Page 106 of Bride of the Enemy Alien

He sees inventory. An object, useful to his own ends. He lifts a hand, and the hook warms. The buried anchor in my throat answers with a pulse.

“Responsive,” he says.

His language is Trade Cant over a Krixian command base, polished enough to sound civilized if no one listens to the dirt beneath it.

I give him silence.

Silence was one of the first weapons I learned in the pits. Speak, and they mark what hurts. Beg, and they price the shape of your fear. Curse, and they learn which insult belongs to which wound. Silence tells them nothing.

The male smiles faintly.

“Still pretending to be only muscle, Voraxxian?”

I look at him.

He expected a flinch at the name. He wanted the old world inside it, Vorraxis, black sand, war clans, horns polished with status, wings opened beneath distant red suns. He wanted to remind me of a home I have not seen since before Krix put numbers where my name should be.

I give him nothing and his smile tightens.

“You were expensive to trace.”

The cage shudders as the rig reaches the bottom of the descent. Beneath us, the engine changes tone. Not landing. Locking. Metal catches metal under the floor, and the transport frame slides forward into something hollow, a chamber buried beneath the ridge.

Kessa would count the angle. She would notice the drag in the left stabilizer, the brief lean when the frame catches its rail, the vibration shift where sand gives way to hard structure.

She would be furious that I am thinking of her. She would be more furious that I am right.

I keep my gaze on the male in gray flex-armor. “If you mean to kill me, you chose a crowded route.”

His eyes brighten.

There. Speech costs. Silence hides, but in this moment I choose to spend. He steps closer, one hand resting on the cage.

“If I meant to kill you, you would be ash on the canyon floor. We have little interest in old gladiators unless they are attached to new doors.”

“You are not Krixian loyalists,” I say.

“Some of us are. Some of us were. Some of us simply understand that dead planets can become very profitable when they turn out to be alive.”

The transport stops. For one breath, every hook falls silent. That is how I know the true machinery is near.

A low hum rises through the floor. It is not the same as the City’s source pulse. This has edges, little hooks designed to catch answering frequencies and teach them to bleed data. The crescent under my throat warms again, but this time the pulse does not search for command.

It searches outward. Toward the City. Toward Kessa.

I slam my weight sideways before thought can turn the movement into fear. The cage bites my shoulder, my damaged wing, my ribs. Pain lances down my back, bright and clean, and the hook misses the rhythm it was trying to catch.

The gray-armored male does not flinch. Interesting. The two guards do. Less interesting, but good to know.

“Do that again,” he says, “and I will pin the wing properly.”

“You already tried.”

“We used restraint. There is a difference.”

“Yes,” I say. “Restraint lets you pretend you are not afraid of what happens if the thing breaks loose.”

His smile returns, a thin crescent of approval I do not want. “Arcan trained some of the animal out of you.”