She hoped desperately that Kiji wasn’t watching this, or if she was, that she hadn’t understood the significant elements of the exchange. She hoped also that the other slaves would look out for her, that they might continue to train her on the sly to be a possible candidate for the Rings. Maria and Brent and a few others knew of Chloe’s hopes in that regard; maybe they would take pity on Kiji, help her in Chloe’s stead.
Even as she thought it, Agnon moved.
Chloe flinched into Trazen’s side, but Agnon barely spared her a glance.
Rather, he walked past them through the open gate, entering the slave pens.
Without preamble or hesitation, he walked with long strides towards a cluster of humans lurking in the shadows directly across from the main gate. Seeing the determined flick of his tail, the lingering fury at what Trazen had done, Chloe tensed. Her whole body stiffened, even before she saw who crouched there, in the midst of the other slaves.
Kiji. She must have slunk forward to try and hear what was going on.
Terror eclipsed Chloe’s mind.
Watching Agnon take long strides towards her eight-year-old sister, it struck her suddenly that Agnon knew. He knew exactly who Kiji was... he’d always known. Which meant he must have been saving her for something. Perhaps for something like this.
Perhaps for something Trazen had now robbed Agnon of.
“No,” Chloe breathed, so softly it was like an exhaled breath.
She didn’t realize she’d moved in the direction of the pen gate until Trazen’s muscular hand and fingers clamped on her shoulder, dragging her roughly back to his chest. Feeling the warning there as much as the strength behind his grip, she stopped, her heart slamming harder into her ribs as she watched Agnon grab hold of Kiji’s arm. The thick-bodied Nirreth with the kink in his tail begin to drag Kiji unceremoniously to the middle of the pen.
Trazen murmured against her ear. “Who is she?”
She didn’t see any point in lying, not now.
“Sister,” she said, lower than a whisper.
Trazen tensed, but didn’t answer.
He raised his voice instead, speaking to Agnon.
“Have you another gift for me, friend?” he said loudly in Nargili.
Like before, his voice was a growl, the warning on the surface.
Agnon stared at him, then at her. Without a pause, he pulled a long knife from a sheath on his thigh. Grasping Kiji by the hair, he yanked her head back and cut her throat in one smooth motion of his hand, wrist and arm.
Chloe screamed.
She jerked forward, but again Trazen held her, his tail wrapping her waist even as his hand clamped harder on her shoulder. She writhed against him, screaming again, shock blanking her mind as she tried to get free, but he wouldn’t let go.
She watched, her whole body wracked as it strained against Trazen, but unable to take her eyes off Kiji. Her sister’s eyes had gone wide in shock. She choked, one blood-thick attempt to suck in air... then she collapsed.
Agnon held her by the hair for a beat longer.
Then he released her.
Kiji fell, face first, to the dirt of the pen.
Chloe screamed again.
That time, it broke in a despairing sob.
Wiping the blade on his dark pants, Agnon stuck it back in the sheath and walked just as purposefully out of the pen. Crossing the threshold of the gate, he turned his back on both of them, hitting the panel to shut the door. Only as it slid closed on its tracks did he turn, looking Trazen directly in the face.
He ignored Chloe’s sobs entirely when he spoke.
“Did you say something, Ringmaster?” Agnon said politely.
Trazen didn’t answer.
He didn’t release her either, but continued to hold her up as she sobbed. Leaning against his broad chest, she couldn’t think well enough to care by then, couldn’t do anything but stand there, watching as her sister bled out in the dirt.
THE RINGMASTER’S HOUSE
CHLOE DIDN’T REMEMBER falling asleep.
She lay there in the morning light, blank, staring up at a low, wood-beamed ceiling. Her mind felt buried in mud as she tried to think about where she was, how she’d gotten here. An instinct borne of living with Agnon, she didn’t move at first, but tried to discern what she could without giving herself away.
She did open her eyes.
When no one reacted, she did her best to look around.
Slowly, the bare bones of her predicament returned.
Trazen. Agnon.
She was in the Ringmaster’s house. She belonged to him now.
Then she realized something else.
She wore clothes. Someone had put clothes on her.
Not the cloak Trazen wrapped around her bruised and naked body to transport her here from Agnon’s the night before. Real clothes, women’s clothes. She studied her covered body under the sheet, fingering the soft material of the short-sleeved shirt and loose pants.
She barely remembered the ride here.
She remembered the cloak, Trazen’s warm hands. She had a recollection of being put into one of those sail-like trolleys the Nirreth used on the main thoroughfares of the city. Everything seemed to happen in a daze. She had no memory of arriving here or what happened after.
She had absolutely none of the leftover clarity that usually accompanied being stung by a Nirreth. She found herself wondering if Trazen had stung her at all.
She didn’t think he had.
Fighting to think, to recall anything, she had to conclude he hadn’t stung her. She would definitely have some memory of his mind if she had... at least its basic flavor. She couldn’t remember anything like that. She couldn’t feel anything about Trazen at all.
All she remembered of him were those black, gold-flecked eyes and his hand on her shoulder, holding her away from Agnon and the pens.
Memories of her sister returned as her mind grappled with what she’d seen to put her into such a deep state of shock. Her blood... there’d been so much blood. Kiji’s blood... running down pale, young skin, the terror in her eyes as her mind caught up with what Agnon had done, perhaps scarcely having time to realize what it meant before...
Closing her eyes, Chloe forced the memory away.
She fought to numb her mind, but for a long-feeling stretch of time, she couldn’t.
She didn’t intend to make a sound, but she did––what might have been a gasp, a lungful of breath that wanted to turn into something else. Before it could, she heard movement inside the same room and froze.
Cloth rustled against what might have been skin, followed by a light creak. It sounded like someone shifting a not-small body on a thick-mattressed bed.
Chloe held her breath.
On the plus side, the immediate threat cleared her mind of Kiji, yanking her into the present.
Immediately, she realized a few things.
One, she very badly had to go to the bathroom.
Two, and more importantly, if the movement did come from a bed, it wasn’t the same bed where Chloe herself lay. Rather, it sounded higher up. Taking a breath, she decided to risk turning her head, even as it occurred to her it didn’t matter.
It didn’t matter what they did to her now.
The thought brought back another whisper of grief––a darker image of Kiji, covered in blood––but she smashed it down. Somehow, both things steeled her resolve.
It didn’t matter. It really didn’t.
Turning her head, Chloe opened her eyes.
She found herself staring up at a raised bed on a wooden frame. In construction it reminded her of an old-fashioned human bed, like she’d seen in old movies and television shows from back before the Nirreth came. She stared at a round-ended bedpost and blinked at it, feeling almost like she must be dreaming, even as she glimpsed the dark blue sole of a Nirreth foot poking out of the covers to one side.
Over the bed hung a filmy canopy, stark white––a mosquito net. Something about that billowy whi
te cloth coupled with the style of bed made her feel she’d been transported back in human history, perhaps into the bedroom of some colonialistic mansion housed on a distant continent of Old Earth.
The thought was strangely appropriate.
She heard the rustling again. That time, she saw the flick of a tail as he rolled over, probably onto his stomach.
Chloe swallowed, but the blue-skinned body fell still.
Raising her head cautiously to glance down, she looked at her own bed.
It was smaller than his, which made sense, and lower to the ground, resting on what appeared to be a wooden frame. When she glanced left, she realized it was actually part of a cabinet built into the wall, and could be tucked out of sight when not in use.
But why had he put her in her own bed?
Perhaps he didn’t like sleeping next to humans.
Perhaps he preferred her at his feet, like a pet.
The thought tightened her jaw, even as she shook it off. Why would he give her clean sheets if that was the case? A pillow? Nirreth didn’t normally use those, yet he’d provided them for her.
The bigger question was, why hadn’t he stung her? Why hadn’t he had sex with her, and why had he given her clothes? Could that be pity? A temporary consideration from what Agnon had done? Nothing could have been further from Trazen’s reputation, if so.
Cautiously, she sat up, propping her body up on her elbows.
She really had to go to the bathroom. She waited to see if he’d react to her shift in position, but nothing moved on the bed above her. He hadn’t locked her to the frame or anything, so maybe he didn’t mind if she got up without him. The idea was absurd of course, regardless of what kind of Nirreth he was. He didn’t know her. He’d taken a risk––big or small––in pissing off Agnon to the degree he did. He wouldn’t just let her run away.
Further, he had no reason to think she wouldn’t try.
The pressure on her bladder got more and more uncomfortable. She decided to take the risk... it was as good a way as any to determine something more about him.
She unwrapped the sheet from around her legs and waist. Swinging her legs over the side of the bed, she placed her bare feet on the floor. Looking down at her clothes again, she couldn’t help but smile, fingering the soft material. It was cleaner and softer than anything she’d worn in probably five years.
When she glanced up, she found Trazen sitting up.
She sucked in a breath.
He didn’t change expression when he saw her, simply raised a three-fingered hand and rubbed his high-cheekboned face with his palm and thumb, as if waking himself up. When he blinked at her with those gold-flecked eyes, his face remained smooth.
“Are you hungry?” he said.
She stammered, unthinking. “Y-yes.”
He nodded, human-fashion, then swung his muscular legs and feet over the side of the bed. She couldn’t help noticing his body since he was shirtless, wearing only loose pants that fell to just above the knees and hung low on his hips. His upper body was corded with muscle, containing not an ounce of fat. His legs flexed as his feet met the floor, long lines of muscle running down his calves to his three-toed feet. He rubbed his face again while she watched, then rose to his feet with a yawn and a stretch, flicking his tail sideways before he aimed his tread for an arched doorway behind her.
Peering through that same archway, Chloe glimpsed a couch, and what might have been a wardrobe built into the wall next to a low table. She also saw something lower to the ground, covered in candles and what looked like burning incense.
Was that some kind of altar? She doubted her eyes as she stared at it. She’d never seen an altar in a Nirreth house before. Only in Kabasi had she seen those, and those had all been human.
Before he left entirely, Trazen aimed a jointed finger behind him, to a different segment of wall on the other side of his bed. He didn’t look at her as he did it.
“Secondary washroom’s in there,” he said. “Come find me when you’re done. Anyone around here can tell you where the kitchen is.”
Chloe’s jaw dropped.
Before she could think of a reply, he left her, walking through the narrow archway and disappearing with a last sensual flick of his dark blue tail.
The door closed behind him without a sound.
JUST LIKE HE told her, the first human servant she approached and stammered about finding Trazen seemed all too happy to take her there personally.
A lot of people lived in this house, Chloe realized.
She heard them in the halls, talking and laughing in the rooms they passed.
Moreover, she understood why Trazen hadn’t seemed overly concerned with her running away. When she followed that same chatty, helpful servant through a high-ceilinged foyer with marble floors and dotted with indoor trees, Chloe noticed not only the stone statues and art and priceless-looking human artifacts––but also the armed guards who stood just outside the front doors, carrying Nirreth rifles.
One of those same guards glanced at her as she walked by, his long tail coiling languidly behind him as he looked her over. His eyes shifted away seconds later, gazing back towards a circular driveway with a human-style fountain gushing water from a stone fish.
“Nice, eh?” a voice asked her with a smile.
Swallowing, Chloe turned. She hadn’t realized she’d slowed her pace until she saw the young girl servant had come to a stop beside her. The girl grinned, and it struck Chloe that she couldn’t be more than fourteen.
The indirect reminder of Kiji made her chest flare with a pain.
The girl’s smile faltered. “Hey. Are you okay?”
Chloe nodded, forcing a smile. “I’m fine.”
The girl continued to scan her face for a few seconds more, then shrugged.
“Okay,” she said, with a teenager’s pretend nonchalance. She jerked a chin towards the guards. “Just... don’t get any funny ideas,” she cautioned. “I don’t know if you have a boyfriend out there you’re pining for, or family, or if you’re some big-time rebel or what... but you’re better off negotiating that stuff with Trazen directly. His guard might be flirts, and you’re hot and everything... but they’re loyal. And they’re not only there for show. Trazen can’t afford to look weak, you know. He’ll send them after you, if he has to.”
Chloe nodded.
Even so, the servant’s words puzzled her.
Questions flickered through her mind. Even so, she remained silent. Her eyes continued to scan her surroundings surreptitiously as they resumed walking.
“The kitchen’s just down there,” the girl said cheerfully, waving a hand towards a narrow corridor. “I can give you a tour later, if you want? The pool is great. It’s where we all hang out. There’s also the gardens, his private zoo, the gaming room...”
Chloe nodded, murmuring a thanks.
She would take the tour.
Maybe by then, with some food in her system, she could even think straight enough to figure out what the hell was going on. This girl seemed pretty open, at least. She certainly didn’t seem to be living under the iron boot of the infamous Ringmaster Trazen.
Chloe couldn’t help staring as they crossed yet another stone-tiled floor in a high-ceilinged and glass-enclosed room. Birds flew inside the house, as was the Nirreth custom, and she saw more trees, more fountains, purple flowers hanging down from dark vines that filled the sunlight-streamed room with thick scents, and...
Chloe did a double-take, disbelieving her eyes.
“Oh, that.” The girl laughed. “Yeah, Trazen likes animals. I mentioned the zoo, right? He lets me feed the big cats sometimes...”
Chloe nodded, but knew her jaw continued to hang.
The full-sized giraffe continued to eat leaves casually where it stood halfway inside and half outside the domed sunroom. Chloe only knew what it was because she and her sister had once gone to the Nirreth city zoo to look at the old Earth animals.
Looking past the tawny, chocolatey-pat
ched animal with its absurdly long neck, she glimpsed a tree and grass-filled garden. A full-sized pond stood there, surrounded by willow and other trees in the distance. Birds with long tail feathers strutted around the lawn.
Trazen was wealthy, obviously.
Which made sense, given his record in the Rings and his current position as Ringmaster. Chloe knew the position was one of the most coveted in the Nirreth world, mostly because of the prestige attached, but clearly it paid well, too.
No one became the Head Rings Operator without first earning the rank of “Ringmaster,” a lifelong title granted to one with an undefeated record in the Rings. It happened so rarely that Ringmaster Al-En Mosq––Trazen’s predecessor and an aged, crocodile-like creature who repulsed Chloe whenever she’d been forced to interact with him––held the position for over thirty years before Trazen won it from him.
Chloe remembered hearing or reading somewhere that Trazen was the youngest Rings Operator they’d ever had.
They walked through another carved archway dripping with flowers and into an open-air patio. At the white stone table nearest the lawn, feeding what looked like a small deer, sat Trazen, a plate of food mostly untouched on the table in front of him.
Chloe watched him as they approached, studying his face while his attention remained elsewhere.
The planes of his face looked even more dramatic in direct sunlight. She found herself thinking that he really was handsome. The structure of his face was perfect enough to be fascinating, well beyond the way Nirreth faces in general tended to be more symmetrical than those of humans. Nirreth faces tended to elongate forward more too, making them appear more cat-like... even close to a horse or deer, depending on the individual.
Something about Nirreth face structure struck Chloe as almost unnervingly perfect at times, alien beyond even the surface attributes.
Trazen was beautiful, however.
His dark eyes looked liquid in direct sunlight, his mouth forming a perfect curve in the slightly elongated face. He wore a cloth wrapped around his head like most Nirreth males, black, like what he wore the night before. The loose shirt that covered his upper body made it clear just how muscular that body was. She saw the low V-shape of his collarbone and a swell of muscle on his neck and upper chest through the collar.
The Rings Fighter Page 2