Vengeance (19 page)

“Every new
mother has fears…”

I nod.  “But
not every mother has to trade the life of her children for a man she
once loved.”

Bastien gasps and
raises his head.  His sharpened gaze searches my face as tears
spills over.  “What did you say?”

“I...I had no
choice,” I cry.  I bury my face in my hands.  He
holds me, wrapping his arms tightly around my shoulders to help me
remain upright.  

“What
happened?”

“I…”
my voice fails me completely as I collapse against him.  He
easily takes my weight.  

I had not thought I
had any tears left to shed after a night spent crying, but I am
wrong.  My tears dampen his shirt as he tucks me under his chin,
holding me close.  Holding me together.  I can’t bear
to tell him about the bargain I was forced to accept to save his
life.  The way Drach had dangled Bastien before me, his curved
claw digging deeper and deeper into his throat, too close to his
artery.

Blood had poured
from Bastien’s neck.  His mouth slack in a silent cry of
pain.  I don’t know what they gave him to induce such a
horrific catatonic state but as the tears slipped from his eye I knew
he could feel, not just the pain but the fear as well.  I had no
choice.

“I agreed to
give Drach my children once they were born in exchange for your
life,” I whisper, clinging to his shirt.  I curl my
fingers into the fabric, breathing deep his familiar scent.  Even
as I do I know within my soul that this is not the first time I have
held him.  He smells right.  He smells like home.

“You should
have let me die.”

I push back away
from him, horrified at the dullness in his voice.  His gaze is
far away when I look at him.  “How can you say that?”

He smiles softly as
he turns to look down at me.  “Isn’t this how it was
always meant to be?  You are with Eamon, as it was written.  You
are carrying his children, as was foretold.  From the very
beginning I have just been in the way, making you stumble.”

“That’s
not true,” I protest.

His eyebrow rises.
 “You can’t say that.  You don’t
remember.”

I press my hand to
his chest, focusing on the steady thumping of life beating there.  “I
paid for your life, and I’m not about to let you throw it away.
 I need you.  My children need you.”

“They need
their father,” Bastien mutters.

I reach out and grab
his cheek, pulling him back toward me.   “You are
here now, in this place with me.  How can you say that fate did
not bring us to this point for this very moment?”

Bastien swallows
hard but does not pull back from my touch.  “I’ve
learned that fate has a sick sense of humor.”

“Maybe so,”
I relent, “but I believe everything happens for a reason.  I
don’t pretend to know why, but I have faith.”

“Faith?”
He scoffs, rolling his eyes.  “Now you want to believe in
some outside influence?”

I tighten my grip on
his chin and he refocuses on me.  “I have faith in you and
right now, that’s all I need.”

“Who
is Niyah?” I ask, setting aside the small plate of food that
has been brought.  Today it is some sort of a greenish soup,
lumpy and cooling rapidly.  My stomach turns at the smell of it
but I force myself to eat. Though my hunger grows as rapidly as the
rise of my belly, I struggle to keep anything down.

Bastien’s eyes
pop open.  A large chunk of bread hangs from his fingers, the
soup dripping back into his bowl as his mouth gapes open.  Slowly
he lowers his hand and lets the soaked bread plop back onto his
plate.  He sets it aside and wipes his hands on his pants.
   “How do you know that name?”

“I met a man
back in my cell on the slave ship who knew her,” I say,
unwilling to give him details about Hyde.  It is not that I want
to be dishonest with him.  No, I withhold the information for
fear of how Bastien might react.  Judging by the vein pulsing
down his forehead this is not a subject that he is too fond of
speaking of, especially with me.  

Besides,
surely after nearly two full weeks on this planet Hyde is long gone
by now.  He was probably sold to one of the miners and sent
underground.  “Who is she?” I ask again, ignoring
his question.

Bastien
swallows hard.  For a moment I think he is going to retreat
fully, pained by yet another ghost from the past, but he surprises
me.  “She was my girlfriend.  Well, as far as she was
concerned at least.  Things didn’t really work out between
us.”

“Why not?”

He
shoots me a pointed glance and I purse my lips.  
Right.
 Should have seen that one coming from a mile off!

“So what
happened to her?”

He shrugs.  “Don’t
know.  After Aloysius fell I asked Kyan to send me as far away
as he could.  It was just easier that way.  She tried to
write me.”  He snorts and shakes his head.  “I
never did read her letter.  Couldn’t, I guess.  Nothing
she could say would change my mind about her.”  

I bite on my lower
lip, seeing my dream of him on Alenida all over again.  I was
not an outsider looking in for that dream. I was Bastien.  I
remember his annoyance when Kyan called, remember his panic when he
realized it was my wedding day.  I also remember how he felt
about Niyah.

“She hurt
you...” I whisper, trying to push away the feelings that this
dream dredges up.  Although I may not remember her, I am angered
for the pain she obviously caused him.  “I can see why you
can’t forgive her.”

“No,” he
shakes his head adamantly.  “I can forgive her for
betraying me.  I understand the potency of jealousy, but too
many good men died that day because of that jealousy.”

His shoulders sag
with the pain rising from his past.  “I nearly lost you
because of her actions.  I vowed that day that I would do
whatever it took to keep you safe, even if that meant keeping you
safe from me.”

Bastien’s
words feel like a splash of icy water against naked flesh.  “Did
you even ask me what I wanted before you confronted Kyan?”

“No.”
 He lifts his gaze to meet mine.  “I knew what you
would say.”

“But
it was my choice to make, Bastien.  You took that from me.”
 My fingers clench against my knees.  
Will
this ever get any easier?

He nods.  “I
know.  Kyan warned me that if you ever found out you would be
furious.”

“No,” I
whisper, turning my face away so that he can’t see the tears
that have begun to form in my eyes.  “I’m not angry.
 I feel broken.”

He hangs his head,
weighted with what I can only imagine to be guilt.  “I did
what I thought was best for you.”

I push my plate
aside and scoot toward him.  I reach out and touch his arm,
noticing that his skin feels warm and clammy but thankfully not from
fever.  Many of his wounds have begun to scab over.  Within
another week or so the bruising will have vanished completely and he
will be back to normal.  

“I appreciate
the fact that you did what you felt was best, but I deserved a chance
to make that choice for myself.”

“And what
would you have chosen?”  He raises his head to look at me.
 The skin around his eyes is dark and puffy from lack of rest.
 He is exhausted.  I am too.  

I pull my hand back
and tuck it into my lap.  “Honestly? I don’t know.”
 I look about the room, my gaze not settling on any one thing
for longer than a moment.  My mind scrambles for words that do
not come.  Finally I give up and shrug.  “I know what
must have been expected of me.  The prophecy was clear about
Eamon being my intended husband, but if you and I were…um...something
more, that tells me that somehow the rules were broken.  For
that to even be possible…” I trail off, unsure of how to
verbalize my confusion.  

The longer I am with
Bastien the more fuddled my mind becomes.  I have started second
guessing everything, wondering what I can rely on as fact and what is
fiction.  Bastien has filled in a few of the gaps in my memory.
 Now that he has, I can see Kyan’s handiwork.  It is
almost like watching a video that skips on a screen.  Only the
slightest hint that something was skipped over, but still there
nonetheless.

My
conversation with Sariana in her woodland hut is a disjointed memory.
 Fragments pieced back together, though poorly done.  Kyan
must have rushed through some of his work.  
I
wonder what happened that would cause him to be so careless.

I square off my
shoulders and offer him what I hope to be a convincing smile.  “The
answer is, I have no clue what I would have done.  Maybe you
were right to take that decision away from me. Maybe in one aspect
this was the lesser of two pains for me, but you took on that burden.
 You never should have done that alone.”

Bastien slops his
bread about his bowl of soup, lost in thought.  His
contemplative state lingers for several minutes.  “Illyria,
I need to tell you--”

I whip around as the
door to our room opens.  The wood hits the wall with a
resounding boom.  A giant Roamer stands in the doorway, his bald
head nearly touching the top of the doorway.  His eyes are the
color of amber, his skin a burnt orange.  The claws that curl
out from his four toes glisten in the light, as if they have been
recently sharpened.  

A broad string of
bones hangs over his chest.  A spiked club hangs from a cloth
belt at his waist.  I am relieved to see that this one has taken
the care to cover himself properly.

Bastien pushes up
off the ground and faces off with the Roamer.  “What do
you want?”

The low hiss and
flicker of its tongue sends ripples of apprehension down my arms.  I
reach up to my ear and press the button on the translator, wincing at
the shrill scream when it engages.  Bastien glances back at me
as I cry out but I hold out my hand, waving him off.

When the feedback
dies off I straighten and face the monster.  “I can
understand you now.”

Beady dull red eyes
swivel to look at me.  With its eyes set further back on the
sides of its head it looks as if it is staring toward the wall
instead of me.  “You have been summoned.”

I look to Bastien
and translate for him.  His stance changes as he unconsciously
moves between us.  “She’s not going anywhere.”

A huge arm flashes
out and backhands Bastien.  He spins and slams face first into
the wall.  He looks dazed as he stumbles back but he remains
standing.  I cry out and start to run to him but an arm snatches
me back.  Bastien shakes his head as if trying to clear his
head.

“It’s
ok. I think he just wants to talk,” I cry over my shoulder as I
am hauled out into the passage and the door slams behind me, sealing
Bastien inside.

I
don’t like leaving Bastien behind, but the Roamer that came to
collect me didn’t ask my opinion.  I looked back at the
door to our room until we turn a corner and it is lost to me.  A
feeling of dread sinks into the pit of my stomach as I turn forward
once more.  My feet dangle against the ground, my arms pinched
between the great fingers of my guard.

Why do they
always insist on carrying me?  It’s not like I don’t
have two feet that work!  

“You’re
hurting me.”

“Pipe down,”
it hisses back.

Darn
this stupid collar!
 I would like nothing more than to rip this thing off and remind
my captors of exactly who it is that they are dealing with.  No
one tells me to pipe down!

As we enter a
familiar room, the one in which I met Drach nearly two weeks before,
I am thrown to the floor.  The skin of my hands peels open and
my knees burn beneath the fabric of my pants.  I cry out and
turn to glare up at my guard but he seems to enjoy my anger.

“Enough.”

I turn as Drach
enters the room.  The small device that has been attached to my
ear whistles shrilly at his loud command.  I wince and raise my
hand to hold my ear.  A slight ringing remains as Drach moves to
sit on his seat, reminding me of a king lording over his people from
a throne.  

“I ordered you
to be gentle with this one.  Her condition is fragile.”
 His fierce reprimand forces the Roamer to dip his head.  I
don’t believe for a second that he is sorry for how he treated
me, but at least he does appear to be submissive.  “Leave
us.”

The giant turns
without a word and tromps to the back of the room.  He pushes
aside the heavy curtain that separates the room from the hall beyond
and disappears, leaving me completely alone with my captor.  Even
the slaves seem to have been sent away.

What on earth
could be so important that he would need to speak to me in complete
privacy?

“I am sorry
for that,” Drach says.  The translator in my ear pops with
static.  It is an odd sensation to hear the robotic voice in one
ear and hissing in the other.  “I assure you that it will
not happen again.”

I
nod and press my hands to my stomach, realizing for the first time
that I have blood smeared across my flesh from the skin peeled from
my palms.  I clench my fists and ignore the painful throbbing.
 “Why am I here?”

“I thought we
had already established this, Queen Illyria.  I desire your
children.”

“No,”
I shake my head and then drill him with a direct gaze.  “Why
am I
here
now?
 A couple weeks ago you told me that you want my children then
you shove me into a dirt hole with Bastien only to bring me back out
to play with again whenever it pleases you? I’m not a toy.”

A
barking laughter rises in his throat.  “No.  I think
not.  A toy can be broken.  You, on the other hand, seem
immune to that.”  My gaze falters for a split second but
it is long enough for his smile to broaden.  “Or maybe you
can be.”

I
grit my teeth, trying desperately not to think about the things
Bastien has revealed to me.  If what he says is true, and I’m
rapidly beginning to trust the fact that it is, then
he
is
a weakness that I cannot afford.  I press back my shoulders and
strengthen my glare.  “My husband is not here for you to
threaten me with, and I know desperation when I see it.  You
don’t desire my children.  You need them.”