Chapter 23
She’d started hyperventilating the moment he closed the hatch. Mayra lay in the tight box, her heart about to beat its way out of her chest. The compartment was too small for her to be able to reach her necklace so she couldn’t even activate its light. Instead, she sat in the dark, panting, panic about to drive her mad.
Mayra didn’t know where her fear of tight spaces came from, but since the first time she’d been locked in a small cell as punishment for accidently breaking one of the princess’s porcelain dolls, she’d hated tight spaces. She remembered those few hours only vaguely, having passed out not long after being locked in.
Shadows were playing at the edges of her mind already, letting her know that unconsciousness lay right around the corner again. She couldn’t catch her breath, couldn’t stop her pulse from climbing… climbing… climbing…
How could Nojan do this to me? How could he lock me in here?
Right now, he was in the main chamber of the ship doing gods knew what while she sat there, likely breathing her last. She wondered if the compartment was airtight. If she would be using up all the oxygen even more quickly because of her panting. It was possible, she supposed. The thought just made her breathe harder.
What made it worse, he was out there withher. Sanri had been like all the others, quick to see the lay of the land and exploit the situation at Mayra’s expense. She wondered what they had been doing in the bedchamber. Sanri said Nojan was hiding something from her.
Probably the fact that he only fucked you to activate your powers.This time, the inner voice that spoke up was more insidious than before. Colder. Almost foreign. But she couldn’t deny the power of the words it spoke.He’ll string you along for now to keep you docile, but once he’s used you to accomplish his mission, you’ll be out on your ass faster than a slave who could no longer work.
Mayra wished she could contradict the voice in her head but she thought it was most likely correct. She was being used. Then a thought came over her that left her cold.What if all of this has been an elaborate trick to activate her powers?
Rantel could have hired Nojan, could have even forced Terap to warn her that a savior was coming. To ensure that she came into her powers, he could have set up this whole thing.
Logic suddenly inserted itself.But how would he have known I was going to stab a guard?
The cold voice replied with chilling calm.Maybe he wouldn’t have needed to. Maybe he’d set the guards on you to threaten rape, expecting you to try and escape and then planning to have Nojan meet you as you fled.They’d adapted the plan on the fly once the crime had been committed.
Rantel giving me to him should have been a dead giveaway, she agreed.Why would he just hand me off like that?
Once she started down this path, everything seemed to fall into place. Nojan had filled her head with lies, starting the slow seduction that had led to her eventual capitulation. They’d even gone so far as to hire a human to play her long-lost mother. Anything to break down her walls and earn her trust for the eventual betrayal.
Part of her denied the logic, trying to point out flaws.How could they have known about your vision of the lunar colonies?Only you were able to locate your mother’s tent.But Mayra silenced these rational thoughts ruthlessly in favor of what seemed to be the only possible truth.
It was after that meeting that she’d succumbed to her desire. She’d all but begged him to relieve her of her virginity, believing that if she were the oracle, she could work her way back to her mother, back to the family she’d never had. And maybe, just maybe, the handsome male would stay by her side.
It had been enough to let her guard down and let him in. And once he’d achieved his goal, he’d pulled out of hyperspace to rendezvous with the interstellar police cruiser. Maybe there really had been a malfunction, though, throwing a wrench into their plans. It wouldn’t explain why he’d insisted on rescuing the woman, however.
Sanri was probably his girlfriend. She’d been waiting with the police to rejoin her man. Once the cruiser exploded, they’d gone to Plan B, heading toward the bounty hunter on the premise of dropping off the supposed hitchhiker. It all made too much sense to ignore.
Yes,that sinister voice whispered.You’ve been expertly played. And you always thought Rantel wasn’t this clever. Still, he got the better of you.
“No,” Mayra moaned. The thought of being dragged back to Vanfia and forced to act as the king’s oracle for the rest of her miserable life was enough to bring on hysterical sobs. She thrashed, beating her hands and feet against the compartment to no avail.
She’d known from the start that Nojan was a dangerous temptation. She’d wanted him from the moment she’d laid eyes on him. He was the perfect choice to deflower her. Perhaps rape would have been easier, but no one would have known if sex against her will would in some way interfere with her abilities. So they’d found a way to seduce her that she couldn’t resist.
The knowledge of his betrayal hurt. Over and over in her life, she’d learned the hard lesson of not trusting anyone. She’d put her faith in someone again, and it had only led to her suffering. This was the worst betrayal of all, though.
She’d sworn that she would guard her heart, but she’d let it slip through her fingers. Now Nojan held it in his hands. When he turned her over to the Vanfians, he would crush it so that she would never love again.
Mayra would be a broken woman, a willing oracle who’d been ground down until she was nothing.
The danger of hope was that it made people do stupid things, made them believe that things could get better when all it did was make things worse. Mayra would never let hope deceive her again. She knew what kind of a life she was in for on Vanfia, and she would rather die than return to that life.
The thought of death made her curiously calm. It slowed her breathing, allowed her to relax just a bit in the confines of the compartment. Death would provide the gentle release she’d been seeking all her life.
As soon as this compartment opens, the sinister voice whispered,you must find a way to end it. Before they can imprison you again.
Mayra nodded. The voice she’d once considered cold had become the voice of reason. She would find a way to end her life at the first opportunity.
Until then, she would wait and try to imagine the peace of the grave.
