by Trisha Telep
If Palis discovered her, she’d be dead.
After all, family loyalty only went so far, and in her clan, blood was not thicker than politics.
The box on the far left flashed like a beacon. She immediately reached out, grabbing the info-lex with the ghostly cursor floating through the air in front of her, and pulling it down to her personal screen. Her heart thundered as she read.
This was it.
She knew the bastard had sold his soul and rigged the last election.
She snatched the info-lex, simultaneously opening links to every media outlet from Udan to Calaria. All she had to do now was let go of the block of information the cursor-hand gripped so tightly, and the whole world would know her brother was a fraud.
The lights flashed brilliant white, and the screens turned black. Rexa spun around.
In the doorway stood her brother, looking at her as if she were a little girl who’d just broken his favorite toy. Two of his bodyguards edged into the room.
“Really, Rexa?” Her brother’s dark hair had thinned since taking office. It only made his face sharper, more like a skulking river rat’s. “I thought you were smarter than this.” He flicked his wrist, and the bodyguards surged forward.
Rexa screamed, and one of them clamped a hand over her mouth. She tried to bite him, but his gloves were thick, and he was more than twice her size. When he picked her up, she thrashed her legs, but it did no good.
“Take her to the portal,” her brother commanded.
Rexa tried to scream again.
Not the portal. Please. No.
She tried to wriggle out of the bodyguard’s grip but it was no use. If they would just kill her, there’d be evidence, eventually her brother would be caught, and fate would be far less cruel.
Palis left the lights off and led them through the dark corridors with the small light from his sync gloves. They weren’t far from that part of the complex that stored the original election files to the justice corridor. The bodyguard now carried her through the cavernous Hall of Justice. The sentencing chamber was just beyond.
At one time, anyone who broke a law was sentenced to banishment in penal colonies on the far outskirts of their tightly knit civilization. But some prisoners had managed to escape and find their way back into society. That’s when the branding tradition had started, so everyone could recognize a criminal and his crime by the location of the brand. Then the portals had been invented. Once a convict was sentenced to banishment, they never came back, and crime had ceased to exist in their world.
Or at least it ceased to exist unless you had enough power and money to corrupt the system. Rexa jerked against her captor again.
The guard holding her didn’t flinch as they entered the small, bare room. Rexa stared at the ominous hexagon framework of metal looming in the far corner. Palis stepped over to the controls and waved his sync gloves in front of them. The machine came to life. A wavering red light pulsed within the metal frame.
Rexa twisted her head around and caught one of the guard’s fingers in her teeth, biting down hard. He shouted and snatched his hand away from her mouth.
“You can’t get away with this. Someone will know I’m missing.” It was a useless thing to say, but she was desperate.
“I’ll tell them you ran off with that Telaran lover of yours.” Palis shrugged as if he weren’t sentencing her to death.
“I don’t have a Telaran lover!”
“Too bad for you.” He grinned.
“You bought the election.” She twisted, but the guard’s arm clenched tightly around her throat.
“I only bought it by slightly more than my opponent did. That is how the game is played.” His eyes were icy and cold.
“You broke the law.”
“What would have happened if the Rengal clan had resumed control of the senate? Father died to see our clan in power. I’m not going to let his sacrifice be in vain. The trouble is, everything has to be so black and white with you.” Palis turned and programmed the portal. It snapped and hissed as whips of bright white energy crackled within the swirling red light.
“So you’re willing to sentence me to death?” She tried to kick herself away from the portal.
“It’s not death, just banishment. Enjoy your life in the wastelands with the other conniving dregs of society. Goodbye.”
Rexa screamed as the bodyguard pulled her up on the platform. The red light swirled and seemed to reach for her. She tried to cling to the guard, but the second one grabbed her around the neck. Choking, she felt herself fall and her vision turned black.
Burning whips of lightning and searing cold assaulted her as she dropped, falling through the red light. She couldn’t breathe. Her flailing arms did nothing to stop her as she tumbled through the portal.
Suddenly, she felt as if she was being pulled through a tight vortex, spinning and spinning. She hit the ground hard.
Rexa took a minute to breathe. Pain from the impact radiated through her. Still dizzy and sick, she didn’t want to move. The metal platform felt cold against her cheek. She tried to wiggle various parts of her body, hoping that nothing was broken.
Thankfully everything worked fine, although not without a good deal of pain. Cradling her side, she sat up. She’d probably cracked a rib. A gray desert stretched endlessly around her. The barren rocks and crags blended seamlessly on the horizon with the heavily overcast sky. She shivered in the cold, dry wind and pulled the collar of her jacket up around her neck.
She glanced back at the portal framework. The red light was gone. Now it was only an empty metal arch. There was no way back.
In the distance, a large mountain range rose above the desert. At least the mountains would provide shelter. But then, that was the most likely place for the other foul residents of this prison to congregate. She had no desire to run into any of them. She’d be lucky if the only people she came across were thieves and prostitutes.
Rexa touched the back of her hand to her stinging cheek. A smear of blood marred the top of her sync gloves.
Her gloves!
Her idiot brother had forgotten to take her gloves. She struggled to her feet and inspected the side of the portal frame. If she could hack into the system, perhaps there was a way to reverse the gate and send herself home. And when she did reach home, nothing was going to stop her from ruining her brother and making him pay.
She searched the entire structure, but there was nothing she could tap into to gain control of the blasted thing. Without a control screen, her gloves were useless, so she pulled them off and pocketed them. She shaded her eyes with her hand. To her left, some sort of gully scarred the ground.
If it was a ravine, there might be water. It was as good a goal as any.
She couldn’t survive out in the open for long. She’d barely gone ten steps when she noticed bones sticking up out of the dirt. At least there were animals here . . .
Oh dear Creator, the bones were human.
The arm and leg bones had fallen at odd angles, but there was no mistaking the human ribs. Only the skull was missing.
Rexa shivered and turned away from the grim warning. She started walking.
She learned quickly that several things were deceptive in the wastelands. One of them was distance. She’d been walking for what felt like hours, but seemed to be no closer to the ravine than when she had started. Now that she looked back, she couldn’t see the portal either. The only things she could see were the scraggly bushes growing like an enormous maze, and the outcroppings of black rock that rose from the brush.
She heard a rumble in the distance, a clattering noise that sent a chill down her spine. Someone was out there.
Climbing one of the outcroppings was a risk, but she needed to know where the noise was coming from.
A large hawk-like bird cried overhead. Rexa glanced up at it. It circled on the wind, an ominous reminder that even the animals in this place would pick her bones clean.
The rumbling came from a different di
rection now. Frightened, she trotted to the nearest rock outcropping and searched for a handhold, her already parched mouth painfully dry. Luckily the dark rock was layered, giving her several cracks to wedge her hands into.
She climbed, her heart beating faster. The rumbling stopped, and she thought she heard voices. Thankfully, her black synth coat meant she blended in with the surrounding rock.
Without thinking, Rexa jammed her hand into another crack, and immediately felt a sharp jab of burning pain. She gasped as she let go of the rock and fell backward, landing with a thud on the hard ground. She grabbed her wrist. Blood oozed from a nasty bite on the side of her palm. A red-spotted reptilian creature scuttled out of the crack in the rock, bared its sharp teeth and hissed at her. The frill along its back rattled in warning.
Her hand felt like it was on fire. It was already beginning to swell. She could only hold her wrist tightly and clench her teeth against the pain.
“Over here!” A man shouted. The rustling in the brush grew louder. “Sounds like a kiver got the bastard.”
“Good, we won’t have to kill him, then. We’ll just take his head when he dies.” A second voice answered. “The bounty on the Mad Man will be more than the last three combined.”
Rexa closed her eyes. She was poisoned. Already the nausea set in and she felt dizzy. She was dead. Either way, she was dead.
She watched helplessly as a rusty blade cut through the brush. “Hey, it’s a woman!”
Rexa tried to clear her vision, but it took too much effort.
The other man cackled. “They must have sent a whore through the wrong portal. We’ll have fun tonight. If she’s not breathing, she’ll still be warm.”
Rexa felt them pawing at her clothing, searching for pockets, and felt the bile rise in her throat.
“Stop – stop it,” she whispered, as one of them tried to hoist her up over his shoulder.
“Hey you!” A low, booming voice broke the silence of the wasteland. The hawk cried once more, the sharp keening sound slicing through the air like a knife. “You think a kiver could kill me?”
“The Mad Man!” One of them shouted.
The two men immediately dropped her onto the hard rock. She used all of her energy to curl into a ball.
Just then a roar blasted out overhead, followed by a blistering wave of heat. Rexa opened her eyes to see fire raining down around her. The two scavengers screamed as if the hand of death had just opened up to grab them.
The rumbling started up again, and with a squeal of an engine, they were gone.
“You okay?” The new stranger loomed over her. Her eyes cleared just enough to see the edge of his long, patchwork coat waving in the breeze beside the still-burning tip of a junked-together flamethrower. The bushes around them crackled as the man let out a high-pitched whistle.
The hawk swooped over the burning bushes and landed on a leather pad tied to the man’s shoulder. Dark hair blew haphazardly across the man’s hardened face, dark eyes, and the K-shaped brand on his cheek.
Murderer.
Rexa let her head fall, and the world turned black.
Two
She woke slowly. At first she held still, frantic to keep the nausea at bay. Her body was just as desperate for something to drink, though. She flopped her arm over her body and rolled to her side. She was on a flat pallet with a rough blanket beneath her cheek. A chain rattled as she moved.
She blinked her eyes into focus and stared down at the wrapping on her wounded hand. Although the clean bandage compressed her sore hand tightly, the color of her fingertips looked healthy. Her clothes were intact. Her ribs were still sore, but other than that, she didn’t seem to have any injuries. Then she noticed the makeshift shackle on her ankle.
“You’re alive.” A deep, gravelly voice commented. “Good.”
Rexa pushed herself against the hard dirt wall behind her. She was in a cave. Exposed wires and lights were tacked into the rough ceiling. The walls curved naturally, as if they had been carved by flowing water.
In every nook and corner, mounds of junk were piled. At first glance, they gave the impression of being heaps of garbage, but as she looked closer, all of the refuse seemed organized by size and material. Throughout the cave, strange furniture had been welded or strapped together from salvaged parts of old appliances and vehicles. This recycled furniture had even been polished to show off vintage designs. In their own way, the structures were whimsical, if not outright beautiful.
On a stand that had once been the control wheel for a Patarch War-era starfighter, the large, dark hawk roosted with his feathers fluffed in contentment and his eyes happily closed.
That’s when her gaze fell on her captor. He sat at a table using a tool to pry into an electronics panel. He’d pulled the top half of his hair back and tied it, revealing the hard lines of his face and the rough dark stubble of a young beard. He was large and powerful, with wide, honed shoulders and long limbs.
Her gaze traveled back to his face and fixed on the shining scars. They formed a brand on the crest of his cheekbone, just below and slightly behind his left eye.
“What are you going to do to me?” Rexa hugged her legs tightly. She tried to fight her fear, but she couldn’t stop staring at the brand.
The man frowned and rose from his seat. He stalked across the room like a large hunting cat. Rexa caught sight of the glint of metal and flinched, but when the man came forward, he was only carrying a cup of water. He towered over her, not bothering to try to make himself less threatening as he handed the cup to her.
She took it, and while the clear liquid sloshing inside the dented cup was the most tempting drug she could imagine, fear kept her from taking a sip.
“It’s only water.” The man returned to his chair and resumed his work on the electronic panel, as if she were no concern to him at all.
“How do I know?” She placed the cup down on the edge of the pallet. It was the only way she could defy him.
“Trust me, or don’t. I don’t care either way.” He lifted the panel and examined it from a different angle.
“Then why did you chain me to the wall?” She pulled her leg forward and dragged the heavy chain over the blanket.
“Because I don’t trust you.”
Rexa let out a gasp, and almost choked on a laugh. “I’m not branded.”
Her captor fixed her with a stare that could have cowed a deadly creature twice his size. “Not where I can see it, maybe. There are plenty of places to hide a brand on a body.”
“I’m innocent,” she hissed.
“Congratulations, you know the planetary motto.” He put the panel down and walked to the other side of the room, where he lit a fire in the belly of an antique camping stove.
“So, you’re innocent?” she crossed her arms. Again, he looked at her with such intensity, he forced her to glance down.
“No.” He turned his back and walked into another room in the cave.
She fought a shiver, and then looked at the cup of water. Her throat clenched. “I didn’t break any law. I was sent here because I was trying to expose political corruption.” Rexa bit her tongue before she said anything more. Her father was responsible for a lot of the laws that sentenced people to one-way trips through the portals.
The stranger huffed and returned to the table. He chopped up some sort of tuber and tossed it into a pot. “Good luck with that.”
“No kidding.” She pulled on the edge of the bandage wrapped so carefully around her hand. “Why did you save me?”
He placed the pot over the heat of the fire, and then lifted one shoulder in a lazy shrug. “I don’t know.”
“Are you going to kill me?” she whispered.
His face remained impassive. “I don’t intend to. Don’t force me to change my mind.”
“Rape, then.” She said it as if it were a foregone conclusion. Her stomach twisted into knots of terror.
He looked at her again, but this time something about him had softened. His ey
es seemed dark and deep, and no longer quite so frightening. “My brand is here.” He brushed his hand over his cheek. “Not here.” He brought his finger up between his eyes, where those guilty of sexual assault wore their scars.
Rexa’s heart beat heavy and hard with relief, which she found troubling, since he made no attempt to hide the fact he was a convicted killer. “Then why are you keeping me here?”
He spooned some mash from the pot into a cracked bowl, and then walked over to his hawk. He gently ruffled the feathers on the bird’s neck. The hawk shifted on the perch and the bells tied to the straps on his legs jingled. “You’d run.”
“No offence, but it seems the logical thing to do.” Rexa said, glancing at the dimming natural light slanting against one of the far walls. The light had to come from the entrance to the cave. If she wanted out, it was that way.
“Even if you cleaned me out of food and water to try to make it across the flats, you’d still be dead before you crossed Fool’s Ridge. If the kivers don’t get you, a pack of sand wolves will. If the sand wolves don’t manage to finish you off, there are always the headhunters. And if you somehow make it past them, I’m sure you’ll do fine in the city without protection or anything of value to trade.”
She reached in her pocket and pressed her hand against her sync gloves. They were cutting-edge tech, and he must not have known what they could do. To someone unfamiliar with them, they would have looked like ordinary gloves.
She slowly pulled her hand back out of her pocket. He watched her with suspicion as he placed the food bowl next to her untouched water. “I don’t like wasting energy, or food. When you know your limitations, and have gathered your own supplies, you can go.”
“So you intend to make me work for my freedom?” Whatever he had cooked for her smelled savory and wonderful. Even though it looked like a pile of wet sand, her stomach still rumbled.
