my plate. His fingers brushed mine at the exchange, and his eyes flickered to mine, but he didn’t say what he was thinking.
When he left, I stared at the blanket tapestries until exhaustion overcame my thoughts.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE NEXT DAY, when delivering my food, a guard informed me that I was to be called before the leaders of the Dron at next light. I marked the passage of time by counting the number of meals I’d eaten.
After two meals, they came for me.
This time, Garren and Nol arrived together to retrieve me, accompanied by two additional guards with stoic expressions and thick, burly arms. I arched an eyebrow at them, although my stomach flipped. I didn’t want to look frightened in front of Garren, because my lack of fear seemed to unsettle him, and that felt like a small triumph.
“Am I that dangerous?”
Garren grumbled something under his breath about “nefarious Itlanteans” instead of responding to my barb. Nol stepped forward and manacled my hands.
“Sorry,” he said quietly to me as he snapped the restraints around my wrists. “It’s just a precaution.” He was gentle as he did it, checking with his finger to see if they were too tight.
I rattled them experimentally.
He put a hand on my elbow and steered me forward, and a flicker like lightning rushed up my skin. This close to him, he smelled like salt water and spice.
We stepped out into the basin portion of the city, and the sounds and colors rushed over me. The living spaces appeared more crowded now than when I’d first been ushered through them, and men and woman streamed along the paths, some carrying baskets of clams on their heads, others holding nets of fresh-caught fish or cradling babies. Children were everywhere, running and calling to each other in play, or squatting on the sides of the path weaving nets. Many of the Dron stopped their tasks to stare at me, and whispers chased us. I kept my head up as words like “Itlantean” and “dangerous” drifted past, my eyes focused on the guard in front of me as I examined my surroundings out of my peripheral vision.
The houses and shops were carved from stone, often with doors or fronts made from metal that looked to have been welded together from many different sources. Chimes made from shells or bits of metal hung from windows and doorposts, tinkling as people came and went. Many of the people wore bracelets strung with red beads that dangled and clinked as they moved. The swarms of people all spoke and worked quietly, as if they were all listening for danger at every moment. Despite the crowd, I could hear the faint tinkle of one of the chimes as we passed, and the clink of a woman’s bracelet as she bounced her baby.
We descended the paths winding round and round to the bottom of the cavern, heading for the bottom center of the basin, where a mosaic of tiles formed a patterned floor surrounded by stone columns. Six seats of stone ringed the edge of the circle. They were presently empty.
Garren ordered me to halt when we reached the ground level. Here, the light was gloomiest, and sconces provided pockets of golden light. The air was chilly and dank. I shivered in the damp cold, goose bumps rising on my skin.
Nol noticed and stepped closer to me. His arm scraped against mine, imparting a little warmth to me.
“Well?” I asked Garren. “What now?”
“Silence,” he barked.
A gong sounded, and a line of men and women in uniforms entered from an arch between the columns to my left. Each wore a uniform of a different color. They sat in the stone seats I’d observed earlier, and regarded me without expression.
“The leaders of the Dron divisions,” Nol whispered to me.
The Dron divisions. Bloombud, the growers, Primogen, the guardians of children, health, and animals, Watchgard, the defenders, Sagessor, the experts and teachers, and Battalia, the soldiers. Five divisions total.
“Who does the sixth represent?” I asked Nol, studying them.
“The commander of this city, as the people here are
mainly Sagessor.” He paused, then added, “Sagessor and Battalia do not always get along.”
“State your name, prisoner,” one of the leaders said, a woman with gray hair and piercing eyes. She folded her hands and regarded me evenly.
I straightened as I spoke. I wanted them to believe that I was not afraid to stand before them, even though I was. “I am Aemiana Graywater. I was kidnapped from Primus and I think we can come to some arrangement regarding my return to my people.”
“Oh?” the woman said. She had no expression as she spoke, and it unnerved me. “You are confident, I see.”
“I am.”
“And what,” she asked, “do you think you can possibly offer us that might tempt us to release you, when you could be immensely useful for obtaining information? When you bear a direct connection to a man who has been terrorizing our people?”
Obtaining information. Did they mean torture? My legs trembled. I swallowed, then lifted my chin and looked her straight in the eye. “How would you like to have peace with the Itlanteans?”
They were silent a moment, faces impassive. The air hummed with the weight of their stares. Then the man to the gray-haired woman’s left laughed.
“She’s mad,” he said to the others. “Why are we wasting our time with this?”
Several of the other leaders shifted, already dismissing me.
“Listen,” I said firmly, my voice ringing. “I am a member of a powerful family. My grandmother is a senator. I have connections, and I know that there are many who want peace. But more importantly, Itlantis is in crisis. We are in the midst of a war with Nautilus, the former governor of one of our cities. He has destroyed Celestrus and overtaken Primus. Itlanteans have never been more receptive to negotiating a compromise with you than they will be now. I understand you have been seeking to avoid altercations for the last twenty years—”
“Perhaps if Itlantis is so vulnerable, we should attack,” the man who’d laughed at me said. I saw from the design on his shirt that he was Battalia.
“Don’t be stupid,” I replied.
His eyes narrowed.
“Itlantis is reeling, but not immobilized,” I said. “You don’t want a bloodbath. You want to stop hiding. You want a future for your children.”
“Don’t tell me what I want, Itlantean,” he said coldly.
I looked at the woman in the center again. She was leaning forward, her chin cupped in her hand. “Consider what this could mean for your people,” I said.
“We do not trust your kind,” she said. “Itlanteans are deceptive.”
“Consider what this could mean,” I said. “A true cease-fire. No more hiding.”
“I do not believe you can promise us this,” she said.
I looked at Nol. He stood beside me, expressionless.
“If you don’t believe me,” I protested, “then how could you hope to think that turning me over to that butcher Nautilus will do anything to protect you? If I am not to be trusted, why would you get within an ocean’s length of him in order to make a trade?”
My heart beat fast as I spoke the words. Would they be enough?
The leaders put their heads together and spoke quietly. I curled my fingers into fists. My nails bit into my palms as I waited.
They straightened and looked at my guards. “Take her away,” the one in the middle said.
And it was over.
The guards prodded me, and I shuffled after them after one last glance at the Dron leaders. “This is a mistake,” I said, but they were no longer listening to me.
~ ~ ~
Back in my cell, the guards left but Nol lingered. He leaned against the wall, arms crossed, while I paced the length of the room.
“I feel like I’m saying the same things over and over, and nobody will listen.”
“Or perhaps they hear you and simply disagree,” Nol said. “Words alone don’t always work, Aemi.”
Words alone. So what, was I supposed to bludgeon sense into them with a cudgel?
“What now? Am I going to be given to Nautilus? Or will I be ‘used to obtain information,’ as you put it?”
“We aren’t torturers,” Nol said. His voice was low, soft. It felt like a caress, and I tried to shake off the feeling it gave me. It was becoming harder and harder to remember that we were enemies.
“All people are capable of terrible things when they’re desperate,” I shot back.
“Aemi,” he said. “I believe they listened to what you said. About Nautilus, at least. They know you are right.” He paused. “There are other options.”
“Like what?” I stopped pacing to look him square in the eye. “Join the Dron?”
He didn’t say anything.
“I hardly think that is going to work at this point. They don’t trust me. Do they unquestioningly accept deserters from the ranks of the enemy? I highly doubt it.”
He was silent awhile. “If I spoke for you—”
“No.” I wasn’t that desperate. Not yet.
He left, and I was alone. I stared at the tapestries on the wall and mentally sifted through ideas, eventually discarding them all.
I was a prisoner, and I didn’t know how I was going to escape.
CHAPTER FIVE
TWO ROUNDS OF food on metal trays came and were taken away by a guard. Boredom mingled with fear made a vicious combination, and I felt like an animal in a cage.
As I was yet again pacing the floor, Garren arrived. He sneered at me from the doorway of the cell.
“I hear you tried to talk your way out of here,” he said. “Our leaders are not going to listen to your lies, Itlantean.”
I was tired of his constant hectoring. “What do you want, Garren?”
He stepped forward and pulled a pair of restraints from his pocket. “You don’t get to sit here and do nothing like royalty, not if you want to eat. Everyone pitches in. Including prisoners.”
He locked the restraints around my wrists and took my arm. I didn’t protest, because I wanted to see more of Basin.
When we stepped out of the cell, he led me up the spiraling ramp that clung to the side of the stone wall. We passed houses and shops. Children stopped their play to gaze at me curiously, and Garren called for them to back away. Apparently, he was surly even to his own people.
At the top level of the stone basin, the path curved, turning away from the edge that looked down on the city, moving under the patchwork metal sky to an archway of rock. I smelled the scent of seaweed, salty and dense.
“Here,” Garren said with grumpy satisfaction, “you work.”
I surveyed the room. Piles of glistening seaweed covered half of the floor, reeking of salt water. Workers sorted through the green sludge, separating them into smaller piles. Behind them, another wave of workers were drying and salting the food. The air hummed with voices and the clatter of drying racks and salt containers.
Garren looked at me as if he expected me to protest, but I said nothing. I was not unaccustomed to hard work as he must imagine. I’d done nothing else in the Village of the Rocks, and truly, any place outside my cell was better than in it. This would give me the opportunity to listen and watch. Anything I could glean about this place might help me escape.
Garren’s smile slipped when I didn’t react. He unlocked my restraints and pointed to where gear and gloves hung on the wall. “Suit up, and then Myla will show you what to do.”
A brown-skinned woman with shocking green eyes and a crown of braids raised her head. Myla, I presumed. She looked me over and then flicked her gaze away. Garren turned on his heel and left, and I glanced around. Everyone had stopped working and was watching me. I crossed to the wall and selected a suit of slippery material, then a pair of gloves.
“Here,” Myla said when I approached her. She had a fleck of seaweed clinging to her cheek, and a splatter of something on her chin. Her gloves dripped with brown water. She wore a bracelet with two red beads dangling from it, tied with knotted cord. “Separate these—” She held u
p a long strand of dark green seaweed. “—from these.” With her other hand, she waved a bulbous-looking plant that was more orange in color. “Two piles.” She pointed with her elbow.
I nodded and crouched down to get to work. The sour green smell filled my nostrils, bringing with it a wave of nostalgia. For a moment of vivid memory, I was back at the Village of the Rocks, squatting on a pebbled beach and poking at a mass of washed-up greenery with a stick, looking for crabs to add to our supper pot while my mother washed clothing in the tide.
Myla watched me with the vigilance of a dolphin deciding whether to take down a shark. Every so often, she grunted at my progress, but otherwise she didn’t speak. Around us, the others had resumed working, muttering quietly.
I wondered what they knew about me. Obviously, I was a stranger among them. Did they know I was an Itlantean? Had word of my presence spread through the whole city? I’d overheard the whispers below identifying me as such, but I didn’t know how far they had traveled.
A man passed me with a handful of dripping seaweed, and he slammed into my shoulder with his as he walked by. I fell forward into the gooey mess in front of me, my hands sinking wrist-deep in the green slime. I looked up and he was gazing down at me, unapologetic, daring me to say something.
They knew.
I pushed myself back up and kept working. My veins simmered with rage, but I kept the words behind my teeth. I was the enemy to them.
Myla observed this interaction but said nothing.
A few others, no doubt emboldened by the first man’s action, also took the opportunity to shove or kick at me when they had the chance. Hours passed in a blur of harassment and hard labor. I sorted feverishly, dodging blows when I could. Sweat trickled down my back and beaded my upper lip.
Finally, Myla said to me, “Enough.”
I stopped, strands of dripping, stinking seaweed dangling from my fingers. I raised my aching neck to look at her, and she jerked her chin toward the wall. “Hang up your things. Wash yourself off. A guard will take you back to your room.”
My lower back throbbed from stooping. I straightened and stretched, letting a low groan escape me. I’d done hard labor among the surfacers, the Itlanteans, and the Dron. Some things were the same regardless of where you were. A backache was one of them.
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