by Aimee Moore
“She'll kill you this time,” I said to Dal.
“She cannot. But she will make me wish she could,” he finished on a murmur.
I furrowed my brow at Dal, going over what I had seen between him and Patroma earlier in the day. “What is a 'traitor's brand,' Dal?”
Dal looked up at me, then switched to his language to speak. “My people have gifts of their own. We shall leave it at that.”
“Why do they get so worked up at Seraphine?” Mindrik asked. “It was as if she doused herself in Kraw repellent. Or perhaps Kraw attractant, who is to know.”
Dal and I exchanged a glance.
“She is female,” Dal said to Mindrik.
“You just now figured that out? Goodness you Kraw really are slow.”
“Kraw warriors find lust for battle and lust for females interchangeable. Females of power are a large temptation for Kraw warriors. A mighty conquest. She has power that even my people cannot overlook.”
I watched Dal without saying a word, my heart skipping a beat when his lashes flicked up to me for a moment. Was I a mighty conquest to him? I returned my attention to Mindrik, who had been watching me carefully.
I pulled a lock of hair behind my ear, staring at the fire. “Maybe I should have kept the mud.”
“I think I speak for everyone here when I say that I'm glad you didn't,” Mindrik said in a sour tone.
“And I think I speak for everyone here when I say your foul mood is getting old. Explain what's bothering you or cease your sourness,” I said.
Mindrik scowled at me, then threw a stick into the fire harder than necessary. “I have been insulted and used, then ignored. I will not stand it.”
I stared at Mindrik in surprise.
“You are alive and not in pain,” Dal said. “You will stand whatever is necessary for you to remain that way.”
“I could have killed you back there,” Mindrik said to Dal.
Dal only looked amused.
“Why didn't you?” I asked Mindrik. “You've made your hatred of all Kraw very plain, yet you chose not to drown Dal this morning. Why?”
Mindrik scowled at Dal. “The beast hunts. I am no hunter; I am made to be fed by the hunters.”
So that was the reason for Dal’s amusement. I scoffed. “You left Dal alive because you wanted him to serve you? Not because he's saved your life or mine a number of times?”
“And I have saved his, so now we are equal,” Mindrik said.
Dal said, “You waste your time attempting to create equality in your deeds. You contribute to survive and because it is the right thing to do. The rest is your problem and not mine.”
Mindrik sighed, slumping. He rubbed his eyes. “It doesn’t matter. We will be at the capital within weeks, and we will part ways.”
“I have reservations about your capital,” Dal said.
“Mindrik, what will it take for me to convince you to train me in the use of my power some more during our journey?”
“My dear woman I would pay you handsome amounts not to allow yourself to become so dirty again,” Mindrik said with a slight smile. “If my instruction keeps you clean then we have a bargain.”
I gave a small laugh. “Well, if we can avoid any more lustful Kraw, then count yourself lucky enough to keep your coin.”
Mindrik leaned closer to me, speaking softly. “I shall teach you whatever you wish, though I daresay all you need is patience. I have seen you annihilate a battlefield, something no elder council member has done, to my knowledge.”
I sighed. “I can't control it; I tried this morning when the Kraw caught us. It won't respond to me.”
“Yet you feel it within.”
I nodded, acutely aware of the raging inferno under my skin.
“And when your need was most dire, it came to you.”
“Yes.”
“Then you can control it, Seraphine, you just need to give yourself over to it.”
I tilted my head at Mindrik, curious to his meaning.
Seeing my confusion, he gave a soft breath. “When I was a boy, I was arrogant and strong willed.”
Dal chuckled.
“I don't recall inviting you to this discussion,” Mindrik said in a scathing tone.
Dal ignored Mindrik, who turned his back to the Kraw.
“As I was saying. I was a strongly gifted youth, and as most youth tend to do, I strutted about, trying to bend the world to my will. But what I didn’t let others know was that it was all show, for I couldn’t control my gift any better than you can now, though it showed itself at inopportune moments.
“Later, through many humbling experiences I will not bore present company with, I learned to stop treating my gift like a weapon. It’s not a sword, not malleable or as easily commanded as speech. It is a part of us, it uses us as the weapon.”
I searched Mindrik's eyes, picking up the pieces of the big picture he was painting. “I need to bend to my gift,” I said.
Mindrik gave a slow nod.
“Why have you waited so long to tell me this?”
Mindrik let off a gusty exhale, looking down at his long fingers. “I confess that I allowed that arrogant young man to take control when we first met, Seraphine. I didn’t wish to help under the yoke of capture, nor did I wish to see you prove yourself better than me when you didn't even know what it was that you had. After living at the university my whole life, I had allowed my pride to rule my actions.” He met my gaze again. “Please forgive me.”
I looked between Mindrik's earnest blue eyes, trying to find traces of betrayal or malice.
“We'll see, Mindrik,” I said slowly.
Mindrik gave a slight smile, resting a hand on my leg. The contact was foreign, light, and strange. “I meant what I said before, Seraphine, you are no fool. Women in my social circles are groomed to be foolish peacocks, and you are not them. I am glad to have met you, despite our circumstances.”
I forced out a smile for Mindrik. “Thank you.”
I glanced at Dal, who was avoiding eye contact entirely. The sun was dipping into the tree line now, the sky swallowing up the light.
“Yes, it is time to leave,” Dal said, standing.
Mindrik doused the fire, adding steam and smoke to the curtain of haze floating above us. He gave each of us a glob of water to drink, and we made our way to the Kraw war steeds, all of us dry and warm now. I looked at the uncomfortable saddle on the steed I had been sharing with Dal, which stood at a height just above my eyebrows. The beast whuffled a strangled sound and stomped, swishing its tail.
Mindrik was climbing atop his, which he had nicknamed “Farley.”
Dal mounted his beast and lifted me into his lap as if I were feather light, positioning me sideways in his lap so that I was no longer straddling the lumpy saddle. Dal's hard body was warm and comfortable, and the steady rhythm of his breathing brushing my face sent tingles to my belly. I lifted my lashes to him, grateful for his thoughtfulness.
“I am anxious for you to be healed,” Dal said in Kraw, grabbing the reins of the third mount and looping them around his arm.
I smiled. “I was beginning to worry that you did not want my affections again,” I said in Dal's language.
Dal made a low growl in his throat. “You could not be further from the truth.”
When I looked over at Mindrik, his brows were drawn together as his gaze traveled between the two of us. “If I didn’t know any better, I would think that I was looking at two lovers instead of a woman and her guard.”
I took great care to stiffen and avoid eye contact with Dal. “He is a very kind guard, that is all,” I said.
Mindrik watched us a little more, then kicked at his mount and took off at a brisk pace. Dal did the same, and we rode in silence for many hours. The night sky cast its net of diamond stars above us, and I fought to stay awake on the bumping ride of the Kraw war steed. Our pace stayed brisk through the night, the steeds never seeming to tire or need nourishment. It was Mindrik who halted our proces
sion, pulling us up short at dawn.
“There is a town Eastward from here. The sign we passed declared it was Wumbleton,” Mindrik said.
“We should not stop,” Dal's deep voice tumbled through the crisp morning air.
“Humans will give care to those who care for their own. You will be welcomed. Especially in these quaint villages,” Mindrik said.
I nodded. “It's true, small towns are not as given to prejudices as the cities. You will be given food and a safe place to sleep, Dal.”
Dal's breath brushed my forehead as he let out a great sigh.
“I have coin to my name in the capital, I can buy us very fine furnishings for the day. And meals. Imagine a meal with salt.” Mindrik groaned.
“Worst case, we leave,” I said up to Dal.
“If we stay in this human village, then Sera and I share a room,” Dal said.
Mindrik gawked at us as if Dal had just asked for whores and a golden carriage. “What ever for?”
“Trust. We keep each other safe, and I am going into hostile territory. It is logical.”
Mindrik settled his deep gaze on me, as if trying to peel away the layers of my secrecy. I only looked at him with a blank face.
“Seraphine, you would share a room with this beast when you have a safe, warm place to sleep for the night?”
“He has kept me safe all this time, Mindrik, the least I could do is make sure that he stays safe as well. I am the product of a small village; I would know if something was amiss and Dal was in danger.”
Mindrik sighed through his nose, a slight frown creasing his brow. “Very well, let's get on with this.” And with that, he turned his leather mount toward Wumbleton and set off at a brisk pace. When we got to the small village almost forty-five minutes later, I was dismayed to find that my reason for sharing a room with Dal was no longer needed.
I slid out of Dal's lap, landing on the ground next to the decayed body of a young woman with matted blond hair. She was younger than me, with long dead flowers curled on the ground around her. Deep lacerations spilled across her middle as bugs feasted and thrived in her innards. One of her ears was missing.
Dal, face set into grimness, dismounted behind me. I stared at the festering remains of the village, the carnage making the slaughter of Lambston fresh in my mind. Thatched rooftops had been burned, leaving only the crumbling stone walls of some buildings. Many homes and shops had been left untouched by fire, but the slashes of brown liquid up the walls told a gruesome story. Mindrik wandered off after many muttered curses, trying to find something to salvage.
I went a different way, lost in the sea of my own memories tangling with the stories of the bodies. Bodies that were horrific in their abundance. Some were dismembered. Some with their skirts shoved up and their necks flattened. Some were missing heads, some had crude weapons still protruding from their forms. It was a sinister nightmare trapped in time.
I stopped next to a woman that would have been my sister's age, laying in a long dead pumpkin patch. I looked away from where her eyes would have been, nature had ravaged her as surely as the Kraw. Her brown hair was tangled about in the dead weeds. In her arms was a tiny body, with one mostly eaten hand reaching for her face.
A tear tickled my cheek, and I looked away as rage and bile rose up within me. But everywhere I looked for solace and peace, I found only death and destruction. The baby in its mother's arms would haunt me for the rest of my life. I raised dewy lashes to Dal, who stood a few yards behind me, watching with no expression on his face.
His people had done this to mine. His people had taken that woman from her child. The child who died in her arms, trusting her to wake up and care for it. How long did it lay there crying for its mother to wake?
I had given myself to one of the people who had done this. I hated myself, even when I couldn't hate him. A violent storm of confusion, conflict, and pain warred within me. I wanted to wipe all Kraw off my planet. For that woman. For my family. For that baby who died alone in its dead mother's arms.
“It was not my clan who did this, Sera,” Dal's whisper carried across the gore.
“But it was your people. How many villages have you ravaged like this, Dal? How many innocents have you snuffed out with your bare hands?” My voice shook, and I looked at Dal's strong hands. Hands that I loved.
Dal deflated, looking past me at the woman and her child. “I cannot offer you peace of mind. You know with what you lie. This is the Kraw way.”
I lost my temper, yelling into the emptiness of the still village as I raged at Dal. “What did that woman do to your people? Did she look threatening? Did that child deserve to die? Did yours?”
Dal's voice was soft when he spoke. “I will not answer for the crimes of my people any more than you will answer for the crimes of yours, for it was human deeds that brought Kraw here.”
I looked away as more tears slid down my cheeks. Dal had done these things in the past and he offered no apologies or lies. Because Dal was Kraw. My heart was ripping in two, pangs of agony stabbing me in the gut. My eyes stopped on one of the bodies with a skirt pushed up. A new agony tore at me.
“Have you inflicted that terror on someone, Dal?” I whispered.
Dal followed my gaze to the body, then took his time meeting my eyes again. My heart was breaking.
“You know what I am, Sera,” he whispered.
“That is a yes.” My vision blurred as more hot tears came, my chest threatening to collapse on itself with anguish.
Dal looked away, a long sigh coming out of his nose. “I was a young warrior long ago. I did all the things that young men do, ruled by an eagerness to prove myself as much as any other grunt. I cannot change the past, or the man that I was. I can only stand here before you, the man that I am now.”
I stared into the hazel eyes of my Kraw warrior, a cloud of regret darkening them. Guilt seeped into my thunderous conflict, roaring alongside confusion and anger. The thunder was too loud for me to think. I turned away from Dal, sniffing back another sob, palming away the wetness covering my face. I stomped past the gore and the dead vegetation, back toward Mindrik.
Dal did not follow.
Chapter 11
Surrender
“This is not something a lady should ever witness,” Mindrik said as I approached him. He was inside a chapel, robe sleeve pressed over his face, stepping between corpses when I entered. The smell must have been overwhelming, but crying had made my nose stuffy.
I stopped next to him to see what he was examining, and our eyes met. Pity stole into Mindrik's eyes when he saw my tear-streaked face, and he wrapped his arms around me in a hug.
“Dear Seraphine, they are no longer in pain. And so you should not be, either.”
More agony lay strewn before me, mostly women and children in here. I turned away from them, burying myself in Mindrik's shoulder, letting the tears come. Somewhere in the periphery of my awareness, arms came around me, and a shushing sound was brushing through my hair.
Did my family look like this after the Kraw had left? Are their bodies still rotting in Lambston, the river fouled with their decay, the chapel toxic with the stink of their death? Sobs racked me harder, and my cry echoed through the tall ceilings.
“Come.” Mindrik led me out of the tiny chapel, into the open air, crisp with dew and char and decay.
After a time, my inner storm had calmed into a placid overcast. I couldn't summon another tear even if I wanted, for my tumultuous sky of thundering emotions was bone dry.
I palmed away lingering wetness on my cheeks. “Thank you, Mindrik.” I glanced at him to see his head tilted, eyes looking at me as if really seeing me. The way Dal does.
“You have not faced their deaths in all this time,” Mindrik said.
I took a shuddering sigh and looked at my hands. “My sister was cut down in the fields behind the village. My mother and father were herding people into the warehouse because it had the strongest doors. In the blink of an eye my world went from
a easy sureness to violent chaos.” I looked up at Mindrik, and he continued to watch me. “I saw things no one should see. So much death. And many ways to make a person wish for death.” I finished on a whisper.
“And you did not die.”
“No. I got separated in the confusion. I hid in the tall grass behind the butcher's shop, witnessing the most terrifying things. I never knew how they found me, or what happened to my family, or why they kept me alive. Now I know they found me because they can see Gifted differently. There was no place I could have hidden.”
Mindrik gave me a small smile and wrapped an arm around me. He gave his other hand a twirl, making it flow and dance, and a web of water formed in front of me, brushing my cheeks, cleaning away any dirt and tears that may have been clinging. I let him.
“Seraphine, you are far too pretty to be crying like this. Come, we shall find you a stunning dress and some food.” He stood before me.
I sniffled half a laugh. “All of the food is rotten now, Mindrik, and I can't bear to steal from people who have already had so much taken.”
Mindrik stood. “Nonsense, the dead have no logical use for clothing, and some foods are meant to be left for a time. Come.” He stretched a hand to me.
I looked from Mindrik's slender hand to his eyes, which danced with promise. I put my hand in his and rose.
He led the way toward the closest building, picking an easy path around the gore. I glanced about, looking for Dal, and he was nowhere to be seen. My heart pounded as I wondered if he had left us after my outburst. After my horrible, accusing words and the way I turned my back on him.
I tried to focus on the man leading me into the building; tried not to panic at the idea that I may very well be in his care now instead of my strong guardian. When we entered the small home, the smell of decay was prevalent here, too. But this was from a last meal left on the table, not from dead humans.
“All of that gore out there doesn't bother you?” I asked Mindrik as we poked around the belongings of the deceased.
“Of course it does, but this is not the first time I have seen cadavers. The university would have some donated for study, and often I would see those whose gifts involved the human body practicing their craft on the deceased. It was study, nothing more. This is... not nearly as clean.” Mindrik took a moment to stick his head into a cupboard. “But, it is still death.”
