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Usually I would be given a sedative, but since I don’t have access to any, I grit my teeth and bear the pain.
And then I continue the procedure, fracture by fracture, until my wings and the gash in my neck is once again whole.
Throwing the damnable device back into the satchel and swinging it over my shoulder, I launch myself into the sky. I’m weak, dehydrated, and exhausted, but am fueled again by my fury as I fly west toward the lights of a blistering orange and pink sunset.
Twenty-Two
GISELLE
I wake up and I’m in a cramped cage. A cage on an alien spaceship.
“Ximenaushanax,” someone calls and I look up, keeping my head down, but trying to take in my surroundings.
The same metal coats the walls as did the shuttle—that strange shimmering gray metal that looks like it might once have been silver. And like in the shuttle, it flakes off the walls here, and all of the equipment that yes, is far beyond any technology we have on Earth—also looks similarly old and worn out.
Still, Draci of all colors man the equipment throughout the room, working efficiently at the bright screens and plasma panels. They tap away with their clawed fingers in the bright holograms that appear above each station.
And then Ximenaushanax takes center stage in the room that I now realize is a sort of command center. It’s the Draci who kidnapped me.
She’s tall, with rose-gold scales and a snub nose. When she speaks, her sharp teeth glisten in the strange, pale light that illuminates the room from lights inset in the ceiling.
She touches a device at her arm, and when she next speaks, her voice is projected through speakers I imagine reach throughout the ship.
“The time has come. No longer will we have to remain in this coffin ship in the sky. It is time to land upon our new planet and claim our rightful home. If the vermin below seek to deny us that which is ours by rights, we will drive them back with our superior might! We will rain down fire upon them the likes of which they have never seen!”
“Ximenaushanax,” someone says again and she turns her head in annoyance. She touches the device on her wrist and hisses, “I am addressing my kindred. What can be of such importance?”
The Draci who just stepped into the room ducks her head. She is blue, like Ezo, and smaller than most others in the room. I can only tell she is female because of the smaller ridge at the back of her head. “I apologize, Commander Ximenaushanax, it is only that Thraxahenashuash the First has docked with a shuttle and he demands an audience with you.”
First? First is here? How?
I try not to make a movement or bring any attention to myself, but Ximenaushanax’s head swings in my direction before turning back to the intruding Draci. “With what shuttle? I took his.”
The Draci at the door bows her head. “I do not know, Commander. I only know he has arrived and demands not only to speak with you, but he says you betrayed him and therefore he demands the Rite of Ritual Combat for the position of Commander.”
The entire room reacts to the words and Commander X looks pissed. Well, Draci in their original form always look intimidating and angry, but if her narrowed eyes and the steam now escaping from her nostrils is any indication, she is good and pissed.
“Does he?” Commander X snaps. She looks around the very full room. “Well, he will have to wait. We are about to embark upon a mission that cannot wait—”
“I beg your pardon, oh great Commander, but he said that if you said that, I was to remind everyone on board that to dismiss his right to ask for the Rite of Ritual combat is to go against all that is Draci. He said that if we dismiss the old ways now, then what are we fighting for on this new home?”
More steam bellows from Commander X’s nostrils, but as others in the room nod and step forward as if they will argue should she try again to dismiss the messenger without cause, she finally gives in.
“Fine,” she spits. “If he demands a trial by combat, then I will not deny the mutt half-caste his quick death.”
She begins to sweep from the room, and as she goes, she lifts the device at her wrist to her mouth. “And to celebrate our impending invasion, a soiree. Everyone, to the gathering circle. There you will witness me putting down the traitorous dog, Thraxahenashuash, he who turned on his own mother, our beloved queen.”
She storms from the room as does everyone else. As she passes the Draci who brought the message about First, she stops to glare. “Not you. Only the higher castes are needed to witness the Ritual. You stay here and watch the prisoner.”
