Beyond the Red (9 page)

My face is burning, but not from pain. I clench my teeth and continue cleaning up the bottles and stoppers as the commander and Jarek step toward the other men.

“Well,” the commander says, “you may have already heard what’s happening beyond the gates. When I dismiss you, you’ll put on your armor, retrieve your weapons, and wait in the barracks for further instructions.”

I allow myself a small smile. I have no idea what’s happening in the city, but if they need to gear up and go out there, it must be something bad.

Good.

“If I may,
ve
. Before we begin.”

I glance back. The spitting solider is speaking.

“You may.”

The soldier steps forward. “The slave was lying,
ve
.”

I freeze in mid-reach. Exhale and pick up a bottle. Place it on the table and force myself not to stare.

“Oh?”

“He didn’t slip,
ve
. He became angry and threw over the table on purpose. We tried to stop him, but he would not listen to reason,
ve.
”

A long pause. I abandon the pretense of cleaning and make eye contact with the soldier. He keeps his face blank and his eyes flicker to mine for only a moment.

“Is this true?” the commander asks his men.

They nod in unison; not a single one of them hesitates. The commander turns back to me. “Come here, half-blood.”

I place two bottles back onto the table, then step onto the mats. All eyes are on me now, and with the commander distracted, the spitting soldier shoots me a pleasant smile. It takes every ounce of my self-control not to step in front of him and knock his teeth out.

“It would appear you have lied to me,” the commander says.

I don’t answer. Neither denying nor confirming his accusation will help me.

“Had you confessed your error in judgment, I would have been more inclined to be lenient with your punishment, but as it is, you leave me little choice. I do not tolerate disrespect, and deception is a great form of disrespect, as I’m sure you are well aware.”

Eye contact. Air in. Air out.

“To the center of the mat.”

I obey and, as I do, the soldiers form a circle around the commander and me. Punishment, apparently, is a public spectacle.

The commander comes toward me, then swings for my face. I should take it. I should close my eyes, block out the brainblaze, stand still, and wait for it to end. It’d be the easy, smart thing to do. But while I brace myself for the hit, when his fist nears my nose, instincts kick in and I duck out of the way. The following silence and the glare from the commander sends a cold chill through my veins.

He nods to Jarek, who all too happily steps behind me and pulls my arms back, bracing me.

“Looks like I won’t have to try very hard to keep my promise, half-blood,” Jarek whispers.

I know three different ways to break out of this kinduv brace, and everything inside me screams that I use one of them. But escaping the blow will only make this worse. I have to take the punishment, whatever it may be, then go back to work and hope they leave me alone. All I have to do is stand still.

But when the commander swings again, I can’t help it—I duck and twist hard, sending Jarek flying over me and into the commander. I’m in trouble. I should have stood still and let them beat me, but tell that to seven years of training. I turn on my heel, slam through the wall of shocked soldiers, and run. I don’t know where I’m going—I’ve been on the palace grounds for less than a day and I hardly know the way down the hall, let alone how to get back out into the desert, but if I stay in this room of infuriated soldiers, I’m dead. They’ll beat me into darkness and no amount of training will save me from an army.

“Take him!” the commander roars behind me. I slam through the metal doors and race down the hall. My bare feet slap the cold stone tile and the thunder of boots rages behind me. I take a left, throw the door open, and race into—

A dining hall. With six enormous floating glass screens hovering on either side of the doorway, showing some kinduv feed of people protesting at the gates and, I’m guessing, throughout the city; a floating crescent-shaped red and white stone table; and two occupied ridiculously elaborate cushions at the apex of the curve. The table is topped with enough polished red bowls of untouched steaming colorful broths, ripe fruits, and meats to feed a whole camp, and two women are kneeling on their pillows.

The queen, rubbing her temples, and a young woman with long braided hair and rich dark skin, leaning toward her and speaking quietly.

I skid to a stop. The queen stares at me with a shocked, wide gaze, her hands frozen on her temples and her painted bronze lips slightly parted. There’s a huge, furry red lump next to them. I step toward them and the door slams open behind me. Something hard and heavy crashes into my back, slamming me into the ground. My cheek smashes into the rough tile. My head throbs and someone grabs my shoulder and yanks me onto my back.

Jarek is straddling me. I throw my arms up over my face just in time—his fist slams into my forearms, my stomach. I try to rock him off, but he’s too heavy. He grabs my left arm with his free hand—his fist connects with my jaw, my nose, my neck. My head is roaring. My neck is hot and sticky and someone might be screaming, but my blood is thundering so loudly in my ears that I can’t hear anything above the drumming of my pulse.

Then there’s a pause in the onslaught of his fists, and I throw myself forward, crashing on top of Jarek. He shoves me off, but I manage to spit a good amount of blood onto his pristine uniform, and that’s enough for me. At least for now.

I’m on the ground again, but no one pushed me. I’m not sure how I got here, but my head—the pins and needles behind my eyes have become hot agony. I squeeze my eyes shut. Press my palms against my face. Try to breathe. Red-hot pokers are stabbing the backs of my eyeballs and it’s too much to bear. Every pound of my pulse is a hammer on my skull.

Someone is shouting the word for doctor. Then several people are yelling and I need to tell them to shut up, I need to tell them my eyes might be melting out of my skull. I need to tell them they can shoot me now if they’d like—in fact, I’d prefer it.

A sound like a dying animal rips through the air and the shouting gets louder and the noise is horrific—it grates against my throat and sets my skull hotter. It needs to stop; it’s making it worse, that horrible, piercing noise.

Is it me?

I clamp my mouth shut and the noise becomes a muffled groan and somehow my knees got up by my chest and I’m on my side and my face is wet with blood and tears.

Someone takes my shoulder and pulls me onto my back. Hands hold down my arms and the pressure off my eyes makes it worse—it’s like my hands were holding back the flood of flames. Without their pressure on my eyelids, the pain rushes forward, soaking my eyeballs in acid. I’m not sure if I’m screaming or crying or dying. I’m not sure if it’s blood on my lips or tears on my cheeks or saliva on my chin.

Someone peels back the eyelid on my right eye and bright light pours into half my brain and the fire—it’s an explosion. I jerk my head away and someone mutters something and hands grip both sides of my skull, holding my head still.

I can’t move and the white sun is igniting my eye and the explosion is going to consume me, the pain is going to kill me. I’m dying. I must be. I don’t know what I did to deserve this kinduv death, this kinduv agony, but it needs to end. It needs to stop because I can’t handle it much longer. I can’t hold on like this.

Then someone says “phaser” and the sun shuts off and hands release my head, release my arms. It’ll be over soon. They’ll end the torture.

Something hot slams my chest—races through my veins—reaches my skull and—

There is blood on the textured white floor of the dining hall and the doctor just shot the half-blood in the chest.

I whirl around and snatch the phaser out of her hand. “What in
Kala
’s name was that? I tell you to help him and you
kill
him?”

Her eyes widen, stretching the black text marked beside her left eye. “
N-Naï
,
el Avra
! He’s not dead—I stunned him. Or, I should say, I stunned the nanites. He’s having a reaction to the tracking nanites we injected him with. I-it’s rare, but we can flush them from his system and—”

“Just take care of him,” I say, and she nods and works with her apprentices to slide a floating board beneath him and rush him to the infirmary. Long after the doors slam shut behind them, the half-blood’s screams echo in the room. In my ears, compounded by the angry chorus flooding the hall from the guide coverage of the riot outside.

I pinch the bridge of my nose and inhale deeply. Anja whispers something about bringing Iro to my room and finding someone to clean the mess. I nod. Her footsteps pad quietly across the cool stone, followed by the whoosh of a closing door.

I open my eyes and grimace at the blood smeared on the floor. I hope he’ll be all right.

I turn on Dima and his men. “Everyone out except for my brother.” For a breath, no one moves, and I step forward and clap at them. “Now!”

Jarek pulls his bloody fists behind his back and grimaces at Dima. The two exchange a look I don’t understand—Jarek almost seems reluctant to leave—but before I can question it, he turns away and files out with the others.

Dima turns to me with an unapologetic glare, with a simmering behind his eyes that makes me want to slap him and strip him of his title. If he wasn’t my brother, I would do just that.

I break the silence first. “You have yet to explain to me what in
Kala
’s name happened.”

He pauses, then tightly crosses his arms. “He showed me disrespect.”

“Oh? And how is that?”

“He made a mess in the training room, lied about it, then attacked one of my men.” There was more—I can see it in the way he glares at the puddle of red-tinted blood on the floor—and the blossoming bruise on his left cheek might have something to do with it.

I almost hope the half-blood hit him. It’s about time someone stood up to my
sko
of a brother.

“I assume all of this was unprovoked,” I say. “And he began tearing apart the training room and attacking your men without cause.”

Silence. That’s what I thought.

“I must also assume, then, that your men were not aptly trained to handle a threat from a half-blood slave.”

He scowls and steps toward me. “My men were handling the situation.”

“Oh, that I can see.
Sha,
they handled it exquisitely well, didn’t they?”

“You disrespect my—”

“Naï,
Dima, I’m stating fact. Had your men handled the situation well, I would not have witnessed what I did. He never would have made it to the dining hall, and there wouldn’t be blood on the floor at your feet.”

He glares at the reddish-purple smear again.

“You went too far, brother. I don’t know what you did to him, but clearly—”

“We did nothing. The only punishment administered was what you saw.”

I find that a little difficult to believe. Even if it’s true, Jarek seemed intent on beating the half-blood to death, and yet my brother defends his violence. “And if I had not stepped in, what then? Your man would have killed him.”

A long pause. Dima looks up at me and steels his face. “He would have received the punishment he deserved.”

Sometimes I don’t know how it’s possible I shared a womb with this boy. “I can’t believe you. Was Jarek even injured?”

“That hardly—”

“It was disproportionate, don’t you think? Beating a boy to death for—for what?”

“He attacked my men!” Dima roars. “He showed me a great deal of disrespect. I would never tolerate such an act from one of my own—let alone a half-blood slave who shouldn’t be here in the first place.”

It’s moments like these I am most certain that despite what the guard and the people think, despite the rioters outside demanding he replace me, Dima does not belong on the throne. His first response is always the same: immediate and devastating punishment. He doesn’t reason, he doesn’t think, he speaks with violence and bloodshed.

Some interpret that as strength, but I know the truth. My brother would be the ruin of Elja.

I drill him with my most cutting glare. “I told you I have a reason for keeping him, but evidently that isn’t reason enough for you to exercise some self-control. Fine. I’ll handle him from here.”

Dima opens his mouth to argue, but I cut him off.

“Don’t you have a riot to put down? I’d expected you and your men to be out there handling the situation already.”

He scowls, but then the door opens again and a thin young man wearing a high-collared red apprentice’s cloak enters the room and bows low.

“
El Avra
, Chief Medic Neja requests your presence immediately. There’s something you must see.”