Synnr's Saint

by Kate Rudolph

  “What happened to her?” he asked as he led them to the spare bedroom. The injured woman needed a doctor, but both he and Solan had basic field training and their med kit was well stocked. They’d do what they could to help.

  Emily pulled the covers over the woman and studiously ignored him.

  “She fought the guards,” the other woman said. Oz looked over, and he should probably be disappointed in himself that he hadn’t paid much attention to the others. It had been a split second thing. He’d looked at the group, assessed they weren’t threats, and split his focus back between Emily and the injured woman. The one speaking seemed young, with delicate skin and a slight frame. Her dark hair was cut short, making her cheekbones stand out even more from her light brown skin. She looked... fragile.

  “Keep away from him, Luci,” said Emily. “He’s not our friend.”

  That hurt. It hurt more than he knew it could. Oz had to swallow around the sudden lump in his throat. He shouldn’t expect any less. He’d tried to do something despicable. And he needed to earn Emily’s trust back. No, not back. He’d never had it in the first place.

  “We won’t harm you,” he said. He tried to meet Emily’s eyes, but she wouldn’t face him.

  Solan bustled into the room, carrying the med kit. “There are too many people in here. Let’s get something set up in the store room. We can’t have you bunking down in the main room just in case we have visitors.”

  “Your friends won’t like us?” The taller man scowled.

  “None of the Zulir in this city are our friends,” said Oz. It was a risky thing to reveal, but they needed something to get the humans on their side.

  “Zulir?” asked the shorter man.

  Oz and Solan shared a look. “Perhaps you know them as Apsyns?” Oz asked.

  “We know you as stupid aliens,” said Emily. “Never needed anything else.”

  “And not like they told us anything,” muttered the girl, Luci.

  This was worse than he thought, but he should have expected it. Apsyns didn’t see others as people. Why would they give their test subjects a history lesson?

  “Let Solan tend to your friend here, and I can explain some things,” Oz offered. He could see that Emily wanted to fight. There was a fire in her eyes that he never wanted to see extinguished. But the others were looking to her, following her lead. If he couldn’t convince her that he truly wanted to help, that he meant her no harm, then the others would never trust them. “I wanted to help you,” he said. “I saw no other way to get you out of that situation.”

  Solan looked at him, and Oz knew any hope of keeping the secret was long gone. “What did you do?” he demanded.

  “He tried to buy me,” Emily spat. “Wanted me for his own. I’m a person, not property.”

  “Ynstit,” Solan scowled. If he’d been any closer he’d be slapping Oz or worse. “You jeopardized all for...” Solan sucked in a breath. Then he turned to Emily and her friends. “Neither of us are supporters of the slave trade, no matter what my companion did. I realize you have no reason to believe me, but I promise you we mean no harm. Now, your friend needs medical attention. You are welcome to stay and observe as I treat her, but there are too many people in this room.” He reached into his belt and pulled out a knife. “This is the only weapon I have on me.” He held it out to Emily. “Please.”

  She glared, but took the knife. Solan looked at Oz expectantly and Oz reached for his own, handing it off to the taller human man. “Would you give us your names?” he asked.

  He was sure Emily would say no. Why would she agree? But she surprised him. She nodded at the woman on the bed. “That’s Lena. Luci is the other woman. Then Zac,” that was the taller man, “and Joel,” the shorter one. “How do you know Grace?”

  That was information they couldn’t give, not when the asset had run back to the facility, probably to put her final game into play and smooth over whatever trouble Emily and her friends had caused. “Let Solan tend to Lena and I’ll answer what I can,” Oz promised.

  Emily looked at Lena and then at Solan and the med kit in his hand. Finally she stepped from around the bed. “Okay. But I’m feeling really stabby today and none of these people will stop me if you screw up. Got it?”

  She was going to kill him if he smiled. Oz knew that, and still his lips wanted to betray him. She was fierce, this fearless acrobat. He would give her that. “I will keep that in mind.”

  He led the rest of the group to the store room at the back of the apartment. It was big enough to set up beds for each of the humans with room to spare. He and Solan didn’t have much to store, seeing as they weren’t supposed to be in the city for long. The windowless room wasn’t exactly homey, but it was safe. It would have to do.

  Luci stood close to the shorter man, and the taller one reached over and patted her on the shoulder. Fear was coming off of the three of them in waves, and Oz wasn’t sure how to fix that. If he could find a way to get through to Emily, then maybe they would feel better, but she had every reason to distrust him.

  This wasn’t going to go well.

  There were blankets on the shelves and Oz reached for them, handing the fluffy piles over to each of the humans. Joel took Luci’s blanket for her, and she didn’t look at Oz while she sat down and wrapped herself in it, leaning against the wall.

  “I’d set up more comfortable beds, but unfortunately our supplies are limited.” Inspiration struck. “My bed can fit two, so if you’d—”

  “What the hell?” Emily’s eyes were on fire again and the air crackled with her anger. She took a step towards him, ready to do violence.

  And Oz realized how she had heard what he said. “Two of you!” He held his hand up in surrender. “I can sleep in here or in the main room. Not with me!” She stopped advancing on him, but he didn’t know how long it would last. He had to start explaining before things got even worse. “Please, sit. Let me tell you a story.”

  Chapter Six

  APSYN. SYNNR. ZULIR. It was all alien nonsense as far as Emily was concerned. But her mind latched onto Oz’s words and rearranged them until they were clear in human terms.

  Once upon a time the Zulir lived in peace as one group. They followed their monarch and built up their civilization, happy and whole. Sure, there were fights, disagreements, but nothing that could shake them to their foundations.

  Until contact came.

  For the longest time they were alone in the universe. Some scientists and philosophers pondered the stars, but the Zulir didn’t know about what might be out there. (And Emily could feel sympathy on that count, but she kept quiet.) Contact came and the Zulir changed. Not because of anything the first aliens did to them. In fact, the first aliens were one-celled beings on a distant planet that their probes picked up, nothing like what was to come.

  When sentient contact came, the Zulir split. The aliens they met wanted to share the universe with them, wanted to teach them everything.

  The Synnrs wanted to learn. They wanted to grow and join with the stars and discover all of the skies’ secrets.

  The Apsyns wanted the aliens gone. The Zulir had flourished for a long time with no help from the outside. And they would not lower themselves to communing with beasts.

  Then came war.

  Apsyn versus Synnr, families split, friendships turned to ash. At the end the king lay dead and the planet was on the verge of collapse. The war had lasted decades. Then came unsteady peace. Synnrs took the moon, Apsyns the planet. One kingdom became two.

  Twenty years of peace. Of regrowth.

  And now this.

  The Synnr queen lay in a coma in her palace. The Apsyns claimed no knowledge, but they were the only possible culprits. And war was coming once again.

  It was a fascinating story, one Emily might have let herself get wrapped up in, but...

  “What does this have to do with us?” Zac asked the question for her.

  The four humans were huddled together in their blankets, sitting along one co
ld wall while Oz sat against the other. This little store room looked more like a cell than anything the aliens—the Apsyns—had held her in, but she was pretty sure that he’d let them go if she insisted.

  Not 100% positive, but as close as she could get these days.

  “Which one are you?” she added to Zac’s question. Apparently they were on the planet, Kilrym, and in the city of Vanen, but Oz wasn’t acting like the people that had held them prisoner. Maybe if she was in a more forgiving mood she’d think about how factions worked on Earth. Sure, she was an American, but that didn’t mean she agreed with everything her country did. Maybe it was the same here.

  Maybe.

  Oz glanced at the open door and hesitated.

  Why would he hesitate?

  Unless he wasn’t one of the Apsyns.

  “Do Synnrs keep human slaves?” she demanded. “Is that why you wanted to buy me?”

  “What?” It ripped out of Luci and Emily had to put a hand on her leg to keep her from launching herself at Oz. The girl seemed fragile at times, but she had an inner fire of her own. She wouldn’t have survived this long without it.

  “No!” Oz’s eyes widened. He shook his head and waved his hands around as if he could ward off the accusation. “I know it was a stupid move, I get that now. I was a complete ynstit. I only wanted to get you out of there.”

  She almost believed him, which was probably stupid on her part. “Answer Zac’s question. And mine.”

  “We’re Synnrs. And it’s a secret,” Oz stared at them, trying to impress the importance upon them. “Things are in play...”

  “The upcoming war?” Joel asked.

  Oz nodded.

  “So why did the Apysns want us? What were all those experiments about? I thought they wanted nothing to do with ‘aliens.’” It was hard to think of herself as an alien, but she was the one on a foreign planet right now, so that might have been technically the case.

  “Did they tell you about Matching?” Oz asked.

  And Emily was getting even more frustrated. “They told us nothing. At all. Assume we’re a bunch of ignorant humans who didn’t know aliens existed until a few months ago. We just want to get off this planet and go home.”

  A strange look crossed Oz’s face and he opened his mouth before a shadow fell across the door. Solan.

  “How’s Lena?” she asked the other alien. Synnr. Zulir.

  Whatever.

  “Resting,” he said. “She took a real beating and needs medical attention. I’ve done the best I could.”

  Emily’s heart sank. She couldn’t lose Lena. Not after all they’d been through together. She couldn’t. “Can we help? Is there a way to get a doctor here?”

  Solan gave her a sad look. “Not... here. There may be...” He seemed to have a second thought about what he was going to say. “We’ll do our best.”

  “Your best had better be good enough.” These were aliens who could travel across the galaxy. They should be able to fix Lena. They had to.

  “We should let the humans use our beds,” Oz said. “We can sleep on the floor. They’ve had a rough time of it.”

  Solan nodded. “Good idea.”

  Emily didn’t want to be split up, and there was still more for Oz to explain. “What did you say about matches or whatever?”

  Luci groaned. “I am tired. Can we please just sleep, Em? They can tell us in the morning.” Both Joel and Zac nodded along with her.

  Emily wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to sleep again. But she was outnumbered. “Show us to the rooms, then?”

  Oz did. Emily and Luci were in Solan’s room while Zac and Joel took Oz’s. There wasn’t much character to the rooms. They walls were a light blue and a window looked out onto the twinkling lights of the city in the distance. Emily could almost believe she was just in a hotel room in an unfamiliar city. She could pretend that her nerves were just pre-competition jitters and that when she woke up she’d be ready for practice, ready to impress her coaches and the judges.

  But then some little piece of alien tech would catch her eye and she’d be reminded that this wasn’t home. That she didn’t belong here.

  It sucked.

  She and Luci lay down, Luci slinging an arm around her and succumbing to sleep almost immediately, lucky girl. Emily couldn’t. She squeezed her eyes closed and counted two hundred and seventy-three sheep before giving up on that. Luci turned over, her arm falling off of Emily as she sighed in her sleep.

  If Emily stayed in bed another minute she was going to suffocate.

  It was strange sitting up. The mattress was harder than she was used to back home, and the bed was low to the ground. She practically fell to her knees before standing, but made it. Oz and Solan had offered different clothes to sleep in, but Emily had opted to stay in her own, even her shoes. She didn’t know if they’d be running anytime soon and she didn’t want to get caught off guard.

  Oz hadn’t told them they couldn’t go anywhere in the apartment, but Emily wasn’t in an exploring mood. She ended up in the little room where they were treating Lena and sat on the stool by her bed. Lena looked younger in unconsciousness, the tightness of her face slack with rest. But she’d lost color and there was a certain vitality missing.

  “You’ve got to get better,” she told her friend. “I’ll never forgive you if you die.” A shadow fell over her and she somehow knew who it was. “How bad is it, really?” she asked Oz.

  He sighed and remained in the doorway behind her. “She’s in stasis. It can hold for weeks, if need be. But she won’t heal until we get her medical attention.”

  “A coma?” She didn’t need fancy alien words. She wanted home.

  “Not quite, but close.” Oz finally stepped inside and sat on a second stool. They were beside each other and she watched him out of the corner of her eye.

  He didn’t look alien, and yet he did. If she’d seen him back on Earth, she never would have guessed. The small differences might have been passed off as body modifications. His ears were more pointed than round, and his skin seemed to shimmer; it wasn’t that different. But when he opened his mouth wide enough she spotted the fangs, those had her pausing to think. Just how sharp were they?

  How was any of this possible?

  “We’re not sure how the similarities came about,” he said.

  “For god’s sake, please tell me you can’t read my mind.” She slumped forward. No one said anything about mind powers.

  He smiled and huffed out a laugh, and she couldn’t look away from his fangs. She might have gone through a brief vampire obsession as a child. Brief. “Nothing like that,” he promised. “But you were looking at me.”

  “No I wasn’t.” It rushed out and Emily felt her cheeks heat. Thank god for the dim light. He couldn’t see. She hoped. Unless he had super sight.

  Ugh.

  He kept smiling his stupid smile at her and Emily’s stomach flipped over. No. Stupid. No. Not happening. He’d tried to buy her as property. And he was an alien! She’d barely been able to get attracted to guys back on Earth, and between gymnastics and then college and law school hadn’t managed to keep a boyfriend for more than a week or two. She wasn’t suddenly going to get hot for a freaking alien.

  Yeah, her body was having none of that. It liked what it saw in Oz.

  Ugh!

  His smile faded. “I really am sorry. About trying to buy you. Our captain is focused on our mission, and that doesn’t include... well, I didn’t see another way.”

  She shouldn’t believe him. He had every reason to lie. Right?

  So why did she?

  No, she didn’t want to deal with this now.

  “What was that matching thing you were talking about? Why do you think they wanted us?” She could tell the others in the morning, but she didn’t want to wait another minute to know. Her mind was too wired to sleep, so she might as well do something with the energy.

  Oz sighed. “I don’t know all of it. But we’ve made some guesses. And there’s some
that I can’t tell you. Not now.”

  “Then tell me what you can.” She didn’t like being in the dark.

  The look he gave her burned her down to her toes. Emily told her body to get under control. Her body ignored her.

  She hoped he couldn’t tell.

  “You’ve seen our wings, right?”

  She nodded. “Can I see yours?” Then her eyes got wide. “That’s not offensive or anything, is it? It’s not like I asked you to show me your—” she cut herself off at the last second.

  Oz leaned in and she caught a hint of his scent, clean with a hint of something smoky under the surface. She didn’t breathe deeper. She wasn’t going to go around and sniff someone. “My what?” he asked.

  Oh, he knew.

  They might have been from different ends of the galaxy. They might have been different species. But he knew what she’d almost said.

  An awareness sparked between them and Emily would have given almost anything to make it go away. She couldn’t do this. Not now. Not with him. “What about your wings?” she asked.

  Between one blink and the next they filled the room, glorious electric things made of blue and red and purple. It was magical and she wanted to reach out and touch them. But she’d felt the brush of electric wings and it had singed her to the bone. She didn’t want to get burned again.

  “They’re amazing,” she breathed.

  He was careful not to touch anything with them and after another moment he pulled them back into himself and it was like they’d never been there at all. “All Zulir have them. Along with an... affinity for electricity.”

  “I figured that part out.” It came out bitter, and Emily didn’t even try to disguise it. Not when she’d dealt with the tortures that came with their powers.

  Oz seemed ready to respond, but instead he pressed on. “We can’t quite fly, but the wings allow us to stay airborne for a time and glide. I was...” He shook his head.

  “You were what?” She soaked up this information and needed more. Anything he could give her.