by Ciara Knight
“Hold her head. Her hair must be perfect when we land,” Esmada screeched.
The doors slid open and the laser faded. Good thing, too. Another moment and I thought the energy inside me would have escaped and turned the entire room into bubbling orange goo.
Inhaling, air swooshed into my lungs and I relaxed against the table. My eye throbbed in pace with my heart.
“It’s time,” a deep voice sounded from the hall.
The ship swayed like my insides. It couldn’t be time already.
Esmada pulled me upright and a soft cloth blotted at my eyes and cheeks. “Makeup!”
The room spun, not just from the pulse of heat still surging through my face, but from the thought of the murder I was about to commit.
I slid to the edge of the table. One foot hit the floor. Two hands grabbed my arms and ushered me out the door while Esmada still pressed stiff brushes to my face.
“Get control of yourself, Princess. The skin-alterer isn’t that bad. Your mother utilizes it daily.”
Daily? No wonder her skin had the appearance and mobility of a sheet of glass.
Finding my balance, we passed through the outer corridors to the ship’s hangar. Scout ships lined both sides of the main walkway.
Spotting red whiskers poking through a vent, my tension lessened. The knowledge that Bendar followed me provided comfort. He was the only ray of light in a sea of straight-faced, highbrow altered-beings.
The engines fired energy pulses, slowing our descent as landing gear dropped from the belly of the ship. I wanted to scream at the captain not to land. To keep flying until we reached Acadia East and the safety of the council.
“We’ve entered the Mining Territory. All guards report to the bay door,” a deep voice boomed from the speakers.
The echo took me back to my last hours at Raeth’s side, when I hid her down in the engine room with Bendar.
What would I find when we landed in the Mining Territory and the bay door opened? Had any green trees grown like the Horticulture Territory, or was the landscape still limited to dark sand and rubble? I’d studied the history books and seen pictures of buildings and trees in the region. I imagined what the places called states, like Arizona and Utah, were like in the late twenty-first century. Before the war.
The humans back then had done jobs on computers and everyone lived like royalty. Now, according to Mother, everyone needed to work if we were to survive. War destroyed most of the resources. If Mother hadn’t stepped in, they all would have perished—humans, Kantians, and Neumarians.
“Look alert, Princess,” Esmada scolded.
I shook the memories away. My destiny waited on the other side of the large bronze bay door. The scent of burning oil filled the air, and hisses of steam sounded from below deck.
No more time. As always, I would follow orders.
I shifted, struggling to control the cacophony of emotions beating me apart inside.
One last thud and we’d reached the ground.
Thump…tap…thump…tap.
My stomach constricted at the rhythmic beat.
“Daughter, you have forgotten something.” Mother’s stern voice indicated her displeasure, so I braced myself for another attack.
I turned to see a glittering tamer resting in Esmada’s milky white palm. “Sorry, Mother,” I choked out, unable to hear my own words over the thundering beat of my blood.
“No worries, dear, sweet daughter of mine. Soon you will not have to concern yourself with such devices to control the parasites.”
“Really?”
“Of course. You’ll have an implant soon. No need to carry things around. You’re not a mere human like your father. You’re my daughter, a Kantian, soon to be ruling member of the council. Your brain will handle the devices. Well, it should.”
My heart thrashed at my ribs. If only my father still lived.
I curled my toes in my boots and clenched my fists. The walls vibrated, but I didn’t care. “What will happen if my brain doesn’t—”
Mother waved her hand as if batting away annoying sand fleas. “Why is the door still shut?”
Bendar scurried out from the hall. “My queen must know sand is dangerous. Flush the engines or we will disintegrate.” He glanced at me and winked before hobbling off to a stairwell on the other side of the compartment. His smile always consoled me. It was the closest thing to the way I felt when my father held me in his arms.
“Cursed dwarf.” Mother grumbled. “Hurry up!”
Gears in the wall ground and the door squealed open. Light shot into the dark bay through the partially opened gangway, momentarily blinding me. I winced and shielded my eyes. Pain radiated from my cheek. As Mother had ordered, only the surface was treated.
“The people await, Daughter. It is time for you to choose your sacrifice.”
I shivered. My skin crawled like the time Meroder bugs got into my quarters and nested in my bed. Then, as now, only one of us would survive.
A great plain of orange sand extended to the horizon. This was nothing like the Resort Territory where I’d spent most of my life. My breath halted behind my ribs, unable to escape.
This was the land where I’d left Raeth to die. I fought back tears. Now wasn’t the time to lose control.
Council members and witnesses exited from a different part of the ship and sauntered to benches lining the right side of the street. The ship rested on the landing field at the edge of town, the bay door opened to a platform at the dead center of the main street. All eyes rested on the Queen, and by extension, me.
Heads bowed low, people hustled by us. A row of buildings lined each side of a wide path. Guards corralled Neumarian slaves into lines in front of the ship.
I clutched the tamer tightly in my hand and stepped onto the platform. None of them looked like monsters or murderers. How would I choose? A plump man waddled out through green swinging doors and plopped down on a barrel. Two girls dressed in ratted old skirts and tops that barely covered their breasts sauntered down the street. No black slave collar lined their necks. They had to be humans. Only Neumarians wore collars.
Speakers crackled down the street. “To commemorate the auspicious occasion of Princess Semara’s sixteenth birthday, the gracious queen provides ale and food for all humans in the Mining Territory,” the captain announced.
Dread crept up the back of my neck. My lungs seized and I drew a painful breath.
Men standing along the boardwalk outside the storefronts hooted and clapped.
“Well, hurry up, girl. This awful sand will have to be blasted from my joints. Which parasite do you choose?”
I scanned the streets, looking for my prey. How could I choose someone to die just so I could take my seat on the council? I swallowed hard.
What would Father do?
Mother grasped my arm in a death grip and pointed at the line of Neumarians below, then released me.
A guard shoved a young girl toward the front of the line. She stumbled in front of me. Her basket tumbled, its contents spilling across the compacted pathway. My heart twisted as the young woman scurried about trying to retrieve the fruit.
Then she lifted her head, revealing the collar around her neck. Her dark eyes and hair were familiar.
“Now,” Esmada spat.
A cold claw trapped my neck in its grasp. “Do it now, child, or you will be sent below deck and whipped again,” Mother warned.
A young man in his late teens or early twenties burst through the swinging doors and stopped cold on the porch. His chiseled face pinched tight and eyes that matched those of the girl narrowed, his fists clenching tight by his side. His deep, guttural cries echoed through the town. If not for an older man restraining him, he would have bolted to the girl’s side.
The girl stood, her skirt catching on something. The orange light from the sun reflected off her artificial leg.
My heart soared. “Raeth?” Had my friend survived all these years despite her infected body being left in
the Wasteland?
Mother’s iron grip squeezed the back of my neck. “You betrayed me.”
My hands shook. I had lied about burning Raeth’s body in the incinerator. Not that she should have survived being dumped in the desert half-dead, yet somehow she had. And now mother knew. The evidence stood in front of us.
Lava slid down my windpipe, snaked around my lungs, and traveled through my intestines. My ribs vibrated and my eyes stung. Before I could stop, the tamer melted in my hands.
The platform started to spin beneath my boots…girls screamed…men shouted…cold, sharp nails pierced my hand.
One glance at Mother told me I’d just signed my own death warrant.
Or worse, my marriage certificate.
Chapter Two
Pain hammered deep in my brain.
Implant
“No!” I shot upright. Blurs of bronze and steel swirled. Gravity pulled me back down. As the back of my head smacked the wall, a twang resounded through the cell. Fingering my matted hair, I searched for the cold foreign object. Thick liquid and a metallic smell drew the air from my lungs, but there was no implant. Relief flooded me.
Panting, I pulled my hand free through the knots of over-sprayed curls.
Blood.
I sighed and tears spilled down my cheeks. I narrowed my eyes trying to focus on the blurred door.
Tick…Tock.
Raeth. This was her cell. I choked.
Tick…Tock.
That blasted clock. It had ticked through one nightmare after another, as I’d stood by and watched my friend’s torture. I longed for something to bust the mechanisms in that oversized, torture device.
Images of Raeth’s infected leg flashed through my mind.
Raeth’s alive?
With all the strength I could manage, I tried to stand.
Bang.
My knees slammed against the floor, sending painful vibrations up my body into my cracked skull. Sand gritted between my teeth, leaving my parched tongue begging for moisture. I swallowed hard, but something blocked my throat.
A slave collar. I didn’t have to look or touch it to know. It was tight, leaving me with no doubt of Mother’s plans. Only one question remained. Would she give me to the general as a wife or a slave?
I clutched the collar and yanked, but I knew there would be no way to rip it off. The collar’s thoroughly researched design made removal impossible. Only the queen herself could disengage it, and that had never happened.
Fate was cruel. I’d learned that long ago when my father was murdered. But until this moment, I’d always believed things would work out. Somehow.
“It was a dream. She can’t be alive.”
“Raeth alive, it true.” A hushed whisper came from the far wall. I didn’t need to see the rust colored beard to know it was Bendar. Even in my darkest moments, he was always there.
“Bendar?”
“Yes, yes. I here. You need get out.”
I rubbed my hands, trying to remove the dry blood. “Even if I manage to escape this cell, I’ll never get off this ship.”
Bendar didn’t respond.
We both knew my fate, but what of Raeth’s?
“Do you speak the truth? Is Raeth alive? Where is she?” I managed to drag my body to the wall as a guard stomped past the door.
Bendar threaded his fingers through the slats above my head. “Princess Semara not worry. First you escape.”
I bit my lower lip, desperate to feel something other than numbing pins and needles. “No. Save Raeth. I will face my punishment, but she deserves better.”
My lids grew heavy.
Bendar rattled the ventilation cover. “No. You good girl, saved Raeth. Guards ushered council on ship.” A retreating thump sounded from the airshaft.
Good. I was ready to die. Death didn’t scare me, but what if… My stomach churned. Mother would make good on her threats, now. I’d be fitted with metal, forced to marry and produce Kantian heirs. “No, Mother. You can’t,” I whimpered.
A clang ricocheted through the walls as stale air poured into the room. I stretched out and smacked my palm on the floor, pulling myself toward the door. Perhaps there was time to hide somewhere in the innards of the ship. I’d gladly take uranium exposure over bedding the general.
My head began to clear by the time I reached the impenetrable door. The mocking clock overhead tormented the moments I pressed my head against the cool metal, trying to figure a way out.
I beat my fist against the door. “Why?”
Because you have a gift, a little voice in my head answered.
Gift? That’s right. I’d nearly melted a wall on the way to the infirmary.
I pulled my legs under me, then, kneeling, I placed my hands near the opening of the door and concentrated. Warmth surrounded my heart and the beat echoed in my head. My ribs vibrated. My arms shook. Pulses reached my fingertips and energy passed out of me into the door.
Alarms blared and the intercom crackled. “Neumarian alert! Containment area. Cell—”
The door swooshed open and I fell onto the general’s spit-shined boots. He connected one with my sternum, sending me rolling back into the room. Waves of fabric twisted around my arms and over my head.
“Such a waste to bruise tender flesh,” his husky voice sneered.
My head throbbed. I yanked the material back down and forced myself to stand, leaning against the end of the bed.
The general took one long stride and cornered me in the cell. His rough knuckles raked down my cheek. “Smooth to the touch. Queen talks of making you into a slave. And you thought you were above being my wife. Now you’ll be my—”
“Either way, I’ll still slit your plastic throat in the middle of the night,” I shouted.
His massive hands grabbed my upper arms and pinned me against the wall. “That’s the last time you’ll speak to me that way. I’m the general of the queen’s army and soon to be your master. You will treat me with the respect I deserve,” his voice boomed.
Fear zipped through my body, testing my resolve. But I refused to be enslaved to him. I’d die first.
He clutched my chin and forced it to one side then the other. “It’s a shame your natural beauty will be tainted by metal, but your mother will never stop until everyone suffers the price she did in the war.”
“That’s why I had to get implanted, to be on the council?”
“You don’t have a clue, little girl, but I’ll be happy to teach you all that I know.”
I wrenched my chin from his grasp.
“Remember, I’m the only chance you have now. Your mother always gets her revenge, and you’ve embarrassed her. Only one other person ever achieved that before, and that person paid the ultimate price.” The general backed away, taking with him the odor of garlic and lubricating oil. He summoned a guard in. “Take her.”
The guard swept me over his shoulder, the ceiling and floor rotating around each other before I knew what happened. The general exited the cell and followed us down the corridor. “Let’s see how fired up you are once the implant is in place.”
Implant.
No. A sting rose up my throat. I jerked my head off the guard’s back, “Implant or not, you’ll never have me.”
The general leaned in. “Oh, I’ll have you, all right.”
I thrust my head out and smacked my forehead into the general’s. He stumbled back and for a moment, looked as if unconsciousness threatened.
The guard stumbled, dropping me. I ignored the searing, bone-deep pain radiating from my forehead and thrashed, flailing my arms and legs, trying to land a few blows to his groin. It took two guards to subdue me, one grabbing my arms and the other my legs before they could carry me out.
The general rubbed the red mark on his forehead. “So much for behaving like a princess. All those etiquette rules your mother spent years drilling into your head, not to mention the lessons from tutors and members of the council. You were never destined to lead our people.”
My body went rigid in anticipation of the zap. The collar pricked my skin and shot electricity into my neck. I wanted to scream, but couldn’t. Air was trapped in my lungs. A charge electrified every nerve in my body leaving me helpless, unable to move.
The general leaned close to me and, resting his lips next to my ear, whispered, “But I was.”
“Mother will kill you first,” I hissed back, then concentrated on counting the flickering lights overhead, trying to keep from giving into the darkness. The fire inside my body lessened after a few moments. But I didn’t have the energy left to fight, now. Once we turned the corner and the doors swished open, resignation settled in. There was no reason to care. We had reached the infirmary, and the end of my journey.
Dropping me onto the metal table, medics started flicking switches. Bendar’s familiar rust colored beard poked between the vent slats near the open door. Or was it my imagination?
Then flaming red-hair bounced into the room.
“M—Mother” I struggled.
“Is she ready?”
I tried to mumble and cry out, but no words formed.
Mother leaned over me with a disapproving eye and stroked my forehead. “Don’t worry, dear child. All will be well once your pathetic heart is ripped from your body and replaced with this.”
She held a burgundy-colored stone with a black ring.
I thrashed to no avail. The restraints denied my freedom.
“Sorry, no metal for you to melt. Only leather.” Mother cackled before she spun around, her long red and black dress swooping. “General, with me.”
“I thought—”
Though I couldn’t see her, the swish of her skirt indicated she’d turned on him. “There is a situation.”
“Yes, my queen.” He managed to hide his disgust at her commands, but I knew the truth. Somehow, I had to show Mother he wasn’t faithful to her. Then, maybe, she’d spare me from him.
“Get it done,” she called from the outer corridor, her distinctive footsteps echoing until the door closed.
Heaving, I fought to catch my breath and scanned the room. Vent? Door? Hopeless. With the leather restraints, I didn’t have a chance.