by Chele Cooke
One of the Tsevstakre came forward, hauling her to her feet with a grumble in Adtvenis.
They turned, dragging her along behind them like an animal being led to slaughter. She chanced a look behind her. Keiran, and the fingers around the edge of the wall, were gone.
Hanging her head, she was glad that the Tsevstakre hadn’t spotted Keiran, that he had managed to get away, but she had never felt so alone and helpless. While Alec and Nyah were free, each corner turning them to safety, she was being dragged to the compound with Maarqyn, the very man they had escaped. Every step leading her to being buryd alive.
“You know, Med,” Maarqyn taunted as they finally began climbing the steps out of the tunnels. “I am now two dreta short.”
Georgianna glanced at him, narrowing her eyes. He watched her, a crooked curve of his lip growing in amusement.
“Yes,” Georgianna answered.
His grasp tightened painfully around her arm, his step slowing as he tugged her body closer to his. Transferring his grasp into his other hand, Maarqyn’s fingers trailed across the small of her back, sending a shudder of revulsion through her.
“Seeing as you so kindly helped bring about my current situation,” he murmured into her ear. “Maybe you would like to help me rectify it? What do you say, my little bird?”
A coarse and vicious chuckle spilled past his lips, sending a wash of warm breath over Georgianna’s skin. She gritted her teeth, focusing on her feet as they passed over the sun-baked ground.
She didn’t want to think about the fact that Maarqyn might see fit to buy her from the compound. She wanted to believe that she would be staying in the compound, a convicted criminal to be kept locked up, not somebody’s slave, not Maarqyn’s plaything. Though the knowledge quickly resurfaced that Nyah had committed a crime and been sold, the same as Alec, a man who would have been sent to his death. Maarqyn was powerful. It seemed that when he wanted something, he made sure that he got it. How else would he have been able to buy Alec privately before anyone even knew that he’d been captured, or purchase Nyah after an assault on an Adveni. For Maarqyn, most likely, Georgianna’s situation was nothing more than something to be laughed at, Adveni rules to be brushed aside as if it were nothing at all.
The fingers, that had been so tauntingly gentle at the base of her spine, knotted into her hair, giving a swift yank that pulled a surprised cry from her, tugging her head back.
“I asked you a question, Ven!” he hissed. “Would you like to rectify my problem?”
Georgianna gasped through gritted teeth, glancing at him through the corner of her eye.
“No.”
He released her hair by shoving her head forward, making her stumble a step. He kept a tight hold on her arm, preventing her from falling to her knees. When she looked back at him, his expression was livid.
“After I’m through with you, little bird, you will do anything I choose.”
He didn’t speak again and Georgianna made no effort to dissuade him from his decision. There was no point. Maarqyn was decided. Georgianna was to pay for the loss of his two dreta and no matter how hard she argued, it would do no good.
Like the dead, the buryd didn’t get an opinion.
The cell Georgianna was pushed into was one of three that stood alone from the other blocks. Built next to each other, one wall of bars opened up the cell to light from a thin corridor that Georgianna knew from experience led out towards the yard.
A couple of times when visiting the compound, she had been led to these cells instead of the block. A fight had broken out in the yard, meaning that these cells were the closest place an inmate could be locked and left until she arrived. The cell she’d been put in, the furthest from the yard, had a dull, brown bloodstain on the concrete, a large pool where she remembered she’d been unable to stop the bleeding in time.
There had been next to no discussion or ceremony before she was shoved into the cell, the barred door slamming closed behind her. For a few minutes she had stood against the bars, listening to the conversation between Maarqyn and the Adveni guard. They continued speaking in Adtvenis as they walked away and despite being unable to understand more than a few words of the discussion, she listened until their voices faded down the corridor.
After that, when the only sounds were the distant movements of the block and yard, Georgianna took a seat on the edge of the bed, twisting her wrists within the ropes in the hope of scratching the skin beneath the rough binds. Each time she tried, almost able to get her fingers underneath the rope, it only scratched the skin on the other wrist. She gave up, resting her elbows on her knees and lowering her head into her hands.
Her fingers traced the rounded edge of the cinystalq collar still clamped around her neck. She twisted it, searching for the ridge that indicated the join in the metal. When she was sure she’d twisted it all the way around at least twice, she finally left off. The collar was made to such perfection that the join was indistinguishable from the rest of the device. Next, her thumb swept along the smooth surface, searching out a marking that she had seen on Nyah and Alec’s collars. She couldn’t find it and, unsure whether she felt relief at that fact, she sighed.
She had never seen an inmate of the compound with a collar clamped around their neck. From what Jacob had said, the collars were expensive, and as the inmates wouldn’t be going anywhere, the guards probably saw little point. However, the fact that they’d not removed it already terrified her. What if, like Alec, she would be sold within hours of her capture? Would Maarqyn be able to organise her sale so fast? He had done so with a Belsa. It wouldn’t be surprising if purchasing a medic was well within his grasp.
Closing her eyes, she wanted to picture her father’s face. She wanted to see Keiran or her brother, some image that would give her comfort. Instead, the only face that she could picture was Maarqyn’s, leering over her in the hot sun. She shook her head. She rubbed the heels of her hands into her eyes, but over and over, Maarqyn’s eyes were the ones that glared back at her.
When she finally opened her eyes, a pair of black, heavy boots stood in the corner of her vision. Slowly, she lifted her head, her gaze locking onto the dark expression of the guard, Edtroka.
Georgianna opened her mouth, but she couldn’t think of a single thing to say to him. She didn’t know why she wanted to apologise. He was an Adveni, a guard to the compound that would be her prison until they saw fit to sell her on.
“Edtro…”
“It’s Guard Grystch,” he answered coolly.
Georgianna looked down at her knees.
The door slid open, the metal grinding against the concrete. She flinched, but didn’t move as Edtroka stepped into the cell, closing the door behind him. For a moment he simply stood staring down, but finally he reached into his pocket and pulled out a tsentyl. He swiped it open and Georgianna finally looked up at him.
“I’m sorry,” she muttered.
“Sorry?” he asked, letting out a snort of derision. “Apologies are a little late, Ven, after the crime has been committed.”
“No, I mean…” Georgianna shook her head. “To you. You think badly of me.”
“My opinion of your actions are neither relevant nor warranting apology.”
With the tsentyl lying open on his palm, Edtroka glanced between Georgianna and the device, his expression not softening any.
“You admit that you were a part of the escape by two dreta from their Adveni owner?” he asked.
Georgianna nodded slowly.
“Who were you acting with?”
“No one.”
Edtroka let out an impatient breath, grasping the tsentyl tightly in his hand as his gaze fixed, unwavering on her. Georgianna, unable to stand the way he looked at her, broke the gaze and stared at the wall. Edtroka snorted lightly and lifted the tsentyl.
“The trackers in the cinystalq collars worn by the dreta Alec Cartwright and Nyah Wolfe, owned by Commander Maarqyn Guinnyr, began moving at sun-high,” Edtroka commented slowl
y. “A time in which you were inside this very compound.”
Chewing on her bottom lip, Georgianna fixed her gaze on a single brick in the wall. She didn’t want to answer him, she didn’t want to risk that anything she said might give them a hint as to who else was involved, even though they clearly already knew that there were others.
Edtroka crouched suddenly, smacking the flimsy mattress next to Georgianna’s leg.
“Med!” he snapped.
Georgianna looked back at him, sitting up straight and putting as much distance as she could between them.
“You won’t help yourself by keeping their names,” he told her.
“There is no benefit to me giving you names,” she answered. “Not for me. We both know that I will rot in this prison or be sold to an Adveni.”
Edtroka watched her for a moment, his expression that of a hunter staring down his prey. Finally, when Georgianna did nothing but look back at him, he pushed himself to his feet. He began pacing, tsentyl in one hand and the other coming up to run his fingers over his short hair.
“You were useful, Med!” he murmured finally, a sadness to his voice that Georgianna had not expected.
She blinked, chewing on her bottom lip. The other guards would have been crueller than Edtroka was now, but she almost wished she could have had one of them asking the questions.
“Will I be sold?” she asked quietly.
Edtroka glanced at her, his jaw tightening before he quickly looked away and continued pacing.
“I have no control over that.”
“That’s not what I hear,” she whispered. “I was told you are one of the guards that sells on the yard. You stopped my sale to that man before.”
“Because you were not an inmate!” Edtroka snapped. “My control over the dreta on the yard is limited, Med. My influence does not stretch as far as Maarqyn or other volsonnae.”
“But you could organise a sale before that?” she begged. “You could do it privately. Please Edtroka, do not sell me to him!”
Edtroka lunged forward in a motion Georgianna could only describe as a predator moving in for a kill. He didn’t hesitate. Every movement of his body was fluid and skilled. He reached down, grasping her face by the jaw and tightening his hold under her chin, pulling her seamlessly to her feet.
Whatever humour had once lit the guard’s eyes at their banter was gone. Cold eyes narrowed and the almost delicate features of his face contorted in fury.
“Whatever you expect of me, Med, you will forget it,” he ordered in a venom-filled snarl.
Georgianna flinched, unable to turn her face from his tight grasp. While Edtroka had often seemed cold and surly, she had never seen him with as much anger as his voice held. She realised in that moment how deeply she had insulted him by asking for his help. Being on relatively friendly terms with a medic allowed into the compound to treat inmates did not extend to him helping a prisoner.
“I’m… I’m sorry,” she stammered, gazing desperately up at him. “I didn’t…”
“You would do well to get used to the idea of Maarqyn owning you,” he sneered. “He pays a hefty price, far more than you are worth.”
Georgianna’s legs hit the side of the bed before she even fully realised that he had released her. The force at which he flung her back sent her onto the thin mattress with a heavy bump, her head only just missing the wall as she rocked back.
“Confirm you are Georgianna Lennox, Kahle Tribe.”
“Yes,” she whispered.
Edtroka pressed something on the tsentyl.
“You were involved in the escape of two, legally owned dreta.”
Georgianna paused.
“Yes.”
Another tap of the device.
“You will not name other conspirators in this crime?”
Georgianna didn’t even need to answer before Edtroka pressed something on the tsentyl. She shook her head just the same.
“You will remain as an inmate of Lyndbury Compound unless it is seen fit to sell you,” he informed her emotionlessly. “Get up.”
Georgianna carefully got to her feet. Reaching into his pocket, Edtroka tugged out a small knife like device. He grabbed her wrist and slotted the end of the item into the bind holding the rope fastened around her wrists. Turning it twice in one direction, then once in the other, the binding slid open and off into his hand. Edtroka unwound the rope from her wrists, wrapping it around his palm.
He stepped closer to her, his hand coming up towards her. Georgianna flinched, eager to step away from him, but with the backs of her calves pressed against the bed there was nowhere to go. Edtroka curled his index finger, hooking it underneath her chin and pushing her head back with a jerk. Georgianna kept her face towards the ceiling, but looked down at him through her lashes as he leaned forward, a breath between them as he twisted the collar around her neck.
“Stay still,” he said.
Georgianna didn’t dare move. She had seen the burns those who had once worn collars had been scarred with. Having only known those who had the collar removed by Wrench or another Veniche who had the skill to get the device off without killing the wearer, Georgianna had never seen one removed properly by an Adveni. Edtroka moved the device this way and that, one hand still holding the tsentyl, which he pressed instructions into with his thumb. His dark eyes narrowed in concentration, finally void of anger as he focussed on the task at hand. His lips set themselves into a thin line, his cheek pulled in as his jaw moved, chewing on the inside flesh. Finally, after what seemed like an age of watching his face through her lashes, Georgianna heard the cinystalq emit a sharp whistle and click open. She hadn’t felt a thing.
Edtroka stepped back, turning the collar in his fingers almost absently.
“Inmates are expected to be ready for count at sunrise and sunset,” he ordered, turning and unlocking the cell door.
He pushed the door open, standing to the side as he allowed Georgianna from the cell. The door slammed behind her and Edtroka’s hand slipped around her arm, holding tightly onto her elbow as he led her through the corridor down towards the block. The heavy door she knew so well was fast approaching. Georgianna glanced at the guard she had felt she might have been able to be almost friends with.
“If you have injured,” Georgianna muttered hopefully. “I can still help. With supplies, I can…”
“You are an inmate, not a medic,” Edtroka answered. “You should get used to that.”
He placed the odd-looking key into the lock and turned it. He exchanged the key for the black card and Georgianna watched as it intricately etched itself with blue lines when pressed to the device next to the door. The door creaked open, and finally, Edtroka stepped back.
Georgianna could feel at least a dozen sets of eyes on her as she looked one final time at the Adveni guard. His expression, cold and distant, gave no impression that they had ever known each other at all. Her hopes of keeping any semblance of her old life slipped away.
Georgianna stepped into the block for the first time without her medic bag hung from her shoulder. Without a tsentyl to request her release, the door closed behind her.
Each day became like the last, a slow monotony that did not change nor falter. Every day the guards came in twice to do the inmate count, every other day they let them out into the yard. Past that, there were only the events between the four walls of the block, which luckily were few and far between.
Georgianna learned quickly that there was a certain hierarchy within the compound walls, and that the best way to survive was to stay as far under the radar as possible. A pair of brothers, Ta-Dao and Vajra, had asserted their dominance. Ruthless and efficient, the men acted like the elders of a tribe, though Georgianna had heard that they had previously been outcasts, travelling alone before the arrival of the Adveni.
Hearing the stories, Georgianna heeded the warnings to stay off their radar, to make herself as invisible and inconsequential as she could. Keeping a low profile, however, was harder than it s
eemed when she already had a reputation.
While Edtroka had told her the truth when they last spoke, that she was no longer a medic, but an inmate of the compound, within the walls of the block the other inmates were not so keen to forget that she had ever been of service to them. She was not called by the guards to help prisoners, or soon-to-be dreta, but the other prisoners were quick to call on her expertise when needed.
There wasn’t much Georgianna could do. Without supplies, she couldn’t sew wounds or even treat a virus. There was nothing to be done but to patch things up as best she could and hope the guards would pay enough attention during count to give injured prisoners the treatment they needed, a hope that was often dashed.
Since the day he walked her into the block, Edtroka had refused to look at her. Each day during count she would watch him, waiting to catch his eye. However, even when he was the one reading off their names, he turned his head the moment he reached her. The other guards were not nearly so affected. In fact, a few of them seemed genuinely amused that the medic who made such an effort to visit the compound was now one of their permanent residents. She received more than one taunt or amused smirk as they passed her on count, or as the prisoners were led out towards the yard.
She waited in constant fear that this would be the day she’d be taken back for more questioning, that they would demand Nyah and Alec’s whereabouts, or the people who had helped free them. It never came. The longer she remained in the compound, the more sure Georgianna became that Maarqyn wanted to question her himself, that he was waiting until he owned her and he could torment her in any way he pleased.
Every night, once the doors had been locked after count and most inmates returned to their cells, she lay on her bed, staring at the ceiling, trying to figure out what she had missed. Someone had to have betrayed them. That was the only answer she could come up with that made any sense. There was no way the Adveni could have known without being told. She had wondered once or twice whether Nyah and Alec had been talking and Maarqyn had overheard them, but why would Maarqyn have let them run if he already knew? Was it an attempt to capture more Belsa? Whatever roads her thoughts took her down, they never led to any answers.
