by Sara King
Reluctantly, Dragomir turned his head, and for long heartbeats, he expected her to smear his brains across her mattress. But, after minutes had passed in pounding silence, she eased closer, then gingerly lowered her hand to his shoulder. With each movement of his breath beneath her hand, he felt her body struggling against a deep, rising panic that was infecting his own au, making it difficult for him to breathe.
“Do it again,” she said.
Dragomir’s mind gave a startled twist of surprise, realizing she wanted him to work with her gi. “Uh. Are you sure?”
“Hurry,” she whimpered. “It’s coming back.” Indeed, the flood of images was once more rising from her ramas like a tornado.
I’ll do my best,” he whispered, stunned. He knew from experience that most Imperials would rather stick their head in a blacksmith’s furnace than willingly place themselves in the hands of an Emp. He’d once wandered the remnants of a battlefield, offering to help the wounded soldiers of both sides. Rebels had either stabilized or passed in peace with his touch. But the Imperials, to a man, had screamed and tried to shoot, stab, or, in one man’s case, beat him to death with the broken, cast-off tread of an Imperial tank when he offered his help.
Dragomir closed his eyes, concentrated, and somehow managed to slip to the crystalline core through the cloud of fears, worries, and distractions roiling through him. He bathed in the energy, sank into the calm power he found there, then began feeding it outward, spiraling it around them, infusing her au once more.
She let out a little gasp and he felt her hand tighten on his shoulder.
“You want me to stop?” Dragomir whispered, hesitating.
For a moment, she said nothing. Then, “Keep going. Please.”
Still unable to penetrate her core, Dragomir fed every good, nourishing emotion he could think of to her au, pushing it out through his heart-rama, wrapping the two of them in it like a swath of warm, moving cotton.
He felt the woman relax against him, slowly. He felt another petal of her heart rama tentatively tug free of the stale energy that bound it, widening the needle-fine passage by a fraction of an inch. She felt her tense, heard her inhale sharply as a tiny thread of his energy began to filter through to her center to join the emerald tendril of her brother.
As he watched with his mental eye, his gold began to make the woman’s rama shudder and the petals shift, stretching against the energies binding it in place. Sensing his opportunity to free her from her prison of fear, Dragomir began to gently push, increasing the amount of energy he was feeding her. The rama shuddered, straining against the net of trauma that held it.
The princess’s hand tightened on his shoulder, fingers digging into the muscle, and for a moment, Dragomir thought he might succeed. The old energies, however, were too strong, too ingrained. After a moment’s struggle, the net simply tightened, drawing the petals back to a close.
He let out a frustrated sigh.
For the course of several minutes, neither of them spoke. Then, softly, she whispered, “What did you just do?”
He flinched and turned his head to her anxiously. “Did it hurt?” Often, working with gi blocks—especially pushing against a longtime locked-down rama—ached, like stretching an atrophied muscle. And that was just getting the rama open again. Had he actually managed to break the old energies free, they would have flooded outward and engulfed her, and she would have experienced them all anew as their energies dissolved and passed through her au.
Next time, he chastised himself, Think before you do something that stupid.
But she was staring at him in awe, green eyes stunned. “It felt wonderful.”
“I tried to help you re-open your heart rama,” Dragomir said.
She frowned at him. “Tried?” Then her frown deepened, wrinkling her freckled brow. “What is a rama?”
Dragomir opened his mouth, trying to think of some way to explain the seven energy centers to an Imperial who insisted such energies did not exist…yet tried to kill everyone who used them. Finally, he said, “Think of your body as machine floating within a vast vat of liquid energy.”
When she didn’t snort and turn away, but instead watched him with an acute, intelligent stare, he tentatively continued, “Your body is controlled by spirit, which gives the machine orders. The ramas are like conduits that allow the body to suck in the energy all around it, so that the spirit can make the machine move.”
The princess’s frown was deepening.
Unsure if he should continue, yet afraid to stop, Dragomir blindly pressed on. “The ramas allow many good things to pass into the machine that help it, though some bad things can get through, too… It all depends on the energy in the vat. Sometimes, if the energy is bad enough, it will block the rama, and slow down the body’s ability to digest energy from outside. In very bad cases, when trauma blocks the flow of gi, or when the spirit has decided the energy outside is too painful to absorb any longer, the rama will close completely. This is when illness develops.”
She frowned down at him. “You really believe that, don’t you?”
“It’s what I see,” Dragomir whispered, following the lines of gi through her body, noticing the shifts in her au as her emotions came and went, the dull glow of her closed and blocked ramas. “All the time.”
“What are you seeing now?” she asked, looking curious.
His eyes stopped on her chest and the dormant tendrils twining there. In his mind’s-eye, they sang, begging to be acknowledged. The princess wouldn’t be able to link with him unless her heart rama opened, but Dragomir could feel the need of that connection humming under the verdant petals, begging for its counterpart. Like a trapped prisoner, screaming for help, it called to him. Wincing, he tore his eyes from it and said, “I see lines of energy. Ebbs and flow. Like cables and fire, but everywhere, and different colors. Constantly moving.”
She gave him a long, considering look. Holding her hand up to his face, she said, “What about this?”
He looked at the lines of gi running through her fingers, the points in the joints where they wove back and forth, the small, secondary rama in her palm. He cleared his throat and looked up at her. “What do you want to know, exactly?”
She had been watching him all-too-carefully. “Tell me what you’re seeing.”
Dragomir sighed. “How can an artist explain color to a blind man?”
Immediately, he realized it had been the wrong thing to say to an Imperial royal, who prided themselves on their mutagenic mental prowess. Her beautiful eyes narrowed. “Try.”
He returned his gaze to her hand. “The human body has a webwork of gi lines that run through it that is constantly providing energy to the muscles and organs. I can see them, kind of like spiderweb glistening in the sunlight. Real fine, but absolutely beautiful. There’s some big ones, like the main one running up your spine. That’s all different colors, though most are kind of a neutral bluish color.” Then he took a deep breath, lifting his eyes back to her face, fixing his attention back on the violet ramas within her skull. “Then again, it’s not really a color. It’s more a feeling of color, you know? Like the way a pretty red rose feels. Or the deep blue of a glacier feels when you’re standing beside it.” He raised an eyebrow at her. “You understand so far?”
She nodded warily.
Now for the big question. Dragomir cleared his throat and ventured, “I also feel other things, like the links between a mother and her baby, or the ties between husband and wife, or best friends…” He licked his lips and, eyes on the massive, thrumming connection still dormant between them, he said, “You might actually be able to feel one of them, if you wanted to. Like, maybe a month ago, you started feeling a buzzing in your chest? A heaviness? Or a heat?” When she said nothing, only frowned at him slightly, he quickly went on, “The same feeling you’re feeling right now, like hot water vibrating within your heart and lungs, overflowing and rushing out…” And here was the real leap… “…connecting us?”
F
or a long moment, she just gave him a little frown. Then, “You realize that whatever you’re seeing is just psychosomatic, right? Your brain is just trying to find a way to make sense of neuron pathways that has never before existed in the human body. That’s all any mutant is. You’re taking your own excess energy and inflicting it on others. The only safe mutation is that of the Royals…that’s why the Imperium puts us to good use better serving the people.”
“I hadn’t known that,” Dragomir said. He was disappointed, but not surprised. He’d heard many of the same things, almost word-for-word, in the propaganda chips that the Imperium distributed all over Mercy, urging residents to turn in ‘mutogenetic anomalies’ for their own safety.
The princess shrugged. “You’re a native. The colonies haven’t really had a chance to fully study it. The Imperium has.” She cocked her head at him. “What’s your name?”
Dragomir dropped his face back to the bed. Not only did she not feel their dormant link, but she thought he was insane, to boot. “Dragomir,” he said, trying not to let his despair show.
She cocked her head at him. “Dragomir. How’d you get the scar?” She gestured at his right temple, almost brushing the silver hair there with her fingers.
Dragomir stiffened, remembering the circumstances behind the wound. “I fell.”
She narrowed her eyes at him, obviously sensing the lie. “How did you escape Imperial sweeps?”
Dragomir grimaced. He knew of three other ‘mutants’ that were living in nearby villages, and the last thing he was going to do was tell an Imperium Royal Princess how he managed to evade the years of persecution.
The princess’s face hardened. “I asked you a question.”
“And it’s one I might someday answer,” Dragomir said, “once I can trust you.”
Her mouth fell open. “Once you can trust me?!”
He looked her dead in the eyes and said, “Yes.”
She snorted. “I own you, slave,” she said. “You will obey.”
Dragomir narrowed his eyes. Glaring up at her, he said, “You have me bound and helpless. You do not own me.”
Her mouth fell open and she stared at him like she could not believe the words she was hearing. Finally, sputtering, she said, “I am a Royal Princess of the Imperium and I am giving you an order.”
Dragomir gave her a flat stare. “Miss, until five days ago, I was quietly serving my village in the foothills of Skitwater Pass. It’s a farming community—about two hundred people who eke a living out of the Silversand Mountains. We dig in the dirt for a living. Our ancestors were the original crew of the original colony ship who landed here and claimed this world as our own. Five hundred years ago, our charter established this as a free world, ruled by free men. And, until the Imperium showed up on Mercy’s doorstep forty years ago, our lives were very good. Ever since, it’s been nothing but hell, anguish, starvation, and brutality.” He paused, allowing some of his anger to show in his eyes. “So if you’re asking if I give a crap whether you’re an Imperium princess or a highly poisonous frog, not really. Either one could kill me. I’d actually prefer the frog, though, because the frog would have the decency to do it quickly.”
For a long moment, the princess simply stared at him, fury billowing around her. Then, in a rush, her face darkened and she raised the golden statue, aiming at his face.
Spoiled brat, Dragomir thought, furious. He refused to look away.
Victory hesitated, paused mid-swing by the look in his eyes. He was angry with her. At first, she was flabbergasted. How dare he? She was a princess and he was her slave and she could do what she wanted to him!
Regardless of what he thought, she owned him. Legally. The Praetorian had delivered his papers the moment his brother had purchased him from the stables.
Then it clicked. She frowned, slowly lowering her weapon. “My brother didn’t buy you from the stables?”
“No,” the man said, his eyes flashing anger. “He took me from my home five days ago. Personally.”
“That can’t be right,” Victory said. “He doesn’t waste his time capturing slaves.”
“Funny, isn’t it?” He didn’t look like he was amused.
She narrowed her eyes. “You must not have paid your taxes.”
“No one in that village has paid their taxes,” Dragomir growled. “The only places on this entire planet that pay your ‘taxes’ are the big cities along the ocean, and half of those are relocated Imperials, anyway.”
“Only criminals don’t pay their taxes,” Victory said, though she found herself a little taken aback by his growing anger and her words weren’t as strong as they could have been.
“Really?” Dragomir demanded, sitting up. “And when was the last time you paid taxes, Princess? Do you even know what the levy was for this year?”
Sitting up like that, the sheet started to slide down his body, revealing his powerful shoulders and chest. Victory cried out and scooted backwards, falling off her side of the bed.
“It was sixty percent,” Dragomir snarled. “Sixty percent of anything grown, produced, or harvested was to be transported—at taxee’s expense—to a collection station. The nearest collection station is four hundred miles away, through mountainous terrain, and maybe one in fifty families owns a skimmer.”
Victoria frowned at the absurd number. Sixty percent can’t be right…
“I know what you’re thinking,” Dragomir said. “That number sounds too high, right? It’s probably because you’ve never overseen any collections, or checked any books. It’s because it’s sixty percent for natives, only twelve percent for Imperials.” His eyes narrowed. “It’s for your father to have an excuse to take slaves, for ‘not paying taxes.’”
“Slaves are our biggest cash-flow, Victoria, dear,” her father had told her when she was a very small child. “This barren rock has stone and slaves, and slaves are a hundred times more valuable than stone. Which do you think we export?”
“Slaves, Daddy,” had been her excited reply.
He’d ruffled her hair. “That’s right. We just need to make sure our exports never exceed our resources’ ability to replenish themselves.”
Victory felt sick. “You’re lying.”
“Go look it up,” Dragomir growled. “If they’ll even let you look at the records.”
Victory straightened. “I’m the next ruler of Mercy. They can’t stop me.”
Her slave made a pointed glance at the chain linking the two of them together. “One of them can.”
Victory narrowed her eyes. “You stay right there.” Getting up, she turned to the door to her servants’ quarters and shouted, “Kiara!”
The prim and proper woman who had once been one of Victory’s tutors, before her fateful trip to the Imperial Academy, opened the door. She now functioned as her butler. “Yes, milady?” She was wearing her nightclothes, obviously about to go to bed.
“Tell the Constable of Numbers that I wish to see this year’s copy of the current tax order. Now.”
If her butler found anything out of the ordinary with Victory’s request in the middle of the night, she didn’t let it show. Bowing, she said, “As you say, milady.” Then she quickly shut the door once more. Victory heard a few thumps in the second room, then the outer door open and shut, with whispered words in the hallway as a set of stockinged feet ran down the corridor at a sprint.
Victory turned back to the man kneeling on the other side of her bed. “Talking about trust… If you’re lying to me, you’re dead, you know that.”
He sighed, looking more perturbed than fearful. “Lady, you have every reason to trust me.”
Victory snorted. “And why’s that?”
“Because,” the man growled, “If I’d wanted to, I could’ve shut off your flow of gi the moment I stepped into this room. Could’ve done the same to your brother, when he was beating me senseless, and to your Praetorian, when they tugged me along by this pretty titanium chain like I was a dog on a leash.”
Vic
tory froze. “You’re lying.”
“You know why I didn’t?” the man growled. He pushed his feet underneath him and stood, his massive naked body growing ever-taller. “I didn’t because I don’t believe in coincidences.” He was glaring down at her, now. “And, no matter how frustrating, painful, or utterly unfair and humiliating the last five days have been, I believe Life has a reason for it, and I’m going to see that reason through. Whether that reason is to help you, or kill you, or merely find a more dignified way to end my miserable existence than swinging from a tree, I’m going to figure it out and do it.”
Victory stared at him. “Did you just threaten to kill me?”
“No,” Dragomir stated. “I simply told you I could.” He cocked his head at her chest. “But looking at your ramas right now, I’d say that your time is already pretty limited. You’re barely taking in any outside energy at all. You feel tired a lot, yes? Exhausted?”
Victory stared at him. Suspiciously, she nodded.
“That’s because most of your ramas are closed,” he said. “I can see the energy in there right now. It’s stagnant and…chunky.”
Peering at him, Victory said, “…chunky.”
He shrugged. “It clogs the gi-channels. Probably residues from your trauma as a captive this lifetime, but it could belong to a past life. I’d have to get a better look to be sure.”
Curious, despite herself, Victory said, “You can see my past lives?” Her father had never allowed her to meet with any of the fortune-tellers that her maids had so giggled about.
Dragomir gave her an irritated look and snorted. “It’s just my own delusion, anyway, so what does it matter? Just psychosomatic. My brain trying to make sense of new energy pathways.” Grunting, he flopped himself onto the bed and used his shackled feet to scoot himself backwards until his back was pressed against the headboard.