Page 9 of Bride of the Enemy Alien

I start to protest, then stop. I don’t need him defending me. I especially don’t need him being right while doing it.

“You do not speak here,” Syin says, narrowing his eyes.

“I speak while I can still stand,” Rhazek says. “If I fall, your healer will cut armor from a dead male, and your council will have a copper ball, a wrecked basin, and no answers.”

“Then answer.”

Rhazek lifts the sphere. There’s a single tremor in his arm that shakes the sphere before Rhazek forces it still.

“Rosalind first.”

The name sounds different in his mouth, weighted with debt or history instead of familiarity. I don’t like either option. I’m collecting dislikes at an impressive pace.

“I am here.”

Her voice comes from the upper stair and everyone turns.

Rosalind descends with Visidion at her back, and for one breath the whole space reorganizes around her. She’s not tall compared to a Zmaj, not armed like Syin, not loud like Adran, who is already hurrying two steps behind her in a robe belted wrong, but she still takes the room.

Age has carved lines at her eyes and mouth, but not weakness. Her hair is bound back. Her expression is calm. That calm is why half the City obeys her before she gives orders and the other half resents obeying her after she does.

Visidion’s wings are folded tight, but the instant he focuses on Rhazek, he looks unsettled, though I can’t tell why. I don’t think it’s recognition but I could be wrong.

Rosalind stops three paces from Rhazek and looks from the copper sphere to his face, then to the blood running down his side.

“Krix,” she says.

The word means nothing to me. It means something to Rosalind. To Visidion. To the older Zmaj whose wings rustle with a leather rubbing against leather sound.

Rhazek’s mouth tightens.

“Krix owned me. It did not make me.”

The words are sharp enough that even Syin doesn’t answer at once. Rosalind’s gaze changes.

“Then what are you?”

Rhazek holds her stare, squaring his shoulders despite the wounds and blood loss.

“Voraxxian.”

Another word I don’t know, but many in the room do. I hate hidden knowledge and I’m getting very tired of being the person in the room who understands the least while still being expected to help keep everyone alive.

Visidion’s wings shift once, a controlled movement that somehow feels like a blade being drawn halfway from its sheath.

“Vorraxis.”

It’s not a question. His intonation carries weight that goes far beyond the syllables. Rhazek’s good eye cuts to him.

“I have not heard my world spoken cleanly in many years.”

There is grief in his voice, but also anger, old and controlled. I can’t tell which hurts him more before he shuts both away.

“Arcan gave me the sphere,” Rhazek says. “I came from Krix. That is all that matters.”

It’s clearly not all that matters, but it’s just as clearly all he’s willing to give. Visidion’s voice drops low enough that my skin prickles.

“How did you come by Arcan’s sphere?”