He’d never interrogated a prisoner before, but either Isolde had a little bit of a mean streak or she had done this before. Meida winced when Isolde got right up in her face with a cruel smile.
“I hear you want me dead. Was that in exchange for Nia or to appease your god you think will give you fire again?”
“Nia is harmless,” Meida moaned. “She can set fires, but she prefers making pretty things with her fire. She’s not a fighter. I’m not willingly part of The Children.”
“Then why didn’t you use your resources and report it to Galih when you were giving your other reports? I’ll know if you’re lying, so let’s try this the easy way first.”
“Did you put that serum in my drink before you knocked me out?” she asked, shooting panicked eyes at Galih.
“Isolde is much more effective and from what I’ve been told, you want to do this the easy way and answer honestly,” Galih growled.
“I couldn’t. Hikmat knew the sixteen had gifts after he caught me training Nia outside. I convinced him the sixteen couldn’t just give it out like Fia can. The only thing that stopped him from kidnapping all the sixteen, even Elan, and doing horrible things to all of them to get fire was to tell them about Isolde. None of The Children and not even me know what she’s capable of. We just know she’s one of the sixteen from Avala and she was sneaking onto the planet to wed Elan for some sort of alliance and lead us to a new planet.
“The Children dislike the idea of an alliance just as much as they want fire. They think Elan and Isolde’s children would be monsters and dilute Cendian blood. It would anger Fia to mix with the enemy and she would bring the destruction of the entire Cendian race. They think the trick to getting Fia’s attention is to stop the alliance and murder the Avalian princess.”
“And you’re okay with that as long as Nia is safe? You’re okay with staying here in the swarms instead of going to a planet with none of the problems of Cendis and Avala? Don’t you realize the pests will only get worse and if Nia has children with fire, your people will eventually die out anyway? So will mine if we don’t fix our water. The planet the faction found could save us both. My people won’t accept Cendian rulers and yours won’t accept an Avalian. This way, you have both,” Isolde said. She hadn’t lost her temper yet, even though The Children wanted her dead because of Meida.
“You don’t understand!” Meida cried. She was bordering on hysteria. Isolde hadn’t threatened her and it didn’t look like Galih had injured her getting here.
Isolde suddenly went on high alert. She grabbed Meida’s face in her hands and made her look her in the eye. “Meida! I can’t help you if you fight me. The tracker Hikmat put in you, is it Cendian or Avalian? If you’re meeting with him in twenty minutes and you don’t really want him to find you, stop fighting me!”
Elan knew it wasn’t Cendian. The only trackers they used were in pods and were too big to put in a human. The Children must have gotten their hands on Avalian tech. If they didn’t already know she was here, they would in twenty minutes. He tried to point that out to Isolde because he hoped she knew of a way to disable it.
”The Children wouldn’t work with the Avalians, even for tech and weapons,” Meida spat. “The money from their fighting pits is funding all sorts of horrible things. I don’t know how they are figuring out the science behind it, but I’ve got a tracker in my neck and they have plans for Elan.”
“No one touches Elan,” Isolde growled. “If they were able to sneak an assassin into Avala, then they are getting our science somehow.”
Isolde only lost her temper when she found out they intended to hurt him too. Did she really not know he would be hurt if they killed her? If Meida had a tracker in her and they had limited time, she couldn’t force thoughts out her head like she had done before. If Hikmat and the other Children ended up here with weapons they didn’t know about, she wouldn’t be able to fight.
“I’m going to touch you and I won’t hurt your child intentionally. Please don’t do anything stupid and hurt your baby, no matter who you think the father is,” Isolde demanded, moving in on Meida.
Meida was pregnant with Hikmat’s child? How did she intend to hide that from the faction? Meida’s husband died in a hunting accident and she wouldn’t have been allowed to take another. Even though no one really knew about The Children, the majority of the planet had become so afraid of displeasing the gods, a high-born woman with child and no husband would have been shunned. She would have had to become a courtesan or live on the street. Elan didn’t agree with that. He never thought it was right that they held women to such different standards as men.
Isolde had Meida’s head pushed to the side and was examining the skin behind her ear. “Do you have a sewing needle?” she asked Galih. “If it’s like the Avalian tracker we use with the military, Jovin taught me how to disable it in case they reacted badly to the alliance. He thought they may capture me and chip me if I tried to escape. Even if it’s not, the tech should be the same. The tracker is flexible since it goes under the skin, so you can pierce it with a needle and damage the main chip. This is going to hurt, Meida. Elan, talk to her. Get her mind off it. Ask her questions we need.”
She took a sewing needle from Galih and Elan was a little too squeamish to watch, so he tried focusing on Meida’s face. She was dripping with sweat and panting.
“Hikmat, do you love him? You know what’s going to happen to you with this baby.”
“I hate him. Hikmat has several little bastards running around and knew exactly what would happen to me. He did it on purpose. He thinks he’s spreading his seed because he’s blessed. He’s leading the Cendians back to glory.”
“What does he plan on doing with Elan? Be still, I’ve pierced the tracker. I need to damage the chip,” Isolde ordered.
“He knows Elan has fire like Nia, but he hasn’t seen him looking like this. He thinks he hasn’t been trained to use it and wouldn’t know how to fight them if they drugged him and studied him. Most of The Children think they are close with the new champion in the fighting pits, but Hikmat has been talking to someone. I don’t know who. He thinks he might be able to forcibly take it from Elan.”
“He’s thinking like the old Avalian scientists. The tracker should be disabled,” she said, sliding the needle out. “Does he track you all the time or just when you aren’t where you’re supposed to be? Do all The Children have these?”
“Do you realize what you’ve just done? When I don’t show up at the meeting and he realizes my tracker is offline, he’s going to take Nia.”
“I think you’ll find Nia is safe and sound in the back of this cabin having impure thoughts about my intended in that outfit,” Isolde said dryly. She looked to Galih. “Can you go get her? Our trackers on Avala show the last location when it went offline so we can find our dead and perform the rites. Hikmat could still find us and he can’t see Elan like this.”
Nia came out and was eyeing Elan like she had never seen him before. Nia was very pretty, but his heart belonged to Isolde now. Nia wasn’t even looking at Meida after everything she overheard. She was undressing Elan with her eyes. He heard a little growl and Isolde stepped in front of him.
“I can hear what you’re thinking, you know!”
“Are you a demon?” Nia asked, seeming shocked her thoughts weren’t private.
“No! I’m one of the sixteen from Avala. Their princess. Were you prepared for the alliance at all?”
“Meida said we would all leave to a better planet to live with the Avalians, but I know nothing about you. And I’ve never seen Elan like this before.”
“I’m glad you kept her safe, but I didn’t want her to know. She’s innocent!” Meida moaned
“Because you won’t let me do anything! I’m eighteen and no one has bothered arranging a marriage for me!”
“Nia, I think your partner is waiting for you on Avala, but no one is going to pick them for you,” Isolde said gently. “When we
get to the new planet, you’ll meet with our sixteen and pick for yourself.”
“But you’re so strange looking! Your eyes look like grass and your lips look like blood. Your lashes are too short to keep ash out your eyes.”
Elan expected her to fly off, but she just laughed. “You like looking at Elan like this, yes? The men in our sixteen are just as muscular as he is and they like to show it off. Grass is pretty and our lips feel just like a Cendian’s when you kiss them. Your children would be even more powerful than you are.”
“I’m not powerful. I can put pretty thoughts in people’s heads and I can’t use my fire as a weapon.”
“Did you train her properly?” Isolde demanded.
“You’re going to need beauty when you get to the new planet. Nia can help with that.”
“This is what we are going to do. Nia, when you put pretty pictures in someone’s head, what happens?”
“They forget being angry or upset. It eases their passage if they are in pain and dying.”
“You’re going to be a warrior today, Nia. I have an idea. It’s going to take you, me, and Elan working together and we’ll get more answers.”
Elan couldn’t read minds and she couldn’t read his for some reason, but he already knew where she was going with this. She would have been trained in battle strategy just like he was. He already knew what she was planning.
“When Hikmat realizes you’re missing and your tracker went offline, will he come for you himself or will he send fighters from The Children?”
“He’ll come with his assassin, Almawt. He was bested in the fighting rings by the current champion, but they thought he was the one for the longest time. Hikmat keeps him around because his fighting style is unpredictable and he doesn’t care who he kills.”
Elan just laughed in her face. Meida looked at him like he was totally insane. They called him Almawt after the God of Death. The only reason he had been undefeatable in the ring was that he didn’t use any fighting style. He knew how to defend himself against all of them, but his attacks were random and hard to predict. Elan watched him before he faced off against him. He favored his right leg when he fought.
Elan exploited that. Since Almawt fought freestyle, so did Elan. He acted like he was going for an easy Vusi punch and switched it up at the last minute, slamming his foot against Almawt’s right knee, He wasn’t expecting that at all and crumpled to his knees. Elan finished him off with a crushing blow to his chin, knocking him unconscious.
The crowd didn’t know if they should be impressed or angry. They didn’t just like watching Almawt because he always won. He dragged the fights out, letting his opponent suffer before he killed them. Almawt only lasted about ten minutes in the ring with Elan and Elan didn’t kill. The crowd wanted to see more effort for their champion to go down and they wanted more of a show. Elan learned to hone his fighting skills while strutting around like a peacock for the people betting and cheering.
Nia still looked confused and Meida looked afraid of both Hikmat and Almawt. Elan grinned.
“Three-point attack. Isolde can hear them when they get close. Nia, when Isolde gives the word, I want you sending them every happy image you can think of. Get them distracted. When they are close enough for me to see, I’ll force Almawt to attack Hikmat, then take Almawt out myself.”
“Are you insane?” Meida hissed. “Only one man has ever beaten him. Our whole future rides on you. You—”
Elan winked at her. “You’re looking at the one man who beat him. His bad knee is probably even worse now.”
“And I don’t think he’ll expect me to be able to fight either,” Isolde said. “Elan and I are pretty evenly matched when it comes to sparring, but Elan is trained in Avalian fighting and this Almawt isn’t.”
Galih hadn’t said much this entire time, but that got him riled up. “Are both of you stupid? The future of two planets is resting on the both of you. I don’t care if you want to beat up on each other while you’re alone, but neither of you is fighting that man. I’ll do it.”
“You can’t do it either,” Isolde argued. Galih’s face flushed red and he looked like he would have strangled her if she wasn’t so important. “You’re the only one who knows what’s going on with the factions. Elan, can’t you just fling a log at his head? That way, this is settled and they don’t sneak up on us arguing on who gets to fight him.”
She phrased it like whoever went out there had the honor of fighting him rather than a duty they didn’t want. He knew the only reason she was backing down from insisting on going out there herself was that she probably guessed Galih would be joined by Sartika at arguing with the both of them and Hikmat could be on them with weapons they couldn’t fight.
“We’ll spar later, okay?” Elan promised. Both Galih and Sartika shot them looks about fighting instead of completing the bond. “Yes, if we can get something big enough, I can fling it as his head with enough force to knock him out. It’s not my preferred way of fighting.”
Nia fluttered her eyelashes at him and Isolde scowled at her. “No, but it’s the smart way of winning this battle,” Galih snapped. “I’ve got a stack of wood just to the front of the cabin. Will that do?”
“It’ll do. Now, we wait.”
Chapter 15
Isolde was having issues tuning everyone in the cabin out to listen for Hikmat and his assassin. Meida’s thoughts were racing in fear of Hikmat and what he would do to Nia. Galih thought both Isolde and Elan were going to disobey and run out and get killed. Sartika knew they weren’t, but she was worried about Isolde and what was going to happen to her when she tried to dig into Hikmat’s mind. Nia was the worst. She was the loudest and all she could think about was how if she had known Elan looked this way under his big shirts, she would have flirted with him more and tried to get him to marry her instead. Isolde wondered how much she had been told and if she knew how many years of planning that would ruin. She also didn’t like hearing it because her feelings for Elan were growing stronger every day.
This cabin wasn’t even remotely like the palace or anything on Avala. Elan’s chambers were decorated in reds and ochres with tapestries on every wall. There was no seating except tasseled floor pillows and they ate seated on them at a low table. All of the furniture looked like they still carved it from wood by an artist. She loved his chambers and hoped to bring some of that over to the new planet. This cabin was made of wood and the seating was similar to Avala just puffier.
Everything was made of an unbreakable glass or carbon on Avala. It was sleek in design and she loved it before. Now that she saw more of the Cendian palace, it was a little cold. Maybe they could find a way to merge the artistry of the Cendian designs with the functionality and durability of the Avalian.
She felt the strange, large overstuffed place to sit in the cabin move when Elan sat next to her and put his arm around her. She ignored everyone staring at them and nestled her face into his chest. She had been thinking about the future instead of the present so she didn’t have to listen to everyone in the room.
“You looked far away. Can you hear them?”
“Can everyone just be really quiet so I can listen? I’m having a hard time tuning all of you out to listen that far out. All of you are upset about something, so it makes it hard.”
“I can help,” Nia said. “I can calm everyone down. Please, I don’t know how to fight, but I can do this.”
She nodded at Nia. Anything she could do would help. Isolde had no idea what she did, but Nia closed her eyes and the screaming voices in her head finally quieted. Even Nia’s racing thoughts about Elan stopped. They all sat in total silence for another ten minutes or so with Elan rubbing her shoulders before she started to pick up whispers. Hikmat and his assassin were getting close. She refused to call him by his pit name, but she had no idea what his real name was. The whispers started getting louder.
“Hikmat is getting close. He only brought one man with him. Koswara is his n
ame. Is that his assassin?”
One look at Meida confirmed it probably was and he had probably hurt her in some way. She didn’t have time to get into those thoughts.
“They think Meida fled here to escape him and think they she’s hiding Nia. They….” She looked around at Meida and Nia. It wouldn’t do either of them any good to tell them what they intended to do to Nia to punish Meida before they took her captive to give birth before they killed her. “They think Meida is here alone with Nia. They aren’t expecting any of us.”
“Are they armed?” Galih demanded.
“I wouldn’t know that unless they think it,” she snapped. “They should be in my range to reinforce the idea in their heads that Meida is here alone with Nia and will be easy to capture. Nia can plant images, I can plant suggestions. Nia, how far out does your gift go? If I can suggest this is easy and you can put something in their mind about celebrating when they get back home.”
Nia had a sweet, innocent face for someone who had such naughty thoughts about Elan until Isolde was finally able to drown her out. Isolde had a new respect for her when her face broke into a cruel smile.
“Celebrating with wine and courtesans? I can do that. And I can do it right now.”
Meida gave her a sharp look. “How do you know enough about any of that to send images?”
“Hush!” Isolde ordered. “It’s working. They aren’t even worried about any surprises they might find. They are thinking about drinking and sex.” She didn’t tell either of them some of the sex, they intended to forcibly have with both Meida and Nia. She didn’t like being in thoughts like this and she hoped after they got what they needed, Galih would let either her or Elan kill both of them.
Child of Fire, Child of Ice-A Sci-fi Romance Series Page 10