Chapter 34
Blair
It was incredible how easy life on a strange alien planet got once you had access to a hovercraft. The legroom was nothing to write home about, but the level of Big Dick Energy it gives you?
Orgasmic.
The Biwban were never getting this craft back.
It only took us an hour to reach Osid’s city.
The battered walls looked even more trashed than they were before.
Angry stampeding dinosaurs spanned the area around it as far as the eye could see.
Each lookout point along the wall was manned to the teeth with exhausted warriors shooting fire down below, keeping as many dinosaurs as they could from smashing against the gate.
King Iltith’s banners hung where Osid’s used to be.
That bastard Jivorn had been so sure we’d lose.
I set the ship down hard in the courtyard, the thrusters kicking up dust. Before the door even finished opening, the ship was swarmed with warriors, weapons raised. When Osid stood in the back seat, recognition caused them to stumble back, shocked.
The man I’d recognized as Kuzuu stepped forward, face pale. “Your Majesty?” His face furrowed as he blinked, like Osid was a figment of his imagination. “He said you were dead.”
Whispers erupted like wildfire. Most of them still hadn’t gotten the translator kiss yet, and I was left in the dark as to what they were saying. Osid’s gaze swept over the battered faces of his people as he listened intently. Some looked relieved. Others—too still. Too quiet.
The plan was simple; kill Jivorn and announce the alliance with King Lokbaatar before moving Dulba out of this migration infested hellscape for good.
But I had no idea what kind of environment we were walking into.
Anxiety bloomed when I wondered who else could have been working with the traitor, but no one stepped forward to run us through as Osid climbed out of the craft.
He turned back and offered his hand with a smile. I took it and let him lift me out of the tight seat.
We’re fine. He’s got this—at least he thinks he does.
Still, my fingers itched for the pistol I’d lost. I didn’t doubt Osid knew what he was doing, but to go through all that we did just to lose him in a fight now had my stomach in knots.
One of the older warriors broke from the ranks, falling to his knees. “Your Majesty, Lord Jivorn has been locking up dissenters. He said you were murdered by the Biwban after you were captured, that the crown fell to him by right.”
Osid’s jaw tightened. “Where is he now?”
“The main hall.”
With a nod, Osid moved past him. “Release everyone from the prison at once. When you’re done, rally every able-bodied man and begin packing up the fort.”
Confusion passed through the crowd. Kuzuu’s eyes flashed. “Did you find Blair’s people?”
Osid smirked, slinging an arm over my shoulders. “We did. Now move. It’s rude to keep women waiting.”
We walked up to the double doors, and Osid strode through them like the king he was. As soon as the doors pushed open, there was a yell.
“I swear, I did exactly as you ordered!”
A man’s voice rang out as Osid and I stepped into the hall.
Something akin to a trial played out in front of us: a man bowed, broken and beaten, in front of Osid’s throne, where Jivorn sat with a goblet in his hand.
A long-haired female Sankado sobbed over the man on the ground.
Shock had me staring at her in awe. I had thought all the female Sankado had died off.
I’d been dragged through hell and high water all over this planet, yet I’d never seen any women who weren’t human.
The usurper had two stone-faced guards standing next to him, who watched the plight of the couple with cold indifference. She squeezed her lover tighter, and Jivorn’s knuckles went white around the cup.
“This man is on trial for defying a direct order. Release him, Nokitali.”
“I won’t!” she screamed. “I will not let you send him back out there on another one of these suicide missions. You’ll kill him!”
“I imagine that’s the point,” Osid said, making his presence known. All eyes flew to us, and the woman scrambled to throw herself at Osid’s mercy. “Your Majesty,” she sobbed. “Thank the gods you’re alive, Constable Jivorn told us you were dead. Please, please, tell him my Zhali is a loyal Dulba.”
Jivorn had risen, his face a master class in masks.
He set his goblet down with a practiced clink.
“King Osid! By the stars, you’re a sight for sore eyes.
Thornward has been in such chaos since your…
absence.” He bobbed a bow, not low enough to show subservience, but just sufficient to telegraph his own safety.
“How fortunate, your return at this exact moment. We have struggled to maintain order—especially in the midst of the Rumbling.”
Osid did not bother to look at the guards. His eyes, cold and precise, fixed on Jivorn. “How unfortunate for me, then, to return at the exact moment you’ve made yourself comfortable in my seat.”
Jivorn spread a smile across his face—full, too many teeth, a snake inviting you to admire its skin.
“All I’ve done is what’s best for Dulba.
Even now, we are beset on all sides—starved for good hands, for direction.
The people needed a voice in your absence.
I, of course, only sat where I thought you would want. ”
“You’ve protected Dulba by flying an invader’s banners?”
Sweat pooled along Jivorn’s brow. “You see—”
“Don’t pander.” Osid took the dais one measured step at a time. “You always were a poor liar, Jivorn.”
The usurper’s tongue flicked quick over his teeth. A glance at the guards, a twitch of a finger. “I don’t know what you’re—”
“Enough,” Osid snapped. “I know you intercepted the missive about the female enclosure.”
The guards’ expressions shifted; their focus, a coin flipped edgewise, now balanced between the king on the throne and the one on the steps.
Osid cast a quick glance at their faces. “What’s this? Jivorn, you never told them?”
Osid turned, sweeping a hand to me. “It turns out my Blair isn’t native to this planet at all, but an alien from another world.
The Biwban have released a group of females on this planet for us to reproduce with.
And instead of giving us time to prepare for their arrival, Jivorn would rather sell our secrets to King Iltith. ”
The hall was quiet but for the wheeze of the man on the floor and the wet scrape of Nokitali’s tear-choked breathing. Jivorn’s own breath now came sharp and thin, his face a marbled mask of pride and panic.
“What do you mean, secrets to King Iltith?” Nokitali spat, her rage suddenly crystalline.
“My only aim is our survival,” Jivorn said, faltering. “I would do anything—sacrifice anything—to see Dulba thrive. Even if that meant consorting with King Iltith.”
“Or selling our own,” Osid intoned, voice low as a storm about to break. “So tell me, what did he promise you?”
He was silent for a moment, then his eyes flicked to the crying woman shielding her man.
“Oh, you can’t be serious,” I asked. “You sold your people out for a married woman?”
Jivorn’s mouth twisted into a sneer, and with the careful mask of civility shattered, his whole bearing shifted, his voice oiled now with something raw and petulant.
“She is Sankado! Possibly the last female we have, and you!” he roared, pointing at Osid.
“You would let her waste her womb on this—this bleeder from the fields!” he barked, gesturing at the man on the ground.
He whirled on Nokitali, voice rising to a fever.
“You have a duty, Nokitali. Your blood was bred for the throne—for me!”
“I would rather die.” Nokitali’s reply came out so quick and so disgusted that I couldn’t help but laugh.
Jivorn’s head snapped to me. “You!” he snarled.
I waved.
“I should have killed you when I had the chance.”
“And I should have gone for the headshot,” I said, lamenting my earlier mercy. “Would have saved all of us a mess of trouble.”
Jivorn did not lunge so much as erupt, a wave of motion that blurred the air between us. I braced for the impact, but Osid was the one who moved. He used a motion so fast and so brutal I almost missed it: the blade at his hip flashed, and Jivorn’s head peeled away with a sickening thwick.
For a moment the body stood, headless but defiant. Then it crashed to the mosaic floor, splashing blood across the tiles.
Osid slumped into the throne with an audible sigh.
Nokitali spat on the corpse. The man at her side shuddered in relief and held her tight.
Osid looked at the mess with a vague irritation.
He snapped his fingers; the nearest guard hesitated, then slung the ruined shell up over his shoulder as if it were laundry, a string of drool or blood or both trailing behind.
He ordered the other guard, the one with less stomach, to help Nokitali bring her lover to the healer.
When the last of them had cleared out, Osid gestured to me with a lazy crook of the finger, as if we weren’t standing in a puddle of what used to be his top advisor. I crossed the mosaics, feeling the stick of warm blood on the soles of my boots.
Osid’s eyes tracked me all the way, pupils dilated so they were more moss green than teal.
Blood still gleamed in a bright crescent along his jaw.
He patted a thigh, and I perched on the arm of the throne, but he twined arms around my waist and pulled until I was seated squarely across his lap.
The stone was cold, but his body was not.
He held my face between his hands, smearing a bit of someone else’s blood across my cheek as if marking me. “Thank you for coming to my rescue once again.”
I toyed with a lock that fell over his face. “Maybe next time I tell you someone’s trying to kill you, you’ll believe me?”
“Only if you do it in the form of interpretive dance again.”
I smacked his shoulder. “Don’t test me.”
He grinned, settling his arms around my waist. “If I kissed you now, would you strike me?”