Prologue
In the early times, Orius had been one of the highest ranking worlds in the Light Orbit federation. Over time, the planet’s economic growth had stagnated and corruption in banking and public affairs had become the norm. Laws had also become more restrictive as fear rose among its inhabitants that Orius would lose its status in the universe. Highborn men and women were expected to demonstrate loyalty to their home world by marrying within their own class to consolidate wealth and power. As such, young women had curfews to prevent an unsavory connection with off-world visitors or lower-born Orium men.
Zawri pushed her sandy blonde hair deeper into its jeweled clasp. She’d had to dress hurriedly, but didn’t want that to show. She stood silently outside the empty chamber where her younger sister had been kept prisoner the day before.
“Where is my sister now?” Zawri demanded, her heart thumping uncomfortably in her chest.
Urcolin, the banker magistrate, folded his arms over his rotund belly. “She’s made an accusation. And you’ve made a statement that supports it?”
Her sister, Gissandre, had been out after curfew. She’d been found in a state of undress in a cave with a foreign warrior. If she hadn’t claimed to have been abducted, she could have been publicly punished and made a slave. Even their family estate could have been in jeopardy if Zawri had been found negligent as Giss’s guardian.
The magistrate would have liked nothing more than to turn Giss into a slave girl on his own estate. Zawri would do anything to prevent that from coming to pass.
“It was a misunderstanding, no doubt. There was a terrible storm,” she said impatiently. “I’m sure the foreigner was trying to help her get to shelter.” The bankers were putting tremendous pressure on her. Her sister had been moved and was still being held. The accused warrior had also been taken into custody. He would likely bear up well under stress at least. He’d reportedly been trained by the fierce Ketturans who lived on a jungle planet full of raptors.
“You give him more benefit of the doubt than he’s entitled to under the law. Besides, she’s a beautiful girl. A foreign warrior took her into a cave and spent unsupervised time with her. His companions are unsavory looking. And one a former slave? I won’t be surprised if their papers prove false. How are we to know whether they intended to capture several girls to sell into slavery? It’s happened on other worlds, you know. And frankly, I call your judgment as guardian into question if you don’t want this investigated to the fullest.”
Zawri winced, swallowing against a lump in her throat. She was very neatly trapped. If she denied that her younger sister had been held against her will, Giss might be savaged. But if she asked for an exhaustive inquest, either the truth would be uncovered or an innocent man would be punished. “I’ve made my statement. I still assert that it could have been a misunderstanding. You’ll have the medical report that she was untouched and unharmed.”
“Can’t harm the goods if one is planning to sell them. Did he take her without her consent?”
She felt bile rising in her stomach. “Yes,” she said.
* * *
The young man Gissandrehad been found with stood in the center of the square. He was tall with broad shoulders and tan skin. His piercing green eyes scanned the crowd. He had unruly sun-streaked hair and a face like those on the statues of mythic heroes in an Endricane museum.
“I want his sentence to be brief. He doesn’t speak our language. He may not have known he did the wrong thing. The examination proved she’s untouched; I’ll pay the fine myself,” Zawri said to the magistrate.
Two black-haired men approached. One wore a sleeveless skin shirt, his bulging arm muscles displayed. The other had a small star tattooed on his left cheekbone and a small silver ring studded with black stone chips in his earlobe. The face tattoo and earring announced to everyone who saw it that he’d been a slave who’d reclaimed his freedom. His dark eyes were dangerously sharp when they rested on her.
He spoke with a rough-edged accent. “He won’t need a fine paid if you tell the truth,seka.”
She winced.Sekawas the slave word for a slave owner.
“My family doesn’t own slaves,” she said, certain that her expensive clothes, which marked her as wealthy, had made him assume she was like many others of her class.
“He didn’t kidnap the girl. He saved her,” the man said.
“Silence, foreigner!” Urcolin shouted. “Or you’ll join your friend. He admitted through an interpreter that he carried her into the cavern.”
“There was a storm!” the former slave said. Then he looked again at her.
“I believe that he didn’t mean her harm. But there are rules and he—” she said.
“She accused him. Do you stand by that? Do you claim to have seen it?” the former slave demanded.
“I—yes, he took her against her will.” There was nothing else she could say. The statement had been given.
The former slave whispered something. His companion’s gaze leveled on Zawri. The man raised his arm to show a gold and amber tattoo of a hunter’s blade on the inside of his bulging bicep. He pointed at it, and her heart pounded. There was an implied threat to the gesture.
“She’s young,” she whispered, not sure that the hunter understood. These men were likely her own age, making them in their early to middle twenties, but they were also clearly seasoned hunters and warriors. Gissandre would have to be hidden away because there was no doubt in Zawri’s mind that the hunter and the former slave were planning revenge.
The magistrate asked the accused whether he regretted what he’d done.
The young man spoke calmly. The translator cleared his throat. “He says, ‘No crime. Therefore, no regret.’”
“Take him. Put him within the enclosure in the Wilds. After the imprisonment term concludes, he can buy his way out.”
