“Say it,” he commanded.
Her instincts spiked in alarm. Why the Heir had any interest in her at all was beyond her comprehension, but she was at his mercy. “I promise not to tell anyone you gave me your blood. That is what you’re talking about, right?” She couldn’t quite quash the urge to be cheeky. “Satisfied?”
His mouth quirked up in a smile. “Yes.” He stood, seeming impossibly tall as he loomed over her. “You are under my protection, and I keep my promises. Nagavi!”
The man was inside before the Heir finished calling him.
“Collect her tomorrow. I want her with the others as soon as possible.” Without a further look, he strode out.
“You’ve forgotten my name, but from here on, remember it.” Nagavi leaned over and chucked her cheek as if she were a cute child, and his sharp gaze softened. “Your mind’s your own tonight, and I’ll come for you in the morning. In the meantime, enjoy the respite." He released her restraints and left.
After his footsteps faded, she attempted to sit up. Waiting until the dizzy spell passed, she walked on shaking legs over to the door, sighing with resignation as her suspicions were confirmed—it wasn’t keyed to her palm print, and she couldn’t open it from the inside.
By the time Nagavi returned in the morning, marching in without the politeness of a warning knock, she’d eaten several meals and felt normal. The soreness at the base of her skull had also eased. She’d explored the area, her fingers finding a tiny hard lump, but then more food had arrived and she’d eaten and fallen asleep again.
“Here,” he handed her a pale gray uniform and a pair of boots, “I’m counting to twenty, then I’m back in.” He walked out, leaving her to dress.
Kia had learned enough in the mines to obey without thinking when an order was given, and she pulled the uniform on and stuck her feet into the boots. She liked the boots—they were a perfect fit and lined with a soft fabric, and the uniform was the same style, if not the same color, as Nagavi’s. She didn't understand what was happening, but was certain she’d find out soon enough.
Nagavi re-entered the room, “Do you remember what I said to you in Sestris?”
Kia shook her head.
“When I took this,” he pulled her medallion out of his pocket and swung it back and forth in front of her face. “I told you I’d see you again before the year was out. I also said I looked forward to training you.”
She sucked on her lower lip and kept her hands by her sides though she was aware he wanted her to reach for it. He was a professional soldier who appeared to be on close terms with the heir to the throne. He was out of her league, and she refused to give him a demonstration of his superiority by attempting to take back what was rightfully hers.
“Good girl. You’ll get this back when Lord Rial says you’re ready.”
“Who?”
“What ignorant backwater planet do you come from?” He seemed amused at her lack of knowledge. “Lord Rialoir, Lord Rial to his elite guards, the emperor’s son, and the rightful heir to the throne.”
Of course the Heir possessed a name, but other than growing up with disturbing tales of what happened after the empire turned up on your doorstep and a vague fear of invasion in the distant future, she’d not learned much about the empire’s power structure. Her life had been full of family, friends, affection, and love.
“How are you? Any aches, pains?”
“I’m enjoying the change from swinging a pickax if that’s what you mean?”
Nagavi sighed. “Okay, did you have any kind of centering exercise before you fought your competitors?”
“What?”
Nagavi pursed his lips. “I didn’t have you pegged for an idiot. You fought in srilao competitions, didn’t you?” He overlaid the word competition with an extra sneer. “You haven’t fought in any real battles have you?”
Kia caught her sudden flush of anger and pushed it back into its box.
“Close your eyes and take stock of how you feel, your muscles, your awareness. Stand with your feet apart, don’t hurry, and do it thoroughly.”
The practice of focusing before a fight was second nature to Kia, and even though she couldn’t recall the last occasion she’d done this exercise, in a twinkling she had withdrawn her external awareness, calmed her wayward thoughts, and concentrated on the in and out of her breathing.
“Your heart.”
Nagavi’s voice sounded far away. Her heartbeat was a deep drum, strong and slow. She couldn’t recall its rhythm being this robust.
“Extend your perceptions throughout your body, find any area that seems out of synch with the rest.”
Apart from the tender area at the back of her head, her lungs, arms, legs, all hummed in harmony.
She opened her eyes, returning her awareness to her surroundings. Her senses were heightened in a manner she’d not experienced before. She felt exceptionally good. Whatever restorative treatments they’d administered had worked wonders.
“When you practice, our instructors start their lessons with the word, ‘Check’, and that is how you’ll do it.”
“Thank you.” It was the least she could offer.
“Don’t thank me yet. This next is a necessary test in order that you fully comprehend your situation here.”
“Where am I? What situation?”
“Got a lot of questions, don’t you? Anyone taken captive during the annexation of Emankora, which, by the way, has acknowledged the emperor as its overlord, is a slave and the empire’s property. In particular, you are the personal property of Lord Rialoir.”
Kia said nothing. What could she say? What had she expected? That by some miracle she was free, and they were about to send her back to Sestris? This man was an expert in building up resolve and knocking it down when he saw it worked to his advantage. She gathered her memories of those she’d loved into a tiny tight ball and resolved that somehow or other, she would avenge their deaths. She didn’t know how or when, but she would find a means.
“Have you seen one of these before?”
She studied the black shiny device in his palm. “No.”
“You want to make a guess?”
She curbed her impatience with his game playing. “I’m confident you’re about to tell me.”
“I want you to think of Lord Rial. Create an image, think of how he looked yesterday, what he wore, and what he said.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“Do it.”
Kia obeyed and had no difficulty calling up his almost too perfect features, the brown-gold hair, golden skin, the grim smile, the way he stood, tall, broad-shouldered, emanating power, and dominating everyone around him.
“Picture a weapon, a knife, or a phaserifle in your hand.”
She opened one eye.
“Do it.”
She imagined she was holding her favorite sword. The black hilt sitting easy and familiar in her hand, the weight of the curved blade perfectly balanced as she moved it through a few preparatory warmup exercises.
“Next, imagine attacking the Heir with your weapon.”
This was easy, and she didn’t need to ask any questions. In her mind she raised the sword, lifted it high—and doubled over, screaming as red-hot wires lanced through her brain and down her spine.
Nagavi lifted her up off the floor and dumped her on the bed.
She lay, curled up in a ball, weak and shaking, waiting for the pain to recede. “Bastard.”
“Oh, you’ll be calling me much worse by the time I’m finished with you. All trainees have that device implanted as a protective measure for his heir by order of the emperor himself. He values his son, and there are no lengths he will not go to protect him.” He yanked her to her feet, “C’mon, enough playing. Let’s go and lose the attitude.” Keeping a firm grip on her arm, Nagavi marched her out of the room.
Still experiencing tiny flickers of pain from the device, and with each corridor looking much like the next, Kia soon lost her bearings. She wanted to ask
how they had rescued his most high and mighty Lord Rialoir from underneath the tons of rock that must have fallen on top of them after the cave-in, but didn’t have the nerve to ask. Was the collapse a natural occurrence or had the resistance struck, hoping to inflict a formidable blow? Had the entire asteroid been destroyed, or was the cavern where they’d been standing the extent of the disaster? How many miners had died? Rehanya? Another name to add to her 'so sad and so sorry, but they're dead and gone' list.
But if she dwelt on the disaster on Jahanamu, her attention would return to the Heir and what had taken place between them. Awareness of what had occurred in the mines returned last night as she drifted off to sleep. He’d given her his blood because that was the one certain method to prevent the force field from crushing her to death as it endeavored to fulfill its purpose. Afterward, she presumed the force field had recognized the nanobots in her blood and stopped its inexorable squeeze. Although why he’d bothered was an enigma. It surely wasn’t because he hadn’t wanted to wait for his rescue with the bloody remnants of her body hovering outside his protective bubble. The other mystery niggling away and disturbing her was his reference to keeping a promise. What promise? To who? “Where are we?”
“We are on Xarunta, the emperor’s home planet, and the center of the Nadil-Kuradi Empire.”
She was stunned. How long had she been unconscious? How far were they from Jahanamu?
“And we are in Lord Rial’s enclave that includes vast forests, mountains, his palace, gardens, farms, the barracks, and this hospital.”
They exited through a side door and Kia would have stopped and gawked if Nagavi hadn’t kept dragging her along with him.
Outside the single-storied hospital building, tree-lined lush green lawns bordered paths leading to several buildings. Some appeared functional, like the hospital, but others were more ostentatious, both in size and in ornamentation. To Kia, born and bred in a town close to a desert, the richness of the colors, where every plant bore leaves of a different shade of green, took her breath away.
“Close your mouth, girl, or you’ll be catching chivins,” Nagavi remarked, his eyes twinkling at her expression. “And before you say anything, chivins are small flying insects. Don’t worry, you’ll get used to this. Although our boss spends as much time on his flagship attending to his father’s business as he does here.”
As they passed under a tree, covered in fat pink flowers, a flock of diminutive birds rose into the air, squawking, their iridescent wings glistening in the sunlight as they flapped and gained height.
Kia thought they were beautiful and her gaze followed them as they swooped over the gardens and disappeared. They reminded her of the flocks of multi-colored shuvuus that congregated in Sestris’s central square in the evenings. She gulped down a lungful of air as the realization sank in that the price for one man to enjoy all this beauty was paid for by the death or slavery of thousands of others. Anything Lord Rial and Nagavi had planned for her would not be easy, and she’d keep one eye open for a route out of here. She would have to develop a little patience. A chance would come, of that she had no doubt.
Nagavi stopped outside a two-storied red building. “This is your home from today on, and you do not leave the barracks or the training grounds unless I give you permission. Do you understand, Kia O’Afon?”
Something in his tone sent a shiver of warning over her skin. She wanted to shout and yell at him, tell him, yes, she understood she had no say in what happened to her, and that he, the empire and Lord Rial, could do anything they wanted to her, but she clenched her jaw and remained silent.
“Otherwise you’ll be punished, and as you have experienced, we have ways of making you wish you’d complied with our demands.”
She nodded, examining the building, and wondering if the Chenjerai lived here.
“What was that?” Nagavi shook her.
“What was what?” She stared at him in confusion.
“When your commanding officer gives you an order, you stand up straight, do not look him in the eye, and the correct response is ‘Yes, Commander.’ Is that clear?”
As if in response, her nerve endings twitched, reminding her of the recent pain he’d inflicted. She straightened, fixed on Nagavi’s chin—noting he had a slight cleft—and answered with a firm, “Yes, Commander.” Commanding officer? What in the name of the Goddess was going on?
“Okay, let’s introduce you to your fellow candidates.”
Chapter Six: A Candidate
Fellow candidates? Candidates for what? She shook her head. She supposed she’d find out when Nagavi deigned to inform her.
They entered the building, and she trotted behind him taking in her new surroundings.
The polished wooden-floored corridor was wide, and the full-length windows flooded the space with bright sunshine. After several turns, Nagavi rapped on a door, shot her an amused expression, and walked into the room.
The idea of running flashed through her mind but fled as swiftly as it came. Where could she go on a planet she didn’t know—a planet that was the emperor’s seat. Nagavi would catch her and administer punishment before she made it to the end of the corridor. She traipsed after the senior officer.
The room was a generously proportioned gymnasium with ceiling height windows offering a pleasant view of a manicured lawn bordered by flowering bushes. Half a dozen men and women were lifting heavy weights. On the far side of the hall, she could see others engaged in sword fighting and hand-to-hand combat. Her spirits lifted a fraction. A gym was a familiar environment. Most of the occupants appeared to be around her age or older, and a couple looked to be Nagavi’s age, but they all stood to attention as they registered their senior officer’s presence.
All at once, everyone’s gaze shifted to the gardens, where a tall blond man strode into view, trailed by a second shorter dark-haired man. The glass must be soundproof as she couldn’t hear a word even though the blond had turned around and, judging by their expressions and gestures, a heated argument between the two was in full flow.
“Annen,” Nagavi said.
An older grim-faced man crossed the room, knocked on the glass, and beckoned the two adversaries inside.
The pair stared at him but broke off their argument.
Nagavi waited until the two men were inside the gym before making his announcement. “This is Kia O’Afon, the final candidate.”
Kia did her best to appear nonchalant and confident while inside she curled up into a tiny ball and wished she could disappear.
“Training will begin this afternoon,” Nagavi continued, “UmnaCheydii, Kia’s in your charge, show her around and get her settled. I’ll see you all at lunch.” He spun on his heel and left, the chorus of promptly barked, “Yes, Commander” following him out of the room.
The group returned to whatever they were doing but as they did, every single person threw a glance her way, sizing her up. Of the two who’d arrived late, the darker man ignored her, and the detailed scrutiny the other gave, his eyes raking her from head to toe, nearly made her blush. The submissive stance displayed in Nagavi’s presence disappeared, and they took no pains to disguise their disdainful hostility as they dismissed her chances of beating them at anything.
Annen dressed down the couple who’d been arguing outside.
Kia watched and didn’t envy them having to explain their behavior to him. She turned as UmnaCheydii approached.
“As you can tell, Annen supervises the males, and I’m in charge of the females, and call me Cheydii. Nobody but Commander Nagavi uses my full name.” Cheydii led her out of the gymnasium to the main corridor running the length of the building and up a flight of stairs. “Tell me, Kia, do you think you’ve got what it takes to qualify as one of Lord Rial’s Chenjerai?”
Kia’s mind went blank as she processed Cheydii’s words. “I have no idea what I’m doing here. I didn’t apply or pass any kind of test unless surviving a cave-in on a mining asteroid counts for something.” She hadn’t b
een told not to discuss the accident although nobody else passed that unique test. “The Heir and Nagavi brought me here.”
“Ah, you’re that slave.”
Kia looked away. How many others had Nagavi told who she was and where she’d come from?
The woman paused, a hint of sympathy in her expression. “Life is what it is, and somehow, you’ve ended up here. I was a mercenary many years ago on Najlos—you won't have heard of it, it’s near the central hub star system—when Nagavi saved me by pulling me out of the slave factories. I would have died a long time ago if not for him. Forget your past, Kia. Our job is to protect Lord Rial, and in return he protects us. Give your allegiance to him, and you’ll have a better life than merely trying to survive.”
Give my allegiance and my life to protecting the murderer of my family? Become one of his elite guards? The implant fired a warning. She stuffed the thought back into its box before she revealed her true feelings about the heir and collapsed in agony on the floor in front of this stranger.
“Oh, and don’t call him the Heir. We call him Lord Rial, and it’s Commander Nagavi. Here's the dormitory.”
Kia entered a long room with spotless dark polished wood floors and a row of single beds against the walls on either side. “Everyone sleeps in the same room?”
Cheydii chortled. “Ah, Emankora has that type of culture, does it? You’ll get used to it. The Chenjerai are a unique unit without differentiation of race or gender. The applicants come from different planets, although the majority have been under the empire’s rule for a lengthy period, and there are always a few like yourself from recently annexed worlds. I will tell you that many come from aristocratic families whose members have served in the unit in the past, accordingly watch out because they don’t like incomers. However, if you’re chosen, all differences fade and you become part of a team that works together as a unit. Our duty and loyalty are to Lord Rial.”
Kia studied the beds in great detail, to stave off a reaction to Cheydii’s words. She noted the spotless white covering sheets and lack of pillows. The accommodation was clean and adequate but not luxurious.
Stars & Ashes Page 5
