by Anna Carven
Their bleak thoughts rolled off them in waves. They thought in Kordolian, but meaning somehow transcended language, and Noa got the message loud and clear. Her conviction threatened to desert her. Doubt entered her mind. Perhaps trying to save Ashrael was a big mistake. Perhaps he was beyond saving.
Noa dropped to her knees beside him, and nobody stopped to intervene. Despite the people surrounding them, Ashrael seemed so distant and alone. A sliver of sadness worked its way into Noa’s heart at his predicament. This deadly creature was little more than a slave to his masters, and he was destined to die alone, surrounded by enemies.
For a brief, surreal moment, they’d shared mindspeech, and Noa had caught a glimpse of what lay beneath his cold, hard exterior.
“Ashrael,” she said loudly, drawing glimmers of surprise from the warriors, “snap out of it.”
“That’s enough,” one of them said, his voice a low growl. “He’s in the hands of the Goddess now. Why do you care, anyway? Can’t believe we agreed to let you in here. Let’s go.” Noa flinched as he moved forward. Her hand instinctively went to Ashrael’s cheek, grazing his smooth, flawless skin. It was cool under her fingers, making her wonder if any life remained in him.
“Are you nuts, Human? Get back.” An armored hand dropped onto her shoulder, applying slight pressure as the warrior tried to guide her away.
That’s when Noa’s existence changed.
Her world went gloriously silent. The barrage of invasive thoughts flooding her mind stopped.
The assassin sat up and gasped. His expression was terrifying. His black eyes glittered dangerously and his fangs were bared, giving him a savage appearance. His aura roared back to life, a vortex of dark energy swirling around him.
Faster than she could blink, his arm shot out, and he grabbed her by the neck. His grip was strong and unrelenting, and Noa choked in pain and shock. As he drew her towards him, the Kordolian warriors moved as one, swearing.
They snarled at Ashrael in guttural sounding Kordolian, but the assassin didn’t respond.
“Stop it.” Her voice came out as a choked whisper. “I’m not your enemy.”
He moved like lightning, pinning her to the floor. His hard body pressed into hers, all lean muscle and sinew and unrestrained power.
Jupiter, he’s fast.
Faster than anyone she’d known; faster than any Human.
Noa forced herself to go perfectly still. She was a rabbit in the jaws of a wolf, and she instinctively knew that fighting back meant instant death.
Stop. I’m not your enemy.
His obsidian eyes widened. His fierce expression turned into a look of surprise, his face transforming from night to day.
“You,” he said in stunned recognition as his eyes went even wider. His grip on her neck relaxed, and he traced his fingers down her face, tenderly feeling the contours of her brow, her nose, her cheeks, her lips. His touch sent a shiver through her. Pinned beneath him, all Noa could do was stare, entranced.
Then he coughed, and black liquid spilled forth from his lips. It was thick and lustrous and it had the same consistency as…
Blood.
Is this how Kordolians bleed? Noa wondered, struggling to comprehend what she was seeing. Numbness seeped through her as time slowed to a crawl and Ashrael slumped forward, his eyes going blank.
A strong hand yanked Ashrael’s limp form back at the last second, saving Noa from being crushed under his weight. She gasped in horror as a black dagger was pulled from his back.
One of the warriors, a hard, scary looking Kordolian with brilliant amethyst eyes, muttered something under his breath before calling for Zyara.
“He ain’t dead, Human,” he growled, turning to Noa, who was gaping. “Whatever you did to him just then must’ve pulled him out of the arms of the Goddess.” For some reason, he sounded almost conciliatory. He dropped Ashrael to his knees like a rag doll. The assassin’s eyes were closed, but they flickered and twitched as a thin stream of black blood trickled from his mouth. “Our orders were to kill him if this failed. I was aiming for his heart, but then he opened his mouth and spoke, so I angled it away at the very last moment. If he can talk, then maybe there’s hope for him yet. If the Goddess has mercy, he’ll survive.”
“For a Silent One to speak is unheard of,” Elgon said, a note of reverence in his voice. “It means his mindbond is no longer impenetrable. I don’t know what you did to him, Human, but perhaps this situation can be salvaged.”
“We need to get him into stasis,” Zyara snapped, rushing to Ashrael’s side with a medi-kit. She got to work, rolling him over and applying some mysterious substance to the bleeding wound in his back. “Coag-gel will only hold him together for so long.”
He’s alive. As she was helped up from the floor, mixed emotions swirled through Noa; relief, fear, confusion, helplessness. She realized she was shaking. Near-death experiences could do that to a soul, she supposed. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, searching for the familiar reassurance of the bond.
It seemed crazy, but unlike everything else in her world, the bond was constant. It was starting to feel like the only sure thing in her tortured, chaotic life. It silenced the voices in her head and made her feel normal. It made her feel sane.
A hover-stretcher appeared from nowhere, and Ashrael was unceremoniously bundled onto it, the warriors flanking him as they spirited him away to receive treatment.
“He’s a tough bastard.” Rykal glanced over his shoulder at her, a strange mixture of compassion and amusement in his sharp amber eyes. “I suspect this isn’t nearly enough to kill him. Besides, these touched ones have all kinds of self-preservation techniques up their sleeves when it comes to near-mortal wounds. See? His bleeding’s already stopped.”
Before Noa could form an answer, the warriors disappeared in a dark rush of armor and weapons, leaving her to cling tightly to the precious silence that remained.
Silence was golden, because it told her that Ashrael was still alive.
Chapter Thirteen
A strange scene greeted Noa when she returned to the homestead. Elgon led her into the main house, a ramshackle turn-of-the-millennium structure with a faded tin roof. They crossed the wide porch and entered an open living space decorated with odd bits of furniture. A faded floral-patterned sofa sat amongst worn leather armchairs and a magnificent but slightly threadbare Persian rug.
But what astonished Noa most was the motley gathering of Humans and Kordolians in the room. General Tarak was there, sitting in a winged armchair with all the gravitas of a king holding court. He looked up as Noa entered, his crimson gaze missing nothing as he scrutinized her. Beside him sat the one called Xal. He wore a relaxed smile, reclining in his chair with his booted feet crossed in front of him. He was the very picture of elegance, his long white hair, pointed ears, and curving dark horns giving him an exotic, refined appearance. He was dressed in a very fashionable Human-style outfit; a dark blue tailored coat, white shirt, and slim black trousers.
He was gazing fondly at Sera, who was sitting cross-legged on the floor opposite them, sipping from a steaming mug. She was laughing at something Abbey had just said as the two women watched over the star-kissed Human-Kordolian baby. The child was lying on her belly on a midnight blue mat that seemed woven from the stars itself; the fabric was intricate and sumptuous and definitely not something that had been made on Earth.
Abbey sat beside Sera, winking at her friend good-naturedly as she stroked her baby’s hair. The child clutched at some fantastical silver toy that occasionally emitted puffs of rainbow-colored holographic glitter. Each time it did so, the baby made soft little sounds of baby amusement.
Two black dogs lay on the floor behind Abbey, watching the Kordolian males with wary eyes.
The scene was a perfect juxtaposition of normality and absurdity, and it took Noa’s breath away.
“Zyara said you might want to rest here for a while,” Elgon said as they crossed the threshold. “You can’t be
alone all the time, Human. Sooner or later, you’ll have to learn to harness the benefits of interacting with people. Just remember your barriers. With practice, it’ll become easier.”
“Don’t I know it,” Noa said dryly. She didn’t mention that she’d been practicing her entire life. Hours upon hours of scales, arpeggios, exercises, and études had made her hands agile and powerful, but the days of hitting the keys until her hands and fingers ached seemed a distant memory now. These days, she couldn’t even hold a damn tune in her head.
All those concertos, memorized down to the last bar, note, accent, and crescendo until she could play them with her eyes closed; they were all gone.
The fucking SynCorp crazies had destroyed years of work with their insane surgery.
Noa fought the urge to turn on her heel and walk out the door as the thoughts and voices of the room’s occupants threatened to slide past her flimsy barriers. She closed her eyes, drawing upon the reassurance of her bond with Ashrael. Now that she knew what it felt like, it was easier to identify, and whatever had happened back there in the prison seemed to have strengthened it. Before, she hadn’t been able to feel him when she was all the way back at the homestead. Now, it was as if she’d never known anything else.
“Remember what I taught you,” Elgon reminded her as they crossed the floor, coming to a halt in the center of the room. He turned and bowed respectfully to the two Kordolian males before shuffling away, leaving Noa standing awkwardly on her own.
“Yeah.” She took a deep breath and focused on her own thoughts. Slowly, the mental interference began to dissipate. Maybe she wasn’t going insane after all.
“Noa, are you all right?” Abbey stood, carefully picking up her child from the dazzling star-mat. She bounced the little one on her hip as she approached, cradling her head with one hand. The child chortled in response, her eyes glittering in delight. Abbey smiled gently before shooting her husband a meaningful look. “I’m sorry. I should have suspected he was up to something. We were looking for you all over the place. I was worried, especially after I heard you’d gone in there. Believe me, I gave him an earful.” She glared at the General, her lips pressed together in a disapproving frown. “I hope they didn’t make you do anything silly, and I sure as hell hope they didn’t force you into anything against your will.”
Noa glanced at General Tarak in alarm, desperately hoping Abbey wasn’t about to attract his attention. The last thing she needed right now was to be the target of his ire. The Kordolian returned his wife’s stare, raising a silvery eyebrow. If he wasn’t so damn intimidating, Noa could have sworn he was trying to look innocent.
Abbey’s freckle-dusted nose twitched in irritation. “I swear, I’m going to-”
She didn’t get a chance to finish, because Tarak had risen from his seat and crossed the distance between them in a few fluid steps. He was all motion and no sound, appearing at his wife’s side like a dark guardian shadow. “You’re going to what, dear wife of mine?” His tone was low and deadly, but there was a subtle undercurrent of amusement in his voice. It was so improbable that if Noa wasn’t so hyper-sensitive to emotional nuances, she might have missed it.
The baby cooed happily, reaching for her father with one chubby hand. Abbey looked up, her eyes narrowing. “Don’t think you can get away with distractions this time, oh husband of mine. You leave my people alone. Noa’s had a rough enough time as it is.”
The General’s expression became a study in contradictions. His crimson eyes were scary and depthless, but his lips had curved into the beginnings of a smile. Without missing a beat, he reached out and allowed his daughter to grasp his thumb. “Good girl, Ami,” he murmured.
“It’s okay,” Noa said softly, interrupting their little domestic disagreement before this encounter could become any weirder. “I agreed to go. I wanted to go. It’s hard to explain, but I needed to see this person for myself.” She ran a hand over her scar, acutely conscious of General Tarak’s scrutiny. Something warned her to be cautious here. “I don’t know if there’s anyone else on the planet who has what I have. Nobody seems to know anything except for Elgon and the prisoner, so if I can help in some way and learn to better harness my abilities in return, then I think it’s a fair deal.”
“Prisoner?” Abbey growled, elbowing Tarak a little. He was as inscrutable as ever, and as she looked up at him with questioning eyes, he actually shrugged.
On cue, little Ami laughed.
“I deal with threats in the appropriate manner,” Tarak said curtly. “That is the way it has always been.” He pinned Noa with his deep red gaze. “Sometimes, a Human perspective is needed. If we are the driving force, then you Humans are the catalyst. That is what appears to have happened during your encounter with the Silent One.” As usual, he seemed to know everything in advance.
“Cryptic as ever, I see,” Abbey said wryly as Tarak stroked his daughter’s hair. His hand, so large and rough and callused, was gentle as he ran his fingers through her pale wispy locks. His fingers were tipped with sharply pointed obsidian fingernails, and yet his touch was remarkably tender as his nails were withdrawn into the tips of his fingers, rendering them temporarily harmless.
Noa couldn’t help but stare. Someone had once told her that Kordolian fingernails were actually retractable claws.
Noa’s barriers weren’t entirely effective against the swirl of emotions radiating from this strange little family. She soaked up some of the warmth surrounding the two proud parents, but the warm-and-fuzzies were tempered by the certainty that Papa Wolf here would probably rip the head off anyone who threatened his precious daughter or wife.
Ah, Kordolians. She was beginning to understand them a little better, even if she still couldn’t get her head around the way petite, considerate Abbey had the General wrapped around her little finger.
“Well, whatever happened in there, you seem better for it,” Abbey remarked. “You’re less… spaced out. You’re calmer. I really do hope you’re able to get a handle on your mind-reading abilities.” She shook her head in amazement. “If someone had told me what you were capable of, I would have told them they were nuts, but I’ve experienced it for myself. You saved me from having a panic attack or ten when I was holed up in that horrible SynCorp facility, and for that, I can’t thank you enough.”
A low growl emanated from Tarak. His jaw clenched and his eyes darkened, turning the color of wine. He obviously didn’t want to be reminded of that incident.
I will never allow it to happen again.
Ooh. That stray thought fragment hit Noa like a thunderbolt, surprising her with its vehemence. She concentrated on her bond, drawing on its power to block out any further thoughts. She really didn’t want to see inside General Tarak’s head.
Blinking, she turned to Abbey. “You were suffering terribly down there,” Noa said quietly. “I didn’t mean to do that. It just sort of happened.” She remembered her horror when she’d sensed SynCorp had imprisoned and restrained a heavily pregnant Abbey. She’d been a prisoner herself, powerless and forlorn, her mind fractured and vulnerable. The early days had been the worst. She hadn’t been able to differentiate reality from fantasy and she’d been plagued by terrible migraines. Most of the time, she’d been unable to do anything but lose herself in the precious music she’d been allocated.
The audio-buds had been a reward for her co-operation, and for a short period of time, she’d been able to telepathically transmit the music she’d heard to Abbey.
Their link had been lost shortly after Abbey had given birth.
“Accident or not, you helped me.” Abbey gently placed Ami in Tarak’s arms. The General took his daughter without complaint, holding her against his broad chest where she promptly snuggled against him and closed her eyes, making soft sounds of contentment. “So let me give you the lowdown on Kordolians over a cup of Sera’s lemongrass tea, just so you know what you’re getting yourself into.” She glanced slyly at her husband, who was gently rocking baby Ami up and down.
“They have a tendency to be all about the action, but scant on the detail.”
“Hmph.” Tarak snorted softly. “Humans, on the other hand, have a tendency to talk too much and do too little. It’s little wonder your species has failed to make any significant gains in the Universe.”
“It’s called diplomacy, my love,” Abbey retorted as she took Noa by the hand and guided her towards the kitchen, “and not everything has to be conquered. Come on, Noa, there are pumpkin scones in the kitchen.”
“Someone has to maintain order in the Universe, amina,” the General muttered, going still. He was dark and formidable and protective, and his ethereal daughter had fallen asleep in his arms. He inclined his head. “You wish me to take her for a while?”
“That would be nice, my love. She always falls asleep so quickly in your arms.” They exchanged a look of such indulgent tenderness that Noa felt as if she were intruding somehow.
“It’s that warm and fuzzy demeanor of his, isn’t it?” Xal laughed suddenly, drawing a sharp look from Tarak. Sera rolled her eyes as she traipsed across the worn rug and arranged herself on Xal’s lap.
She grinned at Noa. “My prince is laughing now, but just wait until he’s in Tarak’s shoes. See how long daddy Xalikian lasts then.”
“What, you don’t think I’d be as skilled as the General when it comes to putting our baby to sleep?” Xal feigned outrage. “I’m a hundred times more friendly and approachable than he is.”
Sera mock-punched him on the arm. Tarak snorted. Abbey smirked.
The whole scenario was absolutely ridiculous.
For the first time in longer than she could remember, a genuine smile threatened to spread across Noa’s face, and just like that, some semblance of normality returned to her life.
But her bond with Ashrael was still there, and it was stronger than before, a reminder that nothing in her life would ever be the same again. As she followed Abbey into the kitchen, she couldn’t help but think about the wild, mysterious man who had pinned her down so effortlessly, who probably could have killed her in the blink of an eye.