by V. K. Ludwig
The idea of another male raising my child clenched my stomach, no matter how it would have been the best outcome for Ceangal. “Your conclusion?”
“Never arrived at one, which is likely the reason why your guts are not currently shriveling underneath the sun.” Sitting straighter, his chest broadening as he lowered his arms, his demeanor shifted once more as his posture turned rigid again. “Freeraiders are a nuisance and a danger.”
A necessary evil in my case. “I agree, but governing them is impossible, in my opinion.”
When I was fully dressed, wearing the uniform of a warrior for the first time in forever, Katedo nodded and rose. “For once, let your kunazay do the scheming. She was raised by a smooth-talking politician after all.”
“Where is she?”
“She spent many hours by your bedside, humming for you.” At that, Katedo gestured me toward the door. “Whatever happens, trust your zovazay. Refrain from doing anything stupid and keep your mouth shut. When Razgar asks, you will tell him that a freeraider who tried to capture Ceangal killed his scout.”
I followed behind him through the door. “Why a free—”
“Toagi son of Tilkesh,” at least three reporters blurted at once, but the Kokkonian with the green-scaled muzzle elbowed his way through the crowd and along the stone wall. “Can you confirm that you fought a horde of freeraiders who tried to kidnap Ceangal da taigh L’naghal?”
My gaze flicked to him, but I said nothing, not because Katedo had told me to keep my mouth shut but because I understood none of this. In the last twenty minutes, the word freeraiders had popped up a few times too many. What were they planning?
A wall of warriors eventually held the reporters off, but the echoes of their voices followed us along several corridors. I hadn’t been to Noja in so long, yet I recognized the way Katedo led me: toward the chamber of the Five Pillars, where warlords came together to rule over Solgad.
Our ancestors had carved thrones into the pillars many centuries ago, all arranged in a half-circle at one end of the high-vaulted chamber. Above each seat, a rune had been chiseled into the stone, each one representing an attribute of our goddess Mekara: honor, forethought, wrath, mercy, vision.
Our steps echoed louder the closer we came to the center. The scent of something sweet and fresh infused the otherwise stagnant air, which emanated from the golden metal bowls arranged along the black walls. Purple flames sizzled and popped around bunches of dried herbs, and streaks of luminore, a light-emitting metal, brightened the chamber.
My bond vibrated even before I set eyes on Ceangal, who stood on the emblem of a mother tree that graced the stone floor. Black silk draped around her beautiful body, offering a stunning backdrop to how her red hair fell over one side of her shoulder. Her green eyes blinked at me, and she offered a reassuring smile.
Katedo pointed at a branch carved into the floor. “Kneel.”
I did as told, flinching at how those stony ridges dug into my knees, and turned my face toward Ceangal. “What are you planning now, kunazay?”
She never got to answer because Razgar’s hiss cut through the chamber from where he sat on the throne to the far right. “Warlords speak here, and you will keep your mouth shut unless we order you otherwise.”
Whatever anger flared up within my chest, I breathed down. Don’t do anything stupid, Katedo had warned. For the moment, I had no other option but to trust him.
Whichever throne my father had occupied, it couldn’t have been honor. Neither forethought. It came as no surprise that Katedo seated himself on the one carved into the pillar of honor, to the far left… or that Razgar sat on the one for wrath.
He stroked over the back of his white bird, which sharpened its beak by dragging it over the stony armrest where it sat. “What a waste of time this farce is. This rebel deserves nothing other than death, or we will soon have another uproar, where every damn warrior will call himself a warlord.”
“A rebel who established zovazay with Torin’s daughter,” Katedo said. “The Warden of the Empire will not be happy if our judgment drives her into suffering for the rest of her life.”
“The Empire.” At Razgar’s scoff, his bird tilted its head at him, keen eyes blinking rapidly. “Perhaps they’ve lured us into these political marriages, but the sun has not come yet where they tell us how to deal with our criminals.”
“Gren!” Katedo shouted, and a small door swooshed open as one of the scouts I’d captured walked in. “Can you confirm this is the male who caught you and Linar?”
Gren hinted a bow. “Yes, urizayo.”
“And did he torture or otherwise mistreat you?”
“No, urizayo. He provided us with water, food, and shelter, the only expected of us that we braid nabus. He spoke not a single threat.”
“Thank you,” Katedo said and dismissed him with a flick of his hand. “Nafir, his advisor, overwhelmed two of my guards the night Toagi stole the female away. We found them gagged and bound. Whatever the sins of this rebel, I cannot hold a single death of any of my tribespeople against him.”
“But I can.” Razgar’s fingers clutched the armrest, and the skin along his neck mottled a blueish gray. “He killed one of my scouts, and I demand blood in return.”
Beside me, Ceangal cleared her throat and straightened. “Forgive me, urizayo Razgar, but it was not Toagi who killed your scout.” She paused only to take in a breath, and yet it allowed panic to grip my chest. It dissolved a moment later, fading away against the warmth coming through our bond as she said, “It was a freeraider.”
My heart stumbled over a beat, but I snapped my head straight, struggling whatever tension might expose it as a lie from my body. Clearly, Katedo and my kunazay had been busy scheming together while I slept.
Razgar’s laugh died away when he peeled his lips over his fangs. “How convenient. So convenient I won’t believe it for a second, especially not coming from the mouth of a warden’s daughter.”
Our bond remained as still as Ceangal’s face, save for that hint of a smile tugging on the corners of her lips. The diplomatic, fake kind. “You can doubt my words as much as you want, but there’s a witness.”
“Indeed, there is,” Katedo added, and the name he called toward the door thickened the blood in my veins. “Mayala!”
The uiri’s feet dragged over the floor, her arms wrapped around Yelim, who patiently assisted every single of her steps. Some color had returned to her face, and the few visible patches of raw skin had darkened from red to purple.
“Forgive me, Mayala, for dragging you before us, but we require your account,” Katedo said. “When we spoke in private after your return, you told me about the incident with the dead scout. Would you please repeat your words to urizayo Razgar?”
Her voice lacked the bite I was used to from this female, but she kept it steady. “Of course, urizayo. When I accompanied my urizaya to a yoni for bathing, a freeraider came upon us, trying to steal her away. Those shigut tasaho likely wanted to ransom her out. But Mekara blessed us when a scout of urizayo Razgar interfered. He fought bravely and allowed us to escape. But…” Her head sunk in a performance that stole my breath. “…he lost his life. May his brave soul return to Mekara.”
“May his soul return to Mekara,” we all mumbled in unison.
Except for Razgar.
He all but ground it out before he spat. “Freeraiders? That’s what you will have me believe?”
Katedo shifted on his throne. “Do you question the integrity of a female of my tribe? Was the com cube in Toagi’s possession not stolen from you by freeraiders? Mayala was one of the first ones to fall ill, likely because of this close encounter with a freeraider.”
For a moment, I stood flabbergasted. Not sure what I had expected of this, but it certainly wasn’t the honorable Katedo stringing lies together as if he had considerable experience. Perhaps he did?
Folding his hands in his lap, Katedo leaned against the stone backrest. “Given the way Toagi avoided casualties,
treated my scouts and the uiri with respect, and surrendered for the sake of our people, I can no longer, with a clear conscience, demand his death.”
“He stole your female!” Razgar snarled.
“Ceangal was not my urizaya yet when he took her. Now, the single most important female from Earth is bound to Toagi.”
“A bond that can be broken.”
Katedo’s jawline stiffened as he turned his head toward Razgar. “When I agreed to marry her, it came with the condition that I would not sting her. Given my… past, I see myself unable to fill that void Toagi’s death will certainly leave behind. I, therefore, release Ceangal from this obligation. Anything else would be cruel.”
“Cruel.” Razgar thrust himself out of his throne with such force, his bird soared into the air, where it rounded the chamber above us as its master walked toward Ceangal. “And what of the wars her father waged? The Jal’zar females his warriors raped when they occupied Solgad? The many they captured and enslaved to work the Odheim brothels? Was that not cruel?”
“Cruelties of the past should never justify cruelties of the here and now. I am resolute and refuse to marry her.”
Razgar stopped inches from Ceangal, his voice so full of hatred even at a whisper he made certain went unheard by Katedo. “Perhaps I should marry you. Torment you like your father has done it with our females for solar cycles.”
Liquid rage pumped into my veins, swelling them until they ached underneath my tortured skin. Fangs bared, tailclaw cutting through the air, I growled in warning. Nobody would speak to my female like this. Not while I had blood left in my—
Our bond thrummed in a rhythm too even, too damn unconcerned for such an open threat. I glanced over to Katedo. The warlord let his eyes catch with mine and slowly shook his head. Right, don’t do anything stupid. Like driving my tailclaw into Razgar’s brain.
Despite Razgar looming over her, Ceangal tilted her head back and held his gaze. “Someone once told me fathers pass on their sins to their children.”
“I agree,” he growled low.
“Then your father must have been particularly hateful.”
When his nostrils flared, his tail lifting, I jumped up and gave a warning growl. “Touch her, and I’ll kill you.”
He didn’t listen.
When his hand darted for her hair, I wrapped my tail around his neck. I pulled him toward me.
Tock.
I rammed my horn against his forehead, which made him stagger back just as I released my tail.
Razgar stormed toward me, but his boots came to a screeching halt when Katedo shouted, “Kill him, and she’ll drop dead right here, a woman who might one sun be a warden to the Empire. That, Razgar, will trigger a war of proportions we’ve never witnessed before. Zovazay. Face it. It is possible.”
Cursing underneath his breath, Razgar returned to his throne, wiping a hand over his forehead where I must have drawn blood. “I would rather lie with my yuleshi than touch an Earth female. Give her to one of the others.”
“The others are several suns out with their tribes, settled along the Purple Seas,” Katedo said. “We need this resolved now. I will not marry her. Neither will you.”
Razgar snorted and slouched in his throne, then sent a whistle through his fangs which called the bird to his shoulder. “She has to marry a warlord.”
“Precisely.”
“Are you joking?” Razgar gave a swat in my direction. “He’s a rebel.”
Katedo leaned forward. “What he is, is useful. When I ride up to a horde of freeraiders, they send a barrage of arrows toward me. He managed to trade with them. Perhaps we’ve failed for decades to gain some ground with them because it takes a rebel warlord to do it. There are five thrones. One empty. I hereby support his claim to it.”
Razgar sunk his head into his hand and pinched the bridge of his nose for long seconds before he mumbled, “Toagi son of Tilkesh, I have no crimes to hold against you. I support his claim.”
Numbness started around my toes, spreading across my body from there, paralyzing me into a state of shock. I barely registered when Ceangal carefully draped an arm around me. Only when she cupped my cheek, bringing my purple eyes to meet the green of hers, did I manage a swallow.
“How did you do this?” I asked.
“Easy. I’m a bridge between warlords.” She rose onto her toes and placed a gentle kiss on my lips before she whispered into my ear, “And you’re the pillar that holds it and makes it strong.”
Twenty-Six
Ceangal
“Stop whimpering!” Mayala gave a hard tug on those five parted strands of black hair she somehow juggled all at once, pulled so taut the scalp underneath strained as she continued plaiting. “Only a brute keeps his braids in as long as you did.”
Yelim sat hunched underneath our mother tree, not far from Noja, and frowned. “You could be gentler.”
“Gentle hands make for poor braiding,” Mayala mumbled. “Has your mother taught you nothing?”
“Yeki, she’s taught me to hum beautifully for my kunazay.” He tipped his head back and smiled at her, letting a hum rumble through his chest even as his nostrils flared. “My mate is coming into heat.”
“It is the urizaya’s heat you are smelling.”
“I cannot perceive her heat anymore,” he said. “Still, do not speak of it when the urizayo is near, or he will hiss at me again. Never have I witnessed a male this aggressive whenever his female comes close to estrous.”
Mayala shrugged and tightened a silver metal clasp around the end of the last braid. “It will ease when he puts his child in her belly.”
I pulled my hair into a ponytail and worked a scrunchie around it. “I’m sitting right here, by the way. How about we quit talking about my reproductive cycle?”
When Mayala rose, Yelim grabbed her hips and pulled her down into his lap, his chest heaving as he scented along her neck. “Do you wish for my seed to take root and grow in your belly?”
She sunk her head, but it didn’t hide the pinkish flush on her cheeks. “My first mate was taken from me before Mekara blessed me with a child.”
“If it is a boy, we can name him Neril,” he said, stroking his fingers over Mayala’s sternum. “A girl… Natish is a nice name I once heard during my training in Noja.”
Mayala lifted her gaze, her eyes softer than I’d ever witnessed on her before. “It is a tradition that the name starts with the first sound of the father’s name. Not with the one of my late mate.”
“I’m not such a weak male I cannot allow him this honor, now that I am caring for his female. Besides—” He jerked his head toward me. “—now that we have an urizaya from Earth, it is time we changed a few traditions.”
Mayala pressed her forehead against his and nodded. “I always wanted children of my own.”
The way she kissed him put a warm feeling into my chest. Each morning, Mayala woke less grim, showing me snippets of the female she must once have been. Yelim proved himself patient, grinning whenever she lashed out at him before he hummed her into docility. She called him a brute. He called her beautiful. Then they curled up in their nabu at night, and she buried herself underneath the mass of his arms.
I rose and brushed the dust off my white silk dress, then walked toward one of the five temporary huts. After the sick at the Noja medical wing had recovered, we’d left the city with several hover crates of the ice fever vaccine. Enough to last us until it was our turn for occupation.
Uresha dipped her head with a bowl resting on her palm, one finger stirring a reddish powder into what looked like gray mud. She gifted me with a wrinkly smile before she painted runes onto the trunk of the tree, all while humming a tune.
“Knock, knock,” I said, pushing the rope curtain aside as I stepped into the hut, the bones strung to it clanking at the motion.
Toagi stood in front of a holographic map, putting little red markers on it with each tap of his finger. Locations of freeraider hordes, which he discussed with Merk
in, the chief warrior Katedo had sent to develop a way to avoid future hostilities.
“Kunazay,” Toagi said, and Merkin was quick to excuse himself with a polite bow. “What could possibly bring my wife here at this time?”
I grinned and walked right into his hug. “I wanted to see my husband, the rebel warlord of Solgad.”
“Still has a better ring to it than bastard.” He placed a kiss onto my forehead. “Are we ready?”
“Uh-huh, Canja is waiting outside, although I still think you should take her back.”
“How could I?” One swipe of his hand and the hologram shut down. He intertwined our fingers and led me back outside. “Not sure about Earth customs, but on Solgad, one cannot take back what has been gifted to someone else. Canja is yours now.”
I took her reins from Nafir, who lowered his head as if he could hide his grin as I mounted. “The fastest yuleshi of the tribe.”
“Just give this one some time to find his stride.” Toagi swung himself onto Olgem, the yuleshi he’d been busy training for the last moon or so.
Nafir moved the woven barrier for us, and a gust of wind whirled over the ashen ground. “Urizayo, I hope you are not taking any guns with you.”
“Do I look life-weary?” Toagi gave me a wink, then kicked Olgem straight into a sprint.
I sent Canja behind them, my lungs inhaling deeper with each thrust of her powerful haunches. Faster and faster, we rode, leaving behind a trail of dust toward an outcropping to the east. The expansion of the yuleshi’s ribcage against my calves, the scent of warm rock, the rustle of leaves whenever the wind hushed through the branches of young mother trees… this was home.
When we slowed, allowing our yuleshis to walk beside each other as their windpipes filtered the moisture from the air, Toagi skillfully jumped onto Canja’s back. He ushered me forward in the saddle and seated himself behind me, his hand immediately going to my belly.
