by Anne Wheeler
If you miss Elise, there are better ways than acquiring another human being.
Ryllis noticed the expression immediately as well, though Kresten was certain she mistook it for reproach of her very existence. Cheeks red, she looked away from both of them, then sprang to her feet and bolted through the nearest door. He moved to follow her, but Lina set the tray down in front of him before he could budge.
“Eat, sir. She’s not going anywhere.”
Kresten ground his teeth, preparing to lash out at her for her insubordination, then made the mistake of glancing down at the tray. His mouth watered, and he settled back on his cushion, temporarily diverted. Lina was right. Eat first, then deal with his problems. His mother had always laughed at how predictable he was regarding that order.
“Will there be anything else?”
“No.” He could already taste the coffee. The freeze-dried kind the jump ships stocked never compared to the fresh plants that grew on the other side of this very mountain. “Not now. Let me know when the food order comes in.” He’d hear the shuttle, but he wanted to inventory himself.
“Very well, sir. Enjoy your breakfast.” Lina shot an appraising glance at the eggs, took a few steps back, then stopped. “She was quite beautiful before you cut off all her hair,” was her parting remark, flung over her shoulder.
“I had no choice!” he shouted after her. “You know that.”
The door chimes sang again, and he glared over his cup at the door that slammed shut behind her.
And she’s still quite beautiful.
Not for the first time, he was grateful no one was allowed to hear his thoughts.
Ryllis pressed her face into the bed and cried.
It wasn’t the humiliation of the servant woman seeing her, not exactly, but the way she’d reacted. Like Westermark had done something truly horrifying, and worse, that she’d agreed to let him do it. Maybe he’d done something wrong in his culture, offering an alternative to the tattooed imperial symbol. Perhaps she’d been wrong to accept. A hidden mark would have let her pretend to be a guest, like he’d said. She could have enjoyed the garden. Spent most of her time out there, working, if he agreed to let her do so, and then things would have been fine. She could have pretended she was happy.
But no.
She wasn’t Westermark’s guest, and perhaps that was why she’d chosen the way she had. It was a reminder to herself, as much as anyone else, that she wasn’t on Vilaria of her own free will. That she’d been dragged, not kicking and screaming, but close enough, from her home. That this very outcome was possible over the course of her life hadn’t mattered—no Cerethian ever thought it would happen to them. The Eradication Council was something that turned its eye on others.
Until they found themselves caught up in a rebellion.
Until they couldn’t pay the taxes that seemed heavier and heavier each season.
Until they spoke to someone under suspicion, if only a greeting on the street.
Until they caught the eye of a noble one.
The heavy realization made her ill. Westermark’s job as a security officer placed him in a position to meet dozens upon dozens of Star Realm subjects in trouble. Some would be all too grateful for his assistance, and some—well, if they weren’t grateful and willing, that wouldn’t matter to him, would it? She’d come along with him under duress, prodded on the jump ship by shock sticks, and he hadn’t so much as blinked. Maybe he liked choosing from that second group.
She shivered as the door opened. If he preferred women like her, then she would need to kill him as soon as possible, before he hurt her. Before he learned her secret, and something much worse happened. The door closed again, the bed moved underneath her, and she shifted away from Westermark’s weight.
“I had to come check on you, Amaryllis,” he said. “I’m sure you want to be alone, but I was worried.”
The name was the final indignation. “Do not call me that. I know you know better.” Her voice cracked.
Silence. Not even the bed made a sound, like he was sitting as still as death.
“You’re right,” he said finally. “I’m sorry. I do know better. I suppose I—well, it’s just that you look so alive when you’re angry, and back on Cereth, I wanted to see you alive, whenever I could make it happen. You were so lifeless even as you argued with them and denied everything, and it killed me. It was wrong and selfish to prod you for a reaction, but I did it, and I’m sorry for that.”
Could he hear himself? Ryllis pushed her face harder into the linens, then stopped. Even the audacity of the innocent silk angered her.
“Wrong and selfish?” she said to the pillow. “Bringing me here was wrong and selfish. Your entire existence is about being wrong and selfish, Your Highness.”
“You’re misunderstanding something—I had no choice. You grew up on Cereth. You know how the galaxy works.”
At that, she sat up. Westermark was sitting cross-legged on the foot of the bed, farther from her than she’d initially thought.
“I know it’s unfair,” she said. “I know it’s wrong. You don’t have to explain it to me. You’re the one who needs it explained to you. Do you know what it’s like the first time you hear the words Eradication Council? Can you understand what it’s like to hide your feelings? Have you heard your mother’s voice shake when she tells you what eradicate means? Has your father”—her voice cracked again—“ever had to explain to you that sometimes people are taken and they never return?”
“We have to maintain control of the dependent planets one way or another, and sometimes that control requires drastic measures. Has it ever occurred to you that the Eradication Council prevents the indiscriminate slaughter of entire towns? That pulling out the weeds is nobler than burning the entire forest? This exile is punishment for your wrongdoing, yes, and as such there will be aspects you find humiliating and distasteful”—he waved at her hair—“but I have no desire to treat you cruelly. You will grow used to living here, and while doing so, you will have the opportunity to atone for your crimes in a manner that benefits both you and the Star Realm. What more can you ask for?”
“I’ve committed no crimes.” Ryllis clenched her jaw, trying to forget about the flower in her cell. If the Fleet found out, if Westermark remembered, it would be a certain death sentence. “I hated your father, like any other Cerethian would, but I was loyal.”
His stare was measured, even. Not even his breath quickened.
“If you hated him,” he said, “then you were not truly loyal.”
His soft indictment fell as heavily as a sword across her neck. Westermark thought she was a criminal. It didn’t matter that she had no control over her power, that she’d never asked for it or used it intentionally. It didn’t even matter that she’d never spoken a word against the emperor and the Star Realm before five seconds ago. Now she had, and as far as he was concerned, she was the traitor the Eradication Council had said she was, and she would never convince him otherwise.
“I did the best I could as a Cerethian,” she said, “within the confines of centuries of oppression we’ve experienced. You can’t possibly understand.”
“I don’t claim to understand. Only to obey, same as you.”
“I did obey.” she said quietly. “This shouldn’t have happened.”
“But it has.” He studied her face for a moment until she looked away. “So, what about a truce?”
“A truce?” What was he talking about?
“Of a sort. A small one, to begin with, and later, perhaps, when you’re willing, we can negotiate other terms.”
“And the current ones?” Her hatred and fear were already beginning to falter in favor of his unexpected mercy.
Or maybe not so unexpected.
“Just one,” he said. “You smile every so often, and I make every effort to give you a reason to—and call you Ryllis.”
She couldn’t smile so suddenly after insulting his father. She wouldn’t smile, knowing the awful things he’d just said. But a
s her lips tilted upward, his did too, and she found she couldn’t contain her emotion. It wasn’t happiness—not in the least—but relief had much the same results, didn’t it?
“That’s an agreement?” he asked, the widest smile she’d ever seen on his face.
His earnestness won her over. “That’s an agreement.”
Chapter Five
The scream woke him from a restless sleep. Kresten rolled over and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms. The house fell silent again, but he struggled to his feet, anyway. He wouldn’t have been able to explain why—he wasn’t supposed to care one speck of stardust for Ryllis’s comfort, after all, but leaving her alone to cry in that dark cavern of his bedroom wasn’t appealing either.
He sighed as he pulled on an embroidered caftan. Moving his entire wardrobe to a spare room hadn’t been difficult—it wasn’t as though he stored much at the mountain lodge, but it did limit his choice of middle-of-the-night clothing. He hoped she wasn’t offended.
An oppressive feeling overcame him as he made his way to his—her!—bedroom, and he searched his mind for anything that might have happened recently to make her feel like this. She’d have to be feeling strong emotions to both have a nightmare enough to wake her with a scream and for his insignificant empathy to notice. He came up with nothing, though truthfully, he’d scarcely seen her for the past few days.
The lights were on inside when he knocked on the door. Ryllis’s soft voice replied, and it was clear she didn’t want to see him, though her words said otherwise. He stood there for a moment, his forehead on the door. It was an almost impossible decision—leave her alone like she claimed she wanted, or console her.
In the end, he pushed it open. Ryllis was sitting on the chair by the fireplace, her knees drawn up to her chest, her arms around them. She looked up when he entered, then swung her head to the side. The oppressive feeling he’d sensed on the way there vanished, and he only felt relief. He wouldn’t wish embarrassment on her, but it seemed she preferred that over fear and pain, and it wasn’t his place to argue.
“I heard screaming,” he said.
“I had a nightmare.” Her voice broke as she stood, her long gown flowing about her. “I’m so sorry I woke you, Your Highness. Let me help you back to bed.”
By the stars, what did she think this was? He could put himself to bed, hadn’t needed a servant for that since he was ten solar cycles old.
“I was up anyway,” he lied. “Couldn’t sleep.” Ryllis just stared at him. Finally, he spoke again. “The night is mild, and there is no moon. I know what Cereth thinks about them, but perhaps the stars would settle your mind.”
He’d expected an argument, but she nodded, and, grabbing a cloak, followed behind him through the dark house. He was familiar with the turns and furniture, but she was not, and he had the constant thought he should guide her to the back deck. He decided against it but put his hand on her elbow to stop her once they reached the kitchen.
“Tea?” he asked.
She bobbed her head, her eyes red and glassy in what little illumination shone from the hallway, and moved to wave on the light. “Yes, Your Highness. What kind would you prefer?”
“Not for me. For you. Would you like tea?”
Her mouth opened and shut in what dim light remained from the security lights outside. “Your Highness, that’s not appropriate.”
“If you’d like to do something to help, don’t argue with me.”
Having frozen her feet to the floor in confusion with that order, he made short work of her tea, then gestured her outside, still holding the cup. It wouldn’t do for her to fall with it in her hands. She watched with something akin to apprehension and curiosity as he led her onto the stone patio, far enough away from the house that the sky above was unobstructed, sparkling in the dark. The night was cool, but he couldn’t see his breath, and she looked warm enough in the wool cloak. He handed over her tea as she sat on one of the rounded cushions on the ground, and she looked away, blinking rapidly.
“The nightmare,” he said, pulling up his own cushion and sitting next to her.
“It was nothing.” Ryllis stuck her nose in the cup.
“It didn’t sound like nothing.” In truth, he didn’t particularly care what she’d been dreaming about, but anything that came from her mind was potentially useful to him.
She craned her neck up at the stars she claimed to despise, then looked around the garden, avoiding his gaze. “I dreamed of what would happen to me on Vilaria.”
“And?”
“It wasn’t this,” she said softly.
“What was it?” He forced himself to sound idly curious. Not desperate for information. Never desperate. Amazing how easily it came back to him.
“Your Highness, please—”
His tone grew firm. “Tell me.”
Like he’d expected, Ryllis jerked up straight and clutched at her cup, her cheeks paling. She hadn’t been allowed to be evasive in the prison on Cereth, and he wasn’t too proud to use those enduring memories to his advantage. She swallowed, and her voice grew even quieter.
“Once, early on, they came by and opened all the cell doors but left the fields up. They told us to stand there, right in front of the field, that if we moved, we’d be punished. It was the strangest thing, and I knew right away that something was very wrong. And before they’d finished going down the corridor, I heard a sound. Not screaming. Not even crying. More like—more like keening. And then they were parading him along. Another prisoner. They’d whipped him so badly he couldn’t walk. His back—” She looked up at the stars again, like she was desperate to escape into them, no matter how much she hated the wide-open galaxy. “It was shredded.”
Kresten didn’t say anything. It must have been during one of his shifts off. He’d have remembered otherwise, wouldn’t he? Was he so far gone that something like that would have seemed like nothing more than another day?
“Once he passed by,” she said, running her fingers anxiously around the priceless china in her hands, “I threw up. I was too scared to turn around, to even move, so I just stood there, and—anyway, one of the guards noticed, and he came in. He grabbed me by the throat and told me the same fate was waiting for me on Vilaria if they didn’t kill me outright. He said I would never survive slavery here.” She shifted the cup to one hand and wiped her eyes with the other.
Guilt. He could feel it, deep in his gut but also light, on the top of his skin that had just recognized how cool the night was. He didn’t remember that unfortunate prisoner, but he remembered the bruises on her throat. The guards had told him she’d done it to herself. That was what the medical report had said, and like a fool, he hadn’t questioned it. That was why his hairs were on end, wasn’t it?
“He was mistaken.” Kresten leaned back on his elbows to better see her response. “Or lying to upset you. Whipping slaves hasn’t been legal on Vilaria in fifty solar cycles.”
If he didn’t know better, he’d have sworn the look on her face was pity. But it was just the starlight. No one could tell a thing in such darkness. He could only go by her voice and her words, which made this all a fascinating exercise. That was all it was. Training. Education. Learning her weaknesses and non-verbal clues.
“I am not so naïve as that, Your Highness,” she replied.
His entire body grew heavy at her reprimand, like it had during his tour on the high-gravity planet of Candis. Ryllis wasn’t stupid. And she wasn’t wrong. Lashing a prisoner was permissible in the Fleet for even minor offenses, and most of the planet agreed that treating a slave better than the Fleet treated its men was unconscionable. Illegal or not, the law was openly defied. He’d seen it happen to palace slaves and a few of his own brothers as a child, hadn’t he? He hadn’t experienced it, thank the Realm, but he knew enough to know it wasn’t something he would ever do to Ryllis. She didn’t know that, though, and in a piercing burst of emotional pain, he found himself desperate to convince her of that.
�
��Maybe so,” he said. “But it does not happen in this household. None of what you fear does. Ever.”
Her eyes widened at his sharp denial. “I never suggested you—”
“You didn’t.” He wrapped his arms around himself. “I walked you into it, and I’m sorry.”
“If that doesn’t happen here”—she looked down, and he tried not to imagine the way her hair would have fallen in her face otherwise—“what does?”
Kresten looked up and tried to identify the flickering stars that weren’t at all familiar after so long away. Realm’s sake, why did she have to bring this up now? He didn’t want to deal with it—ever. Punishing slaves had always fallen to the imperial palacemaster. Disciplining the few troops that had ever reported to him fell to his chief. He only meted out their sentences, then hid.
“Behave yourself,” he said, “and we won’t have to find out.”
It was the wrong answer, he knew—she was dying for some knowledge about her future, but he hadn’t thought the conversation would turn to this when he’d knocked on her door.
“Behave,” Ryllis repeated. “By behave, you mean . . .”
He didn’t know what he meant. Whether he’d considered this future somewhere in his subconscious or not, his actual decision to bring her here had been impulsive, and he hadn’t truly considered what he’d do with a slave. By the stars, but having servants was an annoyance. Lina was capable of running the house on her own—more than sufficient.
He waved his hand. “Be helpful. Do what Lina asks of you, bring me tea in my office every morning. Don’t try to kill me, don’t steal anything, and don’t even think of trying to escape.”
It seemed a reasonable set of rules to him, but Ryllis recoiled a bit, then nodded. That strange feeling crept across his skin again. He’d brought her here; he owed her more guidance than that—guidance she was clearly crying out for.
“He mentioned an auction,” she said. “Is that what will happen if I do?”
“If you escape?”
I’ll never send you away.
