A Future, Forged

by Aiki Flinthart

  Calm and certain, she smashed the hammer, over and over, against Han’s wards. Fine cracks appeared. Hairline fractures in the smoothness protecting Han’s mind.

  He drove his sword through Gen-kin’s chest, pulled it free and wiped it clean. Then he turned to Teya.

  Smiling, she crushed the last of his wards, leaving ash and the memory of protection. Then she obliterated his inner wards.

  Only when his whole, sordid mind lay exposed did she fill it with the illusion she had prepared.

  Then she moved over to the window, and waited.

  He screamed. Screamed and threw his weapons aside. Screamed again and batted at his body, crying for someone to put it out. Dropping to the ground, he rolled on the bloodied rug. But nothing would put out the flames.

  The remaining weishi stopped and gaped at him. Han continued to scream until blood frothed at his lips and bloodvessels burst in his eyes, turning them red.

  Only then did Teya douse the flames and add one last touch. Now he saw Dallan, alive and well, standing before him. Mocking. Laughing.

  Han staggered to his feet and grabbed at the illusion, but it danced out of reach. Step by step she lured him closer. When he stood before her, she removed Dallan and let Han see her. He sucked a shuddering breath and checked his hands, stroking the smooth skin there. Then he raised his gaze to hers.

  ‘What the…You! Where’s Dallan?’ He glanced around.

  She jammed the Johnston dagger hilt-deep into his heart. He twisted away, mouth agape, the dagger still protruding between his ribs.

  ‘You gouri, little—’ Blood dribbled from between his lips.

  She pushed at his chest.

  The glass window exploded outward. He plummeted three stories to the courtyard below.

  More people rushed into the room as Teya’s legs gave way and she folded to the floor.

  Jun Neri’s horrified expression was the last thing she saw.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  TEYA

  A room swam into view. A familiar room. Dim-lit but with a hint of daylight creeping around the edges of thick curtains. Jun Neri’s guest bedroom.

  Teya lay in the over-soft bed, too weak to do more than drift in and out of memories and dreams. Someone came and tried to feed her. She turned away. She didn’t deserve their consideration. Dallan had died because she hadn’t believed he really wanted to help; hadn’t been willing to work with him—until it was too late. Perrin. Ying. All of them. Dead because of her stubbornness. Why was she even still here? Why hadn’t she died, too?

  Everyone she cared about was gone.

  And she had cared. She hadn’t wanted to admit it. Hadn’t wanted to let them close in case they proved to be as self-centred as everyone else. But they hadn’t betrayed her. She had failed all of them. And the jundom.

  Han might be dead, but without Dallan to lead the fight against slavery, someone else would step into Han’s shoes. That was how the world worked. She knew that too well.

  She tossed, unable to get comfortable. Unable to sleep or wake properly. Strange dreams haunted her sleep and memories haunted her awakening.

  Someone called her name, over and over, tearful. Two voices. Then a third. Achingly familiar.

  She opened eyes sticky with sand and sleep.

  A woman’s face swam into view. Tired, sad, but joyful at the same time.

  ‘Mother?’ Teya whispered. ‘Mother?’

  Helva Connor folded Teya into her arms and cried into her shoulder. ‘It’s me. Oh, Teya, yes.’

  Rocked in her mother’s soft arms, Teya finally released the tears she had been holding in for five years. She wept until she was too weak to hold onto her mother and had to slump onto the pillows. Helva made her drink something tartly sweet that soothed her raw throat.

  ‘Sleep now,’ she whispered, kissing Teya’s forehead. ‘It will be alright. I promise.’

  Teya tried to keep her eyes open but they were too heavy. She managed to ask a question, though the words came out slurred. ‘Perrin and Ying?’

  Helva kissed her cheek again. ‘They’re both alive, sweetheart. They’re fine. We’re all fine. Thanks to you. Sleep now.’

  ‘I need to see him! Perrin,’ she managed.

  A few seconds later, Perrin’s wiry body snuggled next to her in the bed. He said her name, sniffled, and curled himself close.

  Her heart a little easier, Teya slept.

  #

  ‘Do you really have to go?’ Tears shimmered on Ying’s lashes.

  Teya touched the long bundle in her lap and nodded. ‘Dallan wanted to give his sword and dagger to his son.’ Her fingers tightened on his steel blade, wrapped in his cloak. ‘Neri said the dagger disappeared when Han’s body was taken into the Chinshi. She thought Jenna took it.’ She thrust aside the memory of his death. She would deal with that, later. ‘So the least I can do is return the sword and let Dallan’s family know how he died.’

  Ying sighed and gripped her ankle. The huoche driver clucked to the four che-ma hauling the trundling vehicle and pulled on the reins when they stamped and huffed with impatience.

  Seeing Ying’s genuine worry, Teya clambered down and hugged the younger girl. Ying’s smile wobbled into place. She wore again the yellow house robes of an apprentice xintou and she had recovered her sunny optimism, but every once in awhile she cried for no reason and Teya didn’t know how to help her.

  ‘I’ll miss you.’ Ying sniffed. ‘And Perrin. Everyone’s leaving!’

  Teya laughed. ‘And you’re going back to Madina. Besides…’ she scanned across Asalam’s uneven skyline and shuddered ‘…it’s time to move on. Now that Mistress Rua has heard the testimony of all the juns and xintou that Shana and Han either controlled or blackmailed into helping, there’s no way the slavery laws will be brought in. Dallan’s family need to know that, too. They need to know he didn’t sacrifice himself for nothing.’

  A lump clogged her throat and she had to scrub at her eyes.

  ‘But,’ Ying said, ‘you’re supposed to be jun to the Gray-Saud line, now. I know you don’t want to, but Dallan once told me that the best rulers are the ones who don’t want the job.’

  Teya shook her head. ‘That’s what someone who’s never had to do a job they hate says. I’d be a terrible jun. I’m too restless and impatient.’

  ‘You’d be wonderful!’ Ying insisted. ‘You’re smart and you’d champion the people in the Migongs. Make the other juns look after people.’

  Curling a lip, Teya kept her reply as gentle as she could. ‘We both know what would happen if the other juns found out I was xintou. Even with my limited powers. They’d be terrified of me.’

  ‘Then it should be Perrin or little Zhan,’ Ying said.

  Teya pushed her words away. No-one born of Helva Connor could be allowed a jun title. Han Gray-Saud and his Xintou, Shana, had chosen Helva because of her latent xintou genes. Combined with Gray-Saud’s own latent genes, they had intended to breed their own pet male xintou to use as a weapon. Shana had examined Perrin at birth, and he wouldn’t be a xintou. Her new little brother, though… Han must have kept him for a reason. Only time would tell.

  She gazed toward the Chinshi and shuddered. ‘No. Giving the Gray-Saud title to that cousin of Han’s was the best way. He seems like a good enough person.’

  Ying’s shoulders slumped. ‘But you’ll be all on your own! Your mother and Perrin are going all the way to the other side of the jundom. How will you get to them?’

  Teya shrugged one shoulder. Her right was still stiff and weak after days of infection and lack of use. The Healer House woman who’d tended her had expressed surprise she’d survived at all and told her she would lose some use of the arm.

  ‘Teya?’

  ‘Sorry.’ She smiled at Ying. ‘Neri gave me enough money to get Dallan’s sword home and then get to Gaton, where my mother is headed. She has family there—on the Wen-Gates estate. I’ll see what it’s like before I decide to stay. Maybe…’ she lifted her face to the
peridot sky and sucked in the smell of freedom ‘…maybe I’ll see where my feet take me.’

  ‘I wish you’d come to Xintou House with me. I can’t believe Mistress Rua is letting you leave! She’s always going on about how dangerous untrained xintou are.’

  ‘I think she realised I’d be a bad influence on all of you. Look what happened to you!’

  Ying threw her arms around Teya and hugged her. ‘I’ll never regret meeting you,’ she said. ‘You made me realise how important it is to stand up for what’s right, even when you’re scared and even when it might ruin your life.’

  ‘No. Dallan taught us both, that. And a lot more.’ Teya sighed. ‘And you taught me how to let go of my anger at Gray-Saud. I owe it to both of you to find out what I’m good at. To make something of my life. And someone has to keep an eye on things to make sure the slavery people don’t get out of control again. I owe him that, too.’

  ‘Will you come and visit me in Madina?’ Ying begged.

  ‘I will, I promise.’

  Ying eyed her with suspicion.

  Teya chuckled. ‘That’s another thing I learned from Dallan: always keep your promises.’ She climbed onto the cart then extracted her purse from her pocket and withdrew her mother’s tiny gold locket.

  She pressed it into Ying’s hands. ‘To remember me by.’

  Ying smiled and held it tight in her fist.

  Teya nodded to the driver. The che-ma whickered and pulled her toward a new life.

  She looked back twice. Ying was still watching.

  Teya waved, knowing she would never again be alone, and turned north.

  THE END

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  Other books by Aiki Flinthart

  Discover other titles by Aiki Flinthart at: www.aikiflinthart.com

  Or

  Blackbirds Sing (Historical fantasy)

  The 80AD series (YA Adventure/Fantasy)

  80AD Book 1: The Jewel of Asgard

  80AD Book 2: The Hammer of Thor

  80AD Book 3: The Tekhen of Anuket

  80AD Book 4: The Sudarshana

  80AD Book 5: The Yu Dragon

  The Ruadhán Sidhe novels (YA Urban fantasy)

  Shadows Wake (Bk1)

  Shadows Bane (Bk2)

  Shadows Fate (Bk 3)

  Healing Heather (Bk4—publication 2020)

  The Kalima Chronicles (YA Adventure/Fantasy)

  IRON—Book One

  FIRE—Book Two

  STEEL—Book Three

  A Future, Forged (Prequel - publication 2020)

  Other Novels

  Sold! (Contemporary Romance/Adventure)

  Short Story Anthologies & Collections

  The Zookeeper’s Tales of Interstellar Oddities

  Return

  Like a Woman

  Elemental

  Non-Fiction – Author writing resources

  Fight Like A Girl – Writing Fight Scenes for Female (and male) Characters

  Connect with her on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/aikiflinthartauthor

  Twitter: @aikiflinthart

  Instagram: Aikiflinthart

  APPENDIX

  Story facts and background

  Kalima means ‘World’ in Arabic. The planet was settled by idealists from Earth seeking a world without conflict. The planet’s sun is a K-type orange star in the Gliese 167 system. Rayleigh scattering of light combined with atmospheric dust high in copper oxide, gives Kalima a pale teal-green sky. The sun’s orange colour led to dark blue and black-leafed plantlife. Kalima is third planet from this sun. Gliese 167 is a cooler sun than Sol, but Kalima is closer to their sun than Earth is to Sol. Kalima’s. 14 month year and its axial tilt and elliptical orbit means the southern hemisphere (the location of the colony cities) has a long spring-summer-autumn cycle and a short, 2-month winter. The northern hemisphere has larger extremes of weather and is, as yet, uninhabited.

  Kalima has an active geologic past, which formed continents, volcanoes, oceans and rivers. But, until the terraforming teams arrived, Kalima was bare of life. The rocks created by the presence of life on Earth—such as marble, oils, methane, coal, chalk, limestone, or banded ironstone—do not exist on Kalima. The few iron deposits in existence are iron-sand beaches created by volcanic activity, and meteoric iron. The planet has high levels of copper and a vast desert of copper-rich soil on one of the other continents has contributed to the levels of copper oxide dust in the atmosphere, which causes the green sky.

  The colonists chose a lifeless planet and paid to have it Terraformed and seeded with life and complex ecological webs. Initial terraform teams were sent to Kalima on faster-than-light ships, while colonists took slower, jumplight sleep-ships to allow the teams sufficient time to complete the infrastructure. Five hundred years after departing Earth, the first of three ships arrived, carrying twenty thousand carefully selected colonists.

  Mainly of Chinese, Arabic and European descent, colonists were chosen and screened for their desire to live a peaceful, agrarian existence. Kalima’s twenty-one Jun families descend from the original twenty-one Funding families who financed the expedition.

  Two hundred years after settlement, supply ships from old Earth ceased and colonists were obliged to be self-sufficient. Lack of iron prevented the colonists from creating a high-tech society, forcing them to live in semi-medieval conditions, although many old ideas and skills have been retained. Electricity generation through wind or water power exists in limited form. The ability to make telescopes, lenses and microscopes has not been lost and, although medical understanding of surgery, physiology and healing exists, it is limited by the lack of modern technology. Many books on old technologies have been preserved and, some colonists retained information regarding warfare and weaponry—the basis of knowledge in the Weishi House.

  Kalima society is substantially feudal, the Jundom of Mamlakah being ruled by 21 Juns, under the leadership of the Jun First and two Jun Seconds. Melcor, to the north, and Jadid, to the south, are also feudal societies but Melcor’s society and economy is built on slavery. Shemal is a democracy.

  Languages are mixed. A version of English, borrowing many words from Arabic and Mandrin, is the dominant language in Mamlakah, the first colony site. Similarly, cultural crossovers are normal. Women and men wear robes or high-collared shirts and trous (loose trousers tied at the waist). Robes are worn indoors or while employed in non-active trades and management positions. Otherwise it is common for trous and shirts with jackets or cloaks to be worn. Women wear their hair long and loose or, if of a higher caste, long and up in elaborate hairstyles. Men in Mamlakah wear their hair long and tied back in a mawei (low ponytail or plait). Although now less fashionable, women may wear a transparent veil that covers the eyes and nose only. The veil is symbolic of mystery and high ranking rather than an indication of women’s inferiority.

  In Mamlakahn society, women are, basically, equal in standing to men. They may be Juns or Trade Masters in any House and are free to undertake any training and job. In any colony, however, women are more valuable than men. Built into the psyche of the colony is the need to protect women that has continued into today’s thinking. Weishi House came into being primarily as protection for women of childbearing age from natural hazards, though its scope expanded as the colony grew. Women are the bearers of the next generation and the survival of a colony depends on how quickly women can give birth and outstrip death rates.

  The need for high birth rates, and genetic diversity, led to the practice of kin-children. In the early days of the colony, a couple unable to have children was a wasted pairing. Women needed to have children by several fathers in order to keep the gene-pool as diverse as possible. After five hundred years, the population is approximately a quarter of a million.

  People/Places/Things

  Adeghal – capital of Shemal

  Ahmar – Red (Ahmar Mountains run down the Eastern boundary of the kingdom) />
  Alzin – an aluminium-zinc alloy.

  Asalam – northerly seat of the Zah-Hill family.

  Aswad – Black (Aswad ranges run down the centre of the kingdom)

  Ceramic Swords are made of zirconium dioxide

  Chengdu- capital of Melcor

  Days are: Ahad (one), Ithnan (two), Thalatha (three), Arba’a (four), Khamsa (five), Sitta (six)

  Ghadeb – ‘angry’ (Ghadeb sea to the northeast)

  Gharb – west (Gharb ranges run down the Western boundary of the jundom)

  Gunpowder = saltpetre + sulphur + charcoal

  Jiali – ‘home’ – Capital city of the Ma-Safra family lands

  Jadid (New) Jundom – south.

  Kabir – big (the Kabir river runs through the middle of the kingdom and empties into Melcor’s port 700 gongli away to the east)

  Kalima – World. Earth-sized planet. Kalima has a 6-day week and a 5-week month. 30 days per month. 14 months in a year and 422 days in a year – two days at the end of the year are not part of any month and are called yirun and er’run. Axial tilt and slightly elliptical orbit means northern hemisphere has extreme seasons but southern is mild with short winters and long growing seasons.

  Kuaisu River – ‘fast/rapid’ river (wraps around the eastern side of Shanzhai)

  Luna-Yi – red moon

  Luna-Er – blue-white moon

  Madina – capital city of Mamlakah. Palace - The Alkazar.

  Magnal – magnesium aluminium alloy – light and strong

  Melcor – second kingdom to be settled – to the northeast of Madina and on the Ghadeb sea. Reached by trade on the Kabir river.

  Metsa – the river running through the western section of the Ma-Safra Jundom, near Newmec. It eventually joins with the Kabir just north of Madina

  Mianshou – end of year 2 day celebration during Yirun & Er-run.