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Which was why it was so hard seeing them around the stronghold. It was even harder for the Thyres than me because many had fought against them before or lost a loved one.
At least their wounded were healing and Uthar's surviving subjects on the longboats were recovering as well.
Uthar hadn't even been apologetic when he confessed that he had ordered the longboats equipped with some kind of insulation his people had invented in preparation of attacking Thyre during the cold season, something we wouldn't have expected. It saved most of his people though.
"Is it always this freaking freezing?" Chrissy asked, feeding a treat to Samju.
"You and your people arrived during the cold season," I explained, not understanding why everybody wanted to suddenly wage war during the most dreadful season of the year.
"It was a long journey," Chrissy said, as if that explained it all. When she noticed my blank expression, she explained, "The Terran Confederation is actively looking for what we call the lost colonies. Thyre was our mission. The journey took ten years. It would have been impossible to time it right to arrive at a more opportune time even if we had known about the temperature conditions on Thyre."
"Ten years?" I asked, astounded. "What did you do for ten years?"
She laughed. "Slept. They put us into a so-called hybersleep—hibernation-like induced sleep—where our bodies don't age."
Aghast, I stared at her. My mind made sense of her reference to hybersleep even though I had never heard of it, but I still couldn't fathom sleeping ten years of my life away, no matter if it didn't count against me.
And for what? To attack another planet and… no, that wasn't fair or right, she came because she believed in a cause, no matter how wrong that cause might be. And that made her a very brave, determined woman in my eyes.
Sometimes I caught her observing us, but I couldn't fault her for that either. In her eyes, we were the aliens.
"Tell me about Earth," I requested, while I raked Samju's old straw up.
"Why do you do this?" She waved at my rake and me cleaning the stall. "You are the wife of a lord, right?"
I looked up and smiled at her. "Because I need something to do and because I like doing it."
She shook her head. "If I were the wife of a freaking lord, I would spend my days lounging on a chair eating chocolate. Are you sure you're not a slave?"
I stopped my raking to meet her eyes. "No, you wouldn't. You are not the type, either. You would train all day, or clean weapons."
That gave her pause, and she pulled her brows together as my words penetrated her mind and made her think.
"You truly aren't a slave then?"
I shook my head and bit back my laughter, sensing we had reached a crucial moment.
"None of us are. We live in peace with the Thyres, and we like our lives the way they are," I answered truthfully.
"And the people in your village would say the same?" she inquired.
I nodded, but amended, "There are a few at war with Thyres, but they are allied to other Thyres."
"What do you mean?"
I sighed. How to explain the intricate world of Thyre to an outsider? An enemy? Would I be giving away valuable information to her? Information she might use against us?
I reminded myself that she was a prisoner. She wouldn't be going anywhere anytime soon and most definitely not back to her people to fill them in on our weaknesses. Weaknesses her allies might discover soon enough themselves anyway.
"There are five warlords on Thyre, two, who have joined forces to overthrow our khazar. With them are the humans sworn to their cause."
"A civil war?"
I didn't like the word, because it meant discontent, and it wasn't as simple as that. Or maybe it was and I just didn't want to see it.
"One of the warlords was angered over some laws Gryck made and decided he had a better claim on the throne than our khazar. He managed to draw another warlord to his cause." Before I could let her assume this was a great opportunity for her people to rush in on us, I cautioned, "Make no mistake, though, these warlords will fight with our khazar against your people." At least I hoped they would.
"Even if we were to promise them the crown?"
