Chapter 17
“There’s a weird energy out there today.” Tatiana had convinced a reluctant Junyv to go for a jog with her and now back inside she seemed more on edge than before getting the exercise.
“When I asked if I could speak with Thyra about this,” I waved my hand at the table where my work was scattered, “yesterday, Junyv said that she couldn’t see me.
Something about there being urgent matters that had to be attended to.
And today is the same.” It concerned me greatly that I didn’t have any clue as to what was going on and Junyv, usually a source of information and friendship, wouldn’t tell me more, slipping away quickly with a mumbled word of apology.
I’d been stuck in the house since Arrazyl had escorted me here.
“Thyra and I had planned to meet today, so we’ll see if she remembers. If she does, I’ll try to find out what’s going on,” Jaron said.
“And you don’t think it just has to do with the festival?” I didn’t think so, but what else could it be?
“No.” Tatiana shook her head, “there’s excitement in the city but here at the vorazka the feel is tense.”
I drummed my fingers on the table, nerves getting to me after being cooped up.
After the exchange with Arrazyl, I’d reminded myself that I shouldn’t have been surprised and if I was, then it was my fault for setting myself up to expect something different.
But it didn’t take away the anxiety. “Let’s hope that Jaron can get out and find out what’s going on. ” I finally said.
It turned out that later in the day Tatiana and Jaron were both needed, and Junyv and a guard escorted them out.
I got to my feet and leaned my head out one of the twin windows in the living room, enjoying the fresh breeze and watching the activity around the part of the city that sprawled along the opposite cliff.
The lock thunked heavily. They were back quickly. I turned, anxious to hear what they had to say. To my surprise, it wasn’t Jaron or Tatiana.
“Captain Jzulyk?” We hadn’t interacted before and whenever I’d seen him in passing, he’d always seemed angry.
“Human.” He stepped in and cast his gaze around. His mouth was set in his usual disdainful, pursed-lipped expression.
“Jacqueline.” I said, narrowing my eyes at him. My heart kicked into gear, my fight-or-flight response triggered at his presence. Everything in me catalogued him as a threat.
He gave me a dismissive glance. “Where are the other two?”
“Why are you here? Did Arrazyl send you?”
His eyes flashed. “Do not call the Vorazyr by name.”
I stopped arguing. We were alone, and he clearly didn’t like me. If I wasn’t careful, this interaction could end poorly. “What can I do for you, captain?” I calmly folded my hands in front of me.
He crossed his beefy arms over his chest and studied me. Alarm filled me when he smiled. It was not a friendly smile.
“I wanted to do you the curtesy of giving you time to come to terms with your death.” he said it as though he were chatting about the weather.
“Excuse me?”
“Oh, did the Vorazyr not tell you?” He smiled again. “He has ordered your execution during the festival.”
“That can’t be true. He told us we were safe. He’s a good person, he’ll keep his word.” Despite my words, I began to doubt.
“He’s vorpyr, not a person,” he sneered. “You will be executed for all our vorpyrren to see, and our “good” Vorazyr will be the one to tear you apart in our traditional method.”
“He won’t do that.” I was quaking inside, but my voice came out firm.
He leaned in, smiling wide to show his extended fangs.
“If luck is with you, you will be the first, so you don’t have to see that disgusting red blood of the other two sprayed everywhere.
It is our way, little human. He will not change that for you.
Your species are our sworn enemies. You’ve killed so many of us, and you will be annihilated for it. ”
The vehemence in his voice took my breath away. How could they hate my entire species so much?
“The Vorazyr is being more generous than the rest of us would be, allowing you to spend your last days with the other two. You will not see the outside again until the execution.” He moved to the door while I stood there, unwilling to express the horror I felt in front of him.
At the door, he stopped and looked over his shoulder.
“If I were you, I’d beg him to kill me first.”
The door slid closed and my knees gave way with the finality of the bar sliding into place. I thought about Arrazyl’s treatment of me these last days. His sudden change now made sense. He’d decided to execute us at the upcoming festival.
I don’t know how long I sat on the floor, but when the door opened again and Tatiana and Jaron came in, the light was starting to wane and I had formed a plan.
“Jac?” Jaron asked.
“Jacqueline?” Tatiana said at the same time, concern evident in her voice.
I motioned toward the door and put a finger to my lips. I got to my feet and we waited until the sound of the guard’s footsteps receded.
“What is going on?” Jaron hissed.
“We have to leave.” I told them about the situation.
“Wait, wait, wait.” Tatiana sat down at the table. “Are you sure? What if he was just blowing smoke?”
I hesitated, but all of our lives were on the line. “Arrazyl was treating me so kindly, we were getting along incredibly well. Then he stopped for no reason I could discern—and believe me, I’ve thought through everything I said and did leading up to it. He became almost cruel.”
Jaron’s eyes darkened. “That bastard.”
“But it would make sense if he decided he got all the information he was going to out of you and was ready to move forward with his original plans.” Tatiana looked as devastated as I felt.
“What if we talk to Thyra? She has sway with her brother and there’s no way she would be ok with this. She doesn’t even know about this, if the meeting we just had is any indication.” Jaron said.
“She won’t be able to sway the Vorazyr away from what he thinks is best for his people. I already heard them disagree on something once and he did what he felt was best, despite her argument.” Tatiana murmured.
I pinched the bridge of my nose as a headache pulsed in my temple. “Plus, if the captain’s to be believed, we won’t be able to get out to talk to anyone, and she’s occupied right now, anyway.”
Scrubbing a hand down his face, Jaron turned away and walked to the window, staring out as the brilliant setting sun brightened the golden cliff across from us.
I couldn’t look at Tatiana. She was sniffling, and I knew if I saw her tears, I would join her. So much for all the progress I thought we were making with them.
“How are we going to get out of here?” Jaron continued to stare out the window.
“I thought about that. There’s no way we can overpower even someone like Junyv together, so we need to escape when none of them are around.” I went to stand side by side with him and nodded at the window. “Do you remember what happened when we were hiking in Nepal?”
He looked over at me warily. “Yes, of course. It was traumatizing. I didn’t rock climb or hike steep areas for a while after that.”
“That is the exact thing we need to do to get out of here.”
Facing me, Jaron crossed his arms. “I don’t think I’m going to like this.”
“You’d like dying a lot less.” I reminded him. Tatiana joined us and I continued. “I think that I’m skinny enough to make it through that window if I wiggle out at a diagonal.”
“Except that we’re hundreds of feet above ground.” Jaron said irritably.
“I'll have some type of rope wrapped around me like a harness. You and Tatiana will have to hold on to the rope and help swing me. I'll then use another length of rope with a weight at the end to hook around the decorative metal poles in the front of the house and pull me around the side to the front platform. Then I’ll release the bar and let you two out.”
“There's a lot of risk to this plan.” Tatiana nibbled her bottom lip, looking thoughtful.
“She’s right, we need to make contingencies.” Jaron agreed.
“You guys, the festival is in less than a week and right now both Arrazyl and Kyvar are gone, giving us less oversight than usual.” I had to make them see that any delay could cost us dearly.
“If you want to do it while they’re gone, we’ll have to do it tonight because aren’t they supposed to be back tomorrow or something?” Jaron asked.
“I don’t know their schedule, but I do know they’re not here right now and the longer the time between us leaving and them coming back is, the better chance we have of getting away.”
Tatiana wiped her cheeks. “I just can’t believe Kyvar would go along with something like that. I thought—” She shook her head.
I felt the same, and from the flash of pain in Jaron’s eyes, I would say that he might have developed a friendship with Thyra. We were all affected by this.
“Ok, what happens if someone sees you?” Jaron crossed his arms.
“That can’t happen. We should do it in about an hour before the light starts to rapidly dwindle, so we still have light but are less likely to be seen because it will be the main time for the evening meal.”
“That’s weak.” Jaron’s face had never been more serious.
“I know, but we have to try.”
“Shouldn’t we wait and see if we can find a better opportunity?” Tatiana was clearly nervous.
“I don’t like it, but I can’t think of another way. If we’re to be stuck in here there will be zero other opportunities, and even if we get out, there’s no way we can subdue a guard to get away.” I said.
“Fuck. I hate this.” I smiled softly at Jaron’s growl, he’d spent too much time around vorpyr. My smile faded.
“Let’s gather everything we can that we could use and get ready to go. An hour isn’t a long time.” I said.
I wasn’t pleased with this any more than Jaron was. It was poorly planned, and we didn’t have time to get everything that I would prefer to take with us into the jungle. But inconvenient or not, it was choosing life over death.
We didn’t have a lot that would be useful to us out there, but I gathered a couple of practical clothing items and all the food I could find.
Jaron stuffed bottles of water into his pack.
All of us were morose as we hurried to get things together in packs that we could carry for long distances. It didn’t enable us to bring a lot.
“I wish we had some tech. We need to get a message out that we need help.” Jaron grumbled as he stuffed clothing in his bag.
“I don’t think whatever we could create would be strong enough.” Tatiana was still nibbling on her bottom lip.
“That’s possible,” I agreed, “but with luck, we just might be able to signal passing ships. Even neutral ships will let the Intergalactic Oversight Commission know and they’ll likely contact the Consortium.”
“Yeah, because they’re so trustworthy.” Jaron shoved a rolled top into his bag aggressively.
I had nothing to say about that. At the very least, they weren’t out to kill us.
A niggling thought made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
The same question had been hanging over my head for a while now.
They’d known that this was a vorpyr planet, so why had they set up this mission in the first place?
And come to me specifically? I blocked out the thought.
The first thing we needed to do was get away from the immediate threat, then I could deal with the chaotic doubts that plagued me.
By the time the dinner hour rolled around the soft calling of large birds filled the air and we were set. The thick ropes that held up the curtains in place of rods had been taken down and tied together.
“Oh, I hope this works.” Tatiana fretted.
You and me both. I finished creating the makeshift harness, the rope circling my waist and legs. We had the very end tied off to a beam inside in case something were to happen, and Jaron took up the slack.
I closed my eyes. My mouth was dry, and I desperately wished things were different, but I couldn’t let them see how scared I was.
Heck, I even wished I’d never left the university in the first place.
Suddenly, I was very thankful that I’d been in a safe environment, even if it meant I wasn’t able to go out and research.
But there was no changing what was, and I needed to buck up and deal with it.
We'd made it this far, we could keep going.
I approached the window, and Jaron gave me a hug. He kissed the top of my head.
Tatiana sniffled as she hugged me.
“You two stop, you’re acting like I’m about to plummet to my death. We’ve set everything up to ensure I’m safe.” I nodded at the beam the rope was anchored on.
“Just be careful.” Jaron’s mouth was set in a thin line.
I would do my best.