by Isabel Wroth
"Ugh! Who could focus with a smell like this? Open a farking window!"
"There are none."
"Oh...fark my shoes! Then move to another room!"
The sound of someone else gagging was almost enough to tip Jalia over the edge, imagining the horror of witnessing Cockinti unleash hell—three times the amount—If she allowed herself to vomit, Jalia feared she would never stop.
"Regrettably, the Labyrinth of Cups cannot be held elsewhere for security reasons."
Jalia shuddered in disgust, shaking her hands uselessly in front of her to try and force herself to block out the smell of death and bowels.
"Fine, fine! Hurry up, where is it?"
"Here, Marchesa." Kalphius wheezed from behind the cloth he had pressed to his mouth.
He waved a hand at the three cups on the table, one in front of him, another in front of Dhega, and the third in front of Jansus.
"One is poison, and one is water, the third is antidote. You are to drink the entire contents of one cup, and one only."
Jalia was beginning to get dizzy, certain she was going to pass out and die from asphyxiation before she even touched the cups. Oh, how wonderful. Another poisonous elimination round. She thought dismally.
"You are the last to face the Labyrinth of Cups. I pray you have pity on us and choose quickly." Jansus groaned peevishly.
Jalia made a rude hand gesture, hurrying to look at the large chalices that sat on the table.
They all looked the same, no obvious distinction to give a clue as to the contents, but she was pretty sure Jansus's cup was the one with poison.
Okay, okay. Poison, water, antidote. Focus, think, oh gods! We're all going to die...one cup. I only get to drink from one cup.
Jalia ran to snatch up the chalice in front of Jansus, then the one in front of Kalphius, and poured the contents of both into the cup in front of Dhega.
The moment before she picked up the nearly overflowing chalice, she saw Dhega's brows shoot up to disappear into his hairline.
The liquid felt thick on her tongue—unpleasantly so—lukewarm, her senses momentarily dulled as she worked to swallow it as fast as she could.
When she finished, Jalia pressed the back of her hand to her mouth and turned the chalice upside down on the table, waiting for something terrible to happen.
Something more terrible than being choked to death by the invisible cloud of Cockinti's toxic waste.
Jalia never took her eyes of Dhega while she waited to die, but after what felt like an eternity and nothing happened, she forced her hand away from her face and asked if she could go.
He gave a short nod, and Jalia ran.
Arms pumping as fast as she could out the door, hurtling past the waiting healer, desperately searching for the nearest balcony, sure her skin was peeling off in reaction to the stink.
She finally found an exit, the contaminated breath whooshing from her lungs as she hit the stone rail and finally was able to breathe free, fresh air.
Head swimming from what she hoped was just a combined lack of oxygen and the horror of a Shitter's final revenge, Jalia couldn't keep her gorge from rising a second more.
She didn't even look to see if anyone was below her as she opened her mouth and let loose, relieved when it was finally over, and she no longer felt like choking on the thick liquid she'd just guzzled.
Then she smelled it again, the terrible, rotten filth of Cockinti's last shart. Jalia looked around to see where it was coming from, only to realize the smell clung to her, everywhere. Her hair, her skin, her clothes!
"Marchesa?!" she heard someone frantically calling for her, but Jalia was too horrified to speak, staring at her hands, turning them over, touching herself...how was she ever going to get clean?
"Jalia," Dhega had found her, his gaze raking over her intently.
"You need to be examined by the healer after what you did."
She shook her head, clutching at her clothes, prepared to tear them off if she had to.
"I can't,"
"It does not require your participation, Jalia. You will be examined," he ordered, his tone leaving no room for further discussion.
"I need to shave my hair and scrape off the outer layers of my skin—"
"I forbid you to harm yourself, come. Clearly, your recklessness has affected your mind." He got frustrated when she tried to dodge around him and run for the nearest bath, grabbing her arm to jerk her forward, tilting his head to the side so he didn't impale her on his horns as he boldly tossed her over his shoulder, his heavily muscled arm clamped around her thighs to keep her from escaping.
It didn't stop her from kicking her feet like a little girl, tears blinding her as she hung upside down, her face pressed to the fabric of Dhega's scent soiled robes.
He was so lucky she'd just emptied the contents of her stomach over the side of his palace walls.
"No! I need an acid wash! Fire to burn my clothes—"
"No one in the history of our people has ever done what you just did. Little wonder your mind is addled."
"I smell like the inside of Cocktrollop's ass!! I'll never be clean again!" the entire palace probably heard her scream and the resounding echo of Dhega's laughter.
His shoulders shook with his mirth, which in turn jostled her around, and when he stopped walking to set her down in a small, breezy room, she was shocked into an open-mouthed stupor to see the way a smile transformed his harsh, unforgiving features.
His eyes positively gleamed, his lush lips curved upwards, the tiny jewels of his nose ring winking at her from the divot there above his top lip.
The mantle of brutal ruler fell away to reveal a youthful, beautiful, god-like male beneath.
"After you are examined, we will go cleanse ourselves in the sea."
Jalia stood there staring up at him mutely, shaken to the heated core of her body. Lust, desire, need, it all swirled like a maelstrom within her, her skin electrified and sensitive to the caress of his hands up and down her arm.
She just nodded, managing to string a few words together as she swayed towards him a little.
"I...I can't swim." her slurred admission made his smiles disappear, and in a blink, he was back to frowning at her.
"You can't swim?" he repeated incredulously, like such a thing was unheard of.
Jalia shook herself to rattle her brains back into place, licking her dry lips, then making a disgusted face as she scrubbed the taste of shit from them with her contaminated hand.
"If it gets this smell off of me, I'll gladly drown myself in the ocean."
*****
The cool sea water swirled around her knees, every surge of the waves back and forth pulled more sand out from beneath her feet, leaving her unsteady and wondering just how long it would be before a huge hole opened beneath her to suck her under.
Walking along the shore seemed to be perfectly fine but doing more than dipping her toes in and appreciating the beauty of the ocean was a bit too much.
"I changed my mind. How about a nice enzyme wash, huh?"
Dhega gave her a patient glance. "Are you afraid I would allow you to drown?"
"Not really. I'm afraid the current will suck me out away from you and then I'll drown."
He gave an understanding sound, taking her hand in his much larger one, and began to walk backward into the water, tugging her with him.
"This is a protected cove, Jalia. There is no current, and I vow I will not let you drown. Come. You cannot be a queen of Minos and not know how to swim."
She clutched his hand and grabbed hold of his wrist, swallowing thickly when the water came up to her hips, pulling at the short shift she wore.
It felt wonderful and even irrationally frightened she trusted the hold Dhega had on her. He towed her out until the water was up to her shoulders,
"There's a rock beneath the water here, sit, get used to the way the waves feel."
Jalia could see the shadow of the rock and cautiously let go of his wrist to reach down and touch the smo
oth surface.
She eased herself down, gulping the nervous saliva that pooled in her mouth when the water touched the underside of her chin.
It took her a moment, but she relaxed at the familiar feeling of weightlessness, like the anti-grav had been turned off and left her floating gently.
"I guess it's not so bad," she sighed, only to shriek and flounder when a wave crashed against the side of her head and pushed her off the rock, right into Dhega's arms.
His chuckle vibrated against her, as though the bastard had planned this.
"You're alright. Still a bit ripe, but I don't mind."
Jalia tilted her head to allow him a better whiff of the stench that clung to her,
"I feel as though you've planned this excursion as an excuse to put your hands on me."
"Do you object?" his breath washed across her ear.
The water between their bodies grew warmer, his arms around her kept her anchored, safe. Each slither of the sea and the current around them felt like another caress, more intimate than any other touch she had ever received.
"That depends. Have you brought the others swimming?"
"Would you be angry if I had?"
Jalia took a breath to tell him hell yes, she'd have been mad, but something wriggled across her leg, and she screamed, turning to half climb Dhega's body, using his horns to pull herself up until she was as far out of the water as she could get.
"Something touched my leg! There's something down there! Farkmyshoeswhatisit?"
Dhega's laugh was impressive enough to distract her from her fear, but as he was laughing at her, she was too mad to appreciate how beautiful it made him appear.
Risking life and limb, Jalia pushed away from him with a squeal of outrage and clawed her way through the water towards the shore.
"Oh, no you don't. Come back here," he caught her around the waist and scooped her back up, one arm around her back, the other beneath her knees, cradling her against his chest like he had Kypris.
"It was just a fish, Jalia. Look down; you'll see the flash of their scales as they swim by."
"They? There's more of them?" She grabbed at his neck, pressing herself to him while she searched the water around them for signs of the monsters slithering beneath the crystal-clear surface.
At first, all she saw was the churning water and the distorted shapes of Dhega's feet, but then there were little flashes, just like he said.
Tiny, no bigger than her thumb, thousands of them swimming together in the same direction.
Biting down on the inside of her cheek, Jalia glared at Dhega and silently dared him to keep laughing at her.
"I've had enough of swimming, thank you."
"You haven't done any swimming. Come now, Marchesa. I promised I would keep you safe. Even from the fish," instead of moving closer to the shore, he began to slowly move farther out, until the water was lapping at his shoulders, which meant the sea floor was far below what she could reach with her toes.
"Dhega, I don't—"
"No one else calls me by name anymore." He cut in, tilting his head, to study her.
"That's because they're scared you'll chop their head off."
Dhega smiled slowly, turning in easy circles with her. "But you're not frightened of me, are you?"
Jalia shrugged, kneading her hand in and out of the thick fur along his shoulders, searching his ageless face, noticing he had no lines around his eyes or mouth to say he smiled with any regularity. "No, you don't scare me. How old are you?"
He thrilled her. His thinly veiled brutality and all-encompassing aura of power. His hands that had killed touched her brow to test for fever and carefully held a cup to help her drink.
"One hundred and five summers have passed since my birth," he confessed.
One hundred and five? Holy flaming asteroids, "You look remarkable for your age. How long do your people live for?"
He gave a careless shrug, turning with her again so she could feel the way the water surged and slid around them.
"The eldest I know of died at two hundred and fifty. How long do humans live for?"
Jalia felt herself relaxing as her heart began to calm, her focus shifting to the way the water clung to his impressively long eyelashes instead of remembering to be afraid.
"Without cellular regeneration tubes? Eighty to a hundred years."
"What is a cellular regeneration tube?"
"You walk in, and the machine reverses signs of aging by stimulating new cell growth and repair.
“It's a high-tech beauty treatment. They're hellish expensive, and you didn't answer my question."
"I've answered several of your questions," he told her with a grin. So different now they were out here alone, his guards waiting farther down the beach, out of hearing range. Attraction sizzled between them, undeniably electric in its intensity.
Jalia had not been expecting this development but couldn't find it in her to be unhappy about it. "I have brought no others swimming,"
Jalia stemmed the urge to smile triumphantly, calling on all her years of gambling to keep her face impassive. "Good."
"Let go of my neck and lie back in the water; you need to learn to float."
He was pressing her, relentlessly seeking to teach her to swim. "Why?"
"Tomorrow we go to Kaetonia, where you will face the Vanishing Labyrinth. You and the others will enter when the tide is low, but when the tide rises, the tunnels will fill with water, and the passages vanish behind you. You will not escape unless you can swim."
Any warmth Jalia felt building between them turned to ice as she imagined herself becoming trapped underground, water rising all around her...the sea seemed suddenly so sinister she wanted nothing more than to run from it like a child, frightened of the dark.
She remembered the boy yesterday, Iscarion, describing how he had been forced to dive, to swim from air pocket to air pocket until he found his way out.
Jalia knew there was no way she would be able to do that.
"Why are you telling me this?" she asked, searching his face for any hint of his earlier smiles.
"Of the four who remain, I would prefer it if you are the victor." When she didn't immediately respond, his golden brow arched skeptically.
"Is that not your wish?"
Jalia opened her mouth to say of course she wanted to win, but she took a pause, just long enough for Dhega to assume the opposite and hum, his expression going blank and distant just like that.
"I see."
"No, you don't." They were alone, there was no one else to overhear, and this was the perfect opportunity. A gambler's Ride or Die moment.
She could ride out her lies and hope no one ever found out the risk she'd taken.
Gamble on the chance no one would ever find out about her true purpose for coming here. Or she could die once Dhega did find out, and no matter how good Angel Eyes was a data fabrication, someone would eventually find out.
The instinct she had relied on her entire life to see her through her games told her if she didn't come clean, she would most definitely die.
This close to him, staring into his deep honey-gold eyes, the urge to be honest, to tell this man who may become her future husband her secrets, became overwhelming.
It was better he know now, better she confess before someone else learned her secret and used it against her, or used it to hurt Dhega.
"I'm not much of a catch, no stockpile of credits, nothing to bring to the table or offer your people except myself and my knowledge of the universe. And gambling. I play a good game, enough to look and act the part, but I'm not royal, Dhega. Not even close. "
She waited for him to react. To say something. To push her away and call for his guard, but he waited silently, focused on her so intently she felt like they were the only two beings on the entire planet.
The words fell out of her mouth without any effort, one after the other, the confession such a relief she almost couldn't talk fast enough.
"My father is a si
x-star General of the Universal Coalition. He's the one who commands an armada, though these days I think he's sitting in some big office rather than at the helm of an actual ship.
“My oldest brother is a one-star General, the youngest in the history of the UC to claim that rank because he's an absolute genius when it comes to military strategy. A prodigy.
"My older sister cures incurable diseases around the galaxy, and last I heard she'd eradicated a plague that nearly wiped out an entire populace of people no one thought would survive.
“Then there are my twin brothers Jeremy and Joseph who can't stop finding new ways to upgrade technological systems that locate viable planets for terraforming.
“My mother is the leading historian of ancient civilizations, curates the largest museum in Antari, knows everything about everything if you ask the right questions.
"And then there's me. I memorize patterns and numbers, calculate probabilities, but instead of using my powers of observation for the betterment of the worlds, I gamble.
“That's all I do. I play games, solve puzzles, win money. You ask anyone about the Justus's, and they'll tell you James and Jaclyn Justus have four of the most intelligent, accomplished, perfect children in the universe.
“Sometimes a rumor pops up about a fifth kid, but it's almost a conspiracy how quickly it's squashed.
"I'm the embarrassment of the Justus clan, and they disowned me a long time ago because I refused to behave like a lady.
“My dad sent me to this reform academy where the matrons tried all kinds of horrific methods to scare me straight, but all it did was make me want to escape.
"It took me a few years to do it, the place I was sent to was more like a prison than a school, but I got out, and the very first thing I did was find a gaming hall.
“I won enough money to get a change of clothes, some food, and then I had to find another game to get enough to buy a fake ID. I disappeared into the system, playing and winning so many times I became an undefeated champion among certain circles.
"I came here thinking I was going to win some big pile of credits so I could buy my way onto a planet called Rysor 12. It's a tropical planet on the very edge of the known universe, exclusively for the rich, and I had plans to disappear again.