No humor lived in his thoughts.
Jet opened her eyes. She found she could take the light that time.
After a few seconds of staring upward, it hit her that she lay in Trazen’s lap, that he had his arms and tail wrapped around her where she lay in the middle of the stadium floor. She smelled blood then and groaned, closing her eyes.
He tightened his hold on her, using all of his limbs.
When she opened her eyes the next time, she looked at the wooden chairs that stood nearby. She could see only the back of those chairs where she lay, but from the pale arm she could see, covered in rust-colored streaks, the bodies of her mother and brother remained in them.
Somehow, seeing the chairs there, with the VR projections gone, made it real in a whole different way than while she looked at their faces, kneeling in the virtual snow.
She felt her whole body clench.
Pain filled her heart and chest, even as Trazen went back to stroking her hair and face, cradling her in his arms and tail and even his legs where she lay on him. She couldn’t cry though. Not here. Not now.
She would cry later. She would cry when this was over.
She wouldn’t let the people who murdered her family see her cry.
Trazen’s hands and arms gripped her tighter, even as she forced her mind off the bodies whose blood she could still smell. She felt Trazen shift his weight around, as if trying to put himself between her mother and brother and her.
She tried to think, welcoming any distraction.
After a few minutes passed, she remembered what they’d discussed at that party. She remembered what was supposed to happen that day.
Richter? she thought at him softly.
Trazen shook his head, barely perceptible. No.
Jet felt her jaw harden more.
She could feel the rest through his skin.
She’d been right. Richter never showed.
She fought to think about what this meant, but her mind still moved slow, almost sluggish despite the fact that she could tell Trazen had stung her at least once.
Richter must have given her family to Isreti. But why? Why would he do that? Even if Richter hated her, why would he do something that made so little sense? He knew the threat from Isreti was real. He couldn’t be stupid enough to have tried to make a deal with Isreti, could he?
Richter couldn’t be that stupid, surely?
Thinking about it, Jet shook her head, remembering him at that party.
No, whatever else Richter was, he wasn’t stupid. He knew the threat Isreti posed was real. Isreti was a fanatic. Richter knew that, too. Isreti wouldn’t make a deal with humans, for any reason, not a deal he intended to honor.
Which only left two options, really.
One, Richter was using her and Trazen as some kind of distraction, or maybe as a delay tactic to keep Isreti from killing off his people right away.
Two, Richter meant everything he’d said that night at the party, and something had gone wrong.
With either of those, Richter might have known Isreti had Jet’s family.
However, Jet could only imagine Richter giving her family to Isreti under scenario number one.
Jet had no idea which of those might be true.
Shhhh, Trazen reminded her, his thoughts soft as he stroked her hair. Not here, Jet.
She nodded up at him, but she couldn’t quite let it go. For one thing, it was the only thing distracting her from thinking about her mother and her brother being dead, and the smell of their blood and bodies next to her.
As soon as she thought it, Trazen was pulling her to her feet.
Keeping her facing away from the bodies still tied to those chairs, he steered her firmly towards the transparent wall that formed the boundary of the arena, keeping the bulk of his body between her and her brother and mother so she couldn’t look back over her shoulder.
What will they do with their bodies? she asked.
It’s not important, Jet, he thought back gently.
She knew he was right, that it was superstitious to think anything that happened to them now would matter. Even so, her mother would have cared where her body ended up. She was traditional enough that it would have mattered to her.
Could you make sure they burn them, at least? she asked, fighting a harder knot in her chest. Would they do that, if you said it was tradition?
Jet felt Trazen hesitate, right before he nodded.
I will ask, he said. Do not think about this now, Jet. Please. We must get you away from here. We must make you safe from this.
Can’t we leave? Jet thought. Can we just go home now?
He gripped her tighter. No. The Rings Board is still discussing this. We cannot leave until they decide.
Decide what? Jet’s thoughts grew openly bitter. My points? Whether I lost the match since my family died? Whether to behead me for killing Al-En Mosq’s test-tube woman? What do they need to decide?
Trazen didn’t answer, but continued to stroke her hair.
What will they do? Jet thought at him. If they decide I am a murderer… what will they do to me, Trazen? Will they kill me, too? Here?
Trazen sighed, his face taut.
I do not know.
Jet frowned, not satisfied. They must have known I would kill her. That I would try. If they killed my family, they must have known I would kill Bukka.
Trazen looked at her. Yes. It is likely.
Why do it then? she pressed. Why hurt my family, if not to get me to kill her? Why risk turning me into a martyr by killing me? What will that do?
After a pause, Trazen let out another slow sigh.
Perhaps they thought they would get what they wanted, either way.
He coiled his tail around her, stroking her neck and face with a hand as he walked.
Maybe they thought it better to see you tried and killed… or, more likely, imprisoned rather than butchered in the Rings. Perhaps Isreti fears you as a martyr, as you said. Perhaps he would like you disappeared. Killed out of sight, after you are less well known.
They’d reached the transparent wall.
Outside of it, Jet’s trainer stood, watching them approach.
Alice didn’t move as Trazen activated the door to let them out of the main arena. The woman’s lean, muscular arms were folded in front of her, her angular face set in a grim expression. The long, black dress she wore looked even more incongruous now than it had before the start of this thing, as did her soft black curls held together and out of her face with diamond-studded threads of what looked like copper wire.
Despite the stoniness of the woman’s face, Jet could tell she’d been crying, if only from the makeup trails still faintly visible on her narrow cheeks. Alice didn’t avert her gaze, but the coldness in her eyes didn’t feel aimed at Jet.
Instead, Jet saw a fierceness there towards her––what might even have been protectiveness.
It was the closest to love Jet had ever seen on the other woman.
The glass-like door slid open and Alice bowed, her eyes never leaving Jet’s face.
“Good kill, mammal,” Alice said.
Jet felt her jaw harden. Still, she heard the emotion behind the other’s words. She gave a curt nod back, letting Alice know she understood.
“They want you by the judges,” Alice added, giving Trazen a look before returning her eyes to Jet’s face. “Both of you are wanted there. They have made a decision.”
21
The Prince
Jet couldn’t hear Trazen anymore.
Silence reigned in his mind as they walked back towards the long, velvet-covered bench occupied by a row of now somber-eyed Rings Judges.
The bench remained exactly where Jet remembered it, positioned just beneath the Royal box in the stands.
Two stone pillars stood on either side of the bench.
They’d never been here before today, Jet realized, so must be something new.
She hadn’t noticed them prior to the match, so they might
have been moved out here in the time since, maybe because of what Jet had done.
Looking at them close up, Jet examined them with her eyes.
Etched drawings and Nirreth writing covered both columns, with stern-looking Nirreth gripping swords and spears. Along those slanted lines of text, Nirreth figures were shown killing creatures that looked like prehistoric lizards, animals like lions, enormous birds, beasts with horns and plated sides like rhinoceros…
And yes, figures that looked human.
The pillars reached up roughly six meters on either side of the white-stone bench.
Each had the circumference of a good-sized tree.
The stone of the pillars and the bench reminded Jet of the white stone used in the Trevi fountain, back at the palace of the Royals. Somehow the memory disoriented her, reminding her of the day she’d first seen that fountain––her first day inside the Green Zone.
That felt like a million years ago now.
Staring at the faces of the five judges in front of her, Jet felt nothing.
She couldn’t even feel hatred.
The five Nirreth stared back at her, their expressions mostly grim, wary.
The one in the middle, Nurem, still watched Jet with sympathy in his dark green eyes, but a different kind of sympathy than what she’d seen in him before the run started.
Kneel, Jet. Trazen prodded her mind gently.
Jet knelt, more in rote than because she’d thought about why, or even made a conscious decision. Once she was down on one knee, her eyes shifted right, catching movement by the ramp that led up from the lower levels of the amphitheater.
She wondered if those were Isreti’s guards, ready to take her back to prison.
The thought made her tense, even before she felt Trazen’s fingers gently squeeze the back of her neck.
Remembering the prison on Astet, Jet’s muscles tensed more.
She didn’t hear the beginning of what Nurem said.
By the time she was listening again, he was already midstream on something Jet had trouble making herself care about.
“…penalties for depriving one of our brethren of a valued asset,” Nurem intoned seriously. “We have been forced to recommend that the win for this challenge be forfeit.”
Next to her, Trazen bowed his head, but did not speak.
Jet fought not to ask him what that actually meant.
“…Further, our First Son, Isreti, has chosen to sit with the Rings Board for this decision, as it is affected by his new policies in these games. You will hear their final judgment, which I am told was decided unanimously by the Boards and our glorious First Son and soon to be King of the Nirreth Empire. He will give you that decision now, in person.”
Jet raised her eyes at this, surprised.
Trazen pressed down lightly on her neck, and she lowered them once more. Even so, she could hear murmurs ripple through the crowd as the silence fell.
Then Jet heard footsteps as a procession of Nirreth descended from the upper levels of the stadium to join them on the arena’s floor.
Jet stared down at the blood-red carpet where she knelt, listening to the First Son and his entourage approach. She found herself remembering what Trazen had said, how Isreti had explained to them why Jet’s mother and brother had to die, to show the world how little a human life meant. How it could be used as a symbol, even for someone like Jet, probably the most famous human who lived in the Green Zone at this time.
Especially for someone like Jet.
Her very fame, her very popularity among the Nirreth, is what got her mother and brother killed. Jet felt her mind grinding around that fact as the heavy footsteps got closer.
She didn’t raise her head, but watched their feet and legs from where her eyes remained focused down. She saw jewel-encrusted gold sandals, a flowing white and black cloak and knew she had to be looking at Isreti. She’d seen his clothing before, and knew he had a tendency to dress like some kind of fantasy king from an Old Earth storybook.
Those gold sandals stopped directly in front of Jet.
The First Son let out a low growl, slashing his tail in sensual flicks behind his back.
“Your human has broken the law,” Isreti said to Trazen.
Jet didn’t look up, but felt Trazen’s fingers tense on her neck.
“I apologize, Revered First Son,” he said humbly.
Isreti’s hiss grew louder, more aggressive.
“An apology is not enough, Ringmaster Trazen. You obviously do not have this mammal under control.”
A silence fell. The stadium above fell into one of those eerie held breaths.
Jet imagined Isreti looking down at her through it.
“She defies you,” Isreti pronounced. “She defies you… and you show affection towards her. You would protect her, if you could––”
“She has never defied me, First Son.”
“Oh?” Isreti said. He let out a low growl as he stretched out another pause. “Did you order her to kill Al-En Mosq’s beast? Was that something you instructed her to do?”
Trazen paused, tightening his hold on her neck.
“I did not instruct her on that point specifically at all, Revered Prince. She followed the strategy I requested of her prior to the run. She did everything I asked of her, apart from the end, and I gave her no instructions about that, other than to beat Al-En Mosq’s human in a fight. I was not at all clear as to how––”
“No,” Isreti cut in, his voice harsh. “If you were truly a believer in the old ways, you would have walked into that arena and shot her in the head. You would have put her down for disobedience. Not cradled her in your tail like she was your life’s mate!”
The silence thickened.
Jet felt more than saw Trazen’s tail lash behind him as well, but he didn’t speak.
“Would you wish to hear the Board’s decision, Ringmaster Trazen?” Isreti said.
Trazen removed his hand from Jet’s neck, but stepped closer to her once he had.
“I would know it, of course, Venerable First Son Isreti.”
Isreti smiled.
Jet heard it in his voice.
“We will not kill her,” he hissed softly. “But we will confiscate her. She will no longer be kept like a house pet, Trazen, lavished with gifts and rich foods. She will be kept here, at the arena, in the pens that are being wrought for those like her. I rescind my gift to you, Ringmaster, for you have not acted with discipline in the keeping of it.”
Jet felt Trazen’s muscles grow taut next to her, but he wasn’t touching her, so she had no idea what he was thinking.
Really, it didn’t matter. He couldn’t go against Isreti.
Not here. Not anywhere most likely, but definitely not here, where he would be sentenced to death for treason if he defied the Prince openly.
But Jet herself?
She no longer had anything left to lose.
They’d killed her family. They’d just told her she’d be sent to a prison where she’d be beaten, raped repeatedly, abused by whatever Nirreth felt like abusing her.
She had nothing left to lose.
And she sure as hell wasn’t going back to another Nirreth cell.
She rose to her feet and unsheathed her sword in a single, fluid movement.
For a split second, less than a breath… less than half a beat of her heart… she thought she saw Isreti look at her. His dark eyes tensed, accented with kohl and gold powder. A smug smile tugged at his dark Nirreth lips above that richly decorated white robe. A diamond choker adorned his neck, just above a collar woven of blue and scarlet thread.
Jet noted all of that calmly, without slowing her movements in any way.
By then, she was already leaping in the air.
She flexed her muscles without thought, swinging the blade back even as she felt eyes shift her way, as she sensed guards stepping forward, not fast enough to do anything but watch as her weight rose in the air.
She’d already started to swing the bla
de forward, making a perfect arc as she continued to rise up in the air, when the first of them cried out.
Jet barely noticed.
She focused solely on Black, on the sharpened blade.
It didn’t connect until she’d begun to fall.
The combination of her weight falling, the sharpness of the sword, the angle of her blade, the jerk of her hips in midair and her legs as they brought that sword around… it made the blade sing as it sliced through the air.
When Jet’s booted feet hit the ground, she landed in a crouch, the blade behind her, covered in blood, her jaw clenched so hard it hurt.
Isreti’s body remained suspended, a beat after she separated his head from his neck. Then, as she exhaled a held breath, panting in another as her eyes shifted up, the giant body with its white cloak and diamond necklace fell, collapsing in a heap on the carpet.
The head hit down next to it a split second after.
Silence descended in that whisper of seconds.
The entire amphitheater stared down at the carpeted stage between those two stone pillars, as if struck dumb in disbelief.
Then, from somewhere above, a siren’s wail exploded out of the upper stands.
Jet heard a familiar voice through the noise of the breach alarm, right before Trazen clamped a hand on the back of her neck, yanking her backwards even as his mind filled hers.
It’s Richter! he thought at her, yelling it through the venom. It’s Richter and Laksri, Jet! They’re here! They came! They’re already fighting!
Jet stared up at the stands as he shouted in her mind, stumbling backwards as he yanked on her neck, watching as the amphitheater erupted into skirmishes pretty much everywhere her eyes fell. She glanced at the ramp where she’d been looking before, and saw Nirreth fighting down there, shooting at one another down the tunnel into the dark, some of them wearing military uniforms she recognized from when Laksri had been First Son.
As she stared, she realized something else.
It wasn’t only Nirreth fighting.
She could see humans fighting, too.
The Complete Alien Apocalypse Series (Parts I-IV Plus Bonus Novella): An Apocalyptic, Romantic, Science Fiction, Alien Invasion Adventure Page 87
