“I promise you, I’m not. I’m nothing. I’m not from any part of this world. Please...”
The molo vibrated again but this time it went ignored.
Their battle of wills raged and she felt him reading her once again. Her own will begged for him to see the truth. Not all the truths of her... but the truth that she had nothing to do with his past.
“You’ll stay in my sight, Yahiro of Quist,” he said at last. Her heart fluttered with equal parts of both terror and relief.
Quist rolled his wings, lowering them toward the ground. She couldn’t see it, his grip in her hair tight, but she felt the shift in altitude, the oxygen levels changing, her breaths becoming easier.
I’ll live if I stay in his sight.
Her eyes flickered over his symmetrically unnerving face and the golden piercings that dotted it.I can keep one vow if I stay near him. I only... have to stay where he can see me. I don’t have to trust him.She felt the shock of landing but not the shadow of trees above her. The babbling sounds of a creek replaced the gusty wind.
I could always find my way back to theConcord.But that thought depressed her. Choosing captivity was not in her nature, not after she knew what true captivity felt like.
She wasn’t a saint. That ship had sailed years ago. William had broken her, piece by piece, until she became an entirely different being. Until she bowed down to the devil in reverence and found enjoyment in doing so. She didn’t care about the others, the corrupt doctors, the pervish guards, the brutality of those who lived on theConcord. She cared a little bit for the girls who had suffered beside her, but she didn’t know them, she knew nothing except the fact that they did something that landed them in the highest security prison in the history of mankind.
Even if Charlie and Preta were innocent, I’ll never know now.Liars were bred, not born. Her parents hadn’t begotten a liar, at least they tried not to.
She would stay with Quist. But even as the thought swelled in her mind, she realized how easy it was to choose an alien and leave behind her own race.
“I don’t want to die,” she admitted after Quist began walking, his hand still forcing her to face him. “I want to live.”
“You no longer had that choice.” He glanced away, breaking the beguilement he had on her. She sucked in an easier breath, knowing she had come to a decision. One she wasn’t happy about, but one that would increase her odds of survival.
“What upon Sonhadra do you need for nourishment?” he asked, turning back toward her.
Her stomach caved at the thought of food. She couldn’t remember her last nutrient bar. “Fruit, vegetables, meat. If you kill a creature and can make a fire, I can cook the... meat.”
He made a face but sat her down gently next to a crystal brook. “I have no control over fire. The blazings have dominion over it, gifted to them by their Creator, sister to Lusheenn.” Quist stepped into the water with a flinch, his loose pants swaying and swirling to the flowing water. He crouched down, soaking himself, and slowly lowered her torn foot into the water.
It didn’t feel like the swamp water from the night before; it felt like bliss, and she leaned forward to watch him handle her. The dirt and blood fell away from her wounds, lost to the stream while probing fingers cleaned them. There was no pain, only numbness, and she wondered if she had an infection.
“Lusheenn isn’t sovereign?” she asked.
“Only to the light.”
Yahiro brushed her fingers through her tangled hair while Quist slipped off her remaining shoe and lowered her other foot into the water. She knew she was going to take advantage of it soon and bathe, whether or not he kept her in his sight.
“Like a god of light?”
“God?”
“Errm, deity? No? Muse?” She tried to find the right word to translate to him. “Divinity?”
“Divine, yes. Lusheenn is divine. My eldest brother is made in his image.”
“I don’t understand? Made?” she tasted the word, not liking it. “Like out of clay from the Earth, like Zeus and his bronze humans?”
“I don’t know this Zeus, but yes, like clay but with sunlight, he formed us whole. He said he made us out of loneliness but I never believed him.”
This was getting weird. “He made you. Then you didn’t believe him? Doesn’t that go against... his ability?”
“I told you he left us to die!”
She flinched as he shot up, releasing her feet. Quist stepped out of the water and stormed back and forth. She had upset him.
“Why?” she couldn’t help but ask despite his sudden anger.
