Page 3 of Tempting Fate

“You sound like them,” I spat. The Outsiders, my unwelcome ‘rescuers,’ and their attempts to make me believe their perverse so-called truths.

Shohari’s eyes flashed with anger, the same amethyst shade as mine but fully crystalline as they should be. “I sound like someone who has seen the lies we were taught about the wider galaxy firsthand.”

This was… logical. But it did not mean I had to like it. “Did you have to turn your back on Kri, though?”

Her mouth gaped like a kholfish. A riot of emotions charged across her features before she regained control. “You were always the pious one, not me.”

This was a truth. A real truth, and I clung to it like I had clung to my big sister for so much of our childhood.

Shohari swept past me, carrying the idol in its canopied shelter to my room, and I followed, leaning on the staff and the wall for support.

Once I was in bed, the room empty aside from me and the chiyi, the salt water I’d held back ran down my face. I stared at Kri’s idol. They regarded me with their serene gaze, staff in one hand, the other at their breasts, in the pose of Soul Tending. But of course this, of all their Aspects, had been chosen for the ship’s shrine. What other Aspect was better suited to watch over those family members sent out as Sacrifice?

I sang my morning rites with as much conviction as I could muster. I was safe. If only I’d known I needed saving.

CHAPTER TWO

Nowhere to go

Airida

“YOU CAN’T GO in there,” I said for the fifth time that afternoon. Or was it the seventh? My mind had never been more foggy. The flower lizard buzzed its wings and curled up at Kri’s feet.

But of course my new friend had adopted the shrine as its nest because nothing was as it should have been since strangers had invaded the peace of my home. Two days I had been on the Dorimisa. Two days, each as long as a lifetime.

I closed my eyes, gathering my strength before pushing out of bed—carefully. My legs were still unsteady, but I couldn’t bear being stuck in this tiny cabin, especially if all there was to do was argue with an irreverent lizard. I gave the small creature a faint smile as I shut the door behind me. They could make their own peace with Kri.

With the sheer metal walls for support, I made my slow way down the corridor, conversation reaching me as I approached the open galley door.

“I assumed he’d want to stay with me here,” Shohari was saying, “and I wish he did. But a ship is too far out of his comfort sector, I fear. That and he has cultural objections to it.”

Garrison—my sister’s alien lover—blocked my view, his back to me as they sat on the sofa, but I didn’t need to see her to hear the sadness in her voice.

Though her words weren’t for me, I answered regardless. “Just because I was ‘held captive’ on a planet doesn’t mean I don’t want to be on a planet.”

“Hi, Airida.” Garrison turned around, wearing a smile on his soft features. I had never known anyone to smile so much. It was unnatural. Although… I had never seen my sister as happy as when she was with him.

Distasteful though their liaison was, I could not begrudge her that.

For all my shock at my sister mating with a different species, I had to admit the human was a good match for Shohari. Easygoing, kind, and clearly devoted to her, Garrison provided the softness she needed after the manipulation she’d apparently lived under since her Sacrifice.

As I sat on a galley chair opposite them, more salt water—tears, the Outsiders called them—beaded in my eyes, and it was strange to allow it to happen. Kri’ith could not cry. Yet the Outsiders had told me many sapients cried tears and it was normal.

It did not feel normal. Moreso than ever before, I felt more than different, I felt… alien. Outside the small galley window, the grey swirls of voidspace pulsed their relentless monotony. “I cannot stay here, Ohri. It was not meant for me to fly amongst the stars.”

Shohari’s face softened at the childish nickname, one from before my words could form correctly in my mouth. “I thought that at first too. But out here—it’s freedom. You just need to give it a chance.”

“But this is a Sacrifice vessel. I cannot, Ohri, you know I cannot.” Years ago, I had decided that if I was not permitted to take part in Orithian society, I could at least follow Kri’s ways and be a good citizen that way. Follow the gods. Be a good kri’ith. According to our teachings, this ship was both sacred and tainted, neither of which were meant for me. Except I could never go home. Was I now part of her Sacrifice?

She gave a rumbling growl. “We are taking Tokki and Daiytak home to Vadias. It’s two weeks’ travel. You don’t have to make any decisions until then.”

“I wouldn’t have to make any decisions if you’d left me back home,” I grumbled. Of course I’d known I was little more than a prisoner kept in a pretty cage, but I’d made my peace with it many years ago. “I was almost happy, you know. I had my art. My garden. I was good at finding trades, was I not?”

Shohari let out a long breath. “You were. I hope you will again?”

I could. I was well suited to the data analysis our parents pushed me into, the only thing I was good at, the only reason I hadn’t been sent to an invalid colony like most people with my affliction.

“The analyst share of the profit is yours if you do, of course,” Shohari said. “I shan’t be sending a single credit back to Mother.”