Beyond the Red (8 page)

I straighten my shoulders. “I want to speak to them.”

Jarek’s eyes widen. “
Avra,
I’m not sure that’s wise.”

“I don’t remember asking for your counsel,” I answer crisply. “
I
am their ruler. I should be the one addressing them, not my brother.”

Jarek opens his mouth to answer, but Dima’s voice calls out instead. “What is she still doing out here?”

I turn to face my brother and answer, but Dima stalks right up to Jarek without even glancing at me. My face floods with heat—how dare he ignore me?

“I told you to bring her indoors.” He grabs my arm. “I made it very clear she’s not safe out here.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” I say loudly, wedging between them. “And release me immediately. You’ve no right to touch me.”

But Dima just shakes his head and motions to four guards standing sentry nearby. “You four, bring
ken Avra
inside immediately and make sure she doesn’t venture outside until I say otherwise.”

I gape. Who in
Kala
’s name does he think he is, touching me, ordering my guards around, and flat out attempting to
overrule
me? And in public, no less?

The guards step forward and my stomach sinks. They’re actually listening to him.

“Dima,” I snap, trying to yank out of his grip—and failing. “I’m not going indoors—I want to speak to them. In case you’ve forgotten,
I’m
their ruler, not you.”

“
Sha,
” my brother says stiffly. “That does seem to be the problem.”

Angry heat attacks my skin. “Excuse me?”

“You’re not going to speak to them.”

The heat prickles across my chest and sets a tremor to my hands. “I don’t take orders from you,” I say, barely controlling my tone. “
I
am
Avra
. My orders overrule—”

“They want you
dead
, Kora. If they see you, it’ll incite more anger, not less. I’m going to take my men out there before it gets any worse.”

His words are a kick to the gut and leave me breathless. They want me
dead
? “How can you be so sure?” My voice sounds weak. I hate it. “How do you know that’s what they want?”

“I don’t have time for this.” Dima nods at the guards. “Bring her inside immediately. I’m not going to tell you again.”

The guards nod and step forward. I should argue. I should demand to see my people, to try to reason with them, to see what I can do to help.

But I don’t. I let them bring me inside with shame tattooed to my shoulders and stones gathering in my stomach.

I wish I could say otherwise, but Dima and Jarek weren’t exaggerating about the riot, or its cause.

I sit in the dining hall with Anja and Iro at my side before a hovering stone table piled high with untouched food.

We sit in silence as my city descends into chaos on six glass screens floating over the opposite wall, each with a different view of the riot. Men, women, and even some younger than me throw stones and angry words, their faces covered with cloths, helmets, or masks. Smoke obscures the screens and I dig my fingers into my knees as the audio rings loud and clear around me, echoing throughout the hall.

They’re chanting Dima’s name.

Everything is falling apart. My heart aches and my stomach churns as they press against the gates, throwing burst bombs and screaming obscenities at the armored guards just beyond the gate. My fingers tremble as they set buildings on fire and break glass storefronts.

Dima says they want me dead, and the more I watch, the more I’m starting to believe him.

Pain builds behind my eyes like an impending storm. A headache magnifying to full-out brainblaze levels, that in normal circumstances would leave me seeking darkness.

Unfortunately, I’ll never have normal circumstances again.

The soldiers watch me with undisguised disgust as I fill the water canteens. Jarek brought me here, to a large open room with mirrors on the walls, a deep red matted floor, and a row of long staffs on the far side of the wall—some sortuv training facility from the looks of it—and asked if I thought I could handle filling water bottles without causing trouble. I told him I’d do my very best, but we half-bloods have trouble comprehending more than the simplest tasks.

I expected him to punish me for my mouth, but he just turned and stalked away.

It’s not difficult labor, which is surprising. Considering how much everyone seems to hate me, I thought for sure I’d be given the hardest, most back-breaking work they could manage. Instead I’ve been told to sit and press my thumb against a silver, fist-sized cube sitting on a large, crescent-shaped floating slab of white stone until the cube spits out enough purple water to fill each clear, fabric-y bottle. I’ve never seen clear fabric before; the bottles feel like they’re made of some kinduv canvas, but it’s hard as bone and the water doesn’t soak through—definitely not a material we had access to in the desert. I’d expected the water to run out quickly, but the mystery cube never seems to empty, so I guess it must be generated inside or something. All in all, it’s boring, mind-numbing work, but not exactly challenging.

I’ve just filled up and stoppered the one hundred eighty-eighth bottle when a soldier comes over to the station and leers down at me. I ignore him and keep filling in silence as he drinks from the bottle, eyes focused on me.

Warm water squirts at the side of my face and drips down my shoulder. The men laugh as I glance up at the soldier and wipe the slightly slimy water off my face. He just spit at me.

There’s a small crowd of soldiers now, all watching to see what I’ll do. Or what he’ll do. They want me to react; there’s a hunger in their eyes I know all too well. They want a fight—no, they want a slaughter. They want an excuse to beat me to a whimpering mass of flesh and bone.

My head throbs. I keep filling bottles.

“You’ve got a lot of nerve to show your face here, half-blood,” the spitting soldier says.

Yes,
I want to say.
How crazy of me, to walk in here, dress up as a slave, and serve you water. I don’t know what I was thinking.

I plug the bottle with a black stopper and move on to the next one.

“How have you even survived this long, hmm? In fact, why would anyone even conceive you?” He turns to his friends and laughs. “Can you imagine—sleeping with desert trash? He must’ve been very drunk to consent to such a thing.”

The men snicker and I begin filling the one hundred and ninetieth bottle. It’s not the first time someone’s tried to get me angry by insulting my genetic parents—something that’d maybe have more effect on me if I knew who my genetic parents were. To be honest, I’m probably a product of rape, like most of my kind. A servant and a drunk or power-hungry master.

I’m just not sure why I was kept alive.

I reach for another stopper and the soldier slaps the bottle out of my hand. It clatters on the tile, spilling water over the textured white stone floor. This is supposed to set me off, I guess, but it’s not my water they’re throwing on the floor. I take the bottle and begin filling it again. Just as the water reaches the rim, the soldier kicks the bottle from my hand again. Water splashes and this time the bottle skids out of reach.

“You should get that,” the soldier says.

I ignore him and reach for another bottle instead, but he slaps that out of my hand, too.

“Didn’t you hear me, half-blood? Go pick up your mess.”

Something is building inside me, somewhere behind my eyes and in the pit of my stomach. I know what this is, what they’re doing, what they want. I’ve dealt with people like this before. I’ve ignored the jibes and avoided fights with silence. Nol used to tell me they just want a reaction, and if you ignore them long enough, they’ll get bored and find their entertainment elsewhere.

I know that. And yet this energy building in my core and bubbling in my blood—it’s tired of taking abuse. It’s tired of keeping quiet and waiting for them to get bored. But now more than ever, I need to keep my temper in check. An outburst here could mean the end.

I take another bottle. He kicks at it and I dodge his boot and start filling. I ignore the eyes on my back, the eyes on my ears, the eyes on my almost-not-really-markings, the chuckles and the whispers behind me. They’ll get bored. They always get bored. Eventually.

The soldier grabs the edge of the table and heaves it onto its side, sending a cascade of bottles and stoppers scattered across the floor as the table spins and whirs, bobbing violently in the air. The cube hits the floor beside my foot with a
thunk
. I hope it isn’t broken. I’m dead if it’s broken.

I guess I might be dead anyway.

The soldier yanks the half-filled bottle out of my hand, dumps the water on my head, and throws the bottle at me. It bounces off the top of my head with a slight pang and lands somewhere in the mess of containers off to the side.

I blink water from my eyelashes. Lick some off my lips. Glance up at the soldier.

He crosses his arms. “Clean up this mess.” A thin smirk twists his lips and the pain behind my eyes pulses and morphs into a steady burn. I already know what’ll happen if I do as he says. I also know what’ll happen if I ignore him. He has me trapped, and he knows it.

I stand and he shoves me to the floor. I was expecting it, though, so I don’t hit the ground too hard. Bottles roll and rattle around me.

He steps toward me. “Get up.” I do as he says, but when he reaches out to shove me again, I duck under his arm and step around the table, putting it between us. It serves a double purpose—I need to steady it in order to put the bottles back anyway, but it also adds an extra obstacle between us. He glares and starts toward me, but then the door slams open behind us and the soldiers snap to attention in unison, their left fists held against their right shoulders.

Someone important has just stepped in behind me. I grab the edge of the table until it stops spinning and tilting and try to clean up the bottles as quickly as I can.

Not quickly enough, though.

“What is this?” The voice cuts through me like a knife. This must be the one in charge. I keep my eyes low and start replacing the bottles on the table, but then he steps beside me and when I stand, his face is inches from mine. He’s several inches taller than me, so I have to look up at him. I hate it. “I asked you a question, half-blood.”

I haven’t seen this guy before, but even though he doesn’t look any older than me, he holds himself like someone used to power and respect. There’s a Sephari word shaved into his short black hair, just above his right ear, and his uniform is nearly the same as the other soldiers, but has gold trim around the red decals. He also wears a red sash across his chest. I have no idea what any of it means. Not even Jarek—who stands beside him with a sharp glint in his eyes reflecting his earlier promise—has gold on his uniform or a red sash. Or a sash of any kind, for that matter.

I glance at the spitting soldier. Back to the guy with the sash. I could tell the truth, but he’d never believe me. He’d ask his soldiers if it was true, and they’d all deny it, and I’d be in deeper trouble for supposedly lying—which the Sepharon take as a personal affront.

“I slipped and knocked into the table,” I say.

“You slipped.”

I nod.
“Sha.”

“Sha,
ve
.”

Sir. I have to call him “sir.” I bite the inside of my cheek. Take a deep breath.
“Sha
,
ve
.”

Something sparks in his pale blue-to-nearly-black eyes. “Tell me, half-blood. How did you manage to slip while sitting?”

Jarek smirks, but I ignore him. “I dropped a bottle and it spilled. When I stood to retrieve it, I slipped in the puddle.”

“Are you normally that uncoordinated, half-blood?”

My fingers tighten to fists. Relax.
“Naï,
ve
.”

“Then get yourself in order.” He slaps the side of my head and I stagger sideways. A slap doesn’t sound like much, but it sets my face stinging and my ear ringing. “Clean up this disaster before I decide you deserve further punishment.”