by Vi Voxley
Twelve
Jackie
The Black Hall certainly lived up to its name.
Jackie stared at the massive fortress, craning her neck to see half of it. The gigantic construct reminded her of a black stone dragon who had lain down, fallen asleep and slowly turned into pure rock. The other image that popped into her mind was red-hot lava flowing out of the planet's hot core and forming the curious fortress, turning obsidian in time.
Kol-Eresh watched her with a grin on his lips.
"Do you like it?" he asked her. "If you prefer this one, I should challenge Zar Kohora for it. I have been thinking Garolian Pass is too small for my domain."
"Gods, no," Jackie said hurriedly, glancing at the harbinger to see if he was joking. "I don't want you to spill blood for me. I don't think I'd like to live here either. It's way too big. I'd get agoraphobic indoors, which I thought was impossible."
She paused for a second.
"You weren't joking, were you?"
"No," Kol-Eresh admitted. "The Black Hall is the oldest of the fortresses. The biggest, the best fortified. Now that I have a fated, this would be a better home for you."
"As long as I'm alive, I don't really care where I live," Jackie said, smiling.
The hope that Kol-Eresh and Forack had given her – one vigorously and the other hesitantly – had somehow made her feel better, physically that was. The tremors seemed to subside, her mood improved. It was as if her body had gathered up some reserves of strength and was giving her a new boost.
The monster of despair was still there, though. Waiting, always waiting.
"You say that because you haven't seen a long night yet," Kol-Eresh said, nodding toward a woman with long chestnut brown hair walking toward them. "You can ask her. It seems Zar Kohora is so afraid of me that he sends his fated to meet us."
The woman approaching them apparently heard that last comment because she laughed, the sound clear and crystalline. Her sharp blue-gray eyes turned to the harbinger first.
"I'll tell him that," the woman said. "He'll be delighted to know he can cut someone to pieces before dinner. It always makes him cranky when someone doesn't provoke him, but most of the warriors here in the Black Hall know better, Kol-Eresh."
The harbinger groaned, a feral grin on his lips.
"You do that," he said. "Tell him I'll face him any day."
"I'll let him know you said "Hi", yes," the woman said, extending her hand to Jackie. "Welcome to Black Hall. You must be Jackie. I'm Ashley and apparently I'm the fated of Zar Kohora, the harbinger of this domain, although I still sometimes wake up in the morning and find that hard to believe. Luminos has a way of doing that."
Jackie took the hand and felt herself smiling, instantly put at ease by the woman. She didn't know what it was about Ashley that she immediately liked. She guessed it was the way she almost didn't seem to notice they were in the strangest situation imaginable. They were on a cruel and life-hating alien planet, there were warriors all around them – the same men who'd kidnapped them – and still Ashley smiled like nothing in the world was wrong.
The woman made her mind go down a path Jackie had sworn she wouldn't touch. Right there in front of her stood someone who had undoubtedly been just like her a while ago, but had managed to make a life for herself on Luminos with her new fated. It showed... Jackie wasn't entirely sure what it showed, but it was something.
It was a possibility, if nothing more.
"Jackie," she said, shaking Ashley's hand. "I guess you heard why we're here."
"Yes," Ashley admitted, a sad look in her eyes now. "You really drew the short stick here. Luminos and this entire culture is tough enough as it is without your own body trying to kill you. It's as if gods thought you didn't have enough suffering already so they sent Nayanors to get you."
Jackie looked at Kol-Eresh to see how he reacted to that, but the harbinger didn't blink an eye.
Seeing that, Ashley laughed.
"What?" she asked. "It's not a secret on Luminos. None of the women you see here wanted to be here. We were all kidnapped and no matter how lucky some of us get, it's still deeply fucked up. They know it, we know it. Any one of them will tell you it's no use trying to change the way they operate, so that's just how it is.
"I'm incredibly happy with my fated and I'm a mother of two now. It doesn't mean I don't spend my days looking after all the women here who aren't as lucky as me."
Ashley gave Kol-Eresh a hard look.
"Your fated is a decent man," she allowed, "but your trials are still ongoing. I hope we can help with that. The healers tell me that they are prepared to start the surgery. It'll take a few hours to prep you, but I really hope for the best. If there's anything I can do to help, let me know."
"Thank you," Jackie said. "One favor?"
"Of course," Ashley replied.
"I don't know how long I have left," Jackie said, ignoring a sharp look from Kol-Eresh, "but I don't want to spend it by being the sick girl. Please don't treat me any differently than you would the other women here."
Ashley's smile had faltered for a second, but it returned, kind and sweet like she'd appeared from the start.
"Sure thing," she said, motioning for them to follow her. "I didn't consider that."
When they got into the fortress and headed toward the hovercarrier waiting for them, Kol-Eresh caught Jackie before she could climb aboard and pulled her in for a kiss.
"I will leave you with Ashley and Forack for a short while," he said, a dark look flashing behind his eyes. "I planned on finding him later, but if there is prep time for your surgery, I should find him now and speak of this Eternal situation. I swear I will return before they begin."
His eyes found Forack somewhere behind them.
"They wouldn't dare start without me present," the harbinger growled.
Jackie nodded, feeling a little tinge of regret despite herself. No matter what, Kol-Eresh was the person closest to her on Luminos and every time he left her, Jackie felt a bit more in danger. Not wanting to show any of it, she let the harbinger go and climbed into the carrier.
Ashley hadn't said a word and Forack seemed intent on ignoring them both. Jackie resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Other than being the man responsible for keeping her alive, the healer didn't seem to consider females worthy of his attention. It was also possible he feared Kol-Eresh's wrath if he should somehow cross a line with her.
The drive through the Black Hall was much more interesting than Jackie had expected. Everything was doubled and tripled there when compared to Kol-Eresh's fortress. The walls seemed to reach the skies above, the darkness under the roof as black as night.
The endless walkways disappeared into the distance and distorted voices carried to them from somewhere she couldn't even see.
The vastness of it took her breath away.
Ashley chuckled when she saw her staring.
"It's gorgeous, I know," she said.
"I don't know if that's the word I would use," Jackie admitted. "It's gigantic. All these pillars and empty hallways. Like this place was designed for giants. The word that pops to my mind is "monumental". I mean, you're right. It does have its charm. I'm just not sure I would call it homey."
Ashley had a strange look on her face as if she wasn't quite seeing the same things Jackie was. The reason why was obvious when the woman spoke again.
"I know," Ashley said, unable to keep the smile off her face. "It's... not the place itself. The massive scale of it is more like living in a cathedral or an abandoned doom for people, like you said, much taller than we are. But I do call this place home and it has nothing to do with metal and stone of the Black Hall. Not even with the people, although I've found more friends than I thought possible on this accursed world."
"You mean your fated," Jackie said, thinking of the other harbinger. "Zar Kohora?"
"Yeah," Ashley sighed.
The look on her face was almost transcendent. Jackie had never seen anything like that. Sh
e thought of all the movies she'd ever seen. Romantic comedies where the two leads had to work hard on their facial expressions to make the audience believe they truly loved each other. All the tricks they used like thinking of something else instead, someone they actually loved.
Some of those works had really moved Jackie. Like all women, she'd shed her fair share of tears for a romantic comedy or two, found comfort in them when she'd been younger.
She had never seen anyone even close to as deeply in love as Ashley clearly was.
The emotion that overwhelmed her, that took her by force so unexpected and so powerful it honestly scared her, was jealousy. Not the mean, envious kind where she wished that all the good things that had befallen Ashley would belong to her.
The kind where she couldn't stop thinking about Kol-Eresh and the elusive future that still hid somewhere behind the dark horizon of uncertainty.
Ashley came out of her daze-like musing, shaking her head, the jewels she wore in her brown hair glittering as she did that. She truly did look like the wife of a warlord.
"Sorry," Ashley said with an apologetic smile. "I didn't mean to make that come off as flaunting."
"It didn't," Jackie said at once, smiling. "I'm glad you have found happiness on this planet. It's nice to know it's possible. I guess it makes me feel like there is something worth looking forward to for me. Kol-Eresh told me on his ship that there is no vessel that could take me back to Terra and I guess that's true. After that I couldn't exactly picture my life here on Luminos. Simply existing was what I was fighting for, because I didn't think there could be anything else.
"So seeing you so happy makes me feel better about that. I don't know what will happen with my bond, but at least I can tell that not all of this is as hopeless as it sounds."
Ashley nodded as they pulled up in front of the healer quarters. Jackie got lost for a moment in the midst of all the equipment and machinery and people bustling around her. Forack herded her like a sheep from one console to the other. Bright lights washed over her, some scanners running diagnostics she didn't understand. She ended up sitting on a table in nothing but a t-shirt.
It would have been a lot scarier if Jackie hadn't started to rely on the presumption that everyone was scared to death of her fated.
Ashley followed her dutifully, smiling encouragingly any time something sharper approached her. Jackie appreciated that, although she tried to laugh it all off.
"I don't think I've ever been in the center of this much attention," she told Ashley.
The woman laughed, looking around at the mayhem going on in the bay. Forack appeared seemingly out of the blue to inject Jackie with something.
"Ow!" she yelped, clutching her left shoulder. "You could have warned me!"
"It would have hurt more," Forack said, moving away before Jackie could say a few more words that popped into her head about the healer's bedside manner.
Ashley was there, instead.
"Don't pay them any attention," she said. "They try to help but the Nayanor way of doing that is more messed up than I could possibly tell you in five minutes. Let's just say all notions of social interactions we would associate with healthcare are completely lost on them."
Jackie looked around in the room. All the healers messing around with tools that looked more terrifying than they had any business to look like were in the same room as they were, no more than ten feet away.
She looked at Ashley, who raised a quizzical eyebrow.
"Don't they mind when you talk like that?" Jackie asked, smiling warily. "I mean, they're right here. They have ears."
Ashley chuckled.
"I don't know," she admitted. "I never asked. The thing is this. The one thing I like about Nayanors – and let me just tell you now I haven't warmed up to the species in all of my eight years on this planet – is that they know who they are. They know they stole us. It's not a secret. The raid ships come and go and every month I meet another group of women scared out of their wits."
She suddenly had a very dark look in her eyes.
"I was lucky, you know," Ashley went on. "I didn't have any family crying for me back on Terra. For most of the women that isn’t true. There are no goodbyes, no chances to see their loved ones ever again. I've seen a fair share of women who simply lose their minds. It's not all of them, but some just never cope with the shock."
Jackie didn't interrupt as she spoke more passionately with every second. None of the healers in the room even turned their heads.
"So if there is even one aspect of this messed-up society we can turn to our advantage, I'll use it to its full extent," Ashley finished, the smile back on her face. "Look around you. Other than the healer your fated brought, they all live in the Black Hall. Can you guess exactly how many of them want to go and complain to Zar Kohora about me?"
"I can guess," Jackie said.
"At first I was reluctant to go around using his name like an invisible cloak, but then I discovered it's there one way or another," Ashley explained. "You'll see soon enough. Kol-Eresh may not be as powerful as Zar is, but he's feared."
Jackie laughed. It was just such a relief to hear someone joking with her instead of counting down the seconds that ticked in her brain all the time anyway.
"Is that the message you want me to take to my fated?" she asked with a grin.
"Sure," Ashley said, hovering over her like a protective mother. "Nayanors love being taunted. It's their favorite thing. All these macho, over-the-top egos. It's amazing. Like a circus. A very dangerous circus with ridiculously oversized blades and tempers so short they're explosive, but still."
Jackie gave that a thought.
"I really want to get to know all that," she said, forcing herself to put all her fears into words. "It's just hard. It's so much harder to lose something you never really believed in than something you don't know."
"Naturally," Ashley admitted with a soft smile. "Trust me, I know. When the raid ships came for my station back on Terra, you can bet I didn't want to come here. I actually shot Zar with a plasma gun. Now I can't even imagine what my life would be like if I somehow managed to escape that night."
"I thought something similar," Jackie said. "When Kol-Eresh first told me that the diadon might cure something even the Palians haven't figured out, I thought he was joking. But if it can, if Luminos of all places is the one that can save me... I nearly died on Terra trying to outrun him."
Ashley smiled, nodding.
"Exactly," she agreed. "I've learned my fair share of things on Luminos, but the most important one is that here, fate seems to be intertwined with our lives more closely, somehow. You never know what kind of a turn it takes, but the consequences are not always what they seem at first."
She looked at something behind Jackie and gripped her hand tightly for a moment.
"I'll see you when you come back to us," Ashley said. "For now, I'll leave you two be."
"Bye," Jackie called, turning to see Kol-Eresh leaning on the doorframe, watching the healers leave hurriedly along with Ashley.
"She was nice," Jackie told the harbinger as the warlord approached her. "I think I made a friend."
"That's good to hear," Kol-Eresh said. "How are you feeling?"
"I don't even want to think about that," Jackie answered quietly, the joy she'd felt washing out of her like someone had pricked a balloon in her stomach. "I don't think I should. I just want to do it. I don't want to know any odds or anything like that."
The harbinger nodded.
"Very well," he said, his deep voice firm but more quiet than usual.
The room fell silent as Kol-Eresh took her hands and held them in his big palms. Jackie focused on him, focused all of her hope and faith on him. She hadn't expected to be faced with the battle for her life so soon.
"Do you want to do it?" the harbinger asked.
"Yes," Jackie said at once, her voice starting to shake.
Kol-Eresh called for the healers who returned as silently as they'd le
ft before.
"Do you trust me?" her fated asked, looking her with his impossibly dark, burning eyes.
"Yes," Jackie said.
The harbinger didn't let go of her hand for a second as she was laid on the table. Out of the corner of her eye, Jackie saw the sapphire mineral in the diadon glow.
The feel of Kol-Eresh's hand in hers was the last thing she felt.
Thirteen
Kol-Eresh
The harbinger couldn't believe the healers had somehow kicked him out of the surgery room.
Waiting to hear whether Jackie was still with him took up all of his mind, leaving little for anything else. Like where he was, who was talking to him and so on. Kol-Eresh had growled at Forack for having the nerve to shuffle him through the door when Jackie was out of his hands.
The lead healer had growled back, saying he wasn't prepared to die in the middle of a complicated medical procedure. Forack had made several remarks about his sword and his overall character.
At any other time, Kol-Eresh would have skinned him alive for that insult, but with Jackie's life on the line, he let it stand.
The next time he saw his fated was a few hours later, after what seemed like an eternity.
Forack motioned him to follow through a set of rooms. The harbinger frowned when they passed by the surgery room, seeing the blood still matting the table Jackie had lain on. Some of it was on the floor. It seemed to be too much for someone so small and frail.
"Before you start cutting heads, she lives," Forack said grimly, seeing where his gaze went. "Trust me, Harbinger, if I had killed her, neither me nor my staff would still be on this planet."
Kol-Eresh humphed approvingly. Common sense was one of the many things he appreciated about his healer.
They stopped behind a door and the healer dared to lay a hand on his breastplate, stopping him from going in.
"A few things," he said. "Warnings, if I may."