by Tammy Walsh
“What will they do with Kal?” I said. “After he does his ‘performance’?”
The ragged man fixed me with his blazing eyes.
“Think of the most terrible thing you can imagine,” he said. “Then double it. That is what the Changelings will do.”
The sand serpent. They were going to feed him to it.
It made my heartache at the thought of him having to go through something so torturous.
“Emana, you must light the beacon,” the ragged man said. “It must be a Taw. And you, Sirena, you must make him realize he cannot throw his life away on the wrong decision. His life, your lives, and the life of every Titan everywhere depend on it.”
No pressure.
We turned to leave but Emana paused and turned back. She struck at the corner of the cage with her heel once, twice, three times. The corner snapped off. The ragged man couldn’t fit through it but he could work some of the bars loose and get through.
“You don’t deserve to be locked away like this,” Emana said. “Escape and enjoy your freedom.”
“You always were the kind one,” the ragged man said.
He tapped his forehead with his fingertips. The gesture made Emana pause for a moment longer.
“Come on!” I said, grabbing her by the arm and dragging her back down the tunnel.
Kal
The Changeling guards shoved me into the cell. I tripped on my own feet and hit the floor hard. The guards smirked as they slammed the door shut and turned the key in the lock.
I didn’t care. I barely even noticed. I was still in shock.
The girl of my dreams had slipped through my defenses and torn me apart from the inside.
And not just me.
By condemning me, she’d shot down the Titans’ chances of living in freedom. I hadn’t seen it coming. I trusted her wholly, completely, and she ripped my heart out.
I thought she would be mine forever.
But she had other plans.
When I felt the ground shake and saw the Changeling frigate was on its way, I knew a spy must have whispered in their ears. Never in my wildest dreams would I have suspected there were two in my midst.
My closest ally and the woman I loved.
If I couldn’t even depend on them, what sort of lord was I?
I dusted off my knees and ambled over to the cot. I took a seat. The memories of the past few hours came back to haunt me.
When S’lec-Quos motioned to his left at my betrayer, my attention came first to Emana. The shock that rang in her eyes was true. I knew immediately it wasn’t her. Oh, there were ways to convince someone to betray a sibling, but I didn’t think any of them would have worked on Emana.
My eyes shifted to the figure standing next to her. Sirena’s long neck bent over and stared at the floor. She couldn’t even bring herself to look at me.
And I knew right away.
She was the other spy.
She was how the Changelings learned about my plan to light the beacon. That was how they knew to ride here as fast as they could.
Because the woman I loved had told them everything.
And now my species’ future was over.
“My, my, don’t you look a sorry sight,” the prisoner in the next cell hissed.
It was the prisoner clothed in rags who Zes had wrestled in my room. The Titan who’d brought secret messages to my study.
The Titan that carried a secret I felt certain only the two of us knew.
My dour mood cracked for a moment. I was relieved to see him, even cut up and scarred as he was.
It was still a much sight better than I expected.
“I see you got my message,” he said.
I snorted.
“Yeah,” I said. “Thanks a lot.”
“What do you want?” he said. “I was busy wrestling Zes and, let’s face it, I never had the best handwriting to begin with.”
“That’s true enough,” I said.
It felt good to see him. I couldn’t believe it was him in the flesh right now.
The ragged prisoner reached through the bars. I took his hand and we braced each other’s forearm.
“Little brother,” the ragged man said. “You look older.”
“Anybody would, having to clean up your messes. You look like you’ve been to hell and back.”
“I didn’t like the location. Too hot.”
We shared a grin. It’d taken some time for me to recognize him through the scars and scraggly beard he’d always worn clean-shaven in the past. His clothes were torn with holes. I wasn’t sure if they were his real clothes or if he wore them only as a disguise. Neither would have surprised me.
The cells ran along either side of the room with a causeway splitting them in half. Guards could enter and exit at the door on either end. The other cells were empty.
“How can you still be alive?” I said. “You’re supposed to be dead!”
Qale motioned to the scars on his face and body.
“Almost,” he said.
“Why didn’t you come to me? Why didn’t you reveal you were still alive instead of leaving those cryptic messages?”
“Because you’re their lord now.”
“A warrior should always be the leader of the Titans,” I said. “I’m not a warrior.”
“During wartimes, yes. But the future requires peace, not war.”
“Have you seen outside lately?” I said. “The Changelings conquered us. This is war.”
“Geographically, maybe,” Qale said. “But not here. Not where it counts.”
He placed a fist on his chest.
“I shouldn’t be the Lord of Taw,” I said. “It’s your birth rite, not mine.”
“You were always meant to rule,” Qale said. “It doesn’t matter that I’m the eldest. What matters is what’s best for the people. And that’s you. Everyone thinks I’m dead. And I am. I’ve found a good woman to love me. She’s warm and humble. I don’t think she would survive in the castle with our politics. Neither would I. She loves me the way I am—even if I am now only half a Titan.”
There was something that’d been gnawing at me ever since my brother’s death…
“It should have been me on that shuttlecraft,” I said. “I was meant to be the one to head to the front lines to support you. I should have been the one to get shot down.”
Qale wrapped his beefy hand around the back of my neck.
“It would have broken my heart to see you fall, little brother,” he said. “If I lost you… I don’t know how hard I would have pushed the men. I would have sacrificed our people for my own selfish reasons. Besides, you never would have survived the crash. Better it was me.”
“You would have fought for honor,” I said. “The Titan way.”
“You were right not to attack. You told me to hold fast. You were right, little brother. They would have slaughtered us. You saved us. Rushing into a berserker rage was what they wanted. You called their bluff and now they’re here, buried in Titan land deeper than a tick. Now is the time to strike, while they’re greedy and feeding on the lifeblood of our people. Now is when we light the beacon.”
“I tried,” I said. “But Zes turned against me.”
“Zes?” Qale said, shaken by the news. “He’s a traitor?”
“We took the passageway to get to the beacon but he attacked us,” I said. “That’s how I ended up in here.”
Qale scratched his chin.
“That… complicates things,” he said.
He thought the situation over before shrugging his shoulders.
“Things will work out in the end,” he said. “They have to.”
I’d never known my brother to be so calm and self-assured before. He usually flew off the handle at the slightest problem.
“That’s it?” I said. “No tantrum? No beating on the prison bars?”
“What good would it do?” he said.
“None. But that never stopped you before.”
Qale smiled.<
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“I saw the girl,” he said. “The one in your bathroom. She’s a real stunner. Where’s she from?”
I turned away from him.
“I don’t want to talk about her,” I said.
He looked at me sideways. He recognized a raw wound when he saw it.
“She must be something to get you to forget about Jeyell for a while,” he said.
“I didn’t forget about her,” I snapped.
If anyone else had said that I would be breathing fire. But I could never stay angry at my brother.
“She got under your skin, didn’t she?” he said.
I nodded.
“The best ones always do,” Qale said. “You should try to see things from her side, try to get a handle on what made her do what she did. I’d bet she only did it because it made sense at the time. Maybe things look different to her now.”
I shook my head. I couldn’t believe I was listening to advise from my angry elder brother.
“What?” he said.
“You. What happened to you out in the wood?”
“I got tossed from the shuttlecraft, miles out in the middle of nowhere. My armor burned up something fierce and scalded my skin. I tried to get it off but couldn’t.”
His face took on a faraway, dreamlike quality.
“And then she came,” he said. “She brought buckets of water to ease the burning and, once she could put her hands on the metal, opened it up. What she saw under there wasn’t pretty.”
A Titan’s ability to heal was legendary. It came from a long existence taking punishment deep beneath the moon’s surface, mining. It could be a hot and inhospitable place. Our bodies learned to heal fast, to become whole once more—otherwise, we would perish. It was the only way to survive. Since then, it prepared us well for battle. It would be a deciding factor in whether we would manage to repel the Changelings from our soil.
“She took me in and fed me, bathed me, rubbed ointment into my wounds,” Qale said. “We’ve lived so long in the castle we never got to remember the simple things in life are the most important. A delicious meal after working hard on the farm, the warmth of a fire after a long day in the cold, the love of a good woman.”
“Some of us never forgot,” I said.
“No, not you, little brother. You always had an understanding of the people. Far more than I ever did.”
“That understanding was what got me locked up down here,” I said. “Fat lot of good it did me.”
“But it did, don’t you see? I heard about the attack on the front lines and I leaped into war. It made me predictable. They had no trouble knocking me from the sky. They would have succeeded too if a guard hadn’t shoved me back at the last moment. And when I heard the decision you made—to refuse to let our people die needlessly—I knew you’d done what I failed to.”
“I dishonored us,” I said.
Qale slapped me on the back.
“No, little brother,” he said. “Don’t you see? You brought us the potential for great honor. You did what no other Titan could. You saw through your anger and rage, the thick mist that so often descended on me when it came to war, and instead, you chose peace.”
“You’re saying we shouldn’t fight?” I said. “But your messages—”
“Titans can always fight. We’re born ready. But that doesn’t mean we should fight where our enemies decide. You provided us with a much better battlefield. Now the enemy is among us. All we needed to do was prepare ourselves—something I’ve been working on in the shadows. I let you know updates in the messages. You should be the one to light the beacon. You deserve that honor. To send us into victory over these creatures. The people are ready.”
“They were ready. Now they have Changelings fully prepared for the war ahead. There’s a whole war frigate over the town!”
“Don’t underestimate our people,” Qale said, voice a little tight.
“I refuse to send them to the slaughter just for honor,” I said. “When the perfect time comes, when they least expect it—”
“There’s never a perfect time!” Qale said. “No one is ever fully prepared. And when they are, it’s already too late. We have to attack now. Today. Before it’s too late.”
“So why don’t the Titans attack already?” I said.
“Because they need a leader to follow,” Qale said. “They need you. The beacon, preferably. But they need someone to follow.”
I turned away from my brother.
“I’m already doomed,” I said. “They’re going to kill me. I don’t want to lead everyone to the same fate.”
Qale looked me over.
“This has nothing to do with us or honor, does it?” he said. “It has to do with that girl. She will come back to you.”
“This has nothing to do about her,” I said.
But it did.
She had everything to do with this.
She betrayed me because she didn’t believe in me. She didn’t think I could lead my people. Who was I to argue? I didn’t think I could either.
“She’s heading back to her homeworld,” I said. “She’ll go there and I’ll rot in this cell—along with you. And nobody will come to rescue us.”
“I got a good look at your female. She’s got a stubborn look to her. She’ll return. You just watch. She’ll surprise you.”
“She’s already surprised me,” I grumbled.
At the top of the hall, a key turned in a lock and the door swung open. A team of Changeling guards entered.
Qale lay back on his cot. He spoke in a hurried whisper out the corner of his mouth so the guards couldn’t hear.
“Listen to me,” he said. “We don’t have much time. In a minute, the guards are going to take you. I don’t know where and I don’t know the exact process but I do know what it will consist of. They’ll make you admit to the people that you betrayed them. It is all a lie. They will threaten you with everything they can. You must tell them what they want to hear—but not too easily—we don’t want you to look weak. Then, when the time comes, don’t do it. No matter what they threaten you with, don’t give them what they want.”
The guards drew up outside my cell.
“What about you?” I said.
“Don’t worry about me. I’m a homeless bum who means nothing to them. They’ll let me go eventually.”
Qale lay with his eyes shut as if he were asleep.
The guards entered my cell.
“You’re wanted,” the Changeling guard said.
So much for respect and honor, I thought. The guards attached the restraints to my wrists and ankles. I shuffled out and they shut the door behind me.
I couldn’t help but glance back at my brother, who vaguely raised a hand as I passed. He might be trying to act nonchalant but I could tell he was nervous.
So was I.
It took some time for me to shuffle through the long empty hallways. I wondered what happened to the servants. They’d better not have been harmed. My anger was impotent. There was nothing I could do even if they had been.
As we drew closer to the ballroom, I became aware of a low murmuring noise that sounded like a hive of bees. As I passed the main entrance, I noticed a large crowd gathering outside, just beyond a newly-erected stage. It was so new it hadn’t been painted.
I got a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach it wouldn’t be painted until I stepped out there and they opened my throat.
“Keep moving!” the Changeling guard ordered, and shoved me forward.
I hadn’t seen the set up by accident. When it came to the Changelings, nothing was by accident. They wanted me to see it, to dwell on it.
They ushered me into our great ballroom. Paltry compared to the finery of the palace perhaps but it was the most beautiful room in the castle.
S’lec-Quos was reading something when I entered. He handed the tablet computer back to his helper, who backed away with a bow. S’lec-Quos sat down in a throne-like chair that’d been brought in especially for him. He
motioned with a single foot.
The guards pushed me forward. My feet strained against the restraints. I stumbled to the marble floor on my knees and hissed through my teeth.
“Now this looks familiar,” S’lec-Quos said. “You got to your knees before me at the palace. Do you remember? You made me an unbreakable pledge on your honor as a Titan that you would be loyal to me and no others. And you lied to me. Have you no honor?”
“The unbreakable pledge is used only between Titans,” I said, leaning back on my heels. “And it is Changelings that have no honor.”
“Insolence!” S’lec-Quos said, banging a foot on the arm of his chair. He nodded to a guard. “Not the face.”
The guard kicked me in the gut. It forced the wind from my lungs and I could barely breathe.
“The crowd is out there awaiting your execution,” S’lec-Quos said. “Did you know? Your people are excited to see your traitorous blood spill. They’re still angry for what you did to them, for stopping them from dying with honor on the battlefield.”
His eyes were black and small. Impossible for me to read much emotion into them. I could only guess at what he was feeling by the cadence of his voice. He was angry that I hadn’t sent our people in to die. He wanted to slaughter us. Not all—that would be counterproductive—but enough so it taught us a lesson—to never stand against them.
“You stood down…” S’lec-Quos said, “and now I see why. You intended on lighting that beacon atop the hill and bringing the Titans down on us. But it won’t work. We have you now and there’s no Taw to light it.”
“Someone will,” I said. “Even if it can’t be me.”
“It won’t be you,” S’lec-Quos said, nodding. “But there is still a way for you to save the honor of your family line, a way to save your sister, and Sirena.”
Sirena?
“She’s halfway across the galaxy by now,” I said. “Even you can’t touch her there.”
“No, but my soldiers transporting her can,” S’lec-Quos said. “One word from me and they’ll dispose of her.”
I searched the Changeling’s face for a sign he was lying, for a signal that he wasn’t telling the truth.
I couldn’t see it.