Page 11 of Bride of the Enemy Alien

Merra goes to him without asking permission and starts cutting away burned leather and blackened fasteners along his side. He catches her wrist before the blade reaches one strap.

Every weapon shifts. Merra looks down at his hand, then up at his face.

“Remove your hand, or I’ll remove fingers.”

A strange silence follows, long enough to become refusal, then Rhazek lets go.

Merra sniffs. “He learns. Wonderful.”

She cuts the armor.

The wound beneath is ugly. A deep slice along the ribs, burned at the edges, packed with soot and something gray that glitters like powdered metal. It’s not fresh enough to be only from the crash and not clean enough to be anything good.

Sera leans forward. Kavor’s hand settles near her shoulder but doesn’t touch until she reaches up and covers his fingers with hers.

“Off-world alloy residue,” Sera says quietly.

Rhazek looks at her, his gaze dropping to her covered arm.

“You have touched the same poison,” Rhazek says.

Kavor’s wings rise a fraction. Sera lifts her chin.

“It touched me.”

Rhazek accepts the correction with a small nod. Rosalind sets the copper sphere on the table between them.

“Talk,” Rosalind says.

“Before we accept anything this stranger says, we should establish custody, authority, and whether he has brought contamination into the City,” Adran says, clearing his throat.

“There it is,” Ila mutters beside me.

I pretend not to hear. Rhazek turns his head toward Adran.

“You are the one who would lock the food before feeding the child,” Rhazek says.

Adran’s face goes blank as I jerk all my attention to Rhazek. I blink twice. My footing feels suddenly uncertain.

Rhazek shouldn’t know that. He hasn’t been here long enough to learn that specifically. He’s done half a walk through the City and had no time to learn our politics. Unless he’s reading us that well. Or unless the warning from Arcan includes more than we think. Neither possibility makes me want to clap.

“And you are the one who brought a signal to our gates,” Adran says coolly.

“Yes,” Rhazek says, narrowing his one eye.

The admission lands heavy, settling into my spine, the sand-scoured ache across my back, and the memory of the basin splitting open behind us.

Syin steps forward, his tail rising behind his head.

“Then you admit guilt.”

“I admit to pursuit,” Rhazek says. “Guilt belongs to those who set the chain.”

“You carried it.”

“I carried a warning.”

“You carried both.”