The Choosing (The Pruxnae Book 1) (13 page)

Four Standard
days later, Ryn guided the
Yarinska
into orbit around Abyw.

Ziri sat beside
him in the co-pilot’s chair manipulating the viewscreen, her eyes wide, her
lips parted. “It’s so beautiful, Ryn.”

The reverence in
her voice echoed the emotion gripping his heart. Abyw had saved him in so many
ways. It had given him refuge and a new family. It had bled the confusion and
anger and hurt out of him and replaced it with the quiet contentment of a man
unafraid of his past. And now, it would welcome the woman he intended to join
his life with.

He hadn’t yet
convinced her he was worth having.

Since
assimilating his language, she’d chattered on and on about her home planet, all
the things she’d done there, all the people she knew, all the places she wanted
to show him. Sometimes, she grew wistful and pleaded with him to let her go
home, especially when speaking of her family.

Though he hadn’t
changed his mind about allowing her to contact her parents, he’d already
decided to contact them himself. A brief note letting them know she was well
and would see them again soon would do no harm, and it might go a long way
toward fostering their acceptance of him in Ziri’s life. He couldn’t pinpoint
exactly when that had become important to him. Maybe after it became clear that
her ties to her home world were too strong to break completely. Maybe after
realizing he could never hurt her that deeply, even if helping her find
happiness broke Pruxnæ custom.

“Are we landing
on the planet or docking in the spaceport?” she asked.

“Landing.
There’s a port near Hrelum. That’ll make it easier to haul your purchases
home.”

She swiveled
around in the chair, facing him. “But we’re going to Tersi soon. Shouldn’t we
leave everything on the ship?”

“We’ll be here a
while. Business, remember?”

“Yes, but…” She
nibbled on one corner of her mouth. “What about my parents? I really need to let
them know where I am. Mag, too. She’ll be worried about me, if she hasn’t fired
me already.”

She looked so
miserable, he relented. “I’ll make sure they know you’re safe.”

“But—”

“No, Ziri,” he
said firmly. “You have work to do here. There’s plenty of time to contact your
parents later.”

Her eyes
narrowed into thin slits. “What kind of work?”

“Training,
learning Pruxnæ customs, managing the
Yarinska
and my property.”

“The
Yarinska
I understand, but why your property? I mean, if you don’t know how to handle
your stuff by now, maybe you’re not as bright as I thought you were.”

He cut an
exasperated glare at her out of the corner of his eye. “It’s tradition. We need
to change clothes.”

She rolled her
eyes. “Let me guess. I have to cover myself from head to toe while you stuff
yourself into armor. Honestly, Ryn. This is your home planet. Don’t tell me we
have to walk around like that here.”

“Just this once.
It’s tradition.”

“Stuff
tradition,” she said, though her voice held more amusement than rancor. “Can I
at least take the scarf I’m knitting?”

“I’ll get it for
you later,” he promised.

He coaxed her
into their quarters and slipped on thinner clothing and armor while she dressed
in warmer clothes and gathered her hooded coat and a face scarf. He retrieved
the chains he’d used on her that first night and handed them to her.

“Why are you
giving me these?” she asked.

“So I can lead
you through Hrelum. They’re a symbol of your status.”

The color
leached from her skin. “As a slave?” she whispered.

“As a candidate
for the Choosing.”

“Advocate N’du
mentioned that.” She eyed the chains warily. “Is that why you kidnapped me?”

“Yes.” He
wrapped his arms around her and held her lightly against his armored chest.
“Don’t worry, Ziri. You’ll do fine.”

“But what is
it?”

“Alna will
explain. She’s been through it before. She can help you finish preparing.”

Her voice
dropped so low he nearly missed her next words. “Will it hurt?”

“I can’t promise
it won’t. Sometimes candidates end up with scrapes and bruises, usually nothing
serious, though.” He stroked her back, massaging away the tension in her
shoulders. “I promised not to knowingly put you in any more dangerous
situations, didn’t I? Can’t you trust me to keep you out of one now?”

“I don’t know. I
still haven’t forgiven you for the Sweepers, or the kidnapping, or the
autolearner, not to mention Omba.”

He kissed the
top of her head. “Being with me isn’t that bad.”

“No.” She sighed
and leaned into him. “Sometimes, I think if you hadn’t kidnapped me, we
might’ve been friends.”

“We can still be
friends.” He hoped so, anyway. If he’d learned anything from observing the
couples he knew, it was how important friendship was to a lasting relationship.
He wanted his and Ziri’s to last a long, long time. “Kiss me now before we go
planet-side. We won’t get to again until the Choosing.”

She lifted her
face to his. “I’m sure you’ll find a way. You’re a little sneaky—”

He captured her
mouth with his, cutting off her words, and poured every bit of his hope and hunger
into the kiss. She rose onto her toes and blossomed for him, his Ziri, so
sweet, so full of life, and he accepted everything she gave him, every slide of
her lips across his, every tentative foray of her tongue into his mouth,
everything, and it was so good, so right. Heat ripped through him, devastating
in its fury, shoving him to the edge of reason.

He forced
himself to gentle the kiss, forced himself to give her up, and stored the
memory of her taste in his heart to tide him over during the long days ahead.
“Ready?”

Her eyes
remained closed, her lips parted and glistening. “I don’t think I’m ever ready
for you. Why do you kiss me like that, like you want me so much you can’t wait
another tick to have me?”

“Because I
can’t. I’ve wanted you since the first time I saw you.”

Her eyes flew
open and met his. “Truly?”

“Is it so hard
to believe?”

“I’ve been
handfasted twice.”

“You told me.”

“They didn’t
want me.”

“Those men
aren’t me,” he said gently.

Her lips pressed
together. “You’re taking me back to Tersi.”

“That doesn’t
mean I’m leaving you there.”

“Maybe I want
you to.”

“Maybe you’ll
change your mind.” Especially with him helping her along. “Alna’s waiting the
evening meal for us.”

She sighed. “I
can’t believe you’re dragging me through the streets of your hometown in
chains.”

“Not dragging. Leading.”

“Same thing,”
she grumbled. “Come on, then. Let’s get it over with.”

He touched his
mouth to hers a final time and led her to the bridge, ignoring the unease mingling
with hope in his gut.

* * *

The village of Hrelum
was larger than it had looked through the
Yarinska
’s viewscreen. Ziri
studied it surreptitiously as she walked beside Ryn. He’d cuffed those
twice-cursed manacles around her wrists before leading her off the
Yarinska
with the warning to keep her head down and stay quiet. Now, he guided her through
the dirt streets with one hand holding the chains binding her hands together
and the other on the blaster strapped to his hip, as if anybody there would
challenge their progress.

So far, Ziri
hadn’t seen a single example of that sort of aggression. Curious stares, sure,
from wide-eyed children and men and women going about their early evening
chores, and from the livestock being herded casually through the wide avenues.
She risked a glance at a pair of black-furred creatures with huge, mud-colored
eyes and curling horns on top of their heads engaged in mating. Molnog, her
brain supplied on a sharp wave of pain, and she inwardly cursed the
autolearner.

The young man
tending the molnog tapped the bottom end of a long stick against the packed
dirt street, startling the creatures into shifting away from each other and
continuing their journey. They passed out of sight, and Ziri fixed her gaze on
the windowless shops and rustic dwellings lining the roadway. Smoke drifted out
of cylindrical rock fixtures on their roofs, mingling with the lightly falling
snow.

She’d never seen
snow before. If she weren’t chained, she’d turn her face to the pewter sky and
open her mouth, inviting the snow to land on her tongue as some of the younger
children were doing. Ryn had asked her to keep her head down, though, and
because it was a simple enough request, she obliged.

As they passed
through the snow-lined streets, Ziri mulled over her time with Ryn, from her
kidnapping, to his offering her items he’d taken from her home, to his defense
of her and the
Yarinska
against the Sweepers, to him exchanging
ownership in his ship for credits he’d helped her obtain. She was a candidate,
he’d said, for a mysterious ceremony Advocate N’du had linked with the men of
Abyw kidnapping their brides.

You didn’t
really steal me for a wife the way Advocate N’du said, did you?
she’d asked,
and he’d responded with,
What would you think if I said yes?

But that
couldn’t be right. He’d promised to take her home. He’d even promised to
contact her parents for her until she could contact them on her own.

After their
business was concluded, most of which seemed to revolve around her adjusting to
his life.

The unease
plucking at Ziri coalesced into fear and she shivered, from the cold, from the
unknown future she faced. She’d assumed he’d wanted her to learn Pruxnæ customs
for the same reason he’d encouraged her to learn the customs of the other
worlds they’d visited, so she’d have an easier time navigating them without
drawing trouble. And the rest of the business he’d mentioned she’d be busy
with, managing the
Yarinska
and his holdings. She’d teased him about
that and earned a mildly spoken, “It’s tradition.”

She sucked in a
breath behind the thick scarf covering her lower face. No, she had to be wrong.
Ryn was honorable. Advocate N’du had said so, and even without that
confirmation, she would’ve known. True, he was a sneaky woman-stealer, but he’d
been patient and kind, and as far as she could tell, he’d never lied to her.

Then again,
she’d only known him for a little while.

He turned down a
side street, guiding her with gentle tugs on the chain draped between her
hands. The stores disappeared, replaced by larger homes spaced farther apart,
most of them constructed of wood and stone like the ones they’d passed earlier.
Ziri marveled at the sheer amount of trees that had gone into building the
village. She’d seen the large tracts of forest on Abyw for herself as Ryn
maneuvered the
Yarinska
through the planet’s atmosphere into the landing
port outside Hrelum. The lower altitudes of the rough, sharply-pointed
mountains were covered with trees. She’d never seen so many in her life.

Ryn opened a wooden
gate, part of a fence surrounding the yard of a two-story, irregularly-shaped
home. They followed a stone lined path through evergreen bushes dotted with
milky white berries to the house’s stoop set in front of a large door made of
thick wooden slats held together with metal strips. He paused and glanced at
her. “Thank you for not struggling.”

The softly
spoken words were muted by his helmet. Ziri shrugged. “It’s not like I can get
away. Besides, I’m hungry. You promised to feed me.”

He snorted,
pushed down on the door’s latch, and stepped inside. Ziri followed, curiosity
burning brightly within her. Ryn tugged her through a large open room with
wood-beam ceilings less than two arm lengths above her head. The upper halves
of the walls were plaster, painted a soft white, while the bottom halves were
made of narrow strips of wood stained dark. Thick, woven rugs were scattered
across the floors, some plain, others patterned. A large fireplace occupied the
right wall, its hearth decorated with metal instruments and a reed basket
holding slender strips of wood and bark. A fire popped and crackled behind a
heavy metal door set into the surrounding rock. A stairway was set against the
far wall, its rails a gently sloping diagonal across the wall. Comfortable
furniture was strewn around the room, too varied for Ziri to take in all at
once.

Her gaze was
drawn to a loom sitting in the far left corner and the half-woven fabric it
held. She managed only a glance before Ryn pulled her through a door on the far
right between the storage room built under the stairs and the fireplace in the
adjacent wall.

They entered
another open room, this one containing a kitchen area on the far side and a
long wooden table to the forefront. A second fireplace was on the left wall,
its heavy metal door open to the orange-flamed fire burning within its bosom. A
long counter ran the length of the far wall, broken by metal appliances. Steam
rose from pots and pans scattered across the top of one of the appliances.