Storm Unbound

by Leo Hull

  “If you consider the side of a hill safe, then sure,” Tristan said with a grin, thankful that this expedition seemed to be on the verge of concluding. “Come on, I’ll show you.”

  Chapter Four

  “Wow, she’s really pissed!” Nessa whispered as the two worked to setup Nessa’s tent. Annik fumed to the side, snapping branches several inches thick with her bare hands. Rather than work out her frustration over Tristan’s lost pack, she only seemed to be inciting herself to further violence. “You were rushing to save her! How can she get pissed about that?”

  “Ordinarily I would I agree with you,” Tristan replied. He spoke softly so Annik wouldn’t hear. “But Bolstered are supposed to be better. It wasn’t enough to save her. I needed to save the mission. We’re stuck here, and worse, now the only tent we have is yours. In her mind she’s trapped and she’s going to have to share with me.”

  Next to them, Annik’s half erected tent stood abandoned. Nessa’s former vulta—something between master, husband, and business partner that Tristan and Annik struggled to understand—hadn’t just stolen the communication crystal. He’d also taken the time to slash and sabotage Annik’s tent, a fact only discovered midway through setup as twilight closed in.

  Already in a foul mood from the afternoon vainly searching for Tristan’s pack, Annik hadn’t muttered a word since. Nessa seemed oblivious to Annik’s temper, bouncing with excitement as she alternated between badgering them with questions about Aeol and the Bolstered and overwhelming them with details about her homeland.

  Tristan started to get the sense they were stuck with Nessa, not that he minded having the scantily dressed woman following them. She might be their only path back to civilization and Tristan quite liked the way she followed him adoringly. He couldn’t ever remember a woman looking at him like Nessa did, especially none as stunningly open with their beauty as Nessa was.

  She didn’t seem bothered at all by being abandoned by her vulta, and she seemed eager to help the two stranded Aeolians, acting more like a new compatriot rather than a prisoner. When Annik’s destroyed tent was discovered, Nessa happily suggested the three of them share. Annik hadn’t been so thrilled with the offer.

  “Well that’s not fair!” Nessa flipped her hair, a determined look on her face. Before Tristan could stop her, she strode over to Annik. “If you’re worried about sharing the tent, you don’t have to be. Even though it was me and Perran out here, he used to have three other Bound and this tent was made to share. I also know how it is to have your vulta bind someone new to the harem without consulting you, but I’m sure the two of us will make it work.”

  Annik gawked at the smaller woman, so off balance from Nessa’s words that any trace of anger vanished like a dandelion’s seeds kicked by playing children.

  Tristan shared Annik’s surprise. Harem? Did the word mean the same to the Saelian people as it did back in Aeol? And what did Nessa mean by binding someone new.

  “I’m sorry for being so forward,” Nessa continued, “but even an experienced vulta can struggle when two of his Bound don’t get along. I think it’s really important that we try to work things out between us, so he doesn’t feel like he has to choose between us.”

  A flush started to creep up Annik’s neck, and not from anger. She raised a hand to her mouth, her eyes darting to Tristan for confirmation of Nessa’s words. Despite her shock, Annik didn’t exactly look offended by Nessa’s misreading of their relationship, just embarrassed.

  Tristan couldn’t help it and he buckled over in laughter. It had been a rough few years for him. Forced into the Corp with a talent he didn’t want, Tristan left behind an easy life in his family’s expanding trading company for one where waking up at dawn to start training was considered a holiday. Sure, his body had hardened and grown in ways that attracted attention from women like his family’s money never had, but the shine of that wore off quick and even that boon disappeared once he started drinking.

  Tristan sank to the ground, clutching his sides as he struggled to breathe. Tears streamed down his face. He was stuck in a land the Fallen only knew how far was from Aeol, with little hope of ever returning home. He should feel terrified, depressed even. Instead he just felt some sick sort of relief that bubbled out of him as uncontrollable laughter.

  Tristan tried to stifle himself and could feel Nessa and Annik watching him. By the time he laid back with aching abs they both stared at him like he’d lost his mind.

  Maybe he had.

  “Nessa, Annik isn’t my Bound or concubine or whatever you want to call her,” Tristan explained, wiping tears from his eyes. “She’s my commander. She’s the one in charge.”

  For the first time since Tristan had woken on top of her, Nessa stood speechless as she digested that bit of news. So did Annik, Tristan noticed, and she wouldn’t meet his eyes as he set Nessa’s understanding straight.

  “If I tried to give her an order, she’d kick my ass,” Tristan said.

  “That makes no sense! How can she use her powers fully without being bound to you? Is she bound to someone else?” Nessa shook her head at her last question. “No, the way you two look at each other. Maybe there is a different word?”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Annik snapped, finally regaining her composure. She spoke forcefully but played nervously with her hands. “I don’t know how they do things here, but where we come from you earn power and respect from your actions, not from what dangles between your legs or from a chain around your neck.”

  Nessa’s mouth opened and closed at Annik’s sudden storm of words. Tristan held back, not willing to put himself in the middle of this anymore but more than willing to enjoy the fireworks.

  “But you keep staring at him,” Nessa finally replied, her confusion hardening to certainty. Tristan nearly burst out laughing as Annik physically took a step back from Nessa as if the smaller woman rushed forward to attack her. “And when you had on the outfit that got ripped up a bit when we fought, I could see why Tristan keeps stealing glances. Just look at what you’re hiding!”

  Nessa stepped forwards, her hands reaching to lift the rough shirt Annik had donned. She revealed Annik’s rippling abs before the Bolstered regained herself.

  “Just set up the tent. I’m going to gather more wood,” Annik stammered, turning her back and practically running off to escape Nessa.

  “That wasn’t wise,” Tristan counseled, his laughter finally contained. Annik did have an incredible body, and his mind filled with the memory of her curves and muscles, their length exaggerated as she dangled from her arms. Nessa was right about the ripped clothes, too. Something about seeing the fierce Bolstered wrestled to complete submission, her muscular body stretched out on display stirred a primal desire to conquer in Tristan. The circumstances were less than desirable, but he couldn’t help but muse about how sensual the scenario could be if the threat of death were removed.

  “I don’t understand,” Nessa pouted. “Everyone knows a woman has to be bound to unlock her true powers.”

  “Not for us,” Tristan snorted. “And what do you mean by unlocking your true powers?”

  “I can’t throw my spark without being bound,” Nessa explained, stretching her hand towards Tristan with lightning crackling along her arm. It spread, dancing to her shoulder than across her exposed body. She smiled as Tristan’s eyes trailed over her flat core. “Though if you decide to bind me, I still wouldn’t be able to zap at a distance. Perran was a Ground, and a pretty decent one that that. If he weren’t so bad at judging business partners, he could have been a real force in Saeli. There aren’t many Grounds that can bind four Sparks.”

  “Decide to bind you? Didn’t you tell Annik we were already bound?”

  “Wow, you two really don’t understand this at all!” Nessa looked up at him with a look of pure wonder at his naivete. Her violet eyes sparkled with what Tristan swore were actual bolts of lightning that danced along her irises. “I guess it would be a bit confusing. You h
ave the Sliver that matches mine, so you could bind me at any time. Back in Saeli, they always make a big ritual out of it and we sign all these legal contracts in front of Arbiters and witnesses, but really all that’s needed are two Slivers.”

  Tristan gawked at their new companion. The whole thing just seemed too strange to be real. Maybe she was toying with them.

  “Why would you agree to this? Why not just take off your Sliver?” Tristan wondered aloud. “We’ve barely met, so how could you trust me not to mistreat you if I made you my slave?”

  “What?” Nessa recoiled, then burst out laughing. “Slave? Binding doesn’t work like that! I could take off the Sliver whenever I wanted. I told you, it’s more like a contract of sorts, though sometimes there can be a connection that’s hard to explain. We need each other. You need me to take you to Saeli and try and find your communication crystal. I need to track down Perran and recover my contract or at least get you two to serve as witnesses.

  “The minute he failed to defend me against you and try to reclaim the Sliver, our agreement was voided. But there are terms where he could claim the fund my parents set up for me as his own. He’s desperate for money—that’s the whole reason we were out here! He bought some treasure map from a conman and dragged me over the mountains. He was convinced this would solve all his problems, but now I’m sure he’s realized if he returns alone, he can claim I died or abandoned him and withdraw my funds. Maybe that was his plan all along.

  “We both have the same goal. Find Perran and recover what he stole from us. It’s perfect for a binding contract.” Nessa paused, a coy smile spreading. “There are other benefits too…”

  Tristan swallowed, his mouth dry as he thought about what Nessa might be hinting at.

  Chapter Five

  “Can we trust her?” Tristan asked. He wanted to believe everything Nessa had told them, but knew well enough to suspect he might be thinking with the flesh between his legs rather than the brain between his ears. “The whole binding thing sounds too perfect, too convenient.”

  “I think she’s telling the truth,” Annik said almost reluctantly. “Her culture seems…different. But it would explain a lot.”

  Different was an understatement. Tristan and Annik had scarcely believed Nessa as she regaled them with a rough breakdown of Saeli, just one of many cities that decorated the coastline of the Albeder Sea. The Sea was really a collection of massive lakes hosting a cradle of civilization that made the growing Aeolian Empire look like an upstart. Like Aeol, many cities seemed to have sprung up around Fallen relics that imparted unique Gifts. Nessa seemed unconcerned about the other Albeder powers, but Annik fretted about the possibility of conflict with Aeol.

  Tristan had been more focused on cultural differences, chief among them the origins of the Bound. Saeli followed the practice of sending citizens to receive the Fallen’s Gift during their first year rather than waiting to adulthood. Aeol had its own scrap of a Fallen memento, a strange metal room buried halfway underground where Aeolian dutifully presented themselves, most with the hope of serving their country. Tristan, like everyone from Aeol, hadn’t entered until he was eighteen and could accept the risks. Deaths were rare, but not unheard of.

  Not so for cities upon Albeder’s shores.

  Boys and girls both manifested powers and died during their teenage years, though the transition seemed particularly hard on men and the population reflected this. Just as each Fallen monument imparted a different Gift, the risk presented differently in different locales, but nearly always men were more likely to die. This tradition seemed an absurd risk to Tristan, especially considering that just surviving to adulthood didn’t guarantee either gender to manifest powers.

  When he and Annik pointed this out, Nessa had shrugged and brushed off their concern. To her, growing up in a society where a sizeable portion of men died so that an even smaller minority might manifest powers seemed normal.

  The lack of men helped explain the culture of Bound, but so too did the strange dimorphism of Gifts in this part of the world. In Aeol, a Bolstered was a Bolstered regardless of their sex, but here each Gift imparted different powers and only through cooperation could each access their full abilities. With fewer men around in general, women Gifted did what they had to.

  Annik had rolled her eyes as Tristan practically drooled at Nessa’s description of women desperate to find a mate, even if it meant sharing him. The whole culture grew to reflect this imbalance, with women flaunting their talents and bodies like a male peacock spreading his feathers. It sounded wonderful to Tristan.

  “That’s awful!” Annik had protested, before starting to argue with Nessa. Annik seemed almost personally affronted by the ideas Nessa shared and tried to get Nessa to see the error of her Saelian ways.

  Nessa seemed equally mystified by the Aeolian practice of marriage and joining a couple for life. What if goals and interests changed? What if one mistreated the other? Dissolving a marriage was no easy task. Bound had rights in addition to responsibilities, and a vulta had to care and provide for his Bound or risk being imprisoned, ostracized, or exiled. A man that took on more bound than he could manage risked Perran’s fate—spiraling debt that persisted even when the binding was long gone.

  The two had bickered, fiercely at first but with growing playfulness as they felt each other out. Despite the stark differences between their cultures, the women still had much in common. Each had become the hope for a family trying to rise in station by relying on their Gifted daughter. The two commiserated over the stress of having their families depend on them, something foreign to Tristan.

  After he had found his Gift, Tristan’s father had complained of having to teach the family business again to another son. Tristan had been cut out of the family businesses at the same time his father began dangling Tristan’s new talent in front of potential partners.

  When Nessa had spoken bitterly of her time with Perran and how his once seemingly unlimited potential was only a shallow pool, Tristan guiltily stayed out of the conversation. Nessa clearly had grown to understand Perran held her back and made it harder for her to achieve her goals. The parallels to how Annik’s promising career might be ruined by his involvement weren’t mentioned, but they hung in the air he couldn’t help but worry about the damage he might have done to her.

  “She is certainly different,” Tristan said, his gaze towards the bushes that obscured where Nessa had disappeared to bathe. “Very friendly, though.”

  Annik snorted and rolled her eyes.

  “What?” Tristan asked defensively.

  “You just like how she flaunts herself.”

  “Guilty. What’s wrong with that? She seems happy enough to show off and you’ve been looking too.”

  Annik’s pale skin flushed and she studied the embers in front of her.

  Tristan immediately regretted his joke. Annik’s anger over his lost pack had mellowed far faster than Tristan deserved, but while she stewed, Tristan had taken the time to consider how kind Annik had been to him.

  He’d failed out of the Corp—or, well, he should have. No one got a second chance, especially not an arrogant drunk like him. Yet Annik had somehow secured one for him for reasons he still didn’t understand. He was sober for the first time in months and Tristan had to admit Annik had saved him from a life stationed in some remote colony, drinking himself to death as he cracked the heads of unruly laborers. If she’d had another Bolstered with her, she wouldn’t have had to go ahead alone and they wouldn’t be in this situation. She’d selflessly risked everything for him. She didn’t deserve to have him be an ass.

  “I’m sorry about—” Tristan started to say.

  “Do you remember our first week as Bolstered?” Annik asked suddenly. She studied the ground just in front of where Tristan sat.

  “How could I forget? I think I spent more time vomiting than sleeping,” Tristan said, recalling the brutal introduction to the training needed to reach peak form. Somehow, he doubted this was what Annik
meant.

  “I was small back then. The Fallen’s Gift hadn’t taken hold, and that ass Gori wouldn’t leave me alone. I swear he bribed our instructors so that he’d always get paired up with me, then paw at me as we sparred or wrestled. When I complained about it, he’d play it off as just a joke, then mess with me more.”

  Tristan did remember Gori, a brute disguised by golden hair and a charming smile—a real asshole that took affront at Tristan’s lack of Bolstered lineage and misgivings about leaving behind an easy company life. If his general demeanor weren’t bad enough, Gori had taken to the Bolstered life well and breezed through training exercises only to gloat with the instructors as Tristan and others struggled.

  “He was a jerk,” Tristan offered, “but so was I at that age.”

  “At that age?” Annik managed a smile. “You were a rebellious punk that drove the instructors mad, but you never bullied the other students. You stood up to the bullies like Gori. You stood up for me.”

  “I did?” Tristan racked his brain. The rapid changes during that time in his life left holes in his memory, but he did remember a confrontation with Gori. Tristan had been angry at having to give up his inheritance, and the lack of sleep those early weeks had made him irritable. He’d seethed as Gori and his ilk excelled after years of preparation with the expectation they’d become Bolstered. They’d been given every advantage and made sure everyone knew it.

  It would have been one thing if Gori had merely contented himself with humiliating others with his competence, but he’d insisted on further degradations—particularly for those from less distinguished lineages, and especially for women that were completely unable to defend themselves physically. The Corp encouraged rough housing between recruits, but Gori took it further and in those early days, the women were at a severe disadvantage against the natural muscles of the men.

  The gap closed eventually, but only once the Fallen’s Gift had fully taken root could the women hold their own or even surpass the men. Gori took this as reason enough to assert himself and the teachers had turned a blind eye to their darling recruit’s wandering hands and sexual aggression.