Page 50 of Bride of the Enemy Alien

His blade comes up another fraction. “You do not command here.”

“No,” I answer. “I survive here.”

Kessa turns on me. “If you have a better idea, bleed it out fast.”

Her anger is brighter than the green fire dying in the sand. I should not feel it as warmth. I should not feel anything but the wire under my ribs and the second tracker tugging in a rhythm made from ownership.

Once.

Pause.

Again.

The scar beneath my binding answers. I keep my face still. In the arena, a male who showed what hurt him only taught the crowd where to cheer.

“The second point wants us to run directly toward it,” I say.

“Things usually prefer not being destroyed,” Kessa says. “I find that common in annoying objects and people. And weird sky trash.”

She adds the last as she tears her eyes away from me, returning her gaze to the desert ahead.

“It wants haste. Haste opens groups. Splits command. Separates the useful from the guarded.”

Arcan would like that sentence, I think. He would polish it until it became law.

Syin’s eyes narrow. “You speak as if it thinks.”

“It does not need thought. It has programming. Programming is often more dangerous. It cannot be insulted into stupidity.” I glance at Kessa. “Unlike some enemies.”

She narrows her eyes right back. “Was that a joke?”

“No.”

“It limped.”

“It was an observation.”

“Your assessments need a healer.”

A sound catches in my throat. Not laughter. Laughter was taken and sharpened on Krix until it belonged to crowds, owners, and fools with coins. But this almost becomes something near it, and that is worse. Much worse. The second tracker pulls again, punishing the lapse.

Green heat crawls beneath the plates at my throat. Kessa sees. Her gaze locks there before I angle away.

Too late. Again.

Syin sees her see it. His blade shifts toward me. “Explain the glow.”

“No time.”

“That is convenient.”

“It is honest.”

Kessa steps between the words, not between the blade and me. She is learning. Or she is careful enough not to look protective where witnesses can turn it against her.

“If the second tracker is bait, what does the trap want?” she asks.

Good question. The kind of question that keeps breath in lungs.