The passageways outside the comm room are packed with warriors I recognize and miners I don’t. Bandaged, bloody, covered in pale stone dust, they rest on the floor, leaned against the walls and each other, legs stacked and tangled to make room for me to walk.
I have failed them, too. They came here to train, to earn, to make new lives for themselves. I have many apologies to make. But first, my Alara.
This time, I knock. She doesn’t answer.
With a sigh, I press my forehead against the door. “It’s me. I came to apologize.”
She says nothing. What is there to say?
“I regret my actions. I hope you have no lasting damage.”No lasting damage? Is that the best I can do?“I hope you heal fully so you are not reminded of my mistake every time you look in the mirror. Not that your beauty will be diminished if you scar. Not that I find you beautiful. I meant you will still be pleasing in a terrakin way.” Alioth save me, this is getting worse and worse. I’ve botched this apology so badly that I’m close to confessing everything to her.
You are more than beautiful.
Out of habit, I trace the scar that splits one side of my face. I earned it when my father sent me to execute Aqen and his father as a lesson to Fen. Instead, I earned enough coin fighting in the pits to smuggle them to a different star system.
I won every match, but that didn’t mean I escaped without injury. I was lucky to keep my eye, the healer said. Iwaslucky, though perhaps not for the reason the healer thought. If my father had found out I’d earned the injury by disobeying him, he’d have plucked it out himself.
Instead, Chanísh thought it evidence of my loyalty.My deadly little puppet, he’d called me. “Someday you’ll have a willof your own and cut my throat, Nik. Until you’re brave enough to finally do it, you’ll do my bidding.”
I was never brave enough. But I also was never quite as dutiful as he thought. My loyalty was always to the Irran people. Sometimes that meant placating my father’s bloodlust. Sometimes it didn’t.
My scar reminds me that doing the right thing hurts sometimes.
“A medical transport will arrive in about six hours. I’ll make sure there is space for you on it.” Delphie doesn’t respond. Is she even awake?
“Back away from the door,” I warn, a few beats before pushing it open.
The room is empty, furs flat and cold.Frix.
No one sleeps until I find her. I yank open the door to every one of the sleeping quarters, rousing the occupants. I send weary warriors down all the passages ahead of me to call her name. Minutes stretch into hours. I imagine her lost in the mines, trapped in shifting rubble. Panic bites at my heels as I hurry to the comm room.
“Put an alert out for the terrakin,” I bark through the open door. “She’s missing. Probably lost in the tunnels.”
Gemeri frowns at me over his cloaked shoulder. “Are you sure? Cidro said she’s helping in the pits.”
“Why is she in the pits? I told her to stay in her quarters!” I snarl at him. He grays slightly, fingers going dark purple. Fearing me, dreading my reaction. I should be pale with shame for terrifying the old scholar who did nothing wrong. He doesn’t deserve my anger. “Never mind. Let the searchers know they can rest. Thank you, Gemeri.”
The pits are teeming with the injured and those tending them. I spot the healers’ green cloaks leaning over bodies striped in orange pigment and dark red blood first. And then I find her—headscarf a jewel-bright blue, dotted with the blood I wiped from her nose. I doubt she waited for it to dry before she disobeyed me and left her quarters. She’s bent over a wounded miner, bandaging the burns on his arm.
“Delphie,” I thunder. My voice rings around the cavern, and a hundred heads turn toward me. Every head but hers.
She calmly finishes her task before she looks up. Then her brows raise slightly, as if to say, “Oh, it’s you?” She nods a polite greeting and picks up a basket of bandages and ointment beside her, moving to the next injured male in the row. She crouches beside him to exchange quiet words I can’t make out.
“Delphie.” She ignores me outright this time, in front of dozens of my apprentices. The points of my teeth grind together. “Delphie.Come.”
That gets her attention. Her head snaps up and she skewers me with a look so lethal, I can feel it pierce my ribcage and lodge in my heart, a fatal shard. “What do you want?” she snaps.
She has not moved an inch toward me from her side of the pits, and I have not moved from mine. The audience between us is holding their collective breath to hear what we have to say. On Usuri, where the sum total of entertainment is trying to kill each other and watching volcanos erupt, this conversation is a natural fit. Dangerous. Explosive.
“I want you. To come. Here.” I indicate the pit-dust beside me. “Please.”
Have pity on a king, Alara. I cannot lose a battle in front of my warriors, or I’d kneel at your feet right now.
Delphie considers for a long moment and then, after a quick conversation and what is a clear promise to return, leaves her patient and picks her way through the rows of the injured. She lifts her chin proudly when she reaches me, making a show of toeing the dust right where I pointed. “You called?”
“I want you in your quarters. Now.” Wrapping my fingers around her upper arm, I propel her toward the exit, but before we get two steps, she jerks out of my grip. Then she leans close, speaking quickly and quietly through clenched teeth so my translator has to work hard to keep up with her.
“If you think I’m going to sit on my ass in my room doing nothing while these people suffer, you’re out of your mind. You’ll have to drag me out of here kicking and screaming first.” Then she straights a little, smiles, and says loudly for the obvious benefit of everyone straining to eavesdrop, “It’s no problem. I’m happy to help!”
