Thrall (Deridia Book 3)

by Catherine Miller

  They were spaced more widely apart than at home. She wondered what that meant, but did not ask. She would keep quiet here, too afraid that to speak would bring disaster, and she did not want to be held responsible for that.

  The mists cleared a little as they entered the village, and she could at least make out the thin grasses that covered the dirt where she walked. No stone streets here. She thought that might be nice when the suns were so hot, but she could admit that it made the village appear far less unified than where the Onidae lived.

  She hadn’t the least idea where they were going, but the men seemed to, going to a smaller dwelling and Archel pounded a closed fist on the doorframe twice. Ness watched hesitantly, not certain who might come out. There were a few Arterians milling about. Their faces were rather hard, and their height was similar to the Onidae, though their shoulders were much more narrow. She found their bald heads rather shocking, though she supposed it shouldn’t be. The Narada certainly had no hair on their heads. Yet now she could recognise that she was grateful that Olivar and his kind had hair like hers. Not... exactly, as theirs tended toward browns and golds rather than the reddish tinge of her own, but at least it was there.

  It made her feel more a part of them than was likely right or acceptable. But it did, and it would be foolish to lie to herself that she felt differently.

  Her eyes narrowed at a man across the road. The colour of his skin seemed to ripple, as if it could not quite decide on its intention. Perhaps her eyes were playing tricks. That would certainly explain it.

  The door opened at last. Not to a towerering male Arterian, but instead a... what she thought was a girl, no taller than her. Her head was as bald as the ones she had seen outside, and Ness tried not to stare too closely to decide if that was its natural state or if they shaved the hair off.

  It was none of her concern, that she knew well.

  The girl’s eyes widened a little, and she took a step backward.

  “Well?” a voice called. “Who be there?”

  The girl swallowed. “Onidae, Mistress Lanral.”

  Mistress? Ness looked to Olivar, and he gave her a rueful smile in return. “It is different, Ness,” he assured her, his breath tickling her ear as he leaned down to whisper. “She is not a slave, and neither are you.”

  She nodded, trying to believe him. She didn’t know what else that word could mean, but Olivar was so very certain, so there must be another implication. The girl was quite young to have earned a mistress in any case. Ness chastised herself silently for thinking so. She shouldn’t want to earn any such thing any longer, the old ways shouldn’t matter here.

  But still they crept into her thoughts, regardless of her intention, and that troubled her.

  Ness couldn’t hear any movement from inside, but even with the distance, she clearly heard a grunt from whoever was within. Were they not welcome here?

  “Greetings to you, Lanral!” the forth man called, smiling at the apprentice, but not yet passing through the doorway.

  A pause. “Rol? Is that you?”

  Ness thought Rol sounded like a name a thrall might choose rather than something from an Onidae household, but never would she have spoken so.

  Rol gave Archel a smug grin, and the other man rolled his eyes. “Aye,” he confirmed, a smile still in his voice. “Might we have trade?”

  “If it is you, then mayhap,” she called, her voice a low, gravelly thing. The footsteps were slow, but a woman did eventually appear. Still hairless, Ness noted, trying not to stare. When had it become difficult to keep her eyes lowered?

  At first the woman seemed very preoccupied with staring at Rol, a crooked smile overtaking her expression. It was an awkward thing to watch, as Ness was certain there was a very great age difference between the two. And to see flirtation at all was... strange.

  Especially since she could not at all be sure if Rol was actually interested in pursuing this woman, or if he was simply using his charms for the benefit of the trade.

  She wished she could ask Olivar, but he had told the Caern she knew when to be quiet, and she supposed this was one of those times.

  Lanral—Mistress Lanral?—finally looked away from Rol to survey the rest, nodded approvingly until her eyes fixed on Ness.

  They narrowed, her lips forming a tight line, and it took every bit of Ness’s courage to keep from ducking behind Olivar’s larger frame and hiding there so she could escape the woman’s scrutiny.

  “Got one of those, do you?” she asked, her tone revealing all of her disapproval.

  Olivar glanced down at Ness, and she was grateful when he took a small step forward, shielding her, if only just a little.

  Ness wasn’t sure what the woman meant by her displeasure. She could have thought the Onidae had acquired a thrall and she meant to censure the practice, or...

  She did not approve of Ness’s kind at all.

  From the way the woman regarded her, she rather thought it was the latter.

  She bit her lip, worried she had ruined this, that Olivar would be stripped of his vassa after all, but the old woman sighed, clucking with her tongue and shaking her head. “Lorrak claims I have to live with the one we’ve got. I suppose one more won’t kill me.” Ness’s eyes widened. They had one?

  She tried to recall tales of anyone escaping, but memory failed her. Thralls died frequently. Or at least... that is what they were told.

  Perhaps more were like her?

  Lanral still gave her a less than warm stare, gesturing them in. “Do not touch anything,” she hissed, taking on a tone and diction much more similar to the Narada.

  Ness nodded furiously, bowing her head in supplication before she truly realised what she was doing.

  “Now,” Lanral declared, wiping her hands on her apron, and turning back to Rol. Ness noticed that her smile was much more quick when looking at him, though it seemed a little forced as her eyes flickered frequently back to Ness. Olivar still stood near her, his hand subtly reaching back to touch her arm gently. It comforted her, even though she worried over the woman seeing and finding fault with his behaviour—with his soothing a thrall like her—but she could not be entirely ungrateful for the contact.

  The trade itself was a simple one. Lanral would give them cloth, and they would give her some strange looking grain. It seemed odd to deal with the woman directly rather than using a mediator with those in leadership, but Ness knew so little of such matters. She still expected men with weapons to appear, for suspicious looks and harsh words to be bandied until they were escorted away from the village.

  But Rol made quick work of the trade, smiling cordially when Lanral insisted on inspecting the grain for sign of infestation, feigning hurt that she should trust him so little.

  Lanral harrumphed at that, though her skin shifted colours oddly. “With a smile like yours...” she shook her head. “Maybe I shall make you wait outside next time, and do trade with one of you others.”

  Rol held a hand to his chest. “You wound.”

  Lanral scoffed, but there was humour in it, a chuckle escaping before she replaced it with a scowl. She barked at the young girl from earlier to take the sacks into the back room, while she hobbled there also, presumably to fetch the cloth.

  When she brought it out, it truly was a lovely thing. The colour was vibrant, much more so than other articles she had seen on the Onidae. She wondered how they managed to create a colour so rich.

  Rol took the fabric, holding it out for the others to see as well. His voice dropped low. “What do you think, Ness? Will it do?”

  She hadn’t expected to be included at all, especially given Lanral’s begrudging allowance, but in this she could be truthful. “It is beautiful,” she complimented honestly.

  Lanral looked at her knowingly, and Ness realised she would be recognising the source of her language. Similar, but not exact to what the old woman spoke.

  She reminded herself that she had been given to the Onidae and there was nothing to report. Even if t
his woman returned to her former masters and told them of what she’d seen, she was doing exactly as she’d been instructed by her new people.

  But even reminding herself of that did not stop the lump of nervousness from settling in her throat.

  The old woman sniffed, her already ridged nose wrinkling further. She opened her mouth, her expression indicating that she was preparing a rather scathing retort, but she shut it again, her mouth compressing into a hard, displeased line. “Good,” she declared instead, turning to Rol and a hint of a smile returning. “There is accord?”

  He frowned, if only just a little, before purging any sign of it at all and bowing his head. “Accord,” he agreed, taking the cloth and the rest of her wares, distributing the new burdens amongst the men.

  He did not bother to give Ness anything, despite her temporary acceptance of crew, but she did not argue.

  “Nearly done,” Olivar assured her, leaning down and whispering so as not to be overheard. Rol continued to speak with Lanral, and Ness gave him a weary smile. Her body was sore with tension, and she wanted to begin the walk back to their boat. At least there her greatest worry was simply toppling out of the craft, and she was certain Olivar would pluck her out again before she drowned.

  After what seemed an eternity, Rol gave another little bow and the men starting moving toward the door. The girl opened it for them, holding it as they passed, Ness going first and walking furthest away as the rest lingered, giving pleasantries and likely maintaining important bonds of trade.

  She did not wander, as that would be asking for trouble. She would be lost for certain, and nothing good would come of it, even if a part of her wanted to start walking back toward the boats herself.

  A cart passed, a large, Arterian male pulling as another pushed at the rear, both giving a grunt as she evidently was in their way standing as she was.

  She hurried back toward Lanral’s home, not going back to the others, but standing tucked away. Grasses tickled at her ankles, the mists still thick on the ground, the stalks rising above the thick fog.

  There was a flower growing there, the vivid blue reminding her of the cloth they had traded for. Did the dyes come from such flowers? She leaned down, looking closer. No, not quite the same blue. It would make a pretty garment, all the same, but it wasn’t quite as deep, quite as lovely...

  There was an odd sound, a subtle hiss that made her tilt her head in confusion. It reminded her a little of some of the vocalisations of her masters, their displeasure often coming in stunted hisses before stinging slaps soon followed.

  She glanced up, looking for sign of one of the Narada, but there were only a few Arterians milling about, the Onidae still on the stoop of Lanral’s abode. Olivar was looking about, and he visibly relaxed when he noticed where she’d gone.

  She readied to stand, placing her hand on the ground to steady herself, when a sudden pain made her reel backward, a cry of surprise escaping her, despite knowing her need for silence.

  “Ness?” Olivar called, abandoning his post by the door and likely the final partings that would ensure a peaceful trade the next time.

  The hissing continued, and a flash of movement sent her scrambling backward. She did not know what she saw exactly, but there was a creature there, clinging to the remains of the mists, almost a part of it as its thin body manoeuvred both fog and grass.

  Her hand hurt.

  She looked at it, the same wretched hand that she’d burned with her carelessness, and she almost felt the absurd need to laugh.

  Never had she been this clumsy.

  Hurts had come from the hands of a master, not from her own foolishness.

  There was a puncture in the bandage, four holes clearly marked in the lines of neat cloth.

  Her head felt muzzy, her mouth suddenly dry as she stared down at her hand. Was it hers? It didn’t exactly feel so.

  “Olivar?” she said aloud, wondering why he seemed so very far away.

  “Ness!” he answered, grabbing hold of an arm—was it hers?—and staring at her in concern. “What has happened?”

  She blinked down at the strange hand and found that it moved so as to show him the odd holes in the nice bandage. “I don’t know,” she tried to force out. “I...”

  She swayed.

  He caught her.

  Or maybe it wasn’t her at all.

  She was a thrall in any case, and Olivar was far too good to be touching someone like that.

  “A healer!” a voice called, fear evident in each word. “A healer, please!”

  She wanted to say that doctors were terrible things, and that was the worst idea ever presented to her.

  But no word would come from her throat, so she eased into the arms that were suddenly about her, sighing all the while.

  She wondered who was hurt, because it couldn’t possibly be her.

  17. Human

  “But when will she wake?”

  “When she means to.”

  A sigh. “She keeps being hurt.”

  “Unfortunate. But unless you are the one deliberately hurting her, I find that to hardly be your fault.”

  “Rykkon,” another voice chastised calmly, this one of a higher pitch. “If I was hurt you would worry exactly the same. No,” she amended. “You would worry more.”

  A huff, this one deeper, but holding some measure of affection. “She is receiving help, Prim. That is all I am saying. She will wake when she is ready.”

  Someone was touching her hand, but she couldn’t exactly feel it. Everything felt dull, as if she was removed from herself, from the limbs that were meant to be hers, from the body that once would have responded to her smallest demand.

  To any demand really.

  A squeeze, a shift. “Please wake up, Ness,” the first voice pleaded. “I am sorry I was so inattentive.”

  She knew that voice. Even... even loved that voice. Loved it when it chattered, when it did not seem to care that she wasn’t worth speaking to. It made her feel equal, made her want all sorts of things that were forbidden and dangerous, even now as it made a warm sort of comfort spread throughout the body that wasn’t quite hers.

  “How can you be certain it was this... colnass?” The voice continued to press, his tone tight with tension.

  Another sigh, probably from this Rykkon she did not know. “I know my trade, Onidae. Just as you know yours.”

  Some part of her knew that her head hurt. A dull, low throb at the base of her skull that was most unpleasant. If she had a skull, at least.

  If she had eyes, she would like to open them—to look at the face she loved too. The warm, brown eyes that looked at her with what she liked to believe was affection, the nose with the four ridges between full eyebrows. The tousle of hair barely kept by the vassa that she hoped would always be his.

  Whether hers or not, suddenly she could see. First the blur of shapes, but the more she blinked, the clearer things became. Her mouth was dry, and these eyes were even more so, and they felt like grit had fallen into them, a sharp, biting sting that made her want to close them again.

  But then a hand was squeezing her arm in excitement, and that face she so loved was leaning over her, joy in his eyes even while lined with tension. “Ness?” he asked, his other hand coming to skim over her cheek. “How do you feel?”

  She blinked again, trying to eke some measure of moisture into her uncooperative eyes that might not even be hers. Her mouth seemed even more uncooperative, but she knew that this face liked to be answered, liked real, true answers that were honest and not the rote recitations of lessons harshly learned.

  Another face appeared. The oddly coloured skin betrayed that he was an Arterian. It was less unsettling than it had been, but perhaps she simply could not bring herself to be bothered by any such thing anymore.

  There was a cup in his hand, and she eyed it greedily, and he smiled at her. “Help her to sit up,” he instructed Olivar. She wanted to protest, that she didn’t need any such assistance, but when she made to d
o so herself, she felt profoundly weak. Maybe it wasn’t her body after all.

  Olivar hurriedly obeyed, holding her close and shifting her limp form and supporting it so that the Arterian man—Rykkon? Was that his name?—could pour the cool water down her throat. She choked a little, and he eased the cup away as she spluttered, but she composed herself quickly, eyeing him beseechingly until he brought it back and let her drink. Slow sips, she reminded herself. She needed the water and she did not want him to take it away too soon.

  Or sick up all over... wherever she was.

  The cup emptied, and she felt marginally better. She allowed her head to sink back against Olivar’s arm, wanting nothing more than to close her eyes again. She felt so terribly weary, but with an unsettling awareness, she realised that she was lying on an unfamiliar bed. There were furs instead of blankets, the walls were covered in shelves and bottles, not neat panels of wood with holes cut out for glass to allow the light to stream through.

  “Easy,” Rykkon instructed, apparently noticing her growing anxiety. “You are in my home, and are most welcome to it until you are well enough to return to yours.”

  She wanted to be so now. She did not like the idea of intruding, especially not when she was meant to have been good, to have been nothing more than a shadow for one of the simplest trade’s possible, and yet...

  “Sorry,” she forced out, the words slightly slurred and more mumbled than she would have liked. “I’m sorry,” she repeated, a little more clearly as she looked up at Olivar. “I didn’t...”

  “Hush,” he said softly, shaking his head. “You did nothing wrong, Ness.”

  “Yes, I did,” she insisted, her words coming quickly when she did not try to think beforehand. “I got hurt again and now you...” she brought her hand up toward his face—his kind, wonderful face—but the movement was sloppy and landed poorly, and he caught it before she could accidently hit him with it. She had meant to touch the vassa, to mourn what would soon be lost, but he merely kissed her fingers, smoothing the skin where his lips had touched.