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Kail is not one to back down from a challenge, and though I wish this was not happening, I know there is no way to avoid it. Everybody who joins Siryn must prove themselves. She whipped my ass around the docks for a good hour before taking mercy on me.
“Can we not rest first?” I try to delay the inevitable.
Siryn looks at me, a frown creasing her furred face. “The absolute nerve,” she says. “You have not had enough beatings. Come, Kail. My men are looking forward to this entertainment, and you look sturdy enough to be a worthy opponent.”
“I do not fight females,” Kail says.
“That’s good to hear,” Siryn replies. “It will make it very easy to kill you. Come along.”
Kail hands Nemo to me, and we follow Siryn out the back of her home, which leads to a roped off arena, something like a round boxing ring.
With that, she unsheathes her electric rapier and rushes at Kail.
He is not given a choice. He is forced to fight or be run through with a blade of pure energy.
Kail ducks and dives under her outstretched arm, grabbing her by the ankles as he goes, and taking her off her feet. Siryn lands heavily on her ass, and I have to hide a snort of laughter behind Nemo, who is laughing and clapping his hands at this sight. I have to hope his presence will keep this from becoming truly bloody, though I know there is a chance Siryn will try to take out her frustration and anger at me out on Kail.
“Are we done?” He asks the question while standing over her. He extends a gallant hand to help her get up.
“In one exchange? No, we are not done,” Siryn laughs, ignoring his hand and rolling backward away from him before kipping up to her feet. “Take up a weapon, savage.”
“I don’t use weapons.”
“You can’t kill everything with your bare hands.”
“History shows otherwise,” he replies.
I can see a grudging respect in Siryn’s eyes.
“I do not have beef with you, savage,” she says. “And it is not you I truly need to test.”
Kail
The sentiment is well and good, but the language must change.
“My name is Kail. Savage is what the Colony calls my kind, and I am the last of my kind.”
“Kail,” she says. “I am sorry. What the Colony does to the species it meets is unforgivable.”
I nod in agreement, feeling no need to elaborate even in agreement. The sorrows of my past are mine to bear, and I have no wish to bring them fresh life by recounting them. I find Siryn’s presence comfortable, and though her port is strange to me, there is a certain homeyness to it that carries through into this house. It feels like a safe place. For the first time since the Colony came into my life, I feel myself relax thoroughly and properly, tension I had forgotten I was holding flowing out of my muscles.
I am home.
I cast a glance over at Tarni, who does not look so relaxed. She is very nervous in Siryn’s company, and perhaps in mine.
I am not pleased that she did not tell me where we were going, or that we were going to someone who she had previously worked on under the Colony’s rule. This situation could have been, and still could be unspeakably dangerous. Tarni does well to avoid my gaze.
“That,” Siryn says, gesturing to Tarni with the point of her blade, “is trouble.”
“I know,” I agree. There is no point claiming otherwise. These two clearly have a longstanding association.
“Let me see you handle her,” Siryn says. “I trust your prowess in battle, but even the strongest warrior can be undone by that human. I want to see some sign she is under control, her natural treachery moderated by submission.”
Tarni
Kail looks at me with an expression that does not bode well at fucking all.
“I had planned to deal with her for not telling me the truth of where we were going,” Kail says. “Or who we were going to see. It may as well be before you, we won’t be exposing anything you haven’t already seen.”
