Ravenous (Taint of the Gods #1)

25. RIEKA

25

RIEKA

T wo of my ribs were broken. It hurt when I breathed. Everyone now thought I was a runaway Celestial Guard. All in all, if that’s what this fight resulted in, then I could live with that.

Eleen grunted in pain from the bed beside me. Sal, the train’s Organic released her shoulder, having finally popped it back into the socket, and moved to hover her hands over the skin to repair any muscle damage I had caused.

I knew how Organics worked, knew how they could see into your body, locate the damage, and cause your body to do as they told it. I shut my eyes to the sight, willing the shiver that fell over my skin to dissipate.

Fear for a Brute was a terrifying aphrodisiac. And the amount I had smelled coming from Rhydian right before the fight was enough to make any ordinary Brute resort to their hunting instinct. I half expected him to try to stop the fight. But he’d done nothing. He’d just watched the fight. Even now, standing in the entry to MedCom , I could feel the heat of Rhydian’s eyes as he watched me, his gaze a shadow hanging over my head.

There was a mumble to my right and I realised Eleen had tried to speak but couldn’t. I’d broken her jaw.

When Sal attempted to touch her face, Eleen flinched in pain causing the Organic to huff in frustration. “Stop moving Eleen, or this will only take longer.”

The Organic effortlessly moved around the Current’s bed, towards Eleen’s head. Her position entirely obstructed my view, but when she finally stepped away after a few minutes, Eleen’s jaw, which had been drooping and lopsided, was straight once more. No indication my foot had ever made contact with it.

As Eleen stretched it a few times, fingers tentatively touching the sensitive areas, the Organic’s hands moved to tend to the rest of her face. Which looked somewhat like she had had an allergic reaction to something.

In all likelihood, I was in a similar state.

Lera, the female of the twins I’d seen in The Bathhouse and one of Rhydian’s Runners, approached my bed. “As per the rules. Eleen submitted. By rights, this now belongs to you. I will now hand over the item to the new owner, do you accept?” She looked over to Eleen who, after a pause, her eyes flicking to me, nodded in agreement.

“You must say the words,” Lera said to her friend.

Eleen rolled her eyes. “Yes, I accept.”

Lera handed me the leather smoking pouch and the tightness in my chest that had arrived in The Market carriage finally vanished. She left without another word and joined Rhydian by the door.

I took a deep breath and opened the clasp. Tiny’s fur was still inside. Relief washed over me in waves. I’d done it. I’d fought and reclaimed what was mine. And no one had died because of it.

“I was wrong about you,” Eleen said as the Organic finally stepped away, her face once again back to that alabaster complexion.

I held the pouch close to my chest as I lay back in the bed. “I don’t really care what you think.”

She ignored my response and addressed me again. “Do you know why I took that thing?”

“I suppose you’re going to tell me?” I rolled my head to look at her. Eleen was sitting up on the bed, being handed something by the Organic.

“Drink it.”

Eleen downed the green liquid with a grimace before returning her focus to me. “Because the woman who marries Rhydian will become a leader here. And you looked anything but that. I’m glad I was wrong.”

I painfully adjusted myself on the mattress. Eleen evidently wasn’t one to beat around the bush, nor was she inclined to keep these thoughts to herself even with someone present. The Organic had moved over to my bed and had begun her work on my own injuries, raising my arm above my head to gain access to my ribs.

“Am I supposed to take that as a compliment?” The muscle below the Organic’s hands tingled. I tried to concentrate on Eleen instead of the instinct to push the healer away.

Eleen’s shrugged. “I don’t care how you take it. Just know that that is how people see you—Will see you, so long as you live on this train. Rhydian is Kosha’s successor on the council. He will have the most powerful voice when he takes that position. I couldn’t live with myself if I let him become a leader with an ill-equipped wife.”

That was how she justified taking the pouch? How audacious of her to think that Bloodhound needed her help with anything. But perhaps—I’d seen the way she was around Rhydian. It was love, it smelled like it, but sexual desire smelled different to familial care—and romantic love. I hadn’t smelled it at all.

She’d done all this out of concern if I was a good match for him? I scoffed at her answer. “This was a test?” I felt the slightest itch over my healed rib as the Organic moved to my second.

Eleen laughed at me. “Of course it was. You thought I was jealous of the two of you? Rieka, Rhydian is like a brother to me, I’d sooner punch him for being a dick than ever kiss him.”

Her inner voice was more enlightening. “Rhydian can chastise me all he wants. If he can send the love of my life on a loyalty-testing mission because he thinks me incapable of choosing a good man, I can challenge your worthiness as his wife. ”

I yelped, the slightest rumble rising from my throat as I felt my ribs pop. “Sorry,” Sal said, withdrawing her fingers from their brief contact with my skin. “I had to snap the pieces back into place.”

I simply hummed in understanding as those fingers started hovering over the rib, the tingling sensation returning once more.

Focused on the sensation of my nails pressing into my palm, I made a much more sensible suggestion to Eleen. “You know you could have just talked to me.”

The corners of her mouth perked up. “Where would have been the fun in that?” She stood to leave but was stopped abruptly by Sal, a hand pointing to a second vial on the table beside Eleen. “You know the drill. Two tonics, five minutes apart. You’ve still got four minutes left.”

The Current slumped back onto the bed, eyeing the vial with disdain.

When the Organic had finished tending to the rest of my injuries several minutes later, I was presented with a tonic of my own.

“What is it?” I asked her, memories of ingesting a similarly unknown concoction making me overly cautious.

“A mixture of botanicals to help maintain the healing process,” was Sal’s answer.

“You didn’t mend me completely?”

I’d never met a blind person before. They simply didn’t exist in Deos. Organics in the capital volunteered to mend any ailment one had as their civic duty. So long as those ailments fell within certain guidelines of Celestisum. And anyone I’d encountered since leaving—well, the black market was a profitable place for an Organic willing to perform cellshaping. Mending blindness couldn’t have been more complicated than mending bone. Surely someone could have tended to her before now?

“I’ve returned your more immediate injuries to their former states,” Sal declared, her voice feathery. “The two broken ribs, the hairline fracture on your cheekbone, and the fracture to your big toe.”

That explained why she had hovered a hand over my foot a few minutes ago. She then added, “The tonics will do the rest. The body doesn’t react kindly to too much mending at once.”

That I knew all too well.

She instructed me to drink it and then consume the other vial five minutes later.

I gulped it down in one go. Frankly, I’d had worse.

With no other option but to wait, I returned my attention to Rhydian who no longer stood alone in the MedCom doorway.

A tall man, broad-shouldered, with red hair and beard, stood conversing with him. He was not one of the collarless I’d seen in The Bathhouse , nor The Fight Hall . I was just determining if I recognised his scent—peaches and parchment—when he turned his head, his gaze roaming over to the Organic.

It was the Pneumatic from my first night abroad. The one who had walked into the sleeper and crushed Bennic’s chest. Just standing there, chatting away with Rhydian and Lera, like they knew one another.

“Who is that with Rhydian?” I asked Eleen, keeping my voice curious and not rumbling with the anger I felt.

Eleen followed my gaze. “I see you’re still hung up on what he did to your former bunkmate.”

My head snapped around to the Current, her expression securitizing me. “Wouldn’t you if you were in my situation and no one gave you an explanation?”

Eleen shrugged. “Fair enough. Wade, he’s a Runner like Rhydian.”

“ He’s a Runner?”

Eleen indicated to the collar around her neck at my questioning. Wade was indeed collarless, but hadn’t he killed Bennic to take it from him? Was that not the custom in this prison?

“Since we were eighteen. The council won’t let you go on a supply run until that age. You won’t find anyone more loyal to your husband than Wade.” She made sure to emphasise that last part.

“That doesn’t endear him to me,” I assured her.

“I wasn’t trying to.” She shifted on the bed, the springs in the mattress creaking under her weight. “You barely knew the guy he took the collar from.”

I cut her off. “Killed. Wade killed Bennic for his collar.” I returned my focus to the murderer. “He isn’t even wearing it, why go to all that trouble and not even wear it.”

“Would you give up your bodily autonomy so easily?”

Her question was not one I could answer aloud. Ever.

She took the second vial from the table and downed it. Wiping her lips with the back of her hand, she added, “When you’ve lived your whole life confined to this place, those collars look like freedom. No one has the words to explain what that freedom costs.”

My eyes fell to the collar around her neck, the chaffing scars where the metal rested on her skin. Part of me was curious why she never asked Sal to mend them, but not curious enough to ask. “You were born on the train?” I’d assumed she was like me, forced to be here.

“As soon as I turned sixteen, I claimed one. It was the only way I was allowed to kill the Hunters who killed my mother.”

Her expression, the sadness her eyes held was not that of one who was pleased with their choice.

“Do you regret it?”

“Killing the Hunters? No. I’m not a patient person as you can tell, and Currents—we tend to have tempest tempers. But had I waited two more years, I would have chosen to become a Runner and I would have likely achieved the same goal.”

I mulled over what she’d said, the details she’d divulged, the past she’d admitted about herself, the weakness she’d revealed. This woman was trusting me with these truths. Why?

Concluding she couldn’t say much else to me, Eleen finally stood from the cot to leave. However, she stopped upon reaching the foot of my bed. “If you’re thinking about retribution for your dead friend, I wouldn’t bother.” She glanced over her shoulder at her friends, at Bennic’s murderer. “The council is already deliberating his punishment.”

“I thought Runners were allowed to claim collars?” I indicated to the one around her neck.

Eleen shook her head. “Regular passengers yes. Any collarless passenger over the age of sixteen who chooses to stay aboard the train can attempt to claim a collar. Like I did. But a Runner—To this day, the one-hundred-and-thirty that are still alive on the train have sworn an oath to the council to never claim one. Their duty is to the preservation of life.”

I stared over at the tall redhead who looked so unlike the violent man from that night and spoke my realisation aloud. “And Wade broke that vow.”

2000 passengers. Over 500 collarless. 200 of them children. And only 130 who have sworn to protect…everyone.

“You said their duty , are you not a Runner too?” I asked, realising that of all the Runners I had met, she was the only one in a collar.

Eleen smiled cockily. “I didn’t give them a choice.”

Unable to reconcile the man who had sworn to protect life and the one who crushed a man to death with the air, I found myself asking, “Do you know why he did it?”

“Yes” was what she said aloud. But the voice in her head responded with more force. “Stay out of my head, T'eiryash.”