Vengeance (9 page)

I
lift my hand to dry my cheek but am instantly reminded of my
confinement.  Marius senses my panic returning and reaches out
to gently wipe my cheek.  His touch is soft, but his hands are
deeply calloused.  I can’t help but wonder what sort of
life this man led before he lost his memories.

It
is not wise to take this man at his word,
I
can hear spoken in my thoughts in Kyan’s voice.  
He
may simply be trying to hide something.  Do not trust him or
anyone else.

I bite down on my
lower lip, wishing with all my might that I really could hear Kyan.
 I’ve tried calling out to him each time I wake but all I
hear is nothingness.  I know that his voice in my head is
nothing more than my own thoughts converted into his previous
teachings.

“Thank you for
your kindness.”  I smile up at Marius.  

“You two make
me sick.”  Marius turns but before he does I can see the
shift in his expression.  His smile tightens and his jaw
clenches.  

“This ain’t
none of your concern, Hyde.”

I can hear a gruff
snort and the rattling of chains.  “I’m just saying
it’s not a good idea to make friends, is all.”

“Why you say
that?” Marius turns fully away from me and I can’t see
the expression to match his rigid posture.

“Cause when
the time comes you’re gonna have to choose whether you value
your own life or hers, cause I guarantee you that girl right there is
gonna kill us all when she gets the chance.”

I try to tell myself
that Hyde’s callous remark doesn’t bother me, but it
does.  Very much so.  What does he think he knows about me?
 Vondran obviously knows of me but do the others?  Have
they talked about me while I was in a less than lucid state over the
past few days?  

Marius did not
respond to Hyde’s statement.  No one did.  They all
just went deadly quiet and moved back to their places, well out of my
line of sight.

Bastien?

I call out for him
over and over again with my mind but I never get a response.  More
worrisome than that, I can’t even feel him.  It is as if
he isn’t even here.

I lay there for what
feels like hours before I speak again.  “I am not a threat
to you.  I don’t know what you think you know but I
guarantee you it’s not the truth.”

Holding
my breath, I wait to see who and if any will respond.  This time
I am surprised by a new voice.  It is a girl, younger than
myself by the sounds of it.  “I saw you once, back on
Earth before I was shipped off to Calisted.  I was there when
you decimated Drakon’s city.  I cowered in fear when the
spiraling winds came and ate away at the city.  My brother did
not die from a soldier’s laser.  The ground opened up
beneath his feet and swallowed him whole.  I tried to save him
but he was too heavy.  After that I was forced to return to
Calisted.  No brother.  No parents.  I’m an
orphan.”

The
girl’s voice cracks and I know that she is crying. I close my
eyes as guilt washes over me in relentless waves.  
I
did this.  I took her brother from her...all because I couldn’t
control my powers.

“I’m
sorry for your loss,” I whisper, knowing that no amount of
heartfelt apologies could ever make up for her brother’s death.

“Wait a sec,”
Marius calls out.  “You saying that girl over there did
all of that?”

Hyde snorts.  I’d
like to say that despite only having met him a short time ago that I
could be mistaken about his snort but sadly, Hyde’s cynicism is
hard to miss.   “You’re not from around these
parts, are you Marius?”

“Don’t
matter where I come from, man.  I ain’t never heard of no
girl that can do all that.”

Hyde chuckles.  From
the corner of my eye I can just see him shaking his head.  When
did he move?  Did I fall asleep at some point and not hear him
shift into view?

From this angle it’s
hard to tell anything more than generalities.  Like how his hair
is dark enough to be considered black.  It is shaggy, falling
over his face to rest about mid cheek.  His shoulders seem
broad.  His skin tanned.  I wish I could see his eyes to
know what he is really like.  

“That
girl over there is the boogeyman, a thing creeping in the shadows,
and the monster under your bed all wrapped up in one.  Just wait
until she gets ticked off and see if she don’t go all
black-eyed on ya.”

I grit my teeth,
knowing that I should not rise to his taunts but unwilling to let
these people think of me like this.  “I am not a killer.”

“No?”
 Hyde shifts and I catch a glimpse of his stubbled jaw line.
 From beneath the curtain of hair that falls over his face I can
see darkened eyes staring straight at me.  “How did your
dear husband die after all?  Rumor has it that you had something
to do with the King’s death.  Pretty convenient how you
happen to become widowed on your wedding night, don’t ya think,
Queeny?”

“Lay off,
Hyde,” a man calls from a few feet away.  I strain to see
him but can only make out his legs, crossed at the ankles and
stretched out before him.  His feet are bare, filthy.  Blood
edges the arch of his foot but I can’t tell if it is from his
own wound or not.  “She’s just as much a prisoner as
we are.  Besides, it’s not like she can hurt us now
anyways.”

“What do you
mean?” I question, fighting to see higher than his knees but am
finally forced to give up.  

The scent of urine
burns my eyes and I blink away tears.  Callisto groans and
covers her nose beside me.  I’m not sure why she hasn’t
moved further away from me since all of this talk about how evil I am
started.  Perhaps she can’t.  “Really, Satal?
 Couldn’t you hold it?”

The raspy voice I
heard earlier calls back to her.  “Satal need pee.  Satal
no wait.”

“Perfect.”
 Callisto draws her legs up into her chest and buries her face
into her knees.  I can see they are covered in grime.  “I’m
surrounded by morons.”

I can’t help
but smile.  I like Callisto...sort of.  I don’t trust
her but at least she has spunk.  “Will you tell me now why
you think I’m no longer a threat?”

My question hangs in
the silence, unattached to any one person.  I do not know the
name of the man who spoke a moment ago so I am unable to question him
directly.  “Powers gone,” Satal responds, surprising
me.

“What do you
mean my powers are gone?  That’s not possible!”

“On the
contrary, little lady,” Vondran replies.  “They are
very much gone.”

A
trickle of fear begins to seep down my spine.  
Is
that why I can’t call out to Kyan?  I had hoped that it
was because of the distance between us, but I haven’t been able
to reach Bastien either.  At first I thought that was because he
had been killed during the battle and left behind.  Now that I
know he is alive on this ship I should be able to speak with him.

“How?”

Callisto looks over
at me and smirks.  “You didn’t think that pretty
little necklace you’re wearing was just for looks now, did
you?”

I
twist my head and instantly feel the clamp tighten, making it hard to
breathe.  “Is that why I am chained down while all of you
are free to move?”

“Makes you
wonder, don’t it?” Hyde remarks.  

I lie still, trying
desperately to think beyond the pounding in my head.  I can feel
my body weakened from lack of nourishment.  Marius told me that
while I slept he spoon fed me water, but I refused to keep any food
down.  Even as this thought crosses my mind I realize how
unsettled my stomach feels.  How long has it been since I tasted
food?  A full week?  That might explain the headache and
dizziness.

Vondran slowly rises
from his seated position.  As he does so I spy lines in the back
of his shirt where he obviously made the mistake of leaning back
against the bars.  The fabric is melted and shiny.  I
wonder if it fused with his skin.

When he turns I am
able to see him fully.  His greasy dark blond hair falls about
his shoulders.  If it were washed I imagine his hair would be
thick.  His eyes are a startling turquoise that reminds me of
Calisted seen from space.  A thick growth of beard clings to his
cheeks, jaw and trails down his neck, several shades darker than the
hair upon his head.

His
cheeks are sallow, his frame lean.  He stands tall, though he is
hardly able to reach fully upright beneath the glass ceiling.  His
gaze is intense and unreadable.  

“I
don’t know why you are here, and to be honest I don’t
care.  I think that I speak for all of us when I say that when
we arrive, and you find your friend again, you need to stay out of
our way.”

The
bite of his words hits me as if he had physically struck me.  
So
much for creating an alliance!

 As he starts
to turn his back on me, the man whose legs I spied earlier speaks up.
 “You might want to reconsider that, Vondran.”

The man draws his
legs in and rises.  I can see the wide breadth of his back, see
the muscle definition in his arms through the ragged tatters of his
shirt.  Rust colored blood has soaked through his once blue
shirt.  A wide swatch of it runs across his right shoulder and
down his side. As he turns I catch a glimpse of another path of blood
straight across his abdomen.

“Nearly
died when they first brought him in,” Callisto whispers to me
as the two men face off. “Apparently we are worth far more
alive than dead, so the Roamers fixed him up.”

I purse my lips and
return my gaze to the two men.  Vondran stands only an inch
taller than the once injured man but he is half his size in weight.
 “Come on, Reyes.  Don’t tell me you’re
siding with that girl.”

The man named Reyes
pushes himself toward Vondran’s face though can only manage to
reach within a foot of him.  “Whose side should I be on?
The girl with enough rage to tear this ship apart or you, a filthy
mess the Roamers dug out of the back of a morvant back in
Vonderheide?”

Vonderheide?
 That name sounds familiar.  
I
rack my brain in search of the name and realize that during my
lessons with Kyan on Calisted geography, this is a small working
man’s town on the outskirts of Raos, the mining town whose
delegates I was meant to meet with on the day of the attack.

“I’m
unfamiliar with the term
morvant
.”
I speak up.

Reyes
turns and smirks at me.  “It means bordello, brothel,
whorehouse—”

I wince. “Thank
you.  I think I understand the reference.”

“This man is
nothing but a gutter rat, feasting off the good women of our town.”
 Reyes spits at Vondran’s feet.

The taller man
sneers and pulls against his chains, unable to reach Reyes.  The
muscles in his neck strain yet he finally gives up and lets his arms
fall back to his side.  He breathes heavily.  For a moment
I think that he might just turn and sit back down but a sly smile
stretches along his face.  “How many women have you been
with, Reyes?  A dozen?  A hundred?  You never were so
high and mighty until your little sister began lifting her skirt for
me.”

Reyes lunges at
Vondran, pulling hard enough against his chains to dislocate his own
hip.  “Oh, that is ripe,” Hyde laughs.  He rubs
his hands together, his arms propped up by his bent knees.  He
sits forward and my stomach twists at his delight.  “So
the noble Reyes isn’t so noble after all?”

“Leave ‘em
alone,” Marius calls.  He is off to my right but I don’t
look.  Although I’m sure the man means well his words fall
flat with his obvious uncertainty.  

Watching
Reyes now, I know that he is a fighter.  Perhaps not in the
usual sense of the term when you think of a soldier or hunter, but I
can see it in his stance.  This is a man I want on my side when
it comes to fight back.

“Reyes,”
I call.  He doesn’t seem to hear me until the fourth time
I call out.  Finally he stops pulling against his chains and
turns to look at me.  I see that his hair is a mixture of blond
and dark browns, wavy and unkempt.  His eyes are a piercing
bronze color, evidence of his Caldonian heritage.  Although he
appears to be only a few years older than me I know that he is
probably well over a hundred by now.  “I did not lie when
I said that I am not a threat to you or to anyone here.  Well,
Hyde’s future may be up in the air at the moment…”
I pause as the others laugh.  Hyde sneers at me and turns away.
 I turn and look back at Reyes.  “You are smart to
side with me.”

“Why is that?”
Callisto asks.

I
smile and turn my gaze back toward the ceiling.  This time I
don’t shy away from the speeding stars overhead.  I
embrace them.  “Because when the day comes that I get this
collar off, I’m going to be your only shot of getting home.”

It is impossible to
tell time in space.  We are forever surrounded by bleak darkness
and seizure-inducing flashes of stars overhead.  The lighting on
this ship never brightens above a level of dimness that allows me to
only truly see well if I squint, not that there is much to look at.

At my best guess I
would say a full day has passed in silence.  No one has said a
word since my final statement.  I hope I can take that as a good
sign that they are thinking over my insinuation.  We may not
have to like each other but surely they realize that I am their best
shot for survival.

My thoughts linger
on Eamon with increasing frequency.  My stomach seems to be on a
constant tilt, not knowing if he is alive.  Did he make it
through the battle?  Has Kyan returned to find our world in
ruin?  Are they looking for me?

I have thought often
about Reyes and Vondran.  They claim to come from just outside
the Raos province.  I know this to be a good distance from my
home.  How many others were taken from Calisted before the
palace was attacked?  Why was there no warning?  Was there
truly a spy within my ranks that kept this attack hidden until the
last possible moment?