Chapter 72 #2
Everyone turned to the woman, who now sat up and pointed an accusing finger at Iver, barely able to hold up an arm. “You…fucking idiot…just…stop.”
Airik looked between her and Iver before settling back on the woman, his lips drawn tight. “Who is this man?”
Her arm dropped heavily in her lap, as if she hadn’t expected her voice to work or for anyone to listen. She sank back under Airik’s unyielding attention.
“Tell me,” he repeated, pressing his sword harder against Iver’s throat. “I don’t want his life if it’s useless.”
“He’s a… I don’t know, but…he’s a—”
“Hush now, darling,” Iver interrupted. “Remember what happened to the others—”
With a growl, Airik stomped hard on Iver’s thigh. Iver jerked back, banging his head against the wall.
“That collar around your neck,” Airik said, pressing his boot directly over the wound, forcing Iver to squirm to relieve the pressure.
It was fruitless. “It is put on animals used to fight. I don’t know what you did to earn it.
But if you need pain to obey, I can give it to you. Now I ask: Who sent you here, and why?”
In a stupor—how had he not already passed out?—Iver spoke. “I think you know why I’m here. This isn’t the first time something like this has happened to you, has it? When everything goes to shit. When you’ve been”—he gave Airik a meaningful look—“left behind. Abandoned. Forgotten—”
Iver shut up and clenched his jaw as Airik leaned forward, resting nearly all his weight on his thigh. “That is not an answer—and I do not like to ask things twice.”
More blood pooled on the ground, and Nora swayed, biting her tongue to keep from throwing up.
“Stop!” the woman cried out. “There’s something wrong with him.” Her voice carried a wet crackling from her chest, like she’d been sick for years. “And they use him like a slave. A prisoner. He calls himself Iver, but the others call him…vruukar.”
“Vruukar?” Airik stepped off instantly, then gave Iver a disbelieving look. “Is that what you are—why you were bound? Because you are part beast?”
Iver licked his lips, revealing a long, thick, split-tipped tongue.
“You make it sound almost sexy.” He craned his neck to see past Airik to the woman.
“What do you think, darling?” He let his head drop to his shoulder, almost bashful, as he gazed at her.
“Will you talk to me now that you know I’m ‘part beast’?
Would you like to know exactly what parts of me are beast—”
Airik grabbed a fistful of Iver’s hair and yanked up. Iver’s bizarre focus on the woman broke, and he let out a rough moan. Airik glared at the woman. “More.”
“Th-The—shark person—who was with you. That’s who collared him. There’s also—” Her hand covered her mouth, and she looked down. “I—I don’t know anymore.”
Airik’s eyes hardened. “You are lying.”
The woman sobbed, then turned to Nora, her green eyes wide with panic.
“It’s okay,” Nora said, trying to smile. “We’ll help you. Just tell him.”
The woman hesitated. Nora glanced at the bracelet on her wrist. It would’ve been wrong to use a child or any loved one to make her talk, but sensing Airik’s patience was dwindling, Nora was desperate.
Before she could speak, the woman flinched back, as if she’d inadvertently revealed a secret.
She tugged her sleeve down to hide the bracelet, then turned back to Airik.
“There’s…a leader,” she continued. “Who all the people on the ship were talking to on their devices. He…dresses like you.” She pointed to Airik. “With the…sign. Here. On his chest.”
Airik looked down at the wing-and-circle patch she assumed was Veynari. He blinked once, processing. Then his gaze flickered up. To Nora. His eyes were filled with something dreadful and pained, yet strangely there was no surprise or confusion.
Nora’s heart dropped. He had expected this.
“More,” he said, turning back to the woman.
“He…has a lot of tattoos and—”
“Stop,” Iver hissed. “Damn you, woman. I couldn’t get you to say a word before, and now you won’t shut up. He’s not our friend—he’s one of them.”
Airik looked between Iver and the woman, analyzing the space between them as if he saw a thread materialize.
“This woman.” Airik spoke to Iver, in a voice so soft it chilled Nora to her core. “She is important to you.”
Iver’s nose flared, but he gave a slight shrug. “I think she’s cute—the way a stray, sick kitten is. The kind you pet once, knowing it’ll die soon. Or, in words you’d understand, a sick ooshi abandoned by its bond when it was just a pup.”
Airik gasped, releasing Iver and stepping back. “How could you—”
His jaw clenched, and whatever wrong thing Iver had said was squashed. Amid a rush of disorienting motion and Iver’s shouts, Airik leapt over the table and pulled the woman off the bench. He dragged her against him, the blade of his sword at her jaw.
Nora jumped up, tugging on his arm. “What the fuck are you doing?”
“Sit down,” he said, not turning to her.
The woman’s pupils blew wide with fear. “W-Why—”
“Your answers are not enough,” Airik told the woman. “It is his turn again.”
Struggling frantically against the cuffs, Iver said something in the alien language.
Airik scoffed. “I don’t obey a Morazir’s Oath anymore.”
Iver’s face, already pale from blood loss, went even paler. “All right,” he pleaded quietly. He offered the woman a shaky smile. “Whatever you want. Just—be careful with her.”
Nora stood beside Airik, stupid and still. This had to be a dream—maybe one of Airik’s nightmares that had finally come true. She whispered to him, “What are you doing?”
He turned to her, his glare radioactive. “I said sit down. If I have to ask again, I will tie you down myself.”