Outcaste

by Fletcher DeLancey

  They were interrupted by a call from one of the only com codes Tal had authorized, that of Communications Advisor Miltorin. She put it on her wristcom, enabling Micah to hear.

  “I’ve been informed,” Miltorin said without preamble. “Did the audience see Bondlancer Opah being carried out?”

  “No. She walked out on her own.”

  Micah smiled. That was the Salomen he knew. According to Ronlin, she had not wanted her fellow producers to see her disabled in any way. Though wounded and in shock, she had held her head high and walked through them, faltering only when they began to chant her name.

  “Excellent. That helps the optics considerably. We’ll say she suffered minor injuries and the assailant was apprehended immediately. No names.”

  “No names?” Tal exclaimed. “You think that warrior deserves protection?”

  “I think Bondlancer Opah does. You offer the warrior’s name, you invite questions. We don’t want questions, and we especially don’t want anyone to interview her. We make it a minor issue, because it is. There will be a little smoke, but if we don’t add fuel to the fire, smoke is all it will be.”

  Micah turned at a quick rap on the door. One of the Guards, newly arrived from Blacksun, poked his head in. “Colonel Micah, the healer is here. Bondlancer Opah is out of surgery.”

  56

  THE MONSTER INSIDE

  Salomen was still drowsy when Andira helped her up the ramp and into the state transport. The healer had pronounced her free of the sedative and ready to travel, so she could only conclude that this was empathically induced exhaustion.

  Most of the Guards—now a combination of hers and Andira’s—were already seated when she stepped inside. Two of hers had gone with the medical transport that carried Rahel Sayana to Blacksun, where a specialist had removed the knife and was still performing the delicate surgery on her hand.

  One Guard sat by herself in the very back of the main cabin, her dark head bowed. Salomen stopped, willing her to look up.

  Fianna raised her head and met her eyes. There was no friendly grin, no lifted hand. After a moment, she broke their gaze and stared out the window.

  Shoulders slumping, Salomen turned away.

  In their private cabin, Andira reclined two of the seats to make a bed and pulled a blanket from one of the cupboards. She waited for Salomen to get settled, then spread the blanket and slipped in beside her.

  Salomen immediately turned onto her good side, seeking the solace of a welcoming shoulder.

  “Comfortable?” Andira asked.

  “Mm-hm. I hope you don’t mind carrying me out of here.”

  “Let’s put this down as one of the rare times I wish I were taller. I could ask Senshalon; he’s big enough to carry you.”

  “No. It’s you or nothing.”

  “I’m going to quote those words back at you the next time we fight.”

  Soothed by the gentle teasing and the scent of Andira’s skin, Salomen closed her eyes. She heard Andira tap open her reader card, then nothing else until a bump of turbulence woke her.

  “Welcome back,” Andira said. “We’re almost home. And I’m baffled.”

  Salomen rolled onto her back and rubbed her eyes. “By what?”

  “Rahel Sayana’s caste records. I just finished reading them.”

  “And?”

  “These records belong to a decorated warrior. A truly honorable one. Did she and Shantu drink the same poisoned water? It’s as if she fell off a cliff.”

  “You could ask her.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea. I’m still—”

  “Homicidal?” Salomen forced a chuckle. “I suppose I can’t joke about that now. Did you notice that Fianna won’t come near me?”

  The slight hesitation was an answer in itself. “Give her a little time. She’s had a shock, just like you.”

  “You mean the shock of finding out her friend is a monster? Yes, I can see where that might need some time.”

  Andira tucked her rolled reader card into the pouch at her waist and propped herself up on an elbow. “You know that’s not true.”

  “I don’t know any such thing. This morning I would have said I could never empathically violate someone, but I did. This morning we all believed it was impossible to break the instinct of self-preservation, but I did. She would be dead right now if Fianna and Ronlin hadn’t saved us.”

  “Us?”

  “Me and her.”

  Andira frowned. “She’s not a victim. She attacked you. You acted in self-defense.”

  “No, I didn’t. I acted in defense of you. If I had just walked away…” She swallowed back the tears. “I was free of her and she was down, but I couldn’t make myself walk away.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She didn’t want to explain it, didn’t even know how she could. The despair choked her, reducing her breath to a shuddering inhale. “I was so happy, Andira. I thought it was all behind me. Now I’m different again.”

  Andira brushed her cheek in a soft caress. “You’re not. You’re the same person I bonded with.”

  I’m two people, Salomen thought. And one of them is a monster.

  The transport flew over Blacksun Healing Center before landing at the State House, renewing Andira’s dissatisfaction with the difference in care. All the way into the building and then up to their quarters, she grumbled about “that village healing center” and how it was good enough for the Bondlancer but not for a criminal.

  “Andira,” Salomen said as she stumbled to their comfortable bed. “My head hurts and you’re making it worse. Would you please focus on something else?”

  “I’m sorry, tyrina.” Andira rushed over to help her in. “There’s just something wrong about it.”

  Salomen relaxed into the pillow and closed her eyes. “My surgery was easy. Hand surgery is not.” Her empathic senses felt hot and raw, as if they had been burned. She wanted to sense quiet, soothing emotions, not indignation and anger.

  “I could focus on you instead.” Andira tucked in the blanket and dropped a soft kiss on her temple.

  “Mm. Please do.” It was already working; Andira’s ire was fading behind the gentler tones of relief and contentment.

  “I’m so glad to have you back home,” Andira whispered, and that was the last thing Salomen heard for several hanticks.

  She woke in time for evenmeal and another dose of irritation from Andira, who had been informed that while Rahel Sayana’s surgery was successful, the healers would not release her.

  “They say she won’t get proper follow-up care in detention. Five days, they said.”

  Salomen remembered that protruding knife dripping blood and shivered. “I’d rather have my injury than hers.”

  “I’d rather you had none.” Andira looked at her more closely. “Still hurting?”

  “My arm? No. My head, yes.”

  She lasted long enough to brush her teeth and shower, after which the bed became irresistible once more.

  The next time she woke, her head was finally clear and her empathic senses were back to normal. She sat up, facing the solid line of windows that comprised the outer wall of their quarters, and saw the faint gray of approaching dawn.

  Back on her holding, she loved this time of day. The air had a special, crisp scent, more flavorful than at night and entirely different from the air of daytime. The silence felt heavy with promise, as if the world were merely waiting for the sky to lighten before bursting into beauty.

  It was different in Blacksun. No grainbirds were here to sing in the darkness and earn their reputation as creatures too stupid to know the difference between night and day. The air still smelled like a city. The silence felt less like a promising gift and more like a reprieve, a time when she could take a breath and ready herself for another day of being the Bondlancer.

  She did not know how to face this day. But it seemed appropriate to meet it alone, standing at the windows and staring out at the peaceful city.

&nbs
p; When she felt Andira wake, she spoke without turning. “I’m all right. Go back to sleep.”

  Ignoring the blatant untruth, Andira slid out of bed and padded over to stand just behind her. “Looking for anything in particular?”

  “My former life, I suppose. Nothing will ever be the same.”

  She had not been aware of her stiff stance until Andira pulled their bodies together, arms wrapped snugly around her waist.

  “This will,” Andira said. “Always.”

  Salomen leaned back against her. “At least you’re not afraid of me.”

  “Not ever.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I know you.”

  “I don’t think you do,” Salomen whispered.

  “I know your heart, tyrina. I’m still safe in your hands.”

  Not long ago, Salomen had spoken those exact words when Andira thought herself in need of forgiveness. She had never imagined being on the other side. Silently she turned and buried her face against Andira’s shoulder.

  “You set my whole world right with those words,” Andira said. “I wish I could do the same for you.”

  “It helps. More than I can say.”

  “This doesn’t change who you are.”

  “Yes, it does.” Salomen pushed away and met her eyes for the first time. “Before yesterday, I thought my worst trait was my temper. My habit of hurting people when I don’t mean to. With words,” she added, her mouth twisting. “Now I can kill people when I don’t mean to. Not quite the same thing, is it?”

  “Salomen . . .”

  She shook her head. “No, maybe you’re right. Maybe I am the same person. But if that’s true, then I never knew who I was until now.”

  “That is not—”

  “Andira, please. I know you mean well, but I cannot talk about this now.” She had neither the words nor the strength. Even Andira’s helpless worry for her felt like one more burden she could not stand to bear.

  “All right.” Andira nodded toward the windows. “But I really got up because I wanted to look at the view. If you don’t mind the company.”

  Salomen kissed her in appreciation for what they both knew was a cover-up. “You’re full of dokshin, but I never mind your company. Thank you.”

  They stood side by side, watching the slumbering city. Salomen’s gaze was drawn to the dome of the healing center, where a woman she had nearly murdered was recovering. Andira had offered details last night—three hanticks of surgery to reconnect the severed nerves and tendons in her hand—but had not breathed a word about her other injury.

  How did a person recover from such violent empathic force? Nothing like this had ever happened before. The healers would have no means of treatment, even if . . .

  Salomen closed her eyes at the realization. Those healers had almost certainly not been told. Regardless of what Rahel Sayana had done, she did not deserve to be left alone with a devastating mental injury that no one would officially acknowledge.

  “I want to talk to her,” she said abruptly.

  “Who, Vellmar?”

  “Rahel Sayana.”

  Andira’s calm facade vanished as they faced each other. “No. Absolutely not. She’s not getting anywhere near you.”

  “You don’t have any say in this.”

  “That woman is a danger! She already hurt you once! I know, because I felt it. And you think I should give her another shot at you?”

  “You’re not giving her anything. As her victim, I have the right to speak to her.” With a bitter edge to her voice, Salomen added, “And as my victim, she has the right to speak to me.”

  “It wasn’t you she wanted to speak to.”

  The dissonance of untruth jangled her senses. “Andira Shaldone Tal, you’re lying to me.”

  “Shek.” Andira rubbed her face with a groan, then dropped her hands and stood straight. “It wasn’t you she wanted when she planned that assault. But she told Ronlin afterward that she wouldn’t talk to anyone but . . . ah . . .”

  “Me?”

  “Fahla.”

  “What—? Oh, no. That’s what she thinks?”

  “Apparently. She hasn’t said anything else.”

  With a long exhale, Salomen turned once more to stare out the window. “I tried to kill her, and she thinks I’m her goddess. What has that woman been through to think that way?”

  “It’s not only her. Both Ronlin and Vellmar described what they felt—heard—as sounding like Fahla in an avenging fury.”

  “So that’s another reason why Fianna is afraid of me.”

  “She’ll move past it.”

  “I don’t think so.” She was smothering under the weight of her isolation. “I know I won’t, so how can she?”

  Andira tugged her back into a warmron. “Don’t see her. It will just make things worse.”

  “Fianna?”

  “Rahel Sayana.”

  “Isn’t it ironic,” Salomen said after a moment, “that I’m more confident about facing the woman I tried to kill than about facing my friend? At least I know Rahel wants to see me.”

  “This is a bad idea. I would rather drop that warrior into a deep hole than let her near you.”

  Salomen broke Andira’s hold and turned toward the kitchen area, in dire need of a cup of shannel. “I already dropped her into a deep hole,” she said. “I’m in there with her.”

  57

  FAHLA’S VESSEL

  Rahel was cuffed to the bed and could see the shapes of two Guards outside her door. She took some measure of satisfaction in the fact that Lancer Tal respected her abilities as a warrior that highly. Two high empath Guards posted on a room with only one exit should have been plenty of security. The cuff was just excessive.

  It also made it impossible for her to do anything. They had cuffed her good hand, leaving her injured one free. Relatively free, that is—she was expected to keep it elevated on the right-angled cushion the healers had placed beside her. It neither looked nor felt like her hand now, having vanished beneath a thicket of bandages, some sort of gel, and splints that immobilized her fingers. The healers had said she could not move her fingers at all for one day, due to the many intricate parts that were completing their reconnections after the surgery. Tomorrow and for the next four days, she could expect passive mobilization sessions, during which a healer would manipulate her fingers in specific movements. Between sessions, her hand would be in a brace, which she would continue to wear even after they released her with a list of exercises to do on her own.

  “Don’t even think of ignoring that list,” the specialist had told her last night. “Or skipping any exercises. If you do, you’ll never recover your full range of motion.”

  She understood the instructions. What she didn’t understand was why she was here, being healed from a wound she could barely remember sustaining. Fahla had made herself very clear when she began the execution.

  Rahel had almost given in to it, wanting nothing more than to end the agony, but something in her would not let go. She was losing, slowly but inexorably, until a burst of strength had come from nowhere and she envisioned herself fighting the power of Wildwind Bay.

  She had refused to die on Dock One. She refused to die in Pollonius.

  Then she woke up in the custody of two Bondlancer’s Guards, whose expressions said they would happily throw her against the wall a few times if not for the fact that a healer was wrapping bandages around a knife in her hand, stabilizing it for transport. She was exhausted and battered—but her body was her own again.

  Lead Guard Ronlin had tried to interrogate her, once in Pollonius and again here. She had no patience for his questions when her single most pressing concern was not being addressed.

  Why was she alive?

  Was it a second chance? Was the suspended execution a warning? If so, the message was impossible to miss: Bondlancer Opah was her favored one, the vessel of her power.

  It explained why she had been so unafraid.

  It also meant th
at the miracle of the molwyn tree was real—and that Lancer Tal really was Fahla’s Chosen. She hadn’t cheated during her fight with Shantu. That had been Fahla’s strength, backing the warrior she had chosen to lead Alsea.

  The chain of revelations kept winding back, showing almost every decision Rahel had made for the last half cycle as the wrong one. She had thought she was making history. In truth, she had been on the wrong side of it.

  It made Shantu’s fate even more unbearable. He had died for nothing. No, worse than nothing: he had thrown away both his honor and hers in the service of a tragically mistaken interpretation of Fahla’s wishes.

  She had not wanted a bottle of Whitesun Rise this badly since her third day of detoxifying.

  The door opened, admitting a healer who checked her hand and bruised jaw, made notations on a reader card, and asked if she needed anything.

  “Yes. I need to . . .” She pointed toward the bathroom.

  “I thought you might.”

  He went into the corridor and had a spirited argument with one of the Guards, judging by the raised voices. Half a tick later, he returned with a Guard who glared at her as she unlocked the cuff.

  “You have two ticks,” she warned when Rahel slid off the bed. “After that, I’m coming in.”

  The healer’s frown was surprisingly not directed at Rahel. “She has one hand. She’ll need more time than that.”

  “Do you know what this warrior did?”

  “I’ve heard. I also know that she spent almost three hanticks in surgery to repair what looks like a barbaric punishment for her crime.”

  “That wasn’t a punishment! And you have two ticks,” the Guard said again.

  “She has rights, which include urinating in private. If her crimes are severe enough for a sentence to the Pit, then that’s a different story, but this isn’t the Pit and I won’t let you turn it into a copy. Why don’t you stand outside and I’ll guard the bathroom door? Or don’t you think three high empaths are enough to handle a one-handed mid empath who hasn’t been allowed to urinate for the past three hanticks?”