Again, everyone stared at her. “We simply must pick your brain,” Ravi murmured.
“Honestly”—Melin protested, holding her right hand up—“all I know are silly stories. I doubt that war even happened.” Even if she dreamt about it. Especially since she dreamt about it.
“I’ve been studying this culture for ten years—hell, Sorem has been studying it for over thirty—and neither of us has ever heard of this civil war,” Elihu said.
“It ended over twenty years before the reign of Chandre the Great.” They gave her blank looks again. She sighed. “This was over five hundred years ago. King Chandre brought Satura into the IASS as a Class 5A.” More blank looks. “I’ll tell you all I know, but they’re pretty much all ancient history. Legends. Nothing more recent than when the IASS ousted the royal family from the island. My great-grandmother’s family left the planet about that time.” No one batted an eye at the time frame. With regen and enhanced telomeres, it wasn’t unusual for people to live past one hundred fifty.
“We’ll still chat,” Elihu said.
Melin winced and gave a noncommittal reply. Why the interest in stories of years past? Did they think it would hold a key to the present? She doubted it. Anikki’s stories were filled with magic and dragons and gods, for crying out loud. Those things did not exist. Period.
The talk drifted off to other things, and she fell out of the limelight. Among these veterans, she felt a bit more at peace, more so than she had in a long, long time.
Eventually they were called to dinner, which was an interminable exercise in restraint—from her want to strangle anyone who wanted to talk about the War Witch, and did she really kill the Blood Sun Crown Prince with her bare hands? There was a vid romanticizing her entire life, in particular her supposed time on that awful ship. To make things worse, the vid hadn’t shown her childhood in a good light—which might have explained a lot about her family’s reaction to her return, although it wasn’t like she had had anything to do with the damn thing.
Melin bore up the questioning with as much grace as she could muster, soothing herself with visions of stabbing her seatmate’s eyes with her salad sticks or olive fork or whatever pasta utensil was in vogue these days.
Melin fervently hoped she would cease being a source of fascination soon. Perhaps by the time the next shuttle arrived—or before that. In the meantime, she’d make herself as uninteresting as possible.
Chapter Four
She hovered in a large stone hall where tapestries dangled from the walls and strangely dressed courtiers mingled. She felt disembodied, floating above the prettily dressed women with their tall butterfly headdresses and flowing scarves and the men wearing poufy, slashed sleeves, tight hose and high heels. Guards stood about the walls, the only ones wearing weapons, although they were tucked discretely in alcoves, unseen save by some of the more nervous of the guests.
The scent of dinner lingered, mixing with the thick aroma of spices and perfume and fear most of all. Music played, strange and lilting, and three circles of men and women danced in the center of the hall. Lights flickered and danced on jeweled fingers, ears, heads, and clothes. She blinked. Some of the dancers’ prosthetic horns and feathers looked incredibly realistic.
The scene was eerily familiar as though she’d watched it play out before, unnoticed, unseen. It was as real as her cryo-sleep dreams—too real for a dream, too strange to be real.
For all the dancing and laughter, tension hovered in the air. The dancers’ eyes darted not to the guards, but to the man lounging easily on a large iron throne at the far end of the hall. He paid no mind to the revelers before him, instead admiring the bottom of a woman offering drinks to the courtiers. She bore a golden chain about her waist and little else.
Melin’s gaze swam about the room, wondering how she’d dreamt something so vividly—and how she knew she was dreaming—when the music stopped and drew her attention back to the man on the throne.
Cloth rustled as the group split down the middle to create a narrow aisle. The man on the throne sat up, abandoning his interest in the slave. The hall became hushed, deathly still, as if two hundred people collectively held their breath.
Two guards dragged a slight woman, their hands firmly on her upper arms with their other hand carrying wicked pole arms. Her red hair roiled about her, wild and uncombed and past her waist, and her dress was dirty and torn at the hems. Halfway down the makeshift aisle she shrugged off the guards with a violent shake. She stepped away and straightened, glaring in defiance and daring them to lay a hand on her again. Remarkably, they didn’t.
The woman turned toward the man on the throne, lifting her chin and continuing the long walk regally as if she were strolling through the gardens of some palatial estate decked in jewels and silk instead of this cold palace with its hard stares.
She stopped twenty paces from the throne when the guards moved toward her. “Bow before your king,” one of the guards hissed.
“One does not bow to one of lesser rank,” the woman replied with disinterest, her gaze never leaving the man on the throne.
The guard shoved the butt of his pike into the back of her knee, and she dropped to the ground with a cry.
She glanced up, jade eyes—Melin jolted, close enough to make out the cat-slit pupils—blazing. “Cyrus, I do believe I find the reception lacking in gentility. Tell me, is this how you treat all your royal guests?”
Someone in the crowd tittered before stopping abruptly.
The man—King Cyrus—leaned back in his seat. “Little Mari Dell’Savrenet,” he drawled. “You are hardly in a position to insult me.”
“Insult you? I merely pointed out a certain lack of accommodations,” Mari told him. “Since your dog dragged me here, I have found the dungeons quite appealing.” Her hand flicked outward, taking in the entirety of the hall and dismissing it. “More so than this…barnyard fiasco.”
The courtiers gasped, and all heads swiveled toward the iron throne.
A slender man stood behind the throne. He was tall, dark haired, and wore all black—she didn’t know if it was for dramatic effect or part of a uniform. His face had long slashing scars running from his cheeks through his nose as though long claws had tried to rip his face off and nearly succeeded. He wore two swords, one strapped across his back, the other at his waist. Melin didn’t know much about swords, but these weren’t identical. One was long and straight, and one had a slight curve, and didn’t that mean the balance would be off?
Melin leaned forward, intent on catching more.
The entire courtroom froze. The slave girl froze halfway in an attempt to catch a falling glass—one woman had caught her butterfly veil in a neighbor’s brooch—and King Cyrus was paused midsnarl. Silence swept through the room.
The man looked up.
His ice-blue eyes bored into hers.
She gasped. She’d had this dream before, and he had never noticed her. This dream—and all her dreams—played out the same way every single time without deviation. No matter what she did, she was invisible, floating, incorporeal. She could change nothing.
He saw her.
“You,” the man’s soft voice carried through the silent room, “are not meant to be here. You are too soon.”
Melin tried to speak. She couldn’t.
She couldn’t breathe.
She couldn’t move.
She couldn’t—the man swept his hands in a complicated pattern, and she gagged, choking, hands clutching her throat. She was drowning in a sea of air, unable to find enough oxygen to—
*
Melin woke with a gasp, sitting bolt upright and clutching her throat. She gulped air and closed her eyes. The ice-blue eyes glared at her, and she snapped hers open. Her lungs seized, and she coughed, chest heaving for air. “Just a dream,” she whispered when she’d caught her breath. “It was just a dream.”
But it had been so real.
And he had seen her.
Melin flopped backward. Her shirt sq
uelched against her skin, cold and damp from night sweats. She stood up with a groan.
When her bare feet hit the floor, a flash of energy surged upwards, igniting her. Her new fingers tingled and burned. A soft roar and hum heralded the tech kicking back on.
Melin rubbed her arms to knock herself out of her own head and padded down to the bathroom after checking her now working palm pad. It was three minutes past two local time. She’d barely been asleep two hours after returning from the ambassador’s welcoming party.
Flipping on the fresher, she stepped inside and let the cool water douse her. Real water, not the recycled mess from the ship. There had been no time before the party to wash beyond a couple swipes of a damp cloth, and she’d collapsed into bed right after, too drained from dealing with people to do anything but sleep. Her mind kept returning to the dream as she rinsed off sweat and travel grime.
The dream had been familiar. She’d had it before, often enough after cryo-sleep that she’d pieced together the names from both dreams and Anikki’s stories.
Before this odd interruption, King Cyrus would have sentenced Mari—the red-haired woman—to death if she didn’t reveal the location of the rebels, not knowing the rebels were descending upon his fortress, concealed by a shroud of magic. The ice-eyed man would have killed the king with the weirdly colored sword hung on his back during what must have been the oddest duel ever where no one made a move to help the king. Just after he sliced the king’s head off, the forces of the rebels had come in, and the man had presented the blood-smeared crown to the leader of the rebels. That was when Melin usually woke up.
Despite the frequency of the dreams and how many of the same people rotated throughout them like she’d caught disordered snippets of their lives—not that she believed any of it was real, that would be ridiculous—she’d never caught the ice-eyed man’s name. It was always obscured or omitted.
She shuddered.
This time. He’d looked at her.
He saw her.
And it had been like he saw into her soul.
She was halfway out of the fresher when she realized she hadn’t brought a change of clothes. Since her housemates wouldn’t appreciate her roaming naked through the halls, she wrapped a towel about herself and headed to her room with her damp night clothes tucked under her arm.
Back in the solitude of her room, she stared at the bare walls, bed, tiny desk with the blinking console, and her uniform, a balled lump, in the corner. Sleep was not going to happen, and it felt like the walls were closing in.
Melin pulled on rumpled clothes and crept to the common room, through the door, and into the night air. The stars twinkled overhead, beckoning. She walked aimlessly through the garden, touching the curled-up flowers and running her good fingers over the benches.
Her path drew her around the embassy, toward the far side of the island and closer to the thick wall.
Stone rose high above her head. Night transformed it into something dark and ominous, wrapping about the island in an embrace that felt more predatory than protective. She tentatively placed a hand upon the rough stone, wondering if her great-grandmother had ever done the same. It was warmer than she’d expected, like it held in the heat from the day before. Her skin buzzed pleasantly against its surface. She wanted to press her entire body against it to see if she could sink into the soothing vibrations and disappear forever into an embrace of rock.
“Halt!”
Light flashed around her, transforming the stone from night gray to pale pink. Patches of stonework glittered where light and skin connected.
Melin lifted her hands and turned, keeping her movements slow. The torch beamed blinded her, reducing everything to a bright halo, but there were three guards standing around her, weapons trained on her. She knew, in the way she always knew.
“Who are you?” the first guard asked.
“Melin Grezzij,” she replied.
“What do you do?” the guard asked
“I’m a general assistant. I just got here yesterday afternoon on the last shuttle drop.”
“Show your ID.”
She stared at him. “I haven’t been issued one yet,” she replied. “I just got here yesterday afternoon. You can ask Ambassador Koshkay or Ser Asante. They’ll vouch for me.” She stared at their dark outlines. “Is there a curfew or something?”
Two of the guards leaned in while the third kept his weapon on her. They didn’t answer her question. “I haven’t heard of them trying anything like this before,” one whispered to the other. “She looks authentic.”
“Who can tell?” the other asked. “She doesn’t have an ID.”
“Should we let her through?”
“Pull me up in the system,” Melin said.
One of the guards tapped his wrist. “You’re not on the list.” Melin spelled out her last name in case he’d gotten it wrong. “Nothing.”
“Tech went down right as we got to the embassy,” she said, exasperated. “They probably haven’t updated it yet. I’ll be added tomorrow, and rest assured, I’ll be on your list.”
This didn’t seem to mollify them. “We found her right after tech came on,” the first guard muttered. “She might be one of them and can’t hide.”
“I woke up when tech came on and couldn’t sleep. I needed to take a walk,” Melin explained. “Can I go back to my billeting now?”
“And where is that?” the third guard asked. His weapon never wavered. She wondered if she could snatch it from his hands and turn it on him. Once, she could have. Now, she was not so sure. She had only recently regained the ability to write her name.
“The Yellow House.”
“Who else lives there?”
“Izzie G’Darion and Accalia Meridian,” Melin replied. “They’re both interns for the ambassador.”
The three conferred again, heads close. The light continued to blast in her face. She didn’t think they’d find it helpful if she pointed out that their huddle made them easier to attack. A headache formed. She rubbed the spot, hoping her eyes weren’t watering.
One of the voices became audible. “She still broke curfew.”
“There’s a curfew?” Melin asked. Hadn’t she just asked that question? “Seriously? This is an island filled with civilians. There’s only one way on or off, and you have it surrounded.”
The weapons dropped. “All right,” the first guard said. “You can go back to your house after you give us a statement.”
“A statement?” Melin snapped. “You want a statement. And what will be the result of that?”
“You’ll be flagged for violation of curfew, which will be sent for review by the garrison commander tomorrow morning.” The tone was monotone, an order being repeated verbatim from rote memorization,
Melin bit back a groan. Great, a procedure peddler. She pulled herself up, her inner corporal snapping awake. “Review from the garrison commander? How about you pull your head out of your ass and have some common sense. Where are these rules published?”
The guards took a slight step back. “They’re everywhere on the welcome package.”
“Which is where? Where is the welcome package located?” she demanded.
“Um, the console. It’s when you first log in.”
“And what happened when the shuttle arrived?” she asked. A tremor formed in her hands. Keep it together.
“Uh.”
“Tech went down,” she supplied. “Meaning the consoles didn’t work. No welcome package.”
“Well—”
“I promise that when you escort me to the Yellow House—without a statement—I’ll log onto the console and get straight on to the welcome package. You won’t see me breaking curfew again.” Her head throbbed, but she kept her chin up and stared into the light as if it didn’t hurt a bit.
“Uh—”
The second guard interrupted him. “Of course, Sera.” She blinked at the promotion. “Let us make sure you get back safe. Babassana, Herring, get back to patrol. I’
ll link up in three.”
The two left, and she and the other guard walked in silence. “Prior?” the guard asked. Without the light shining in her face, her eyes adjusted. He was even younger than she’d assumed and a corporal. He wasn’t wearing any armor beyond a generic flak jacket. That was unusual in such a hostile environment, but she guessed perhaps there were regulations allowing them to wear descaled body protection during nighttime patrols. How counterintuitive.
“Yes,” she replied. Anything to get past her headache. Her right eye watered.
“You get out after your first enlistment?” he asked, obviously trying to strike up a conversation. She noticed she led the way, him slightly following, weapon down but at the ready. She mentally revised his level of competence to perhaps knows ass from elbow.
“Not really,” she replied, pretending not to notice the weapon, pretending to be calm and not a jangle of nerves. “It’s a long story.”
“Aren’t they all.” The guard led her right up to the front door of the Yellow House. Melin punched in the key code to the door, and the rifle’s barrel lowered completely as the door swung open. “Well, have a nice evening, Sera.”
In the dimmed porch light, she caught his nametag. Corporal Hoang. “Quiet patrol, calm heart, Corporal,” she replied.
“Uh, okay.” With a last bemused gaze, he returned to his patrol.
Melin wondered if he’d encountered the phrase before. Perhaps not. He was of the peacetime generation that had only seen minor engagements in the Outer Rim and skirmishes against the disorganized remnants of the Blood Sun Empire. Fuck, her head hurt.
But she was alone and left to contemplate the dark interior of her new home. Deep within its recesses, she imagined she heard the snores of her new housemates or perhaps the inhaling and exhaling of the house about her. She retreated to her bedroom and collapsed onto the floor as her control broke.
Bright lights. Blinding. Then falling into a hole and darkness.
Her chest spasmed, and she wrapped her arms around her knees, biting her lip to keep the keening bottled up in her throat. Breathe, breathe, breathe, she chanted, finding that fucking mantra as her vision tunneled into black. Sips of air slipped into her spasming lungs, turned into gulps, and after eternity, into breaths.
That Distant Dream Page 5
