by Dark, Raven
“Please ignore my brother, Liberator.” Kash waved a hand when he was out of earshot. “He seems to think the only woman who is allowed to be “uppity” is you.”
All of us sat and ate, drinking and talking with Ivek’s men.
Kash sat in friendly discussion with Setora. Apparently, unlike in MCs, Critian men let women cook, a fact which fascinated Setora.
To say that it felt strange to be sitting among a huge group of barbarians whose people had kidnapped Setora was an understatement. My guard was constantly up, and so were Hawk’s, Pretty Boy’s and Steel’s, especially when every one of Ivek’s group shot sidelong appreciative glances at her. Kash was the only woman we saw in his party.
I noticed Pretty Boy at the cook fire, taking off pot lids and looking through with a funny expression before moving on to the next pot.
“Oh, he must be wanting something to eat,” Kash said happily and got up, checking on the cooking, stirring pots, and serving up a bowl for Pretty Boy.
“What the hell were you doing over there, Pretty Boy?” I asked him when he’d sat down beside us.
“Making sure there was no heads or feet in there,” he said with a smirk.
I choked on my stew. Beside me, Setora dropped her half empty bowl to the ground and it landed with splat.
Doc put his spoon down slowly. “You know they aren’t actually cannibals, right?”
Pretty Boy shrugged. “There’s a lot of stories about it. You never know.”
“I think I just lost my appetite.” Setora’s face was white.
I rubbed her back with a smile.
“Excuse me, gentlemen.” All of us turned toward the unfamiliar voice. A farmer dressed in a grubby shirt and patched-up pants stood at the edge of the camp.
Setora jerked up from her place on the log next to me. I did the same. The man was holding a woman by the arm.
Holy fucking hell. The woman was dressed in a short frock like Setora usually wore. Her face was smudged with dirt, her hair mussed, but even without the Yantu outfit, I recognized her.
Beside me, Pretty Boy coughed.
“Ali’san…” Setora whispered. “Oh no…”
“Does this belong to you?” the farmer snapped, shaking her. “I caught her stealing eggs from my chicken coop. She don’t belong to no man in my village.”
Setora looked at me, panicked, her eyes pleading for us to do something.
I was fully aware of the shitstorm we were in here. I or one of my men would have to step in and pretend she was our slave or—
“If you want her, I’ll sell her to you. She won’t be cheap, mind. But you lot look like you can afford such a choice slave. Her price would feed us for months.” The farmer offered us a slimy smile. “Buy her or she’ll hang in our square for thievery. Well, after I share her around—”
“She already has an owner. She belongs to me.” Ivek stalked forward.
Ali’san’s eyes went big with mortified horror.
Kash muttered an irritated curse. Pretty Boy snickered with delight.
“Is that right?” The farmer gave Ivek a suspicious look, but I noticed he’d also shrank back from the advancing barbarian in fear.
Shit, if Ivek was going to pull this off, he was going to have to be convincing.
Ivek grabbed the warrior woman by the arm and wrenched her free of the farmer’s grip. Then he snarled words in a language I didn’t know, right in her face.
“What the hell is he doing?” Steel muttered to me.
“Saving her life,” I growled.
Ali’san put her eyes down, shrinking from Ivek. If I hadn’t known better, I’d have believed she was afraid of him.
“Answer me,” he barked when she didn’t reply.
Ali’san flashed him a barely perceptible look of anger before her eyes went down again. “I’m sorry, Master. It won’t happen again.”
Pretty Boy choked on a laugh, and I stepped on his foot.
Ivek turned and shoved her toward the group. “Go. I’ll deal with you later,” he snapped.
Setora leaped forward, putting an arm around her as she brought her into the safety of the camp.
Ivek rounded on the farmer. He grabbed him by the throat and lifted him four feet into the air. “Touch what is mine again, and I will have you hung in my camp for my men’s pleasure,” he snarled. “Get out of here.”
He tossed the man away like a rag doll. The farmer ran off like a scared rabbit. Ivek turned to us with a smirk.
Pretty Boy finally exploded with the laughter he’d been holding in.
“That was badass, man,” Steel said.
“Thank you, Vol Ivek,” Setora breathed.
He gave Setora a nod. Toe to toe with Ali’san, he ignored her daggered glare and touched her under the chin. “Do not make me save you again, little tigress. Where I come from, saving one’s life comes with a price, and I will exact it.”
He walked away, looking like he’d thoroughly enjoyed himself.
I snorted. “I like him.”
Ali’san made a spitting noise at him. She shook with fury, but her cheeks were red, and I had a feeling the flush wasn’t from rage, or not entirely. Setora rolled her eyes at me, and I laughed.
“Ali’san,” she said, taking her arms gently. “Are you okay?”
“Oh, I’m fine, Setora.” But she sounded pissed. “I can’t believe this. I should never have needed to be saved like some wool-headed scullery slave.” Her eyes flicked angrily at Ivek, over at another fire.
“What in Maker’s name happened? Why are you dressed like that? How did you end up with that creep?”
“I made a novice mistake. I was bathing in a river near here, and my clothing disappeared. My sword, everything. I ended up having to skulk into that village and steal some clothes. I took them from a barn, but the farmer thought I was an escaped slave steeling food. I had no choice but to play the part, so I pretended I belonged with you.”
“You were extremely lucky, Sian Ali’san,” Hawk said.
“I know. I apologize for having put you all in that position, Setora. Legion. I’m normally better at traveling undercover. Thank you.”
“Don’t thank us, thank Ivek,” I said with a grin, delighted that she’d have to perform such a task. “He’s the one who saved your ass.”
She pursed her lips and gave me a stiff nod. “Perhaps at the next camp.”
She was putting off the inevitable. This was priceless.
“Well, you’re here with us now, and that’s all that matters,” Setora said.
Ali’san gave her a grateful pat on the back.
“Oh, Ali’san.” Setora gestured to Kash beside her now. “Sian Ali’san, this is Kashaya—Kash—Ivek’s sister, the one he spoke of last night.”
Kash gave her a deep bow of the head, and Ali’san returned it. “It’s good to finally meet you, Ali’san. I’ve seen you in my visions so many times, it’s like I already know you.” She glanced in the direction her brother had gone. “I should say, though, you’ve found yourself in a spot of trouble now.”
“Why is that?” Ali’san asked.
“Because.” Kash’s eyes danced. “I think my brother likes you.”
So Ivek had a thing for the warrior woman. Oh, this was going to be interesting.
Chapter 31
Death Trap
We left Sala Ray around not long after we finished eating. The full moon rose in the sky, leaving plenty of light to see by without the carriage lights draining power. Ivek’s men took as many of the horses as they could into the neighboring towns for selling, and then left the rest, as well as their wagons behind.
Ali’san, Kashaya, and I rode in the back of a carriage with Doc, a number of Ivek’s warriors, and Tabir, Ivek’s healer. Hawk drove our vehicle, with Sheriff up front in the passenger’s side.
“So, Doc, let me understand you correctly,” Kash said, her eyes wide. “This drug you give Setora, it keeps her from dreaming about the Ja Ka? No nightmares?”
“Hmm,” Doc said kindly. “We eventually managed to figure out the right dose. Over the past few weeks, however, I’ve been lowering her dosage little by little. Her training with Ali’san has replaced the need for the drug. Soon, she will not even need it, except in emergencies.”
Kash put her head back against the wall of the carriage, her eyes closing. “And this drug, I can take, yes?” At Doc’s nod, she smiled. “Thank the Han. No more having to spend my nights chained to a bed.”
Ali’san stared with open horror. “They chain you to a bed?” She looked pointedly at Tabir. He’d fallen asleep, or she would probably have glared at him.
“Oh, but they must!” Kash shrugged. “What else could they do?”
“Barbarians,” Ali’san muttered.
Doc fought a smirk.
“What does Master Leif do when Julian takes over you?” Kash asked her.
Ali’san coughed awkwardly.
I got the feeling I knew why she didn’t reply. There was no way to explain without sounding like a braggart.
“Well, you see… Julian can’t touch her,” I said. “She’s trained to keep him from taking over her. I can do the same now, but it took time to get there.”
‘Will you teach me this?”
Ali’san and I both nodded.
“We’ll get you there,” I said.
“Excellent. I’ve already nearly killed Ivek twice. I’m sure every girl fantasizes about killing her brother, but this is too much.”
We snickered. Ali’san’s smile was unusually huge, and I wondered if she was dreaming up ways to lop off a limb or two.
Later in the evening, we stopped for a break, and Ali’san moved over to sit on beside me.
“May we talk, Liberator?” she said carefully.
I licked my lips and nodded. I wanted the air cleared as much as she did. We were out of earshot from anyone, so it was the perfect time.
Ali’san turned on the bench to face me. “The truth is, I’d been having visions of the banner of Your Eye for several years, Setora. What I saw was the flag Ivek carries, only it was surrounding the Ladies of Shana Ra. So, I’d been expecting a large party to show up with the banners, except I expected them to be female.”
“So, you never saw Ivek?”
Her jaw hardened at the mention of his name, her cheeks going pink. “No, I saw him. But every time I did, he was just a mountain of a warrior with an axe or a sword and that hideous animal mask. He was always surrounded by fire and death. He was holding a Violet in chains. I could never see her face. I thought it was you.”
“Oh dear.” I suppressed a laugh. “So when you saw him at the Temple, coming toward me with a sword, you thought he was coming to claim me as a slave.”
She nodded. “Now I’m guessing the Violet was Kashaya. I hope.”
She hoped? Who else would it be?
“When I saw him,” she went on, “I realized what was happening. I had thought all along that the One Who Carries The Banner was Lanaya, but it was him. Lanaya has a banner like his. She ordered me never to tell you the truth about where Violets came from or the location the Ladies of Shana Ra until you were with her.”
“But why would she do that?”
“You have to understand. Many times, what one person in the Hive knows, we can all know. It’s impossible to tell what information from one person will be passed on to others, or to whom. That includes the Gin Gatai. He cannot know. If he ever found out…” She shuttered.
I gasped. “He would take them. Maker. I understand now.”
“Exactly. And healing Sheriff... like I mentioned before, you needed to learn that at the right time with the right knowledge.”
I nodded slowly. “But wait.” I turned sideways on the seat to face her. “What’s to stop Julian from getting the information out of my head the next time he connects with me?”
“Nothing. That’s why you’ve been training to keep him out. You are almost there, Setora. You are becoming skilled at knowing your mind, skilled at knowing what and who to let in.”
I blew out an unsettled breath. “I’m guessing we can’t tell Kash,” I said. “Not about what Violets are. Not until we teach her to shut herself off from him, that is.”
A sympathetic smile touched her lips. “You are learning what it is like to carry the burden of secrets, Setora. To know things that could help others, and yet know that you cannot speak of them.”
I nodded again and closed my hand around hers, letting her know she was my friend and I bore her no ill will. She squeezed my hand back.
“Thank you for giving me the chance to explain,” she said. “And for being my friend. Until now, I’ve never let anyone close enough to consider them a friend. I couldn’t have lived with it if you hated me.”
“I couldn’t never hate you. Never.”
She leaned her head on my shoulder. I caught Sheriff’s eye nearby, and he smiled. It made my heart swell that he was pleased I had someone I could talk to and lean on, a woman I could be close to.
But then I considered Ali’san’s warning about secrets.
It was going to be hard keeping this away from Kash. I really liked her, and I knew how much Ivek cared about her. Having answers about who she was, yet not able to say anything… I understood Ali’san all the more now.
A heavy burden indeed.
When the party had finished with break, everyone piled into the carriages and we were off once more. This time, Pretty Boy took the driver’s seat beside a sleeping Sheriff.
Moonlight turned a rolling green landscape to fields of silvery blue, reducing the endless mountain plains to mammoth black shadows. Cityscapes dotted the grasslands, and small sleepy villages lined some of the mountain slopes. With all that green and those high cliffs, the area reminded me a little of the Grotto. My heart squeezed, missing my friends Diamond, Emmy, Tanya, Gretle, Dice. I wondered how Cherry was doing, how the former Brothers of Brimstone and T-Man were doing. Light, it felt like ages since I’d seen any of them. Even though I had written Cherry a few letters, it wasn’t the same as talking to her in person. Plus, thinking of Cherry sent that horrible image of fire and death careening across my thoughts. I’d seen her dead, buried under rubble.
I’d seen all of them, gone.
It hit home just what I stood to lose if I didn’t find Julian and we didn’t stop him soon. Suddenly the Orial seemed too far away, yet never close enough.
“We’re coming up on the next checkpoint,” Pretty Boy said over his shoulder. “There’s a fueling station over there,” he added pointing to a city in the near distance. “I’ll have to put this baby down soon.”
“Yes, Master.” I gave him a warm smile, looking forward to another break.
A horrendous boom ripped through the night. I startled as the carriage rocked violently.
“Shit, what the fuck?” Pretty Boy shouted, righting the wildly pitching vehicle.
In the back, Ivek’s men, a sleepy Kash, and Ali’san were all talking at once, asking what had happened while Sheriff jerked awake with a grunt.
“What the fuck was that?” Sheriff snapped. “Pretty Boy, did you crash us?”
“Why do you always blame me?” Pretty Boy bit back.
“Because you drive like shit, that’s why.” Sheriff was holding the dash for dear life. He still hated flying.
Then both men seemed to see the same thing that I did. The same thing that left me staring with my jaw slack.
“Masters…”
“We see it,” Pretty Boy said looking out of Sheriff’s window as he steered to the left.
Below us, a huge explosion had ripped through one of the cities, flames and smoke rising high enough into the air that I thought it would burn the carriage to ash, until Pretty Boy veered left. Half a dozen smaller explosions went off throughout the city, toppling buildings and reducing them to rubble.
My stomach roiled. The scene looked so much like my vision, I wanted to be sick.
“What the hell is happening down
there, Legion?” Tabir grunted, getting up from his seat and looking over the back one. “It looks like someone set off a volcano.”
“Let’s check it out.” Sheriff’s throaty voice suggested he had the same terrible feeling I did as to who had set that explosion off.
Pretty Boy turned the vehicle around. A few of the other carriages drove alongside us and he signaled that we were looking into it.
They lifted higher and drove to a safe distance.
My blond master took the carriage lower over the city. Smoke momentarily obscured the view in black, but not enough for us to miss the devastation. The entire city was in ruins.
“Without going down there ourselves, there’s no way to tell what’s happened,” Ali’san said from beside me.
“Which isn’t going to happen,” Sheriff said.
We passed over one of the taller buildings. It was left intact, and I swore I saw a flag waving on the roof. My throat went dry. There’d been a flash of white and pink on the flag.
I touched Pretty Boy’s shoulder. “Master, can you make another pass, lower this time? I thought I saw something…”
He turned around and slowly drove over the city. I peered through the smoke and darkness, catching sight of the flag flapping in the wind.
My heart went into my throat. “Maker…”
The flag bore an unmistakable insignia—a snowy white flower with a pink throat.
“Aurora’s Wings,” I said. “He did this. It’s Julian.”
Tabir let out a string of what sounded like Critian epithets. Whatever he said, I agreed with him. I wished we could have stopped to help anyone in that city, but I knew that wasn’t an option. Julian’s men would have struck without warning, Tahmi or someone like him, laying waste to the city and killing everyone down there. Or perhaps it was one of the many MCs or Clans who’d decided to follow him, displaying their loyalty with blood and death.
It had started. I didn’t know those people, but this was my vision, a warning of what would happen if we didn’t stop him.
That city wasn’t the only one to burn.
Over the next week, we saw more of the same, landscapes burned to ash, cities and towns laid to waste. Occasionally, when we stopped for breaks and fuel, the men would speak to the townspeople, and it was always the same story.
