“Now that’s a look I recognize,” Ra’aila said, appearing out of the dark to offer her a bowl. At Reese’s quizzical look, she added, “It’s dinner.”
“Thanks.” Reese took it, found it warm to her touch which is how she learned that the air was cooler than she was expecting. “What look is that?”
“Looking out, wanting to go there,” Ra’aila said, nodding. “A very wanderer sort of look. You must have a nomadic heart, captain.”
“How do you figure that?”
The Aera smiled. “You run a merchant ship. It’s an itinerant life. Who but a nomad could want it?”
“I’m not really a nomad by choice,” Reese said, moving the spoon around in the bowl. “It’s more like... it was a way to get away from home. Maybe find one of my own.”
Ra’aila snorted. “I know that look too.” At Reese’s narrowed-eyed glance, the Aera said, “It’s not home you were getting away from, was it? It was the people, the expectations, the roles you didn’t fit into and didn’t want to fill. What you’re looking for isn’t a home, it’s a chance to find out who you are when you’re not being smothered.” She leaned forward, eyes luminous in the dark. “Let me share with you some hard-won wisdom from a fellow wanderer, Captain. The moment you set down roots again? You end up with the same old problems. Just look at this place. All fine on the voyage here... five years into landing, having fights.” The Aera stood and rolled her shoulders. “Better to stay on the move, I think.”
“There’s got to be a place worth settling for,” Reese said, startled.
“There’s never a place worth settling for,” Ra’aila said. “Not unless you’ve got the right people, anyway.” She smiled wryly. “And it’s so easy to fool yourself into thinking you’re with the right people. Particularly if they’re family.” She nodded. “That’s why I left Flait.” Leaning over, she tapped the edge of the bowl. “Don’t just play with it, eat. You might not think you’re hungry, but you are... and morning will come before you know it.”
Reese stared after the woman after she left. Since the bloody, grueling war that had emancipated Mars—and killed most of its men—the women of Mars had been making use of artificial insemination to continue their families. What had begun as necessity had eventually been enshrined as tradition. Seven generations of Reese’s family had lacked a father, and the women had been content to keep it that way. Better that than to live with the fear of losing a husband, a fear that had never quite evaporated with the blood from the soil.
But she had never been comfortable with the path that had contented her family; had not wanted to live out her life in that house without ever having seen anything beyond it. The Alliance had beckoned from beyond Sol’s doorstep, and the monthly romances that had been Reese’s sole escape had filled her heart with the hope that she could maybe find her own way, if only she could summon the courage to leave.
So when she’d hit her majority she’d taken the money set aside for her and left... and her family had never forgiven her for it.
No, Reese could not imagine hating her family, though they’d disowned her after her last trip home. Her dream of building a family business hadn’t been shared by the elder Eddings women. That she might have wanted to do something for herself, something that she could have used to better their situation, hadn’t factored at all into their belief that she’d betrayed them, left them behind. Their belief had created reality.
Reese drew in a long breath of the strange air and licked her lips. The faster they got off this horrible world, the faster they could find some more civilized place to trade. Coming here had been a mistake. She only hoped Hirianthial wasn’t paying too much for it.
The next time Hirianthial woke, they offered him the one thing he couldn’t reject: a drink. Except it wasn’t water, but something sour that burned an already dry throat, and he would have coughed it back up but they shoved the gag back in first. Every time they stopped they dosed him with it; he wondered what the drug was, or did when he could think past the pastiche of phantasmagoric images it inspired.
But the trip did end finally, and he was ushered out of the drugged fugue by the lances of pain that stabbed up the wall of his ribcage with every breath he drew. He was on the ground again, but under a purple shadow; when he rolled his eye upward, he saw the ripple of fabric. A tent? And he was on a rug, it appeared; he could feel it against his skin.
His skin. Which he noted was very exposed. Where had they taken his clothes? And his hands were still tied behind his back. His mouth was so dry he hadn’t noticed the gag was still in it.
So then. Bound, gagged, naked and... he shifted experimentally, winced. Yes, at least two cracked ribs, and something near the sternum that was either another hairline fracture or a separation from the costal cartilage. No crepitus, though, and no symptoms other than pain... not a serious injury, then. Thank God and Lady, as he could only imagine what medical intervention was available to people who were choosing, willfully, to use arrows in defiance of Alliance alternatives.
He couldn’t tell what time it was, but the sunlight suggested his captors had ridden through at least one night. Hopefully not more than one.
Reese was going to be furious. He smiled despite the situation. Perhaps he could save her the coronary and rescue himself this time.
The tent flap lifted for a woman with a tray in one hand: human, with a tumble of chestnut-colored curls and hazel eyes rimmed in dark gray, set wide in a strong face with a narrow chin. She paused at the sight of his regard, then said in Universal, “You wake.” When he didn’t move, she sniffed and set the tray down. “I have water here. No food, you will throw it up.” She tilted her head. “So. If I untie the gag, will you spit poison at me? Or bite me? Because I am not interested in coddling my husband’s newest toy. If you are going to be difficult, I will happily leave you to rot. Are you going to cooperate? Nod if so.”
Slowly he inclined his head, keeping his eyes on her.
“Fine,” she said, and walked around behind him. He felt her hands on the sash and with them the brush of her aura: supremely uninterested in him, save as a possession to be maintained.
The gag had to be peeled away from his face. She did it carelessly and tossed it aside. “Now. Sit up.”
Hirianthial flexed his wrists and ankles.
“Today,” she said, her tone bored. “I have things to do, and ministering to you is the least important.”
He hid his grimace beneath a dipped head and rolled himself awkwardly onto his knees, hair spilling into his lap. He would have been glad for that, except that she didn’t seem to care that he was nude. Her disregard made him feel like a piece of meat. Like, he thought, a horse. Not the same species. A thing to be owned.
He did not welcome the flicker of red anger that licked up his spine and clouded his vision. After spending months tracking down the people stealing Alliance citizens to sell for slaves, he had become very familiar with rage. It always reminded him too powerfully of the very first time he’d felt its spurs. He remembered the way sweat and blood made his flesh adhere to the hilt of Jisiensire’s House sword—
When he opened his eyes, the woman was watching him warily. Could she feel it radiating off him? He wondered.
“The water now,” she said, and drew a knife from her sash, showing it to him. “I’ll have this in the other hand, so don’t try anything.” When he didn’t say anything, she bared her teeth and said, “Tell me you agree.”
“I can hardly kill you with my hands and ankles bound together behind my back,” he said, and his raw throat made a ruin of his baritone.
“True,” she said, but she’d hesitated. She took the bowl from the tray and brought it warily to his lips. He kept his eyes on hers and drank, slowly, measuring his own queasiness. It was, sadly, some of the best water he’d ever had. Under any other circumstances he would have enjoyed it.
When he’d had the full measure, she backed away and tucked the knife back into her sash. “You are in one of the
Rekesh’s tents,” she said finally. “There are guards outside it. Don’t think of running. You belong to him now.”
“I thought perhaps he would kill me, for having killed his men,” Hirianthial said.
She smiled. “Maybe he will, when he tires of you.”
“You are his wife,” he observed, “…and care not at all that he might spend himself elsewhere?”
That made her laugh, a low, husky laugh. “I chose him, pretty prize. I knew his habits. But he is the Rekesh, and marrying him gave me status and opportunities. That he prefers to pass his time elsewhere is a bonus. We both have our separate interests, and dislike interference.”
“That does not seem like much of a marriage.”
She snorted. “What, you would marry for love?” She picked up the tray. “No matter. Not to you, anymore. Put it out of your mind. You belong to us.”
That made him smile. “For now.”
She paused. “Don’t think of escape—”
“I don’t have to,” he said. “I will outlive you by several hundred years. And if you think your children can keep me...” He trailed off, then looked up at her through his hair. “Then you have no idea how long I can wait for you to make a mistake.”
“Hundreds of years,” she repeated.
“I only look human,” Hirianthial said. “But you don’t know what I am or what I’m capable of.”
She glanced at his bruised sides, her eyes traveling his naked body, and contempt welled back into her gaze. She lifted her chin and said, “What I see is that ropes can hold you, drugs can weaken you, and your skin bruises just as easily as ours.” She stepped through the tent flap, and as it swung shut he saw a glimpse of one of the men standing guard outside it.
With her safely gone, he hung his head, licked his dry lips, sighed. It was not precisely bravado to threaten her—he could outlive the entire tribe, even though he’d lived half his own span already—but he didn’t want to stay on Kerayle that long. And Reese would be beside herself with worry, which would undergo the instantaneous alchemy that seemed her specific talent, from fear into anger.
And it mattered to him, that she might become angry. And that the twins and Kis’eh’t and Bryer would worry. And that Allacazam would not know what became of him.
He would have to find a way to fight his way free. That he couldn’t see a way how yet was of no moment. At some point there would be an opportunity, and he would take it. Closing his eyes, he composed himself to wait. Stripping him, his captors had missed the one thing he hadn’t wanted them to steal: the hair dangle the crew had made for him, which they’d braided in at the back of his neck where it might lie hidden. He let the whispered impressions woven into the strands and decorations in it center him. First he would recover from the drug. Then he would explore his options.
“Please tell me you’ve found your bleeding horse,” Reese said, bent over the saddle.
“Soon,” the Kesh said, staring at his tablet. He squinted up the trail until two of his hunters scrabbled down it, pebbles rolling away from the hooves of their mounts. They shook their heads and he growled.
“What?” Reese asked, agitated. “What is it?”
“Our stud is in the mountain,” the Kesh said.
Reese eyed him. “Not unless someone Padded him into solid rock.”
“Nevertheless,” he said, irritated. “The transceiver reports he is in the mountain.” He shook himself. “If you don’t mind, Captain? I need to have a discussion with my people.”
Before she could say anything, his horse moved off and took him along, leaving her with her mouth agape. “Sure,” she said to his absence. “Absolutely. Go ahead and discuss your malfunctioning technology—or magical rock-breathing horse—with your peers. I’ll just hang out here.” She shifted on the saddle and tried not to wince. Getting back up on Believer earlier had been an act of willpower. She’d woken up in actual pain, something she hadn’t at all been expecting. Sore, sure, but pain? Ra’aila had been sympathetic and offered an analgesic, which Reese had rejected. She wished she hadn’t.
She looked up the scrubby hills and decided she’d had enough. It took several tries, but she managed to fall off her horse; she almost left it behind, but thought it might wander away if she didn’t tie it to some bushes... wasn’t that what they did in books? So she found a likely shrub and looped the reins around it. The horse watched her with soulful eyes and she paused. They really were pretty. A little, anyway. Hesitantly, she reached out and Believer stuck its nose under her fingers.
“Sorry for riding you so badly,” she said. “Have a rest, okay?”
The horse made a soft chuffing sound.
Reese turned her back on it and started climbing. Every footfall made her grit her teeth, but she was more comfortable walking than she was riding, and something in her was spurring her on. Some gnawing anxiety... what were they doing to her Eldritch? Just because she didn’t necessarily want him didn’t mean she was ready to give him to the colonial equivalent of pirates. Scowling, she made it over the crest of the hill and lifted her head—
—and fought a surge of panic at the breadth of the sky, its unrelenting, cloudless pallor, and the hills that seemed to loom over her. She sat, abruptly enough that her backside protested, and hugged her knees close enough to set her brow against them. Her skin was clammy; she licked her lips. Who put a sky like that on top of a world? Who lived on worlds anyway? Give her the nice, clean cold of space any day. She concentrated on breathing, slowly, through her mouth. One breath at a time...
Her chin dragged off her knees. She hesitantly opened an eye, just enough to see... nothing. But she didn’t want to look away. Lifting her head, she searched for anything that might have made a noise, cast a shadow, anything that might have distracted her: nothing.
But she kept looking.
Frowning, she pushed herself to her feet, wobbled, waited for her knees to start working again. She started in that direction, cursing the unfamiliar landscape: Mars was nowhere near so unpredictable. At least, her part of it hadn’t been: flat as a board and mostly paved, she’d had to climb trees to achieve anything like elevation, and Kerayle’s constantly shifting terrain confused her. But she kept moving.
“Reese?”
She paused.
“Reese!” Ra’aila jogged into view, ears swept back, and joined her. “Winds bless it, we thought you’d gotten lost. What are you doing up here?”
“Going this way,” Reese said, and turned, only to find the tiny whisper silenced. As she struggled to pinpoint it again, Ra’aila interrupted her.
“Going which way?”
“Ssh!” Reese hissed. “I lost it. Be quiet!”
Puzzled, Ra’aila subsided. In the silence, Reese closed her eyes and lifted her head. This is it, isn’t it? she asked, silently. This is... some kind of mental touch. Well, fine. I’d rather have you around to fight about it than have you dead or lost somewhere. So talk!
No words. Her heart pounded, painfully loud in her ears. And then... very faint, her face turned toward the sun. “That way,” she said, and started climbing.
His captors did not give him the opportunity to recover from the drug. He was still kneeling, gathering his strength, when the tent flap shot open and four men pushed through it: three in the front, and one strolling behind trailing an aura of power and privilege that crackled off him like a coronal aura. Hirianthial watched them, wary, wishing he could feel his fingers. They returned his regard in silence... until their master said, “Do it.”
Then they lunged for him, two each for his sides and one for his head. He would have had a chance of fighting the third except one of the others punched his side and the ribs flexed. He lost a few moments, and during them was aware of being force-fed again. He fought it once he caught his wind, but they pressed on his shoulders and sides until the pain made his vision swim.
“Again.” More of it.
“Again.”
When they finally let go of him he couldn’t ho
ld himself up. He also didn’t feel himself fall, though once he’d come to rest on the rug he could sense its fibers against his cheek.
“You may go.”
He thought they left, but the world was vague by then, and the Rekesh—for surely it could be no one else—crouched alongside his head. Hirianthial was expecting a fist in his hair again, so to have the man lean over and pull a strand lightly forward was surreal. Was he? The man was, wrapping it slowly around a finger. “I’m told the only way to keep you is to subdue you with drugs and ropes,” the Rekesh said, conversationally. “That you are a killer, worse than the stallion we won free of our relatives. That no one who could do to four men what you did in such a short time could be anything less.” His aura had gone smoke-dark. “Is that true? Are you a killer?”
This was entirely too much like his incident with the pirates on the Earthrise. Was he forever fated to endure his assailants’ attempts at conversation while injured or near insensate?
The Rekesh crooked his finger until it tugged gently on the hair. “I asked you a question.”
Hirianthial rasped, “Animals don’t talk.”
His captor yanked so hard Hirianthial’s face struck the rug. “Respect when you talk to me.”
The Eldritch said nothing, breathing past the white ache in his sides.
“Pain can be very humbling,” the Rekesh said. Hirianthial heard his footsteps receding, then the crunch of a pillow as the man sat on it. The scrape of ceramic against wood and then splashing... his mouth watered and he closed his eyes. “Water would be good, yes?” When he didn’t answer, the Rekesh said, “If you want it, you will have to ask. Politely.”
God hear him, but he had tired long ago of such transparent power plays. He had been born tired of such posturing before he’d been forced to endure six centuries of it from his own people, who were endlessly fascinated with ugly games; he had little patience left to entertain them from the rest of the galaxy. Did they think such ploys arrogated power to them that they otherwise did not have? Let them treasure the illusion, then. He said, in his hoarse croak of a voice, “Please.”
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