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“Eeep!” I scream as something darts out of the darkness surrounding me to feed on the spill.
The gruff voice laughs uproariously. The sound of it echoing off the walls of my cell, doubling over and over, coming in at me from every angle. The laughter slices through my fear, cutting it away, and all I’m left with is anger.
“Gada,” I yell back, the single Urr’ki curse I know.
The laughter continues as the footsteps move away. I’m so angry I’m left trembling for an entirely new reason. I want to say more, do more, but there is nothing I can do.
I’m not alone.
The thought comes as if it’s not even my own, but it brings along with it a certainty. Absolute and complete faith that Dilacs is coming. I have no way to know this. For all I can know right now, based on when I last saw him, he’s in a cell too. Or worse.
Logic attacks the towering certainty that he is coming and exhausts itself against this belief that he is not only okay, but he is coming for me. I feel it is true so deep, it’s in my heart. Written in my soul.
He is my one. The magical mate that all the great romances are written about. The other half of me, the one that completes me, the one I am meant to be with.
I have never, in all my life, believed any of this was true. I thought girls who espoused such or believed such were fooling themselves. Drunk on dopamine and whatever other chemicals the idea of love pumps into your head, but I’m not drunk on anything. Nor do I feel high on any chemical. No all I feel is certain.
I know he is coming. As certain as I am that two suns will rise over Tajss in the morning and that the desert is hot and dry. It is not a matter of questioning, it simply is. A basic, fundamental truth.
And there is no longer room for fear in my heart. How can I be afraid when I know my love is coming? He will save me. It is only a matter of when so the worst thing I can do is provoke my captors. The only smart move right now is to wait.
“Thank you, Garada,” my neighbor prisoner says, her voice as kind as ever. “How is your daughter? Did the herbs help with the fever?”
“Yeah,” Garada grunts. “Thank you for that.”
“Of course,” Rani says. “I am glad it made a difference.”
Garada grunts then I hear the tray sliding over stone. A moment later the flames of the torch recede, a door shuts, and we’re left alone in the dark and silence. I chew my food quickly, not wanting to compete with whatever else might be sharing this cell with me. I use what feels like a piece of bread to mop up the remnants on the plate then set it down by the door.
I rest my head on the cool stone of the door, listening to Rani eat her food. I wait until I hear her set her own tray down.
“Rani?” I ask.
“Yes, was your food okay?”
“I’ve had better,” I say.
“I certainly hope so,” she says, a hint of humor in her voice. “The prison was never meant for comforts.”
“Yeah, right,” I chuckle. “Makes sense, I guess. Can I ask you something?”
“Of course,” she says. “It is pleasant to have someone else to pass the time with.”
“You know that guard,” I say. “You know his name, that he has a daughter, that she was sick. How? Or, maybe more, why? He’s keeping you here. Why be nice to him?”
She doesn’t answer immediately. Silence hangs heavy in the darkness and I’m beginning to think she’s not going to answer me at all when she does finally speak.
“It is not his fault,” she says at last.
“How? He’s a guard. It’s literally his job.”
“Exactly,” she says, still speaking softly and without a hint of rancor. “So many of my people are doing their jobs. They are, all of them, merely trying to survive. Can I blame them for that?”
“I mean, yeah, he doesn’t have to,” I counter. “He could, I don’t know fight. My boys, they were fighting when I was captured.”
“Good,” she says and though the volume of her voice doesn’t change from its softness, there is a steel in the word that catches me by surprise. “You see. All is not lost. But I will not blame my people for what, in the end, is mine to bear.”
“Yours?”
