The Daughters of Persephone, A Space Opera Special Edition

by Julia Barrett

  When they reached his cabin, Karna kicked the door shut behind them. His nostrils flared with raw desire.

  “I can smell your heat,” he said, blunt as ever. “Gods, it smells like you’re on fire for me.”

  Ennat didn’t protest when his big hands lifted her skirt and his palms slid upward along the inside of her thighs. Ennat sagged in his arms.

  “Stand up, woman. Don’t you dare fall.”

  Ennat began to whimper, and Karna knew he had her. She was trapped by her own desire for him exactly as he’d been caught by her the moment he’d seen her, sword raised, drenched in sweat, eyes on fire when she challenged him to fight her.

  “You may be able to best me with a sword or a knife, you may be the better pilot, but woman, you belong to me. Never forget it. And remember…” He laid his lips against her ear. “Always leave off the undergarments.”

  “Bloody male chauvinist.”

  “Yes I am.” Karna was unrepentant. “And that’s why you love me. You may be able to slice me six ways to Solsday on the battlefield, but…” He pressed his erection against her. “Only I can do this to you.”

  Book II: Return

  Aja piloted the small craft Karna had loaned them. He’d acceded to her request for something faster and more maneuverable than the Glory. Besides, Kyr’s ship needed repairs before she flew off into deep space again.

  Karna had come through with a Ranger. The model was older than the craft Aja had flown back home, but it possessed the same power and the same skid.

  She loved the Rangers. As the ancients said, they could turn on a dime, whatever a dime was.

  She wasted no time in getting them to Eir-Edan. A day there for her meant three days back for Kyr. Aja didn’t want him out alone in the blackness of interstellar space once martial law was imposed. She wanted to be sure he’d make the return trip to his brother’s depot with time to spare.

  Her sight told her Bom still hovered near death, the government in a state of near-paralysis, waiting to see if he would live or die before deciding upon the next move.

  Her sister, Tem, had committed a great sin for the right reason. She’d bought them time. Time was everything now. Aja couldn’t think about the rest of it. If she survived the next few hours she’d consider what Tem had become. If she didn’t, well then, it wouldn’t matter to her anyhow.

  As they approached Eir-Edan, Aja instructed Kyr to turn off the com and the sensors. He did as she requested, but he sat in a silence that spoke more eloquently than words.

  Aja knew he was terrified for her.

  She would have spared him this ordeal if she could. She didn’t want him with her, but she understood why he’d insisted upon coming. He loved her. She loved him. If she was to die perhaps it was better that he knew the circumstances of her death and had the opportunity to come to grips with the finality of it.

  As they neared the planet an enormous storm appeared directly in their path. She realized Kyr must have seen it too because at that same moment, he moved abruptly to switch on the sensors.

  “No,” Aja ordered him. “No sensors. Close your eyes. Close them and don’t open them until we land.”

  “Why the hells should I do that?”

  “Because everything you’ll see from here on in is an illusion. It’s intended to confuse a pilot, to kill a pilot without the Sight.” She met his eyes. “Do you understand? I’ve never experienced anything like this veil. It’s powerful. It will be hard to tell what is real, even for me. I will be flying blind. I’ll have to find my way without my eyes.”

  She reached for Kyr’s hand. “Trust me again. Please,” she pleaded with him. “You have to trust me once more to drop us safe.”

  “That seems to be the story of our life together, eh? All right, love. I’m shutting my Godsdamned eyes. Don’t smash us into this fucking piece of shit rock.”

  “I’ll try not to, but the landing is going to be rough. Swear to me you’ll keep your eyes shut.”

  “No. I won’t swear to that.”

  “Then swear that whatever you see, you won’t try to wrestle the controls from me. If you do, we die.”

  Kyr took a deep breath. “I swear I won’t take control of the ship, but I may…” He pointed at the approaching maelstrom. “Scream like a little child.”

  “Shut your eyes now, Kyr. It’s not real. None of this is real.” With those words, Aja shut her own eyes and flew their little craft directly into the massive ion storm looming ahead of them.

  Aja managed a wobbly orbit around Eir-Edan.

  Her hands shook. Nothing in her experience had prepared her for flying through such an intense illusion. She had no idea who had the power to generate something like this, and that lack of knowledge downright petrified her. A journey through the Seven Hells of Wrath couldn’t be any worse than what she’d just flown through. Aja leaned back in her chair.

  “Can you take over for just a moment?” she asked Kyr, her voice shaking as violently as the rest of her. “Keep the scanners and the com off. I’ll scan for our landing site myself.”

  Kyr stared at her, eyes wide in his pale face. “I can’t believe what we… What you did. I cannot believe what we dropped into. My Gods! I thought we’d dropped into the Seven Hells.”

  “I did too,” Aja said. “I thought I told you to keep your eyes shut.”

  A corner of Kyr’s mouth turned up. “That’s like telling a horse not to run when a veercat comes after it. Couldn’t help myself.”

  “Well,” said Aja, “I didn’t hear you scream.”

  “Inside, lover, screaming on the inside.”

  Aja held up her hand, every reflex, every sense on alert. “She’s calling me,” she said.

  Kyr looked around the small cockpit. “Who?”

  Aja glanced at him, wondering how much to say. “The woman who drew me here. I know where she is. I know where to land.”

  Aja rose from her chair and knelt before Kyr in the cramped space. She laid her head on his knee. “We may both be flying to our deaths, my love. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry to have brought this upon you.”

  Kry stroked her hair. “You didn’t coerce me. I chose this path. I chose you. Aren’t you the one who’s always telling me we choose our own way? Besides, what is death but the doorway to eternal life? I faced death willingly when I entered the laboratory. I was willing to die for you before I even knew you. Now that I’ve loved you, I’m more than willing.”

  Aja lifted her head and kissed him. “I’m honored to be your woman. Remember these words, I love you. I love you, Kyr Aram. I will fly away from the Empire and the Resistance in a heartbeat if that is your wish. Compared to you, the Empire means nothing.”

  For a few moments, Kyr sat silent. At last he shook his head. “I can’t let you do that. I can’t let you turn away from the millions and millions of people who are depending upon you, the women of the Empire who desperately need you to restore their rights. If there’s a chance that you, that we can survive this, you need to grasp it. I promise this—if you die and I should live I will fight all the harder to overthrow the Coalition to finish what you’ve begun. So let’s go. Let’s get this bloody, cocksucking ordeal with the magical mystery woman over.”

  “So you can accept this?”

  “Yes, I can accept this. We live or we die. It’s no different than any other day.” Kyr rested his head against Aja’s.

  Aja pressed her lips to Kyr’s muscular thigh. “Then here we go.” She stood and stretched her cramped muscles. “Prepare to come about,” she said. She grinned despite the circumstances. “You won’t have to hold onto the cargo netting this time.”

  Book II: Return

  General Bom couldn’t speak. Even if he’d been able to say something he knew they’d never believe him. All the doctors thought he was in a coma.

  Idiopathic, they called it.

  In other words, they had no explanation for his coma. Idiots was more to the point. He’d been poisoned. His daughter, Tem, had poisoned him.
He’d said that the very first day and the medic had laughed in his face.

  Now he could hear every single word they said, but he couldn’t respond. He lay in a bed, helpless as a newborn infant. Fuck the Gods who had allowed this to happen. Fuck them and fuck all women of the Blood.

  His commanders were a bunch of fools. They should have declared martial law days ago. Their hesitation gave the opposition a chance to stay one step ahead of them.

  Two steps, three steps.

  Gods, he was surrounded by darroks and indecisive cowards. They would allow everything he’d built to fall and time would turn back on itself, back to the Heresies, to the Dark Period of the Goddess. Women would rule. Women would be gods once again as they’d been on ancient Earth when they’d led man astray. Women were intended to be a man’s property and the bearers of his children, nothing more.

  Here he lay, helpless, paralyzed, dumb, his eyes closed, unable to move a single muscle. He could only breathe and taste the Blood, that vile, burning blood she’d forced him to swallow.

  She…

  The Abomination he’d helped to create. When he recovered, and Ika Bom knew with great certainty he would recover, he’d murder the lot of them. Rid the galaxy of his three daughters with his bare hands if necessary.

  After he bashed in a few heads for the dangerous lapse in judgment, the lapse that allowed the Resistance forces time, breathing room.

  Ika Bom would not be bested by a mere woman. As soon as he rose from this bed, he would find their hiding place and he would destroy them all.

  “We go straight in,” said Aja. “Right up to the walls.”

  Kyr let his eyes sweep across the view of the city. The massive clay walls appeared red in the desert sun, reminding him of the ominous color of blood. Sand swirled, the wind whipping up dust devils around their small craft as Aja set her down gently onto the small, paved landing site.

  Kyr cut the engines and they sat silent for a moment, gazing at each other, not touching.

  “Remove your shoes, Kyr. We walk on holy ground. Leave your weapons behind. They would be taken from you in any case.”

  “And your weapons?”

  Aja held up the ring. “This will have to do.”

  Kyr lowered the gangway and they left the ship together, walking abreast.

  Even Kyr, without the benefit of Aja’s Sight, knew that many eyes watched them, few of them friendly. The hair on the back of his neck stood straight up and he could feel his heart pound.

  He glanced at Aja. Her composure was a wonder. It was as if she did nothing more unusual than taking an afternoon stroll through a forest glen back on his home world.

  “Keep your eyes ahead,” she said. “There’s no use trying to spot them because you won’t see them until they want to be seen. We’re trapped now, no matter what.”

  Kyr stopped in his tracks. He grabbed her arm and turned her around. “I don’t give a fuck what they see or what they think or who they are. I love you. Godsdamn them to the Seven Hells if they hurt one hair on your head. Kiss me. Kiss me right now before we go any farther.”

  Aja did stop then, and she looked at him with such love in his eyes that he nearly fell to his knees.

  “If we meet again,” she said.

  “When we meet again,” Kyr interrupted.

  “When we meet again…” She attempted a smile. “I am yours.”

  He could see the tears shining bright in her eyes.

  Kyr pulled Aja hard against him and kissed her. She kissed him back without hesitation. At last she pushed him away and turned toward the high arch cut into the red wall. The entrance was unguarded.

  “We go in? Kyr asked.

  “Straight in,” said Aja. “Look neither to the right nor the left. Show no fear. As you said, we live or we die, no different than any other day.”

  “Yes, well, I’m full of shit.”

  Aja grinned, this time for real.

  They ducked beneath the archway.

  Kyr wanted to stop and stare, but Aja kept moving, her eyes focused straight ahead. She lifted her left hand and exposed the Royal Signet Ring. She ignored the red veiled figures that surrounded them, followed behind them in lockstep.

  Kyr couldn’t tell if the people were male or female. He suspected female and he suspected lethal. It was the feet that gave them away. Like Aja and he, they were all barefoot. The feet he observed in his peripheral vision had no hair.

  Definitely female. Or enuch. And it was illegal for a man to be castrated, not that such a law mattered on a rock like Eir-Edan.

  Aja headed for a pale yellow stone dais set in a vast open arena. As she approached, she grabbed for his hand. “On your knees,” she hissed.

  She dropped into the sand before the dais and lowered her head. Kyr followed her example. He saw Aja stare at the ground, so he did the same.

  “Ye have come, then.” The voice was deep, old, and dripping with power.

  Aja kept her head down. “Yes.”

  “Ye are not what We expected.”

  Kyr could feel Aja bristle, although he could tell through his peripheral vision she didn’t move a muscle.

  “What were you expecting?”

  “Death.”

  As Kyr watched, Aja sat back on her heels and looked up. “Then you’ve summoned the wrong sister, Empress.”

  Empress?

  “Perhaps. Perhaps. We shall see. Indeed. We shall see. Ye have brought thy chosen mate.”

  Aja made no response.

  “He is of the Blood. He will make good breeding stock for Our forces.”

  Aja rose to her feet. “Over my dead body.”

  The Empress Ya smiled. “We were hoping ye would answer thus.”

  With a flick of the Empress’s eyes, four women separated themselves from the crowd. They tossed their full-length veils aside to reveal powerful warrior women dressed in fighting fatigues. Aja inhaled and she smelled the Blood, the rich, spicy smell of her own kind.

  “Kyr,” she said. “Go there, to the dais.”

  “No,” he replied, rising to stand beside her.

  “Captain Aram, ye will stand with Us as ye are the spoils of war. Our people say to the victor go the spoils.”

  “There is no victor,” said Kyr, staring at the old woman.

  “Not yet,” the Empress said. “Not yet. Do ye love this woman, then?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then ye may stand with Us and watch her die. It is the least ye can do for her.”

  “If she dies, I die with her.”

  Aja’s heart swelled with pride at the sound of defiance in Kyr’s voice.

  “No. Ye shall not die. Ye are like a horse. Ye shall breed true and we have need of new blood.”

  Aja could feel the anger building within her. She knew this was a test. She knew the words were said to bring about the killing change. But knowing didn’t stop the murderous rage she felt toward the Empress, toward the women, toward her own destiny.

  She pushed aside the fury. “We will leave then and you may take your storm troopers and kill whomever you choose. Conquer the galaxy. I will have no part of you. I know your Earth history as well as you. I am no fanatic.” She turned on her heel and reached for Kyr, but it was too late. There was a sword pressed against her lover’s throat.

  A dangerous lapse. She’d allowed herself to become distracted. She’d allowed these women, these fanatics, Blood of her Blood, to get the jump on her, to take her man.

  Aja growled low in her throat, like an animal. “Release him.”

  “Prove to Us ye are worthy and thy man goes free.”

  “He leaves. Whether I live or die, he leaves. Either you agree to this or you can kill us both now.” Aja spat into the dust. “And there goes your war.” She smiled. “I’ve seen it, Empress. Remember, I’ve seen your war. I’ve walked your pathways.”

  The old woman smiled back. “Ah, so ye say.”

  “So I say.”

  “Then choose thy weapon and prove thyself.”


  Several veiled women came forward and laid wrapped bundles at the Empress’s feet. Heads low, they opened the coverings, displaying knives and swords, both single and double-bladed. Aja almost laughed. The double-bladed sword was her sister Ennat’s favorite weapon.

  Aja chose knives.

  Kyr had no regard for the sword at his throat.

  Let them cut him.

  It was far better than the alternative, forcing him to stand by and watch Aja fight against four of her own kind. Blood of her Blood.

  Four men would have been a fair fight, but not this.

  A space cleared before the old woman, the Empress Ya. How she’d appeared here, in this time, Kyr had no idea, nor did he care.

  Aja was the only thing that mattered to him. Now he would be forced to watch her die. Sliced to ribbons.

  He tasted bile.

  The Empress motioned and he was escorted to her side. She looked him over.

  “Ye are a fine specimen,” she said. “Ye will make strong children.”

  “Fuck you.”

  The woman laughed. She actually had the balls to laugh. “If ye love her, ye will have the courage to watch.”

  Kyr gritted his teeth. He would watch. And then he would wrap his hands around the old woman’s neck and if he was very lucky, he could at least bruise her before the women ripped him apart.

  Aja stepped into the circle of women wearing only a thin battle tunic, her arms and legs bare. Kyr found himself riveted by the sight.

  She was beautiful. The most beautiful thing he’d ever laid eyes on.

  His heart clenched and he was appalled there wasn’t a damn thing he could do to help her.

  Aja held a knife in each hand. Her opponents circled her like a pride of veercats moving in for the kill. As Kyr watched, Aja took a deep breath and closed her eyes. He knew what she was doing. Like flying into the veil she would fight blind, using her inner sight.