by Keira Drake
“Apa ke ma ona,” he says in a wistful tone, and trails a dirty finger down the side of my cheek. He sighs, buries his face in my hair, and inhales deeply. I am shaking so violently that I can barely stand.
He rocks backward, unsteady on his feet, but his grip on my neck is firm. His eyes are glassy, the color of dull bark, the skin of his face mottled with pockmarks. There is a sticky white substance at the corners of his mouth; the sight of it turns my stomach. I have never been this close to a man before—not in this way. But I know instinctively that his intentions are lustful, and my heart pounds with such force that it seems audible in the quiet night.
“Please,” I say, my voice choked. “Please let me go.”
He traces my chin with his fingertip and takes hold of me by the waist, pulling me against him. He murmurs something into my ear and tries to kiss me, but I turn my face. His lips are on my cheek, hot and wet; I fight the urge to vomit.
I pound at his temples with my fists, but this seems to excite him. His breathing grows quick and ragged, his hands clutch me more tightly. All the while, his mouth moves over my face and neck, seeking my lips, savoring the chase.
The next moment is like a blur: there is a soft noise, and my attacker jerks away from me. The clasp of my necklace breaks, the chain caught in the archer’s fingers as he staggers backward. The Topi gropes at the side of his neck, where I see—in equal parts relief, confusion, and horror—the black handle of a knife protruding outward.
He yanks the blade from his neck, and a soft gurgling sound emerges from his throat. Half a second later there is a man beside him; tall, garbed from head to toe in black, his features cast in shadow by the dark hood about his face. The Topi outweighs him by at least forty pounds, but is far too slow to defend himself; the man in black slips easily behind him and in one movement, opens the Topi’s throat from left to right. The archer falls forward into the dirt, blood bubbling through his fingers as he clutches his ruined neck. There he lies, emitting horrific noises, his body twitching as the life drains out of him in a sickening black pool.
The hooded man does not linger. In a heartbeat, he moves to the sleeping Topi, hovers over him and plunges a knife into the man’s back. The movement is deft, quick, quiet. The sleeping warrior does not appear even to stir from his slumber.
Through all of this—which takes place in a matter of seconds—I stand as though rooted to the ground, watching the events unfold in a surreal state of paralyzed disbelief. Now, as the stranger completes his grisly business—he appears to be wiping clean his blade—reality clicks into place once again and I step backward, afraid for my own life.
He turns to approach, but stops to retrieve something from the dirt before the campfire. My necklace. The ruby glows in the light of the fire as he turns it in his palm, inspecting the stone. After a moment, he looks over at me, his head tilted slightly.
In the light of the dwindling flames, the features of his face emerge: high cheekbones, dark almond-shaped eyes that slope gently upward at the outer corners, full lips. His skin is smooth, his jawline angled and strong. He is younger than I surmised—not much older than I am—and he is most certainly Aven’ei.
He crosses the campsite and moves in my direction, sliding back the cowl to reveal a thin stripe of hair about three inches long that spikes upward along the center of his scalp. Again, I step away, the pain in my leg forgotten, not sure whether I ought to flee, doubtful that it would do me any good should this man want to kill me.
He extends his hand; the ruby pendant with its broken chain rests in his palm, but I do not dare to reach out and take it. He watches me, his dark eyes glinting in the light of the fire. After a minute or so, he retracts his hand and crouches down before me.
“The inscription on this stone reads insazi,” he says. “Insazi is a word of the Aven’ei, but you are not Aven’ei. Yet neither are you Topi.” He frowns. “So tell me, girl. Who are you?”
CHAPTER 10
I STARE AT HIM, MY MIND WHIRLING. AFTER three days spent in silence and grief, and these last terrible hours in the company of men whose words I could not understand, the sound of my own language is like a healing ointment upon my heart.
“Who are you?” he says again.
I shake my head as tears spill onto my cheeks. Relief, terror, grief, joy—I can no longer tell the difference. A week ago, I would have thought it shameful to weep like this in front of a stranger; I mightn’t even have cried in the presence of my own friends, save perhaps Evangeline. But now, I make no attempt to disguise my anguish. Salty tears mingle with mucous below my nose, and I wipe my face without care against the torn, filthy sleeve of my dress.
At length, the Aven’ei speaks again, his voice softer now. “Are you all right, girl?”
I nod and dab at my cheeks with dirty fingers. “I think so.”
“Are you injured?”
“He didn’t—I’m all right.”
The Aven’ei is silent for a moment. “Where is your home?”
“Far from here,” I say, shaking my head. “So far.”
“Where?”
“To the south. Another…another continent. I come from a place called the Spire.”
His mouth opens slightly and his dark brows rise up an inch or so. “You come from the Nations Beyond the Sea.” It is not so much a question as a realization.
“You know of my people?”
“I know this name, Spire.”
“We were on a tour, you see, and the heli-plane crashed, and I—”
“What is a heli-plane?”
“It’s…it’s an aircraft,” I say. “A machine that flies through the sky.”
“Ah,” he says, nodding slowly. “I have seen these since I was a child. We call them anzibatu—skyships.”
“That’s precisely what they are,” I say. “I was traveling with my family above the Continent when our heli-plane lost power. It crashed and…” I swallow. “And all were lost but me.”
“I am sorry to hear this,” he says, bowing his head. “It sounds as though you have had a great ordeal.”
These few kind words bring fresh tears to my eyes. “Thank you.”
A short silence passes between us, and the Aven’ei frowns. “A tour,” he says. “This is the reason for the…planes?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
I hesitate, my face growing hot. “Your region is very interesting to us.”
“Interesting in what way?”
“The Continent is quite different from the Spire, in terms of geography and culture.”
“And so you come to watch us?”
“Yes.”
“Like animals in a menagerie?” he says.
“No,” I say quickly. “It’s nothing like that, we simply—”
“You see the violence between my kin and the Topi, yet you do not interfere?” He does not sound angry, only puzzled.
I swallow. “It is not our affair.”
“Then why do you observe? Oughtn’t you rather tend to the concerns of your own people?”
“It’s difficult to explain,” I say, flustered. “The Spire has transcended the ways of war. The fighting here, it is a curiosity to us.”
I regret this choice of words as soon as I have spoken, and feel my cheeks burning. He stares at me, his lips pushed out slightly, the corners of his mouth turned down.
“I lost my mother to illness and my father to the Topi,” he says. “I have one brother left out of four—three slain in battle. My people are driven back, burned alive, tortured, and dismembered. The Aven’ei are on the brink of annihilation. You find this curious?”
I shake my head, my voice caught in my throat. “No,” I whisper. “I do not.”
“Then why are you here?”
I want to explain about the maps, about my interest in the Continent itself, but I cannot pretend that the war did not hold some fascination for me. I look down at my hands. “It’s complicated.”
“I’m sure it is.” He hol
ds the pendant before me, dangling it by the broken chain. “Take your trinket. You can sleep where you are, or take the tent. We will leave at daylight.”
I stare up at him. “Where do you intend to take me?”
He frowns. “You are not my prisoner, girl. You are free to go wherever you like. I am returning to my village, and I assumed that you would wish to accompany me. But if you would prefer to stay here—”
“No! I will go with you. I am very grateful.”
He shakes the necklace impatiently, and I take it. I feel a dizzying relief at having the precious stone in my possession again.
The Aven’ei stands and stretches, then gathers two logs from the small pile beside the campfire. He adds them to the dwindling flames and pokes them around a bit.
“You should sleep,” he says. “I’m going to remove these bodies, lest they attract animals.”
I move closer to the fire, taking the fur blanket with me. The ground is warmer here, though not by much. I lie down, my back to the flames, and watch as the Aven’ei tucks the fallen knife—the one the archer pulled from his own neck—into a sheath at his waist.
“May I ask your name?” I say quietly.
He pauses before bending down to grab the dead archer’s wrists. “I am called Noro.”
“Thank you, Noro, for saving my life.”
“It is what any Aven’ei would have done,” he says, and drags the warrior toward the darkness of the forest. I watch him disappear, and only after he is gone does it occur to me that he did not ask for my name in return.
“Wake up, girl.”
I had been dreaming of soft things, of clouds and wisps of fabric, of rabbit furs and feather pillows. I awaken at the Aven’ei’s voice to find myself stiff and aching from the hard ground, miles away from anything remotely soft or comfortable. I sit up and rub my eyes with the back of my hand.
The fire has gone out; only a few smoldering embers remain in the pit. The morning is bitterly cold. Noro sits beside me, his legs crossed, with several knives laid out before him on a leather mat. He picks up one and then another, inspecting them carefully. Without turning his head, he says, “You said you were not injured.”
I look down to see that the blanket has fallen away, exposing the makeshift bandage on my wounded leg. I pull the fur over it and tuck the covering beneath me. “I thought you were asking if the warrior had…” I stop and clear my throat. “This happened yesterday afternoon, when the Topi captured me.”
He continues his inspection of the blades. “Has the wound been cleaned?”
“I—no. I’m not sure how I would even manage it. Nothing is clean here.” The word here seems to linger in the air like a solid thing. “I’m sorry,” I say quickly. “I only meant—”
“Let me see it,” he says, setting down one of the knives and turning toward me.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Let me see the wound, girl.” He reaches for the blanket and I stand up immediately, holding the fur around my lower body. His brows rise as he looks up at my face. “What are you doing?”
I hold the blanket firmly in place. “My leg is fine. Don’t trouble yourself about it.”
His eyes narrow, the gentle outer slopes drawing into sharpened points. “What is the problem here?”
“There’s no problem,” I say, sitting down again—out of his reach this time. “I simply do not require a medical examination.”
He peers at me, the fine features of his face chiseled and striking in the pale morning light. “If the wound is not cleaned, it may fester, and your blood will poison,” he says. “We must clean it properly before we go. There is much walking to be done, for it is several days’ travel to my village.”
“Then I shall see to it myself,” I say, and gesture to the black satchel beside him. “Have you any bandages or disinfectant?”
He stares at me for a few seconds, then picks up a wooden jug; I recognize it as the flask of liquor that belonged to the Topi. With a patronizing smile, he sets it on the ground before me. “At present,” he says, “I find myself in short supply of medical gauzes and dressings. However, should you apply a bit of practical care to that wound of yours, I believe you may yet survive.”
Embarrassed, I take the flask and cross to the other side of the fire pit, where I sit down with my body angled away from him. I’ve never thought of myself as particularly squeamish, but then, I’ve never been witness to anything other than minor injuries—not until touring the Continent, that is. My inclination is to continue hoping that a heli-plane will appear and deliver me to a sterile, state-of-the-art medical facility where my wound might be cared for by qualified professionals. I don’t want to see the gash in my leg, much less clean it. But I can’t have him looking at it either.
I purse my lips and exhale deeply, watching my warm breath fan out before me in a feathery cloud. All right. I can do this. I can clean it. It’s going to be fine.
Gingerly, carefully, I untie the bandage and peel it away from my trousers. It sticks at first; it’s encrusted with blood, a disgusting fact that I tuck away in the back of my mind before moving on to the next step. Then I spread open my ripped clothing to expose the wound, which is far worse than I feared it would be: red, swollen, gaping in one place, and seeping some sort of wretched fluid.
Noro is sitting only a few feet away, but his voice sounds tinny and distant. “How does it look?”
I shake my head, my lips pressed together. I hear him stand, dust himself off and move up behind me. I put my hand protectively over my leg and feel a deep aching throb. “Please,” I whisper, “let’s just be on our way.”
“We are not leaving until it’s tended,” he says, a note of exasperation in his voice. “Are you ill at the sight of blood? I can do it for you in a few minutes’ time.”
“No,” I say, looking up at him. “I don’t want you to touch it.”
“The longer you wait, the more painful it will be.”
“It’s not that,” I say, my voice faltering. “It’s just…my physician in the Spire, she’s…she’s a woman.”
He is silent for a moment. “You do not wish to be touched by a man.”
My face colors, and I look away. “Amongst my people, it’s not customary for a young man to lay eyes upon a woman’s bare leg.”
“Is it customary for young women to die of infection for the sake of propriety?”
“Of course not,” I say irritably.
He crouches down beside me and I flinch, but his gaze is steady and even. “I will not hurt you,” he says. “Nor will I look anywhere other than the wound itself. You have nothing to fear from me.”
“It’s just…I’m afraid I will vomit if I do it myself,” I say. “I think it is beginning to fester.”
His eyes hold mine, but he keeps his distance. “May I see to it?”
I nod, turn my face into my right shoulder, and take a deep breath.
Noro is a fast and efficient medic, as he promised he would be. I nearly faint from the pain when he breaks open the wound to clean it out, but before long, his ministrations are complete.
I sit with my hands at my belly, my eyes on the clouds above, while Noro prepares bandages for my leg. The laceration, though clean, is pulsing angrily, but the crisp morning air blows across my exposed thigh and offers a mild comfort of sorts.
“It’s good we took the time,” Noro says, squeezing alcohol from a strip of fabric torn from the Topi tent. “You may yet take ill, but your chances are far better than they were.”
“Thank you.” I glance over at him—keeping my eyes raised so as to avoid accidentally seeing the wound—and watch as he tends to the bandages. “I suppose that’s twice you’ve saved me, in the space of two days’ time.”
He nods almost imperceptibly, his eyes on the fabric. Satisfied that the first strip has dried, he leans over and begins to wrap it tightly around my leg. I jerk at the feel of the cold cloth, and of his smooth fingers against my skin. Our eyes meet for a quick moment; he
clenches his jaw and returns his attention to the bandage.
While he dries the second strip, I turn my gaze back to the sky. “I’m sorry about what I said earlier,” I say softly. “I misspoke when I suggested that nothing on the Continent is…that nothing here is clean. It was a terribly disrespectful thing to say. I know this is your home.”
He shakes his head and begins to wrap the second bandage around my leg. “There is no need to apologize. You have lost much.”
“That is very kind of you,” I say.
He is quiet as he sets the third and final bandage aside to dry. I think suddenly of Aaden, of the horror on his face when my father pulled him from the escape pod. He ought to be here instead of me, I think. What right have I to survive when so many others were lost? How I wish I could be with my family, wherever they are now.
Noro sits back and looks at me thoughtfully, the pale contours of my face reflected in his eyes. “I understand your pain. As I told you, I am no stranger to loss. But you must take care, girl, for you will quickly learn that the Continent will not afford you the luxury of grief.”
“What do you mean?”
He pauses. “I mean that you must reserve your pain for quiet moments. You must not let it soften you, but rather you must become sharpened by its edges, made stronger by its grip. When it claws at your heart, you must roar back. This is not a place for softness. The weak do not survive here. Do you understand?”
This is not a place for softness. An image from my dream, one of lilac-scented pillows and gossamer curtains, flits before my eyes. I look down at my hands, coated with dirt and grime, and think how very long ago it seems that I set eyes upon anything of comfort or beauty. I recall my mother’s face, soft and alabaster, luminous against her dark hair. I think of our home in the Spire, of its wide rooms and corridors, its plush carpets and familiar smells. How I long to be there—to cling to the presence of my mother and father, which must surely be etched into the very walls. The mere thought is so painful that it robs me of my breath.