by C F Rabbiosi
I remember the moment I felt his essence leave. It jolted my eyes open as I lay with him in my arms. Where his beautiful, loved little life would emerge next, well, that was up to the fate of the universe. It did not comfort me, because it would take infinite time and infinite places for him to reoccur again somewhere. I would never see him again. Never hold him. Never teach him the pride of being Koridon. But worse, he would never know what he meant to me.
It was only a few years later when Calypso brought hope of getting him back. Well, not him. But maybe a piece of my heart could be returned with the birth of another.
Torture gripping me upon the sorrow of his name, I grab the leather pants. Soft in my burning hand, I throw them over the bar the chains hangs from and pull up, using it as a wrench to dislodge my body from the hooks. “Tenak! Hold on!” I roar, my arm on fire as steel squelches out of my shoulder. The leather shreds as I fight to breathe, and my numb hand slips. The pant leg pulls free and my weight smashes down entirely on the left hook, my collar bone shrieking as it digs in.
Blood pours from my open tear, and I throw the leathers up once more, my ears ringing, little dots swarming my vision. I tug on the makeshift hoist, and it falls free. A miss. Warm liquid seeps down my leg, and I force myself to focus sharply on the target above. Taking a breath, I fight to focus, pushing down the agony of tortured nerves, and toss them over. It holds. My good hand grips the legs and I hoist myself up, relieving the tremendous pressure off my shoulder. The muscle lifts off the steel, my arm shaking, weak, begging to give up. But I won’t. I will never—
A ripping sound tears through my ears, and I’m helpless to feel myself slam back down, the leathers falling to the ground. Dread washes over me, giving way to the worst thing I have ever felt.
Defeat.
6
Calypso
Pink fire breaks through the mountains as the sun sets. Brekter and I reach camp, passing two Koridons coming back with fresh kills, and the girls stir near the smoldering fire. Every step jolts the achiness between my legs, and I have to focus to keep from limping. I really could have used the extra sleep robbed from me this morning for the long day ahead, but I feel very awake and strong despite everything. I resume my spot next to Glenda, who wakes and sits up.
“You all right?” she asks, pulling the debris from her light colored strands.
“Mm-hmm,” I reply with a wry smile.
Kraetorr walks past, an unmistakable heat in his presence, and Glenda hugs her chest. “I want to go home so badly,” she says, shivering. “I miss my mother. And Finn.”
I miss my mother too, and I hate to think of the distress she must be in knowing I’ve been taken by our enemy. On the other hand, I’m happy Brekter negotiated for her to stay back with the rest of our people. Maybe we will all be free one day, our two races in harmony, and I will be reunited with her. It’s what keeps me from cracking into tiny, insane little pieces all over the floor when Brekter pushes me to my limit. I have to believe this is all for something.
After breakfast, the Koridons push us on toward the Pacific shore. I’m a bundle of nerves, knowing the journey is coming to an end and soon my friends will be thrust into the Koridon world with relentless brutality.
The smell of pine wafts along with the breeze and reminds me of Yuletide season. Sad yet endearing memories touch upon my thoughts. We’ve never had much, but we still honor the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future.
For the past, we make something symbolic of what we regret, a mistake we’re sorry for, and it’s only for the spirit of Christmas past to know, no one else. Last year Finn crafted a doll that looked similar to Glenda and placed it under the big pine tree. He regretted spending so much time out of the home while his sister grew more and more weak. He just wanted to be with his friends and find himself, but she almost died when a nasty lung infection took her before full moon of Yuletide began. He blamed himself for not being there enough that year and hoped to aid his sister’s recovery.
For the ghost of Christmas present, we honor someone of our choosing to thank them for being part of our lives. The gift could be a new coat or pair of shoes you’ve made, or taking on their chores so they’re free to do as they wish for a day. Last year I asked Scarlet’s father to go out and collect wild berries so I could make black-haired Alice a dessert from one of the old cookbooks. I had to substitute several ingredients but was able to make a sugary tart she thought was wildly fun to eat. It was called a “jelly donut,” and I baked it on the bread stone.
Finally, on the third night of Yuletide we sing songs from the old time, passed down over the years, and we write to the ghost of Christmas future about our plans for the upcoming year. We vow to be better in some way so we don’t end up in an early grave with no love and no happiness as Ebenezer almost did.
“Silent night, oh what a night. All is calm, all is light,” I sing as we trudge through the brush. “Around young virgins, mother and child.” Several angelic voices join in, the forest so silent as it revels in our morning song. “Sleep in heavenly peace. Sleep in heaven with me.”
The sound vibrates in the air and breathes life into my aching soul as we vocalize, then laugh when we mess up the words. The Koridons watch us curiously and we wait for them to ask us to shut our mouths. But step after step they let us carry on. Brekter once berated me for singing, saying I was just like a little bird with no purpose and nothing better to do than open my mouth. But my heart swells with each song, each dance and each passage we recite from our favorite books. I am not ashamed of my humanity.
We don’t stop when the sun is at its highest point like we have the past few days to eat lunch, and I know it’s because we arrive soon to whatever fate has planned for us.
* * *
Before long, the dirt and rock become soft under our feet and strange white birds fly overhead with their trills echoing. We are led up a hill, and the moment we crest it, a moving, vast blue phenomenon stretches across the land. It ripples and crashes along the rocks, and in this moment I know the ocean in which Moby Dick looms truly exists.
“We arrive!” shouts Drakon, cutting through my misty enthrallment. His horse’s hooves kick up golden grains of sand and I shield my eyes. “Come along!”
In the distance, a gigantic house comes into view, and several humans work to clear debris and tend the grounds. Kassien didn’t have slaves where he kept me, and every dirty, emaciated man and woman takes on the face of someone from my village as we pass. Is this to be their fate when they’re found? A young man smooths his blond hair back and watches us, his clothes soaked with sweat. “What colony are you from?” I ask him, distracted by his eyes that reflect the same blue-gray as the sea.
A sweet smile breaks through his tortured demeanor. “I’m Jonah, from his highness, Summer Sun’s village, lady.”
“The village down south?”
He nods, and I tell him where we have been stolen from, in the midland. Those ocean eyes like the sun reflecting off rippling waters dart toward Glenda, who trips on a rock buried in the sand. The boy drops his shovel, and though he’s shaking with exhaustion he helps her up. She hugs him, eyes squeezed shut.
Kraetorr’s huge shadow steps in front of the light and he puts a boot into the boy’s backside, sending them both careening to the ground.
“You cursed, fucking beast!” I yell and help them up, my hands trembling with rage. I turn on him and am taken aback by his haunted expression toward Glenda as she grimaces and holds her wrist. He takes a step backward, and I raise a brow at his odd behavior.
“Back, slave!” Brekter takes my arm and shoves me along, the others jerking with the force of our conjoined ropes. “You will be brought into the human manor and settled into a room in preparation for the mating ceremony.”
“Wait, you mean they are to be claimed?” Unable to focus on the horror of being properly bedded by Brekter, I’m filled with relief for the others. What I had imagined was the women strapped down in one of the giant g
rounded ships and mated daily until seed took hold. “Will they be shown proper honor, as I was?”
He snickers and pushes me forward when my feet slow. “You mean forced to be impregnated by an aged male when you thought it was to be your prince?”
I sigh and shake off the memory of Tenak’s rough hands and the drag of his soft beard across my face. “You know exactly what I mean.” This gives me hope; perhaps the women can learn to love their new husband. I hurt for the ones who have already been engaged to a man in our village, but this could be promising. We have to look to the future and realize that to protect those men we love, we must blend our species and become one race free from constant fear and confinement. “How are they to be chosen? Who will be mated together?” I ask.
He squeezes my hand. “I care not. All I am concerned with is mating you properly and before the clan.”
A creeping sensation turns my stomach cold. My heart is chained to Kassien, and though his mate’s family—Drakon and this bunch—refuse to see our marriage as real, I feel completely bound to him. He killed for me. He fought until he was beaten into the ground for me. He suffers from an unnatural attraction as most Koridons do to human women, but when he handles me with his gentle roughness, shaking and unsure, a different side of him is revealed. He wants what we want: a family, love, and tradition, but he’s been fighting for his life for so long that love confuses him. It confounds all of them, actually.
“What about your real mate?” I ask as we near the mansion by the sea. Lorai had backed Kassien over Brekter when he and Gerakon ambushed him in the woods and stole me away. She must be horrified that he has joined Efaelty’s family with the intention of taking me as his woman. And on that note, how many other angry females will be waiting for us here?
“She is a traitor and no longer my concern,” he says. The other night, when he stormed off saying some confusing thing about having loved deeply or whatnot before, he didn’t give me the impression that Lorai is who he was speaking of.
“She’s the traitor?” I ask, confounded by his logic. “You have broken your laws and betrayed your prince! You are the traitor! You all are.” I look pointedly at Drakon, who already rides off with several of the others as a huge metal gate looms before us.
He takes me by the back of the neck and sniffs close to my face. “We arrive now.” The note of calm in his tone confuses me, completely mismatched from his wild expression. “I look forward to spending much time with you in the coming days.”
The black iron gate opens and we’re ushered up stone stairs to a stunning house that has somehow withstood the war and two-hundred years of wear. Brekter and Arek open the big double doors and haul us by our ropes through the threshold.
“Welcome,” a husky feminine voice says. Inside the lavish room, a female Koridon steps out of the shadows. “I am called Vaerynn and have been tasked with your care.” Her features are sharp, and though she stands only a bit taller than myself, her body ripples with profound strength. “See them to the bathing chambers,” she commands.
Led through a corridor by the three Koridons, we come to a large room with shiny rock floors, and in the middle stands a large, square tub. Our ropes are released and we’re ordered to strip as several older slaves bring in buckets of steaming water.
“Undress!” Vaerynn says again, and Brekter glances at Kraetorr with a flash of anger. “Why do you give pause? Do you believe these males will be unable to control themselves upon seeing your naked bodies?” She takes hold of Sybil’s collar and rips her nightshirt down. “Do you think you are so beautiful, so sexually superior that we all will bow before you?” She twists her nipple, forcing a cry from her lips and bringing her to her knees by the forceful pull of her breast.
I quickly slip the dress down my body and straighten my spine. Vaerynn shoves Sybil, who quickly grabs for her reddened areola, and stands in front of me. She takes a strand of my ice blue hair and rips it from my head, but I continue to hold her eyes without flinching. “And you’re the half-breed,” she says with a smirk. “The reason this insanity is taking place.”
“Not my choice,” I say. “Nor was it my mother’s when she was raped by one of your kind.”
A slap sears across my cheek and I clack my teeth to readjust my jaw.
“If your mother was set upon by a Koridon, she has received a gift unworthy of her.” The female’s lips tighten as she studies me.
I think of a girl who had received such a gift. When the hunters brought her back to the village, she was brutally mishandled in a fit of lust by a Koridon. Bleeding, bruised, and with broken bones, the male had deformed the appearance of her body. “I’ve seen such a gift first hand,” I say. “It’s a gift of death, I suppose. You’re right. Who wouldn’t want that?” I feel my eyes glaze over at the thought of a similar fate for all of us here.
Vaerynn searches me a moment. “I had heard fabled tale about half-breeds existing, but I could not have known how incredibly strange you appear. I can’t believe this is what our future is to look like.” She turns from me toward Brekter, and as her words sink in, they sting. I’ve felt different my whole life, ugly and defective, but I know who I am now. I’m strong and beautiful.
“The prince assured me he was besotted with my appearance, ma’am,” I say.
“I have heard you may already be holding his offspring.” She stands back and crosses her arms. “Is this true?”
Brekter cuts in. “Her belly was ripe for wanting of seed. And she had it. Quite a lot of it.”
“You?” she sneers. “I heard that your betrayal of the prince was for the sake of Efaelty, who was being thrown aside for the human. But now I see why you have convinced her father to turn from our old ways and begin affairs with these animals.”
“It was not for her,” he says. “I only took her so she would lead me to that pathetic village.”
Anger glows red in my core, and I snuff out the urge to attack him. No easy task. I realize my fists are balled and my every muscle rigid before forcing myself to breathe again. He was able to trick me because I was exhausted and scared. I’d chosen to have faith in his word as though it were Kassien who spoke it. A fatal mistake.
“Well, until the day her pregnancy is confirmed,” says Vaerynn, “and the child within accounted for, she will be treated as the rest. And if she is not carrying a child, she may very well be mated to someone else.”
“She is mine,” Brekter says too quickly, and Vaerynn marvels at his change in demeanor.
“So we are to be given a husband?” asks Scarlet, whose pale skin shows in my peripheral. Everyone had removed their gowns during the heated discussion, and the degradation makes my bareness prickle with goosebumps. Little animal… I hear Brekter’s scathing nickname settle along my blushing form.
“You will all be kept in a large room guarded at the door,” Vaerynn says, running her fingers down blond Alice’s cheek. “You will be taught how to behave in our world and trained to serve our needs.” She notes Arek’s burning gaze upon blond Alice. “Of course, your main function will be to produce a Koridon child, but until that day, you will be little more than a slave.”
Blond Alice’s face pinches in anger. “I will kill myself before letting one of you impregnate me.” She blinks up at Arek with fire flickering in her irises.
“You will be tied down and used by every male in this compound until you are raw and insane with exhaustion!” Vaerynn sends a fist into her side and she doubles over, gasping.
The others stir and whimper, all the tales of these monsters striking up their fear once more. We had never been allowed outside the safety of our village barrier, never allowed to be a sexual people for fear of a Koridon male being nearby to scent it.
Vaerynn takes blond Alice’s face in her hand and forces her head back against the wall. “Say one more hideous word and you will not even be allowed to bathe. I will have Arek remove you to your bed where your legs will be spread apart and each limb locked tightly down.” Vaerynn’s touc
h wonders between her legs. “Has this ever felt a tiny little man’s krivit inside it? I hope not. It will make the bedding by a Koridon even more excruciating. I look forward to watching you break.”
“You’re going to watch?” blond Alice asks. Growing up, I never realized how fearless she was. Angry yes, rude to me, without a doubt. Stubbornness will only get her hurt here, but I secretly hope she never breaks.
“I will oversee all of it.”
“Will there be a proper ceremony?” I ask.
“Enough questions,” she snaps. “Wash your horrid bodies.” She points toward the tub. “Then we shall begin.”
7
Soapy water slides down my arms as I scrub off the caked dirt from my skin. The bathing chamber is like nothing I’ve ever seen before with its silvery walls and pillars. I entertain ideas of princesses bathing here, with the ladies-in-waiting lathering up their long, golden hair as they contemplate what prince to marry.
Brekter, Arek and Vaerynn speak to each other in their language from the corner as we bathe. I catch several words they use and try to piece it together, but a strange tingling sensation brings me to distraction. I look up to see the girls staring at me with expectation.
“Tell me what will happen to us,” says Mary-Shelly, crossing shining arms over her chest.
“I don’t know any more than you do,” I say, happy for the cover of bubbles. We were always taught modesty by our parents, and no matter how I try to break from my instilled beliefs, I still feel hopelessly awkward for the others. It’s not as much my nakedness as it is seeing my village mates this way.
