Just have to keep going, she told herself doggedly. There was an oasis right in the dead center of the rainbow desert. There she could rest and refresh herself and cut her hair as the ritual of mourning a high priestess demanded.
“Greeny hair, greeny hair,” chanted the voices again and this time Lissa saw the chanters. A ring of children suddenly appeared before her, wavering in the desert heat. She blinked in surprise because she recognized them—her old classmates from school.
“It’s so ugly,” Chainee, the leader of the popular clique said. “And my mame' says it’s an unnatural color. All yellow with green streaks—like snot! Yuck!”
There was a chorus of mean laughter from the rest of the group and Chainee tossed her own hair, which was the proper color—deep brown. All the other children had hair and eyes the exact same shade—all but Lissa.
“Leave me alone,” she told the children, staggering a little as the sands shifted under her feet. “My hair is fine. It’s just different. My mame’ says it’s all right to be different.”
“You mean your mame’ who got killed?” Yancee, another of the popular girls taunted. “Along with your pape’ and little brother? Were they weird too—is that why the pirates killed them?”
“Don’t talk about my family like that!” Tears filled Lissa’s eyes, or would have if she hadn’t been so dehydrated. The pain of her loss was still vivid and fresh—like a wound that wouldn’t heal. She missed them desperately, missed being aboard their small ship as they went from station to station, trading. And to think she used to feel bored and wish for a normal life down on the home planet, away from her pesky little brother, Dak. Well now she had a normal life—or as normal a life as an orphan could have, anyway—and she hated it. She would have given anything to be away from this awful place, to see her parents’ and brother’s faces one more time. But I can’t, she thought. I can’t. They’re dead…dead…never coming back.
“Where did you even get that greeny snot hair anyway?” taunted Chainee. “My mame’ says the rest of your family looked normal. She says it means your mame’ was a slut—she must have slept with some alien while you were out trying to get people on the stations to buy your junk. And that’s why you have such weird hair and eyes.”
“That’s not true!” Lissa cried. “It’s because my father’s a Kindred and I’m a girl. Kindred almost never have girls but when they do, they look like me.” She wished desperately there were more Kindred among the first families of her clan but although their numbers were growing, it was a slow process. And anyway, females resulting from Kindred union s were so scarce it was doubtful she would ever be considered normal—at least on Tarsia.
“It doesn’t matter how she got it,” Yancee said. “The point is, it’s ugly.”
“Yeah—she should cut it off.” Chainee grinned at her nastily and began to chant. “Cut it off…cut it off…cut it off…”
Soon all the children had taken up the chant. They crowded around Lissa, forcing her to back up. She stumbled, clutching her hair protectively in one hand and the knife in the other. The sands shifted under her feet, making it hard to walk. “No, leave me alone!” she cried. “Please, just leave me alone!”
“Leave her alone,” a deep, quiet voice echoed just behind her.
Lissa whipped her head around and saw Saber standing there, a frown on his handsome face. She looked at him, astonished. What is he doing here? And why is he defending me?
Saber was the Over Chief’s son, and now that Lissa had been adopted into his family, he was technically her big brother. But though she’d been living there for several months, he’d scarcely said a word to her. Of course, being four years older, he had other things to occupy his time than a misfit orphan girl who just happened to live under his roof.
Besides, he was so handsome and popular—the team leader in all the sports, the male considered most likely to succeed, not to mention the heir to the Over Chief—there was little wonder he paid no attention to her. Well, maybe not no attention. Lissa had caught him looking at her strangely from time to time and once, when she was having a really bad nightmare, reliving the death of her parents, he’d woken her with a silent shake on the arm. But there was nothing in his past behavior to indicate he would stand up for her and be her champion against the cruelty of her classmates.
“I know your parents adopted her but she’s so ugly. With those snot-green streaks in her hair and those weird eyes, she looks exactly like a tseeba.” Chainee pouted up at Saber in a way she no doubt thought was fetching.