by S. L. Viehl
circled around him, trying to figure out a new combination that would feign one pattern while executing
another.
It took a lateral sweep, big enough to distract him from my other blade, which I pivoted and turned in on
a quick side thrust toward his waist. As he moved to counter it, I reversed the sweep twice and ended up
lodging my blade against his cranial case supports.
“Excellent. You learn quickly, Sajora.” He switched on his accumulators. “Fayne is too confident in her
own methods. She will not expect a sophisticated move like that from you.”
I sheathed my blades as my happiness dimmed a few degrees. “I don’t know if challenging Fayne is such
a good idea.”
“If you want to survive, you must.” He pulled on his gloves. “You’d better report to your first session,
before you are late. I will see you here tomorrow.” He went to one of the wall panels and slipped out of
the room.
I went to the door, but stopped when I saw a cluster of silvers at the observation window, looking in. In
the middle of them stood Fayne, and she wasn’t smiling.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“Nothing is lost on the path that cannot be found on another.”
—Tarek Varena,ClanJoren
I let the rumor circulate that I had broken off relations with my crossbreed family, and in session I made a
point to stay away from them. Kol took it in stride—we’d talked about what I planned to do, that night
we’d spent together—but the rest of the clan didn’t like it.
“You should allow me to tell them why you have left us,” he’d said, holding me against his chest just
before we’d fallen asleep. “They will feel slighted and hurt.”
“If you tell them, then no one will believe I’ve broken it off with you. Let them stew about it. It’s the only
way I can protect them.” I traced a circle around his implant scar. “When this is over, then I’ll explain
everything.”
Bek was kind enough to go along with my wishes, and matched me against other partners. With Uel’s
daily training, I swiftly improved, and began to prevail in every session. The trainer started bringing in
other, more experienced trainees, but no one walked away with a win from sparring with me.
Weak, emotionally overwrought female that I was, I also stole a few moments here and there with Kol.
Since claiming each other had done a lot to soothe the twin beasts riding us, there was no longer any
strain in being together. Instead, the warrior-bond seemed to sustain us, even when we were apart. I felt
a kind of confidence and security I’d never experienced in my life.
I even caught myself looking in the lavatory mirror and examining my reflection to see what Kol thought
was so pretty. I had it that bad.
“I can’t wait to get off this ice cube,” I told him one afternoon as we ducked into a private corner. “Have
you heard anything about the rescue vessels?”
He took me in his arms and touched his brow to mine. “No. Have you learned anything from Uel?”
“Only that he’s getting very frustrated, waiting.” I repeated some of the Blade Master’s remarks, and
added, “I’m sorry I can’t tell the others why I’m treating them like they have a plague. It’s for the best.”
“You will not believe this, but Danea is more upset at you than anyone.” He made a wry gesture. “Last
night she accused Os of driving you away, and threatened to challenge him if he did not attempt to
apologize to you.”
I rolled my eyes. “Sparky misses me. Now I’ve heard everything.” I patted his chest. “Do you miss me?”
“Since we were together, every night.” He brushed his mouth over mine. “Although I am glad I no longer
desire to tear the Tåna apart with my bare hands each time I see you.”
Uel made some excuse to delay the Tåna-Shen, but each day that passed made the trainees and the staff
more nervous. I sympathized with them—who wouldn’t feel terrified, knowing that many ships were
waiting to descend on the school?—but I felt confident that the Blade Master would get us out before
some military genius started firing on the surface.
One morning Bek matched me against a second-level trainee who moved through the shahada with such
hesitation and clumsiness that I gave up sparring with him after three moves.
“Take off your shades,” I told him. “They’re obscuring your visual field.”
“No way,” the trainee told me. “We’ve all been wearing them ‘cause of that Skogaq. I’m not taking them
off until we’re off this planet.”
I had noticed several of the second-levels had affected shades like the ones I’d just stopped wearing. I’d
created a fashion trend that would piss off Fayne. Worked for me.
“Okay, look. Watch my arms.” I showed him how to hold his guard against a reverse oblique attack
without stepping away. “You have to maintain your stance, keep your weight even on both feet, and don’t
look down at them.” He was smart to keep the shades on, but if Fayne or one of her buddies jumped
him, he’d still be history. “What’s your name?”
“Yen, and I’m never going to get this,” he complained. “You’re two feet taller than me, and twice as
heavy, and still you move like you’re made of air.”
I didn’t like the fact that he wore a brown band, and hadn’t bathed since God only knew when, but I was
trying to be more tolerant. All my experiments had proved successful with the other members of the clan;
maybe I could do something with this kid—and convert him to a white in the process. I told him to take
five and went to speak with Bek.
“I should not have matched him against you, but you have prevailed over the rest of the class.” The
Chakaran stroked his chin fur. “Very well, if you wish to augment his training, you may return after meal
interval and practice.”
“Thanks, Trainer.” I went to tell Yen.
“That’s very generous of you, Saj.” He gave me a closed-lipped grimace that had to be his species’
version of a grin. “I’ll see you here later tonight.”
Kol caught up with me in the galley and asked me about the trainee, and I filled him in.
“I do not like the idea of your being on the level after the trainers are gone,” he said. “It is too good an
opportunity for Fayne to attack.”
I nodded and tossed him a near-apple. “Then meet me there, and watch my back. Ask some of the
whites to come, too.”
Kol finished eating before I did, and left the galley a few minutes later. I was in no hurry—I suspected
Yen would prove to be a major pain in the butt—and I wanted the rest of the clan to leave before I
headed out.
Sparky was waiting outside the galley for me, and wouldn’t let me walk around her. “We will talk,
Terran, if I must tackle you and sit on you.”
“I left because I don’t belong. As you’ve pointed out about ten thousand times,” I said, trying to sound
tough and indifferent. “Doesn’t anything make you happy?”
“No.” She folded her arms. “Not when I see Kol laughing and smiling, and you offering to tutor
incompetents.”
“Yeah, well, we’re much happier apart.” The urge to hug her made me bite the inside of my lip. “Can I go
now? My incompetent student is waiting.”
“Galena suffers in your absence.” She lifted her chin. “And I have no one with whom to… share girl talk.”
I couldn’t help the burst of laughter. “That’s priceless. Oh, Sparky, I do miss you.”
Her expression became very serious. “Then come back to us, ClanSister.”
I could have joked or said something to infuriate her. But the witch had just called me ClanSister, and I
felt like hugging her again. “Danea, I… Give me a little more time, okay?”
She nodded and stalked off.
There were a group of whites waiting in the training room, although I didn’t see Kol or Yen. “Hey, guys.
Where are my men?”
One of the whites shrugged. “We’ve been waiting here since Bek opened the room. Kol went to Yen’s
quarters to get him.”
“Yen didn’t look too good today,” another added. “Kol might have taken him to medical.”
I suspected Yen was suffering from acute lack of confidence, but didn’t comment—my first weeks on
second level had been almost as bad.
“Where are his quarters?” Once I got directions, I nodded. “Okay, we’ll scrap this for tonight. Thanks for
waiting.”
I went to the trainee’s quarters to give Yen a piece of my mind and hopefully intercept Kol on the way.
Maybe I could convince him to spend a couple of hours with me before he turned in for the night. As for
Yen, he could wait until tomorrow.
I was surprised to see the trainee in a robe when he answered his door. “Are you feeling all right?”
“I’ve been talking to Kol; come in.” He stood to one side, and as soon as I entered his rooms he shut the
door panel and secured it.
There were a dozen silvers lounging around the room, but all of them stood as soon as they saw me. I
turned with my blades in hand, in time to catch a solid punch to my face, and staggered backward. Four
arms grabbed me from behind and disarmed me.
“She’s rather pretty, for a hulking clod, isn’t she?” Yen said in a very familiar voice. He shed his robe to
reveal a small, muscular body the color of snow. Someone tossed him a towel, and he wiped his face,
removing the thin layer of scales and smearing the dark pigment around his eyes.
I looked down at his penis, then up at his face. Her face. “Fayne?”
“And she’s seen through my clever disguise.” Fayne giggled and grabbed his/her crotch. “Does this bother
you, Terran? I can make the bad male organ go away, like so”—he/she demonstrated by tucking his/her
penis into a vaginal opening—“and I am female again. What do you think?”
“I think telling you to go fuck yourself is redundant.” So Fayne was a hermaphrodite, and I was in big
trouble. “Where’s Kol?”
“In a moment. Hold her for me.” Fayne came up and undulated against me, cupping my breasts and
smiling up into my face. “I’m going to enjoy breaking you, Terran.”
I lunged against the hands holding me, but someone smashed something down on the back of my head
and the room abruptly darkened.
“Don’t knock her out. I want her awake and watching.” Fayne pulled on her trousers and tunic, and
peeled off the dark wig covering her white hair. Whatever she’d used to glue it down had left dark brown
streaks all over her.
My claws shot out, and someone behind me yelped and changed their grip. “How did you get the
makeup and the wig?”
“I borrowed them from the original owner.” She made a gesture, and one of the silvers opened the
storage container. A body with a bloody, mutilated head fell out. The corpse’s blood matched the brown
streaks on Fayne’s hair. “He didn’t want to lend his face to me at first, but with a little sharp persuasion I
was able to convince him to cooperate.”
She’d skinned and scalped him, just to trap me. “You’re going to die for this.”
“Very good, Terran. You challenge me at last.” Fayne made another gesture, and six more silvers
emerged, dragging Kol out with them.
“Kol.” I nearly broke free then. “No!” I whipped my head toward the albino. “Your fight is with me; let
him go.”
“I want him to watch, too. I am quite the exhibitionist.” Fayne picked up one of Yen’s chairs and smashed
it on the floor, then took up one of the broken legs and hefted it like a club. “You know, Terran, I found
some very interesting data in your medical files. You should have never let anyone put drone components
into your body.” She took a few experimental swings. “They’re so… unreliable… under pressure.”
Sweat broke out on my face. Not my leg. “You won’t get a fair fight out of me if I’m crippled.”
She smiled. “Why would I want a fair fight?”
I braced myself as she swung the club down, but nothing prepared me for the soul-shattering agony of
the impact against the side of my knee. Through the sound of my own scream, I heard bone snap and
alloy burst. A spray of metal bits, blood, and tissue splattered the floor.
“Unreliable and fragile.” Fayne wiped some of my blood from the end of the club on my tunic, then took
a second swing and smashed my knee from the other side.
I must have passed out for a few seconds from the pain. When I opened my eyes, I heard Kol shouting
and saw bodies hurtling through the air around me. The silvers holding me dragged me back, but Fayne
simply pulled out her tån and stabbed me in the chest with it. I writhed as the jolt sizzled through the
white-hot pain of my shattered knee.
“That’s one, Kol,” she said, making him freeze.
“No, Fayne.” Kol dropped the silver he was strangling and came toward her. “There is no need for this.”
The albino stabbed me again. “And that’s two.”
He stopped. “What do you want?”
“A life.” She glanced at my face, then his. “The problem is whose.”
“Take mine,” I said, panting through the pain. “My leg is ruined. You only have to stab me one more time.
Easy.”
“Sajora is finished; she will have to leave the Tåna.” Kol wouldn’t look at me. “Kill me and you will once
again be champion, and will have vanquished both of us.”
“God damn you, Kol!” Tears streamed down my face. “Shut up!”
He looked at me then. “Honor me, my heart.”
“Your heart.” Fayne sneered at me. “Look at her. Your heart is crippled, weeping, useless. Less than
pathetic. I could have given you everything, you stupid male.”
“Fayne, please.” I would have gone down on both knees, but I couldn’t feel my right leg anymore, and
the hands holding me wouldn’t let go. “Do you want me to beg? I will. I am. I beg you, kill me. Let him
live.”
“Thank you for deciding this for me, Terran.” Fayne went over to Kol, who didn’t twitch. “Shield me,
Jorenian, and I will allow her to crawl out of here.”
Vaguely I heard a click and realized someone had switched on a recorder.
“I, Jakol Varena, shield you, Fayne of Skogaq.”
“Excellent.” She stabbed him in the chest.
“Kol!” I screamed. “Run!”
More silvers came to hold him, but he didn’t resist. He only spread out his arms and watched me as
Fayne’s blade struck him a second time.
“No, Kol, please,” I sobbed.
Fayne’s laughter and the voices of the silvers dwindled away for a moment as our eyes met, and I heard
only Kol’s voice.
“I will be waiting for you,” he said, in a voice so beautiful and tender that it caressed me like an actual
touch. “Wa
lk within beauty always, my heart.”
Then Fayne stabbed the man I loved a third time, and I watched him die.
I remembered very little from the time I saw Fayne kill Kol to the moment Uel’s voice made me open my
eyes. Someone clubbing me on the back of the head again. Being thrown against something hard.
Crawling, trying to get away. And around everything, the mind-numbing horror of my shattered leg, and
my broken heart.
“Sajora.” Gentle hands eased me over onto my back. “Be still; you are injured.”
“Fayne.” My voice had gone from screaming. I looked down the corridor and saw a long, twisted trail of
blood. My right trouser leg was sodden, wet and red. “Fayne killed Kol.”
“I know. We are taking you to the infirmary now.”
I didn’t want to go to medical; I wanted to be with Kol. I groped for my blades, but they were gone. I
struck out at the blurred face over me. “Let me die!”