Hands grab me, and I fight just to feel some pain. To match the pain in my heart. “No, no,no!”
"Really, such dramatics," Gai says. “You’re still their prisoner. You still have your annual conjugal visits.”
"No," I gasp. "No, they wouldn't—they promised?—"
"Promised what? To wait for their pet? My dear, the moment you got caught working with Terra Ka you became property. And property doesn't factor into matrimonial decisions."
I can't fully grasp anything Gai is saying. All I hear ismarriage. Wife. Someone else in their bed, in their life, in all the places I'll never be allowed. Someone is going to takemyplace between them inourbed.
Their bed.
Her bed.
Their wife.
Not me.
The fight leaves me as suddenly as it came. I go limp, the guards let go of me, and fall to the cool obsidian floor. I want to die. I have thrown away my life for alien men who tricked me into thinking they loved me.
I don't get up for days.
Not for dinner. Not for the morning inspection. Not for anything. What do I have to live for if not for them?
On the third morning, I decide I will not allow aliens to decide my fate, and somewhere between the haze of grief and wantingness to survive, fragments of plans crystalize. Terra Ka. Earth. Escape. If I can get to my feet, if my traitorous heart keeps beating, I'll find a way to escape the Obsidian Palace, contact Gael the Returner and beg for extraction. Then, I will return to Earth and pretend I never heard of the Celestial Spire, Rafe or Lorian.
"You need to drink some water," Autumn says, holding a glass to my lips.
"This is ridiculous," Gai declares on day four. "If she refuses to see reason, let her die."
But Autumn forces water past my lips every few hours. Just enough to keep my body functioning while my soul shuts down, but my mind is silently working, planning my escape, just waiting for my heart to heal enough to get up and go.
"Commander Gai won’t call a doctor. He says it's just hysteria,” Autumn tells me. “Please, Eve, don’t give up. Not over them. Think of what you represent to humans in the galaxy. Remember what you did for those who escaped at the Grand Championships. Don’t be so in love with your captors that you allow them to kill your spirit.”
But all I want to do is give up. I can’t bear to know they’ve married another, no matter how bad it looks to the outside world.
I close my eyes and will my heart to stop. But it refuses to obey me. So, I allow my mind to picture escape routes and scenarios. It’s working so hard to distract me from what’s happened that I finally decide that I must go. If only to hide the shame of letting these men hurt me like this. Autumn’s right. I can’t let other humans down.
I wait until Autumn falls asleep on her mat and then I rally myself.
I can’t die here.
The Palace’s AI voice murmurs its usual lullaby through the ceiling vents:Observation cycle complete. Rest period engaged.I listen for the soft click that follows, the signal that the monitors have switched from live to archival mode. It’s only a thirty-second window, but that’s all I have.
I turn Rafe’s ring on my thumb, leave our shared room, and start running as quietly as I can through the palace. I know there’s a servicehatch at the end of this hall, and it’s just big enough for me to squeeze through. And no one will be the wiser until I’m gone.
When I reach the hatch, the access pad blinks yellow: locked. I can’t imagine this having any special code on it, so I just start pressing obvious buttons and it doesn’t take long before it opens with a hiss.
I look around to see if anyone has noticed me, but the hallway is completely dark and silent. No doubt it’s been longer than thirty seconds, but thankfully I’m still alone and no alarms have gone off.
I peer into the tunnel and decide I would rather die trying to escape than see them with their wife.What if they visited with her? And she would watch as they fucked and then whipped me? I can’t have that.
I dive into the tunnel. It’snarrow, lined with cables that buzz under my palms. The air smells of coolant and burned dust. I crawl until my knees ache and then crawl more. I keep thinking of Earth and all shades of human faces. Everything that I took for granted when I lived there. Like freedom.
After what feels like forever, I see a faint violet light ahead. A vent to the outside. I press my face to it and catch a glimpse of Alba’s night sky—storm clouds glowing with city fire. It’s so close I can almost believe I’m already outside.
I force the vent open with shaking hands. The grate gives with a dull snap, and I pull myself through, dropping hard onto a maintenance ledge that runs along the palace’s outer shell. Alba’s wind hits me like a slap. The sky is all bruised purple and black, lightning trapped inside the clouds like something alive and angry. Below me, the city burns with orderly light, and as I realize that it’s real, I say to myself, “I’m out!”
Then, I cling to the ledge until my breathing slows. Once I’m stable, I move sideways, fingers numb, until I find what I’m looking for. A recessed service access marked with faded Imperial glyphs. They are located every so often along the walls to access service ports in case of emergencies.
