by Susan Grant
Ducking away, she let the crowd swallow her up. She wanted to run, but it would draw too much notice. She used her small size to wind past the other refugees and get as far away from the docks as possible. She had to get out of this trap of a camp, and she needed to do it quickly. Time was not on her side.
AWRENKKA. HE’D FOUND HER! A few thumps of his thundering heart later, she was gone, her violet eyes burning in his mind like an after-image of a too-bright light.
Why was she alone? Why had her chaperones abandoned her? Something inside him twisted at the sight of her small frame swallowed up by old, oversized clothes. She didn’t belong here in this camp. He knew the kind of sheltered life she’d led, yet she didn’t cower or skulk. It made him proud. She deserved a future, happiness.
Was he capable of giving it to her?
He hadn’t an example on which to base anything approaching a normal husband-wife relationship. He certainly wasn’t going to revisit the horrifying circumstances of his childhood. It hit him that he’d never extrapolated his rescue of her beyond the vague details of fleeing with her somewhere quiet and remote to live out their lives in peace, blessed peace. Now that the reality was upon him, he wasn’t sure how he was actually going to accomplish it. The devil was in the details.
He crushed the compulsion to go after her. The overly curious ex-runner was watching him. The man’s lingering perusal was sharper and more inquisitive than before. Aral tried to act as if he wasn’t affected by the sight of Awrenkka. His success in doing so was questionable.
“Well, I’ll leave you to your business here,” the runner said. “I’ve got some of my own.” He nodded in farewell to Aral and gave Kaz another wink. “See you around, sweetheart.”
“Boor,” she muttered, then she turned to Aral.
“It’s her,” Aral said. “Awrenkka.”
“The small woman with the glasses, yes. She fits your description, aside from the short hair.”
“It’s her. I’m sure of it. Ten years has changed her, but not enough.” Ten years had changed him, too, in fates knew how many ways.
“Did she recognize you?”
“It’s hard to say.” She’d given him a double take, however. Well, he’d know soon enough. He turned his gaze back to teeming throngs of refugees where Awrenkka had vanished. He’d lost her, but it was for the very last time.
KEIR’S MIND RACED as he strode away from the docks. The man and woman he’d encountered were covert operatives, both of them. He knew the look; the camps were filled with undercover law enforcement types, covert agents, spies, assorted fugitives, opportunists, and trusted former Drakken. His guess was that they were former high-class Drakken. They didn’t act anything like the bottom-feeders filling the refugee camps. Yeah, blue-bloods. The first clue was their precise queen’s tongue, carefully covering up their accents—a little too carefully. And the woman with the flawless skin like white marble and the red luscious lips, she was a cold one, all right. Exactly the kind of woman he avoided. Of course he did. She was Drakken.
He replayed the scene where they’d all stopped to look at the woman wearing the antique eyeglasses. It was clear that little refugee was a person of interest to the pair, and thus a person of interest to him. Fifty million queens rode on his guess why those two agents were in lovely Zorabeta. They were searching for the warlord’s daughter, too.
WREN FLED THE DOCKS, intent on eluding her hunters, both visible and not, as memories of Aral Mawndarr haunted her. Seeing the trader who resembled him so closely was disconcerting. The day on her father’s ship came back, and the few heartbeats of a glance she’d shared with Aral. That encounter had launched years of daydreams. There had been a real person before he disappeared behind that frosty sneer. She’d glimpsed him. Yes, a person a lot like her.
We’ll find a way out. In her fantasies, he’d snatch her hand and they’d be off. Together they’d leave their nightmares behind. Her belly gave a small, tight twist at the poignancy of that childish wish. It was Sabra’s fault, filling her impressionable young head with fairy-tales that made her so susceptible to the fleeting gaze she and Aral had shared as teenagers.
Enough silliness, Wren. Enough acting like a teenager with an unrequited crush. Aral is dead. The battlelords were hunted down and killed, every last one.
The pleasant scent of incense came as a surprise and a contrast to the bleakness around her, pulling her out of her thoughts. A priestess walked past, incense drifting in her wake like her robes. Smoke gray and pearlescent, they billowed around her body from head to feet. There was strength beneath that silk. Her skin showed the lines of a long life. Her serene, ageless eyes were paler than the heat-bleached sky. “May the goddess be with you,” she told Wren as she passed, bestowing blessings on all within reach.
“And also with you,” others called back to her.
As if connected by a string, Wren followed at a distance. The peace she’d felt in the sister’s presence was too wonderful to surrender so easily. It touched her, luring her.
Eventually the priestess disappeared behind the flap of a large tent. Inside, Wren glimpsed women resting, talking, and, to her delight, reading books. It was a makeshift temple. Ah, to be safe inside in the cool of the tent, immersed in learning the religion of the goddesses. The desire to join them almost made her step inside. To be able to be a priestess and spend the rest of her life in solitary, quiet prayer and study was a powerful draw.
Her presence in the sanctuary would have been an insult to these women, reading the Agran Sakkara, the bible of the religion that her father and the rest of her ancestors had worked so hard to eradicate.
She backed away from the entrance, trying to forget the sense of peace inside, the sense of belonging there and not here. Not in this life she’d been dealt. This camp.
She lingered, wandering outside the tent like a stray dog. The usual signs of day-to-day life were scattered around the perimeter: large containers of drinking water, assorted boxes, and freshly washed robes fluttering in the breeze on the drying racks.
Disguises for the taking.
Even as she recoiled from the idea, she embraced it. Wearing one of those robes would afford her freedom of movement and instant respect from even the guards. Believers were given credit for the hated warlord’s fall, after all. If Wren were a priestess, she’d have the same advantages.
She turned her eyes to the heavens and whispered in her best attempt at a prayer. “I have to make sure the treasure doesn’t fall into the hands of the wrong people. And—” she swallowed “—that I don’t fall into the hands of the wrong people.”
Sorry, Sabra. She plucked one of the outfits off the drying line and dropped it over her head. The robe swallowed up her small frame. It took a fistful of fabric for her to raise the hem high enough to keep it from tangling in her boots. She’d barely gotten the garment over her head when footsteps thumped behind her. There was no time to pull on the hood.
“Hello, miss.”
It was another refugee, not a guard. She tried to slow her bouncing heartbeat. He was thin, almost emaciated like so many people here, with heavy tattooing on one side of his face and a Drakken eagle on his forearm, revealed by his rolled up sleeve. Former Imperial Army, she knew the look. He was one of the lucky ones, or one of the smart ones, to have made it into the camp. His counterparts were either running for their lives, trying to eke out an existence as a pirate, or awaiting execution for war crimes.
“I said hello.”
“Hello,” she mumbled back, and scooted past him. The smell of food alerted her to a mess tent in front of which snaked a long line of refugees waiting for a meal. Keeping her eyes down as piously as possible, she took a spot at the end of the line.
Instantly she was urged to go to the front. “You first, sister.”
“But—”
“Please, sister, go on ahead.”
Dressed as a priestess, she received assistance at every turn. She was given a tray and as she proceeded down the line i
tems were plopped onto a plate until it was full. She took the meal and searched for some shade, one hand grasping the hem of the robe to keep it high.
Boots crunched behind her. The ex-soldier was back. She’d thought she’d lost him.
“We were on the same ship,” he said. “They kept you women away from us space hands—smart move on the captain’s part.” He glanced in one direction then the other and leaned closer. “You came from that all-female school planet, didn’t you? You weren’t wearin’ priestess robes.”
She scurried away. The robe tangled with her boots. She hoisted the hem higher with one hand and almost dropped the tray.
He kept pace with her. “I took you for a virgin. Even then. See, I’m never wrong about that.”
Her cheeks blazed. She hurried away from him, winding through the crowd with her tray of congealing food. She couldn’t afford to attract attention, and that seemed all she was able to do.
A hand grabbed her shoulder, spinning her around. “I’m not done talking to you, sister.” The soldier’s eyes were angry, his mouth hard and unhappy. It wasn’t so much rape she feared, but an incident leading to her being discovered. “Not all of us spent our days killing believers. Some of us were good and loyal soldiers. We kept the Coalition from invading your all-girl world. Invading you. How about a little respect?” He twisted his fist in the fabric of her robes and jerked her toward him. “C’mon, little sister, give me some because I know you ain’t really no priestess—”
Wren shoved the tray into his face. Sputtering, he wiped cooked vegetables from his eyes. “You freepin’ bitch. I’m gonna take you behind the tents and—”
She drove her knee upward. His strangled cry barely registered before she rammed his chin with the heel of her palm. He hit the ground hard, sitting there stunned.
Dust choked her and coated her glasses. The crowd moved back, forming a human arena for the fight. They were cheering, the noise thunderous. He was going to ruin everything. He was going to get her caught and killed.
He got back up and charged her. She raised the tray above her head, consumed by a primitive, bloodthirsty urge to finish him off. She hit him across the head. The impact traveled up her arms and made her teeth clap together. He went down again, got up, and then passed out.
Booing shook her back to reality. What had she done? Shame squeezed her lungs in an invisible vise. Once again she’d loosed the beast inside her. She’d lost control of her temper, and it was ugly indeed. At least she stopped before she killed this time, but it was little consolation. The incident drove home how dangerous she was. She couldn’t even get a bite to eat without causing horrifying behavior in someone else. Maybe she ought to turn herself in to the authorities right now and save the galaxy from herself.
She blinked at the crowd churning around her. Male, female, everyone was an enemy in that moment. Army veterans stalked past, glaring and giving her dirty looks, believers tugging on her sleeves, pleading for blessings and reacting with expressions of disbelief when she didn’t know how to respond. A sea of people. Of strangers. Of hunters.
“Move on! Show’s over!” Guards had arrived to disperse the crowd.
The necessity to remain free overwhelmed every other thought except a gut-deep compulsion to find safety. She dove headlong into the crowd. The trailing fabric of her robe tangled around her ankles. She tripped. It sent her glasses clattering to the ground. Instantly they were crushed by the boots of someone in the throngs of people.
Blindly she ran a few more steps—and slammed into a solid body. “Whoa, whoa,” the man said. Gasping, she tried to twist free. “Don’t be scared. I’m only trying to help, sister. I’m a trader, not a cop. I saw you earlier near the docks. You weren’t in the order then. Now look at you. A priestess.” He chuckled. “I usually have the opposite effect on women.”
It was obvious he didn’t believe for a minute she was a priestess. With her hood off and a fight she’d just fled, just how believable was her disguise now? Not very. Not only that, she couldn’t see.
The shouts of the guards came closer. The trader called to them, “It’s about time security got here.”
She tried to bolt. He wouldn’t let her. “Hey, hey. They’re not going to hurt you.”
“No,” she gasped. “No authorities.”
“Why? You in trouble with the law, sister?” He seemed amused by the prospect. “Don’t worry. I got you covered. I’ll take care of this and then we’ll go have a drink—I mean, for you a glass of water, right?” He acted as if they were in on the same joke. “Stay here.”
A guard’s boots crunched closer on the gritty street. The crowd had cleared a wide circle. Everyone knew the look of police activity and wanted no part of it. “So, what happened here, Vantos?”
Vantos. That was his name. He knew the guard, a female.
“The creep wanted a piece of something she wasn’t willing to give.”
“That right, sister?” the guard asked Wren.
Wren nodded.
“Disgusting.” Wren relaxed a fraction as the guard’s fingers tapped on her datapad. “Even a priestess isn’t off-limits around here. We’ve had incidents like this all day. Must be the full moons. He looks nice wearing your lunch, though. Good job, sister. I hope what happened here makes the rest of them think twice about thinking they can take advantage of the females in this camp.” Then she held out her hand to Wren. “Your data square, please.”
Wren hesitated. The guard would see she wasn’t identified as a priestess, or even a believer. Her excuse was going to be that she was a new apprentice. “I got you covered,” Vantos assured her softly.
“Thanks for intervening,” the guard told him. “That’s not like you.”
“Blasted right. Subduing the local populace isn’t my job. It’s yours.”
“I know, I know. You’ve told us enough times. You do your thing, and we do ours, even though you slept on our outposts—”
“After running your supplies cross the blockade—”
“—and drank in our bars—”
“Listening to your pilots drink toasts in my name for saving their asses from another ambush your own intel didn’t have a clue about,” Vantos argued, motioning Wren to hand over her data square.
The guard took the data square as Vantos continued to engage her in conversation clearly designed to distract. The guard sighed as she inserted the data square into her reader. “You should be dead, you know.”
“Yeah, well, that’s on a lot of people’s wish lists it seems.”
“Vartekeir Vantos is a legend as a runner,” the guard explained to Wren.
She sensed the dark look cast in her direction. “I used to run the blockade you Drakken set up in the Borderlands to cut us off from the front. That was then. Now I’m freelance trading with the camps because there’s not enough Coalition around to do the job—or do it right. I’m the one who brings in the supplies to the camps that you Drakken go through faster than we can keep up.”
“Like chem-toilets,” the guard teased.
“Chem-toilets are easy money. I like easy.”
He was a freelancer. A man with no love lost between himself and the military establishment. He wore his lack of loyalties like a badge of honor, and bragged of his love of easy money. Profit was the way to this trader’s heart—and quite possibly her way off-planet, she thought with sudden hope.
She knew as little about profit as she did men. What would be fair to offer? No refugees were supposed to leave. Putting him at risk would cost her. If the jewels weren’t enough, she had treasure at her disposal. The fact that she didn’t know exactly where it was didn’t matter. Someone like Vantos would figure it out.
“You got an appointment, sister,” the guard commented. “Med tent. Vision repair. That right?”
“It is. Yes.” Just as she contemplated using it as an excuse to leave the scene of the fight, Vantos took her arm.
“I’ll escort you,” he said gallantly. She began to feel thankfu
l that she’d bumped into this trader of all the others, though a strong sense of self-preservation kept her from trusting him or anyone here fully. “Like you said, the sister needs to be seen by the doc.”
“Her appointment’s not for two hours.”
“I’ve got it covered, Ellie.” As he urged Wren along, she tripped over something that sounded hollow and metal. He kept her from falling. “You really can’t see, can you?”
“No,” she mumbled, ashamed.
He steered her up to the med tent. “The sister’s got an appointment.”
“Data square,” the med tech said tiredly.
Wren felt hope drain out of her. “It’s with the guard.”
“I can’t help you without a data square.”
They turned back.
“Hold on, Vantos.” The guard was calling. She caught up to them, breathless. “There’s a problem with her data square.”
A problem. Wren gulped. Her blood roared in her ears.
“I’ll handle it, sweetheart,” Vantos murmured. “Don’t tell me—they double-booked her for med exams.”
“No…” The guard scanned her data reader. “Her ID’s been flagged by Borderlands Patrol.”
Flagged? “What does that mean?” she asked weakly.
“Hard to say, sister. It could be an administrative issue, or maybe they want to ask a few questions.”
Vantos argued. “I saw the whole thing. She was forced to defend herself. Since when is that a crime?”
Her crime was being the firstborn of the most hated man in history. A death sentence. She had to escape Zorabeta—now. Everything hinged on it. Peace itself. “Help me,” she whispered to Vantos.
A strange cough came out of the trader’s throat. “Help” may have been the wrong thing to say. What did one say to a man she fully intended to use? It was for a greater purpose, for the good of all humanity, keeping her from starting another war, but it was using all the same. Another trait she’d inherited? The more she found out she was like the warlord, the more she wanted to prove herself the opposite. But she needed Vantos. Needed to use him. Maybe when she was done with the man she’d make it up to him. Somehow.
