River’s End ch 68: No Scarcity of Screams

As if they knew the awful sights that waited, my eyes refused to open, but eventually, my stubbornness won out over theirs. Bright rings glared in my face, eternal darkness beyond them. The wires were gone, but needles and tubes still perforated my body, and thick straps tied me down. With a bit of twisting and a lot of strain, I got one to pop before anyone noticed I was awake. Once that alerted them, though, a whole horde crowded around, pinning me and shouting technical jargon.

I fought the urge to struggle, to cave in each of their faces with a knee or an elbow. Instead, I met one’s gaze and held it until he stilled, a fresh needle hovering above my skin.

“[Is there a reason for these restraints?]”

At the sound of my voice, purposely pitched deeper like Alaysq’s, they all paused, ears erect and eyes of brown, gold, or dull orange glinting in the slanted light.

The needle-happy doctor closest to my head asked, “[With whom do we speak?]”

It was true then. They wanted to give Alaysq my body, and they weren’t sure if they had succeeded. My best hope was to make them believe they had.

“[Your queen,]” I answered, then augmented that lie with truth, “[but do not request that I prove it yet. My memories are shredded and scattered among those of the one to whom this body belonged. Grant time for that to be sorted.]”

“[Do not absorb too much of her, or you will lose yourself, Milady,]” one warned as she released the bonds across my ankles and shins.

I forced a laugh. “[Can a sea drown in a puddle? Not even a thousand children of her years could begin to dilute the vastness of my persona.]”

Maybe I laid it on a bit thick, but no one questioned it. Triumphant grins and shaky smiles surrounded me. I turned to one of these latter, shivering on the face of a girl with the palest peach eyes as she disconnected the last of my tubes.

“[What worries you?]” I asked as she applied a camouflaging bandage.

“[Does it hurt?]”

This, at least, I could answer with one hundred percent honesty. “[Yes.]”

She folded in a fast bow, ears pinned back and white-gold hair flying. “[Accept a thousand apologies, Milady. Yet, this feels like a miracle. This body is whole and beautiful, and we have given it to you.]”

“[She has no time for your gawking.]” A newcomer flowed into the room as if on a river of gold. Logic insisted she had a body, but it was lost in never-ending pleats of shiny fabric. “[The king has already demanded her presence five times.]”

She and her team gave me no time to argue. They were a whirlwind of combs, creams, and thread. I would never have chosen this woman to dress me for fear I, too, would end up a head floating atop a tsunami of glitter. Yet, before I knew it, the chaos lulled, and I stood before a mirror.

One sleeve covered my right arm, while my left prickled, bare to the cold except for the imperceptible bandages. The top hugged my curves and ended at my hips in a wide v, where another layer continued to mid-thigh. A third layer took over from there, so slanted that while the right side dragged the ground, the left appeared to have been vaporized by my knee. Hidden in the black silk, embroidered flowers shimmered through every color as I swayed, reminding me of Hent’s scales.

Before I was done admiring this absolutely gorgeous dress, an attendant slung a ribbon over my shoulder and attached a papoose to my back.

I stiffened. “[What are you doing?]”

The floating head atop the fabric blinked at me. Rings pierced every visible orifice, including her eyelids, and they clicked with the movement. “[Your child needs you.]”

I cringed. Alaysq’s child was an unnatural thing. More than that, it was the offspring of an evil vedia and a malevolent king. One parent would have killed me, and the other still would if I wasn’t careful.

He will be king of everything, Alaysq had told me, listing off every world dear to my heart. To realize that dream, they planned horrid fates for those I loved. That child was a symbol of all of it, a reminder I would never let them strap to my back.

“[No, I am no longer its mother.]”

She lifted an eyebrow at me and puckered her lower lip. It was painted as red as Fredo’s hair. “[A Seallaii-ku would now consider you a child, yes? Yet, rest assured, Milady, our doctors found this body to be mature enough to bear children of its own.]”

I held my ground as she glided through the circle of those still weaving my hair in over a dozen small braids.

“[That’s not—]”

“[The king wants another. This time, you can give him a child with royal Seallaii-ku blood and a River Guardian’s special command over this ship. You also have pink eyes now. The child may even be an eteriq.]”

Bile climbed into my throat. If he tried to touch me, I would kill him.

Maybe I should. He killed my mother. He killed the King of Grenswa. Would anyone say I was in the wrong?

My conscience would, but I would appease it with the knowledge that I had avenged Seallaii and Grenswa, that I had saved both worlds from his further machinations.

As she pulled my hair into growing twists along either side of my head and tied it in a complex tail, I contemplated how I should do it. I had Seallaii-na strength. I wouldn’t need a weapon. Would Ishiyae help me? Afterward, I would reign as queen with him at my side.

“[Is that where he has summoned me now, to his bedchambers?]”

“[After the banquet,]” she whispered as the softest brush spread glitter like stars across my cheeks, brow, and lower lip. It matched my stocking-like shoes. “[Beware the Napix-ku envoys. They have always been too interested in you as a vedia, and now you have a working bond. Do not allow them to section you off alone, and never meet the gaze of an Aylata.]”

I balked at the last word. “[Aylata? Hybrids of Napix and the mythical world Magni? They don’t exist.]”

“[They do. Unpredictable creatures they are with dangerous tempers. Our king has kept you away from them because you are precious, but he can no longer deny their requests. You must meet them, and you must be cordial. They will want to take you, but our king will refuse.]”

With how often my heart leapt into my throat, one would think it had a nest there. As she led me through the winding halls, it refused to settle. If I went with the Napix-nas, I wouldn’t have to face Su’s lust. It wouldn’t fall to me to kill him. The unknown sang to my curiosity, promising it would be better.

Yet, the stories of Aylata told of beings who could kill with a glance or a twitch of their fingers.

One to defeat ten thousand, so the ballad went. Two to best a million.

It was supposedly from a much older war, yet the Surra-nas proved it accurate when they first met and challenged Napix. Surely, time and biased historians had exaggerated the tale and invented these hybrids to explain their preposterous statistics.

Aylata powers were merely a trick meant to intimidate the enemy, and I wouldn’t fall for it.

We stopped in front of large double doors for her to adjust my gown and smooth the front of my hair one last time. Before she backed away, she dropped another bladeless knife handle into the pocket hidden in my lone, draping sleeve. “[Just in case.]”

I tilted my head. “[Can the king afford to refuse a direct request from the envoys?]”

Her mouth flattened into a thin line. “[He will give them Ishiyae instead.]”

No, he wouldn’t, not as long as I had any breath left in me. I had no idea how I would stop it, but I had a knife. I had a River Guardian education, and my pretty pink eyes were supposed to mean I was smart enough to figure it out. Surely, I could do so once in my life.

As I drew in enough breath for a year’s worth of sighs, the doors opened.

***

This was the room where I had first met Su, where he had told me the name of this ship and its purpose to destroy my people. As before, engines burned blue behind clear panels at the back of the room, and the ceiling boasted a view of space stretching on forever. This time, however, walls had folded away to make this hall even larger. The crowd packed tightly around collections of luxurious couches and at the edges of several dance floors. Everyone wore their finest. Everyone looked Shlykrii-na.

I wandered, nodding to those who greeted me but not stopping to chat, not until I realized where the music came from.

Fountains graced the corners of the room, raining up to form rivers far above the partiers, and lights flashed through them, distorting the silhouettes of the fish within. More than fish. Grenswa-nas floated with the current, but unlike at the Harvest Festival, none danced. Though they sang or played instruments, the tune carried no heart, rote and limp, like a child saying sorry because they were ordered to.

Despite that, the easy grace of every note hooked its claws into my heart. Harmonies embraced and engorged each melodic line, flowing together, then apart, like a sewing needle bobbing in and out of cloth.

How long did I stand there, gaping? The Napix-na envoys could have snuck up and felled me with a greeting. As it was, I fell all over myself at a friendly hello from a pudgy noble. If he said anything after that, I didn’t hear it, eyes affixed to the cerulean scales adorning his necklace. His mouth kept moving, and eventually, his brows dropped.

Slowly, sound returned. “[Perhaps the doctors need to reexamine their work? It can’t be denied how beautiful they sculpted you, Lady Alaysq, but can you hear at all?]”

I blinked hard and shook my head but only managed to squeak out one word. “[Scales.]”

“[Ah, this is what has you so entranced. It is beautiful, isn’t it?]” He fingered the braided chain. “[Remarkable creatures, these Grenswa-kus, art in every drop of their blood, and they don’t even appreciate it.]”

“[What’s that supposed to mean?]”

With a grunt and a sharp-toothed grin, he opted to show me the nearest ingrate. In the center of the room, the largest fountain burbled and sashayed. As we neared, my eyes traced the intricate streams, some no thicker than my finger, some wider than I was tall. More than plumbing crafted this. For it to work, hidden machines must have manipulated the gravity—another appropriated natural quirk of Grenswa.

“[Such exquisite looks.]” The nobleman spoke too loud considering I walked less than an arm’s length from him, and my sightline wasn’t alone in following his gesture toward the glass cylinder at the fountain’s core. “[We even made him the centerpiece of the show, and he sits there, glaring as if he hates the world.]”

He did hate this world. He hated every Shlykrii-na in this room, and I didn’t blame him. Hent sat on the cylinder’s floor, knees curled against his chest and chin hidden behind his folded arms, but the sulking pose was a front. He glared, yes, but those sharp eyes didn’t send benign threats. He watched and calculated, and concealed behind his arms, his lips moved.

I wanted in on the plan.

Behind me, the nobleman was distracted with a servant bearing a tray of tiny snacks. “[The king’s chefs have outdone themselves with this seafood. You must try it.]”

When he shoved the odorous morsel in my face, I had one slippered foot raised over the lip of the pool. With more grace than I considered myself capable of, I pirouetted under his arm and pushed him away.

“[I don’t eat meat.]” I also hoped it didn’t have the same origin as his suspect necklace. My stomach roiled, a condition not helped by the shock of icy water as my foot touched down.

Immersed in that temperature, how did Hent not to slip back into hibernation?

If you could bottle stubbornness, he’d be a prime source. He’d have enough for everyone in the universe.

With a slow, deep breath, I channeled my own stubborn streak and kept my foot in the water. If we were to have any chance of escaping this nightmare together, I had to be in on Hent’s plans, and that started with communication. As the Sojourner proverb said, a ship that carried only secrets as cargo was doomed to fall.

‘If only.’

My gaze flew from one end of the room to the other, hoping to spot Ishiyae. He had seen Fredo. I wasn’t sure what had happened between them. I wasn’t entirely certain what had happened between us either, but he was the one who told me to pretend Alaysq had taken over my body.

‘Help me get these Grenswa-nas out of here.’ Rather than explaining the context, I showed him, attaching a notion of where they and I were.

‘They’re fine where they are.’

He didn’t need what I had shared to know my location or my intentions. He sat on one of the couches, barely as far away as I could have thrown him, and he stared right at me. The surprise flashing through my chest had nothing to do with his presence. Where else would he be, especially if Su planned to gift him to the envoys? Yet, I never expected to see a swaddled child held so tenderly in his arms.

It was Alaysq’s child, and the realization made my already-empty stomach turn inside out.

Setting his equally empty glass on a passing tray, he stood and answered my unspoken question. ‘I have a heart, you know, and I know what it’s like to be the only one of your kind on this ship.’

My hands balled. ‘There are no others of its kind period.’

‘His kind. He’s a person.’ With equal cadence and bite to every syllable, he echoed what I had told him on Rablah about Grr and the villagers he so casually murdered.

This child was the same as them in many ways—a meld of Seallaii and Shlykrii. Alaysq had told me that, yet I could not find it within me to overlook the biggest difference. Rablah-nas were a manifestation of science. The child Ishiyae held was the product of lecherous ambition and a coupling that should never have been. A coupling that would be expected of me soon.

My skin crawled. I couldn’t feel my feet, but that probably had more to do with the fact that I still stood in frigid water.

Ishiyae caught my elbow and towed me out. It didn’t help. My sock-like shoes were soaked.

‘He has no control over how he came into the universe or who his family is. No one does, Rosa.’

The moment that address slid between us, all thoughts leapt out of my head, crashed through the windows, and burned up in some distant star. My gaze flew to his face, but that only made it worse.

‘Fredo calls you that, doesn’t he?’ His jaw set just like his brother’s did when he tried to hide the true depth of his anger. ‘Were you ever going to tell me he lived?’

I couldn’t move. He wasn’t controlling my limbs, yet I wished he was. Then I could blame this on him instead of myself. I could blame him for my shaking knees, blame him for everything. Just as he blamed me.

‘How could you keep that a secret from me?’

Finally, my muscles responded, and I retreated, toes tasting the water again. This time I welcomed the cold. That was why I shivered, not because I was afraid. I had nothing to fear. I was queen, and Ishiyae was my vedia. He would give his all to me if I demanded it.

No, these aren’t my thoughts. I am not Alaysq. She is confetti drowning in my sea.

Eyes closed, I shook my head, my hair thumping against my shoulders. ‘I thought you would hurt him.’

‘He’s my baby brother. I promised Father—’ The thought didn’t finish, and he drew a shaky breath. ‘How could you possibly believe I could hurt him?’

‘Maybe the part where you tried to run me through the moment you learned I was River Guardian.’

He reached for me again but abandoned the action and drew back, face a careful, neutral mask. ‘Fix your expression. People are staring.’

‘Let them.’ I sent the thought with all the confidence I could muster. Who cared what the silly nobleman with his meaty snacks and scaly necklace assumed? I worried even less over the opinions of his bejeweled friends. I wasn’t here as their entertainment. Yet, the one who was hovered to the forefront of my mind, and Ishiyae saw it.

His eyes slid over my shoulder and pounced on Hent. I dared not turn but knew the prince watched.

‘You fear he will perceive us as friends.’

It was more than a guess. He knew it because I did, so it was futile to deny it. How I wished I could communicate with Hent like this, to convey our plans and explanations in secret.

‘Are we friends, Ishiyae?’

‘Closer than that, I fear.’

“[Welcome, honored guests]” The bellow filled the room, and I whirled.

My eyes landed on Hent first and snagged on his gaze. He motioned with his chin toward Ishiyae in a clear question I had neither the time nor means to answer, but at least he trusted me enough to ask. His scales weren’t the ebony of betrayal, though amid the flashing lights and rippling water, I couldn’t discern what color they were.

King Su’s gong-like voice surrounded us again. “[How pleased we are to show our Napix-ku representatives genuine Surra-ku hospitality.]”

The announcement ended on a chuckle, and the crowd’s cheer filled me with foreboding. Su stood on a hovering platform on the opposite side of the central column, long robes and ridiculous tassels hanging from his rotund frame. A folded bun secured his hair, leaving little leeway for his ears.

One twisted backward, and I paused, left hand wrapped around the sleeping hilt in my sleeve.

He knocked on the column’s glass. “[As Grenswa’s youngest prince sings for us—or screams for us, whichever he chooses—watch his colors.]”

Hent flinched but didn’t turn to face him or the crowd. I doubted he understood much Laysis and even less of the ancient dialect employed on this ship. He would not sing for them, though, and I would not stand here and watch him scream.

“[My king!]” I called, a smile plastered to my lips and bare right arm raised in a delicate wave. “[Might I sing first? I have an act prepared, but I’d prefer not to follow a musician of such legendary talent.]”

‘Stop using that archaic first-person pronoun,’ Ishiyae warned. ‘No one talks like that.’

I ignored him, eyes on the king and every breath spreading my deepest desire for him to allow this ploy. I would wing the performance, and it would be just as bad as my first, but it would give Hent more time to enact whatever he planned.

With a toothy smile, Su held out a hand. “[Dearest Alaysq, one can barely believe this is true. The body of a Seallaii-na royal and River Guardian, all yours.]”

Doing my best to glide instead of slosh through the water, I accepted his hand and his help onto the hovering board. Like a boat, it rocked.

He breathed deeply, drawing in a full dose of my rewarding charisma. “[However, we will not torture our guests with your singing. They have come for a more sophisticated form of entertainment.]”

He looked meaningfully at a trio of men perched upon a couch at the fountain’s edge. While they possessed traditionally humanoid forms, everything about them was gray, just like the world I had visited in Alaysq’s nightmare. Was that Napix then? My valet said Su had kept his queen away from them. Did he not know she had been to their world? Had she gone to get her first child back?

Su again rapped on the glass. “[If he doesn’t understand, translate for him. He will sing, and for every moment it takes him to enrapture our attention, more of his people will die.]”

With a squeal, a hatch opened below each of the corner fountains, and they became drains. While the streams remained full, their current swept everything downward. Lights dimmed, and the floor grew transparent.

Hent swirled in the central column’s whirlpool, pressing against the glass for some modicum of control as he shouted. He repeated the same phrase in several tribal dialects before I recognized the words. “Break it now!”

With a pop, the gravity manipulation around the streams ceased, and water pelted the guests. The half dozen Grenswa-nas who hadn’t yet dropped down the drains landed among the crowd. They had weapons. So did the soldiers closing in from the sides of the room.

Su had been right about one thing. There was no scarcity of screams. Soldier or noble—the Grenswa-nas made no distinction and slashed at any who came too close. It was a wise, if brutal, choice considering some of the nobles drew smaller shooters of their own. This wasn’t as wise. The nobles were easier targets than the armored soldiers. Once cut down, they donated their weapons to the Grenswa-nas’ cause.

Water dripped on my head, and I surreptitiously looked up. With the gravity manipulators gone, the fountain above became a simple torrent pouring into the tank at our backs. It overflowed in an almost peaceful way—a waterfall barely visible as it clung to the glass. Hent he flipped over the cylinder’s top, scales so bright, I mistook him for an orange flame.

He pounced.

Su’s keen ears swiveled in warning, and he slid aside just enough to avoid the initial dagger slash. His shoulders took the full impact of Hent’s body, and my notion of him as a pampered weakling shattered. He caught Hent’s arm, bent knees transferring the momentum to our platform.

As Hent rolled off him, his kick connected with the king’s wrist. No effect. Su’s punch buzzed as it cut the air where Hent’s face had been. His knee sunk into Hent’s gut, and the vice of his fingers forced the prince to release the dagger. Hent twisted, tail snatching the weapon and swiping at the king’s middle.

Too quick for me to see, Su dodged again, dagger in hand and heel on the nape of Hent’s neck. Hent resisted as that foot pressed him against the platform, but he only had one arm beneath him. The soft scales of the other tore beneath Su’s nails, staining them black and chrysolite.

The dagger stabbed downward.

I grabbed the edge of the platform and threw my full weight into flipping it. The three of us splashed into the base of the fountain. While it accomplished what I wanted—Hent reclaimed the dagger and his footing while Su sputtered in the shallow water—soldiers had arrived. They surrounded their king, one by one capturing each of Hent’s limbs. A sixth held a shooter to the prince’s temple.

Like a charging norahn, I crashed into this last soldier, dropped, and swept the legs out from beneath two others. As I rose, I caught Hent, and the hilt of my knife slid into my hand. Holding him possessively at my side, I glided a thumb along the side of my weapon. It sprouted a laser blade, blue-white like the hottest star and impossibly thin. Impossibly sharp.

“[No,]” I growled at the soldiers, gaze flicking between them. “[As your queen, I forbid you from hurting him.]”

Those who had fallen climbed to their feet, but none advanced, faces turning toward their king.

Orange painted the faint line cut into his chest as he stood, teeth bared and veins bulging. “[Alaysq, what is—]”

A hand on his shoulder forestalled the rest as the tallest of the Napix-na envoys placed himself between us with an amused smirk. His gray skin shone like a moon against the ebony of his hair and attire. Pants, jacket, scarf—all of it could have competed with a black hole.

“[A brave one is your queen,]” he said, lifting a hand as if to take something offered, “[but she should not play with a weapon beyond her understanding.]”

The laser knife tore from my grasp and landed lightly on his palm. With a yelp, I groped after it. Only Hent kept me from falling, gold and silver creeping into his orange.

Deactivating the weapon, the Napix-na bowed. “[Trust that the kanaber will be put to proper use.]”

“[Is that what the knife is called? How did you—]”

I whirled as the shortest of the Napix-nas approached from behind. He didn’t stop, even at my fiercest glare. Dragging Hent with me, I shrank back.

He flicked a wave at his comrades. “[Quiet them.]”

Launched by the wind of his gesture, they shot into the skirmish between the Grenswa-nas and the soldiers. From opposite ends, they cut through it like plows tilling a field, silent bodies piled in their wake. Most didn’t see them coming. Those who did fell just as quickly.

With a wordless cry, Hent tried to run after them, but I held him back. He couldn’t help. He would only get killed, too.

“[These mere Rofylna impress you,]” the remaining Napix-na remarked.

Holding Hent tighter, I ripped my gaze from the carnage and glared at this foreign commander. Like many who flaunted their high rank, his cape flowed to the ground. His hair formed pikes pointed behind him, and a thin beard bordered his jaw.

I lifted my chin. “[Rofylna? I don’t recognize the word.]”

“[It translates to messenger, but it means much more than one who delivers information. It is the rank of the lowest caste of Aylata, the weakest with their Talents, yet look at what they can do.]”

I didn’t dare look, but Su was all too giddy over the scene. He clapped, despite the fact that those Aylata had cut down his soldiers as well.

Sunset’s final crimson claimed Hent’s scales, shot through with bolts of silver and gold as he whispered, “We can take them if we work together.”

We couldn’t, and he knew it, but he turned his attention to the nearest Napix-na, gaze sharper than a laser blade. As his muscles coiled and deep breaths increased the dazzle of his scales, I gripped his arm tighter.

The Napix-na met his glare with an unknown word, and Hent became a rigid board precariously balanced on end. With a tilted head, the man spoke again, and the prince relaxed, limp and docile as the stranger took his injured arm under inspection.

Chrysolite shined in Hent’s dark blood as a mark by the universe that he was something to be treasured. The same ethereal green-gold flashed in the Napix-na’s eyes—over the white sclera, the pale gray irises, and the agate pupils—much too vivid for a reflection. The infrared color’s presence had nothing to do with Hent. The universe had marked this man as special also.

His expression was both smile and grimace. “[Interesting blood you have.]”

“[Interesting eyes you have,]” I countered. That eerie gaze leapt to me, and with my dresser’s warning in mind, I focused on his pointed nose. “[How did you calm Hent so quickly? He didn’t even understand you.]”

The smile won the war over his countenance. “[You claim to be the Lady Alaysq recently given possession of this body? You are not.]”

My heart stuttered, but before any protestations could find their way off my tongue, he turned to Su.

“[It is a ploy to dodge giving us this prize so long sought, even after you so enjoy the present we gave you.]”

His eyes lowered, and mine followed. Far beneath the transparent floor, water churned between the thrashing limbs of the rebalo that had nearly eaten me when I had fallen through this room’s trap door. I counted two, maybe three Grenswa-nas left in the tangle. The third might have just been an arm.

On my knees, I pressed a hand to the glass tile. Perspective rendered them all so small, as if I could scoop them up and protect them forever. But I couldn’t. I could only protect Hent here alongside me, lax and unseeing. All red had drained from his scales, leaving them the same white-blue as the kanaber blade.

Closing my eyes, I forced my chin to rise and my lips to not tremble. “[What have you done to him? Why?]”

He loomed over me, vaguely reminiscent of the Tree of Everything from the Grenswa-na children’s play. Nothing about this monochrome man resembled foliage, yet he possessed the grace, power, and arrogance that actor had aspired to. Even as he crouched, he was still a tree, never a bush. “[State your name.]”

“[Rose.]”

“[Rose, you speak to Vuet K’alaqk, the one titled Ravida, leader of all Aylata, who has shown you a smidgen of Aylata power.]” He glanced at Hent, then his attention bounced back to me, heavier than before. “[Now, you will show us what you can do.]”

What was I compared to these monsters of myth? I couldn’t even speak. Forever wrapped into a never-ending moment before his stare slid elsewhere.

I hadn’t noticed the crowd form around us, but it parted at Ishiyae’s approach. A papoose strap crossed his armored chest, and his shoulder throbbed beneath its small weight, but that pain leaked only to me. It didn’t show in his face or movement.

“[This room requires cleaning, honorable sirs, and some of our brightest scientists have been waiting to show you their latest miracles.]” He gestured at the largest doors, and when the Napix-nas accepted the proffered route, he joined them.

‘Be careful, Ishiyae. Su plans to give you to them.’

He glanced back at me as the doors closed, his mouth a flat line. ‘I’m counting on that.’

Continued in chapter 69: Tears of the Heavens

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