“It’s your story to tell or not tell,” he said, turning back to face her. “On Kettura, a girl whose life is saved by a warrior offers her body to him for the night as a reward.”
Giss perched on a rock, crossing one leg over the other and letting her toes dangle just above the flames. “Is that true? Well, things are very different here, as I’m sure you’ve guessed. It’s illegal for me to marry a foreigner. And it’s illegal and immoral to give my body to a man who’s not my husband.”
“Is it legal to murder yourself?”
She laughed bitterly. “You know, it probably isn’t.”
“If once an outlaw,” he said with a shrug.
Her smile softened. “Do you plan to seduce me with words and logic?”
“I plan to try to seduce you with anything I have at hand.”
She chuckled. “If anyone had a chance of succeeding, it’d be you. Where did you even come from? I looked around everywhere to make sure I was alone before I climbed over the barrier. Did your boat capsize?”
“No, I dove from the Obay point.”
She sucked in a breath. “That’s dangerous even when there’s no storm. Why would you do that in the battering rain? I bet you couldn’t even see where the rocks ended.”
“I knew more or less where they were. It was not a problem to clear the rocks. The rip currents and the storm-whipped waves were the only real danger.”
“Did you dive in because you saw me?”
“Why else?”
Her eyes widened. “You couldn’t have known what I looked like from that distance. And even if you could…the risk of drowning was so high. No reward is worth that risk.”
“There is a reward worth that risk. Your life preserved. I’m Ketturan. It’s my chosen home, the one of my heart now. No Ketturan warrior lets the life of a woman or child be lost without risking all to preserve it. To have let you drown without diving in…I’d have suffered a shame so deep I couldn’t have lived with it. Better by far to drown in an attempted rescue.”
“No one says…no one ever said your people were so heroic.”
He rolled his eyes. “Who would say it when Ketturan warriors are generally bronze-skinned, tattooed, and very dangerous. The community lives in a jungle full of raptors. To outsiders, of course the tribe seems savage. Also, other men are threatened by the fierceness of natural-born Ketturans. They’re few in number, but unparalleled in their deadly resolve to serve and protect the community. Corrupt men who understand honor have to be ashamed of themselves by comparison. So they must pretend Ketturans are less. In truth, they’re more.”
“They must be,” she said, tucking her hair back. “Everyone knows that any race would like to entice Linzen men and women to breed their looks and health into it. Someone like you could’ve requested citizenship on any world.”
“True enough. And when we don’t come willingly, they try to capture us and force us to.”
She glanced down at her hands. “I know a little something about that.”
“I’d imagine.”
She glanced up to look into his deep green eyes that reminded her of the leaves on the Grandmister tree in the valley. “You do?”
“A beautiful girl whose family can afford glow fabric doesn’t have very many reasons to walk alone into the sea. Did someone rape you? Or is someone planning to?”
“It’s not that. Well, not that exactly that.”
“It must be dire. Or else why take your own life?”
Tears filled her eyes, and she shrugged. “My future has been ruined. All the good options I had are gone. With only horrible choices left…I realized death seemed like the least objectionable one.”
He shook his head. “Orius is just one place. You don’t have to stay here. You can have a different future. One you like better.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“It is. It might not be without difficulties, but it can be that simple. You have access to a spaceship now, the one I came on. You can leave here without asking anyone’s permission.”
She tipped her head back, the tears leaking from her eyes and sliding over her temples into her hair.
