I didn’t get a chance to say that, though. I’d only just shrugged into the tunic, pants, and clunky but much-improved shoes he’d made when a knock came on the small home’s door. We all froze, and I shared a look with Khawla before he went to the door and opened it. I snatched the sling off the edge of the table and tucked it into my belt, and Rasho was quick to hand me a pouch with the rocks his siblings had gathered. I hoped they wouldn’t recognize it as a weapon, since Khawla hadn’t known what it was either. That way, at least one of us was armed, because he definitely wasn’t taking his spear.
There were at least a dozen Naga waiting for us outside, and the bossy one from last night—not Reshar—was in the lead. Khawla blocked their view into his home with most of his body, rising on his tail and widening his stance to make it clear they weren’t getting in. “You’ve certainly managed to endear yourself to the new Queen, haven’t you, Msera?” he drawled, with no small amount of censure.
Nisha had hidden behind me, and I discovered that Rasho was just in front of me. Daois was almost six, at least, I thought that was what Khawla meant when he said he was approaching his sixth molting. He clearly didn’t know whether to hide or mimic his brother. It felt natural to reach out and grasp his small, clawed little hand and give it a reassuring squeeze. Not that I felt any semblance of calm, my heart was pounding in my chest, and nervous sweat was dripping down my spine.
They were here to escort us in front of the Queen, and by Khawla’s own account, it was a small miracle I hadn’t been killed yet. I was pretty sure that was Reshar’s doing, but why, I didn’t know. At least now I understood why Khawla had helped me despite his Clan’s anti-human sentiment. I was his mate, the one lady his sigils had lit for. I didn’t know if that made me unique, but I’d definitelyhadlearned that the mother of his children was not. If not for the dire situation—being a captive and all—I would have to give this a lot more thought. There was no space for that, though, so I needed to park it and trust in Khawla. That, at least, was not difficult. I knew he wanted to keep me and his younglings safe without a shadow of a doubt.
The guy, Msera, did not like the barb my protector had lobbed his way, but other than a sharp look, he did not engage. “You are summoned before the Queen,” he said with smug satisfaction. “She is to pronounce judgment on all of you.” When he flicked his eyes from Khawla to me, that was no surprise, but horror washed over me when he lowered hisgaze to include the small kids. All of us—not just the adults, but Khawla’s children too.
Khawla rattled a growl at the guy, and I could see him flinch back before he could control the response. I wondered if the dozen others I’d glimpsed were all so fanatical they were okay with this. It was hard to believe anyone was. I couldn’t see them, though, because Msera and Khawla filled the doorway.
Turning, I picked up Nisha and carried her to the peg where her coat and tail warmer hung. She’d pointed hers out with great distaste this morning, but she’d just watched me shrug into a coat myself. When I handed the boys their coats, they took them silently, and Nisha did not protest when I dressed her warmly either. All the while, Msera glared at us, though he did not tell us to hurry up, and Khawla glared at him with his single good eye. It was a standoff, where my guy obviously still held enough of a threat to make the others give us space. If that meant we were late for the meeting with the Queen… I couldn’t be mad about it.
Eventually, Nisha had her tail warmer on the right way, and she was on my back, her small tail looped about my waist to hold her up, her arms around my neck. She had a lock of my hair pinned, but I did not tell her to move. “Ready,” I said quietly as I took Daois’s hand again and tugged him against my side. We moved to Khawla’s side together, and he finally broke his stare off with the Queen’s errand boy to look at us, his expression grim, hard, and definitely worried, though he tried to hide it.
Stepping out of Khawla’s home was like getting slapped in the face; the cold was still so fierce that it made my lungs ache. I needed a fur collar to frame my face, which would help, but this new tunic only fit snugly around my neck. It was still a big improvement over yesterday’s clothing, and I was extremely grateful Khawla had taken the time to make it. He must have done so after I’d fallen asleep, because Iremembered very little after he’d gone up to soothe Nisha’s nightmare.
There were indeed over a dozen Naga to escort us, all armed with spears and stone blades. Their expressions were grim and dark, like those of Khawla and Msera. As we began walking, I realized faces were peering out of doors and alleys, more curious than grim. The closer we got to the town’s square, the more blatant they were in their curiosity. That was when I got my first look at a Naga female.
She was tall and muscled, much like her male counterparts, but much more slender. With a fur sleeveless tunic covering her torso, it was hard to see, but I got the impression she did not have much in the way of breasts. Her long, dark blue hair was in many intricate braids, and gold glinted at her throat and on her wrists. She looked beautiful, feminine, and nothing like what I’d been picturing based on the stories Khawla had told me.
In my head, Kusha had gotten big and brawny like Khawla, because the way he talked clearly made her the boss. But not just bossy, a fighter too, brawling day and night with claws and teeth for status and power. Somehow that had all equated to having them look like pro wrestlers in my head, but now that I saw another, and then another, I knew that wasn’t true. Theyweresmaller than their male counterparts, and pretty, with all their various jewel shades of blue, intricate hairdos, and fancy jewelry. The only sign that what Khawla said about their warrish ways was true were the many scars that often slashed their arms, chests, and tails—marks that looked far too similar to what had been done to Nisha.
Then we reached the town square, and I discovered that the house where a party had been held the night before was now transformed. Panels along the wall had been removed, so the interior was open to the elements. A wooden throne—a heavily carved chair—had been moved to the edge so it could overlook the square. In it, the Queen sat, more jewel-studded than any of the other females I’d seen.
With braziers on either side and pale smoke curling in the air around her, she looked mysterious. Raised high on her throne and platform, she also looked the part—above everyone else. Her scales were a pale shade of blue, her hair approaching a sky blue that didn’t exist on this world. Truthfully, if not for the jewelry and her place on that throne, she looked no different from any of the other females. Nisha trembled against my back as we were made to line up in front of her. “She took my bracelet,” she muttered, not with fear, but with the sharp, defiant spark of anger. If that was true, I could not tell which bracelet it was, for the Queen wore so many of them they all blended together.
Khawla didn’t bow, though our escort did, and I followed his lead. She was not my Queen, and the disgusted look she gave me did not incline me to show her respect. Not only that, but she was involving innocent children in her power play. The rebel streak that had gotten me in trouble back on Earth was hard at work now. I eyed the crowd, wondering who needed help, which children were happy and healthy.
Given the dire ‘Summons’ for us to come before the Queen, I thought this was it. She would declare us traitors to the Clan and have us killed on the spot, but she seemed to take great delight in drawing out the process. I knew her type, the skinny bitch was enjoying her power, and she wanted to milk every minute. I barely listened to her drawled speech of injustice, danger, and betrayal. I focused on Khawla and his younglings instead.
He had curled his tail in a loop around us; it pressed against my heels and curled over Rasho’s and Daois’s smaller tails. His chin was raised high, almost to the point of jutting his sharp chin horns at the Queen, that had to be an insult, but she did not say anything aboutthat. He had stretched out his arm to cup Nisha’s back and mine, making his sigils glow and declaring me his mate for everyone to see.
When the Queen wound down from Khawla’s list of crimes, she simply declared his younglings to be impure—too mixed with Copper Tooth—and that mongrels had to die. As the watching crowd gasped at that declaration, she continued that humans had no right to exist either: they were unwelcome on their planet and a threat to their way of life. “They are all to be executed at dawn,” was her bold final statement.
It was not something that appeared to go over well with the crowd. Perhaps they didn’t care if I lived or died, but they were clearly uneasy about doing that to children—and rightly so. Anyone who could coldly proclaim they were killing a child in the morning was pure evil, so far removed from reality that they had lost all sense of right and wrong. It was the kind of callousness I’d regularly dealt with back on Earth, where the UAR’s rules and greed meant people just like this Queen decided who got medicine and who didn’t.
As the crowd muttered and talked, the Queen gracefully swung herself out of her throne and disappeared deeper into the smoky interior of the building her throne was in. Our escort took that as their cue to lead us back to Khawla’s small house and lock us up once again. I couldn’t believe it, but I was almost relieved to be back there. The news wasn’t good, but at least we had another night. Too bad I’d seen no sign of Reshar at all, or I would have tried to convince him to help us.
Khawla made us food from the foodstores in her home, and I tried my best to entertain the kids, even though they couldn’t understand what I said. Nisha mostly wanted to cling, and when Khawla tried to check in with them about which toys they absolutely had to bring, all she did was moan about a bracelet again.
It made Khawla’s face grow tight, and I reached out to squeeze his fingers and offer him reassurance. “We’ll figure this out,” I tried to say. “We have all night to escape.” He nodded, dipped down, and brushed a kiss against my cheek, then did the same to Nisha, which finally made her giggle.The mood brighter, she played with her brothers while I sat down and watched Khawla fix that second snowshoe.
His tone was low when he started talking, pitched so his younglings at the back by the hearth could not hear. “Nisha took off a gold and amethyst bracelet that belonged to Kusha. The new Queen appropriated all jewelry belonging to dead throne contenders, that included the bracelet. I can’t give it back; I haven’t figured out yet how to escape, let alone steal that from the Queen.”
Sad for the little girl, I rose to pace through the small home myself. We needed to do something—but what? Maybe it was silly, but I checked the back window twice, and then the front door to see who was guarding it. At first, it was the same guy from yesterday, but he was relieved of duty in the afternoon by a new one. I asked for Artek repeatedly, but they just ignored me or shrugged a shoulder and turned away. Khawla didn’t even try; he sat around sharpening his spears and knives and handed smaller blades out to the boys to carry with them.
It looked like, lacking a plan, Khawla was ready to go to war. I didn’t think that would help us, but with the day crawling by slowly, no better solution came to mind. Still, we both knew we’d try to sneak away as soon as darkness fell. So I urged the kids to take a nap and laid down with them to do the same, my body tight as a bowstring no matter how hard I tried to relax.
Chapter 16
Khawla
One of the guards had silently agreed to get a message out for me, and if a communication-type devicewasto be found, I was confident they’d bring it. I’d seen the looks on the faces of many, and while I did not think they’d go as far as to helpme, they did not want to see my younglings die. I was grateful to know that at least some of the hunters I’d trained with—or trained—had a sense of honor.
Normally a patient male, I found it hard today, knowing our time could be so short. Msera might be a fool for following this Queen’s orders, but he wasn’t dumb. He would know I’d try to escape when darkness afforded the best cover. We couldn’t wait for him to double his guards; we had to move when hedidn’texpect it—now, in broad daylight. I checked my weapons, which they’d never confiscated from my home, made sure my boys each knew how to wield their knives, and fixed Jolene’s weird shoes.
I had probably checked the bags of supplies I’d packed over a dozen times by the time someone slipped a small, boxy metal thing under the door. It was just a little square object with some wave lines carved along the top, and I had no clue if it was even capable of doing what I’d asked for. I knew they existed, and I knew hunters scavenged and hid relics when they found them, often to use for barter with Water Weaver merchants, or, if it was particularly good, with the gold traders of Serqethos.
