Chapter Twenty-Seven
The next month passes by in a blur of music and hope and strange emotions. Kalen brings his Tavdorian girlfriend over less, spares that dazzling smile for me more. And I haven’t seen Briala go to his room in weeks. But we talk very little. He’s always busy, it seems. Either working—or partying. Rarely home, and I wonder if it’s because his home reminds him too much of his mother, of her presence that filled these halls and her voice that filled the air. Though he seemed to appreciate the flowers, maybe he still needs to escape the reminders. The few times he is home, he spends much of his time with Adeline, who’s health is quickly declining, making me wonder how Mom is faring—if she’s even still alive.
Over the course of the month, not a single day has offered me the opportunity to break into Kalen’s office to get information for the Renegade. Either Adeline needs me by her side, or Kalen’s in his office, or it’s locked and the key is locked in his bedroom…there’s always something. Though I’ve met with the Renegade every week now that we’re planning an escape, I’ve had very little information to offer at the meetings, and I’m terrified they’ll kick me out if I keep failing them.
If Tarik hadn’t threatened me with my life, I would consider telling Kalen about the Renegade. If he wants to stop slavery, wouldn’t he want to work with them? Would knowing his friends are involved make him decide to be an activist against slavery? But I would sooner die than put Cada, Tythoe, and Giff at risk. Though I hardly know them, the fact that these elite Tadvorians are laying their lives on the line for slaves speaks volumes about their characters. And with all the pecarrii they must have for mingling in the same crowds as Kalen, I imagine their monetary support alone is enough to keep the Renegade functioning. No, I would never smoke them out.
I cross the moonlit courtyard toward Adeline’s room, an herbal tea sweetened with honey in hand. I can hear her spasmodic coughing from all the way down the hall. It sounds worse today, and the past fifteen clicks she’s coughed with hardly a break between fits. Kalen is kneeling by her bed, squeezing her hand in his. He looks up when I arrive, his brows arched and his tired eyes pleading. I step around to the other side of the bed, wincing at how bad the cough sounds.
“What can I do?” Kalen asks.
“Help me sit her up.” We move her to a sitting position, propping the pillows behind her, and I hold the tea to her lips. “You need to try to sit up more often,” I explain to Adeline when she catches a break from coughing. “Even at night, so the mucus can drain.” She nods and accepts the tea.
Kalen studies me with a worried expression, and I’m not sure, but I think there might be a sheen of tears in his eyes. “Anything else I can do?” he asks, his voice husky.
“I forgot the salve for her sores.”
“I’ll get it.” He stands and strides out the door just as Adeline goes into another coughing fit. I brush the hair from her clammy temple, trying to think of any other palliative measures I can take.
Mom always asked me to sing to her when she had these bouts. She said it calmed her down, and taking away her anxiety eased the coughs. I grip Adeline’s hand and begin singing the last song I heard on Earth. A song about county lines and a place called New Orleans. Sing, Lark, Mom would say. The sun is rising. Hope gleams on the horizon. Sing, like the morning bird you are.
So I do. I start at the beginning, slowly work through the song, the whole time trying not to imagine Josiah strumming his guitar, flashing me that warm smile from across the bonfire.
Adeline’s body seems to relax as I reach the bridge.
And all I’ve ever wanted was to be the kind of girl
who fights for what she believes in
All I’ve ever come up with are excuses
and a broken heart.
Excuses.
No more excuses, Lark.
Now that I’ve had my own taste of slavery, I want to fight for what I believe in—freedom. I want to fight for all the slaves, of every race. My freedom—and the freedom of hundreds of others—depends on the information in Kalen’s desk.
I have to fight. I have to find those codes and dates and manual and key and everything else the Renegade demands of me. I have to risk my life doing it. Because if I don’t, the Renegade will never get their ship. Their plans to end slavery will be postponed. I check Kalen’s office door every day when he’s gone, but it’s time to take more risky measures and try to get in there when he’s home—preferably when he’s asleep.
This mission would be so much easier if I could just tell him without the fear of Tarik ending my life.
Adeline’s breaths even out. She’s asleep. Kalen steps in with the salve and gloves, and helps me put the cream on Adeline’s sores. When we’re finished, I adjust her pillows again while Kalen switches off the light, and together, we walk out of the room.
The courtyard and garden are almost more beautiful at night than they are in the daytime. The plants are glowing. Brightly colored bioluminescent flowers line the walkway—hot pink, sunrise yellow, sapphire blue. Green glows off the leaves of the trees arching above me, the light in their veins illuminating lime. Even the trunks of the trees have brown glowing from within the bark cracks. This place looks like a fairy land.
Beyond the two moons, stars explode across the sky, an extravagant canvas of white specks on black velvet. It reminds me of clear summer nights back home, of stargazing with Rika and trying to point out which star held our enemy planet, Tavdora. Now it’s the other way around. I’m trying to figure out which star holds Earth.
When I pass the fountain, Kalen says my name.
I turn to face him.
“Thank you,” he says, “for what you did in there. I mean, the singing.”
A flare of warmth creeps up my neck. “I didn’t realize you were listening.”
His lips quirk up. “I had no idea we brought a musician into our estate.”
“I’m not a musician.”
“Are you kidding?” He steps closer and tips my chin up. The unexpected gesture leaves me breathless. “You’re incredible.”
Heat flushes to my roots. The heady aroma of expensive spices drifts off his body. His scent is intoxicating.
“So much passion,” he says in my native language, “in a song about fighting for what you believe in.”
I gasp. “You know English.” I had no idea anyone in this city—much less this estate—could possibly understand the words to that song—a song that could be considered treasonous.
“It’s one of many languages I studied in linguistics, though I’m not as fluent as I’d like to be.”
“Why?” Such a useless language to learn. “It’ll die out with the freedom of my people, I’m sure.”
“Language and culture fascinate me.” He switches back to Tavdorian. “Especially those from the Captive Planets.”
I wonder how many languages he knows, then. I thought I was special for knowing two.
“So tell me,” he says, “why did you pick that song to sing to Adeline?”
I shrug. “It’s the last song I sang with my people.”
“Before they…turned you in?”
I slowly nod.
“I’m so sorry, Lark.” The sorrow in his eyes cracks my heart open. “Tell me what happened?”
I close my mouth and swallow. Wonder why he bothers asking—why he cares.
“Please,” he says in that husky voice that makes everything inside me melt. “I want to know more about you. I want to know how someone who was betrayed by her own people could want so badly to return to them and warn them about the oncoming mercenaries. I want to know how someone stripped from their life of freedom and sold into slavery, could still find something within themselves to offer to the world. How you, Lark, could work yourself to the bone every single day without having to do so, and still find scraps of energy to comfort those who need it.” His voice is low as he takes another step closer. “It’s a beautiful thing, this humility. This inner strength you possess.”
“Strength,” I whisper with a humorless laugh.
“Yes,” he says. “You’re invincible.”
Josiah and Ariana would be laughing if they heard Kalen now. I never even had the courage to leave our farm. At least, not until that fateful day…
I don’t know why, but I suddenly have the urge to open up. I have this inexplicable need to talk about what happened, to verbalize it. To have someone listen and share my heartache.
“There was this boy named Josiah…” I begin, and then tell him everything that happened. Kalen leans his hip against the fountain ledge, crosses his arms, and listens, never once interrupting, but allowing me to rehash the story and release my pain. “So instead of sending the runaways back, Josiah tricked me into going with him to reason with the parasites.”
I stop myself, remembering that the last time I used that word, it got me into trouble.
“Go on,” Kalen says, understanding.
“Josiah…he’d already reasoned with them. He and Johnson brought me along to hand over, and asked that in return the Tavdorians leave them alone.”
“Why you?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe because I didn’t have family, apart from my mother, who everyone knew didn’t have long to live, anyway. I didn’t have a significant part in the community, apart from being a healer. But they could easily train another in my place. And I guess I sort of put a target on my back when I convinced our community leader to let the runaways stay.”
“And this…Josiah had a big part in turning you over?”
“He convinced me to go. And he didn’t do anything to stop them from taking me. I think since he’d fallen in love with another, it was easier for him to get rid of me and move on to his next excitement than to face the judgment of the elders.” I remember Ariana’s arms wrapped around his waist. I remember the guilt in his eyes. For the good of the people, he’d said. Not enough guilt to fight for me, though.
Kalen picks up a strand of my hair and sifts it through his fingers. “Josiah”—he spits the name out like a curse—“didn’t know what he was losing, did he?” He drops his hand and stares at me, his eyes dark violet, not mocking at all but filled with cool rage. “If he knew you at all, Lark, I mean really knew you, he would have never let you go.”
His words shock the breath out of me.
“How—” He shakes his head. “Why would you want to return to a people so vicious? What makes you think they won’t turn you in again?”
My hands tighten on the lip of the fountain. “Because it’s already been done. The deal has been made. They have no reason to send me back.”
“But what if something did happen? Who’s to say you won’t be their scapegoat again?” He huffs out a laugh. “This community of yours doesn’t sound any better than the Tavdorian mercenaries.”
“It was only a few people who turned me over to be sold. The rest of the community, they would have stopped it from happening, if they knew. They’re like my family, Kalen. And my mom…she’s still there.”
Understanding snaps into place. “Of course. Family is everything.”
“I need to get back to her soon. Before she—” I can’t finish the sentence. It’s too painful a possibility to consider.
He nods. “Unfortunately, our next trip to Earth won’t be until the Starfinder is complete.”
“When will that be?”
Kalen shrugs. “No precise launch date is set in stone, but I keep to my promises, and it’ll be around the same time I told you earlier. About two months from now. I’m afraid I can’t take you there sooner. Father simply wouldn’t allow me to take a ship to Earth merely to return a slave to freedom. It’s out of the question. But I promise, Lark, you will return home on the next shipment to Earth. I’ll make sure of that.”
The passion in his voice, his sincerity, they make me wonder: “Why do you care so much? When the majority of your people don’t, why do you? What does slavery cost you?”
He stares at me, broken. “It costs me my humanity.”
“Why don’t you fight, then?” The words leave my lips before I can stop them. “Why don’t you work with rebels to stop the madness of slavery?” It would make my work for the Renegade so much easier if he did.
His eyes widen, then dart around the garden before looking at me again. “Are you serious right now?” he whispers harshly.
“There are people fighting. People in Neket fighting for the cause of freedom.”
“You mean Ogan?”
“No. Here.”
His gaze darkens. “And where did you hear that?”
I stifle a curse and press my lips together.
“From someone in this estate?” he presses.
I lie. I have to. I have to lie to keep Tarik safe. To keep myself safe. “I heard people talking at the market,” I say with a casual shrug. “Some group called the Runaways—no wait.” I tap my chin in mock thought. “Revenant… Resurgence…”
“The Renegade?” His voice is dangerously low, his eyes hooded.
I snap my finger. “Ah. Yes. That’s it. The Renegade.” I grin at him. Pretend like I have no idea that speaking that name aloud could cost me my life. I can’t tell if he’s buying my act as he steps toward me, his jaw clenching visibly in the moonlight.
“You want me to work with those cutthroats?”
“Cutthroats?”
“Yes. Cutthroats.”
I try not to smirk. What would Kalen think of these cutthroats attending his parties as honored guests?
“They may claim to help slaves to freedom, Lark, but they’ll empty the pockets of these slaves in the process. Or take what little dignity the aliens have left, saying those runaways owe it to them. They’re space pirates, attacking ships with no interest but to take valued parts and spare slaves to sell at the black market, often leaving the pilots and workers to rot in space. They might say they rescue aliens, but they’re full of empty promises, promises that lure slaves in only so the pirates could use them and then sell them to a worse fate.”
A chill tiptoes down my spine at the certainty in his voice.
“Slavery will not end by a small group of impulsive rebels attacking ships.” Kalen steps toward me. I can’t make out his features in the night with both moons to his back, but his hands are balled into fists at his sides. “The only way to end slavery,” he says, “is by a war—a massive war that would bring down one, if not all, nations.”
“Sounds like war is coming, anyway, if Ogan keeps stepping in.”
“The Ogans think they have it all figured out, think they could actually take on our country. But they’re collapsing, Lark.”
“Maybe they’re not. Maybe it’s all an act to make your king think they’re weaker than they are.”
“Wishful thinking, unfortunately.” He sighs. “Better to focus on returning to your peaceful community on Earth, little native, and pray to whichever gods you Humans beseech that if war does ensue, you’ll be far away from the damage.”
I pinch my lips together. That would have been my ultimate dream before I left Earth. Now…I’m not so sure. There actually are people trying to free the aliens, and wouldn’t working with them be a more worthy cause than hiding away the rest of my life?
“Sometimes,” I say, “it’s easier to turn a blind eye to the real issues of the universe and pretend like people aren’t starving and beaten and overworked.” Closing my eyes to the tragedy around me wouldn’t be so different from Kalen doing the same thing, once he stops his company from slave trade. It’s so easy to remain in the safety of the shadows and let others do the dirty work. “But there has to be another way,” I add. “Has to. Fate can’t just throw a bunch of souls into the universe and choose some to live pathetic, wasted lives beneath those who live freely.”
“Fate or gods or pure luck. It doesn’t matter. It is what it is. And if the one country who refuses to own slaves is slowly sinking under, then I don’t think there’s hope for ending the madness.”
“And so my people are all destined to remain slaves.”
The hopelessness in his silence kills something inside of me.
“Maybe,” he finally says, so quiet I wonder if he even spoke. “Maybe there’s a way out of it. Maybe you’re right, that Ogan is stronger than they appear, and maybe they have a plan that will shake the Tavdorian Empire and bring it to its knees, freeing every slave and bringing about justice. Maybe we need to have a little more hope, a little more good thoughts sent to that frozen country that will give them strength. But, I can’t look into it. Not without security that their plan will work. Because I have this small plan of my own, Lark. This small, insignificant plan for my company that will only affect the lives of those slaves I’ll cease bringing in. And perhaps that’s not even a dent in the grand scheme of things, but it’s something. It’s more than what I’d do locked behind bars for conspiring with Ogan and rebels.” He offers an apologetic smile. “I’d lose my job, and I wouldn’t be much help to your people—your community on Earth—if I didn’t own the company.”
Because my community is only a few miles from the plantation the Rydells do their trading with. Gods, Kalen’s right. If Zimri’s memory serves him well, he’d remember there were natives not far from Alno’s home, and he’ll want to capture them. But…if slavery ended altogether, I wouldn’t have to worry about Zimri taking my people, either.
Kalen sighs and drags a hand through his hair. “Don’t speak of these pirates again, Lark. I don’t want you to even mention rebels at all, much less suggest I work with those thieves. You think Tavdorians who own slaves are bad? You haven’t experienced the black heart of the empire yet. The Renegade is what keeps that black heart beating.”
He steps closer, takes my chin between his thumb and his forefinger, and tilts it up until our eyes meet.
“Am I understood?”
I can see his features clearly now. His violet eyes, filled with that aristocratic sternness. This isn’t a discussion between two equals, but an order from a master to his slave. He said not to mention them, but he said nothing about meeting with them. That I can agree to.
“I understand,” I whisper. “I won’t speak of them again.”
He lowers his hand. “I only want you safe, Lark. If I’m to take you to Earth on my next trip, I want to have a whole, healthy daughter returned to her mother. Not a scarred one. Definitely not a dead one.”
He’s not smiling at all, but somehow a chuckle slips out of me at the dramatic statement.
“You think it’s out of the question?” he asks, taken aback by my humor. “This is a dangerous world for Humans. Especially for a young, vibrant woman, like yourself.”
“Vibrant?” The word comes out in a short laugh. All she does is read her books, I remember Ariana saying.
“Why do you chuckle now, Lark?” He steps closer, and I back against the wall. In the faint light coming from the bioluminescent plants, I can make out his small smile. “You think I’m joking?”
“Of course not.” My lips twitch. “You’re dead serious.”
He takes another step until his breath tickles my nose. “How do you do it?”
“Do what?”
“Stir these strange feelings. I shouldn’t touch you, but the humor dripping from your lips demands a lick.”
Holy shit.
The hungry look in his eyes creates a whirlwind of foreign emotions inside of me, and it takes me a moment to realize that I want him. I don’t know when or how it happened, but I want him. Here. Now.
“Lark,” he says in a hoarse whisper. His breathing is heavy now, and he says my name again, but before I can respond, his lips are on mine.