Chapter Two
Severine felt like she wasn’t quite touching the ground as she left the lounge where she had spent the last few hours with Rilex and started back toward the room where the women had helped her get ready for the celebration of the tying ceremony. It was a strange feeling that she had never experienced before, but one that she hoped would linger. She knew that she had to take off the dress that she wore and brush her hair out of the lovely style that they had created for her, and she wanted to hesitate as much as she could. If she could have her way, she wouldn’t ever change or let this evening end. It was all too incredible, too perfect to let go. She felt like she and Rilex were hovering just on the edge of something amazing, though she wasn’t entirely sure what it might be, and there was a part of her that wasn’t sure she wanted to go any further. She didn’t know what could possibly be waiting for her beyond that edge and she didn’t feel ready to tip over it and find out. Instead, she wished that they could simply stay where they were, savoring the new and thrilling feelings that were appearing inside of her. It was like she was opening from within. She had always felt like there was only darkness and emptiness within her, and never guessed that there could be anything beyond that. Rilex, though, had gone beyond the hybrid exterior that she had been afflicted with by merit of Ryan’s creation of her, and reached that darkness. Now it was breaking, revealing more within her than she ever could have guessed that she had.
Her heart filled as she thought of the name that he had given her. Severine. Traitor. A name was something that she never had and would never have been given if she had remained in the torture chamber under the control of the Valdicians, or, far more mercifully, been left to die in the corridor after the battle. Those who were born in the facilities were considered disposable, not worth the time, energy, or emotion of an identity of their own. It was only those who had offered themselves into Ryan’s program and sacrificed their bodies to the DNA splicing that had names and were allowed to be called by them. Even those who had been stolen and forced into the experiments lost their names when they entered the laboratories and were taught swiftly and severely not to use the names that they once had. To have a name was validation and resistance, it was proof that she was more than just a living machine created for the purpose of war. When she had first asked Rilex to give her her name, she thought that he might give her something beautiful and melodic like what she had heard the other women called, but he hadn’t. Instead, he had named her “traitor”, taking the word that was spat at her by the angry fellow hybrid after they fought their way to the transportation bay, and turning it into a badge of honor. Though it wasn’t what she had expected, he had been right. It was perfect and she was proud to carry it.
The chamber where she had been transformed from the battle-worn hybrid to the woman who had entered the celebration was empty, giving Severine the chance to remove the dress gradually and reluctantly. She didn’t want to relinquish the touch of the airy fabric against her skin and the feeling that it gave her to wear it, but she knew that she had to. She hadn’t yet decided what she was going to do when they arrived on Penthos and the others went back into battle, but she knew that she wouldn’t be able to stay in the blissful, dreamlike state that she had been living in for the last few hours.
The women had offered her fresh clothing to wear and it was waiting for her on a low seat at the side of the room. She stepped into it and looked into the mirror that she had used hours before to see herself in the dress. It was the first time that she had seen a mirror, the first opportunity that she had had to see her reflection fully. There had been a few times when she had caught the hazy outline of herself in the brushed metal tables or the glass of the chambers, but it wasn’t until the women had brought her to stand in front of the mirror in the ship that she had really seen herself. She didn’t know what to think of herself or the way she looked. She knew that she didn’t look like the other women, but for the first time it didn’t seem strange. Instead, she felt unique and different. As she looked at herself in the slim-fitting pants and shirt, she wondered if she was beautiful. It wasn’t something that she would have ever considered before, but now that she knew what it was like to have Rilex’s eyes on her, she couldn’t help but wonder what he saw in those moments.
Once she was dressed again and had tied her hair back behind her head, she left the room and started toward the passenger pod she had ridden in as the ship took off. She was nearly there when she heard frantic voices in the hallway in front of the passenger chambers. She recognized one of them as Eden, but the other was too muffled by tears for Severine to know who it was.
“I don’t know what to do,” the crying woman said. “I couldn’t help him.”
“You did everything that you could,” Eden said. “You know that.”
“But I’m a healer,” the woman said, telling Severine that this must be Elianna. “I’m supposed to be able to help people and keep them safe.”
“You weren’t born a healer,” Eden said. “You are only a healer because of the care that Ciyrs gave you. He was destined to be a healer at birth and even he wasn’t able to give her what she needed. Sometimes that’s just what happens. It isn’t possible to save every life.”
Severine turned the corner of the corridor and saw Elianna bent forward, her face in her hands as she sobbed. Eden was standing beside her, cradling her baby son in one arm and rubbing Elianna’s back with the other, trying to comfort her. Severine felt awkward standing there. At once she wanted to know what was happening. They were talking about a life that was lost under Ciyrs’s care, and she knew that the Denynso healer was in the vehicle with the most severely wounded and the pregnant women from the breeding facility. She wanted to know who it was and what had happened to them. At the same moment, she knew that this was a private conversation and that she shouldn’t be interjecting herself into it. She was starting to turn away, planning to find another passenger pod for the landing, but she heard Eden call out to her.
“Hello!”
Severine knew that it was only she and Rilex who knew the name that he had given her, but she had still expected to hear it come out of Eden’s mouth at the end of the greeting. When it didn’t, she questioned whether she should tell her, but decided against it, knowing that this moment wasn’t about her and that she shouldn’t try to take it over. She turned back to Eden.
“Hello,” she said. She took a cautious step toward them. “I’m sorry for interrupting.”
Eden shook her head and wrapped her arm around Elianna protectively while also seeming to try to take a step toward Severine.
“No,” she said. “You aren’t interrupting. I’m happy to see you. How are you doing?”
Severine nodded.
“I’m feeling better,” she said.
“Good,” Eden said. “Did you have fun at the reception?”
Severine nodded again, uncomfortable at the way Eden seemed to be ignoring Elianna. She looked at the healer who had taken care of her when they were still in the basement and brought her back from the brink of the death that nearly took her first during battle, and then during the retraining at the hands of the Valdicians.
“Is she alright?” Severine asked.
Elianna lifted her face and looked at Severine.
“One of the women gave birth in the vehicle,” she said. “It was too early and she didn’t survive.”
Severine felt her breath catch in her throat. They had just managed to get out of the horrific conditions of the hidden facility. The woman had tasted only a few days of freedom, and now had lost her life far away from everything that she had ever known. She would never have the opportunity to see her family again, to explain to them why she had suddenly disappeared from their lives. She would never be able to hold the child that she carried or experience the peace of knowing that that child would not live the life of an experiment or a weapon.
“Who was it?” Severine asked when she felt like she could speak through the painful tightness in her throat.
“Her name was Astrid,” Elianna told her.
Severine nodded. Though she hadn’t had much opportunity to interact with the breeding women, she had heard the name. If she thought hard enough, she could vaguely see the face of a woman with thick blond hair and thin, chiseled features. She didn’t know if that was truly the woman that they were talking about or just a composite of the details that she had gathered about the women from the brief times that she had been able to see them, but she chose to believe that it was her. She deserved to be remembered, even if it was only by others who had lived a captive life as she had.
“What about the baby?” Severine asked.
The other two women seemed only concerned about Astrid, and while Severine was sad at the loss of the woman, she was thinking about the innocent child who had been born into the world too soon, and who now had no one.
“Ciyrs says that the baby survived the birth and seems to be doing well, but is very small. One of the other women has tried to feed it, but she hasn’t produced milk yet. They hope to express milk from the mother, but since the baby came so early, she hadn’t yet produced enough.”
“The baby will need formula,” Severine said. “If it is to survive it will need care very soon.”
Elianna nodded.
“He doesn’t know if the baby is strong enough to live. For now, it is breathing and has good color, but none of the other women know what else they can do for it.”
“Is it a boy or a girl?” Severine asked.
“What?” Elianna asked, seeming thrown off by the question.
“The baby,” Severine said. “You keep calling the baby ‘it’.”
Severine hated the dismissive way they were speaking about the child. It didn’t matter how it had come to be or even how long it might live, this was a living being and deserved to be shown some form of respect and dignity.
Elianna shook her head.
“Oh,” she said through her tears, wiping her cheeks as if she were trying to get control of her emotions. “I don’t know. Ciyrs didn’t tell me. He just said that a baby had been born and that the mother died in childbirth. He didn’t mention if the baby is a boy or a girl.”
Pyra came down the hallway and rested one large hand on Eden’s back. He looked at Elianna, but she was fighting to keep the tears from continuing to fall and he seemed to recognize that she didn’t want to talk about what was happening.
“The ship will be starting its descent in just a few minutes,” he said. “We need to get into our landing pods. Elianna, they need you in the infirmary.”
Elianna nodded and started away from them without another word. Severine watched as she went, wondering what was being done in the infirmary to protect those who were undergoing care and those helping them while they were landing. She was sure that a ship of this magnitude, designed for exploration, was properly equipped to handle situations when there would be passengers and crew in the infirmary, but it still made her uncomfortable to think of any of them being in danger, particularly those who had already been through so much. Eden and Pyra turned toward the passenger chambers and Severine followed, splitting away from them and going into the chamber where she had traveled when they first left Earth. She climbed into her pod and adjusted the harnesses before reaching up to grasp the handle on the lid and pull it down into place.
As soon as the lid clicked closed, Severine squeezed her eyes closed and took several long breaths, willing herself to remain calm. She hated the tightness of the pod. She hated the feeling of being strapped down inside of it. Though she knew that this was the way that the others were traveling as well, and that the shell of the pod, its surrounding padding, and the tight harnesses were designed to protect her during the potentially hazardous ascent and descent portions of the voyage, it felt far too much like the experiments and reprogramming that she had been forced to undergo in the facility. Too frequently she had been closed in spaces that prevented her from going where she wanted to or even moving when she needed to. The harnesses reminded her of being strapped to the cold metal tables of the reprogramming unit, while the lid of the pod made her mind go immediately to the screens that the Valdicians would move into place in front of her face and force her to watch for days on end.
Severine kept her eyes closed as she felt the slight sinking feeling of the ship starting to lower down. Her mind moved back through the years, dredging up memories that she hadn’t wanted to dwell on since she packed them away in the darkest recesses of her thoughts. She knew what she had to do. It was the only choice. The nervousness and fear disappeared as a feeling of sadness that she couldn’t quite explain settled in.