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“Your father didn’t think it was a trinket when he pinned it on me. And your mother didn’t think it was a trinket when she sucked my…”
I am not given the opportunity to finish that sentence. Krush is hot-headed and already humiliated by failing to make the record numbers expected of him as a prince. He rushes at me, his claws extended, murder in his silvered eyes.
Pathetic.
I dodge to the side and let him smash into the bar itself. Any other structure would be damaged by his impact, but the student bar is built tough. Korabi brawls are legendary. This is not the first time Krush and I have fought. We have been scrapping since the first day of intake. He believes everybody should bow down to him because of who his daddy is. I believe there’s no such thing as bloodlines, only strength. Unlike every other simpering recruit who was so impressed they were ready to treat him as king in waiting, I treated him like what he was, an average candidate with average scores. He has loathed me for it this entire time.
I laugh in his privileged face as he bounces off the solid structure and turns to glare at me, now with a trickle of blood coming from his nose. He puts his hand to it, sees the sanguine smear, and becomes even angrier.
“You may have won the last round of sparring, and you may have spent every hour you were not training also training, but you come from nothing, and you are nothing, Rath K’zar!”
“And you are the runt of your father’s litter,” I reply.
“I will rule Megaris one day,” he vows. “And when I do, you will suffer!”
* * *
Present day…
He was right about that, at least, though not how he might have planned to be right.
Kordin nudges me off the tracks of my train of thought.
“You do not look happy enough for a hunter who tracked and captured Megaris’ most dangerous human prey,” he observes.
“Let’s get a drink,” I say, avoiding any conversation around what I look like, or how I feel.
“Rath K’zar! Never thought I’d see your face here again!
Zan, the barkeeper, has been here longer than any of us, and he’ll probably still be here slinging drinks at undeserving soldiers and recruits until the heat death of the universe. He’s an old soldier himself, more scars than skin, and a heart of absolute gold. That doesn’t mean he’ll hesitate to use the stick behind the bar to whip seven shades out of anybody who gets too far out of hand.
“Good to see you, Zan.”
“Surprising to see you, Rath.”
I guess that passes for a warm greeting around here for a bounty hunter.
“It’s amazing how he can remember faces and names long after they’ve been here,” I mention to Kordin once we have our drinks.
“Well, you are notorious, Rath,” Kordin reminds me.
I take a sip of fermented brew. I don’t need him to tell me that. Every eye in this place is on me. It went quiet the moment we walked in, and it has only gotten quieter the longer we stand here.
“What are you all staring at! Drink up, or get out!” Zan barks the orders at his patrons. Slowly, the conversation returns to a fraction of the usual hum. They’re not over my presence, but they’re pretending to be.
“It is truly good to have you back,” Kordin says. “They don’t make them like you anymore, Rath.”
“That’s probably a good thing.”
“We don’t blame you for what happened that night. Nobody could have foreseen a human incursion. There was no need to resign your commission.”
“I enjoy hunting humans,” I shrug, changing the subject slightly.
“You enjoyed killing humans. That’s what I heard. A hundred revenges for the president. There are pictures of what you did to some of them. Some of the younger guardsmen pass them around. You still have a reputation, even living outside the wall.”
I am supposed to be gratified by that? The fact that I have lived as an outcast only to become a quiet kind of legend? I think not.
My thoughts are back in the cage with Lyric. I hope I am doing the right thing, though the truth is that I am doing the only thing I can do. She must hate me. If she does not, she certainly will before this is over.
Nine
Confused
Lyric
“Put her in the cells. We will not mete out human justice to this traitor. She will suffer a korabi fate.”
“No! Rath! Save me! Please! No!”
The royal guards drag me away, kicking and screaming. I don’t know why I am bothering to kick and scream. Maybe it is more of that stupid human code I run and can’t control. Once again, massive alien hands are controlling me. That is enough to make me scream. There is no freedom in this world. There is only fear and compliance and force.
