Shadows Book 1 in the World of Shadows (26 page)

I winced when Pyth put pressure on my arm
and sat up a bit straighter. “You want to do what’s best for your
families?” I challenged them. At their answering nods, I gave a
small smile. “Then make the use of the trust the Luminos and Nathos
have placed in you. Become valuable, become irreplaceable, and they
will consider you the equals you already know you are.”

I gestured toward where Yaden had fallen
overboard. “Don’t throw all of our hard work away following some
overwrought, under-thinking sot. Instead, take charge of your life
and give your families the future they deserve.”

The group fell silent for a few moments and
I closed my eyes again to calm the nausea rolling in my stomach at
the loss of blood, then the older man spoke up again. “What do you
want us to do, Commander?”

I thought of a million different ways I
could respond to that question and chose the simplest one. “Go to
your shifts and earn your forgiveness by fighting with all your
heart against the Sathen when we reach Lysus.”

“
Yes, Commander,” came
replies from all of the men. Several of the voices were sullen, a
few reluctant, but most held the gratitude and relief of a released
breath and a life that was pushed back from the brink. Footsteps
sounded around me until only Pyth and two other Duskies
remained.

Red light brushed my eyelids and I opened my
eyes to see dawn on the horizon. Steps sounded up the ladder and I
watched Axon climb up.

“
Nexa, what are you-“ Axon
froze at the blood on the deck and my clothes. He met my eyes,
“What happened?”

“
Attempted mutiny,” I
replied quietly. Tears stung my eyes and the pain of my wounds
didn’t hurt nearly as bad as the pain in my heart, pain I had kept
at bay until faced with the one man who could see my soul at a
single glance.

Axon knelt without further questions and
picked me up in his arms. He spoke quietly to Pyth, then carried me
to the edge of the deck where dawn bathed the wood in gold. Axon
eased me down and ran his hands softly over my body. Several of his
men joined him. My wounds closed with a healing ache until all that
was left was the pain of their memory.

I studied my hands and avoided looking at
anyone. I had killed a Duskie with my hands. He hadn’t been a
merciless Sathen or soldiers trying to destroy someone’s home. He
was a Duskie who wanted what he thought was best for his family,
and I had killed him.

“
Nexa?” Axon’s voice was
soft in my ear but I couldn’t respond. I saw only Yaden’s lifeless
eyes that had moments before been filled with passion and
self-righteous fervor. I saw the same eyes wide as he clutched at
his throat, at the wound I had made that tore him from the
world.

Axon breathed in a quick breath and picked
me up again. He carried me gently down the ladder into the
captain’s cabin and laid me on the bed.

“
Pyth told me what
happened,” he said softly. “You did what you had to do.”

“
I know,” I forced out.
“But to kill him?”

He sat on the side of the bed and tenderly
brushed a strand of hair behind my ear. “You did what you had to.
You don’t have anything to regret.”

“
But I do regret it,” I
said. I met his eyes and mine brimmed with tears. “What about his
family?”

Axon’s gaze softened in understanding.
“They’ll be well cared for, trust me. They won’t want for
anything.”

I stared at blood on my fingers and wondered
how it had gotten there and whether it was mine or Yaden’s. Axon
grabbed a clean cloth and the small bowl of water from the shelf by
his bed and started cleaning my hands. I watched as the water in
the bowl slowly turned dark and my fingers lightened. When he was
through, Axon traced the swirl up my arms, comparing the light
patterns on gray skin on my right hand to the dark patterns on
light skin on my left. “These are beautiful, you know.”

I frowned at them. “I’ve never seen a Duskie
with patterns like mine, or skin that was half and half.”

“
I haven’t either,” he
admitted. He traced the dividing line down my face and the swirls
on my cheeks. “But the effect is very beautiful. I wouldn’t blame
the others if they were jealous.”

I looked at him to see if he was joking, but
his light blue eyes met mine with stark honesty and compassion. “I
should have had you stay back at the palace. You’ve been through so
much already.”

I shook my head and sat up. “I don’t know
why I’m taking this so hard. It’s just that it’s different this
time. He was just doing what he thought was best.”

“
We all are,” Axon agreed.
“But someone has to draw the line when it endangers others, and
unfortunately you had to be the one to do it.” He motioned to my
clothes. “Do you want to wash up so you’re more
comfortable?”

I looked down at the bloodstains and nodded.
He helped me rise from the bed, then left the room to give me some
privacy. A few heartbeats later, a knock sounded at the door and
someone set a change of clothes on a chair by the door without
looking in the room.

I pulled off my torn tan shirt and stared at
the dried blood on my shoulder where the sword had stabbed me. The
wound had healed with only a slightly raised scar. Another scar
showed across my arm, a thin white line where the bone had shown
through. I sighed and scrubbed at the blood until my body felt
somewhat clean again. I rinsed the rag and hung it on the side of
the bowl of brown water, then pulled the clean clothes on and sat
back on the bed.

I thought of Axon’s hands, so gentle as they
washed the blood from my fingers, and how easy it was to rest my
head against his chest and listen to his heartbeat as if it pounded
for me. I wondered at the love that burned in my chest like a fire
that threatened to consume me. I had never loved anything before,
at least anything beyond a little bat I had rescued once from the
kitchen and fed rice milk and bits of meat until the guards found
it and killed it, then whipped me for wasting food. I didn’t eat
for the next few days, afraid they would feed it to me as
punishment.

I felt Axon’s kiss on my lips again and
again, and wondered that he could love me. His icy blue eyes and
kind smile had melted away all of my walls before I knew what was
happening; and there was more to it than that. It was the way he
looked at me like I was the only person in the world, and when our
eyes met, a jolt of lightning ran down my body as though it
recognized something in Axon it was drawn to. His touch was so soft
when every touch I had felt was in anger, being whipped and slapped
and shoved around like something lower than animal, lower than a
Duskie. I feared the kindness of his touch almost as much as I
longed for it.

A soft knock sounded at the door and when I
called an answer, it opened and Pyth stepped in. He looked a little
worse for the wear, his dark hair disheveled and green eyes dark
and sad. He sighed at seeing me. “I just had to make sure you were
alright.”

I nodded. “Thanks to you. I wouldn’t have
known what was going on if you hadn’t been there.”

“
I should have been the one
to fight him,” he said.

I glanced up at his tone and shook my head.
“I’m the Commander. It’s my job.”

“
You’re also a girl,” Pyth
pointed out.

I fought back a sad smile. “I guess no one
told Yaden that.”

He sat down on the chair by the door he left
open. A sea breeze swept through the room and left the air salty
and crisp.

“
Do you have a girl back
home, Lieutenant?”

He looked up at me and after a minute,
nodded. “I do.”

“
What’s she
like?”

He leaned the chair against the wall and let
his head rest back with his eyes closed. He sighed as though
letting go of the feeling that he had almost been separated from
her for good. “She’s beautiful. Everywhere she goes, the men watch
her like they’re waiting for a miracle to happen. She does this
thing with her hands.” He made little swirls in the air with his
fingers. His smile showed at the corners of his eyes. “It makes the
children laugh and they follow her around begging for sweets.” His
laugh ended in another sigh. “I think she’d take every one of them
home if she could.”

“
You’re married?” I
hazarded a guess.

He nodded. “We have two sons and another
baby on the way.”

I stared at him in surprise. “Aren’t you
young to have so many children? You can’t be much older than
me.”

“
And how old is that?” he
asked with a lifted eyebrow.

“
How old I am or how old I
feel?” I replied with a heavy heart.

He looked me over carefully, his eyes
serious. “You act older than you've got to be.”

I took a small breath. “Let’s just say I’ve
been through a lot. But not as much as you, apparently.”

He grinned. “We married young, and she
wanted to make up for the cruelties of her own parents by having as
many babies as she could and raising them the right way.”

At my searching gaze, he continued softly,
“She was from Firen Caves.”

The words hit me like a mace. I thought
through all of the babies that died of neglect, all the toddlers
that didn’t survive to adulthood. I felt the lashes that had made
the scars along my back and remembered the times I didn’t think I
would make it through. “When, how?” I forced past the surprise.

“
A caravan rescued her from
the Caves when she was young. She was raised in Lumini, but never
forgot what it was like to live there.” He met my eyes. “She is
amazed by you, you know.”

I couldn’t meet the admiration on his face
and dropped my gaze. “I’m just another person fighting for change.”
I gestured vaguely to the hallway. “But I wonder if I’ve gone about
it the right way.”

He tossed something to me. I caught it by
habit. “You are doing it right. I believe in you, and so do the
others. This is just a minor setback caused by a confused person.
We’ll get past this.”

I looked down at the white and gray stone
necklace in my hand. It was the one the woman had given me in the
market square. I remembered the expression of hope on her face, the
gratitude and appreciation from the other Duskies around me. I
sighed. “I suppose you’re right.” I looked at him with a small
smile. “There’s no going back now, is there?”
“Nope,” he said, shaking his head. He grinned at me and stood up.
“I’ll let you rest. We didn’t get much sleep this morning.”

“
No, we didn’t,” I agreed.
I could already feel the ache in my muscles from the long fight and
knew I would be sore when I awoke. He turned to leave.
“Lieutenant?”

He paused and looked back at me
expectantly.

“
I’ll make sure you get
back home to your wife and little ones.”

He nodded and a look of gratitude passed
through his eyes. “Thank you, Commander.”

Chapter 29

I awoke to find Axon lying on a blanket on
the floor next to the bed. My heart turned over at the thought that
he watched over me, even while I slept. His chest rose and fell in
a steady rhythm, and his brow was smooth and unlined with the
worries of a ruler in his sleep. I watched him breathe and dream.
His eyelids twitched and he let out a rushed breath and moved his
feet. I touched his hand and his movement stilled. I caressed the
calluses on his palm from years of practicing with a sword and
wondered how many times he had defended himself and his loved ones.
I traced my own palm and found similar calluses forming there. I
couldn’t decide if that was good or bad.

My stomach growled and I rose and quietly
left the room. I went to the galley and picked up a bowl of potato
soup and chicken and rice left over from the last feeding frenzy. I
didn’t envy the kitchen staff that had to make food for three races
on three different schedules, but the two Nathos men in black
aprons merely nodded at me and continued cleaning.

I sat at one of the many empty tables and
filled my belly while trying not to think of what waited ahead. We
would be in Lysus soon, and there was no telling what we would find
when we got there.

Footsteps walked to the table where I sat
brooding and I looked up to see three Nathos soldiers looking down
at me. I was so used to being around Luminos that their dark eyes,
pale skin, and dark hair stood out sharp in the lantern light.

“
Can I help you?” I asked,
uncertain why they would seek me out.

One of the soldiers gestured to the empty
chairs around the table. “May we?”

I nodded and the one that had spoken sat,
followed by the other two. They watched me expectantly for a moment
and I studied the table in front of them, curious as to why they
sought me out, but waiting until they were ready. The man who had
spoken before finally cleared his throat. “I apologize for our
silence. This truce has been difficult in many ways, and letting go
of past prejudices isn’t easy.”

I nodded and waited for him to continue, a
pit of uncertainty forming in my stomach. He glanced at his
companions, then swallowed. “We want to thank you, Commander
Nexa.”

I looked up sharply and he gave a small
smile. “We heard about what you did at dawn to save the ship from
mutiny. Who knows how many of the other boats would have followed
if you hadn’t stopped this one.” He looked at his companions again,
obviously embarrassed by the rush of words.

The one to his left held up a hand and the
first Nathos shut his mouth gratefully. “What my friend is trying
to say is that your act of bravery in saving both the Nathos and
Luminos aboard this ship has done much to ease the tension between
our races and that of the Duskies.”