Chapter Fourteen
I opened my eyes.
The room was dim, the light soft and muted, coming from the setting sun. The ceiling looked familiar. I was lying on the couch in the front room. And I was still alive.
I inhaled deeply and felt my chest rise, then fall. The air flooded my lungs, so sweet. Such an easy, small movement. I would never again take it for granted. I sent my magic out. It whispered through the rooms, testing the connection, and Gertrude Hunt sighed in relief.
I was still alive.
The thought made me smile. I stretched a little and wiggled my toes. Someone had taken off my shoes. I turned my head slightly. The room was empty except for Turan Adin. He sat in a chair, his head inclined, his face hidden behind the empty blackness. Beast lay on his lap, her eyes closed.
The smile vanished from my lips. In all the time I’d owned Gertrude Hunt, there’d been only one person besides me who could hold Beast on his lap.
I slipped off the couch. Turan Adin raised his head but didn’t move. I walked over to him, my bare feet making almost no sound on the floorboards, reached out, and touched his hood. It retracted, folding as it slid to settle over his back. For a moment I saw a lupine head armed with monstrous jaws, and then it melted in a blink. Sean Evans looked at me with his amber eyes. His hair was shaved down to stubble. A ragged scar cut across his forehead, slanting to the left, interrupting his eyebrow and chewing up his cheek. Another scar snaked its way up his neck on the right, breaking into a tangle of smaller scars near his ear. What kind of injuries could they have been that the Merchants’ medical equipment couldn’t knit him back together?
His face was hard, so much harder than I remembered, as if any hint of softness had been bled out of him. His eyes were haunted. He looked at me and through me at the same time, as if he were expecting a distant threat to appear on some far horizon behind me. The cocky, funny guy was gone. I was staring war in the face and it was looking back at me.
Oh no.
I reached out and touched the ragged scar on his cheek with my trembling fingertips. He leaned into my hand, like a stray dog who’s been on the run for too long, desperate for any crumb of affection. Painful heat burned my eyes and fell on my cheeks. Beast whimpered on his lap.
“Why?” I whispered.
“I owed a favor to Wilmos,” he said, his voice quiet. “I said I wanted a challenge. Turan Adins don’t last. The Merchants just keep recruiting more when the latest one bites the dust. As long as you match the height, the armor takes care of everything else. I signed up for six Nexus months and got there two days after the last Turan Adin died.”
“Sean…”
“The Army wasn’t hard for me. Everything I did on this planet was easy. What my parents went through was beyond anything I ever tried. It was a test. I wanted to know if I could do it. If I was good enough to survive like they did. If I was someone they could look on with pride. I wanted the training wheels off.”
Six Nexus months, that was barely two months our time. “Why didn’t you leave? Your contract ended.”
“There are civilians in the spaceport and the colony.” His voice was ragged and low. “Children. Our resources are stretched too thin. They would be overrun. They need me.”
He was trapped. Sean’s parents were alpha-strain werewolves, designed and genetically engineered to protect the escape gates against overwhelming force as the rest of population evacuated their dying planet. Sean was born with the drive to protect, the kind of drive that overrode everything else. Repelling the siege of the spaceport must’ve felt right to him, so right, and once he started, he couldn’t stop. His very nature trapped him there.
That’s why he’d fled from the pond. He knew that he would go back to Nexus. He would never see the pond in summer. He would never see me again. He would never cook another barbeque in my backyard and sneak bones to Beast. I would never hear him crack another joke. He…
Nuan Cee had said something just before I passed out. He said, “Do I have your word?”
Ice shot through me. “What did you promise Nuan Cee to save me?”
Sean smiled. “Nothing I regret. You’re alive. It makes me happy.”
“Sean?”
He didn’t say anything.
I spun around and dashed up the stairs to the Merchant quarters.
#
I found Nuan Cee sitting alone in the front room. The huge screen on the wall was glowing. A recording of some Merchant festival played, its sound muted to a mere murmur as foxes in bright garments twirled long ribbons while dancing through the streets.
“I’ve been expecting you,” he said quietly.
“What did he promise you?”
“Lifetime of service,” Nuan Cee said, his voice mournful. “A life for a life. A fair trade.”
No. No, I don’t think so. Sean Evans wouldn’t die for me. I had to save him now. I came over and sat on the couch.
I looked at the screen. The festival recording melted, obeying my push, and a different image took over the screen. Massive tree trunks twisted between the spires of gray and white stone, each branch as wide as a highway, bearing clouds of blue and turquoise leaves. Pink flowers bloomed on long indigo vines. Golden moss sheathed the trunks, catching the rays of bright sun. A massive feline predator, its fur splattered with rosettes of black and cream, made its way down one of the branches, keeping to the shadows, its massive black claws scratching the moss lightly.
“I once asked my father how the lees became the dominant species on their planet,” I said.
Nuan Cee winced. Few knew the true name of the Merchants’ species, and outsiders weren’t supposed to say it out loud, but I was past the point of caring.
The predator kept moving down the trunk. The view slid down to a spot below where, tucked into a crook between a small, thin branch and the massive tree limb, a single fox sat, gathered into a tiny ball. His blue fur was striped with white and black paint. Compared to the predator, he was tiny. The feline beast could swallow him in two gulps.
“After all, you are so small and your birth planet is so vicious.”
The feline beast smelled the air. He was almost to the fox.
“Do you know what my father told me?”
On-screen the fox’s bright indigo eyes opened wide.
“He told me to never trust a lees, for they are smart and crafty and when their negotiations fail, they kill to get what they want.”
On the screen the small fox shot out from under the massive tree branch, leaping into the air, a blow gun at his lips. A tiny dart shot out and bit into the fur of the feline hunter. The beast shuddered, wracked by convulsions, struggling to stay on its feet. The fox landed next to it on soft paws and yanked a dagger from the sheath at his waist. His black lips drew back, baring savage teeth. His muzzle wrinkled. A deranged light flared in his eyes. The fox fighter fell on the convulsing beast, stabbing its throat again and again, flinging blood everywhere in a frenzy. There was nothing refined about it. Nothing civilized or calm. It was a pure primordial bloodlust, brutal and violent.
Nuan Cee looked away from the screen, averting his eyes.
“I had seen the shape of my poisoner. It was short. Short like a lees. Then you showed up with an antidote to a poison that couldn’t be found even in the Arbitrator’s extensive database. One of your people tried to kill me.”
“It wasn’t sanctioned.”
“The inn marked my poisoner.”
Nuan Cee winced.
“Why did you do it?”
“It wasn’t done on my orders, and I will punish the one responsible. Someone used my image disruptor, but I don’t know how. It is very expensive, and I am the only one who has one. It was completely secure and it is untouched in my quarters. I had used it only once.”
He’d used… “You took the emerald?”
“Yes. I was wearing the disruptor that night under my clothes. Everyone was so busy, and it took mere seconds.”
“You’ve abused my hospitality.”
Nuan Cee sighed. “We did. We are indebted to you. The favor you owe me is forgiven.”
I was so sick of trading favors. “Let him go.”
“No.”
“Nuan Cee! The debt you owe me is greater than any favor. You broke the rules of hospitality. You broke your people’s treaty with the Innkeepers of Earth. You should’ve healed me anyway because I am an innkeeper, and when the others find out about it, you will be banned. Sean didn’t know that, and you took advantage of him.”
“Yes. His bargain with me is separate from your bargain.”
“Let him go.”
“I can’t. Anything but that.”
“Why?” I snarled.
Nuan Cee spread his paws. “There have been forty-two Turan Adins since the war on Nexus began. Some lasted mere days. He’s been on Nexus for a cycle and a half. You don’t even know how special that is. He’s too good. He lasted longer than even the original one. I was terrified because he refused to sign another contract. He said he would walk as soon as we found a replacement. But now he will stay. All will be well.”
“All won’t be well. Nexus is killing him.”
“It will eventually. But until then, he will lead our defenses.”
“Release him. This is what I want.”
“No. Ask anything else.”
“Damn it, don’t you have a crumb of conscience? Is there any drop of kindness in your soul, or is it all just cold dark greed?”
Nuan Cee bared his teeth. “There are three thousand of our people on Nexus. There are families and children. He is keeping them alive.”
“What the hell were you thinking, putting children on Nexus in the first place? Move them out.”
“Don’t you think I would if I could? They have no place to go. They are not welcome anywhere.”
The realization hit me. The Kuan lees, the cast-outs. He had staffed Nexus colony with the exiles.
Nuan Cee turned away and waved at the screen, his paw limp. “Archive number ten twenty-four.”
A long procession of foxes appeared on the screen, moving one by one into a shrine, carrying little lanterns.
“In our society, family is everything. Clan is everything. When I look back, I should see the line of my ancestors stretching through time, long and unbroken. It is they who give us strength and wisdom. Our clan. Our pack. Our past and the wealth of our clan’s deeds. When one of us commits a crime, when he or she is found weak or unworthy, they are cast out. Such is the way of the forest. Only the strong and the useful survive. The cast-outs are cut off from their clan. They have no shrines. They can’t pray to their ancestors. They can’t ask for solace or guidance. Their children grow up adrift, not knowing where they come from, branches severed from the tree of their clan and family forever. Some don’t even know their fathers. They have no home. They’re not welcome anywhere. My father was a Kuan. He was a criminal and the son of a criminal.”
Grandmother stepped out of the shadows and came to sit on the couch, quiet as a ghost.
“And when my mother fell in love with him and her clan paid a fortune, the worth of a small planet, to include him into our clan, he had a choice. He could go with my mother and cut off all ties with his clan or he could stay an outcast. My father’s mother told him to walk away from her and his sisters and to never look back. His own mother. She gave up her child so he could have a better life.” Nuan Cee’s voice shook. “I don’t know my other grandmother. She is gone now. Her soul is floating out there, lost and gone, crying out for the light, and I can’t even light a candle in a shrine to help her find her way. I am a cripple. I have not been able to bring myself to sire children, for they will be crippled like me. They will not know half their family.”
He swiped the tears from his eyes. “It took me decades to wrestle away the rights to Nexus. It is rich. I had offered a third of the profits we’ll reap to the Clans Assembly. A royal sum. In return, they let me settle the exiled ones on Nexus. They let me forge them into their own clan. They will receive dispensation to raise their shrines.”
His eyes shone. “Their children won’t have to wonder if they are just specks of dust in the nothingness. They will be connected. They will light their candles and speak to those who passed on. That’s why the exiled ones volunteered to come to Nexus, knowing they could never leave and that for the rest of the galaxy, where time moves slower, they will be dead long before anyone else they know. They left what little they had behind and trusted me to bring them there. They cannot leave now, because they have no place to go.”
He had brought thousands of his people to Nexus and now they were stranded, trapped between the grinders of two armies.
“I must have peace to turn a profit. And now the peace treaty is dead, and the least I can do is keep them safe for as long as I can. You cannot have Sean. Ask me anything but that. If he leaves, my people will die.”
He would never let Sean go. Sean would return to Nexus and die there. I had to save him. I had to do something. Anything.
“What if there is peace?”
“There won’t be. The otrokars are ready to leave, and the Anocracy is torn by their feud.”
My mouth had gone dry. I licked my lips. “Here is my bargain: you owe me. If I get the peace treaty signed, you will let Sean go.”
Nuan Cee shook his head.
“You’re wrong,” Grandmother said, her voice quiet.
I nearly jumped, I’d never heard her say a word and had almost forgotten she was there. Nuan Cee turned, startled.
“We have caused her an injury,” Grandmother said. “We owe her a great debt. We owe her parents a debt after everything they have done for us.”
Nuan Cee bowed his head. “As you wish. If the peace treaty is signed and upheld, I will release Sean Evans from my service. That will wipe the slate clean between us. You have my promise. I swear on the honor of my ancestors.”
That was the best I could get. I had to find a way to bring them together and convince them to end this insane war. Desperation wrapped around me like a noose. How in the world would I do that? I didn’t even know where to start. I was numb and terrified at the same time. I had to move, go, do something, but all I could do was sit. Everything else seemed too hard.
We sat in the quiet gloom, watching the procession of foxes at the shrine.
“There is only one thing I don’t understand,” I said. “Why did you take the emerald?”
Nuan Cee sighed again. “Because I was young once and foolish, my father did something to me to save me from myself. It is a thing within the clans that adults know and children learn when they become adults. The young are so rash, so desperate to make their own money and leave their mark on the galaxy. Couki is very bright, and that keen intelligence will get him into trouble. He will inherit a sum of money when he comes of age. He will use it, hoping to prove he has what it takes to be a Merchant. The bazaars of the universe are full of greedy sharks and he is smart, but too inexperienced to swim with the worst of them. The brighter they are, the faster they lose the money. Left on his own, he will become bankrupt within months. It will take him another five cycles or so after he reaches the age of maturity to pay back the emerald and the interest. Time enough for him to learn and mature and for the clan to absorb his small mistakes and keep him from making big ones.”
“Nuan Cee was a very bright child,” Grandmother said with a smile. “He almost bankrupted the entire clan twice before his twentieth birthday.”
They trapped their young adults, forcing them to remain with the family. “Do you do this to every smart child?” I asked.
“Yes,” Nuan Cee said.
I rose. I had a couple of things I needed to verify.