by Ruby Ryan
He twisted, and the two guards left the room. We were alone together.
And then, to my immense shock, he shifted. The atoms of his form burst apart and realigned, far swifter and more skillful than any other Karak I had seen. And when he was done he stood before me as a human.
A human king.
"I have studied Jerix's data," he said in a careful, precise voice. "This is how your leaders dress, correct?"
He wore red tights tucked into tall, black boots. Above that, his dark doublet was covered in white lace, with extra ribbon spilling from the sleeves around his hands. And on his head, nestled within the dark curls of his hair, was a gold crown covered in rubies.
"You look like a king," I agreed, suppressing the urge to point out he was a few centuries off.
He smiled and strode forward. "I have enjoyed experimenting with this human form since Jerix returned. It is... intoxicating, in a primitive way."
There wasn't anything I could say to that, so I said nothing.
"As dishonorable as Arix's actions were, forsaking his vows and remaining on your distant planet, I can almost understand why he did it." He stopped in front of me and inhaled, as if he were smelling something delicious for the first time. "These bodies yearn for touch. A sexual mechanism beyond mere reproduction."
He caressed my cheek. His hands were cold, and I couldn't help but flinch at his touch. He cocked his head in confusion.
"Do you not want me?"
The Dominion Lord, dressed as a human king from a fairy tale, was not unattractive. Okay, that was an understatement: he was frigging hot, like the cover of the historical romance novels I used to read. His tights left nothing to the imagination, and his face was like a supermodel's, all sharp angles and cheekbones.
But there was more to wanting someone than just looks alone.
"I want only Jerix," I said. "Especially after seeing him victorious in the Sunken Pit."
Anger flashed on the Dominion Lord's face, but only for a heartbeat. Then it was replaced with a smug grin. "Victorious. For now."
And then it was my turn to be angry, and damned if I couldn't stop myself from speaking out. "Why have you done this to him? Forcing him to fight two days in a row, with hardly any practice or training in between. Do you want him to die? He's a Karak warrior, and deserves respect!"
I expected him to be furious at my outburst, to demand subservience before such a powerful being. Or to call his guards and throw me in a dungeon for insolence, or whatever the Karak equivalent of a dungeon was.
I never expected him to burst out laughing.
"Karak warrior?" he said, face going red. "You believe Jerix is a Karak warrior!"
"Of course I do," I said. "What else would he be?"
The lift behind me vibrated, and I turned to find Jerix there, still in his human form. His olive skin beneath the gladiator's uniform glistened with sweat and blood, accentuating his muscles.
I went to him, both to fulfill my own selfish needs and to show the Dominion Lord was true desire looked like. I squeezed him to me, not caring that the sweat and blood stained my clothes.
"You were magnificent," I whispered, running my fingers into his hair. "I'm so happy you're safe. I'm happy, happy, happy."
"Happy?" he snapped, pushing me away. I looked at him with confusion.
The Dominion Lord laughed again, and when I turned around his face was twisted with pleasure--pleasure at revealing what he was about to reveal. "Jerix has dishonored himself and his kind. He is a prisoner, not a warrior, forced to fight three trials in the Sunken Pit to restore a fraction of his honor!"
A prisoner.
Flashes from the past two days returned to me: the way the guard had called our residence a cell, a fact and not a mistranslation. The sudden fights in the Sunken Pit without warning, without training. Because Jerix wasn't supposed to have a fair chance. He was supposed to die.
I had bedded a prisoner, not a warrior.
"Is it true?" I whispered.
But Jerix refused to look at me. He only had eyes for the Dominion Lord, who he stared at with fury. "I have emerged victorious from my first two trials, in spite of your best efforts. You cannot kill me, oh holy one. I will win once more, and then my honor will be restored."
The leader's face twisted into a sneer. "We shall see." And the smugness returned tenfold, eyes narrowing as if he knew a secret. "We shall see indeed!"
"What do you mean by--" Jerix said, but was cut off by the Dominion Lord shifting back into his Karak form.
Begone, he said, disappearing into the other room. The two guards appeared, pushing us toward the lift with their presence.
*
We made the trip back to our cell--our prison cell, I now knew--in silence. Only when we were in the seclusion of the underground room did I finally speak.
"Why did you lie to me?"
Jerix sat on the bed and put his head in his hands. "Because."
"You should have told me." I shook my head. "You should have given me all the information."
He kept his eyes on the floor. "Why? Would you have made different decisions if you knew? Would you have chosen not to be with me instead?"
Yes, I wanted to say. The logical part of my brain said of course it made a difference. Alone on this foreign world, I would have thought twice before attaching myself to someone who was disgraced. To someone who was being thrown to his death.
But the deeper part of me, the part that loved Jerix the way I'd never loved anyone at all, bucked against the thought. I loved this man, and I didn't care if he was a prisoner or warrior or the Dominion Lord himself.
But I was still angry, and hurt, and I couldn't stop myself from lashing out.
"So why are you a prisoner?" I demanded. "Were you never a Karak scout at all?"
"Of course I was," he began, but there was no stopping my tirade once it'd begun.
"Were you some fugitive hiding out on earth, slumming around the galaxy before returning home with your tail between your legs? I never would have made the decision to follow you if I'd known that, Jerix! I would have stayed on earth, in my boring life in Elijah, Wyoming!" I shoved him in the chest, and even though he barely budged it felt good. "I never would have fallen in love with you if I'd known what you were!"
"None of that is true."
"Then what is it?" I demanded. "Tell me. Tell me!"
"I'm a prisoner because of you!" he roared, standing with fury. "They were going to execute you, and only by doing what I did were you saved."
Ice punched its way into my heart.
"You made a grave miscalculation, Leslie," he said, backing me up with each step. "Intelligent life cannot come to Karak without a long transition period. To allow you to become acclimated to such a foreign world. They were going to euthanize you rather than watch you go mad! Only by claiming I stole you, convincing them I forced you to come against your will, did they take pity on you. Showing you the barest amount of temporary mercy."
The anger in his words forced me back until my shoulder blades hit the wall. He leaned very close, and I could see the aching in his eyes.
"I saved you by lying," he said with deadly finality, "but in doing so I doomed myself."
He moved away, a bundle of raw rage barely contained.
It is all my fault.
The realization, the weight of what Jerix had done, overwhelmed me.
And before it could crush me, before it could destroy me, I fled.
16
JERIX
My human mate ran from the room.
"Wait!" I called out, but by then the lift was gone. I reached out with my consciousness and touched her mind, and recoiled at the pain I felt.
"No," I whispered, collapsing onto the floor.
I wrapped my strong, human arms around my legs and allowed the crushing reality of the day to hit me. Fyrix, one of my oldest friends, was dead, and it was my fault. I'd watched him die and was helpless to do more, because I wasn't a good enough warrior.
And then, in my grief for him, I lashed out at the only other person on Karak who cared for me.
I'd been so angry at Leslie, there in front of the Dominion Lord. She'd embraced me, and squeezed me, and told me how happy she was.
I hated for her to be so happy when I was hurting so much.
She didn't deserve my fury, I now knew with the flawless insight that came with retrospective. She was only happy because I was alive, because she'd watched me nearly die again in the Sunken Pit. She had a right to such relief.
I could not believe how stupid I was.
Curse this human body, I thought bitterly as I wept on the floor. Karak were a calm, logical species. I had spent far too much time in my human form, allowing myself to be prodded and guided by my human emotions. I would not make that mistake again, even if it meant losing Leslie.
I could not remain human forever.
But for now, I welcomed the raw human pain. I trembled, and wept, and the tears flowed onto the floor of my cell.
*
Slowly, my thoughts drifted to the events of the day. Replaying everything in my head and analyzing what would happen next.
I would not survive my third trial.
I knew not of what the Dominion Lord planned, but I saw the certainty in his face there in his room. He would create an unfair matching, three or perhaps even four warriors against me. He would not give me a chance.
And then I would truly lose Leslie, if I had not lost her already.
I did not know where she was, except that she was outside my ability to reach out with my consciousness. Perhaps she had gone to the Dominion Lord, to throw herself onto the floor before him and beg for my release. That was a distinctly human reaction, I knew. And a futile one. The Dominion Lord would not be lenient.
I don't know how long I stayed in my cell, but a guard eventually came and informed me that I would be fighting in my final trial that evening. I nodded solemnly; of course I would not be given a respite from battle, even for a day. He would wish for me to die as quickly as possible.
A dishonored Karak scout was a stain upon the Dominion, and must be wiped away.
There was nothing for me to do but practice in the time before the trial. I returned to the courtyard, there in the glow of our two Karak suns and shifted from one form to another. Borelisk and Wolvae and even the foreign and clumsy gryphon, I shifted back and forth between them because it was the only option I had.
I was not a Karak warrior, but I would die as one. And by my death, those who watched would know my honor, no matter what the Dominion Lord said.
17
LESLIE
Well wasn't I just a big frigging idiot?
I took the transport platform back into the middle of the alien city, hopped off at a random stop, and then just started walking. I didn't care where; it just felt good to do something other than sit in that room, that cell, and think about what an idiot I was.
Because that's what I was: a big frigging idiot.
How could I have been so blind? Jerix had been acting strange since we returned, but I'd brushed it off as some weird homecoming. Plus, he was a Karak. An alien. "Weird" wasn't exactly an unusual trait.
It's all my fault.
I thought that by jumping on his ship, I'd be given a free pass to follow him wherever he went. But of course I was different from the rabbits and mice and vegetation in Jerix's cargo hold. In our two weeks back on earth, while he was studying and gathering information, he'd emphasized how Karak treated intelligent species differently. That life around the universe was plentiful, but that intelligent life was what was sought out and savored. And he'd explained how the Karak needed to treat such intelligence with care, calmly observing before interjecting. He'd repeatedly said how Arix's actions, and Jerix's intervention to rescue him, were abnormalities of a unique situation.
And then I'd gotten drunk and hopped aboard like I was a homeless train-jumper.
Jerix could have let me be euthanized by his people, as if I were some rabid dog to be exterminated before causing any harm to myself or others. But he'd stepped in, lied to his superiors--which was a shock by itself, since I thought Karak could not lie--and traded my life for his. Becoming a prisoner in order to protect me.
"And then I threw it in his face," I mumbled, which drew a look from one of the cat-like creatures walking on the path near me. I ignored it and continued on randomly.
I wasn't sure what to do now, and I was too embarrassed to go home, so I did what every heartbroken girl did.
"I don't suppose you have icecream?" I asked the server. It was a restaurant of sorts, with individual cubicles where various species sat and chowed down on plates of what I assumed was food. "Chocolate? Vanilla? Honestly, I'll take any flavor. I just need some comfort food."
The translator in my ear helped the words travel into the Karak greeter's mind.
Sit, it said. Eat.
And then it moved away.
"Fine," I muttered, finding the first open cubicle and plopping myself down into the too-small chair. A transparent computer screen greeted me with a flash of foreign symbols. My ear translator was not helpful here, so I pressed a random symbol, and the screen swirled and changed into four photographs of pasta-like meals. If I squinted, it even looked like extra thin angel-hair pasta.
I pressed that photo, and the table in front of me flickered.
The plate was there instantly. Except instead of the meal I thought I'd chosen, this plate held a small animal with green scales and eyes as wide as a kitten's. It made a cooing noise and stared up at me.
"Oh my God," I said as two knives appeared on either side of the plate.
I was supposed to kill and eat this thing, but it was so damn cute! I was practically starving, but no amount of hunger could make me do that, so I fled the pseudo-restaurant.
Back in the street, people were moving swiftly in one direction, and there was an excited din of conversation in the air. Something was happening.
And as my stomach dropped, I realized what it was.
18
JERIX
I trained alone in the courtyard until they came for me.
Two guards, silent Karak who dared not speak to a lowly Dishonored, lest my taint spread to them by association alone. I shifted back into my Karak form and allowed myself to be escorted to the nearest transporter to the Sunken Pit.
I'd only been training for an hour, shifting from one form to another, settling the memory of each unique body into my mind. Especially the gryphon form; it was entirely foreign to me, but I needed some sort of flying form.
Not that it matters anyways. Flying would not save me from seven enemies all at once. Or perhaps they would banish flying forms entirely. Anything to give me as little advantage as possible.
Training by myself only emphasized how alone I was. Fyrix was dead, and Leslie had left me once she learned what I was. She could not be with a prisoner. Why would she? Chaining herself to a Dishonored would only prolong the inevitable pain.
Better to leave me before then. I felt the ache in my human chest, but I understood.
We arrived at the Sunken Pit, and then it was time to die.
I waited in the dark chamber while the crowd noise rose with anticipation. This was to be a special match, fought beneath a dark sky. Only the worst of prisoners were forced to fight at night, when the light of our two Karak suns did not shine. Such knowledge amplified my disgrace.
I shifted into my human form, and paced back and forth in the small chamber. I could still feel Leslie on my fingertips, her body soft and warm. It had only been hours ago, but it felt like a lifetime.
The noise outside rose to a crescendo, and then the doors opened.
I shifted back into my Karak form and strode into the Pit, a prisoner on his way to his death.
The crowd booed as they saw me... but not everyone. Some cheered, excitement at seeing a prisoner fighting three times in so short a period, an underdog, to use a human phrase.
I could feel some of them rooting for me, hoping against hope that I would emerge victorious.
But most did not, and soon their boos overwhelmed the rest.
I stopped, and waited. The seven other doors around the outside all stood closed. I was alone in the Pit. Where were my opponents?
And then the far door began to open.
It was larger than the others, I realized now, roughly thirty feet tall and twenty wide. It made a hollow banging noise as the door completed receding into the wall, a dark portal from which no light could escape.
Before I could wonder what would emerge, it did.
The beast stepped forward on four long, scaled legs, each of which bore three razor-sharp claws. Its body was snake-like, interlocking black scales curving up to a head ridged with horns and spikes. Its eyes were orange fireballs, and a deeper fire burned within the depths of its mouth.
And folded on its back were thin wings.
The ground shook as the dragon entered the arena, one confident step at a time. Chains as thick as human motorcycles held its back legs, allowing it to enter a few feet at a time. It gazed around the Sunken Pit as if seeing it for the first time, though it was a veteran of this cruel and bloody place.
And then its eyes locked onto me.
Dyonarix.
The beast opened its jaw wide and roared with fury, a sound that shook the air and made the dirt on the Pit floor tremble. The crowd ceased all noise immediately, shocked into silence by the great and terrible animal.
It was unusual for Dyonarix, the legendary warrior, to enter the Pit in this form instead of its Karak one. While there was still time, I reached out with my consciousness and touched its mind...
...and leaped back in pain.
Dyonarix's Karak mind was no more. The dragon instincts had taken control long ago, and his Karak consciousness had no choice but to surrender. Now he was a dragon, and only a dragon, and would never be anything else. The explained why he had not fought in the pit for many years. Why he had been stored away in the dark caves beneath the Karak surface. I could feel the beast's ecstasy at being above ground again, the desire to fly and burn and kill.
