Page 56 of Taken to Nobu
19
Kiki
The wind whips around us, feeling a lot like the day I ran onto the tundra and met my first hevarr. It’s cold, but I’m used to it, and the white isn’t as thick as it has been, falling in star-shaped clumps that are only the size of my hand, all fingers splayed. Letting the cold white fall onto my okami and melt, I inhale and exhale deeply.Breathe…
We stand in a lumpy circle, looking like an informal gathering about to start singing songs at a bonfire, except instead of a bonfire, we’re standing around an empty pitch of frozen earth. The only thing that makes it look like a tribunal at all are the armed guards. They stand interspersed along the perimeter of the circle, the bulk of them positioned in diamond formation around a single male who gleams like a bloodstain against the white world behind him.
I can feel him watching me and I don’t shrink from his gaze, but turn to meet it, betraying nothing.Breathe. Just breathe. Then I look away. Making eye contact for too long could be seen as a sign of respect in Voraxian culture, and if only one thing is certain in all of the universe’s many galaxies, it’s that I don’t.
I can feel Kinan’s tension to my right, bleeding out of him like pus from an infection. The whole arena is tense. The inner circle is formed only by a dozen or so of us, while slightly further back the entire village has come to witness what’s about to happen.Spectator sport, much?I grin, emitting a half grunt-half laugh.I love it. Let the carnage begin.
A slight shift to my right draws my attention up. Kinan is looking at me and even though he is stoic as ever, ridges devoid of color, I know that he thinks I’ve lost it. Perhaps I have. This is the solar I live the nightmare that’s haunted me for the past three rotations.Breathe.And then, in the face of my suppressed terror and rage, Kinan does the unthinkable. He winks at me.
Startled, I almost smile even though I’m on trial in front of an entire village of beings whose respect I fight — sometimes quite literally — to earn, and when I do receive it, cherish. Now I merely fight to keep my hands to myself even though I want nothing more than to take his arms and wrap them around my body like the blanket of security I know they are. But I am Xhea. Stoic and proud. At least, this is what I must appear to be as Raku steps into the circle and announces that the trial has finally found its start.
“We come together today to recognize a series of crimes perpetrated by and against the human colony residing on the eighteenth moon of Cxrian.” His voice is booming and impressive, nearly jarring in its impact. Even the wind seems hushed by it. He’s king for a reason, and in his tone, I’m reminded of it.
“Proven guilty, Pe’ixal faces exile or death;whichwill be decided during his tsanui, a sacred rite performed by the Va’Raku of our federation. The tsanui will be carried out in response to acts of horror committed by Pe’ixal against the Va’Rakukanna during an illegally sanctioned Hunt three rotations ago.”
He gestures at Pe’ixal with his hand — an act of dishonor — before lowering his arm and then nodding slightly to Svera and then to me. “On trial today is also the human advisor, Svera, and the Va’Rakukanna. They will be tried for their attempted abduction of the Rakukanna. A fourth and final trial will take place on this solar — that of Lisbel, former hasheba to the Va’Rakukanna, for her deception that led to the Va’Rakukanna’s flight and resulted in the death of a warrior, Re’Okkari.”
Surprised, I glance around until I spot Kuaku —Lisbel —at the far side of the circle from where I stand. She stares at the ground between her feet and I feel simultaneously furious and ashamed that she’s even here when all she really tried to do was what I asked her —well thatandget me killed, but who’s really counting?I’m about to say something when Okkari reaches over and takes my arm in a gentle grip. I settle and manage to hold my tongue without interrupting.
“Given the nature of these crimes, Svera, the Va’Rakukanna, and Lisbel will be afforded the ability to appoint their own champions while Pe’ixal will face tsanui at the hand of Va’Raku, as has already been decided.”
He pivots to Svera who stands not too far down the row to my left, separated from me by the red male called Krisxox, who seems to hate humans as much as Jaxal hates Voraxians. He seemed a strange choice for her protector, but Svera already explained to me that even though she chose someone else, he refused to relinquish his position.
My gaze flashes once more to Bo’Raku, even though it’s inadvertent.I hate that I do that. I hate myself for it. I hate myself that I let him rule me.Hush.Breathe. Calm.Breathe.Exhale.Shut the fuck up and just breathe already!
As the crowd settles, the only sounds gently falling white, Raku returns to his place along the perimeter of the circle where he stands beside his queen. Miari remains seated, a female healer called Lemoria at her shoulder. Despite being head of all healers and needed pretty much everywhere at once, Lemoria is overseeing Miari’s pregnancy. Every second of it.
“Svera.” Raku tilts his head towards the center of the circle. The arena. The pit.The grave it will become even if the white cold doesn’t know it yet.“You may now choose your champion.”
Svera steps forward slightly, but before she can so much as speak, a Voraxian guard steps forward. He has blue skin that’s darker than Raku’s and slightly bluer, where Raku is more grey. His hair falls in jet black strands around his shoulders but is plaited back from his face, almost identically to the way I wear mine and Jaxal wears his.
It’s the way hunters on the colony with long hair keep it out of their face and out of reach of opponents. I wonder if Svera helped him. I remember her speaking highly of one of the guards. I wonder if this is him…The thought has the corners of my mouth twitching in the makings of a carefully repressed smile and just like that, hate slips so easily away. Love weighs so much less.Nothing at all. It is pure buoyancy.
“I am Tur’Roth, one of the xcleranx of Voraxia and one of the personal guards to advisor Svera. I would be honored to assume her place in this trial by taking up my axe against whichever opponent is deemed suitable and act as her champion.” Facing Svera, he bows to her at the waist. “If it pleases you, advisor Svera.”
I can see from where I stand that Svera is blushing, a small, not-quite-suppressed smile on her face. She opens her mouth, but before she can speak, Krisxox storms forward into the pit. In a complete break in decorum, he steps up to Tur’Roth, covers Tur’Roth’s face with one enormous hand and shoves. Tur’Roth stumbles back, falling onto his ass in the now empty place next to Svera.
Svera gasps, taking hold of Tur’Roth’s arm as he rises again to his feet, ridges a deep and unsettling red. “Krisxox, how dare you…”
“Punish me for it later,” he barks savagely to the wind. It picks up in response, as cold as the breath of Xaneru himself.Breathe. Svera is safe. Even if Krisxox is being an ass, at least she hastworevered warriors vying to be her champion. Exile will not be her fate.“No one else will champion for you on this solar.”
“Krisxox, you dishonor advisor Svera. You dishonor a proud xcleranx. You dishonor yourself.” Raku shakes his head slowly, sadly almost, like someone who has seen and condemned this behavior before and more than once. “You will accept one stroke of the lash.”
“Accepted.” His black eyes flash and he speaks through teeth that are clearly clenched, “But I will champion.”
Raku glances to Miari. She bites her lower lip as she watches Svera’s face, full of conflict. Svera is bright red again and looks near tears. Between disappointment, humiliation or frustration, I’d put money on the latter. She’s prim and proper in everything she does. To be shamed in such a way and so publicly is a disgrace many others might be able to shrug off, though I know she can’t.
Svera nods. Miari nods. Raku nods, short and sharp. “Then it will be delivered now.”
“Fine,” Krisxox snarls.
“By Tur’Roth.”
Krisxox’s forehead. A skein of black streaks through the bright red already present and his torso swells. He nods in silence and his upper lip pulls back to expose his teeth. He looks like violence made flesh.
