29. RIEKA
29
RIEKA
“ Y ou have forty-eight hours,” Rhydian said as he snapped a small magnetic disk onto the inside of my collar.
We stood by the roller doors in The Caboose of the train. The Abattoir was the carriage where any animal that the Runners hunted, any animal that the Kensillan supply had delivered were taken to be slaughtered. I’d avoided it on account of the smell. The Brute part of me wanted to roll in it whilst the human part of me, the sane part of me was revolted by it. Those doors stood open to the world beyond, the train slowing just enough that we could feasibly jump from the train.
The device made a small mechanical chirp before going silent. Rhydian then proceeded to pull up the collar of my coat. The display of affection caused a fluttering in my chest I quickly cut myself off from, instead choosing to focus on the world outside the train, only to regret that decision too. The last time I’d left the train I’d been shot by an arrow and had to run for my life.
This is what you wanted Rieka. Attachment cannot form if he does not trust you. You cannot escape this place without that trust.
I took a deep breath to steady my nerves and found Rhydian’s scent. It instantly calmed me. Which only made me more nervous. My hatred towards my "husband" was now being fuelled by the fact I actually enjoyed his presence.
Rhydian urged me towards the gaping hole whilst every other passenger I knew to be a Runner waited behind me.
He said jump, so I did.
I expected to slam hard into the ground, but the impact felt rather like diving into the water of a creek. My momentum had been slowed somehow. When I stood, a woman with shoulder-length grey hair stood on the grass ahead of me, her hands outstretched before her.
With her, spread out at intervals along the tracks, waiting until the door passed before them, were others doing the same thing. They were all Pneumatics cushioning our falls by wielding the air. I watched as Rhydian jumped from the open doors, and then effortlessly float until his feet were firmly on the grass.
He’s done this before.
We were a group of twenty Runners, not including the twelve who were already waiting for us, amongst them the collarless strangers I’d seen frequent the train in the last few weeks. Rhydian and the other Runners were familiar with them. The woman who’d cushioned my fall walked straight over to Jordry, embracing him in a hug before running her hands over his face and kissing his cheek. The air around them smelled familial. I suspected she might be his mother since she embraced Jordry’s wife, Amida as well.
The woman then turned to Rhydian and much to my surprise, did the exact same thing to him. When they finally pulled out of the embrace, the woman sent a single glance my way before she spoke in Seja. Her gestures were directed at me.
“Are you sure about this?” she asked him.
I acted as though I didn’t understand, not sure I was quite ready to let that little secret go. I had been lucky that I understood the other root languages that made up Seja. It had taken me six months to learn Prean, and another two to learn Athusian and Lycoan when I’d lived in the Celestial Offices. And that I had done in secret as well. Kensillan was an easier language to learn, and with all the translated signs on the train, I had learned the basics in a week, so I could pick up conversational Kensillan. It also helped that I was inquisitive, the passengers seemed pleased to teach Seja to Rhydian’s "wife." To show I wanted to learn their culture had gone a long way in endearing myself to them after my initial arrival.
It was the gestures that had taken most of the last three weeks to decipher. I was not fluent, but it was enough to work out the messages the Runners were passing between one another when they did not want me to hear them.
“We have to take the risk,” Rhydian responded, the movement of his hands almost graceful.
He turned to me and introduced the woman as Filora, second in command of the Resistance and who was indeed Jordry’s mother. He then indicated to the path ahead. “This way. We have a long walk.”
For two hours through an empty valley, my senses told me Rhydian was leading us east. The dense woods would have been nearly impossible to navigate without prior knowledge. There were several wide paths hidden amongst the trees that we crossed, and we only stopped when we reached a large obscure object in a small clearing. It housed a pair of large steel doors and was wide enough that an Alatus could spread their wings to their full width with ease. It appeared to be made of stone, a protrusion of the earth.
Once everyone had gathered together, the grey-haired woman led us through the door, a few of her Runners and half of ours remaining behind.
I had not needed to let my eyes adjust to the darkness, one of the new Runners was a Bright. She channelled the luminos within her body down to her hands where they glowed an iridescent white and lit up the space. We were in a tunnel.
I estimated we had walked at least two miles in the dank and hollow space. An underground escape route perhaps. The Celestial archives said Kensilla had been full of them. It smelled old. Mixed in with the stale scent of oil and stone was blood. It tainted the air like powdered sugar, the residue of deaths long since passed filling me with an odd sense of relief.
Filora, who could not have been older than fifty, stopped by a door in the tunnel wall. “We’ll see you here tomorrow,” she said looking at Rhydian, her tone sedate as she pulled a chain out from around her neck. A large white rectangle hung from it. She swiped the item across a techscreen by the frame and the door immediately made a metallic click and swung open.
I followed Rhydian and the other Runners up a stairway until we reached a heavy steel door, and behind it was another stairwell, which lead to another steel door, that only myself seemed surprised to encounter. A clear indication my companions had travelled this way before. Finally, after ascending through four more, we passed though the one door that was coated in paint—a chipped ruby red with gold flecks in the center as though something had once been there but had faded with time. We emerged on the other side in a room with wallpaper quite similar to those which covered the train's walls, though they were better kept here. As Rhydian led our group across the room, I threw a glance over my shoulder just in time to see Eleen closing what looked like a timber panel, entirely concealing our exit within the wall of a giant dinning hall.
Tables and chairs were organised in circular rows, crystal glassware, fine porcelain crockery and silk table clothes adorning the surfaces. Bright-lights, their casings tinted yellow hung in stalactite formations from the ceiling, their glow refracting off the gold embroidery of the floor-to-ceiling twin tapestries that depicted the Kensillan Griffin as the symbol of The Core's power and might.
Rhydian set his ear against the large oak doors set between them. A minute later, indicating the coast was clear, he had the nine of us follow him out. The morning sun shone near white through the wall of glass to my right, the light forcing my eyes to hastily adjust from the dimness of the dining hall. The large timepiece against one of the walls indicated we were still only in the ninth hour of the day. Beside it was a large desk and behind it stood—
A man, dressed in a lilac suit with slicked back hair locked eyes with me and for the split second it took his gaze to travel over my face, I froze, my body preparing to attack should he move even an inch from his spot behind that desk. But he never called for help. The moment he found Rhydian, the tension in his features vanished. The man jerked his head to the right, and beside me, his body void of anything smelling remotely fearful, Rhydian nodded, acknowledging the man. The exchange caused my curiosity to get the better of me and I slowed my pace.
I recognised this place, or at least something like it. We didn’t have public accommodation in Deos. When one wanted to travel between provinces, papers were assigned. Households who could accommodate visitors would open their doors to anyone who required a roof over their head. Deogns believed it was against their civic duty to do otherwise.
I know I joked about it when Rhydian had called the death train The Lobby, but the truth was The Old Man’s Hearth had been the closest I’d ever come to a hotel.
But that’s what this place was. A hotel. The sign on the desk the man stood behind, written in Kensillan read “Reception.”
A firm hand grasped mine and upon looking at the owner, Rhydian’s ocean-blue eyes willed me forward. He pulled me across the entry room, and into an elevator which took us up to the top floor, the dial indicating level six. Upon exiting into a corridor, Eleen handed out four white rectangles similar to the one the woman used in the tunnel and we separated into groups. A dark-haired man took Jordry and the little blond Kindling Gala into one room. Eleen came with Rhydian and me, and Lera entered the third room with Mal and Wade, who’d recovered enough from his knockout to join us. Amida, Anika and Si’mon had all stayed behind at the tunnel.
The room we entered was not exactly beautiful. It was bright and finely dressed in fresh flowers and crystal vases with one wall entirely inlaid with mirrors. Rather, it was practical. It looked like my family’s apartment in the Borough, but instead of being spread on three floors vertically, everything was laid out horizontally. I could see a bedroom to the left, a private dining room to the right off an equally large kitchen.
The soft rumble of water running through pipes in the walls to the left told me there was a working bathroom in this place. A sitting room with a sofa that could easily serve as another bed filled the central space where a wide window occupied the majority of the far wall. I walked towards it to look out but halted when Eleen rushed over and closed the drapes.
With the door now shut, Rhydian finally saw fit to fill me in on what we were doing here, and where here even was.
As I processed his words, I had to pinch my legs several times to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. Not that dreaming was even preferable given the circumstances.
We were still in Kensilla, but we were now in one of their rural towns about seven miles from the tracks of the rail. A place Rhydian called Old King’s Town. My job was to go with Eleen into this town, and purchase supplies for a party that was being hosted in the room we arrived in.
The hotel was far enough from the centre of town that we would give off the impression to the locals that we wanted to maintain our privacy. This would allow us the secrecy to leave back through the tunnel with said supplies and be back on the train before the device on my neck died and told the Kensillan government I was no longer on the train, resulting in my immediate and electrifying death.
It was only possible for me to be here on account of the little magnetic device on my collar. And it had an expiration date.
I tried to memorise the rules as Eleen told them to me whilst she attempted to tame my hair into the fashion of the slave—the Thralls of Kensilla. A long ponytail tied at the base of my neck, her own rich brown already fastened in the same manner. And not a hair permitted to be out of place.
“Don’t look anyone in the eye. They won’t expect you to. If anyone with a gold pin speaks to you, keep your eyes on the ground. Those are the Naven. They are the highest-ranked members of Kensillan society and they will expect you as a Thrall to be obedient. If they ask something of you, do it. Unless they ask you to directly disobey your own Naven’s commands. Then by law, you can reject their request. We’ll only be making contact with the Nomen in the community. They wear the green pins.”
I swallowed trying to process her words. “Can I look them in the eye?”
Eleen put my chin between her forefinger and her thumb, raising my head to look into her eyes. “Not unless they ask you to.”
With her water satchel swinging where it was fastened on her hip, I watched as Eleen fetched the tan-coloured dress from the large four-poster bed. The one that was identical to the one she already wore. “If they do,” she added, “they risk being charged with Contemplation of Theft. And most Nomen are too desperate to become Naven to risk that blemish on their records anyway.”
Eleen pulled the bland outfit over my head, the straight rectangular dress covering the undergarments she’d already had me wear after showering. “Naven would never let an unclean Thrall go out in public. It would ruin their reputation,” had been her reasoning.
She had me slide on a pair of tan shoes. Once I had, I walked over to the floor length mirror. I’d seen myself regularly in the mirrors in the communal sleeper washrooms, but it had been such a long time since I’d seen my entire reflection. I’d changed so much.
I knew I wasn’t eating enough, though many passengers were not at present, so the thinning of my face I had expected. It was the toning of my body I had not. The way my muscles had started to show under the skin of my forearms and down my calves, like my body was becoming something that resembled the men my father trained. If it wasn’t for my hair, I’d have said it was a different woman staring back at me through the mirror.
“Why are some Thralls bald?” I asked Eleen through the reflection as she scribbled on a piece of paper.
“Those Thralls are usually owned by charter companies. Thralls are really expensive,” she noted almost apologetically. “A single one can raise a Nomen to Naven rank. Charter companies allow regular citizens like the Nomen to use Thralls at a tenth of the cost it is to purchase one.”
I wasn’t delighted by the fact that not only did these people purchase slaves like a new wardrobe, but they rented them out for cheap labour. I should just be grateful Eleen didn’t ask how I knew about the bald trait. I wasn’t particularly inclined to recount that piece of my recent past.
I turned in the reflection, noting just how long my hair had gotten in recent months, the white locks falling in one long wave to my lower back when movement in the mirror drew my eye.
A figure dressed in red stepped out of the bathroom behind me. Straight-leg trousers, a charcoal waistcoat with gold inlaid stitching around the waist to match the gold embellished tie. A scarlet evening jacket that hung to his thighs with dark crimson lapels, fastened across his chest by a gold chain. The blond hair that he usually tied back in a half bun, fastened by that silver hairpin was tussled back and hung lose about his shoulders, the thick locks combed back off his face which, much to my surprise, was clean-shaven.
He was beautiful. The kind of beautiful that the gods would have favoured if it weren’t for that devious look in his eyes. More wolf than hunter if I dared to admit.
Somehow, having detected my attraction to his current state, the first words out of his cocky mouth were, “Forgot I was pretty didn’t you.”
“Can you two please save it for home?” Eleen commented from the back of the room. Sometimes it was easy to forget that that prison really was home to these people.
Removing the scowl from my face I returned to admiring his appearance. For mission-related purposes of course.
A golden griffin in flight, no longer than my thumb and no bigger than a coin was pinned over his right breast. Grasped in its claws was a large ring from which hung two smaller rings, each one a representation of how many Thralls one owned.
“My Naven I presume.”
Rhydian gave me the smallest of nods before his own gaze surveyed my figure. He quickly closed the distance between us when he noticed something on my collar. A thread. He snapped it off with a quick yank, his fingers touching my neck for no more than a few seconds, but it was enough to make the skin on my arms tingle.
I snapped my eyes away, choosing to look at the Worship Marks on my wrists instead. Once I had found the sight welcoming, calling on the one it represented to give me strength in times of need. Even now, so far from that place, the desire still lingered. Wearing gloves meant I did not have to see them, didn’t have to inform to where I’d come from. Having them uncovered, for all the world to see, I felt more naked than when I’d undressed after the Hunt.
Which reminds me. I sent word to Rhydian silently. “You still owe me a tub. Eight nights Rhydian.”
The dimple in his cheek finally made its long-awaited entrance. And it was not a disappointment. “I’m working on it.”
A knock on the door sent the room into startled silence. A triple knock followed. Rhydian approached, leaning close to the door. “If the gods knew?” he spoke in Seja.
From the other side of the door, I recognised Lera’s voice. “We’d be dead.”
Considering the relief that flooded his features, the response had been the desired one.
Rhydian opened the door; however, it was not Lera, with her perpetually bored expression who stood in the corridor. It was a young woman I’d never seen before, her dark hair in two singular waves that rested on her shoulders, her long limbs adorned in an emerald green dress, the material very similar to the one worn by Rhydian.
“Naven,” he greeted her.
“Naven,” she replied in Lera’s nonchalant voice.
It took me a moment to realise what I was seeing. The woman with Lera’s voice entered the room accompanied by two burly men in grey garments, as plain as the tan smock I wore. The one closest to me, with the ginger hair, spoke when we made eye contact.
“She looks like she’s having a stroke, didn’t anyone tell her?” He had Wade’s voice.
Rhydian took a step forward, casually placing a hand in his coat pocket as he answered. “I was just getting to that.”
But he needn’t have bothered. I understood. Lera was the Skin Weaver Rhydian had spoken of. A Fabricant Spindle capable of reworking skin. That was how they had gotten away with this type of work for so long. That was why Kensilla had no idea the Runners were bringing supplies back onto the train.
They were changing their faces.