INSUBORDINATION
ELENA – THE GREEN REACH
After what feels like a couple of miles, the light changes as the trees thin. We break through the last wall of foliage and the world opens into a large clearing.
At the far end, Rythar’s fortress rises from the jungle. It’s built into the side of a mountain. High stone walls, covered in green vines. I’ve seen what Rythar can do with those. The gates are wide. The guards see us coming and bow their heads, avoiding my eyes.
It’s only when we pass through the gates that I feel the shield, an invisible wall that runs static across my skin.
Beyond the gate, a figure stands in the threshold of the fortress. He’s a technician, I think, armored in white polymer and carrying a shiny case.
Without a word, he approaches us. He doesn’t flinch at the sight of me in Rythar’s arms. Instead, he holds up the case and bows his head.
Rythar sets me down, finally. My legs almost give, but his hand steadies me.
He speaks to the technician in his language. The technician frowns, grabs a device from the case, then runs it over Rythar’s right ear.
I look up at Rythar, who is watching me, not the technician. Rythar doesn’t take his eyes off me. The technician finishes, clicking his device back into his case. He steps away, bowing his head again.
Rythar speaks to me. "You are mine now. You will live in the Green Reach with me. You will live."
The technician fixed his translator. I almost miss the broken words. He says the last part like he’s giving an order, but it’s directed at something beyond me. At the universe that sent me to him. At death itself, maybe.
Rythar steps closer again, and my body tenses for another confrontation. Instead, he lowers his head to mine.
“You do not know this place,” he murmurs. “But it will know you.”
Rythar gestures for me to walk first.
Sophia. Sophia isn’t safe. I can’t leave her out there. Not with Vorak. This is wrong.
I fight hard against the compulsion to follow Rythar. For a moment, I can't breathe. The Stone invades my thoughts, narrowing my world down to just Rythar and me. I hold perfectly still and glare at him, ignoring the insistent urge to follow him into his fortress.
The Stone whispers again in my mind. Everything you want and need is inside.
But I resist. I want it out. I don’t want anything twisting my thoughts.
“I won’t go in there,” I say defiantly, jabbing a finger at the fortress looming over us.
The words ring through the air. The warriors look up, all at once. None of them looks at me. They watch Rythar.
And he watches me.
“I won’t,” I say loudly, as much to the Stone in my head as to Rythar.
Rythar's brow lowers.
The light ring on my finger flickers and shoots pain up my arm. My head fills with white static that drowns out everything around us. Then it evaporates, leaving me reeling as my vision returns.
A flicker of alarm sparks in Rythar’s ember eyes. He moves to catch me, but he lets me push him away. My hand is numb. The light ring on my finger is inert. It’s left a shadow under my skin. I gasp as I realize I’ve done it. The Stone is out of my mind.
Rythar exhales slow through his nose. It does nothing to ease the danger coming off him. The muscles stand out along his neck.
His lips hover close to my ear. “Whatever gifts the Stone gave you, it will take back if you reject what binds us. The Stone gives all or nothing. As do I.”
My head swims. I sway where I stand, trying to reorient without letting Rythar touch me. Feeling returns to my hand. It throbs in time with my heart as though something vital has been burned away by the ring's touch. I’m hollow.
Rythar's massive hand closes around my wrist. He pulls me toward the fortress.
I pull back, knees locked. Refusing to walk.
Rythar lets go of my wrist, turns back, and stands there like I’m the only thing in the world not already bending to his will.
I don’t want to look in his eyes, but I can’t make myself look back at the jungle. I know what’s there. How the jungle answers to him.
Rythar’s eyes narrow. “Come.” His voice is firm and quiet.
I cross my arms. “No.”
The guards flinch as the vines near my feet twitch.
Shit.
I would rather rot here than be led into that fortress while I know Sophia is out there, suffering. But it won’t be enough. If will were enough, I would never have left New Terra.
"Do you wish to die?" he asks. The tone isn't cruel. It's confused, like he can't fathom why someone would refuse shelter. Would refuse him. I shake my head.
"You are alive because of me," he says. He frowns, catches himself, tries again. “You are safe because of me."
This is his biome. His law.
I scowl up at him. I gesture back at the jungle. At the warriors around us. “Is that what you call this? Safety?”
He doesn’t blink. “Yes.”
We stare each other down in a challenge that I don’t know how to win. His body is built for war. Every line screams that he could end this with a single movement. But he doesn’t. His jaw muscles work once, then he speaks.
“You have nowhere to go.”
He’s right, but I don’t have to like it. I shake my head. “No,” I say again. “Not until I know Sophia is safe.”
“You would die for her,” he says. His eyes appraise something in me.
I don’t think he expected me to refuse him after the ceremony, and I don’t think he knows what to do now that I have. If I were a male, this would already be over. I saw that in the jungle on the way here. Blood or submission. Nothing else. I’m certain he would have killed me for outright refusing.
I don’t back down. I’m not weak inside. The Stone learned, and now Rythar is catching up.
“You refuse my order,” Rythar says.
“Sophia is my friend. I am not leaving her.”
He steps toward me carefully, catlike.
I think, Maybe I’ve finally gotten through to him. Maybe he’s finally going to help me.
I’m wrong.
I don’t have time to flinch before his hand locks around my waist and the floor drops away.
The ground blurs. It’s not the gentle, bridal style carry he used in the jungle.
My breath punches out of me as he hauls me up and over his shoulder in one clean motion, my stomach landing against his shoulder, my fists against his back.
I twist and struggle, furious, fists pounding uselessly against iron muscle. As I grab for anything—armor, straps—my fingers catch in his hair. I yank hard.
His muscles stiffen, and for one frozen heartbeat, I’m sure this is where he snaps.
I’m dead.
But he makes an efficient adjustment, shifting me lower on his shoulder, dragging my hips down until my weight is pinned and my arms can’t reach.
The crowd murmurs. A low, satisfied sound rolls through the males. It’s the sound of soldiers as order settles back into place.
Rythar doesn’t say a word as I flail uselessly. He carries me through the atrium, down the stairs, through a hall full of gold and green and the spiced scent of the Reach. It’s a spice I’ve had, but can’t name.
The swaying is dizzying. My world is reduced to heat, motion, and the relentless certainty that he is taking me wherever he wants, and I have really pissed him off.
I pound his back once more with my fists. It does nothing.
The outside world vanishes behind us, and with it goes the last illusion that this was ever negotiable.