One of them wanted away – fast and far. Senator Primen had offered her that if she ever needed any help, she could go to him. The idea wasn’t bad. She’d been rolling it around in her head ever since she’d tried to run on Briolina. One of her plans was to go to the senator and ask him to hide her. It was known he didn’t have any love for the generals and especially for Faren. And he was a friend of her father’s. Surely he’d help.
The other was thinking if Faren would be okay with turning one of his arenas into a concert stage and a ground for her audience. Also, whether the crew and the warriors would like her singing. Leiya had many fans aboard the ships, many of them gladly spent their time off coming to listen to her with their fated. She just wasn’t sure if the Unbroken was home to any of them.
She couldn’t help imagining having that conversation with her gerion. Telling Faren, the bloodthirsty monster of Briolina, that she wanted to bring light and music to his ship. And maybe lights for the corridors. Leiya didn’t exactly fancy having to walk around with a light on her brow like the underground miners that dug into Briolina’s mineral-rich core. Surely he’d have to figure out a way to keep her safe from tumbling into something sharp in the darkness.#p#分页标题#e#
And therein was the problem. If she didn’t focus properly, her mind seemed to accept that the huge Unbroken was to be one of her homes. Leiya didn’t want to allow that possibility into her mind. She’d only asked Faren for things she hadn’t expected him to give her. So he’d send her away. She hadn’t expected him to be so bloody reasonable.
Then she discovered something fun. Brion warriors had amazing eyesight and great hearing. But Leiya’s hearing wasn’t bad either. She was a singer, of course it would be necessary that she hear things. The orchestra playing with her, her own voice and how it changed. The audience. Maybe her hearing wasn’t as wide-ranged as that of the warriors, but it was specific.
Leiya often hummed, it was a habit most singers had. Tunes and melodies came easily to them. So at some point she discovered that while she still couldn’t see in the depressing, ever-lasting darkness, she could hear. Gods had a true sense of humor.
She gave a few testing whistles and yes, she could bloody echo-locate. She'd first discovered the trick when she'd been very young and developed it as she grew. It wasn't something just anyone could do and while it wasn't perfect by a long shot, Leiya had learned to use it to her advantage.
Hah! Take that, darkness!
She kept going, making up a melody for dark places and girls lost in them. It didn’t become a song, but in her mind, there was a story behind the melody like usually. A girl lost in a frightening dark place with monsters all around and she couldn’t find home. And then there was the song that helped her, making the way home as clear as the light of day.
Her beautiful, powerful voice bounced back from the walls. She couldn’t tell all the contours of the ship, of course, there were limits to the trick. But she could, roughly, tell where the walls were. And how big the room was. Whether they were in a corridor or passing through an arena of sort.
At some point, Roven spoke.
“That is really impressive.”
“Thank you,” Leiya said, beaming. “How could you tell what I was doing?”
“You’re no longer stumbling,” he said. “How precise is it?”
“Not very,” she admitted. “But at least I won’t run into anything.”
Then she heard something else.
The sounds of fighting were coming from straight ahead. She distinguished between grunts, and screams, and simple huffing from exertion. Her whistles died down.
It had been years since she’d last seen a Brion arena. Ever since she’d convinced her father not to take her to the duels and tournaments anymore, Leiya had strictly avoided seeing the Brions fight. It felt wrong to her, on every level. Not just the fighting itself, which she thought to be a relic of the dark days of Brions where all they did was fight, but fighting with each other as well, even if it was for practice.
She didn’t deny they needed the armies, or at least as many armies as it took to protect them. But she also firmly believed that having an army as great as the Brions had invited someone to attack them. The galaxy wasn’t a friendly and peaceful place, she knew that. Unlike the Brion generals, she didn’t think having huge battle ships roam around and wage wars made it any more peaceful.
Her fingers dug into Roven’s arm as they slowly edged closer. Leiya’s fear of him was nearly gone in the face of meeting the one responsible for those gut-wrenching sounds.
She knew the purpose of the valor squares. They pulsed light, and sounds, and everything else the Brions thought would make them look even more dangerous than they already did. It was a very valid theory that had worked wonders for them for years.
Leiya was hit with the full power of that.
The light around Faren was red. Red like the blood pooling around his feet, even though he was clearly unhurt. The razor-sharp edge of his ax was lodged into the chest of a warrior lying on the ground. Leiya had very good hearing at such range, but she almost missed the warrior’s breathing. All of the blood on the ground was clearly his, and there was much of it.
Her eyes darted to Roven and to his ruined, monstrous face. She didn’t scream. Otangis? She’d believed Faren when the general had told him that. Suddenly she wasn’t so sure. The silence on the Unbroken crashed in on her. Leiya’s mind flooded with all the rumors she’d ever heard of him. Maybe they weren’t silent because they were well trained. Maybe they were simply scared. The thought made sense to her petrified mind.
All ideas of interior design vanished. All possibilities of the binding ever working out went with them. They took the breath from her lungs. She'd been right all along. She couldn't do it. If she had to break the holiest of Brion traditions, let it be so. There was no future for her with Faren.#p#分页标题#e#
She’d been so stupid, joking around with a man like that. And the night before. Gods! It wasn’t her, it was the bond. It was the bond making her feel like that, her own body betraying everything she’d ever believed in. How could she have thought it might somehow work with someone who carved his own warriors up for fun?
The general must have heard or seen her, because he looked straight towards her then. In the red light, even his eyes looked bloodshot and cruel. Leiya shuddered, finally face to face with the Monster of Briolina.
There was no other way. If she didn’t get off the Unbroken in the next hour, she was going to suffocate from its evil.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Faren
The look on his gesha’s face was indescribable.
Faren had seen many emotions flicker behind her beautiful eyes, but this was a new one. One he rather would not have seen. The way Leiya slowly took in the whole scene in the arena was enough to tell him she would not easily forget what she’d seen. He should have listened to Diego and forbid her entrance to the training arenas.
Should have taken the warning the other general had passed on to him. Diego's human gesha had been shocked to see him fight too andFaren wasn’t even fighting anymore. This was a part of training. He was aware of what he had to look like, the image she was seeing. Blood pooling around his boots, the battle hormones in his veins making his valor squares pulse a threat. The ax smeared red in his hands.
“Leave us,” he ordered his warriors.
They left without a word, as he’d known they would. He did not suffer anyone aboard his ship who couldn’t follow orders or felt the need to waste his time with meaningless words. The one before his feet had to wait until he’d lifted his ax to limp away, the trail of blood marking the road he took. Only Roven stayed, hesitating. Faren’s latest orders were not to let Leiya out of his sight when she was out of her room, but this was private.
“You too,” he said. “Wait by the hangar.”
Roven saluted at once and left them alone.
Leiya was still speechless. Faren thought it better to speak first.
“You should not have come here,” he said. "I know how you feel about violence. This is not a place for non-warriors.”
Or non-Brions.
She looked at him, her eyes wide.
“That doesn’t mean it isn’t happening.”
“No,” he agreed. “But I think this gave you the wrong idea.”
A hollow laugh was Leiya’s initial response to that. Then she shook her head, looking disturbingly beautiful in the few lights the arena had. She gestured to the arena.
“Tell me how this isn’t what it looks like.”
“You seem to think I hurt people for fun.”
“Don’t you?”
“No,” Faren said. “This is training, that is all.”
“That man was bleeding out of his throat! That is just torture!”
He had to wonder how no one else had ever suspected before. That was not the way any Brion saw things. It was human logic, completely removed from the Brion way of life. How to explain that to her, to someone who'd already made up her mind about it?
“He lost,” Faren said. “He was in a position of defeat. I injured him in the duel, but I was not going to kill him. Why would I do that?”