by Liz Craven
Lia turned her attention back to her husband, who didn’t look any happier.
“Where is this animal’s leash?” Talon’s cold voice lashed out in sharp contrast to the choking laughter of his sister and the painful groans of his friend.
She forced what she hoped was an innocent smile to her face. “In my pocket.”
Talon paused a beat, clearly expecting further explanation, but Lia didn’t doubt anything she might add would only make matters worse.
Thane rose to his feet and swayed slightly. One side of his face sported bright red abrasions from his slide. The other shone with a purpling impression of the top of her shoe. Lia winced in guilt and sympathy.
She moved to offer Thane assistance, but Talon tightened his grip, keeping her in front of him.
“Ilexa, if you could stop hyperventilating long enough, please go with Thane to sickbay,” Talon ordered, his tone conveying his displeasure.
“I’m fine,” Thane assured them with a dismissive flick of the wrist. His assurance lacked credibility, because the slight movement sent him crashing into the wall.
“Come on,” Ilexa told him, and grabbed his arm, while still trying to control her laughter. “I have better things to do than babysit you.”
Thane growled in response and Ilexa started tugging at him. “Come on,” she repeated. “The sooner we get to sickbay, the sooner you’re quit of me.”
Lia watched the two slowly move towards the nearest door, wondering if Ilexa had meant that as a threat or a reassurance. Her own lips twitching, she met her husband’s hard gaze. For some reason, his displeasure made the situation funnier, and she started to giggle.
“We need to talk,” he announced, dragging her into one of the small private session rooms. He snapped his fingers, and Asha obediently followed them, earning a glare from Lia.
Talon released her arm and slapped a panel on the wall. The door to the private room swished shut behind them.
She couldn’t help but appreciate the view afforded to her when he turned. The man had a great legs and an ass she could bounce a credit off. A wicked thrill ran through her at the thought that this man belonged to her. Maybe there was some benefit to being the Damaia.
Talon crossed his arms over his chest and glared down at her. “Would you care to explain?”
His displeasure killed her good humor. “Explain what?”
“Your reckless behavior.”
She frowned, feeling guilty and not liking the feeling. “I shouldn’t have left my quarters with Asha off her leash.” She pulled the leash from her pocket and bent to attach it to Asha’s harness. “I won’t make the same mistake again.”
Talon studied her silently for several long moments, his grey eyes taking on a flinty hardness she’d never seen and her throat tightened—not because of the hardness in his eyes but the way the hardness chased away the warmth she’d become accustomed to seeing when he looked at her.
“Is that all you see as reckless about your behavior?”
She dug a hand into Asha’s soft fur for comfort. “I thought I was free to roam the ship.”
He studied her again and she felt a chill when resolve cooled his eyes from flinty grey to silver ice. He gestured towards a stack of mats lined against one wall. Her feet dragged, but she moved to sit on them. When Talon joined her, she couldn’t help but admire the strong flex of muscle revealed to her by his workout clothing, despite the dread building in her stomach.
“Have you considered the ramifications of your behavior on your title?”
Her stomach plummeted, leaving her vaguely nauseated. She had known the conversation was coming. Had expected it before now, but it still caught her off guard. Desperately, she tried to deflect it with a negligent wave of her hand and a casual, “Very few on board know who I am and they wouldn’t hold positions that warrant that knowledge if they didn’t have discretion.”
“Do you know who you are?” Talon asked with quiet deliberation.
She cast her mind out in a panicked search for an answer. She saw the pitfalls of any answer she might give and finally decided to outright lie. “Yes. I do.”
She fought hard not to squirm under the weight of his stare as he chose his words carefully. The truth was she had no idea who she was since being hauled aboard the Aegir. She knew Lia the miner, but now she wasn’t even sure she knew who she wanted to be.
“You are the Damaia. The daughter of the Houses of Lassan and Gemadam. The fulfillment of the Prophecy of Peace. The one destined to end the devastation that has ravaged our world for thousands of years.”
“Talon—” She began, only to fall silent when he held up a hand.
“I realize that at best you do not wish to believe in your destiny and at worst you do not want your destiny. But your wants and beliefs have no bearing on what is. You are the Damaia. You are my wife. You will return to N’yota and assume your place in history.” His voice gentled. The ice in his eyes melted, leaving behind compassion and a deep sadness. “I am sorry you feel overwhelmed, and I will do what I can to help ease your transition, but I can no longer let you deny who you are, even to yourself.”
Lia trembled with fear and rage. Fear of accepting her title and rage she was being given no choice. “A very pretty speech, but pretty words won’t make me become the fulfillment of the Prophecy you hold dear, and it has nothing at all to do with leashing Asha.”
“You are the only hope of a people who’ve been at war for five thousand years, for a culture that was slowly dying as more and more of its children were lost to a futile cycle of violence.” His voice deepened with a shadow of sorrow, and he cupped her shoulder gently with one hand. “The people of N’yota—your people—need your reassurance. They need to see you behaving as their queen, not running wild like an ill-disciplined child. They have given you their hope—all they had left to give.”
She tried to swallow, but terror had thickened in her throat, making it close off. Whatever words she would have said crumbled like sawdust on her tongue.
“It’s time for you to start behaving as befits your station—that includes not running pell-mell after a pet you failed to leash—and undertake the duties of the Damaia.”
Fury choked her. The resolve in his voice frightened her, and his arguments made her feel like a petulant brat. She stared into his compassion-filled eyes and knew he’d never let her go. He’d force her into the role of the Damaia—bodily if he had to.
Unable to put words to her feelings of fear, frustration and anger, Lia called upon her mining background. She spat full in his face and shouted, “Fuck you!”
Ignoring Talon’s stunned expression, she leapt to her feet and stalked out the door.
—
After a week of studiously avoiding Talon, Lia’s nerves began to fray. The unsettling sense of loss she felt at his absence alarmed her.
What’s more, Talon avoided her as well, apparently giving her some space. For some strange reason, that made her burn in outrage. Shouldn’t she be grateful the arrogant jerk steered clear of her? She shoved the need to rationalize her emotions aside. The outrage felt a whole lot better than the sense of loss did.
Besides, who said she had to be rational? Maybe she should just throw a good old-fashioned temper tantrum.
The thought gave her pause. Had she ever thrown a temper tantrum? Wracking her memory, she couldn’t recall throwing a single irrational fit in her life. The dour faces of the Council members floated through her memory. The idea of the solemn group faced with a screaming, kicking child brought a reluctant sliver of amusement.
She rounded the slight curve of the silent corridor, heading towards the gym. She looked forward to her early morning lessons. Besides, a session of Ngäkau with Vardin would do her a world of good. She entered the open area where she’d first seen him practicing the ancient art.
Lia smiled when she realized she was the only one there. She’d finally beaten Vardin to the gym. She had begun to doubt the Inderian ever slept.
Bracing her feet apart, Lia closed her eyes, stretched her arms over her head and bent forward at the waist. Concentrating solely on her breath and her body, she lengthened her spine further with each exhalation while centering her mind. Vardin had taught her the pose as part of a preparatory routine for the rigors of Ngäkau.
Clearing her mind had grown harder over the past week. She couldn’t stop thinking about Talon, finally admitting to herself that regret caused the ache in her stomach. She actually missed him. She missed the pride he took in his role as first minister, the strength of will and determination he displayed. She missed looking at him. She missed his scent. She missed the sound of his voice.
If she were honest with herself, she’d admit she also missed the way she felt around him. The strange, fluttery sensation she got in her stomach when they touched. The flex of the muscle in his forearm when he escorted her somewhere. The way her knees went weak when he gifted her with a smile.
Lia’s temper grew shorter as she considered her annoying husband. Admitting she missed him forced her to accept that her body reacted to him as it had no other. Not that she’d had many chances for comparison. Most eligible young men left the mines for opportunities on the Guild-run gaming station, Kastal City. Besides, she had too much ingrained religious training to not consider herself married.
Beneath the sound of the rhythmic pulsing of her heartbeat, she heard a strange, barely audible click. Without releasing the pose or opening her eyes, Lia strained, listening to the silence surrounding her.
The sound didn’t repeat itself, but for some reason, her skin prickled.
Placing her hands on the floor, she stepped backwards, fluidly lowering herself into the serpent’s pose. She tried to regain the quiet mind-state she needed to attain before beginning Ngäkau.
The air around her seemed to shift, as though stirred by an invisible hand and stilled again.
Though no discernable change in temperature occurred, the air felt different against her skin. Thicker. Heavier. Dragging it into her lungs seemed to take greater effort.
She half-raised her body, shifting to a modified pose and opened her eyes. Nothing had changed that she could see. Slowly rising to her feet, she scanned the room. Although everything looked the same, the room felt different.
Realization dawned. “Vardin,” she called out, looking towards the communications panel. “Is this a test? Did you do something I’m supposed to sense?”
No response. In the silence that followed her question, Lia pondered the odd tenor of her voice. When had she started sounding so damn squeaky? The high-pitched quality of her voice irritated her.
She took a wobbling step towards the panel and nearly fell over. Her peaceful interlude shattered, she began to get annoyed. “Vardin, if this is some sort of Inderian initiation, we’ve got a major culture gap to bridge first.”
Letting out a controlled exhale did nothing to ease her volatile emotions. Her life had been plodding along nicely—if boringly—before Talon and his crew had appeared.
Now her life was in turmoil. Assassins chased her, basic decisions were taken from her hands and she couldn’t close her eyes without dreaming of a handsome, silver-eyed devil—who likely hadn’t given her a thought in the past week.
Why was she suffering in silence? She should be making him suffer.
Inordinately pleased with the idea, Lia stood and staggered to the com console and prepared to blast her husband for all his sins—most especially, ignoring her.
It took a moment for Talon’s face to waver into view. He glanced at her from the viewscreen, and Lia realized she’d woken him up. A thin gold chain gleamed against the muscles of his chest, and the pendant hanging from it tickled a memory at the back of her mind. It slipped away as her eyes fell to where the sheet covered his waist. She started to giggle.
“Lia?” Talon’s voice was sleep-roughened.
“Are you naked?” she asked, giggling harder.
Talon came fully awake and his eyes darkened with concern. “Lia, what’s wrong?”
She laughed harder, but the sound squeaked in her ears. “I wanted to yell at you, but I can’t because you’re naked.”
Her husband’s face tilted oddly to the left. Lia blinked at him uncomprehendingly, as she pitched sideways into darkness.
—
Standing before Vardin, Thane and Caden in the captain’s ready-room, Talon felt the vein in his forehead pulse with rage. This was the second attack on Lia in as many weeks. The image of her recovering in sickbay made his stomach churn with a sick fury.
Someone aboard ship had tried to kill Lia and had almost succeeded. Whoever sought her death wouldn’t get another chance. He wouldn’t allow it.
“What the hell happened?” he barked, unable to control his fury before his men.
“I received a message this morning from the Damaia canceling our Ngäkau session,” Vardin replied. “The message showed it originated from her quarters, and I recognized her voice. I had no reason to doubt its veracity.”
Talon paced the confines of the small room in frustration. “The message was audio only?”
“Yes.”
He turned to Caden. “Have you traced the message to its point of origin?”
The young man shifted in his chair and lowered his eyes in the face of Talon’s rage. “It originated from her quarters. There’s no question. I’ve tripled checked.”
Talon hadn’t believed he could get any angrier. He was wrong. “Whoever forged the message was in her quarters?” he roared.
Unlike Caden, Thane appeared completely unfazed. Ironic considering Thane had seen him in battle where Talon had killed with cold, methodical precision.
Thane sat with his elbows resting on the conference table, his long calloused fingers steepled before his face. “Not only was the would-be killer in her quarters, he’s been close enough to record a number of her conversations while remaining unobserved.”
“How the hell do you know that?” Talon asked, too furious to draw his own conclusions or care who knew it.
“The message wasn’t forged—at least the voice wasn’t. Someone spliced it together from the Damaia’s conversations. Did a damn good job of it, too.”
Thane’s voice held enough professional admiration to make Talon’s blood run cold and still his pacing. Thane wasn’t easily impressed. “How good?”
“Some of the best audio work I’ve ever seen. Every individual word was spliced. No phrases used. It allowed him to control the cadence and pace of the speech. It’s smooth, polished. Undetectable to the ear. To get exactly the right tone for each word, he’d have to have recorded a number of her conversations. Mathematically—”
“I don’t need the goddamned statistics,” Talon snarled.
Vardin reclined in his chair, the thrill of the hunt reflected in his eyes. “Our enemy is cunning indeed.”
“Cunning?” Caden asked. “If he has such easy access to the Damaia and can enter her quarters, why not kill her there? Why flood the gym with tachyon particles?”
“Our killer hoped it would appear the Damaia died a mysterious death,” Thane explained.
Talon reminded himself Caden was young and his experience limited. “Cutting the air to the gym and flooding it with tachyon particles fooled her body into thinking it was still breathing in oxygen.”
“Causing her brain to shut down before she realized there was a problem,” Caden concluded.
“And when tachyon is inhaled, it leaves no trace behind,” Thane added. “We would have known nothing other than she suffocated.”
“Bah,” Vardin snarled. “The actions of a coward. My people have the courage to look you in the eye and slit your throat.”
Caden’s face still looked confused. “But if the killer can get into her quarte
rs, why not kill her in her sleep?”
“Because this is an assassination, not a murder,” Talon snapped, resuming his pacing.
“The quarters on our deck share the same air supply system. Flooding the deck with tachyon would have killed all of us,” Thane added.
“So the assassin isn’t willing to kill bystanders,” Caden concluded.
“This is the second failure. The closer we draw to N’yota, the more desperate he will become. Additional carnage may become acceptable,” Vardin pointed out.
Talon wanted to find the assassin and wrap his hands around the bastard’s throat and feel the crackle of cartilage as he crushed the man’s windpipe between his fingers. Feel the coward’s body struggle futilely to draw in air. With effort, Talon forced his bloodlust back. Lia’s protection came before his vengeance.
“From this point on, one of us is always with the Damaia. She goes nowhere, not even to her quarters alone. Keep your blasters set on maximum. Shoot first, ask questions later.”
Caden immediately agreed, babbling nervously about giving his life for the Damaia. Vardin inclined his head slightly, which Talon decided to interpret as an affirmative response.
Thane cocked his head to the side. Years of friendship told Talon the man was scheming. “To be clear, you want us to take turns spending the night with your wife?”
Talon reacted on impulse, grabbed his friend by the front of the uniform and half-hauled him from the chair.
Thane stared him in they eye, unperturbed. “Should I take this as a no?”
His brain catching up with his actions, Talon dropped the friend who baited him back into the chair.
Crossing to the window, Talon gripped his right wrist in his left hand behind his back and fought to master his emotions. Lia needed him at his mental best. If he wasn’t able to withstand Thane’s obvious provocation there was no way he would be able to outwit the assassin.
“If you don’t want us taking turns watching your wife sleep—” The barely disguised humor in Thane’s voice had Talon grimacing, “—it would make more sense to move her into your quarters and post sentries at the door during the night for extra security.”