Текст книги "Alien god"

Автор книги: Ursa Dox

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CHAPTER ELEVEN Torrance

I returned inside with my winged captor. There was no other choice. He clearly wasn’t going to let me run off into the forest, and even if he had allowed me that, it would have meant certain death for me out there without the shelter and resources of the ship.

I can’t believe the ship is gone...

We walked through a large room that appeared to be a rustic kitchen – something I hadn’t noticed on my mad dash outside. Once past that, we were back in the grand entrance hall with its emerald green walls and the intricately-laid tile floor. The other two aliens who’d been here before were gone. I wasn’t sure if that was good or bad. They hadn’t seemed especially menacing in and of themselves, but I’d gleaned from their interactions that they held the winged man up as some sort of authority figure and would no doubt take his side over mine if things came down to it.

My captor wasn’t holding me by the arm this time. He didn’t need to. We both recognized that his display of power outside had broken my will to attempt escape again.

At least for tonight.

He walked across the hall, and I kept shaky pace beside him, knowing that he was leading me somewhere though not quite knowing where. I stole a sideways glance, observing him in the strange orange light that seemed to emanate from lantern-like rocks along the walls. He looked more like some cruel fae prince, or a fallen god, than an alien. Rugged yet regally cut jaw and cheekbones, hair like midnight moon, an entire sprawling starscape etched into his skin and wings.

Beside him like this, I could get a sense of how truly huge he was. At least seven feet tall, with shoulders that seemed even more broad than they really were because of the wings. His dark reddish, fox-like tail and ears were features he shared with the other two aliens who’d been here before, but though clearly somehow related, it was obvious they weren’t the exact same species. Comparing the other two to him would have been like comparing sparrows to a dragon.

We reached the foot of the hall’s impressive curving staircase, made of more deep green crystal. The centre of the staircase was plush with some kind of white fur carpeting. For an absurd moment, I wanted to take off my boots so I didn’t ruin it. Nearly bent to do it, too. Old habits die hard.

The alien began ascending the stairs without even turning back to see if I’d followed. The arrogance in that astounded and enraged me. He won’t check if I’m behind him because he knows I will be. Trailing behind him like a fucking puppy, helpless to do anything else.

I stood shaking and seething at the bottom of the stairs, wanting to plant myself there, to wait so long that he’d have to turn around and see I hadn’t followed. I was desperate to take a stand, in some small way, now that I knew I couldn’t run. But I was afraid of what would happen if I did. And while I wrestled with what to do, he kept moving up the steps in measured strides. One. Two. Three. With every step he took, my nerve dwindled. Four. Five. My mouth went dry, palms sweating in my gloves. Six. When his foot touched down on the seventh step, he halted. He remained there for a moment, one foot higher than the other, thick leg muscles on display in his tight leather-looking trousers. For the first time, I noticed the material wasn’t just black, but stained with bright silver-white, like smeared paint. It was coming from his skin above, coursing in shimmering rivulets. Now that I’d noticed it, I saw it everywhere – running in narrow trails down his arms and splattered across his wings.

Is he... bleeding?

If he was, it didn’t seem to be bothering him, at least to my eyes. He practically thrummed with restrained power as he posed on the stairs, his muscle-corded arms loose and relaxed by his sides, his stance perfectly balanced between the two steps. He stood entirely still except for his head, which turned in a subtle movement to the left, allowing me a glimpse of his hard jaw and nose in a one-quarter profile view. I doubted he could even see me from that angle, and yet I suddenly felt completely exposed. Stripped bare by a set of eyes that weren’t even on me.

Swallowing hard, I mounted the first step. He faced fully forward once again and continued walking.

And just like the bastard knew I would, I followed.

WE MOUNTED SO MANY stairs I grew dizzy and thought I’d fall all the way back down. These trees, or towers, or whatever they were, were definitely as large on the inside as they’d appeared on the outside. Eventually, we ended up on a broad landing of sorts. On each side of the landing was an opening that led into what looked like a tunnel. I’d seen this from the outside, I realized. Suspended, tubular walkways made of crystal that connected the three towers to each other. Without pausing, the alien headed for the exit to our left, stepping out onto the protected walkway.

My failed moment of defiance at the bottom of the stairs taught me not to bother standing around here. Whatever was ahead – pain or prison cell – I had to face it. I could walk. Or I could get dragged.

I hurried to catch up.

I gulped as I stepped into the suspended tunnel. I couldn’t help but peek downwards, immediately wishing I hadn’t. The crystal was translucent, which made it seem like I was walking on something that only half-existed. The ground below was a dizzying distance away. My stomach twisted and dropped.

Gritting my teeth, I wrenched my eyes up, finding the alien further ahead. It was quite a long tunnel, at least twenty metres, maybe more. Even though it was cold in here, I ripped off my gloves and shoved them into my parka’s pockets, needing to feel the solid tunnel wall with my bare skin. I remained close to the right side of the walkway, my hand moving along the rounded wall as if I couldn’t see and needed to feel my way along.

I tried my best not to look down again. For a while, I kept my gaze fastened to the winged alien’s back. But before long, it drifted to the walls and ceiling of the tunnel. The crystal shards hadn’t been randomly put together, but, like the floor in the entrance hall, had been artfully arranged. It created a stained-glass effect. Starlight filtered through crystal flowers and fields above my head, dappling my white snowsuit and the alien’s hair with petals of light – rose and lilac and jade.

Was that a good thing? That this alien’s home (at least, I assumed it was his home) was beautiful? That he appreciated art, or nature, or both? That aesthetic and design were considered important? It made him seem a little more human, at least, but that wasn’t necessarily a point in his favour. Look what humans did to me.

The starlight gleamed in his blood.

And to him.

We reached the end of the tunnel, emerging onto another landing. If what I remembered from my brief view from the outside was correct, this tower was slightly shorter than the largest centre one we’d just come from, and the tunnel connected somewhere close to the shorter tower’s pointed top. And yet, there were still more fucking stairs.

I sucked in a breath, swallowed my groan of complaint, and started to climb.

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CHAPTER TWELVE Wylfrael

Aiko met us on the stairs, descending to the landing outside the room I’d chosen just as we reached it.

“Ah! My lord! The chambers are prepared. There was not much to do. Though we did not know when you would return, we have kept everything ready for you.”

“Thank you,” I grunted. I stepped aside, making room for the panting, wobbling human who trailed behind me. At several points on the walk here, I didn’t think she’d make it. But every time I paused, sensing the need to go back and haul her up myself, she’d made it abundantly clear she did not want any assistance. She didn’t have much further to go, now. The only thing left above this landing was the room I’d chosen for her, and it was directly overhead.

“Take her up to her room,” I said to Aiko, jerking my chin at the human. “I assume she eats, so bring her a meal.”

The human watched me flatly. All the warmth was gone from her eyes in the gloom of the stairwell, endless obsidian pools.

For some reason, that bothered me.

“And bring a blasted firestone for this landing,” I said, more curtly than I’d intended. “It’s too dark here.”

“Of course, my lord!”

I fought to steady my voice, to regain some composure.

“Thank you again, Aiko. I will be in my room. When the human is finished eating, I expect her to be brought to me.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Good. Go.”

I opened the door to my chamber, stepping through. Clearly, there had been some confusion, though, because the human followed me in.

“No, Sionnach preserve us, not that way!” Aiko bleated nervously. I spun on my heel, catching the human’s narrow shoulders in my hands. Her eyes opened wide. In the warmly lit chamber, her gaze had regained its golden hue.

Better.

“Go with Aiko,” I said gruffly, spinning her in my hands until she faced the Sionnachan Mistress of Affairs. I let her go, and she stumbled forward.

She turned back to look at me, her brow wrinkled with a lack of understanding, or maybe with suspicion, as if she didn’t believe I was going to let her out of my sight.

“You.” I pointed a clawed finger at her. “Aiko.” My finger swung to the Sionnachan. “Go.” Now I pointed back out towards the landing at the stairs.

Something came over her face, then. A slackening. Relief.

“Don’t get too excited,” I muttered darkly. “You’ll be back here before you know it.”

But my words had no effect. Something did excite her – fear, or maybe pure, vicious hatred for me. Whatever it was, it quickened her movements more than I would have thought possible.

She ran from my room like it would kill her if she stayed.

I remained there, looking out the doorway into the shadows of the landing, until I heard the door above mine open, then shut.

I dragged my fingers through my hair and sighed.

Finally alone.

“My Lord? I have the bandages.”

... Never mind.

I smoothed my face into something I hoped did not convey my annoyance before I turned around. My parents, my mother in particular, had always impressed upon me how much I was to care for and respect the castle’s staff.

“Thank you, Shoshen.”

Shoshen, it turned out, was not alone. A much older Sionnachan man, leaning on a silver tree crystal cane, was with him. They both flattened their ears.

“My Lord, this is our father, Ashken. He was the previous Master of the Grounds who trained me,” Shoshen said. “I hope you do not mind that I woke him to greet you.”

“Not at all,” I replied, crossing the room to them. “I am happy to meet you, Ashken, just as I will be to meet the others.”

“Others?” Shoshen asked, turning to glance at his father.

“Lord Wylfrael,” Ashken said, his voice deeper and stronger than his use of the cane would have led me to expect, “there are no others. It is only me, and my two children, who serve the castle now.”

My tone turned caustic.

“Was it the invaders? Were the other Sionnachans here harmed?”

If the humans killed them...

I stormed to the door, ready to tear the human out of her room and demand answers from her, even if she could not understand my questions. But Ashken’s words stopped me in my tracks.

“No, my lord. That old Riverdark spell has served the castle well. Those invaders did not come here or harm any Sionnachan that I know of.”

Well, that was something at least. I turned back and rejoined them. Shoshen seemed to remember himself, jumping and making a little “ah!” sound. He brandished a bandage at me, soaked in healing Sionnachan herbs, stepping closer to clean my wounds. I waved him off with a grunt, taking it and doing it myself. I wiped the soaked bandage across my chest, cleaning away the blood and disinfecting the wounds.

“So, where’s the rest of the staff, then?” I asked, switching out my now-bloodied bandage for a fresh one Shoshen handed me reverently. When I’d left, there had been a dozen servants in the castle’s employ.

“Well, my lord,” Ashken began slowly. “To put it plainly, people lost hope you’d ever return. The coffers kept them paid in your absence, but generation after generation, belief that you were dead grew stronger. People began to leave their posts here, returning to be with their families in villages far beyond the mountains. Or they died, and no one was willing to cross the mountains to replace them.” The old man paused, as if unsure whether to say the next part. “Forgive me my boldness, Lord Wylfrael, but few Sionnachans wanted to serve in the abandoned house of a dead god.”

My eyebrows lifted in surprise at old Ashken’s bluntness. I decided I appreciated his honesty.

“I can understand that,” I muttered, passing Shoshen yet another ruined bandage. My front was mostly cleaned up now, and I began packing the wounds with dry bandages.

“We, of course, never felt that way,” Ashken added. “Our family has always held strong in the faith that you would return. Someday.”

“Well, here I am.” I tried to ignore the knife of shame in my guts that twisted at the thought of generation after generation of Sionnachans waiting here for me. Waiting for a god who did not come.

Curse you, Skalla...

“Thank you for remaining,” I said, meaning it. I didn’t particularly care one way or the other about having servants around to tend to my needs, but their loyalty touched me. And with the human prisoner here now, I’d be able to offload tasks like feeding her and fetching clothes for her to the others. Plus, I’d be able to get information about what went on in my absence without having to trek to one the of villages so far from here they likely wouldn’t have any information about the humans’ activities, anyway.

Although...

“Have you been in contact with anyone beyond the mountains?” I asked sharply. I hadn’t yet considered the idea that there could be more human settlements on my world.

“Yes, my lord,” Ashken replied. “After the invaders arrived in their sled from the sky, I sent letters, carried by burrowbirds, to other villages. The replies we received seemed to indicate the flying sled with its foreigners in the valley was the only one, and they did not travel far from here. Though, they had only been here thirty-one days before you arrived today, so there is no way to know what their future plans may have been.”

“As long as their future plans do not include returning,” I mused darkly. I doubted they’d even attempt such a thing, considering how fast they’d fled. If they did try to return in the future, I’d be even stronger, and I’d crush their machine, the sled, as Ashken called it, with my bare fists...

But for now, I was satisfied that they were gone.

Except for the one currently in the chamber directly above my head.

“You may leave me now. You are dismissed for the night,” I told the father and son. They closed and opened their fists (Ashken doing the gesture with only one hand, his other fist clutching his cane) before quietly leaving the room. As they padded down the stairs together, Ashken’s laugh, choked with emotion, echoed.

“It is just as I always told you and your sister it would be, my boy! Lord Wylfrael has returned! Snows of Sionnach, am I ever glad I lived to see this day...”

I didn’t share Ashken’s joy over this day. In fact, it had been a singularly trying one among all the uncounted days of my immortal existence. First, the fight with Skalla that had left me so weakened. Then, coming home to find the humans here. Surrounding all of that, there was the swirling dread of this new star-darkness spreading and the strange, unyielding silence from the Council of the Gods.

Remembering Maerwynne’s disturbingly starless fist, I checked over my own body once more for signs of the same. But all I found were stars just where they should be and wounds to be cleaned and bandaged.

I’d just bandaged them all – all the ones deep enough that required it, anyway – when a soft call from beyond the doorway caught my ears.

“Lord Wylfrael?”

Aiko was in the open doorway, wringing her hands. Her tail was a bushy orange puff of anxiety, her small upturned nose twitching nervously.

“What is it?” I asked, meeting her at the door.

“It’s the woman. The prisoner,” she corrected herself, clearly still not used to the idea. “She will not eat. She will not come down to see you, either. And... Forgive me my lord, but I do not think it is because she does not understand my words.”

“Of course, it isn’t,” I snapped. The human was choosing to be difficult, I could already tell. What an irritating species.

Aiko’s hands tightened against each other, her ears flattening.

“I am sorry, my lord!”

“Don’t apologize. Not your fault,” I muttered as I began taking the stairs upwards two at a time. Aiko, and likely Ashken and Shoshen, were too gentle to even think of forcing the human to do anything, let alone dragging her down the stairs to meet me.

But I was not.

I burst into the room. The human woman was seated in a chair that was too large for her, glaring at a bowl of Sionnachan stew as if the meal had killed everyone she’d ever loved.

At the sound of my footsteps, she flinched and turned to me.

We stared at each other for a long moment in the low, fire-warmed light.

She looked different from before. She’d shed her outer layers of clothing, revealing a frame that was even smaller than I’d thought, no longer puffed up with odd white fabric. She had hair, too – a revelation. I’d had no idea all of that was under there, trapped under the tight hood she’d worn. It spilled over her bony shoulders and down her back in rich undulations of brown that gleamed reddish-gold wherever the firelight hit it.

Her eyes, however, were the same as before. Snow and honey. Fear, defiance, and accusation, all bound up together under the shadows of curling lashes.

“Aiko tells me you won’t eat.”

She merely looked at me, muted by her lack of understanding. Or by sheer stubbornness.

This day needs to end.

Why, why would she not eat? Did her kind not eat after all? She had a mouth, and teeth, and a throat. I thought of her mad dash into the shelter-less snow of the forest and grimly wondered if she meant to die of starvation rather than stay here with me.

Before I was aware of it, my feet were moving. She scrambled away in her high-backed chair. Too late, she tried to get down, but I was already there, standing between her and the table, blocking her. Her feet bumped my shins, and I noticed that her feet looked different now, too. Clearly, she’d been wearing boots before. Now they appeared to be bare, tiny toes curling inward, retreating at the inadvertent contact with my legs.

“Eat,” I snapped. I grabbed up the spoon from the bowl with one hand, my other gripping the arm of the chair as I leaned over her. Her honeyed gaze darted back and forth from the spoon to my face.

“I did not bring you here to let you starve,” I said, bringing the spoon closer to her lips.

She rolled her lips inward in protest, her mouth thinning into a white line. The infuriating creature would not do it. Something like panic gripped me. I hardened it. Turned it to anger.

“I’ll force this down your throat if I have to.”

I would do it, too. I’d already decided that I would not kill her, and the idea that I’d let a prisoner die on my watch was unacceptable to me. I released the arm of the chair, threading my fingers through her soft, shiny hair. I made a fist and tightened it until her head lurched back, her small mouth opening with a soft cry of affronted surprise.

I seized the chance, bringing the spoon upward. But before I could shove it in her mouth, she fixed me with a burning gaze and hissed something that threw me utterly off-balance. Off-balance because, somehow, we’d ended up in the bizarrely uneven position of her knowing my name when I did not know hers.

“Lord Wylfrael.”

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CHAPTER THIRTEEN Torrance

The alien’s fist in my hair grew tighter, and I knew that my instinct was correct. So that is his name. I’d heard the phrase several times down in the entrance hall, and then the tall fox-looking alien who’d brought me to this room had mentioned it many times as well, her voice curving with deference around the syllables. AH-sha WOLF-rye-elle.

I didn’t have any clever follow-up to that, though. I’d simply wanted to make him stop, just for a moment. To see that I was smart, that I could listen, that I knew more about him than he’d maybe planned for. It seemed to have worked. Me calling him by his name had frozen him into a statue.

It was an absurd reaction. A reaction that might have gotten me killed. But I couldn’t help the exhausted giddiness that suddenly rose in my throat. My lips parted. I started to laugh.

Instantly, the statue thawed. His eyes narrowed viciously, flashing to my mouth. The next thing I knew, I was coughing and spluttering, half choking on warm, salty liquid, my teeth banging against a stone spoon. Asha Wylfrael released my hair, and I leaned forward, hacking and wheezing. When I’d recovered from my coughing fit, I raised my streaming eyes to find Asha Wylfrael coolly poised and waiting, his face smoothed into expressionlessness. The spoon he held was already filled with more soup, an unspoken but easily understood threat.

“Fine,” I croaked, holding out my hand for the spoon. It didn’t seem like there was any way to avoid eating it now, and by this point, I doubted it was poison. Why get me all the way up here just to poison me, when Asha Wylfrael could have killed me with a flick of his black-clawed fingers?

Defeated, I scooted my butt forward on the huge, flat seat of the pink crystal chair, taking the spoon and eating. The meaty soup’s flavours were unusual, the herbs more bitter than I was used to, but not necessarily unpleasant. A worrisome thought entered my mind – that even if it wasn’t intentionally poisoned, it might still make me sick. But I couldn’t do anything about that now. The ship, with all the human-safe rations, was gone. If I wanted to stay alive, I had to eat.

I should have thought of that before, I bemoaned silently, trying and failing to ignore the blue heat of Asha Wylfrael’s gaze on my mouth. I shouldn’t have refused the soup when she brought it. If I’d just eaten it in the first place, he wouldn’t have had to come up here.

But the fox-looking alien (whom I was pretty sure now was a “she”) was so gentle, so soft-spoken compared to him, that for the first time since Asha Wylfrael had pulled me from the snow, I hadn’t been afraid. I hadn’t been afraid to say no, to choose something for myself, even if it was as small as deciding not to eat the dinner. Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Because now, he was here, my momentary illusion of safety and freedom evaporated under the cold scorch of his eyes.

I was too exhausted to maintain the defiance required to look at him, so I looked around the room instead. It was no prison cell. At least, not one with bars that I could see. It was fucking gorgeous, is what it was.

This was the highest room of the conical structure, and the ceiling arrowed upward into a point that gave the room a cathedral-like ceiling. The room wasn’t terribly large, since this was the narrowest point of the tower, after all, but the high, pointed ceiling made it feel expansive.

It seemed the aliens used their crystal trees in a similar way we’d use wood on Earth. The table and massive chair, built for an alien much larger than me, were carved from pink crystal, glinting like rose quartz. The walls were the same colour, and I was now fairly certain that the towers hadn’t been constructed from crystal, but rather carved out of gigantic trees that had grown up naturally in these spots. Behind me was a sumptuous-looking bed, its frame dark green, and ahead was a huge fireplace with a hearty fire that warmed the room. Still no wood there. Like I’d seen in the entry hall with the odd rock-like lanterns, this fire, too, seemed to have a large stone for fuel, a white boulder engulfed in a flickering, tear-drop-shaped flame. Beside the fire was a large indent carved into the floor and inlaid with spiralling designs of tile. I wasn’t sure what that was for, yet. Beyond that was what looked like a small room built out of the crystal wall. The door was shut, and the fact I couldn’t see inside unnerved me. A spark of panic ignited when I thought that it could be some kind of interrogation room.

My stomach churned, and I put down my spoon in the now-empty bowl. Asha Wylfrael said something above me, his tone biting, and I jumped, my gaze swinging wildly to meet his. He was frowning. At least, I thought he was. His features were arranged similarly to a human’s, but who knew if the expressions meant the same thing? But I heard him laugh... In the entrance hall, I’m sure I heard him laugh.

He spoke again, gesturing a black claw at my bowl. Confused, I followed the line of his finger until I saw a few bits of stringy material left. Some kind of fibrous root vegetable, I was pretty sure.

I hesitated for a moment before clarity dawned.

“Are you seriously telling me to eat all my vegetables right now?” I asked, tone rising in disbelief. It was so absurd I wanted to laugh. But the last time I’d done that in front of him, I’d nearly choked to death on the spoon he’d shoved in there, and I wasn’t looking to repeat that experience anytime soon. Under his relentlessly stern observation, I scooped up the last bites and ate them.

“There,” I said, pushing the bowl and spoon away. The bowl, like the spoon, was made of some kind of stone, a different material from the crystal. It looked like marble, green with veins of gold.

I couldn’t tell if he was satisfied with that or not. His jaw tightened, his eyes pinned to me with a severity that made me recoil and turn away.

“Thank you for the food,” I said softly. I needed to cool it with the defiance and the attitude. He hadn’t killed me yet, and I didn’t need to push my luck any further. Maybe if I was a good little human, who ate her veggies and minded her Ps and Qs, he’d leave me alone long enough for me to figure out what the hell I should do next.

No one said anything, and I found I couldn’t bear the silence. Heart flailing against my ribs, I turned to look at him once more, peeking out from behind the curtain of my hair.

His expression hadn’t exactly softened, but he no longer looked like he was mulling over the idea of incinerating me on the spot. Considering the fact I’d watched him use some kind of telekinesis to manipulate the snow without touching it, burning me to a crisp with just his eyes didn’t seem too far off a possibility.

“Thank you,” I said again, trying to sound sincere. Not that he understood me. I gave him a thin smile that I hoped looked appropriately meek but that probably just came out strained.

I’m sorry.

I almost said it. Sorry for being here. For coming to this world where we so clearly weren’t welcome. I knew we were in the wrong for landing here and stealing resources the way we had. But I hadn’t had a choice in that. I’d been wronged, just like he had.

And then I remembered the chaos and the carnage of his descent from the sky. I remembered the fact it was very likely he might have killed my friends. Min-Ji and Suvi’s faces flashed in my mind, and any thought of apologizing died in my throat.

So why hasn’t he killed me yet?

Asha Wylfrael said something to the fox lady. She darted forward, scooping up my bowl and spoon.

It hit me again that I was in a building with real fucking aliens. And not just little forest creatures. Intelligent beings, with clothing and customs and language.

I couldn’t stop staring at the female one. She had a less human face than Asha Wylfrael did. She really did look like a fox. Her face was a flaming orange colour, not furry, but her skin looking like soft down. Soft white flecks were dusted across her cheeks, almost like freckles. Her nose was pink and pointed, nearly a snout, her ears high and twitchy. She was taller than me, well over six feet tall, but very lean, with long arms and legs covered in that same bright orange down. Her tail was huge and fluffy, as was a white and orange mane of fur-like hair that ran down the back of her neck. She was dressed in a shockingly pretty cream-coloured silk vest and matching trousers and slippers, the fabric embroidered with tiny pink and green triangular trees. The loveliness of the garments, the embroidered forests, made something lurch inside me. It was the same feeling I’d had in the stained-glass-like tunnel with Asha Wylfrael. A feeling of confused kinship, a heartsick nostalgia that made me wonder just how different we really were from each other.

Even though she was doing Asha Wylfrael’s bidding, I decided that I liked her. She’d been so gentle with me when she’d shown me up here, and her green, cat-like eyes held a wary softness. She hadn’t dragged me, her strong fist around my arm, the way Asha Wylfrael had. She’d seemed nearly more afraid of me than I was of her, to be honest.

Which is kind of fair. I’m the one who invaded her world.

“Thank you,” I said, this time speaking only to the tall female. I meant it more when I said it to her.

Her green eyes went huge and darted to Asha Wylfrael. She backed away, her ears flattening like a frightened cat’s.

Oops. I guess I did something wrong.

I wanted to say something else, something more to her, but decided against it. At least for now. If she came back alone, without him, I’d try again.

But for now, I didn’t have the energy for anything else. Now that I was sitting, my body was turning to shivering mush, my muscles destroyed from the adrenaline and the strain of the day. The food was warm and heavy in my stomach, and I had to stay alert and not give in to the fatigue. I waited wearily, wondering what else they’d want to do with me tonight.

Nothing, it turned out. Thank God.

Asha Wylfrael said something in a low voice, and the fox alien replied and headed for the door. Relief poured through me when Asha Wylfrael, after a long, piercing look, turned and followed her. Nothing else was said to me when he swept through the door. Just before it closed behind him, I noticed the white bandages slung across his torso and patched over his torn and bleeding skin.