“Want to place your bets that you have all my weapons?” If they just looked outside, they could tell I had more weapons than those lying in the cabin. And, I might be out of throwing knives, but I could whip these arrows powerfully, too. I had three of those left. Just enough.
“Just give us the girl. We just want to take Lady Zaya home, then you can go home, too.”
“I’m not ready to go home,” I said. “I like it here. Everyone has been so friendly.” As planets went, Vailstor was not making the top of my list… Other than finding my Destin… That was a certain perk that could obscure being tased (repeatedly), jailed without reason, trapped in a vicious blizzard, and now hunted down.
I reached out telepathically, trying to tap in specifically to what they were thinking of. Doing so allowed me a brief glimpse through each one’s eyes… These Vailstorans were so transparent to read! One was in front of the left-side window. The other was crouched beside the broken door. The other was further back, beside the fireplace. My weapons were gathered on the floor between them.
“You know, we don’t take kindly to off-worlders making a disturbance here. It’s not right for you to interfere with Lady Zaya.”
I whipped my hands up, concentrating, and slipped throwing knives from their sheaths. The man in front of the fireplace saw them coming in time and ran out the door, but the others had their throats sliced before they could react.
Pity, about the cabin floor…
The one who had run out the door had his bow to his shoulder, pointing an arrow waywardly, from the door of the cabin, to the woods, where I was, to the other direction. But Zaya let an arrow loose easily and struck him through the chest. I threw two more, sinking them into his heart with telekinetic precision.
He collapsed to the snow, red staining the pearly white.
I walked from the grove and waved up to the roof. “You can come down now. That’s all of them.”
I walked into the cabin cautiously, but the two who were inside had profoundly focused and panicked minds. They could only think about their own mortality as they fought to control the bleeding of their throats.
I looked down at the one who had been taunting me and shoved aside his long cloak with the tip of the arrow, watching his wild eyes look up at me in supplication. He was long past reasoning, he was just pleading: “Help me…” To anyone, anything, in particular. And nothing could.
I put walls back up all around my mind. I didn’t need to hear them die.
There was military insignia on his chest breast pocket and across his shoulder pads. I rubbed my chin and looked at the other one. Military, all of them. Had Blatson sent them? Was it the southern precinct jail? What was the reasonable explanation and custom on Vailstor? Did military go after escaped jailbirds?
Zaya stepped into the doorway behind me. Her knuckles were white where they clutched the bow, but her eyes were clear, her hands steady.
“Can you tell if this insignia means they are from the south?” I pointed with the arrow to the stripes and chevrons.
Her eyes widened with recognition of something. Something she wasn’t telling me. “That chevron does say they are stationed in the south.”
“Does it say which unit?”
“They are from General Blatson. Not General Truloy, if that’s what you are asking.” She turned aside as the man gurgled his last breath and walked out into the clear air. She ducked down to place her hands on her knees, the bow falling to the ground, the quivering of the adrenaline finally releasing into shakes that shuddered through her entire body. I walked up behind her and lifted her into a hug, wanting to ask so much what her connection was to the General, but fearing the answer way more than the question. She grabbed me tightly, squeezing her eyes shut.
“I told you I would protect you,” she said.
I pulled back from her and laughed. “I will always trust you to have my back, Lady Zaya.”
She grimaced at the Lady, but nodded and took my hand. “Come on, we need to head north. More men will be looking for me. And, soon, they will be looking for these guys, too.”
I nodded and marveled at her. Her voice had the measure of command as she spoke and I wondered what she was the Lady of. She wasn’t telling me the truth. She was hiding who she was running from. It was tempting to read her mind, to find out… I looked into her turquoise eyes and knew the next time she opened herself to me, I could easily find the answers...
I shook my head. I couldn’t. I couldn’t betray that trust.
There was no going back, now. Even if she was somehow connected to the General, she was my Destin. That meant she was mine.
Fifteen
Zaya
I could see the questions haunting Cartari’s eyes. His lips even parted sometimes, as if he were going to ask me, then he would shake himself and look away. I had to tell him. I had to tell him that General Blatson was the man hunting me. Not only that, I needed to tell him that I was sold to him. That I was technically pledged to him in an awkward bridal servitude. And he was a man with the power and might to never stop looking for me.
What did I expect was going to happen anyway? Once we got to the north and met with whoever Cartari was going to meet with, and he finished that up, wouldn’t he take me to Astrida, as promised? I mean, it’s not like he would stay here on Vailstor. Or even more unlikely, take me home with him to Farian.
Not even some mythical connection like the Destin could possibly
