Jane glanced at the scalpel and took a step back. “What’s the knife for?”
“Endet Niyhól will teach you to defend yourself once you are strong enough. This is acceptable to you, yes?”
“Eithné, what’s the knife for?”
“Your healing ability could give you an extraordinary advantage during any type of physical altercation. Unfortunately, the pain of healing would make you vulnerable. My job is to help you work through the pain.”
“I’d rather not.”
Eithné cocked her head with infuriating patience. “You collapsed six times during your first training session with Endet Niyhól, and that was just from muscle fatigue. Seirsha, I understand that this is not desirable to you. But you are in a dangerous place now, and that danger will increase when we reach Spyridon. No matter how well you are able to defend yourself, you will become injured if you are attacked. As it stands now, anything beyond the most surface of injuries would send you to your knees. You would be helpless. Is this what you want?”
Helpless. Jane had spent much of her life helpless. She couldn’t count the number of times she’d been attacked by complete strangers before she’d secluded herself. How many slaps, punches, and shoves had she endured for simply being different?
She rolled up her sleeve and held out her arm. “I guess we’d better get started.”
Jane followed Valaer through the learning center, her thoughts on the costs of war. The classrooms here were empty, their contents unused for her entire lifetime. Where had the children gone? How many had been killed? And for the sake of what? Power? Land?
She thought about injustices that had taken place on Earth. Tyranny and persecution that were allowed for years because no one knew quite how to stop them. And she kept coming back to the same idea.
It started with one person. Someone to say, “It’s OK.” It’s OK to treat them as less; it’s OK to take what’s theirs. And don’t worry about what happens to them afterward, because they don’t matter as much as you.
“What’s his name?” The words left her mouth before she knew the question was there. Once they had, she understood how much she needed an answer.
“Who?”
Valaer’s voice was terse, his attention clearly elsewhere. It occurred to her then that she could ask someone else. She wasn’t on friendly terms with Valaer, and anytime she spoke, his disdain for her grew. But she couldn’t quell the anger that was rising in her. It shouldn’t have happened. The Nhélanei should not have been murdered and enslaved.
Her mother should not have died.
“What’s his name?” Her voice rose of its own accord, and Valaer stopped and looked at her. “It has to come down to one person: the Meijhé who led the attack. I want to know his name. Or hers.”
He grabbed her arm and pushed her into a classroom, calling the door closed with a voice that turned to gravel.
“You have no right to speak of such things.” His fingers bruised, and when she whimpered, he jerked her arm up and increased the pressure.
Then the air grew thick and heavy. Her pulse hummed in her ears. Her vision tunneled, so all she could see was Valaer’s beautiful, golden face. Déjà vu flooded her, and she felt as if she could have predicted each word he spoke before they left his mouth.
“There are some aboard this ship who speak his name with reverence. They would kill you simply for the loathing in your voice. And there are others who fear him more than anything else. They will do anything to protect themselves, and turning you in would buy them a lifetime of safety. You have heard of Watchers, yes? Or have you been shielded from this as well in all your self-righteous ignorance? They are the Nhélanei who spy for the enemy. They are everywhere, and they are always listening. We do not speak his name because we do not draw attention to ourselves. You would be wise to follow our lead.”
His words echoed in her head like a dream, and she couldn’t answer right away. Her mouth was dry, her throat burning. When she found her voice, she had to force the words. “I have the right to know.”
His grip tightened until it seemed his bones would burrow through hers. Then his eyes went almost white, and he jerked as if she’d slapped him. He dropped her arm and stepped back, his lungs heaving. She rubbed the spot he’d bruised as the burn began to seep through, and his gaze followed her hand and then shot away.
“His name is Lhókesh,” he said, his voice quiet and horse. “He hates the Nhélanei in a way you will never understand. If he learns you are on this ship, he will destroy it before we land. The entire crew will die. The night you woke here, you taunted Mikhél. Do you remember what you said?”
“I asked him if I had to shut up and do as I was told.”
He nodded grimly. “If you want to survive, that’s exactly what you’ll do. Lhókesh is outside your realm of existence. Do not forget it.”
He walked away, his strides stiff and unnatural. She took a deep breath and then followed him as her limbs steadied and her heartbeat slowed. She thought of what he’d said about the Watchers, and she shuddered. Were they here? Were they watching her, waiting for a sign that she wasn’t what she pretended to be? She tried to keep her eyes forward as though she’d grown up in this way of life, but her gaze kept drifting toward the empty classrooms.
And she wondered if anyone would ever stand up to Lhókesh.
CHAPTER 18
One hundred and sixty-nine days till arrival
Jane lay sleeping in the dark, her breath puffing from her lungs in quick little pants. She didn’t notice the kaleidoscope of refracted light drifting over her face. She had no care for the hum of the generators or the chill in the stale air. They were nothing compared to the music and warmth of the dream.
The Empty City vibrated with life. She could hear birdsong and the rustle of wings. Faint trembles in the stones beneath her feet spoke of animals stepping delicately along abandoned streets. The trees stretched and strengthened in microscopic bursts as they took in the heat and energy of the sun.
And in the east, the rhythmic march of Meijhé soldiers closed the gap.
But the courtyard was quiet. Sunlight filtered through a canopy of leaves. Dapples of shade, silky green and cool, fluttered through the light like a dance. The fountain stood in the center, the stone older than anything Jane had ever seen on Earth. Thousands of tiny, crystalline flowers surrounded its base, reminding her of the painting.
The boy stood in the clearing. He stared at the spot where they hid as if he knew they were there, his large brown eyes sunken in a face too thin. His heart was racing.
Her fingers tightened on the box. This was the moment they’d been waiting for.
This was meant.
But then his face began to change. It softened and shrank. The brown eyes turned blue, the dark hair gilding at the tips. The forest melted away, and a street materialized to take its place. A street heavy with people enjoying a warm, sunny Sunday in Atlanta.
The boy laughed, and the tinny sound of country music drifted down the street.
Jane woke suddenly, her sheets damp and tangled around her neck. Her chest felt compressed, as if the breath had been knocked out of her. She pushed the covers away and beat against her chest with the heel of her hand, and her lungs opened. She gasped in air with heaving breaths until spots danced before her, and she was forced to put her head between her knees. And then, because there didn’t seem to be anything else to do, she just stayed there and waited for it to pass.
Her heart was galloping. She wondered if it would ever slow down. And then, as always, it did.
When she saw a tear fall onto the metal floor between her feet, she pushed herself up and scrubbed at her face with her hands. Though she wasn’t supposed to meet Eithné for hours, she rose to bathe and dress.
She wasn’t getting any more sleep tonight.
Mikhél toyed with the amulet that rested against his skin. The metal was warm and bright from his body heat, which made him think, as it always did, that he’d worn it fo
r too long. So he took it off and hid it away.
Seirsha was moving. Most likely she was getting dressed, though it seemed as if she’d just lain down to sleep. He wondered if she’d had nightmares. His had driven him from sleep in pure terror, though he hadn’t been able to discern the source of his fear. Even now, if he let himself think of them, his palms started to sweat. It was equally baffling and exasperating.
He timed his exit with Seirsha’s. When he stepped out of his room, she was standing in front of her doorway. Her hair, normally pulled into a tight knot at the nape of her neck, hung in long, damp waves to her waist. Its texture had changed over the last few weeks, softening and smoothing as her health improved. Even its color had lightened, though it was dark with wet now. Her skin had changed too. The clouding was all but gone. Though she hadn’t yet gained the healthy glow that so many Nhélanei claimed, her skin now gleamed a delicate golden brown in the lights of the hall. Her uniform was smooth over supple muscles, and though she still didn’t have much body fat, her once gaunt frame had become slender and graceful. She met his gaze without flinching, and he wondered how many other Nhélanei would do the same.
Of course, she didn’t know what they knew.
“Come,” he said.
Jane bit back a groan as he walked away. She wanted to be alone. The isolation that had once plagued her had become but a fantasy here, a tantalizing memory that, with its distance, forgot all the hardship and spoke only of the need to please no one but herself. She’d gone from unending solitude to unending training, and now she was never alone.
But what she wanted most was to forget the nightmare, and she suspected an hour alone with Mikhél would be more distracting than anything else the ship had to offer.
Her face warmed when he slipped into the elevator close enough for her to catch his scent. The heat of his body drifted through her uniform, and she fought the urge to move closer.
When he spoke, she jumped as though he might know her thoughts. But he said only, “You didn’t sleep long.”
He spoke in Inakhí. She’d learned enough of the language to answer in kind, though she sometimes had to pepper her overly formal words with English.
“I did not sleep well.”
“Then you will train.”
The lift doors opened to a room that seemed to span the entire width of the ship. Wide metal cylinders rose more than a hundred feet toward the ceiling, awash with a greenish glow that projected from the floor at their base. Loud, rhythmic humming filled the air, sending the floor into constant shimmering movement.
Voices murmuring in the distance fell silent, and a man emerged from beyond the cylinders. Nearly as tall as Mikhél, he had dark skin and golden eyes. The glow from the cylinders bounced along the mottled ridges of a scar that ran down the left side of his face and across his bare scalp. What was left of his ear seemed to have melted into his skull. It was the result of what must have been a horrific injury, but it wasn’t the worst she’d seen on the ship.
He stopped a few feet away and lowered his head.
Mikhél said, “Who is with you?”
The man’s pause was so brief that Jane assumed she’d imagined it. “Endíett Bavoel was reviewing the weekly logs. He has departed, but I can signal him if you wish.”
“No. We require privacy. See to it that no one disturbs us.”
“Yes, Endeté.”
The man glanced at Jane as he backed away. Sweat beaded along the smooth skin of his forehead. He lifted a cloth and blotted at the moisture, and the large muscles in his arms and chest grew taut. His eyes gleamed with something she couldn’t name, and she shuddered as warnings of Watchers flew through her mind.
No stranger was to be trusted. She repeated the mantra to herself, holding paranoia close as a shield, as Mikhél led her deeper into the sector.
When Mikhél stopped, they were surrounded by generators on all sides. “Close your eyes,” he said. “What do you hear?”
“The machines.”
“What else?”
“Nothing.”
“There’s more to hear than the whine of the generators, Seirsha. Try again.”
She tried, but there was nothing else. Her breath huffed out as she opened her eyes. “I hear only the generators.”
He frowned. “Your sedfai is completely closed off?”
At a loss, she shrugged. “I guess.”
The furrow deepening between his brows, he set his fingertips against her temples. Her breath caught and shuddered at the contact. He hadn’t touched her since her first day of training, when she’d grabbed his hand for balance on the lift and been singed by the spark that had shot between…and then when he’d helped her up after she’d fallen, and his skin had seemed the only source of warmth on this miserable ship.
As it had before, her skin warmed beneath his. His thumbs stroked her brows, and the sensation ran through her body on a shimmer of light. She fought to keep her eyes open.
“What—” She had to stop and clear the sudden hoarseness from her throat. “What are you doing?”
“The sedfai can be hampered by tension. Close your eyes. Try to relax.”
His voice was like velvet, his touch hypnotic. His face looked as hard and unyielding as always, but she wanted to see him as much as she wanted to close her eyes. Then his fingers began to massage the spot where her jaw met her neck, and her lids drifted closed.
“Quiet your mind,” he said. “Concentrate on the present. Sound occurs in the now. It’s here, and then it’s gone. Let it go, and a new sound will take its place.”
As if he had willed it, the surge of the machinery rose to replace his voice. She let go of the effort, let go of her thoughts. And the sound of the machines became a physical thing. Waves brushed against her skin and over. A faster, quieter thump-thump-thump throbbed under the drone of the machines. The gentle vibrations in the floor shimmied through her boots. The subtle ping of a spring that was broken in a machine several feet behind Mikhél sent a puff of air bouncing against her face.
And his heartbeat. She gasped when she realized she could hear his heart, could feel it as if it pulsed inside her own chest. Her lids shot up, and her eyes locked onto his as his heart beat within her: deep, steady, exhilarating.
Mikhél couldn’t look away. Something thrummed within him, a quick, insistent buzz that grew until it consumed all other sound, and he felt on the verge of the most vital revelation.
And then his heart stopped.
It was her eyes. He hadn’t seen it before, because they hadn’t fully changed. Even now the hue was mostly obscured by clouding, but deep shocks of color were starting to pulse through.
Amethyst and lavender.
Hair like silver smoke.
She was the woman from his dreams.
He yanked his hands away and stepped back, and the thrall she’d somehow cast upon him shattered. She gasped, and the color in her irises faded until they were once more a dull, muddy mess.
“That’s enough for now.” His voice was rough. It didn’t sound like him at all, but he couldn’t help it. “We’ll use the fitness sector for your training today. It’s time you learn to fight.”
Because if Seirsha was the woman with the amethyst eyes, then she would need every skill he could teach her.
By the time Mikhél reached his quarters, logic had prevailed. Yes, he’d dreamed of Seirsha, but the dreams weren’t real. It wasn’t possible. He had no sight gift, and beyond that the dreams showed him returning to Lhókesh.
And that would never happen.
His worries for the Baanrí had simply manifested in his subconscious. Because he hadn’t known her looks, he’d given her her mother’s coloring. The fact that she was beginning to share that coloring in reality was a coincidence.
He thought of the way he always woke from the dreams, body hard, heart pounding, arms outstretched as if this time he might somehow catch her. And he thought of the way she’d looked on the generator level. The depth of the color in
her eyes, the feel of her heart beating as if within his own chest. The way her lips had parted on her gasp, and his not quite fleeting curiosity about how they might feel beneath his own.
But he didn’t want her. A fantasy about a dream was not the same as true passion. Seirsha was a mission. The mission. She was their chance to end the war. Nothing more.
He took out his mother’s amulet and ran his fingers over the metal. It gleamed with his touch, as if it craved contact as much as he did. He remembered the promise he’d made, and he swore he would not fail.
But icy sweat filmed his back as he recalled the worst of his dreams. Logic told him they couldn’t be true, but logic was cold comfort in the face of such chilling possibilities.
The fitness sector was empty, its halls lined with rooms stripped bare of their equipment. A deep thud reverberated through the air, its source far enough away that Jane couldn’t see the floor vibrate. Still, she felt the shimmer within the liquid metal, a microscopic ripple that would have been hidden from her just that morning.
She paused and concentrated, her head cocked. The thud occurred again and then three more times in quick succession. And then a grunt in a voice she recognized.
She found him training in a large, bright room, stripped but for loose pants that flowed like liquid with his movements. He thrust a long, wickedly pointed rod through the air in a series of rapid and vicious attacks, muscles rippling under skin slicked with sweat. There were dozens of scars on his back, a mesh of wounds long healed. He moved so fluidly, she thought he should be weightless, but each step thundered through the room. She remembered he could move silently when he wanted to, and then he turned.
She felt a wave of heat as they locked eyes, and, embarrassingly, her knees weakened.
He frowned, and a vague and mystifying wave of irritation washed over her. Then his brow smoothed, and he motioned her forward.
Spyridon (The Spyridon Trilogy Book 1) Page 13