by Cain, Corin
We stand in front of a huge set of wooden doors, where two guards in the traditional yellow of the Kala family look at me without any hint of regard. They scan behind me instead, constantly looking for any sign of danger.
I gaze up at the towering doors. On the other side of them is my destiny. I can hear the music and the chatter. Anybody with any prestige will be in attendance at the ceremony – marking the unity between the Dulloth and Albright families, under the protection of the Kala House. No one would dare to step between these titans and their will.
One of the guards speaks into an earpiece. He seems to be coordinating with another guard at a vantage point. “Bird three, do you have a clear view?”
“Clear view. Dove is a go.”
Dove. That’s me, isn’t it?
The guards nod, and open the huge double doors for me.
If the situation wasn’t so horrifying, I would be in awe of the scene on the other side.
I thought we were going to be in a chapel, inside. Instead, the double doors open to the exterior world – but not the view I’d come to know of Territus.
I know that water is scarce on this world, but somehow here it flows easily. Everywhere I look, there’s verdant greenery beneath the bright, hot sun. A stream burbles to the right, falling down an artificial waterfall. Chairs are set up in long rows and each is filled by an important member of Territus high society.
At the far end, between the rows of chairs, Kendrick Dulloth stands.
On the outside, he looks handsome and dashing. His thin frame is perfectly accented in a tailored suit. His tie is a deep grey, and on his lips is a proud, knowing smile. Sickeningly, I know he will be sweeter now, telling me that what he did to me he had to do.
He’ll promise me that everything will go back to normal – but what even is normal?
Kendrick’s eyes glitter in the sun, welcoming me to my new life, and I want to throw up.
I wish I had Jenna to talk to.
It should be my father walking alongside me, to give me away. Yet, my father is a coward. I know that he is still on Tear, cowering in our estate. He’ll be looking through spreadsheets, or income sheets, or anything to distract him from dealing with the harsh reality of the life he’s just sold his daughter into.
The pathway between the rows of white chairs is cobblestone, and it feels like I’m in a fairy tale as I step down it. Little girls in bright white dresses throw flowers before me – a mix of violet and light yellow, along with leaves of green to symbolize the three families that orchestrated this union. My long years of study under my tutors comes flooding back to me, and I realize that the marriage between the Dulloth and Albright families will be a direct afront to the Consortium, and it is only with the blessing of the powerful high-noble House Kala that either of our families would dare take on the huge risks.
You need to think like this now. Politically. You can’t escape this marriage anymore, but somewhere along the line, if you keep your head sharp, you’ll find an opening.
Music sounds out, but it’s not the traditional wedding songs of Tear or Territus. It’s the royal sounding of the Kala family, playing their House song. The manservant stands behind me, and I’m not sure whether to go forward or wait.
“Stay,” he cautions, not grabbing my arm, but using the force of his voice to keep me planted on the spot. The song changes to the royal sounds of the Dulloth family, and Kendrick Dulloth beams with pride as he heard it. He stands tall and proud, and the entire gathering of onlookers clap and cheer.
The manservant holds his hand up. “One more.” The song changes to the new tones of my own House – a song commissioned by my father, that has only been in existence for five years. There’s only a muted clapping from the tiny showing of representatives from my own House. In the front row of seats, one is empty – the place of honor, where my father should be sitting after he gives me away.
From commoner, to low-noble, to noble within five years. It’s never been done before. If anything, my father has ambitions.
If anything…
There’s no compassion in ambitions. No strength. Just manipulative machinations as my father pivots and moves our house towards what he views as our ultimate destiny – to become high-nobles and have importance in the Consortium of Tear.
And yet I’m not even married into this madness, and already I can see how small he thinks. My poor, limited father. He can’t see beyond Tear. Even as he chases the highest rank in Tear society, he’s just being used by the bigger, more powerful families that run this sector.
They’ll make him a big fish… in a small pond.
“Now,” the manservant murmurs, and I walk forward slowly.
The dress swishes with my walk, and I know that the jewels in my ears are glittering beautifully in the sun.
Yet not even the brightest sunlight could do anything to stop the darkness of the Orb-Collar around my neck. It feels cold and cool even in the heat, as if it can drink up any warmth and remain unchanged.
I realize that my heart has been pounding hard ever since the morning, and I realize that I’d better get used to it. This is destined to be my new normal. Every second, I’ll live expecting that horrific agony again. I know that the manservant wouldn’t use the Orb-Collar on me unless he had a very good reason – but there’s still nothing more terrifying than being completely vulnerable to someone you hate.
If he thought it would advance the Dulloth family, the manservant would keep me in agony until I went mad from the pain.
This is not how I expected my wedding day to be.
The manservant follows close behind me as I walk down the aisle. I know he could use the Orb-Collar from a hundred feet away, and yet somehow his presence is a reassurance. He’s stable in comparison to the sadistic cruelty of Kendrick Dulloth.
I’m halfway up the aisle when my leg falters, and I stumble. I catch myself before I fall. There’s a dull, constant terror deep in me, but if I let it show, I know that Kendrick will punish me.
I look up to the end of the aisle and see the frown on his face. He prefers me to be graceful – not some stumbling, common cow. He’s already feeling as though he is marrying beneath his station – his family could have had their pick of tall, elegant, gorgeous noblewomen…
But, in many ways, he’s no less of a pawn in this gigantic game as I am.
“Breathe deeply,” murmurs the manservant. I take a deep breath and keep walking, feeling my body calming down. Even if my mind is disquiet, physically I know I’ll be okay. The manservant takes my hand, holding it and walking me right up in front of Kendrick Dulloth.
This is really happening. Oh, Gods! Oh, Gods! This is really happening!
The manservant hands me over to Kendrick, who looks down at me haughtily as he takes my hands in his. Next to him stands a high-priest in long, flowing robes. The priest is just doing his job – and if he knows about the torture, he doesn’t seem to care.
The priest smiles and opens his arms wide, greeting the audience.
“We are gathered today to celebrate the union between two families, who will be forever stronger because of it. This union is blessed under the high-noble House Kala and under all the Gods of Man.”
He even puts the Kala family before the Gods. You can tell where this one’s loyalties lie!
“Kendrick Dulloth is the great and proud heir to the Dulloth family – a family of noble blood. This family will go down in the eons as a powerful force. Before him stands Lezena Albright, a low-noble of the newly founded Albright family. This glorious union between these two families is honorable under the Laws of Territus and the auspices of the Gods!”
The high-priest finishes with a bellowing roar – one that I wasn’t expecting from a servant of the Gods of Man.
The crowd goes wild with applause. I understand the significance of the Laws of Territus. This union is illegal under the eyes of the Consortium and Tear - where I belong to the Aurelians and not the Dulloth family. The priest is showing
the crowd that here they have no fear of the powers of the Consortium here.
Finally, the priest chuckles. “Is there anyone here who opposes the marriage?” His eyes flash mischievously. “Perhaps a representative of the Consortium?”
The crowd breaks out in laughter. They all think this is the funniest thing in the world, while I’m standing here with a torture device strapped around my neck.
Kendrick laughs, his voice high pitched and cold. He loves nothing more than the feeling of power.
The priest waits for the laughter to die down. Finally, he looks over at Kendrick. “And now, the vows. Kendrick shall begin.”
Kendrick stares down at me. He’s taller than me, and I can tell he enjoys the feeling of towering over me. He laughs one last time at the priest’s joke, then gives me a dark stare.
“I, Kendrick Dulloth, accept you as my wife. I promise to lead, protect, and guide you for all your days. I will command you with strength and power until death do us part.”
I can’t believe it! He wrote his own fucking vows!
The priest turns to me expectantly. I’m standing in front of thousands of people, with the man I hate in front of me and a torture device around my neck.
Yet, somehow, right now the most excruciating part of it all is that I have no fucking idea what I’m supposed to say!
I wait for the pain when I can’t do what I am supposed to, but there’s nothing.
I feel the lightest touch on my back. “I, Lezena Albright,” whispers the manservant.
“I, Lezena Albright…” I repeat, and my voice shakes. Tears spring to my eyes and Kendrick squeezes my hands. It isn’t reassurance. It’s control. He holds them tight enough that pain flares up through my hands, and tears of pain join those of sorrow to wet my eyes.
“…accept you as my husband and leader. I promise to obey, respect, and follow you for all your days…”
I repeat after the manservant, the words flowing smoothly out of my mouth. Kendrick wants to hurt me to keep me in line, but the pain as he squeezes my hands is focusing my resistance instead.
“…I will serve you with deference until death do us part,” whispers the manservant.
“I will serve you with deference until death do us part,” I state, staring into Kendrick’s eyes. He grips my hands so hard it makes me whimper, and I keep my eyes down.
Until death do us part. It’s the only escape I have from this man.
I make the decision. Tonight, it will be all over. Kendrick Dulloth thinks I’m broken and shattered. Perhaps I would have been, if the manservant had truly tortured me…
…but instead, I will shatter the glass of the mirror in our bedchamber, and I will slit Kendrick Dulloth’s throat. Then, looking over his corpse, I will kill myself before the pain can start.
I stop myself from smiling at the thought. Kendrick thinks he controls me, but there’s nothing he can do. I’ll kill him with my bare fucking hands if I have to.
A little girl, perhaps seven years of age, stands near us with a velvet pillow and two rings. They’re made of purest gold, studded with valuable, violet gems to signify the Dulloth family.
Kendrick lets go of my hands. I see the imprint of his grip on them. He takes the ring, and I hold up my shaking hand, knowing that there’s no going back when that ring slides upon my finger.
He stares deep into my eyes. “Now, you’re mine,” Kendrick states, and it sounds as if he’s spitting out a dark curse. There’s hatred in his eyes, and I know that he’ll never forgive me for humiliating him, and never stop hurting me as punishment.
I’d had all these high-brow ideas of taming his dark urges – but as I stare into Kendrick’s cold eyes, I realize that there’s no way for me to dull his anger, or for me to calm his sadistic urges. He’s simply bad.
Kendrick reaches forward to put the ring on my finger…
…when suddenly, all hell breaks loose.
The crowd screams in terror. My eyes go wide as a Reaver appears impossibly above us.
One second, there was nothing – then it was there. The huge, menacing black lines of the Aurelian light fighter – the ship that unmistakably belongs to them.
Raka, Raekon and Leon. My Aurelian triad.
Orb-Beams suddenly flare out, tearing through the guards. There’s heavy security at the wedding, but no one expected a fucking Reaver to appear out of nowhere.
How? How did they even do it?
I stand stock still while the manservant rushes forward and picks up Kendrick, rushing him to safety in his arms like a child.
All around me, smoke and fire fill the venue as the Reaver rushes towards me. The side doors open and Leon and Raekon leap out.
Raekon sees the Orb-Collar around my neck and snarls. “Who controls it!”
I point to the manservant as blaster fire whizzes by me, marking the outside of the Reaver with searing black marks. Raekon and Leon don’t even flinch at the blaster fire impacts all around them. Instead, Leon charges the manservant.
The manservant sees him charging towards him, and tosses Kendrick aside as easily as he’d scooped him up.
The manservant draws his pistol…
…and then suddenly, it clatters to the ground.
Fingers still wrapped around the trigger.
Leon moved impossibly fast, jabbing his Orb-Spear forward. The manservant looks down at the stump where his hand used to be.
I gasp as Leon reaches down and picks up the severed hand, ripping the Orb-Collar bracelet from the still-twitching fingers and running towards me. He grabs me and throws me into the Reaver, as if I weigh nothing…
…and then puts the bracelet around his own wrist.
Somehow, despite his arm being even bigger than the manservant’s burly wrist, it’s a perfect fit.
For a moment, I’m terrified – wondering if this will be my punishment. I abandoned the Aurelians before, and now they’ll use the power of the Orb-Collar to ensure I never do it again…
…but instead, before I can even comprehend what Leon is doing, the Orb-Collar falls from my neck and clinks against the floor.
I’m free.
He hadn’t adorned the bracelet to take control of the Orb-Collar. He’d worn it so he could free me from it.
Relief pours over me as Raekon climbs aboard the Reaver and mans the Orb-Beam, firing back defensively as Raka darts us forward from the pilot’s station.
“Orb-Drive recharging!” Raka yells, and darts left and right, avoiding the bulk of the blaster shots and keeping us safe. I look down through the open doorway towards the wedding venue.
Where there’d been a peaceful ceremony just minutes ago, now there was a site of chaos. Spectators and attendees are running in all directions. The aisle is in disarray, littered with empty and overturned chairs.
Down below, guards take defensive positions and blast at us with their firearms. Yet, they’re hopelessly outclassed. The searing blasts that hit the Reaver just ding off the armor of the Aurelian attack craft.
I gaze down below, and watch as soldiers emerge carrying huge tripod guns, setting them up to blast us with heavy weapon fire.
Those hand pistols and blasters might not back the punch needed to penetrate the Reaver’s heavy armor, but those tripod-mounted weapons will. Before the fear can grip me, though, Raekon and Leon fire in unison – picking off the soldiers before they can even set up their weapons.
“Reinforcements coming!” Leon barks in the High Tongue, but I understand enough of the language to get the gist of his desperate warning.
I look past Raekon, out through the gunnery port, and see wave after wave of soldiers emerging from the depths of the city, adorned in the yellow of House Kala, or the violet of House Dulloth. They pour out like cockroaches – and die like them too, as Raekon lashes out at them with the searing, blue-black blasts of his Orb-Beam.
Raekon is like a surgeon with that terrifying weapon, but for every soldier he cuts down, ten more emerge from the city below to take their place
, setting up even more advanced weaponry as and when they can.
But by now, we’re leaving. Raka pilots us upwards, gunning the powerful Orb-Engines and hurling us higher and higher. Nevertheless, blasts shudder against us – the powerful crack and flash of heavy weapon fire now; not just the hand-held blasters of the security detachments.
In the Reaver, bright warning lights flash and sirens sound, while a holographic data sheet ripples into life in front of us. I can’t read all of the Aurelian words, but I can see clearly the 62% figure near a holographic image of our shields – and that number is dropping.
The Reaver shudders and we suddenly plummet from the sky. I gasp as the figure on the hollow-sheet representing the shields drops down to 41% - apparently all from a single shot.
I turn and stare out of the viewports – and see what happened…
In fear, I watch as a fleet of ships suddenly comes bearing down on us. They too have Orb-Weapons; and that evens the odds.
Searing blue-black beams arc out, and Raka pivots desperately, dodging the bulk of the barrage. A single shot clips us, and Raekon’s arms clench the controls of his Orb-Beam as he blasts back. The Reaver shudders and the number next to our shields drops sickeningly to 24%.
We can take one more shot.
Maybe…
It’s a new type of fear for me – so very different to the constant nag of anxiety caused by the Orb-Collar around my throat. Before, I’d merely felt the hopeless, dull, never-ending horror of knowing I was trapped with that torture device around my neck – perhaps for the rest of my life…
But now I’m being tortured with something far more painful – the knife-edge of hope. The terror I feel is fresh and raw, because it’s contrasted with the stark reality of everything I now have to lose if we’re killed or shot from the sky.
“You can do it! You can do it!” I cry out twice. Raka doesn’t take his eyes off the controls, but I can somehow tell he’s smiling.
“Hold on,” Raka announces, and guns us forward as if all our hopes had been renewed. The Reaver powers through the air, escaping the barrage of fire for a few seconds longer. Leon is tight and tense at the controls of his Orb-Beam, laying down defensive fire with terrifying accuracy. A ship explodes behind us, spiraling downwards and exploding against the ground. I hope the crew didn’t feel a thing before they were seared into smoke and ashes.
