Trade (Deridia Book 2)

by Catherine Miller

  He stared at the blade for a moment, and with a pang she realised he meant to refuse to answer. But much to her surprise, with a deep breath and a brief close of his eyes, he spoke. “It was my father’s. My siblings allowed me to keep it.”

  Renna paused. She had to be careful. She did not want to push, did not want to pry, but it was important he realise it was safe to speak to her of such things. His voice was free of emotion—he could have been describing the weather from his straightforward delivery. She did not know their ways. Sladec was the sanmir, but perhaps the title was not a lifetime appointment. She did not know how to ask him outright if his parents were still alive, nor did she want to assume that they lived and prove herself foolish when he curtly informed her of their deaths. She bit her lip, briefly considering, before deciding that self-disclosure was equally important.

  “Both of my parents died,” she told him quietly, picking at her sleeve, rubbing at the cord hidden beneath. He probably knew that, she remembered how Sladec had wanted her family to attend their wedding ceremony, yet she had none to produce. “Someone... someone thought they had discovered something. In the Wastes, that is. They investigated. Neither of them came back.” The attack had been sudden. The cave had not been a cave at all, but instead were excavated burrows. Their occupants had not been pleased by the intrusion.

  Machrus glanced at her. “Were you young?”

  She released a shaky breath. “Not very.” Nor was she very old, either. “But I’m not sure that you’re ready for that, no matter your age.” It was probably ridiculous not to be. Parents were meant to pass before their children. But knowing that, believing it to be true, made it no easier. And her heart ached.

  Machrus hummed a little, a grumble of sound that was apparently agreement.

  She swallowed, gathering her small bit of courage. “Your father, did he...”

  Machrus thankfully finished for her. “He died, yes. A sickness took him.” He looked out toward the river, to his grenpeets, his frown deep. “None thought he would succumb as he did. But...” he did not quite give a shrug, more a slump of shoulder that on another would be a hunch. “He did die, and my mother chose to return to her own people.”

  Renna blinked. “She... she left?”

  His eyes narrowed, and she knew to be careful. It seemed impossible to her, that a mother should leave all of her children, her children’s children, when faced with the loss of her spouse.

  “It was painful to remain,” he defended. “Everything had been shared with him, and suddenly he was gone.” His jaw tightened. “We understood.”

  She personally thought it cruel, to force one’s children to suffer the loss of both father and mother at once, but she remained silent. There was no point in arguing. This family was not her own, and it was not her place to give judgement.

  “You must still miss her,” she said instead, still taken aback that he was speaking to her of this at all.

  “We understood,” he repeated, though his voice wavered the slightest bit, and before she could think better of it, her hand came to his shoulder, rubbing lightly in sympathy. She froze when she realised she was touching him, when he tensed, and reluctantly she pulled her hand away.

  “I’m sorry all the same,” she soothed, clasping her hands before her lest they try to act inappropriately again.

  Machrus was silent for a time, staring out toward the river with a frown upon his face, before he took a deep breath and turned to her. “I am... equally grieved to hear of your loss.”

  She almost believed him, his tone shifting from the emotionless one he favoured to something that resembled compassion. She gave him a small smile in return. They were a sorry pair, the two of them.

  “Did Sladec ever mind becoming leader?” She thought of Calgrus, directing the younger of his kin in their ways. He would have to take a wife one day, worry about producing sons while also managing the needs of a woman he barely knew. It seemed too great a burden for one so young, but she supposed there would be years yet before he would have to enter into such an arrangement.

  Although she hardly felt prepared for it now and children were not even a requirement.

  Machrus scoffed. “Sladec has always been all too happy to be sanmir, even when Faerst was still alive to hold the title.”

  Renna smiled then, a bit more genuinely. “I have seen older brothers with their youngers before. Bossiness seems to be a common trait.”

  Machrus sighed, a longsuffering thing that spoke of years of enduring such treatment. Her smile widened. “But the rest of it didn’t either? Marrying a stranger, worrying about sons?”

  Machrus grew thoughtful before slowly he shook his head. “He never spoke as such. And... traditions are well ingrained in him. He knows their purpose, their usefulness, and respects that. It would not occur to him to make a different choice.”

  Renna glanced at him. “He let you do that. You chose to live away from them.”

  Machrus’s expression hardened. “Not without great disapproval. I am not certain any of them have forgiven me for it.”

  She opened her mouth to offer encouragement—that surely the love of a brother would outweigh custom—but she closed it again just as quickly. Sladec seemed a good man, kindly in his way, but she knew too little of him to make such assertions of his thoughts and feelings. “I for one am glad you live where you do,” she said in lieu of platitudes.

  Machrus shook his head again. “You would have grown used to living above. In time.”

  Her pulse quickened just to think of it. “Perhaps,” she conceded, knowing that if her people could adapt to the Wastes, she would have survived such harrowing heights. Maybe. Unless she fell and died and none of this mattered any longer. “But that doesn’t make me less glad for where you do live.”

  Machrus nodded, somewhat distractedly. He looked at her, just briefly, his brow furrowed and obviously considering something, before he returned his attention to the grenpeets. Two were having a scuffle at the shore, a little green head bumping determinedly into a smaller one. He gave a sharp whistle and the misbehaviour ceased.

  “You’re allowed to ask me questions too, you know,” she prompted gently. She wasn’t sure if that’s what he had actually been thinking about, if he ever wondered things about her as she did about him, but she wouldn’t have him afraid of asking things. Not that she could imagine him afraid of much of anything. “I don’t mind.”

  Machrus glanced upward. “Did your people... did they truly come from beyond the sky?”

  She had not expected that. To ask about life in the Wastes, perhaps, about people she had known or foods they had eaten, but not that.

  “Yes,” she confirmed, watching his reaction carefully. “We were a settlement sent to Deridia IV to establish a colony. Something... happened, I’m not really sure what, and the ship didn’t make it.” She gestured to their surroundings. “Desmond says this must be the third planet in the system, not the fourth.” She shook her head. “We never would have come here otherwise. Not to a planet that already had inhabitants.”

  “But... how?” he insisted, shaking his head in obvious frustration. “There is nothing that tells of how such a thing is possible.”

  Renna flushed. An engineer had survived—he had been the one that assembled their makeshift craft that had released them from the Wastes to begin with—and he had tried to apprentice a few of the younger ones. They all had some broad knowledge of the concept, but she had never shown any aptitude for technologies. And apparently that meant that the knowledge she passed to the Marzon was equally stunted.

  Suddenly, she felt less embarrassed.

  “I don’t know the particulars,” she confessed, but he already knew that. “Remnants of our ship were used to make the craft that brought us here. Perhaps if you asked one of the older people of our group, they’d have more answers for you.”

  Machrus huffed out a disgruntled breath. “It is most inconvenient for your knowledge not to be shared. To have to ask.”
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  Renna smirked. “Makes conversations a little bit more important though, doesn’t it?” He glared at her, though compared to some of his more heated offerings, this one was relatively mild. She sat a little straighter. “Besides, I thought you were a bit suspicious of the whole bonding thing. Shouldn’t you appreciate that my people are singular?”

  Machrus grunted. “I am leery of particular aspects related to the bonds between wedded pairs. Not our connectedness as a people.”

  “Really? You’ve never thought it... strange?”

  To her surprise, he reached over and took hold of her arm, keeping it outstretched. “Do you find it strange that you possess two arms instead of one? That they end with five digits?” He released her. “One does not find strangeness in what has always been.”

  She did not know how to respond to that, not when he was right, so she sat quietly and waited to see if he would ask her anything else.

  “What’s it like?” he pressed, looking back toward the sky. The first of the suns was reaching its peak, their rock beginning to warm from its rays. “To view the world from beyond its borders?”

  Renna struggled to find an adequate answer. “I never knew myself,” she reminded him. “I was born on this world and never travelled that way. But my parents...” she had asked them many times to describe the voyage, to tell her of what they had seen, of where they had come from before.

  She would ask why help never came, too young to see the pain and sorrow in her parents’ eyes when they had no hope to offer.

  Until she stopped asking, stopped having them tell her of the days and nights spent gazing into utter blackness, of times spent in the stasis chambers. Of a space station abandoned in hopes of finding a new world to call home.

  She grimaced. “I bet you wished you married someone else now. Someone with firsthand knowledge that you could...” she waved a hand toward his head, “absorb.” It had been something she’d feared—that the longer she stayed here, the more risk that they would realise she had nothing truly to offer them, and neither did her people.

  A trade only seemed beneficial when both parties were satisfied with the terms, and how long would it be before the Marzon realised they had parted with a portion of their lands for virtually nothing in return?

  Her stomach clenched, hard and nauseating.

  “They’re older, though,” she quickly clarified, hoping that would matter. “The ones that are left.” She would have mentioned that those women had passed childbearing age, but that would suggest that somehow she was more valuable for her own ability, and that was a subject she was not willing to broach. “I don’t know if that matters.”

  Machrus hummed a little. “Would you have preferred that? For an older woman to take your place?” He glanced at her. “I am far older than you.”

  Renna sat a little straighter. “You don’t know that. I certainly don’t know how your people age, so how could you...” she halted, remembering that he would indeed know perfectly well how they grew old. “You... you said you were shielding the bond.”

  Machrus looked away. “And I am. But there is intimate knowledge, and there is that which comes unbidden. I can attempt to ignore it, if you wish, to pretend I know less than I now do.”

  Renna shook her head, feeling at a distinct disadvantage. “No. I just... when will you...” She stopped. If he answered her truthfully, she did not think she wished to know his response. But he was looking at her expectantly, and she had been the one to ask them to talk. Apparently he meant to hold her to that.

  “When will I what?” he prompted, and she could not tell if his voice spoke of concern or offence.

  She slumped miserably. “When will you see that I was a terrible choice? Every day I see more and more how... little I can offer you, or your people in general. When do you tell that to Sladec and he goes back to Desmond and tells him that the arrangement is off?”

  She waited for his outburst, to learn that she had offered a grave insult that would send him into a rage, that would set his jaw and make him glare at her, and she waited to bear the brunt of his ire.

  But when she dared peer at him, still braced and waiting for his reaction, she found him staring at her. He was frowning, to be sure, but the anger she expected of him was lacking.

  He turned away. “I do not,” he replied calmly. “That is not how this arrangement will ever conclude.”

  She wished that she could feel relief at his words, but she was still wary of some trick, some misunderstanding on her part that would allow things to end just as she feared. “You sound very certain.”

  Machrus leaned back, seemingly unconcerned about the topic. “That is because I am. If your people were to come, if there were signs of mistreatment or you gave open voice to your unhappiness here, you could leave and our union would dissolve. We do not keep prisoners here.” She wanted to believe him. “But there is no such recourse for me. I will never go to my brother and tell him that your contributions are unsatisfactory. I will not ask him to intervene and dissolve the treaty.” He looked at her steadily, no hint of hesitation in him. “I will not ask for another, older or otherwise.”

  She felt ridiculous for the lump that settled in her throat, for the stinging in her eyes as some of her worry began to fade, if only a little. It was strange to her that she was the one permitted to leave and he was not—though she was all too aware that she took away any possibility of trade if she asked to do so. Her people still held somewhat to the prospect of marriage, though some simply fell into the practice rather than solemnized it through any ceremony.

  But that was evidently not the Marzon way. They believed in at least a modicum of show, of promise and vow, yet still allowing a girl from a strange people to have an escape if ever she desired one.

  “Is that duty again?” she asked quietly, not really meaning to. “Not because you’re actually happy that I’m... me.” Machrus heard her all the same, a flicker of resignation giving answer enough.

  It was stupid to have said. A remnant of her younger days, wishing and hoping that a man would want her, would offer assurances that she was all he desired. She thought that those foolish parts of her had long been silenced, but Machrus seemed to bring out memories of those silly, romantic longings.

  And that was dangerous.

  She tucked her arms about her legs, resting her chin against her knees. She always wished for too much. She knew that. Better to hope for nothing, better to keep to herself and tend to her work. Except she had no work, and she had a man who she wanted for a friend, and it apparently dredged up all sorts of things she wished would simply remain forgotten.

  “You appear troubled,” Machrus observed, still looking at her. She choked out a laugh, shaking her head, trying to hold down her bitterness. It wasn’t from him, not really, but at herself for being so easy. “You appear even more so,” he pressed, his eyes narrowing as he continued to watch her steadily. “Have I offered insult?”

  “No,” she managed at last, wiping at her eyes and gratefully noticing that had not in fact leaked. “I’m just... frustrated with myself, that’s all.”

  His look turned suspicious. “With... yourself. For what?”

  She huffed out a perturbed breath, knowing she should walk home, should embrace solitude for a while until she calmed, until she could be surer that she had a good handle on her tongue and feelings.

  But her legs wouldn’t move, and he was there and asking, and her thoughts came tumbling freely. “Because I want things that I shouldn’t. It’s gotten me into trouble before and... I thought I’d grown out of that, but apparently I’m as stupid as I ever was.” This time she did feel a few tears escape and she wiped them away angrily. “Don’t mind me,” she told him, pleaded with him. “Obviously I say things I shouldn’t too.” She tucked her chin under her arm in hopes of stemming some of that problem.

  Machrus stared at her, she could feel it, the weight of him nearly a tangible thing. The bond, the piece of him within her, hummed, a glowin
g warmth that only made her want to cry harder. Was he using it? The comfort could be a lure to make it less disturbing, to lull away her outrage at the intrusion with the promise of consolation. Or perhaps it was nothing at all, and she was going mad. She huddled further.

  “I do not think you are stupid,” he said at last. “Not in relation to your intelligence, or in your possession of good sense.”

  Renna snorted. He sounded so sure, when in truth he should be anything but. “That’s because you don’t know me very well.” Her voice was muffled by her arms, but he seemed to understand her well enough for his eyes narrowed in challenge, his frown deepening. She raised her head. “You think I’m wrong?”

  Machrus gave a nod, though his expression had grown wary. “I will... affirm that there is much of you that I do not know. But from what I have seen during our... association, nothing would suggest that you are dim-witted.”

  “And I’m glad of that!” she acknowledged, little green heads popping up to stare at her change of tone. “But you don’t know everything. So that makes it all the more important that I watch what I say, watch what I do, watch what I think or else I’ll... I’ll ruin everything!”

  He sat there, so calm, as stoic as he ever was, and it made her feel all the more unruly. She forced herself to breathe, to still, to somehow mimic at least a little of his nature. Her outburst was an embarrassment, and the more she revealed of this, the more he would grow convinced that she needed to confide in someone. And soon the asking would change to insisting.

  She needed to compose herself and quickly, otherwise she would be the one responsible for making her fears become reality.

  “What do you think shall be ruined?” Machrus asked softly. He was still watching her. “I have explained that your place here is secure, regardless of anything you reveal—or fail to reveal. So it cannot be that.” He eyed her intently. “Unless you think I speak falsely?”

  Renna slumped, shaking her head. “No, I believe you,” she confirmed, hating that she’d spoken at all, hating that she had ruined such a lovely afternoon.