by Jill Braden
“Because you know where the Ravidians are, and what they’re up to. And you’re going to tell me.”
They had a business agreement, which meant that no matter how he treated her, he’d get what he’d bargained for. But she wasn’t about to tell him that. She crossed her arms. “Not until I get some food.” That would buy LiHoun another half hour, maybe.
Kyam went to the typhoon shutters that led out to his veranda. “Wait here. I’ll ask one of the neighbor boys to run out to the café around the corner.”
“While you’re at it, ask them if they saw who ransacked your apartment.”
He paused at the door. “No need. I know who did it, and so do you.”
Chapter 10: Betrayal
Kyam pushed his mosquito net to the far side of his bed and set the bowls of food on the bedspread. He reclined at one end, propped on an elbow, and chewed a slice of pan bread dipped into fragrant pork stew. QuiTai sat at the other end. Steam curled out of a tamtuk when she cracked it open. The purplish dough, made from jikal root, and the sweet, heavily-spiced pork tucked inside smelled like dinner at her grandmother’s home. She dipped it into a tart sauce and bit.
“So good.” She sighed with satisfaction.
“FalLoun makes the best tamtuks, although I like PhaChiu’s dipping sauce more.”
“I never would have suspected you of bring such a connoisseur of Ponongese cuisine, Mister Zul. You’ve gone native.”
Days before, that same comment had angered him. Now, he popped a delicate morsel of rice-paper-wrapped fish into his mouth and grinned. “Back when I was an active agent, I traveled the continent. Some countries, you wonder how their people can stand to eat the food.”
“I love the Ingosolians, their culture, their passion for art, their spirit, but would it kill them to use a little spice? I’ve never tasted anything so bland,” QuiTai lamented.
“Except their wine. It’s strong enough to make rum blush.”
Her appetite suddenly gone, QuiTai put down the piece of pan bread she’d torn off the small loaf.
“You’re thinking of Jezereet again.”
“I made it through almost the whole day without crying.” She wiped a tear from her eye. “If I keep busy... I’ve had enough food. Let’s go.” She wiped her hands.
“Not so fast.”
“You were in a hurry this morning.”
“But you weren’t an hour ago.”
He noticed far too much. She didn’t even try to deny it, although he seemed to be waiting for her to explain.
“I was hungry. Now I’m not.”
The farwriter dinged. Kyam ambled over to the machine with a tamtuk clenched between his teeth.
“So many messages. What are you Thampurians chattering about?”
“You know Thampurians. We love our protocol.” He spun the tuner dials. “All this chitchat back and forth is a bunch of flowery formality.” He frowned at the readout for a while before angrily jamming his fingers down on a series of keys. Then, as with the other messages that had come in, he immediately burned the paper over his cooking fire.
The Thampurians might have been all about formalities, but Kyam’s responses to the incoming messages were fifty or sixty keystrokes at most, and his mouth set into a grim frown as he typed them. Something didn’t feel right. She’d been stalling, but now it was clear that he was too. It made her uneasy.
“Why don’t I give you some privacy? I’m sure your superiors would feel better if I weren’t sitting in the same room as your farwriter.”
Kyam pulled his chair over to the bed, effectively blocking her. “You said the Ravidian crates never made it into Levapur. You suggested the harbor master helped load them onto his brother’s skiff. That means we’ll have to sail wherever it is you think the Ravidians took them. I know my way around a sail, but you probably don’t, which means I need to rest before we get under way.”
She didn’t like feeling trapped by him. He was jumpy, and it unnerved her: as if the barometer were falling and a storm hovered out at sea, ready to unleash its fury.
“If the Ravidians have accomplices in Levapur, they might know by now that we found the harbor master’s body. They could be moving their operations.”
“So you’ve known all along where they are.”
“I never said that I didn’t have a good guess.”
“Has anyone told you that you don’t play fair?” He leaned across her knees to dip another piece of bread into the stew.
“I wasn’t aware we were playing, Mister Zul.”
“Let me try a direct question. Do you know what the Ravidians are up to?”
“That’s where my ideas get a bit hazy. It’s a lot of speculation.”
“I’ll take your speculation over most people’s facts. We dropped an interesting conversation earlier today. You were about to lecture me on medusozoa. So, the Ravidians smuggled sea wasps onto this island… how’s your hand, by the way?”
“It twinges from time to time, unless I forget and use it. Then it hurts quite a bit.”
“That will fade over time. Now, the medusozoa.”
QuiTai had no problem telling him a bit more. It would hold his interest and keep him looking the direction she wanted him to focus on.
“This story is meat for your rice. The green light medusozoa are native to this island and will only grow here. You can’t even raise them on other islands in the Ponong archipelago. Plenty have tried. Because of this quirk of nature, my people perfected the methods for farming green light medusozoa. Then the blue light ones were imported here to increase our profitability as a colony. Right? But the blue lights won’t live in the plantation terraces because they need ocean water and fish to survive, whereas the green lights feed off the bioluminescent algae in their own bodies. So we invented the tide pool hatcheries for the blue lights. Are you with me so far?”
Kyam nodded. Then, although it was clear he was listening, he stood to put the farwriter back into the trunk, and began to pick up his scattered paintings.
“And what is a sea wasp?” she asked.
“A type of jelly. A medusozoa.”
“Are they a forbidden import?”
Kyam shrugged as he cleared the bowls from the bed. “Who would ship them anywhere? You only make laws against things you can imagine someone doing, and I doubt anyone foresaw Ravidians importing sea wasps. It’s insane. And why in the world –”
“So the only reason to go to the expense of smuggling would be to make sure that the government back in Thampur doesn’t find out they’ve been brought to Ponong.”
But I plan to find out if the colonial government knew.
She said, “Then the crates were taken from the harbor on a skiff to where, Mister Zul?”
He glanced toward his window as if he could see them. “A tide pool plantation. On the leeward side of the island!”
“Very good. Where they can be farmed just like blue light medusozoa.”
Of course the Ravidians hadn’t taken over one of the leeward plantations. But it was close enough to the truth to suffice for now. She’d tell Kyam what she really thought after they’d wasted some more time checking the plantations on Ponong. That was as much head start as she could give for LiHoun without being obvious.
She said, “You said that the Ravidians are far ahead of the Thampurians in medusozoa technology. I’m going outside my area of expertise here and into yours. Why would anyone want quick, easy access to a steady supply of sea wasps?”
Kyam shoved his bangs out of his eyes as he sank back onto the bed. She could see the amazement in his face as he came to the same conclusion she had on the skiff. Then his brows drew together as if he doubted his intuition. A fleeting moment later his eyes widened.
Dawning horror hushed his voice when he finally believed it enough to say out loud. “The Ravidians weaponized the sea wasps.”
She held up her scarred hand. “One sting is enough to stop you in your tracks. Two or three can kill. And now they’re going
to mass produce them in farm pools.”
“Weaponized sea wasps. I thought they were up to something, but this is huge.” Stunned by the scope of the vision, he rubbed his chin.
Petrof would have told her that she imagined things. He would have ignored her warnings. Yet this Thampurian colonist, scion of the thirteen families, treated her with respect. When he got angry, he didn’t grab her throat. He listened to her. It was sad that over the past two days, her biggest enemy on the island had drawn closer to her than any other ally. If only she could leave Petrof and form some sort of alliance with Kyam.
But Petrof would never let her leave him. His pride wouldn’t let him lose one of his possessions. As if she were a possession. Petrof didn’t own her. She owned herself.
Kyam jumped to his feet and paced the room. She’d never seen him so animated. “Yes! They won’t be able to dismiss this back in Thampur. I’ll get my –” Not another word could have passed through his tightly pressed lips. A bright grin spread over his face though as he plopped down beside her.
“Your what?”
He chuckled. “I may admire you, but I still don’t trust you enough to give you leverage. Just be content that this is of vital importance to me.”
Me. Not the Thampurians. He wasn’t as exacting about his word choice as she was, but she sensed that was a telling slip. And her loyalties were slipping too.
He might not trust her, but he was giddy enough to grab her hand and press his lips to the back of it. The warmth of his touch traveled up her arm as he held her hand a moment too long.
She wanted him. Forget the Ravidians, the Devil, everyone else. Intense desire pushed aside every reason she had to stay away from him. Sex with him would be such a delicious mistake.
Looking Kyam in the eye, she leaned close to him. He didn’t pull away, but he didn’t encourage her either. Maybe he was still trying to protect her? Maybe he worried about what the Devil might do. That was her problem, not his.
“I was thinking, Kyam…” She caressed his face and kissed him.
He placed a gentle hand over hers and said against her mouth, “Now is not the time, Lady QuiTai.”
He was rejecting her? But then she heard the footsteps on the stairs, and the hushed voices. Someone pounded on the door. “Colonel Zul!”
She looked at him, shocked. Kyam spread his hands in apology.
All the hatred she’d ever felt for him rushed back into her heart. She’d been a fool. The humiliation set her temper aflame. Kyam had betrayed her. Why was she so surprised?
QuiTai bolted for the veranda. A soldier blocked her way. She backed into the room as he came at her. Kyam opened his door to three more waiting soldiers.
QuiTai recognized Major Voorus, head of the elite colonial military force. One of the bullies. His silver epaulets dripped fringe. She’d seen him before, at a distance, but until now she’d never seen noticed how closely he resembled Kyam. Same face shape, same nose, same build. They could have been brothers.
“Have you made the arrests, Major Voorus?” Kyam asked.
“Yes, Colonel.” Voorus obviously disliked reporting to Kyam; QuiTai wondered if it was personal, or a matter of jurisdiction. Soldiers and intelligence services could be jealous of their territory, or so she’d heard. She tried to keep away from both as much as possible.
“We picked up the werewolves in a tavern near the town square. They were slobbering drunk. We had no problem bringing them in.”
QuiTai swallowed a gasp. The werewolves? So all this time, Kyam had really been after the Devil. He’d only stumbled on the Ravidian’s plot because of her. If the Thampurians hung the werewolves on some trumped-up charge, Petrof would lose his enforcers – she was sure that’s what Kyam planned. But the werewolves were only a small part of the Devil’s syndicate. The true heart of it was her people, and Kyam couldn’t begin to imagine the scope of the network she controlled.
She fought down her panic and fury. She had to stay in control of her emotions.
Did he have Petrof? That was the question. He’d hinted that he knew the Devil was a werewolf, but he couldn’t know which one for sure. Maybe he was expecting her reaction to confirm his suspicions. She refused to give him that information. No matter what, she would show no curiosity about these wolves.
“Then it’s time we headed to the harbor,” Kyam told the soldiers. He pointed to QuiTai. “Until I say so, your prime directive is to protect her. But under the circumstances, consider her hostile. Extremely hostile.” He half-bowed to her. “You weave a wonderful story from wisps of fact, Lady QuiTai. But it isn’t proof.”
~ ~ ~
Kyam led the way through town. QuiTai, surrounded by four rude soldiers, followed. If Kyam had any respect for her dignity, he would take quiet streets; instead, he marched her through the marketplace. Voorus kept trying to grab her arm. Every time she yanked away from his touch, the other soldiers laughed.
The usual loud clash of voices quieted as they walked past the stalls. People stared. Stubbornly, she lifted her chin and looked straight ahead. If the crowd thought she was in disgrace, they were wrong. Kyam was the one who had acted dishonorably. She’d given him exactly what he’d bargained for, and in return, he’d had her arrested: He called it protection, but she wasn’t fooled.
Kyam and the soldiers paused at the road leading to the harbor. “Keep a sharp eye out, men. There are lots of places at the switchbacks to stage an ambush,” Kyam said.
She wanted to know why they were heading to the harbor. It didn’t make any sense. But she refused to speak to him. He’d only use her words against her.
He turned to her. “If you sense a growl, or anything that sets off your instincts, let us know immediately. From the way you reacted in the marketplace earlier, you’re much more attuned to it than we are.”
She’d be damned before she warned him about anything; but every nerve in her body went on alert. She tried to listen, but the soldiers were making too much noise. They had no idea how to move stealthily: typical Thampurian heavy-footedness. Kyam, however, moved with a slinky grace she never expected from such a big man, gliding from shadow to shadow down the hill ahead of them.
The sun hadn’t set yet, but it was already below the hills of west Levapur. Cool orange tinged the sky, and hot pink glowed on the underside of puffy clouds. Night fliers rose and swarmed on the evening onshore ocean breezes. Bats gathered in the trees chattered restlessly as the group passed. One of the soldiers flinched when a large ring-tailed lizard ran across their path. She wasn’t the only one who was tense. But the Ravidians were probably several miles away, and the soldiers said the werewolves had been captured. Why so much caution?
Near the bottom of the hill, they came upon the funicular wreck. QuiTai had to blink a few times before she could make sense of it. The car she and Kyam had been in was so crumbled that the sight made her stomach heave. Then she realized it was actually the last two cars, sandwiched together. The only car that wasn’t ripped open or flattened sat atop the remains of the ticket booth. Huge splinters of wood and the contents of busted crates had been thrown far by the force of the explosion.
QuiTai glanced at Kyam. He looked a bit queasy too as he nodded tersely and then headed for the wharf.
The Zul junk sat in the middle of the harbor with its bow now pointed to the sea. Sailors moved purposefully across the decks. Beyond the junk, the fortress loomed. A sense of dread sank into her stomach.
“Into the skiff, Lady QuiTai,” Kyam said. He stepped onto a boat tied to the wharf and offered her his hand.
She shook her head.
“I’m afraid that I must insist.”
The soldiers grabbed her arms and dragged her toward the boat. “You aren’t taking me to the fortress, are you?” It made her blood run cold.
“Of course not. Calm down,” Kyam said.
Voorus pushed in front of QuiTai. “That’s not correct, Colonel Zul. I have orders to relieve you of the prisoner. This is now a matter for the coloni
al military.”
Panic gave QuiTai strength. She used every trick she knew to escape from the hands that clenched her. One soldier fell back into the water. Voorus grasped his groin. She spun to face the other two.
Kyam leaped back onto the wharf, grabbed her, and covered her mouth with his hand. He whispered, “Be still. Keep your wits about you. My protection has limits. If you bare your fangs to these soldiers, they’ll have cause to toss you into a cell and throw away the key.”
The feel of his breath on her neck made her shiver. She swallowed. She vowed not to give up. She might possibly be able to talk her way out of the fortress.
When Kyam felt her relax, he let go of her. Spinning around, she told him, “I acted in good faith, Colonel Zul. I should have known that Thampurian justice would be my reward.”
“You think you’re under arrest?”
“I think I’m dead. That’s the only reason to take me to that place.” She pointed to the fortress. A body, illuminated by the last golden rays of the sun, hung from the western ramparts. “No Ponongese has ever left there alive.”
The soldiers were pulling their comrade from the water. They looked angry enough to attack her again. They probably wanted to see her quake. To see her plead or cry. She wouldn’t give them the satisfaction. Head held high, she stepped into the skiff.
Kyam and the soldiers boarded after her. Kyam untied the ropes while the others sat at oars. He looked as angry as she felt.
“You’ll be the first, then, I swear,” he whispered.
She laughed bitterly as they cast off.
~ ~ ~
They disembarked onto the fortress’s short wharf, tucked in the far end of the harbor near where the fishing fleet and small merchant skiffs anchored for the night. The soldiers, Kyam, and QuiTai stepped onto the landing.
“Come, Lady QuiTai,” Kyam said as he touched her arm.
Her heart recoiled at the sight of the thick stone walls, massive iron door, and the red banners proudly displaying the Imperial chop as they furled and snapped in the wind like waves. Kyam was Thampurian. He couldn’t know how it felt to be so close to the hated symbol of colonial power. He thought of it as a place of justice; her people knew it as death.