23
(Asia- Heat of the Moment)
Desmond
I couldn’t sleep, so I didn’t bother waking Adam up and I just rode out the rest of the night, but fuckin’ hell was I tired. Everyone began waking up around sunup, and Simira came out first as I was getting ready to put the fire out. She stood on the other side of it, curiously staring at me.
As casual as I tried to be, I was too drained to really put much energy into my words. “Fair warning, I’m about to piss on the fire. Do with that information what you will.”
She turned away. As the fire sizzled and went out, the wind blew the smoke directly into her face. She started coughing and hacking, plugging her nose. She walked a little around the fire, the smoke following her. She countered and walked the other way around the fire, out of the smoke, trying to keep her eyes off me the whole time.
Once she heard my belt buckle, she coughed a bit more and then looked back at me. “You and the bearable woman, Tells, are you in need of work?” She crossed her arms and looked down at me as I sat down next to the dying fire.
“In general, yes. Why? Are you offering?” I sat back down on the log, leaning my elbows on my knees and my chin on my hands.
“I would like for the two of you to serve me directly. I have need of people who are unsullied by the… politics of my city.”
“Lady, these people are my best friends that I have known for most of my life. I trust them with my life. You, on the other hand, I only just met you. I respect you, and I am sure you are great at what you do, but it would take a lot of money to get me away from them. And I’d prefer if they were in on it, too.”
She sat on the log across the fire. “Serving the daughter of a viscount is no small order. You would be provided a home and coin to support yourself and a family, should you decide to have one.” She gestured at my slowly waking and groggy friends. “I mean no disrespect to you and yours, but look at the people you are with. They lack goals, direction, motivation. They’ll end up as beggars by the month’s end, and the healer will be auctioned off to a sick noble. The others have nothing to offer me currently.”
“Apologies, Lady Simira, but as of now, we’re a package deal. Weren’t you the one who said we all have potential?”
She closed her eyes as if she regretted her own words. “Yes, but I fear bringing in five uncouth individuals would be too conspicuous for my needs.”
“Funny thing is Tells and I are probably the worst at being inconspicuous, and our friend who you hate is probably the best, along with Brenden. They got good people skills.”
She sneered, not denying what I said. “Perhaps, but you would all need to be educated to the same degree.”
“Sure, we need to know about this world, but don’t pretend we’re unskilled.”
“I pretend nothing. I know what I have observed, though, and I need people who are unfaltering in their beliefs and loyalty, not anyone who can be bought or persuaded out of their own minds.”
I paused, tilting my head down at her and leaning in. “You sound like you’re planning something sketchy.”
She narrowed her eyes. “As I said, you’re capable and I need trustworthy people.”
I read her face as best my tired instincts could. She was intense, but intent. Driven and committed to whatever this was. The thought of having a stable life with money was nice, but I needed to figure some things out first. “Any chance we all get in on it, but only the two of us are actually in on it?”
“Unknowing allies are a dangerous liability, even more so than everyone knowing. They will be used against us. My goal is in sight and I am certain it will succeed once the final actions are taken. Should all go well, no harm will come to any of you, but you cannot know the whole truth of it.”
I sighed.
Whatever she’s planning, it could get us into deep shit. That much I know for certain, and she ain’t hiding it.
“Let me talk to Tells about it. We’ll sit in the wagon with you two and discuss it further, how ‘bout that?”
“Very well.” She started to rise, then turned back to me. “Do not repeat anything I’ve said, for your own sake. The less people know, the better.”
I smirked. “This ain’t my first rodeo.”
She nodded, a little confused at the last part, and returned to her business. Everyone packed the camp up and set off again. I sat in the lousy wagon with Tells and the nobles, the others in the nice wagon. After a few hours of riding, I told Tells about the offer, but she kept her eyes forward, just listening.
I heard Tarynn speak for probably the second time since meeting him. “Are you sure that hiring the other three would be impossible? They are just as capable people as Tells and Desmond.”
“Tarynn,” she sighed, “be done with her already.” Simira firmly patted his chest and looked at me again. “We would need to acclimate you and Tells to educated life and life in frequent interaction with nobles alongside getting you proper combat training. I can tell that kind of life is not suited for the others, even if they can read.”
Educated life? Does she think we all were uneducated?
“Lady, could you explain what educated life means? I’m not sure I understand what you mean by that.”
She smiled condescendingly and shook her head. “Ah, right, of course. You would need to attend a school, or be tutored to learn reading and arithmetic until you could understand intermediate literature and complex mathematics. Although, Tells has mentioned she can read.”
Tells nodded, and I kinda chuckled. She thought we were uneducated bumpkins. “All of us can read. And we’re pretty decent at math.”
Simira shook her head, “are you-” then she clearly remembered something and glanced back at the other wagon. “Well, that would make educating you easier.”
“How many years would that be?”
“Years? Don’t be foolish. Only nobility can afford higher education and tutoring that spans years. You would only study for a handful of months. It’s not that difficult. I suppose you could read further and expand that on your own if you desired to.”
“How long do people usually spend in school? Like, as kids. We’re not sure how it works around here.”
She was delighted to inform us of how ignorant we were. “Well, common people learn to read and complete simple arithmetic, a few years when they’re young, typically. Just what they need before entering an apprenticeship or taking on their family trade. My brother and I were tutored from youth until we were adults. Ten years, I believe. We studied a large variety of history, arts, music, combat and politics. Things that most common people would never use.”
Tells turned around for the first time. I raised my eyebrows at her, then she looked forward again, a wide, awkward smile breaking through her lips.
“How could a common person get that kind of education? What would that do for them in terms of finding a job?”
If education is valuable here, we might be able to secure some good work. Especially with twelve years of schooling for all of us and some years of college between me, Tells and Vetia.
Simira looked a bit offended at that question. “Job? Acquiring so many years of education is expensive and grants the title of nobility as a scholar or jzanmah tejuh. I suppose you could attend a military academy. But that is far too expensive for simple folk, and only a noble would pay so much to raise a commoner in standing if said commoner showed incredible potential. If you think I am going to raise you to a noble through education, you will have to prove yourself in immense ways.”
Nobility through education? We might just be set here if we can take a test and prove our education or something, but I want to prove to them that we aren’t just idiots.
“One moment, Lady.” I walked to the back of the wagon to chat with Brenden in the rear wagon. “Hey, Brenden. How many years was school for us?”
“What? Like how many years we were all in school together?”
“Like for each of us.” I glanced back. Simira and Tarynn both stared at me perplexed.
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“I didn’t go to preschool or college, so it was only twelve for me.”
Adam leaned out from inside the wagon. “Wow, Brenden you fool. Didn’t even go to preschool like me. Thirteen.”
I hollered again. “Vetia, come up here. How long did you go to school?”
Vetia climbed up next to Brenden. “It was only fourteen and a half years if you include my unfinished college time. Why?”
I waved her back into the wagon. “Nothin. Just thought of something. ‘Cause me and Tells have the same as you, I think.” I turned back around and saw Simira confused and a little irritated, while Tarynn had a stupidly large smile.
Tells quietly murmured from the other side of Simira and Tarynn. “Dad started teaching me the Bible before school, so fifteen and a half if you count that.”
Simira spoke up casually like she’d caught on to a joke. “Very funny. There’s not a place in this world with the money and efficiency to educate all of its people so sufficiently, save for the nyadin.”
I put my right hand up and tried to sound as honest as I could. “By God, we all attended normal school for twelve years and three of us went to college for almost three. We didn’t get to finish, though.”
“Oh please. What would you study for so long?” She just looked skeptical now.
“In college, I was taking classes in engineering and technology, Tells was studying computer sci- I mean- computational sciences, like economics and math, and Vetia was studying archaeology.”
She was looking more worried than anything now. “Then what did you study for twelve years before that?!”
“Reading, writing, arithmetic, biology, chemistry, physics, history, philosophy, foreign languages. All pretty general, but you get the gist.” I was just listing things off trying not to say anything that would give us away as being from somewhere else.
She stood up indignantly as I stopped listing them. “Are you trying to make a fool of me? For what? Has this all been a ruse to insult me? Where is your proof of this education?”
“We don’t carry our diplomas around with us. What about you? I’m sure you don’t carry yours around. Please, Lady Simira, we’re not trying to belittle you. I’m just saying how it is.”
Vetia hopped onto the shotgun seat of the other wagon. “Lady Simira,” she was completely serious. “As funny as I’m sure you think we find this, and I personally would enjoy messing with you like that, we’re not. It’s a bit hard to explain without knowing where we’re from, but we’re not lying.”
I leaned forward, sensing Simira’s growing rage. “Listen, you said you got stuff you keep close to your chest. Well, we’re also not just some country bumpkins, but it’s a hell of a weird story and it’d take a long time to explain fully.”
Her temper simmered violently. “Then explain. All you’ve done is boasted intelligence while showing nothing for it.”
Tarynn gently grabbed her arm and eased her to sit down again. “Sister, if they truly are educated, but lack funds, it may make them better prospects. We could take them all in and have them officially recognized as scholarly nobility by father. I’m sure he would listen to their stories. Our station may be raised by the Duke if we bring people into the noble circle below us. More land and more jurisdiction, meaning more funds for our people.”
She sat down and pondered for a moment, a grin creeping onto her face. She was about to say something, then looked at him and noticed his beaming smile. Her optimism curdled into a look of absolute disgust, like he was a roach beneath her boot. “Father will have nothing to do with this! He does not need any part in our dealings, but your mind can’t think outside your own selfish desires! Did you think you could deceive me into accepting these mercenaries as nobility, so you can arrange with her instead?! To legally run away from your commitment, your one, singular duty to our family!”
Simira shot up, standing over her brother, screaming into his face. For how large a man he was, he seemed so small next to her. His body looked like it was retreating into itself beneath the weight of her intensity.
“I will not be taken advantage of by my own brother so that he may ignorantly destroy our family’s name and legacy! Truth or not, you haven’t a clue of the repercussions to us should they be granted noble stature! You are a fool for believing our father’s empty promises and deceitful intentions!”
And holy sweet Jesus, she clearly intended to bitch slap him, but her fist struck his cheek before she even thought of opening her hand. Left a massive open wound on his cheek, split the skin right open on his cheekbone and sent blood streaming out of his nose.
I hadn’t even realized it, but my hand was on my dagger, ready to draw. Tarynn profusely apologized as Simira blindly screamed into his face, readying her hand for another “slap.” I was preparing to step between them when the wagon bounced to an abrupt halt. Simira tripped toward the driver’s seat, slamming her head on the wooden platform right next to Tells. Tells didn’t even notice her fall. Her eyes were locked on a blue guy in an approaching wagon from in front of us. Simira’s crew.
Lady Simira shot up, blood trickling down her temple. She stomped across the driver’s seat to meet her servants as they stopped in their own covered wagon, one servant stepping out the back. A human- jorlad man. A nyadin woman hid in their wagon all the while.
“Was my grace for nought?! Have I shown generosity to scoundrels who would make a fool of me and swindle my brother?! Have I been the fool to think there was still decency in people?! Andris, turn the wagon around! We are leaving. Tarynn-”
She turned around and her rage became rabid hatred when she saw Vetia holding her book and a glowing finger over Tarynn’s wound. She lunged over and I tried to draw my dagger, but my neck was caught by the flat side of a blade held by the blue guy, Andris. The other servant held Tells at bladepoint, eying Adam and Brenden, preventing them from acting without collateral damage. Simira put her right hand around Vetia’s collar, lifting her from the wagon floor.
“I instructed you to keep your hands away from one place, and what do you go and do?!”
Vetia responded with a venomous tone, “He’s your brother, you dumb cunt, I’m fixing the wound that YOU gave him!”
Simira seethed like a boiling kettle. “I told you I wouldn’t be so forgiving anymore, but you didn’t listen, just like every other time. A week of baby sitting and you still haven’t learned manners! Always trying my patience! Always seducing my brother! Always running your filthy mouth, letting that nasty tongue say whatever it wants! Away with it!”
Simira smiled sadistically as she held Vetia’s jaw open in her left hand and pulled a dagger out with her right. Vetia’s yelling turned to gargled cries as Simira plunged the dagger into her mouth and twirled it with a flick of her wrist. The blade whipped out, slashing Vetia’s cheek open. Simira sheathed the dagger and shoved her hand into Vetia’s mouth. Vetia screamed while gurgling on her own blood, choking on Simira’s fist. The flesh tore and blood poured from her mouth. Simira ripped Vetia’s tongue clean out and shoved it in her satchel. Brenden and I yelled out to deaf ears. Tells was on the verge of blowing up, and Adam looked scared and lost. Simira in her rage was blind to all of our pleas.
“What have you to say now? Speak! You’ve been all too eager to curse me, to smatter and smear my name! What say you?!” Simira was only inches from Vetia’s face, her wrathfully gritted teeth and fiery eyes burning into Vetia’s blood-red irises. “Never again will you curse or so much as breathe in my direction without twelvefold retribution. I don’t even care about what you did anymore, I just hate you.”
Vetia glared up at her with matching hatred, drooling blood like she was an animal ravenously wishing to slaughter Simira. She gurgled and spat a splatter of red, runny blood and saliva into Simira’s face.
The voice behind me called out in a desperate attempt to quell the Lady, “Lady Simira, mind your temperament! I beseech you! You must show restraint!”
Simira ignored him and growled, then grabbed Vetia by the throat, dragging her across the wagon. She opened the cage door and lifted Vetia close to her face.
“This rebellious child, this indecent half-breed, this untrained creature belongs in a cage until she learns how to act like a human!”
She growled and slugged Vetia in the gut three times, a loud crack on the third, the heaviest blow. Then Simira shoved her into the cage, slammed the door, and battered the lock with her boot heel until it was busted out of shape and too mangled to unlock. She drew her sword and stomped to the other side of the cage that Vetia was nearest to.
“And for her harlotry, the whore will have one last sword sheathed in her.”
Everyone around screamed for her to stop, a cacophony of cries ripping into my eardrums as she aimed her sword between the bars of the cage.
“Sister, please!” Tarynn leaped to kneel in front of Simira.
“Get out of my way! Had you any sense or a basic understanding of reason and duty, none of this would be taking place. You have been nothing but a child pretending maturity, just as much as her!” She turned the sword to his chest.
“I know.” His voice was low and trembling, on his knee blocking Vetia from his sister. “But look at her, she is worthless now. She’ll never speak again and her face is ruined. She will bear these scars for the rest of her days. You have done your piece.”
“She’s a regenerator, you shortsighted idiot! But I suppose you are correct! She’s worthless! She may as well just die!”
Tarynn looked horrified as his sister fought him aside. “You need not commit murder over such a trifle, over a lowly commoner. Sister please- you-”
“You have no right to lecture me on the value of a life! Not after everything I’ve endured at your cowardice, not after the lives I’ve ended in your stead!” She pushed against him, the blade creeping closer to Vetia.
His face quivered violently until his expression turned angry for the first time. He grabbed the guard, shoving his sister back and forcing himself between the blade and the cage. “I don’t give a d-damn if she’s worthless now! We’ll never see any of these people again after this! We don’t need to take any of their lives here!”
He was kneeling, both of his hands in a death grip on his sister’s scimitar guard. She locked onto his eyes. We all did. There was conviction in them, scared conviction, but conviction nonetheless.
The sword lingered on his chest for a moment. Simira finally pulled her blade away, sheathed it, and passed her sweltering gaze over everyone. All eyes on her. She grabbed Tarynn by the hair and dragged him off the wagon.
She barked at Tells and Brenden. “Back the wagons up! We’re turning around!” And then her face changed and her eyes scanned over the five of us. Disappointed frustration slowly gripped her expression.
The blades lowered, and Tells reared the corties back. As we were turning away, I felt a jingling thud on the seat by my side. The blue man with regal armor and extra joints quietly muttered to me.
“I’m heartily sorry for my Lady. Accept that, and please don’t let rumors of this spread.” He turned their wagon around, and they raced into the distance.
Vetia gasped and gurgled on her own blood, coughing onto the bottom of the steel cage. She reached for the bars to pick herself up and her hands seized as they grew closer and she cried out louder. Tells rushed to Vetia’s book and handed it through the bars to her. Vetia traced her fingers in the air like she was trying to draw sigils, but not even her finger could glow.
For all we knew, she was going to suffocate on her own blood. I had to think of something fast. I pulled the reins on the corties and yelled back to Brenden. “Geren’s should be right ahead! He might be able to help!”
I passed the reins back to Tells as we sped off, and I was reaching through the bars trying to keep Vetia from choking to death.
We rode with the corties at full speed for a few minutes before Tells told us to brace and we sharply turned into the meadow of blue flowers, almost rolling onto our side. Trying not to be flung out of the wagon, we stopped abruptly in front of Geren’s house as he was just stepping out the door. Geren had a large smile on his face as he stepped out. I jumped down and pointed at the cage.
“Geren, can you open the cage?! Its lock is fucked and we need to get her out of there!”
He cocked his head at an angle, confused. “Why would we free… fireblood?”