I had impulse control issues born from a volatile childhood rife with abuse, but sure, let's call it madness. It was less sad that way.
“I have discovered through hard lessons learned that speaking your mind unfiltered and suffering the consequences is much better than staying silent and still being punished. At least this way I can burn someone with my tongue first.”
Of course, I’d always gotten mine in the end. Now I didn’t have to be sneaky about it, with the new plant monster powers. My roots were even better than a knife to the back.
Rema’s hand landed on my shoulder with a firm pressure, earning a smile from me. His face was a solemn promise, silver eyes looking deep into mine as if to say, ‘It will never happen again under my watch’. Which was sweet, if a little redundant now that I could bury someone in the ground alive with the wave of my hand. I patted his hand in thanks before turning back to the Queen who’d taken her seat again.
“Yes, I can agree with that. Still, perhaps learn to temper your tongue now that you are no longer solely amongst your own kind. The enemies here can and will remove it.”
She said it matter of fact, without a hint of malice, but still I smiled wide, showing teeth. “I'll take that under advisement.”
She tipped her chin before returning her attention to the room. The temperature dropped a few degrees under the contempt in her gaze.
“The decrees that have been sent to us by the Unity Council have been threatening in nature. The Counselor demands our resources for his territory expansion. They demand our males for their armies.”
At that word ‘demand’ the table stilled.
“They overstep their bounds,” a female with yellow wings a few chairs down from Rema growled out, her eyes riveted to the Queen.
“I agree. Yet you would have me bow to the Unity now, instead of accept the help of the Ohem Pax At’ens and his Rijiteran monster?”
Ha! Monster. Jack would get a kick out of that.
“They are Other! What loyalty do we owe them? The Unity has always sheltered us. It would be foolish to turn away from them now,” Rema’s aunt Sira said.
A vine slithered by my plate, brown and covered in thorns, no bigger than a corn snake, but edging slowly towards Sira. I willed it back. They didn’t usually come from inside me if I couldhelp it, like the flowers. They came from whatever plant or soil was nearby, like I gave strength and power to the plant, making it grow and bow to my will. I felt them sometimes, the plants, whispering encouragement to me. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the vine retreat back into the vase of a large potted plant next to the door leading to the courtyard.
I could make them on my own, like the flowers, but it cost me. Rema and I had discovered that the hard way when I’d been burned badly during one of the fights on Korsal. A vine shot out of me like an involuntary reflex, impaling the Unity soldier that had shot at me. The manifestation of the plant had healed my wound at the same time it had grown from my hand but it had left me weak, like I hadn’t eaten in months. Rema had shoved those disgusting powdering oatmeal paste bars that all aliens seemed to carry on them down my throat as soon as Anu had squawked in his ear about my sudden calorie needs.
They did the trick, but my god was eating them a horrible experience. I had better control now, but like the flowers, the vines were tied heavily to my emotions, weird plant empath that I was now, and sometimes they got away from me.
Not that I blamed them. At that moment, I wanted to kill Sira. But murdering a member of the court in front of said court seemed really stupid. So I mentally shook my finger at the plant and went back to listening to Sira being a bitch.
“We can not hope to win against the full might of the Unity. I counsel you to turn from this path, my Queen.”
Lyees speared Sira with a look. “You would have us surrender our males to them? Even your son? Or mine? To what? Die under the Rijitera’s claws?”
“There is only one! This one lies of their numbers!” She all but screeched at me, red faced and pointing a claw at me. “They were destroyed. That one somehow survived is an anomaly. Ohem At’ens has lost his honor for this female and we shouldnot follow him. Rema, it seems, has already done so by trying to mate with this creature.”
Oh, if looks could kill, I’d be dead as a doornail. Her emotions were raw hate, a sickly burn of a taste, like biting into a rotten jalapeno. There was a touch of desperation, sour and salty and jealousy, which weirdly tasted like black licorice. I snickered at her, nudging a rigid Rema with my shoulder until he looked down at me.
“Someone’s having a bad day.”
“I will kill her for you. You only need to ask, Patty,” he said to me, his voice cold. His eyes blazed, though. Anger making his jaw tight.
I patted his cheek. “Nah, that would be too easy.”
He smiled grimly at me, his fangs gleaming. “The offer still stands if you should change your mind.”
I looked at Sira just as she opened her mouth to start screaming again.
“Your family is old, Sira. You have come to rely on their power to protect you for far too long. If you make another outburst like that in my presence, I will kill you and suffer the consequences,” the Queen interrupted Sira before the other female’s words made it out of her mouth, the Queen’s dual toned voice steady as she glared at Rema’s aunt.
Sira suppressed an outraged snarl as one of her daughters placed a hand on one of her arms with a nervous shake of her head. Sira brushed her off with a huff and avoided eye contact with the Queen.
“My apologies, Great Matriarch,” she said, stiffly.
She appeared cowed, but I didn’t buy it for a second. This female was going to be trouble with a capital T.
