Unbound (30 page)

Skirmish?
Those thugs had used military-grade stunners, and he called it a skirmish? There was a distinct disconnect between their perspectives.

Her stomach chose that moment to agree with him—loudly. All that tension and running around had given her an appetite. Now that she thought about it, her body felt hollow, brittle, like overstressed metal, as though the slightest additional pressure would crack her. No wonder her thoughts were going in circles.

“Eat.” Romir nudged her toward one of the benches, suddenly demanding.

She sat obediently and proceeded to stuff food into her mouth. Her stomach gave another growl, pouncing on the smell of spiced vat meat as if she hadn’t eaten in days instead of just that afternoon. So much had happened since she’d decided to take Romir sightseeing.

Filling the black hole inside her left little room for talk. The leaves he’d so thoughtfully added were a lost cause, barely skimming her tongue; maybe next time.

A sip tube of electro juice appeared beside her plate, the seal already cracked and the straw propped up. It landed with a firm thump and the unspoken command that she drink up. Bemused by the change in Romir’s behavior, she drank between mouthfuls.

Romir sat across from her, resting his forearms on the table and watching her with the intensity of a buyer caught up in auction fever. He said nothing until the plates were empty and she was sucking down the last of the juice. “Better now?”

“Oh, yes. Much better. Thank you.” Asrial studied his face, remembering his shock and the blankness in his eyes on their return from Salima. She’d set out to distract him and succeeded worlds beyond her expectations. But would reminding him of the message bring back his pain? She’d hate to do that. Seeing him hurting made her heart ache; it threatened to make a coward of her.

“Speak.”

“That message you found mentions a technique for unraveling that seems specific to djinn—at least that’s the way it reads to me. But the translation I have is very rough. I think—” She bit her lip, second thoughts clamoring for attention. A deep, tight breath forced them back. “I think you need to read it for yourself.”

His nose flared, the skin across his cheeks went taut, and the corners of his mouth paled. He slumped forward, his weight on his forearms, as if the skids that supported him had been yanked off, then he straightened with visible effort. One might think he’d received bad news instead a hope of freedom. “Why?”

Asrial licked her dry lips, more than half tempted to change her mind. Self-disgust at her indecisiveness finally forced the words out. “There’s something about unraveling a weave, but the translation has some gaps.”

Romir sighed, the sound heavy with unnamed emotion. “Very well. Lead the way.” He accompanied her to the work cabin and the comp console, his thoughts hidden behind bright silver eyes.

As she suspected, he had no difficulty reading the text, reciting in a glib tongue that denied any distress: “In primordial waters, anoint the body with the antipode. Focus the power—no, it would be more accurate to say
life energy
. Focus the life energy through the proof of passion, proof of pleasure, proof of life to unravel—here it goes into how to balance the unraveling energies—the unnatural weave.”

She’d made sure to skip the shocking preface, going straight to the section that mentioned the technique of unraveling. Perhaps that had been the right thing to do—at least for her. This time her eyes remained dry, allowing her to concentrate on the message.

Primordial waters?
The melodramatic phrasing raised her brows. The
fount of life
was esoteric enough, but at least easier to interpret. These references to primordial waters and antipode were way off her star charts. “Does that mean anything to you?”

He shook his head slowly, apparently as baffled as she. “This does not make sense. I lost my body when I was made djinn. How then can there be a body to anoint?” He pointed to some colorful scrollwork that bordered the text—the shifting patterns of red, blue, green, white, and black that she’d thought to be merely decorative. “Yet these are the weaves for the life energy to be applied to the body and the discussion of unraveling seems too detailed for theory.”

Asrial waved her hand, brushing aside what couldn’t be answered for the moment. “Assume there is a body. How would that work?”

Propping his hands on his hips, he tilted his head back to stare at nothing, his black hair rippling around his thighs. “If the weave is anchored on the weaver’s body, then the weaver’s own life energy sustains it. That is why the body is necessary in this case.” His words lacked heat, as if the problem were hypothetical, not real. Nothing to do with him. “The resulting weave is very powerful. But it also requires a precise balance. If that tension is disturbed, the weave unravels.”

Romir stared at the image of the light text a while longer, still dispassionate, his chest so still it was obvious he wasn’t even pretending to breathe. “She must have finally discovered what would disturb that tension. Not just anything will. We spent years on attempts to free the djinn that had fallen into our hands.”

He’d obviously locked away his pain to focus on the problem before them. She had to do the same.

“The Tehld said your body—your
body
—was there. Not just not here, but specifically
there
.” Asrial pointed, mimicking the awkward stance of the Tehld from memory. “That was before I took your badge out of the storage locker. You said a weaver’s badge is made using the blood of the weaver. Could they have meant that?”

“My link to my badge is a fragile thing. Strung out, it is difficult to sense, even for me.” Romir glanced at her chest where his badge lay beneath her T-top. Despite the importance of the discussion, her body heated with awareness, her arms prickling with arousal.

Asrial forced herself to ignore her reaction. Now wasn’t the time for distraction. “But the only other thing you’re linked to is—” She whirled around to stare at the golden brown flask sitting on the work cabin’s table. Romir’s prison was the one link he was always aware of. From what he’d let drop, its pull was inescapable.

That
was his body? The flask’s phallic design, the wide base and long, narrow neck, looked even more significant the longer she stared at it.

“Yes, that is the only other thing to which I am linked.” He dug stiff fingers into his tat, weary resentment shadowing his eyes and furrowing his brows.

A ponderous silence hunkered down in the cabin, waiting for someone to take control, to plot their next course. That meant she had to say something; despite everything they’d seen, Romir didn’t seem to believe they could change his fate.

Thoughts tumbled through her head, bereft of order. The pilot in her struggled to make some sense of it all: Romir’s link to his prison, his “deathless” existence, the promise etched on his weaver’s badge, the light text . . .

“If I understand it correctly, this djinn condition of yours is some kind of suspended animation.” Asrial took the flask between her hands to study it more closely. It was warm to her tingling fingertips, hard like pottery yet with a smooth grain that was unlike any clayware or ceramic she had ever touched, not glassy smooth but more like . . . skin? She shivered inexplicably.

“If this is part of you—your body as the Tehld would have it—then it makes sense that you’re drawn back to it.” It might explain why touching the flask strengthened the contact with his “master.”

Romir inhaled sharply, air hissing between clenched teeth. “But my body was lost long ago.”

“You don’t know that. Didn’t you say all you remember is the pain? How can you be certain your body was lost? Maybe that’s why you can feel my touch when I touch it—because I am touching you.”

He digested her words in silence, his hands clenched by his thighs. Did he struggle against fear or against hope? After several heartbeats, his fists relaxed. “So a djinn is a weaver trapped in a spirit walk?”

Startled by the sudden tangent, she stared at him, flung into a magnetic storm of incomprehension. Give her a star chart, and she could plot a course to anywhere in the known galaxy. But spirit walks? That sort of thing was whimsy fit for children’s tales. When faced with djinn and vyziers and weaves of power, she had to operate on the assumption of truth, but understanding was beyond her. “You’re asking me? How would I know?”

Romir gave her a small smile, mostly a twitch of the corners of his mouth and warmth in his eyes. “You are doing quite well, thus far.”

Asrial leaned back in her chair, propped her heels on the edge of the comp, and folded her hands on her belly. “Well, this is as far as seat-of-the-pants goes. You’re the expert here.” Everything she knew about weaves, suspended animation, and spirit walks could be crammed on the tip of a laser cutter. From here on out, she might as well be flying blind. Knowing the perils of space as she did, the prospect held no appeal.

“Your reasoning has merit. The only object that remains with a djinn is his prison. If she was able to free the djinn in her keeping with this technique, then it may well be that the prison is the body. Those djinn had nothing else when they came into our hands.”

Elation blanked her thoughts for a moment.

One step forward.

She pressed a hand to her chest, urging her racing heart to stay in place. “So we have your body. What we need next are these proofs and the fount of life.”

“Passion, pleasure, life. An unnatural weave,” Romir murmured, rubbing his fist on his chin. Standing there lost in thought, he looked more like a scholar than a port tough or a pleasure bod, despite the fine array of muscle he flexed. “The contradiction of life in this sense, then, would not be death but undeath. So obvious in hindsight.”

Asrial waited, content to let him pilot his course at his leisure. Something inside her melted at seeing this unexpected side of her lover.

Finally he nodded, once and sharply. “It is just one proof: the evidence of orgasm.”

“Eh?”

“For a man, that could only be his seed. For a woman, that would be . . . the cream of her body?” A thoughtful hum accompanied the working of his jaw. “Yes, the cream of her body would satisfy the requirements of passion, pleasure, and life.”

Her cheeks heated, making her feel awkward all of a sudden. She hadn’t thought anything could embarrass her so easily, but apparently a clinical discussion of the by-products of orgasm did just that.

“Is there a problem?”

“None whatsoever. Never mind that.” Asrial scrubbed her cheeks, tempted to cover her face so Romir couldn’t see her. She snuck a glance at her lover from under her lashes. Standing there in pensive silence, he didn’t seem to have any problem with the topic. Not having a heartbeat probably helped.

“How about the fount of life?”
Primordial waters
was just too vague for direction, so she opted for the other reading. “Could that be the spring in Salima that’s the source of the river? It’s the only body of water on Lomida that’s associated with the original settlers.”

“You mean refugees,” he corrected her calmly, betraying not even a jot of his previous distress.

Relieved to see him flying a sure course despite the reminder of his loss, she let it pass. If he wanted to pretend they weren’t speaking of people he’d known, she’d respect his wishes.

“It is a possibility.” Romir stared at the image of the light text, reading through it again. “The message contains no equivocation, no hedging nor shaving of meaning as to the expected results. To be so certain of the efficacy of this technique, they must have tested it successfully—here on Lomida. If that spring is the only source of water in Salima, it is likely they used its water in unraveling the weave.”

“So that’s what we have to do, too.”

He turned to her, his face once again wearing an expression of scholarly dispassion. “But did you not say that we were to lift as soon as possible?”

“We can’t leave just yet. If the fount of life is the spring in Salima, this might be our only chance to free you.” They might not be allowed to return to Lomida, not after she’d defied the Dareh.

Excitement quivered in her belly like the
Castel
preparing to throw off gravity’s shackles for the stars. Suddenly, freeing Romir wasn’t the ultimately futile dream it had seemed at the start. They had the means to break his curse.

They waited for
the sun to set and the night to come to life. The lights of Yasra filled the shadows in a blinking, twinkling, flashing display of wealth and plenty. Lights outlined the tall spires of the city, drew stylized pictures across their faces, brandished ephemeral banners both garish and tastefully subdued.

Pretty in a way. Quite unlike the Rim Worlds, most of which didn’t waste energy advertising with lights. The lavish display reminded Asrial more of station commercial districts, except for the silence, the long sightlines, and the open sky.

The delay preyed on her nerves, every second raising the specter of Dareh retribution. Surely the Bintanan wouldn’t leave her defiance unpunished. If they had been willing to simply be the power behind the
reis
, they wouldn’t have forced her father to abdicate.

In the interest of stealth, they boarded the grav sled in the hold, instead of outside the ship, opening the hatch only long enough to exit and flying off as soon as she’d confirmed the hatch was sealed and her security system back online. Their run-in with the Dareh had served to emphasize the necessity of her precautions.

Yasra’s boulevards slid by in a haze of flashing lights and aircars. Even this late in the night, the city pulsed with life. Once they were through the gate and inside Salima, Asrial threw caution out the airlock and gave in to the throbbing impatience in her veins that demanded speed. She didn’t bother looking at the ruins, aiming the grav sled straight for the palace and the source of the river. Who knew what the Dareh would do if they learned she’d returned to Salima. This second visit would probably reinforce any suspicions they had about her intending to reclaim the scepter of the
reis
, viewing her as a threat to their rule. The best way to avoid another run-in was speed. The sooner they were done, the less time the Dareh would have to set a trap for them on the return trip to the
Castel
.