Bloodflower

by K. J. Harrowick

  Not alone, it seemed to whisper.

  The tattooed man stepped out of the hut and ran fingers through his shaggy hair, the red-haired woman beside him. Both shared a concerned glance as blood dripped down Jàden’s arm.

  “You stay away from me.” She stumbled into the central area, keeping the clutched blanket over her bare chest.

  Groups of people stared back at her. Many of them made a gesture with their hands she didn’t understand then dropped to their knees.

  One woman hummed a low melody, others picking up the tune. Something about the song itched at a familiarity from her childhood, at a memory of her grandmother singing to the Guardians as she lit small incense sticks.

  This had to be a trick. Everything was white, from the thin layer of snow on the hut roofs to the frost on the orange oak leaves to the strips of white fur on everyone’s clothing. Why did everything have to be white?

  Two years under the glare of fluorescents and still Frank taunted her. Maybe she really was still in her cage. “Let me out of here, Frank!”

  The strangers moved to either side of her, the one with the mohawk keeping his distance.

  “Herana, sanda le.” Her protector closed the gap between them.

  His voice tempered to a soft calm as if soothing an anxious horse, and he laid a hand on each of her cheeks. “Níra.”

  Gentle yet strong, his warmth bled into her skin. Jàden desperately wanted to believe this wasn’t a cage, that this man was real and would keep her out of Frank’s clutches. “Please. I don’t want to go back.”

  “Sanda le.” He caressed her cheek.

  She frowned at his strange words, so different from the smooth flow of Hàlon’s common speech.

  Yet, one word stood out: sanda.

  “Safe,” she whispered. As the icy air blew across her neck, she recalled the red numbers on her pod: 3,793 years.

  Everything had changed.

  She scanned the villagers, dressed in thick clothing lined with fur and leather. They weren’t attacking her, and none of them wore a Guild patch or any emblem of office.

  This wasn’t an illusion or a cage. This was life.

  “Where’s Frank?”

  Maybe this stranger knew something, but he held no recognition of the name in his eyes.

  As her shoulder throbbed, she leaned into the stranger and buried her head in his chest. His warmth eased her terror as he lifted her into his arms and walked her back to the small hut.

  “Please don’t let them cut me.” But as she glanced at her injury, it became evident why the woman held a bloodied dagger. She’d been cutting Jàden open to remove the arrow.

  Incense twisted to a gentle blend of mountain pine and warm air as he set her on the table. Crackling flames heated the room from a small hearth, and Jàden leaned against her protector’s shoulder. A gentle voice and warm touch were far better companions than a sea of endless white fluorescents.

  This time, she bit back her pain as the red-haired woman stitched the wound with an efficient hand. As the last remnants of blood were wiped away and her arm bound in a sling, her stomach growled. Jàden couldn’t recall the last time she’d eaten anything resembling food.

  Kale was the only thing that mattered now, and she wouldn’t get far without a bite to eat and warm clothes.

  Her protector wrapped a thin blanket around her shoulders, then pressed something warm into her hand as if reading her thoughts. “Borda.”

  Jàden uncurled her fingers, poking at the cooked flesh with bones poking out of it. She touched an orange beak then lifted the creature to her nose and sniffed. Her stomach turned at the dry, oily scent of whatever bird it had once been.

  For two years, Frank’s lab technicians only gave her a daily ration bar—barely enough to keep her alive. She’d always preferred the taste of real fruits and vegetables from her grandmother’s garden, but after so long with only synthetic meals, her body might reject anything else.

  If she wanted to be strong enough to find Kale, she couldn’t be picky.

  Jàden tugged away a small strip, touching it against her tongue. The dry meat and strong flavor triggered her gag reflex. She winced and pushed the fire-cooked flesh into her mouth.

  The bearded stranger laid a bowl of water into her hand as the red-haired healer retreated from the hut. The cool liquid soothed Jàden’s throat as she sipped and handed it back, but he set it down beside her. He gestured something silent to his companion.

  Jàden eyed the man with the tattoo across his forehead. He didn’t look anything like Frank now that she studied him. His face was much younger and his body lean. Only the color and cut of his hair held any similarity.

  But she still didn’t trust him.

  The tattooed man gestured something back that seemed to satisfy her protector then disappeared out the cloth door.

  “Don’t let him come back.” She slid another piece of meat onto her tongue, chewing the rubbery texture and crinkling her nose as wind blew fierce against the hut.

  The bearded man pointed to his chest. “Jon.”

  He touched her hand. “Herana.”

  Jàden furrowed her brow then understood. His name.

  “Jon,” she whispered, rolling her tongue around the sound. Her frown deepened at the other word. She grabbed his hand and pulled it to her cheek. “Jàden.”

  The moment his warmth touched her, Jàden’s chest tightened. Desperation pulled at her senses, the need for human interaction blanketing her desperation for Kale. She should have pushed Jon away, but his thumb traced the curve of her cheek, deepening the lonely ache in her chest.

  Or maybe it was the food.

  Her insides twisted, cramping. She shoved the half-eaten animal into his hand and dropped off the table. Grabbing a small bucket, she heaved up the few small bites she’d eaten, the strain shooting pain to her injury.

  Two years with nothing but ration bars and her stomach couldn’t take anything else. Her insides twisted again. She clenched her jaw to hold the nausea back. She needed strength if she was going to survive long enough to find Kale, which meant she’d have to learn how to eat again.

  And she needed to know if Frank was still alive.

  Jon crouched beside her. He lifted her chin and put a bowl of water to her lips.

  She drank deeply, her throat burning with the animal’s bitter taste. “I haven’t eaten real food in…”

  3,973 years.

  Jon wrapped a bodice around her chest and snapped the seams closed so she was no longer half naked. His dirty, calloused hands brushed her side, a gentleness in his touch despite the heavy scars on his knuckles.

  Her gaze trailed along his muscular arms before she closed her eyes. So many years alone. Jàden couldn’t bear the weight of the emptiness inside her, so she reached for her only companion left.

  Sandaris.

  With the circlet gone from her wrist, the moon’s gentle heartbeat echoed alongside hers. She’d forged the connection long ago, at a time of desperation when her power first became more than a small party trick.

  Opening her eyes, Jàden unfolded her hand, flecks of light and shadow twisting away from her palm. She could feel Jon’s energy like an intimate embrace. What would Kale think of what she’d done? Forging a forbidden bond without an Enforcer contract.

  Jon grabbed her wrist, tracing his thumb across her palm. “Balé?”

  Why.

  He’d just spoken her language. Or had he? Perhaps the Flame’s bond seamlessly translated the word in her head. Or maybe she was finally listening now that the pain from her injury didn’t overshadow everything else. She scratched behind her ear at an imaginary tickle against her brain. Strange words and meaning melded together as one. “Because I need your help. I have to find Kale. Go back to the beginning.”

  And she couldn’t do it alone. Not when she was so broken.

  Jon stuck a cigarette between his lips and pulled a block of brushed steel out of
his pocket. Blowing on the glass orb, illumination traced outward along thin lines in the casing.

  “A lighter.”

  Before he could light the tip of his cigarette, Jàden snatched it from his hand and popped the small orb out. The glow faded. Cupping her hands around the firemark, she blew until it illuminated again. Trillions of bioluminescent bacteria flared to life inside the transparent sphere.

  Like her, they directly touched the Flame. Creatures of pure biotheric energy used to power starships and all human technology.

  “Do you have more?” she asked.

  Jon reached into his pocket and tossed her a leather pouch.

  Loosening the string, she dumped the contents onto her hand. More than a dozen firemarks—blue and violet, amber and green. She clutched the marble-like orbs. She’d seen the bacteria beds once, long ago, and never wanted to go back.

  Each bacteria-filled sphere glowed with her touch. Pushing the memory out of her head, she shoved a blue firemark into the lighter, the glow tracing thin lines of light along the brushed steel.

  Power.

  It didn’t matter where it came from.

  She could go home.

  CHAPTER 4

  Meridan

  Every muscle in Jon’s body tightened as he leaned his knuckles against the worn table. He had enough shit of his own to deal with—his family dead, soldiers on his ass, and his men in danger.

  Except now he had a new problem, a half-dead Guardian in his care. He didn’t want to believe it, but the statue at the head of the village left little room for doubt. Maybe he should walk away now and leave her with the healers. Most certainly she’d be safer with them and have a chance at a real life without dragging his problems into it.

  Someone had tortured the woman. That much was clear from her emaciation. He’d spent too many years inside the Tower prison as a captain not to understand what starvation and long years in a cage did to a person.

  Jon clenched his jaw tight as Mather stepped inside the hut. “Is she asleep?”

  “For now.”

  They’d tried to lead the Rakir away from the observatory, but the bastards corralled them in. While he’d tried to protect the Guardian, Mather was ambushed in the woods and barely missed a hoof-kick to the head.

  Jon pulled the blanket up to Jàden’s chin and tucked it beneath her uninjured arm. The woman’s softness breathed into his skin, her magic spreading through his body as if she’d woven her essence into his veins.

  He’d always ached for a woman of his own, one who saw past the terrifying soldier to the deepest parts of his heart and loved him anyway. Most only saw the darkness, the Tower patch, or his inability to relax enough to ever be ‘off duty.’ He supposed it was his fault for the deep shadows hanging over his life and the need to be constantly alert.

  But he never imagined a woman would bind him as a husband before she even knew his name, especially a Guardian.

  He should be angry at her. Shit, he should be furious. And yet the softness of her breath on his skin tugged at an ache deep in his soul.

  How long since any woman let him close enough to touch her hand? Or to caress his fingers through the softness of her hair? Jon pulled the sensation in like a lover as he traced a thumb across her cheek, a deep connection he’d craved nearly all his life.

  “Healers are in an uproar.” Mather crouched near the fire to warm his hands.

  “Because we found a damn Guardian.” Not surprising. By the singing outside the hut, they’d want to keep Herana for themselves.

  Never at peace with his Guardian sign, Jon had always considered himself one of the ranasen, those who followed the lonely path to Herana, the Guardian of Lost Souls.

  The only moonless Guardian of the seven.

  Except she couldn’t be real.

  Guardians were no more than an idea to give comfort to those on the edges of death, though Jon often heard rumors that the southern cities built great towers to honor them. While the north destroyed all trace of the Guardians in favor of one central power: the Tower of Idrér.

  “Worse,” Mather muttered. “One of their border men spotted Rakir on the east ridge.”

  “Fuck.” Their hard ride through the canyon pass should have put enough distance between them and where he found Jàden. So much for any rest. Jon lit a cigarette and brushed past Mather to step outside. “Don’t let her out of your sight.”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  Dropping the door back into place, he trudged across the plaza toward the stables. The previous day’s gentle shower turned back to freezing rain as a sharp wind blew across his cheek. The season of leaves was nearly at an end, and soon the season of the deep freeze would blanket the mountains under a veil of white. He needed to get to the other side before they were trapped in the passes.

  Tied to an outside post, his and Mather’s stallions tossed their heads. Both northern-bred Tower horses ignored him as farriers brushed them down and offered each one treats. Unlike other equines, norshads only traveled in brother-herds and would kill most mares outside of mating season.

  The stable keepers had to keep them away from the smaller mountain horses, but neither stallion seemed to care under the farriers’ attentions.

  Jon stepped beneath the long eaves and crouched near their gear to assess the remaining supplies. Barely enough food to get them through another day.

  Healer Feira, the village leader who’d cut the arrow out of Jàden’s shoulder, emerged from the shadows and shushed away the others as the last of the four suns dipped below the horizon. “Let the horses rest.”

  Bright red hair glistened like dying embers of a spent fire as she stepped beneath the eaves and offered him a cup filled with steaming liquid.

  “Thought you could use this.”

  The rich smell of ground coffee teased his nose. Jon grabbed his saddle and blanket and set them on the back of his horse. Never one to pass up a fresh cup, he couldn’t shake the news of Rakir nearby and needed to have the horses ready to run again. He’d never want to bring the wrath of the Tower soldiers on a peaceful healer village.

  “Thanks,” he muttered but ignored her outstretched hand as he pulled the cinch through the buckle.

  “You’re leaving already?” Disappointment laced her tone as she set the cups aside and blocked him before he could grab Mather’s saddle. “The Guardian must have time to heal.”

  He didn’t have time for the woman’s stubbornness. Jon tried to step around her, but Feira grabbed his arm.

  “You are not like the other soldiers.” Her sharp eyes bored into him. “Rakir only show kindness to their brothers, never to outsiders.”

  Even without their horses, he and Mather could never hide what they were—Tower soldiers. At least until six weeks ago.

  The pain of that last day burned in his chest, but he pushed it down. Now wasn’t the time to relive his family’s death. “I’ll get rid of the scouts your border patrol found, but don’t get in my way again.”

  “You have no supplies, Captain, and I daresay you used most of your shalir to pay for the Guardian’s healing.” She squeezed his arm to hold him in place as if she had some important piece of news. “I want to make you a trade.”

  Jon took a long drag on his cigarette. Now what in all of Sandaris could she want to trade him? Few women were ever so bold around him or showed no fear. As his curiosity prickled, so did the hairs on the back of his neck. “Go on.”

  “I want a child. A daughter with the strength of a warrior and the gentleness of a healer. Since the Guardian has no physical means to help me”—her eyes traced downward—“I want you to give me that child.”

  Jon stared at Feira as if she’d gone mad. There were women in his home city who sold their bodies to soldiers as part of a bond-contract to produce an heir, a common practice since Rakir were forbidden to have wives. Many wanted to leave a blood legacy in this world, so they’d pay for a woman to be their companions—housing th
em, feeding them, and caring for them during the pregnancy and first year of nursing. Once the contract was complete, the woman left to sell her body to the next person and left the child behind.

  “You want me for a bond-contract?” Jon had never considered it before, and the woman couldn’t have picked a worse time to make such an offer.

  “No contract,” Feira practically hissed. “One night and the child is mine. You will leave in the morning along with your companion and all the supplies you need. The Guardian stays with us.”

  Jon’s chest tightened as each word from her mouth hit him like a hammer. Of course she didn’t want him. But as soon as the healer mentioned Jàden, the hairs on his neck prickled in warning.

  Tossing his spent cigarette aside, Jon pulled Feira’s hand off his arm. “Find someone else. I already have a wife.”

  He brushed past her and picked up Mather’s saddle and blanket, setting them on the back of his friend’s horse. As he tightened the cinch, he tried to suppress the irritation creeping in. Only Jàden’s magic weaving through his senses kept him calm.

  Fate indeed. Maybe he should have ignored his instincts earlier that day.

  “I thought Rakir were forbidden to have wives.” Feira’s voice remained neutral.

  But Jon still felt the underlying sting. It reminded him of the last time he saw his father alive. They’d argued because his father wanted him to bond a woman and keep her hidden on the family farm, but Jon would never cage another to satisfy his own needs.

  Not that a woman would want him for a husband. She’d have to be out of her mind.

  Feira seemed undeterred. “The Guardian must stay, Captain, even if you will not. Promise me.”

  “Ain’t gonna force her, healer.” Jon untied the horses and fixed his gaze on Feira. “You did the job you were paid for. Now I’m gonna do mine.”