30. RIEKA
30
RIEKA
T he vehicle that picked us up from the hotel was split in two. Rhydian, Lera and the dark-haired man who had been introduced to me as Costin were seated in a private front compartment, whilst myself, Eleen and the rest of the Runners were required to sit in the back, in a sealed compartment half the size for twice the number.
The driver, a Nomen who I’d quickly come to realise was not associated with us as the Receptionist was, drove us from the hotel to the town centre. The town I saw through the narrow windows of the car was vastly different to anything I’d seen before. Two-story brick buildings in single rows on either side of a wide road, glass-fronted buildings with trade items on display in the windows. Tan and grey attired individuals walked in small lines behind lavishly dressed shoppers, pulled along as though by some invisible leash. Each one, a collar around their neck.
I’d questioned that fact when I’d seen the one around Wade’s own neck, silently curious if he’d decided to bear the burden of the one he’d claimed from Bennic. He hadn’t. He would be remaining behind with Filora’s people after the supply run.
As it turned out, mine and Eleen’s were the only live collars. Until this morning, every Runner except Eleen was collarless. Now four of them wore collars. But due to my inability to leave things alone, I soon had Eleen divulging to me that those collars were inert. Whilst most collars could only be removed from the bodies of the deceased and then made inert, the item becoming nothing more than a necklace, it was impossible to remove the collars from a living person. Without a code. The issue then came from the fact there was not one single code to release all the collars. So it was very likely that the train’s collars also had a code. And no one had obtained it in centuries, or why else would the rail still exist?
As I ran my finger between my collar and my skin to allow some relief from the metal that had begun its task of branding me, I let the outside view distract me. Or at least I tried to let it.
Gala, one of the Kindling Runners, was the only person in the vehicle who seemed even remotely as interested in the world outside as I was. Her face was so close to the glass I could see her breath against it.
I was conflicted though. On the one hand, this new place had me curious. I’d only ever seen Deos and The Hetra and had always craved to see other parts of the world. On the other hand, I had to keep reminding myself that the strange woman in the window’s reflection was me.
Lera had changed my face soon after she had arrived in the hotel room, after she had inquired if my ability to bespell would do the job instead. I’d had to emphasise several times that I’d chosen not to speak the spells, especially since the incident with the Hunter—though I kept that part to myself. After all that had happened that night, the danger I posed to anyone around me was too great a risk. My blessing was far too unpredictable to risk any spell. I’d vowed that no matter what, I wouldn’t use Gods’ Tongue again. It was the use of that word—vow—that had rendered them all silent on the matter.
“Repeat to me the rules,” Rhydian’s inner voice called out from the forward compartment, drawing my eyes from the street outside. I turned my attention to my hand as I responded, tracing over the skin where my worship marks should have been but were hidden beneath a layer of freshly woven skin.
“Good,” he said when he was satisfied with my response. I could almost hear the self-assured nod that accompanied it. “I will be in the teahouse at the end of the street with Lera and Costin if you need me. Nomen never do their own shopping, so you just stick with Eleen. Do everything she says and maybe we’ll get through this.”
“You say that like you haven’t done this before.” I stared into the black leather of the interior, imagining I could see through it into his compartment and gaze at the back of his head, willing an answer out of him. But Rhydian didn’t answer.
“You have done this before, right?”
I’d have sworn I could hear him swallow a lump in his throat. “Not on this scale.”
Was this why he had been gone so long? Had he been out here planning this mission?
“You’ll use me to save the lives of your passengers even if it could cost me my own, but you won’t let me know to whom it is you give it up to. Such a warped moral code you have, husband.”
He chuckled. “You’re the one who wanted to be broken in.”
“You say that like I’m some kind of wild animal.”
I imagined him, leaning in, as though to whisper it in my ear. His next words rolled effortlessly from his thoughts, the tone as breathless as if he’d just spent the last minute with his lips locked upon mine. “I doubt very much you can be tamed, wife.”
Eleen nudged my shoulder pulling my thoughts from Rhydian just as the vehicle came to a stop. She passed out the handwritten supply lists, each one different enough from the others that the supplies wouldn’t draw attention when they were presented to the store clerks. “Everyone knows what to do?” Even after the nods Eleen turned to Gala to get reassurance.
“Yes,” the young blonde Kindling replied. “Order the supplies and have them delivered to the hotel within the next three hours where the hotel will then take charge of them for the party . I’ve got it.”
Wade smiled at her. Whilst I’d never admit it aloud, the Pneumatic was a rather handsome man. Yet somehow, because Skin Weavers could only alter the surface and not the face shape, Lera had made Wade look quite unremarkable. His usually vibrant red hair was lifeless with this new face. Just as lifeless as that of his younger sister. A fact I’d learned not an hour ago when Lera was changing my own face, though it had done little to improve my opinion of Wade. Having a sweet sister like Gala didn’t change the fact he was still a murderer.
The doors to the compartment opened and the Runners filed out one by one. I waited until Eleen reached the door to take one final breath, searching for even the slightest trace of the calming scent leaking from Rhydian’s compartment. I inhaled and stepped out.
The sights and sounds were distracting. The sound of vehicle motors, mixed in with the voices of Kensillans who moved about the town, the smell of freshly baked pastries, the scent of perfume—They were so familiar, and maybe a little too similar to the days I’d promenade with my parents. I had to refocus, to keep my head down, to not be noticed. My bunkmates’ lives depended on the success of this mission, and considering Rhydian’s statement in the vehicle, we were in desperate need of these supplies.
Eleen’s scent had to be my focus, even if it did make me a little nauseous. I kept her to my right following just a few paces behind as I’d been instructed. Even amongst Thralls, seniority mattered, and today, Eleen’s Thrall identity had been collared longer than mine.
I should have felt excitement seeing a new place, but all I felt was disdain. Eleen had warned me that I should try to suppress my emotions because any Brute we encountered would detect it. Especially since it wasn’t an emotion Thralls regularly displayed.
But it was difficult. The longer we walked down the street the more I was conflicted over what I saw.
The citizens wore the most beautiful clothes and had the most dazzling jewellery and elegant hairstyles. Their vehicles were sleek, long and well-maintained. I saw couples sitting outside teahouses, women laughing as they strolled down the sidewalk and men playing some type of ball game in a park we passed by.
And I saw the Thralls. Simply existing. Never acknowledged unless required to hold a bag or open a door. Each one with that damn collar around their necks.
Eleen halted abruptly as a figure in grey was pushed out of a building doorway. My chest constricted at the sight of him. The young male Thrall who’d been thrown to the sidewalk—his hands and knees grazed on the coarse cement spicing the air with his blood—was a Talon. For a split second, before he looked up and I saw his face, I thought a God of Fate had led me to Taren. But he bore a stranger’s face. And his wings were white.
Ranting off something about inappropriate behaviour, a Naven man dressed similarly to Rhydian stormed out of the doorway and glared down at the winged Thrall. His hatred was stomach-churning.
In a display akin to a child throwing a tantrum, he rushed to pull something out of his pocket and jabbed it in the direction of the injured Thrall. A small disk. As he was about to press it, Eleen instructed me to turn my back to the scene.
I did as she said just a moment before I heard the unmistakable sound of the collar shocking the Thrall. I expected to smell cooked meat and find a burnt corpse on the sidewalk when I turned back around but when the Naven ordered the Thrall to get up, I realised the device he’d used was merely a way to inflict pain on his slave. Not to kill them.
Only when the pair had walked past us, the Thrall whimpering in pain that scented the air, did Eleen turn back around and proceed forward.
I narrowly avoided the vomit that Thrall had painted the pavement with.
As we passed the door, I slowed my pace just enough that I could see inside the building. It was a drinking establishment. Alcohol, pipeweed, and perfume.
Over the bar counter was a techboard and what it displayed made bile rise to my throat.
Lily had explained it to me once during kitchen duty when I asked if she knew anything about Kensilla making Thralls watch the Hunts.
Kensilla had technology that recorded in photographs like audibles did sound. Only these photographs were like watching a live play. Kensilla did the same for the Hunts, broadcasting them live across the entire Republic.
On the tech board, a figure in black drew back on a bow string and let loose an arrow.
The crowd of men inside jumped from their bar stools and tables and cheered as the arrow embedded itself into the neck of—
Eleen grabbed my hands and dragged me from the door’s threshold, her eyes wide.
“Are you trying to get us hung?”
Suddenly the memory of the rope around my neck rushed back and all curiosity vanished. I moved back into place behind her and waited for her to take the lead once again.
Eleen took a very slow gulp, her hands clasping the water satchel on her waist tight enough her knuckles were turning white. She took a deep breath and turned back around to continue our passage to the store.
“They do watch us die, don’t they,” I finally managed to say when the scent of the bar had thinned.
“We’re the number one traded item in their economy,” Eleen’s inner voice said, her tone one of derision. “Doesn’t matter if we live or die. They make money off us either way.”
“I understand why they broadcast the Hunt. Keeping the Thralls in check whilst entertaining the citizens with a show of their power. A triumphant demonstration of what happens to their enemies. But why the separation? Why send me to the train and make others Thralls? How do they determine who they choose?”
“It’s a punishment.”
“Which one?”
We stepped out of the path of an incoming Naven and her four Thralls, only continuing to speak when we were walking again.
“The train. It’s not a prison for us just because we’re tainted. It’s a place they can send any Devo or human their Republic deems problematic. If they executed everyone who pissed them off, they’d be hanging people every day. Instead, they send them to the Lobby to be executed. Those that survive, live on the train and die eventually anyway.”
“That’s quite fatalistic.”
“I find it something to be grateful for. Being born on the train and not on a farm gives one hope, and family. Love. As a Thrall, all that is beaten from you. And you become the worst version of yourself. Don’t mistake their meekness for compliance. Thralls are adaptable, manipulative and if nothing else, survivors. They’d betray their own brother if it meant another day in the grace of their God Kings.”
I wanted to ask what she meant by a farm, and why the train was the better option when Eleen finally halted. We stood outside a store that had the lingering scent of a fresh food market. It was rare to find such an airtight room that didn’t leak the scents within.
Eleen pulled open the door, a bell overhead indicating our entry. Keeping my head lowered, my eyes on the ground I followed her inside.
My senses told me there were four in the store beside us. A Nomen behind the register. He was the clerk. Another male at the back of the store, and standing beneath the tech board, beside the sacks of grain were two female Thralls in tan smocks staring at the floor.
Eleen, as though she’d done it hundreds of times, which she very well might have, walked right up to the counter and placed the supply list on the surface. I could feel the eyes of the clerk as he sized us up. From his reflection in the glass countertop, I saw him pick up the note and examine it. After a contemplative grunt, the Nomen adjusted the green griffin pin on his shirt and excused himself to see if he had everything we needed in stock. Eleen simply bowed her head lower, remaining silent as she stepped aside to keep the counter area clear.
Curiosity snuck its way through the store—from the Thralls in the corner. And underneath it, spicing the air was a hint of something akin to eagerness. I tried to ignore them, hoping it was nothing more than being the fresh faces in town that had altered their scents. After a few minutes, when the clerk had returned, the browsing Nomen approached the counter.
“Nomen Orivas,” the clerk addressed him.
“Nomen Sala,” the other replied. “Large order this morning?”
The clerk murmured in agreement, adding, “Naven staying at the hotel decided to throw themselves a little soiree big enough to clear my stock. The Core’s blessings you came in early.”
I felt the eyes of Nomen Orivas on me then. Even in my effort to focus on Eleen, it was hard to ignore him. He left a nasty sour taste on my tongue. I shifted uncomfortably under his gaze.
The two female Thralls at the back of the store turned out to be with him, neither head shaved, but both wearing smocks that bore what looked like a brand on the material’s right breast. They gathered the items he had purchased and waited behind him like small children terrified of being scolded by their father. He paused when he reached me, the heart rates of the two Thralls accompanying him spiking as the heat of his gaze slithered over me. I swallowed the bile that rose to my throat with his closeness. A moment later he departed the store, his Thralls trailing behind.
Eleen who had been holding her breath the entire time finally released it in a slow gust. “ I knew I should have made Lera make you ugly ,” she said, her thoughts betraying her. Lera had indeed made me pretty. She had thought that making me look more like a Kanahari would alleviate the nosiest of people since it wasn’t uncommon to find Kanahari Thralls.
A fact that instantly made me think of Taren and where he could be.
Altering my face into that of a white-haired Northern Brute seemed like an achievable goal, even going to far as to temporarily erase my Worship Marks.
That Nomen’s attention made me think otherwise.
“When does your Naven need it by?” Nomen Sala, the clerk asked Eleen. She raised three fingers and held them horizontally across her chest.
“In three hours?” He gave a heavy sigh. “Fine. You have the money?”
Eleen responded by pulling a purse from a pocket in her smock and placing it on the counter. The man’s scent instantly changed. Rust and pepper, the scent of greed never seemed to change. He took the purse. “It will be done.”
With a bow of her head, a movement which I mimicked, Eleen turned and exited the store.
I spied our vehicle a few hundred meters down the street eager to return to those leather seats, but Eleen insisted on a slower pace. Thralls don’t run. So I was forced to remain one step behind her.
We’d walked maybe half the distance when I picked up that sour scent again. Eleen came to a stop with a slight gasp as the customer from the store, Nomen Orivas stepped out in front of us and blocked our path forward.
I could feel his predatory gaze on me. “I’ve never seen one of your kind this far south,” he said in Kensillan. I kept my eyes on his shoes as he took another step towards me. The man liked to give off the appearance of sophistication without the product to back it up. Beneath the black polish of his shoes, the leather was badly scuffed.
“Come with me, I need help getting my shopping in the vehicle,” he ordered me, even though I could smell his two Thralls a few meters off to my right. The area around him flared in anger when I refused to respond.
Eleen’s voice came out in a slight rush. “Forgive her, Nomen. She does not speak Kensillan.” She had lied, because what else could she do when I’d disobeyed a direct order from a master.
The Nomen turned to Eleen. “Then you tell her.”
I could smell her fear. It came off in waves, a tide crashing against the shore. She’d had no recourse. The man hadn’t asked for anything against the rules. He hadn’t asked to purchase us, he’d simply asked for aid, and by the law of this place we were required to give it.
I knew I did not have a choice in that moment. If I did not obey this man I could very find a noose once again around my neck.
My inner voice called out her name, causing her to snap to attention. “ Repeat to me what he said in Prean then go get Rhydian.”
Her thoughts began to spiral until I shouted for her to be quiet and just do it. Her voice shook slightly as she translated, bowing to the Nomen before he indicated for me to follow him. I could hear her heartbeat behind me as I followed him, passing the cowering figures of his two rented Thralls and into an alley between two of the buildings. I could only hope the fact her heartbeat was growing distant was because she was making her way down the street to the teahouse where Rhydian was.
If she ran, which she shouldn’t do, he would be here within a minute. If she walked, which was the most likely scenario it would be three to five minutes. I could stall this piece of crap for that long.
I knew when we turned the corner there wouldn’t be any vehicle waiting for us. I’d learned to pick up this type of scent quickly after leaving Aronbok. As much as they tried, predators of his sort could never hide their scents from my kind for very long.
The Nomen had taken me to a dead-end alley. Old brick walls, a cracked gutter overhead that had dripped water down the wall long enough that a mildew stain had formed on one side. With that predatory glint in his eye, the kind I’d expect in a cat about to play with their food, he approached me. And continued to do so until my back was flush against the wall.
Bracing both hands against the brick, boxing me in, he leaned forward and like one would delight in the scent of freshly brewed kharee, he sniffed my hair.
Upon the exhale, and entirely enthralled by the sound of his own voice he said, “I’ve had one of your kind before. Tasted like honey and dew drops.” His words made the Thralls cowering against the wall flood the alley with fear. “I hope you’re as feisty as she was.”
He slid a rough hand down my thigh as he buried his head further into my neck. I bit the inside of my cheek at the sensation. He hooked his other hand around the back of my neck, gripping my collar. I waited for the collar to react, but it never did, which only meant one thing.
He had done this before.
The ferocity with which he pulled pressed down heavily on my throat causing my eyes to water. His hand slid down further, gathering up my smock to put his hand between my thighs. Stars danced across my vision. Tears fell to my cheeks as the edge of the world began to blacken. Another thirty seconds of this, and I would lose consciousness. I couldn’t decide if that was better. That I would be unconscious when he did what he wanted to with me. The wetness of his tongue as he dragged it up my cheek knocked the thought right out of my head and I made my choice.
I forced myself inside his head, my voice echoing off the walls of his mind, my thoughts an avalanche he couldn't outrun. And I prayed to the Eldertides that there was a female amongst the God-Kings of The Core.
“ORIVAS!”
The Nomen startled violently, pushing off me so fast my head hit the brick. I sputtered out a cough, catching my breath as he stepped away, eyes wide as he looked around the alley for the voice and finding no one.
He took one tentative step back towards me.
“ORIVAS,” I repeated whilst maintaining the appearance of the meek Thrall.
“YOU DARE DEFILE YOURSELF WITH ONE OF THE QUARRY.” I made sure to use the Kensillan term for the Blessed.
The Nomen rushed for the opposite wall, his eyes on me shadowed in fear, his Thralls expressions confused.
“HEAR ME. I SEE YOU. I KNOW WHAT IT IS YOU DREAM AT NIGHT, AND WHAT IT IS THAT DWELLS IN YOUR DARKEST OF HEARTS. NEVER AGAIN SHALL YOU TOUCH ANOTHER AS YOU HAVE TOUCHED THAT GIRL. KNOW THAT IF YOU SO MUCH AS LOOK AT ONE OF THE QUARRY AS YOU HAVE TODAY, I SHALL ENSURE THAT EVERY VILE THING YOU’VE DREAMED OF DOING BE LAID UPON YOU A THOUSANDFOLD. AND THAT YOU WILL WISH FOR A DEATH THAT NEVER COMES. NOW LEAVE HER.”
The Nomen bolted for the end of the alley, tripping over his own feet as he did and running right into the scarlet chest of my Naven.
Nomen Orivas bowed apologetically before he circled Rhydian and exited the alleyway.
I caught sight of the way Rhydian’s fist closed at his side when he saw me hunched over, the way his jaw tightened as if he was about to say something. Then in an instant, the righteousness that I’d seen on so many Naven in the street took hold of him, turning his features callous.
He turned to the two Thralls still standing in the alley, their gazes downcast.
“Return to your Charter and report your abandonment. Now.” They left immediately, passing Eleen and the rest of our party as they exited the alley.
Rhydian casually strode into the dead end with the look of a man who couldn’t care less about my well-being and stopped right in front of me. Over his shoulder, I saw Eleen staring at me, her expression one of guilt. Rhydian took one step to the left and blocked her from my view.
“Are you ok?” his inner voice asked in a tone I’d never heard from him before. It was almost sweet.
I wanted to say yes. To tell him that I took care of it. To say that I was fine. That that man wasn’t likely to sleep for the next thirty years. But instead, I straightened my spine, adjusted my smock and said, “I will be.”
Because I had to be.