It’s only foolish lust, I tell myself. A trick of the mind, some weird thing that has happened because I’m a captive.
But when hiskrythpulses, it happens again.
I harden my resolve.
I tell myself that, anyway.
“So?” I say as snottily as possible. “What now?”
I’m met with the same attitude from him that he’s always projected: diffidence, I guess. He seems to not care one way or the other, and yet I know that he does, because he spanks me when I’m defiant.
I think of this, and I have no idea whether I’m trying to bring it upon myself or not. I’d like to think of myself as brave, but deep down inside, there is adesireto feel the hot sting of his hand, hear him talk about ‘discipline’ again.
He speaks Kerz, without looking away from me.
“He says to tell you that he’s escorting you to your training,” Trasmea says, giving me a mystified glance.You know that already,she seems to be saying.
It’s maddening. Ihatehim, I tell myself. I hate his cold attitude, and his barbaric ways.
If only whatever it is inside of me would stopboilinglike this.
I walk toward him, without taking my eyes off of his. His yellow, reptilian eyes don’t blink or move, and they project something fearsome. At the same time, I don’t fear him enough to look away.
Recently—since my arrival on this moon—I’ve tried to remind myself of who he really is, so that I don’t become silly, by thinking of the way he killed the guard at my father’s party.
I think of it now, and as with all the other times I have thought about it, itshouldmake me afraid—what kind of maniac kills somebody with a plate, as if they were tossing aside some garbage?—but it doesn’t.
I arrive just in front of him. He’s blocking the doorway with his big huge muscular self, and we’re having a stare-down that is making me delirious and scared. But I’m not going to break it first. No way.
The seconds tick by, and then they become Earth minutes. We are just staring at each other, and neither one of is moving or blinking.
I don’t know what’s going on inside ofhim, but my own inner turmoil is almost unbearable. Even though our expressions are not changing, I feel like the atmosphere is, and he almost seems to be staring back at me in admiration. Or something. I almost feel a sense of… I don’t know. Camaraderie.
Without saying anything, he steps backward, causing the door to reopen. He moves through it, into the corridor, and then sweeps his arm out, indicating that I should pass him and begin walking in the direction he’s indicating.
I fold my arms over my stomach, lift my chin a little higher, and walk out.
I could swear that I saw him smile, but it was out of the corner of my eye, and so I know I’m probably seeing what I want to see. And this is what I tell myself, as I walk down the corridor in front of him, when I realize that my own mouth is turned up in a small smile.
Which I very quickly erase.
* * *
He leads me down a passage, and then begins to order me to turn left, then right, then this way and that way, until I’m hopelessly lost. The ‘palace’ we’re living in is enormous. I keep my eyes focused straight ahead, because I don’t want him to think I’m actually interested in any of this, even if I really am. I want him to know that I reject the trappings of this prison. Dammit.
But things catch my eye, pass in my peripheral vision, that are appealing. Very appealing. Things like cavernous, tiled swimming pools with mosaics and arches, and plants that look tropical, glistening pools of water flat as glass, inviting me to swim. Not just one.Many. A room that looks like a library, filled with what look like books, giving me pause; the Kerz are notorious for their ruthlessness and their bravery, their fighting skills and their formidable strength. But they are also known for their cunning and their business acumen, which would naturally mean they are likely very learned. At least literate. It’s just that no one ever thinks ‘library’ when they think ‘Kerz.’
We walk for what seems like miles. Actual miles, that old Earth measurement. I’m barefoot, but the floor is warm and comfortable to walk on. I feel a little out of place, though, like I’m in a museum or something, in my nightclothes. Sheer, racy nightclothes.
It’s like the Kerz don’t know that you can make non-transparent fabric for women.
When we reach a part of the corridor, however, that is a tunnel of some material as clear as glass—glass floor, glass walls, glass ceiling, all arched with no joints whatsoever, I stop in my tracks. The tunnel is long, and it’s a bridge. It spans a gorge of black rock, shiny as obsidian, littered with red sand and all the colorful vegetation I see from the window of my room.
The passage is at least half a kilometer above the very deepest gouge in the gorge.
I try to move my feet, but they won’t go.
I’mdeathly, seriously, totally, and irreparablyafraid of heights. Even if I’m in what must be a very safe structure.
