Vahan

Arnau passes me, and I hear a scream. Her scream. Her fear. Arnau and I start running. As I reach the top of the stairs, I see her lying at the bottom of the stairs in a pond of blood. Her limbs are thrown over the floor like she’s a rag doll. Blood is gushing from her nose.

I run down the stairs and kneel down by her. Arnau kneels by her other side.

“Dardana sneaked out just after you,” Arnau says as his voice falters.

I lower my head and feel Alyssa’s breath on my cheek.

“You think Dardana did this?” I ask as I palpate Alyssa’s neck so I can assess her injuries.

I know how to check whether the cervical spine is damaged or not. A group of my brain cells can do this for me—I can examine and diagnose the most life-threatening injuries. It’s the benefit of being one of my race. Arnau can’t do this. Maybe it’s for the better though. I can’t treat any serious injury—I can only separate living corpses from those who can make it.

“I know she did it.” There’s fury in Arnau’s voice.

I look at him. “Deal with her. Just be discreet.”

He bows his head. His face turns into an emotionless mask. No more words need to be said.

I slide my arm under Alyssa’s back and the other under her thighs as Arnau rises to his feet and strides off.

I carry Alyssa to our bedroom and lay her gently. Her right arm looks like it’s broken. Her ribs must be broken too. If her skull is broken, she won’t make it. My mind detaches. No, I won’t allow her to die.

I continue to examine her body. Her breaths are shallow. Her lips tinge with purple.

“I forbid you to die,” I say. “You hear me? Nobody defies me.”

***

Arnau evens the top layer of soil with the shovel then he leans against it and we stare at the mound.

“We should have burned her body,” Arnau says. “Now she’ll wander in the fog for eternity.”

“She didn’t deserve to be burned.” I allowed her to rest in the ground. She’d been useful to me so I was forgiving—if I’d left her body to rot outside Nassara, she’d have been just a mindless molecule of energy. “I was generous enough.”

Arnau nods several times. “I told the soldiers she’d gone to the Scarlet City. They don’t suspect anything.”

“Good.”

I should have listened to Kohar. I should have gotten rid of Dardana a long time ago.

My little flower is dying. Arnau had to slit a free woman’s throat.

“I’m going to the abbey,” I say. “You know what to do.”

He bows his head. “As always.”

I lay my hand on his shoulder and squeeze it. “Take Almast as your wife.”

He grins at me. “I want Kendy. She has really nice thighs. And she has a good sense of humour. Almast is too unorganised.”

“Alright. Take Kendy then.” I take a deep breath. “It’s good to be happy in life, boy.”

Silence envelops us for a moment—the kind of painful sacred silence.

“She loves you,” Arnau says. “She is meant for you. I can see this now.”

I grin at myself. I allowed him to be a free man a long time ago so he speaks to me as a free man would. I’ll prepare the papers to make it official as soon as I’m back from the abbey. He should be my equal.

Arnau is my brother, not my slave. He’s never been my slave.

My eyes sweep over Dardana’s grave, and then I walk towards the stables. I sit on my stallion and gallop until I see the abbey.

Then I face the god.

 Wuylir guides me to a small room and I drop into the armchair by an arched passage that leads to a balcony. I put my elbows on my thighs. Wuylir settles himself in the other armchair.

“You’re worried,” he says.

“Alyssa is dying.”

“I can’t help you. We don’t interfere, you know this.”

I straighten. “I’ll do anything.”

He tilts his head and stares at me. One corner of his lips crooks up.

“You’ll become a senator,” he says.

“Alright.”

“I will guide you and you will listen to me.”

“Alright.”

“You’re going to owe me.” Wuylir rises to his feet. “Let’s go then.” He waves his hand to me, encouraging me to come closer to him.

I rise to my feet and stand two steps away from him. He touches the brooch on his frock—it’s an eagle with outspread wings. A dense electric blue mist envelops us and it pricks my skin like tiny needles. A strange smell settles in my nostrils. It’s sharp and fresh like the air before rain.

“What the fuck is this?” I growl.

“A portal,” Wuylir says. “My own idea. I’m fucking good, aren’t I?”

“You’re fucking creepy.”

I take a sharp breath and dizziness fills my head. Nausea hits me, causing me to bend with my hands clenched in front of my stomach. I close my eyes, open them and find myself in front of Nassara.

Wuylir slaps me on the back. “Guide me, my friend.”

Alyssa

I’m all pain. I’m all darkness.

A husky voice calls me, “Alyssa, dzie’ta, wake up.”

The darkness claws at me, stabs me with invisible knives, torments me with coldness. A jolt of electricity surges through me. My muscles become rigid. I scream all my pain.

Another jolt. I hear my own bones crack and click. I scream again. Another jolt. I wail.

Brightness floods my eyes. My lungs expand and pain braces my chest. Hot lips land on mine.

“Let her rest,” another deep male voice says. “She’s fine. The baby in her womb is fine too.” There’s something eerie yet alluring about the huskiness in that voice.

My eyes are burning. I can see a grey wall of fog, nothing more.

My muscles start burning then just ache.

A fat warm drop of thick fluid lands on my forehead. The smell of herbs settles in my nostrils as the drop slides down my temple and tickles my skin.

“Yours officially,” the eerie voice says. “You’ll thank me later, Vahan.”

Blackness cuts me off from reality. I’m all nothingness.

A force kicks me out of my non-existence.

I open my eyes. The ceiling spins. Vahan’s face wavers above mine.

“My little flower,” he says as his voice falters.

“What happened?” My throat is so dry that it comes out in a screech.

“A bitch happened. Don’t worry. She won’t hurt you again.”

“Dardana?”

“She’s very far from here.”

“In the Scarlet City?”

“In the Scarlet City.”

I shiver and try to lift my hands, but pain immobilises me.

“Slowly, dzie’ta,” Vahan says. He massages my tummy and kisses my forehead. “Rest. I’ll take care of you.”

It takes me a while to recover enough to get up. Vahan guards me day and night. He massages my weak muscles, feeds me, bathes me. Loves me. My belly is rounder and rounder. There’s a thin scar on my cheek and a few on my chest.

There is hunger for life in every molecule of my being.

I want to live.

I want to love.

I want to hold my baby in my arms.

That’s true what they say.

If you’re between life and death, you gain a new perspective. You stop worrying. You start appreciating and cherishing. You live, love and enjoy.

And I love my husband.

I’m far from Earth, but I found my true love on Zaria.

***

We saunter along the path that stretches across the garden as I loop my arm through Vahan’s. My palm rests against my swollen stomach. Vahan puts his hand on the back of my neck.

“I want you on all fours,” he says.

“Here?”

He points his finger to the round pergola bathed in the vegetation of all shades of green and purple. Tiny green insects and blue birds inhabit the density of plants.

“I want to sink my dick into your wet cunt, Alyssa. Now.”

Excitement surges through my veins. I’m so horny now. And so is my husband. He pulls me inside the pergola and gently pushes me so I put my knees and hands on the mattress spread on the floor.

I chew my lower lip as he kneels behind me and gathers my dress up to my waist. He glides his palm over my ass cheek as his mouth follows with a shower of hot and wet kisses. He sinks his face between my thighs. His hot breath makes me shiver. He runs his tongue against my swollen clit, jolting me.

“You’ll give me four more children,” he says as the head of his cock circles my entrance.

I moan as he gently pushes in.

He rocks his hips and slides his cock deeper, inch by inch. I gasp at his divine thickness stretching me. He fucks me slowly, every thrust like the promise of bliss.

“Harder,” I demand.

“You are pregnant, woman.”

He picks up the pace. I shiver. I melt. I moan my satisfaction.

He moans just after me, filling me up with his cum.

We lie on our sides, his body spooning mine.

“Do you miss your homeland?” he asks.

“Sometimes.”

“The gods sometimes take the foreigners back.”

My heart stops beating as he braces me with his arm.

“But you are pregnant so we have to stay here,” he says.

“We?”

“I mean I learn about you more and more. I’m curious about your homeland. Nobody’s allowed to travel as our gods do, but I have connections.”

“Maybe one day we could ask your god…”

“Maybe. I’ll try to make your life on Zaria as happy as possible. As safe as possible.”

“I know and I love you, Vahan, you’re my home and my life.”

“That’s what I wanted to hear from you.”

He knows how much I miss my parents, and I know if there’s the chance to see them he’ll take me to them. Maybe one day…

“Give me my freedom back,” I say.

He inhales deeply. “Alright. After our fifth child is born.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” I turn to him. “You know I’m mad about you. I’d never leave you. Ever.”

“After our second child is born.” He strokes my belly.

I see joy in his eyes then his deep love for me.

“Tomorrow,” I say. “I want to be a free woman from tomorrow.”

“Alright.”

I erupt into laughter and we kiss and kiss and kiss like we’re teenagers.

One day I’ll find a way to go back to Earth. I’ll take my husband and kids with me. I will teach Vahan to drive a car. I’ll take him out to a nice pub. I’ll buy him a burger and a bottle of coke. A pair of jeans. He’d look hot in jeans. One day.

Now I’m going to enjoy my life how it is. I’m going to love my husband even more and I’m going to bear his children.

“We’ll free all the slaves in Nassara,” I say.

I sit up clumsily and he sits opposite me with his knee bent.

A grin crosses his face. “When?” he asks like he’s amused.

“As soon as possible. I know you need people to work in the vineyards, but I want them all to be free people. We’ll employ them and pay them decent wages.”

“Alright.”

I settle myself within his body, my back against his chest. “We’ll go to the auction from time to time so as to buy one or two girls and free them. I want to help some of them, you know. I want to do what I can.”

Vahan strokes my hair. “Alright.”

I turn my face to his. “Really?”

“Why not?”

“I don’t mind being poor.”

“I make the best wine on the Continent. We’ll never be poor. Other high-born people may avoid us but we’ll never be poor.”

I cup his cheek with my palm. “I love you and I will always love you. You are a good man.”

Vahan

She thinks I’m a good man. Pride surges through me.

I learn about Earth ever day. I understand my wife better and better. Her race loves freedom and hates slavery.

I want to be an honourable man for her so I’m going to be like an Earth man.

We go to the auction after my first child is born. We buy two girls. We give them shelter and care. We give them employment and freedom.

I see love in my wife’s eyes.

My neighbours start seeing me as a renegade, but Wuylir stops them from invading Nassara and smashing us.

Something is going to change on the Continent. Wuylir calls it a revolution, a milestone.

I don’t know what he is up to, but his excitement sometimes intrigues me. He says he wants to be like Prometheus—his great-great-great…great grandfather.

I asked Alyssa about Prometheus. She laughed and said my friend was a liar.

I don’t know. Wuylir is different to the others of his race. He’ll sometimes say bad things about them like he disapproves of what they’re doing.