“Then let’s hope they recognize one of us,” I say, riding forward.
Ten paces distant, the soldiers halt in the roadway and await our approach, their aim improving. “Fuck,” one of them exhales when he sees Priest’s arm.
“Fuck,” I mutter, neither man familiar to me. Our horses reined in, I call ahead to them. “I’m Rimma. This is Priest from the Colony. We’re here to offer Mikel assistance.”
“Off the horses,” one of the men shouts.
Priest and Angel slowly dismount. He steps forward, keeping my sister behind him. I sit my saddle, slowly pulling my bow up to rest in my lap. “Mikel knows us both,” I state. “So does Colonel Cullan. I fought under Javlan and Dex.”
“Arms up!” One crossbow remains steadily trained on Priest, the other soldier can’t seem to decide and swings his weapon between us, a touch twitchy for comfort. “We’re at war with the People,” Steady informs us.
“It’s started?” Priest asks, raising his arms.
“Any day.”
“You realize,” I inform the soldiers, “this man can kill you with a thought.” I tilt my head indicating Priest.
“Rimma,” Angel squeaks.
Ignoring her, I press my point. “The fact you’re both breathing might give you a hint as to our intentions. We’re here to see Mikel.” I lean forward in my saddle, eyes disregarding Twitchy’s metal bolt aimed at my face. “I know him
intimately,”
I add. “A few months have passed and I’m overdue for a good fuck.”
Steady’s eyes linger on my face for a moment, appraising me. He acknowledges the odds that I’m speaking the truth by lowering his bow, quivering the bolt, walking up to Priest, and slamming the stock into his forehead.
Two hours later, Mikel plays the concerned host, only the slightest glimmer of irritation sharpening his charming smile. “Is your sister here as well?” he asks, looking up at me from his seat across from Priest. Between them on the low table, newly arrived goblets of cold water sweat on a silver tray.
“You know we’re inseparable,” I reply, glancing her way. Angel stares out his window, sulking. From Mikel’s chambers, she has a view of the outer city beyond the walls and the growing Biter camp in the distance. “She’s concerned about those outside the gates,” I advise him, sipping from a goblet as I wander the room. I cast private glances his way as he studies me, watching my body sway as I reel him in. Despite his simmering anger, he’s plotting the evening’s events, how quickly or slowly he’ll maneuver me into his bed. I expect he’ll want to demonstrate his power over me. He’ll crave control, eager to vent some of his frustration over my sister and Priest.
A walnut-sized knot on his forehead, Priest sits in one of the ornate chairs, dark bruises under his eyes, noticeable even against his ebony skin. I wonder at the brewing potential of his Touch. Despite Angel’s insistence that he’s more powerful than anyone else at the Colony, stronger than even Mag, I’ve never seen him conjure up more than a hot meal. He bends light, creates strange and textured music, warms stone chambers. I’ve never seen him kill.
“Most have retreated inside the wall,” Mikel informs me. “The rest seem to think they have time.”
Priest briefly presses a goblet to his forehead. “What are your intentions, Mikel?”
“To win.” Mikel leans forward in his chair with a roguish grin.
“How many People camp out there?” Priest asks. “Three thousand? How many trained soldiers within the Fortress walls?”
“A thousand with experience,” Mikel replies, reaching for a goblet. “But five thousand trained through rotations.”
“Yet untested.”
“Your point?” Mikel asks, the impish manner gradually morphing into the iron will of a warlord. I’ve met this man before.
“I’m getting there,” Priest sips his water and returns the goblet to the tray. “You aren’t strong enough to fight them, not with Touched among them. And they won’t leave when winter comes. Why should they? They have your harvest outside the walls, they have your farms, the outer city to occupy and burn at their leisure. How many Forerunners are you willing to sacrifice?”
“As many as I need to,” Mikel replies. “If I lose three thousand men and women, I’ll have reversed four generations of progress, a hundred years of striving. But I
will
sacrifice them, as many as I need to if their deaths secure our future.” The muscles in his jaw twitch, his shoulders tensing as Priest stares at him. He snaps to his feet and slings his goblet to the wall, shattering the delicate glass. Angel jumps from her skin, but neither Priest nor I react.
A guard raps on the door. “Maintain your post,” Mikel shouts, then swings to Priest and gestures toward the window. “You think I relish this? You believe I enjoy hunting down the People, killing the innocent because I can’t tell who’s dangerous? Hanging those who challenge my mission? I bear a duty that’s larger than I am, larger than you, more important than any of us. The future of humanity hinges on agonizing decisions, on sacrifice.”
“The Touched are human beings,” Priest says quietly.
“They’re flawed,” Mikel counters with the same intensity. He meets the dark man’s bruised eyes and drops to his seat. “That’s what this comes down to, Priest, isn’t it? Different visions for the future. Someday this land will cease killing us. Maybe that time lies a thousand years distant, but when it arrives, the Forerunners will stand strong and whole.”
“You need us,” Priest persists.
“We let you live,” Mikel replies graciously. “But we don’t need you.”
Priest’s gaze drifts from Mikel to me, then to Angel where she stands by the window. “I can help you with this war,” he says, “with my Touch.”
“Against your own?” Mikel asks, raising an eyebrow.
“To dissuade them and to protect yours,” Priest explains.
“And the concession?”
“Accept us.”
Mikel collapses into the back in his chair and shakes his head. “That, I cannot do.”
**
Free of road dust and sweat, I oil my skin and comb tangles from my hair. The dress Mikel’s picked out for me is little more than a silken sheath, thin-strapped and narrow, without adornment, gray as ice beneath a slippery sky. It restricts my movement, confines me, perhaps his attempt to demonstrate who’s in command.
On his table, he’s laid out a meal of sweet-nuts over fresh greens and fish baked in a sauce of garlic, fennel, tomato, and sage. The color of old blood, a heady wine swirls in the glass goblet he holds just beyond my reach. “I thought you were dead,” he says, quietly appraising me.
“Deserted,” I correct him, meeting his eyes, a mischievous smile curling the corner of my lips.
“Ah, so I should hang you after I bed you.” He hands me the goblet.
“But you would miss me,” I inform him, gliding closer.
“True,” he concedes. “There’s something about you that doesn’t give a devil’s damn about propriety.”
“So disrespectful,” I say.
“Taunting.”
“Disdainful.”
“Feral,” he adds.
“Oh so wicked.” We tap our glasses and drink. He eyes our waiting supper and pours me another that I raise and empty. My goblet reaches for more. “Fill it, Mikel. It’s been awhile.”
“Awhile since…?” He pours again and sets the bottle on the table behind me.
“Since I’ve enjoyed a decent wine and a great fuck,” I tell him.
Barking a laugh, he grabs the front of my shift in a fist and wrenches me toward him. The wine spills as he wrestles away the goblet, thrusting it to the table where it falls and rolls against the platters. His mouth crushes my lips, fingers groping at my breasts, sliding over silk to my belly and rooting between my thighs. He fumbles the gray silk up my legs. I hold onto him, hands on his shoulder and neck, my head thrown back as he bites at my breasts. With a grunt, he lifts me to the table, knocking over the wine bottle, ruby liquid running over the edge as he unbuckles his belt. I’m wet with wine, wet for him, needing the intensity of rutting and clawing like animals, our combined grunts as he thrusts inside me. I hold him with my legs, tear at the shirt on his back, rocking into him, my eyes closed as I kiss his ears, his neck, his shoulder. I want him deep and hard, to make me feel alive, to free me. Gasping, I lean back, arching, drawing him into me, my body rigid, tightening and releasing in waves as I hear him groan, pumping his seed into me.
Slowly, I sink to my back on the table in the red wine. Still inside me, he leans over me, a picture of surprise in his eyes. “Not my plan for the evening.”
“Disappointed?”
“Never.” He backs up and fixes his clothes while I sit on the table’s edge, watching him. “Are you hungry?” he asks.
Twisting around, I see our supper is still intact if not a bit cool. “If Priest were here, he could heat that up for us.”
“I’m going to hang him,” Mikel tells me.
“What?” I swing back to face him, hoping to find a teasing smile on his lips, some sign that he’s jesting. He’s buckling his belt.
“I plan to hang him,” Mikel repeats, looking up at me. “I’m inclined to hang your sister too, but I won’t.” He gently touches my cheek. “Don’t worry, I give you my word.”
“Why Priest?” I ask as I slide off the table. “What has he done? You can’t do that.”
“I can,” he asserts, narrowing his eyes at me. “He’s a thorn, Rimma. He steals our people, foments unrest. The Colony’s mere presence perpetuates discord by offering an alternative. How many times must I hear it? That another family left us, that the Colony accepts the deformed, therefore why can’t we?”
“Why can’t you?” I ask, reeling from his casual announcement.
His hands grip my shoulders and he leans toward me, his forehead pressed against mine in weariness. “You know the reasons and I won’t repeat the argument. Let it rest. Don’t make me angry.”
“My sister loves him,” I explain. “You’ll destroy her.”
“She’ll survive. She has you.” He pulls me off the table and slips the thin straps off my shoulders. His hands shimmy the dress down over my hips to puddle bone-gray and blood-red with wine at my feet, leaving me naked before him. “There. All cleaned up.” He gently bites my lower lip, holding me in place while he cups my breast with one hand and slides his fingers inside me with his other. I’m trembling, my body responding despite my growing panic. He whispers in my ear, “Let’s eat, love, and then I have plans for you.”
Naked at his table, I force down food and swill down a newly opened bottle of wine. My anxiety recedes, replaced by an uninhibited recklessness, eyes half-lidded, lips numb. Mikel feels no pain as he leads me to his bed, his knife on the bedside table, his clothes rumpling to the floor. I forget about hangings, about the Colony, about thousands of Biters amassing outside the bone wall. I forget about Angel, immersing myself in the sensations of the flesh, letting everything slide off me like rain on oilskin. I’m thoughtless and soulless, without consciousness or conscience. Only my skin and my sex are alive.
Time glides by outside, moonlit stars glittering like pinpricks in a black shroud. Mikel sleeps beside me on his back, content, perhaps in love. I barely know what the word means anymore. Could I have loved him? What happens when lovers have to choose?
Quiet as a ghost, I slip from his blankets and tiptoe around the bed. The knife glows with an unearthly light, blade polished to a mirror sheen. My fingers rest on the hilt, the grip hard and molded to his hand. Without a sound, I lift it, my breath shallow. He appears young, innocent, and hopeful in his sleep, his lips parted, dark hair framing his face, chest rising and falling in a gentle breathy rhythm, a slight wine-induced snore.
For the last hour, I’ve thought about how to do this. What is most efficient, most effective, less apt to raise a stir? What will be the least painful? Will he open his betrayed eyes and look at me? Is there another way? Do I have a choice? Do I have a choice? What choice do I have?
The blade tip down, I raise the knife, and before I lose my grip on the blade, on my sanity, I slap a hand over his mouth and plunge it through his eye.
3
0
~Angel~
The sound terrifies me, something mewling and groaning at my door, scratching for the latch. When the door opens, a shadow stumbles toward my bed, banging into a chair. Awake beside me, Priest grips my shoulder and whispers in my ear, “Don’t move.” He bends dawn’s pale light, hiding us while he brightens the room to a dim glow. Rimma stands rigid, crossbow on her back, bloody hands groping through the dark, a blade in her fist. On her face she wears a demon’s mask, mouth gaping, eyes unnaturally wide, a dark smear of blood on her cheek. Her mouth speaks, but I hear no words; she looks at me but can’t see me. Priest has her cocooned in blindness and silence.
“Rimma,” I cry, scrambling naked from bed. Priest drops the barrier, vision and sound restored. She lurches toward me, a hand to her stomach as she bends over and vomits.
“We have to leave,” she gasps and spits. “We have to go now.”
“What happened?” I ask in a panic, my voice shrill. “Are you hurt?”
“What have you done?” Priest demands as he rises behind me.
“Mikel’s dead.” My sister staggers around the room, tossing our clothes at us. “Get dressed.”