by Vi Voxley
Some unseen barriers in her heart tumbled at seeing the first look, soft and kind at the sight of her. The second was as hard and cold as marble, so vicious Isolde staggered into the Brion standing behind her. Deliya and Narath tensed up immediately, but the third was calming gaze followed by a terse nod. He turned away from them, but the second look refused to leave Isolde’s mind – for a moment, she had been face to face with an ancient predator, ready to pounce. She’d been prepared for him to jump the impossible distance to her and rip her throat out.
Haha, her mind tried hopelessly. Look at the alien warlord trying to seduce me, isn’t it adorable. When you look behind the dreamy eyes and the body to die for, you might remember you really could die. Don’t play games with him. Those who have tried thought death a mercy.
Stories came back to her then, stories even making their way down to Terra, in whispers and speculation. Diego Grothan was not a man to provoke. Isolde felt glad for the edge of the balcony to grip, because her legs were about to give in. Another, guilty part of her had felt her knees go weak at that look, at the thought of such a powerful man pledging his life to her. In the end, it was good she didn’t have to stand up straight on her own.
At the other end of the arena, huge double doors opened. Deliya leaned down to whisper, clearly intent to make sure Isolde understood the whole situation.
“Those are the twins,” she said. “Do you know them?”
Isolde did. “Faren and Gawen,” she murmured back, as the generals walked forward with their honor guards, mirror images of each other. “Faren is on the left, I think, with the battle axe. Gawen is the one with the guns.”
Deliya nodded, clearly happy with her knowledge. An axe was not a traditional Brion weapon, but it was better than a gun, which the Brions didn’t favor, although they didn’t run headlong into their fire. For occasions when the enemy packed considerable firepower, the Brions had unbelievably durable battle armors and long, full body length energy shields to cover them until they could get up close and feed the blades of their spears to what they considered cowards.
The twins cared little for the opinions of others, often being cited saying they were of much more use to their people alive rather than dead with an honorable weapon in their hands.
As Isolde relayed all that to Deliya, she got the first real, conspiratory laugh from the warrior woman. “Yes!” she exclaimed in a hushed tone. “Very good. I see you know much about us; that is good. The Commander says they are fools, differing from the others does not make them as great as they think.”
They fell silent then, because the twins stopped a few feet from Diego. Their movements were so synchronized Isolde wasn’t prepared to rule out hidden telepathic powers. Her eyes kept warily returning to the guns at Gawen’s hip, flickering between them and Diego, who had no armor she could see. When she realized she was holding her breath, Isolde was forced to consider that perhaps she had not lied to Deliya.
As she didn’t speak real Brionese, and the generals obviously weren’t going to simplify their speech for her sake, she understood only some of what was said. Instead, her nails digging into the balcony’s edge, she tried to read into their body language. Deliya and Narath were listening intently, although to their credit, Isolde saw them scan the crowds and especially the generals’ honor guards at regular intervals to make sure they weren’t going to try something.
All the Brion generals were known in the galaxy, and even the least bloodthirsty of them had a reputation. Isolde put it entirely down to the whole gesha thing, but Diego only now looked to her the warrior he was, as he’d appeared to her on Luna Secunda. Although it seemed stupid to build on her fear, Isolde wanted to remember this. She had to remember that no matter what it looked like to her, Diego Grothan was never really tame.
In comparison, the twin generals made her blood run cold. They looked so similar that if they’d chosen to switch their signature weapons, Isolde couldn’t have told the difference. Only their mannerisms gave them away. They were both towering giants even by Brion standards, easily at eye level with Diego. Gawen was a brute in character, the hard lines of his face etched with fury from the first sentences he uttered. His posture was that of a tiger ready to pounce at any provocation.
In contrast, Faren said almost nothing, his big arms crossed over his chest, head lowered in silent contemplation. He looked no less dangerous for it. In fact, he bothered Isolde a lot more. She wondered if being around Brions was somehow contagious in that she had, like them, come to respect honest fury. Gawen was a clear threat, Faren was the one that struck when you least expected. Her eyes kept returning to Diego, who hadn’t raised his voice yet, speaking in a completely calm manner. In fact, most of the conversation Isolde understood was what he said. Gawen merely growled and Faren’s answers were mostly monosyllabic.
She did recognize the moment when they appeared to talk about her – both twins looked up then, straight at her. Gawen looked angry, Faren simply… curious, if anything. Isolde looked away.
In truth, she should have felt weird or out of place. She’d met aliens on Terra and in her brief time on Luna Secunda, but a Brion meeting should have set off some alarms in her. Instead, Isolde found her heart beating and her eyes glued to Diego as the conversation picked up. Suddenly, she felt a fool to have believed that Brions could settle a dispute with words. These were the guys who killed people over insults.
This matter was surely far beyond that. And there were two against one. No Brion in the arena would lift a hand in Diego’s defense, even if their beloved commander were slaughtered under their very eyes. He’d kill them with his bare hands, and their names would forever be in shame.
When Deliya asked her something, Isolde was unable to reply. Terror had closed her throat, so she just shook her head and tried not to blink, not to miss a second of what was unfolding before her eyes. If there really was a connection between her and Diego, it was drawn tight at that moment, tugging at her heart up to the point where she felt like jumping down to the arena herself, to – what? Stop the twin generals?
In all her life, Isolde had never felt so powerless. She was the weakest person in a room with aliens whose children could easily have kicked her ass. Most of them were warriors who could have snapped her neck with as much difficulty as a human opening a jar of pickles.
If Diego was to die, she was sure to follow. There would be no reason to keep her alive, with her mate dead she would no longer by a gesha to anyone. Any other species would just drop her off at Rhea and let her be, but she doubted Brions would be so kind. Perhaps Deliya might have felt slightly bad, but Isolde harbored no illusions that if her general were to die, the pair of them off would be finished off together and an excuse found for the GU.
Lovely indeed. In the eyes of the galaxy, we’re the same already.
The thought of her death seemed less important as minutes went by. If it was to come, there was no way she could stop it. Possibly her guards would even carry it out. The Brions had already proved to her that they did not want their system disturbed. Ensha hadn’t seemed to hate her personally, just what she was. Isolde had never thought they’d be that… what? Human-phobic? Her studies had suggested that the Brions thought the binding sacred. Even Diego had seemed surprised someone would challenge his mate.
And now he was likely to actually die for her. A fairy tale indeed. Once upon a time there was a girl from Terra who met a very hot alien warlord, and then they both died… That wasn’t how it was supposed to go.
A sudden flash of light robbed her of sight for a moment. Then she felt the unmistakable stench of blood. There was screaming. Apparently coming from her.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Diego
Seeing Isolde standing on the balcony, Diego wasn’t sure if he felt proud or angry. Evidently his little gesha was smart enough to convince two of his most loyal to let her out of her room and bring her to a Brion arena. Not against his strictest orders, per se, or he would have killed her guards by now, but he wasn’
t certain Isolde’s presence did any good. He needed his mind on the other generals, not on her safety, up on the balcony clear for all to see. The men about to enter, after all, had orders to put her to death.
Deliya and Narath could handle it, he knew that. Yet it irked him that they hadn’t thought to keep Isolde away. They would answer some serious questions later. Right now, what bothered him a lot more was the way his gesha had gone white with terror at the sight of him. The rage, already on the surface at the thought of the senators and their treachery, rose to new heights at the prospect of Isolde seeing Brion viciousness up close. Even more, she shouldn’t be afraid of him, which she clearly was. He posed no threat to her.
All that left his mind when his brother generals appeared, every bit of him focusing on the task ahead.
Faren and Gawen, commanders of the Unbroken and the Fearless, respectively, were two of the other Brion generals he respected the most. Undoubtedly, that was why Senator Eren had sent them to apprehend him. Similarly, no doubt he had told them his version of things.
“Brothers,” he said. Brions-like-me, it meant.
Faren barely acknowledged him, except for the slightest of nods to show he had heard him. Gawen barked a laugh.
“Any other day, Diego,” he growled. His name now meant grothan-that-was. “Today, it seems we stop being brothers.”
“I see no reason why that should happen.”
“Don’t play the ignorant,” Gawen snapped back. He beamed in the dimness, valor squares implanted in his skin casting him in deadly, darkened light. Unlike Diego, the twins had their crystals going up their faces to their brows. It was said, by Brions gossip and the rest of the galaxy alike, that the twins had thrust their signs of valor too deep. The squares went too high, too close to the brain, and the implantation had driven them both different kinds of mad.
In myths that haunted every general, the crystals were said to have hit the emotional core, making Faren cold to the point of not feeling anything and Gawen barely able to restrain his feelings. Diego doubted it. Faren had been cold and Gawen quick-tempered since they were young and had trained together to be warriors. He could not rule out, however, that the implantation had exaggerated the characteristics already there.
“I’m not,” he said with deadly calm. He was aware his Brion brothers knew him well enough not to confuse his cool tone with a peaceful mind. Even in his rage, Gawen didn’t approach him. Faren knew better anyway. “What did that traitor tell you about me?”
Traitor meant Brion-enemy.
Gawen snarled something unintelligible in reply, but Faren looked at him for the first time since he entered the arena. “Careful,” he said simply. Compared to a lot of Brions, his voice was gentle to the point of sounding soft. Diego had seen him drenched head to toe in the blood of his enemies and knew where the only threat to him in that room lay.
It was Gawen who replied, as always. “He said you disobeyed a direct order from him, and you threatened to undermine the entire Brion culture.”
“The first is true, the second is not. It applies quite well to him, though.”
“The first implies the second,” Gawen said, his hands clearly itching for his guns, pacing restlessly, but not coming closer. “We are Brions. We do not disobey orders that come from the Elders.”
“They did not come from the Elders. They came from him. And he is wrong.”
That gave Gawen pause, but Faren still hadn’t reacted, as if nothing of this was surprise to him. Diego had thought as much.
“Why did you not kill the human?” Gawen asked, instead. “I hear some crazy stories that she is…”
“My gesha, yes,” Diego said. “She will live.”
Isolde probably didn’t know how loud her sudden intake of breath sounded to a Brion’s keen hearing, but both the twins looked up at her direction. Diego watched them stare at her and knew which of the two would live.
“She could betray our secret to the GU,” Gawen said. “She must not be allowed to talk.”
“She does not know, but that is not important,” Diego replied. That was it. The moment he had to convince them, or at least one of them, or he would die and Isolde with him. He was grateful for the knowledge he had to make them believe the truth; it really did make matters much simpler. He spoke loudly, for all to hear. It was fair, after all, to give his warriors a chance to know what they might die for in the coming days.
“I believe the Elders intended for us to share Rhea, to maintain a strong presence there and over time let it fall out of memory that we had kept the rich harvest world from the Galactic Union. It was their policy we should be included in the Union in the first place, so I find it hard to believe they would jeopardize that.
“I also believe the senators have no such intention. When the order came to take out the first research team, I saw no danger in that. The work on the planet was not finished. But with the second attack, I no longer think the senators want us to share anything. Whether they want to sweep the world clean of everything before the GU arrives, or are planning to keep the world to ourselves after all, they are provoking a conflict that threatens all Brions.
“This last attack was too blatant already, fingers will be pointing at us no matter what we do, yet they do not rule out attacking the next team. They invite war. With the Gamma Quadrant starving and the Palians asking reinforcements of tertanium to rebuild the core of their main hydraulic reactor…
“If we are exposed hiding a world like Rhea, getting thrown out of the GU and left without their provisions is the best possible result. If we fight to keep Rhea or make another attempt to kill a team under the protection of the GU… they will start a war that will leave both sides worse than we were to begin with, but start it they will.
The Palians know the human is with me. If she does not reach her destination, how long do you think it would take the Council to make the connection? She has to go. Has to sell our lie. And we… we must deal with the traitors that would have the GU send us back to the dark days.”
He hoped Isolde didn’t understand his words. He would have to find a way to break the truth easily to her and make her understand the power that suddenly lay in her hands.
All eyes were trained on him – Gawen was fuming, Faren seemed thoughtful. He could not blame them as he was suggesting outright civil war. No doubt some of the generals would side with the senators. He didn’t have time to explain the truth to all of them. Some hated him enough not to listen either way. And Rhea was, unknown to the rest of the galaxy, the main source of their might. Fuel and materials for their space ships, food for the armies, a literal warehouse of supplies. Many would think it worth going to war with the Galactic Union, would call him a…
“Coward,” Gawen said at last.
Diego had expected that from him, hoped for better, but prepared for the likely.
„We are Brions!” the other general barked at him. “We don’t owe the rest of the galaxy anything! You would cower from the Palians…”
“I cower from no one,” Diego cut him through, his voice sliding over the other’s easily. The volume of his voice had not risen once – in fact, he seldom needed to yell anything, usually his presence was enough to guarantee silence, even if Gawen was out of the ordinary – but his tone was pure venom. Even Gawen had no reply to that, simply glowering at him. “Not the GU, nor the enemies within.”
The last made Gawen finally take a step forward. “Watch your words, brother. We are under orders to bring you to heel, or bring back your head.”
Brother meant traitor now.
“You are under orders from Eren. He does not speak for the Elders. I believe I do. They would not invite this war upon our head.”
“I fear no one!”
Fearless, Diego thought in disgust.
“And you think I do?” he asked.
Gawen took it for a rhetorical question until the continuing silence in the arena suggested Diego and everyone else was expecting a reply. Faren had yet to speak
his mind.
“I would not have thought it possible, before now,” Gawen growled. “When did you suddenly lose your spine? When your human-gesha stepped on your ship?”
You’re making this horribly easy for me.
“Do you think I fear?” he repeated.
Even Gawen’s honor guard went tense at that, sensing this was no longer even a pretense at friendly conversation between equals. Diego Grothan did not repeat himself to anyone.
Gawen glared. “I heard you alright,” he said then, calmer than he had been since arriving. “No, I do not think you do. I think you have simply gone soft. Senator Eren was right about you and right about the planet. Rhea is ours and it should stay so. No one else has business there. Let the others scrape by. I do not care for what the GU thinks. We are the mightiest of them!”
Diego was, to be honest, disappointed. The argument about keeping Rhea he had expected, it wasn’t all that uncommon. Many had protested, even daring to question the will of the Elders, when they’d decreed that Rhea had to be “discovered”. It was such a vast resource for them, to have it taken away meant substantial losses not all were ready to sacrifice. Gawen was bound to agree with that, yes, but the last boast…
“You disgrace your training, Gawen,” Diego said, pronouncing it Gawen-the-fool, setting the other general’s valor squares to dangerously bright pulsing. “You mistake being mightier one-on-one and being mightier than the entire Union. They will all rally against us. If we give them reason, they will do their very best to destroy us. Many have looked for this exact excuse, saying we cannot be trusted. We cannot give them that reason.”
“If all the galaxy were against us, I would still not betray what I am,” Gawen said. “I am a Brion. I stand for all of us.”
Diego stole a glance at Isolde. Then he slowly drew his spear. “So do I.”
Valor squares had many tricks built into them. Gawen’s often pulsed so bright in battle it was nearly impossible to see him. His own eyes had somehow been modified against that light. Diego went in half-blind.