The past never dies. It informs the present. It inspires the future.387Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2kNI2bsViv
Djince stirred around mid-morning. He pushed himself off his bedroll and started rolling it up without wiping the sleep from his eyes. After he had it tucked into its saddle bag, he looked around, a look of confusion on his face.
“Good morning,” I said and caught his eye. I shook his messenger bag and held it out to him. “You looked uncomfortable sleeping with it on.” He took it from me roughly and flipped its top open. He sifted through the letters a bit before he squinted at me, his mouth turning into a thin line of suspicion. I poked at the fire, fitting a bite of biscuit into my mouth before I said through the crumbs, “I read them all.”387Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdMQqKmGbzD
Djince dropped the bag at his feet and crossed his arms.
“I was curious,” I said with a shrug. “I resealed them all.” When I looked up at him, I gave him a guiltless smile. “I noticed… some of the seals were a little… gooey… like they’d been resealed with cheaper wax.”387Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcKmzdo1x7g
Djince uncrossed his arms then and he raised an appraising eyebrow at me.
“God Scribe. You think I don’t know stationary? Please.”
Djince grinned at me, his eyes crinkling at their corners.
Glad to have his approval, I asked, “So, what do you make of it all?”
“Just the messenger,” he said lazily like he was reading from a prompter. He took his place across the fire from me and rifled through the food bag. Recovering the last biscuit, he frowned.
“We need more food,” I said.
He gave me an annoyed look. Really? Couldn’t tell. Like a machine, he popped the biscuit into his mouth and washed it down with a long drink from his wine skin. Then he popped back to his feet and started gathering our things. He pointedly looked at the latrine I’d dug at the edge of the camp and then looked back at the fire. He made eye contact with me and nodded his thanks.
I shrugged. “You looked dead on your feet.”
He gave me a pair of raised eyebrows, the expression tugging at the star-shaped scar on the side of his head. “Better than some,” he said, and gave me a quick half smile to tell me he meant nothing by it, before shouldering the messenger bag and grabbing up his helmet. He clipped it onto his saddle and pulled a pair of goggles from his trousers. These, he pulled over his head, but let them hang around his neck. His blue and gold hood went up over his cropped hair and he watched as I gathered up my own gear and the rest of the saddlebags, now swinging empty for the most part.
“East?” I asked.
“South first.”
“Food?” I asked.
Djince sighed as he mounted his gravbike. He turned to me before starting it up and said, “Yes… It’s… I…” He trailed off and looked up at the trees before he said, “It was easier… when Ethis did the talking.” He looked at the beetle helmet hanging from my saddle as he said softly, “I don’t know what to say all the time.”
I pursed my lips and asked carefully, “Is it because of…?” I tapped at the right side of my head.
His bare hand went up to finger the scar on his head and he shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve had it as long as I can remember.”
“What caused it?”
He blinked at me. “Gunshot.”
“Stone’s bones,” I breathed. “How old were you?”
Again, he shrugged, clearly uncomfortable. “This old.”
“This old?” I asked, frowning at him.
Djince shook his head, but then he seemed to decide something internally and he said, “My father found me in the garbage like this.” I made a small sound, not finding any words. He nodded, again like he was deciding something. “Ethis and I weren’t… made in blood, but he was still my little brother… Do you understand now?”
I nodded. “A little.”
He gave me a reassuring smile then, but it fell as quick as it came. “Anymore questions?” he asked after a moment of consideration.
“Too many.”387Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjZoD3hiR7P
He managed a chuckle. “Can it wait until we get to Werin?”
I nodded with a smile. “Maybe.”
Werin was a township on a small rise in the middle of the plains. It had wooden walls ten feet high. On the road, there was a large sign posted about fifty feet from the only gateway. The signage depicted an egg with two lopsided black dots on it. It was crossed out with red paint. “Is that supposed to be a mask?” I asked as we dismounted from our saddles. I followed Djince’s lead. We slung them over our shoulders. It was easier than I’d first thought, but then most of the bags were empty.387Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡln6juJZ2S3
Djince looked at the sign and shrugged. “Patriots.”
“No Mordis Eyes allowed. That’s reassuring.”
Djince looked grim. Something didn’t sit right with him, but he didn’t say anything else as we walked toward the gate. When we were about ten feet away, a dozen men with bows and spears appeared up on the platform above the entrance, their weapons aimed at us.
“Whatcha want?!” a male voice cried down to us.
Djince shook an empty saddle bag.
“Whatcha got fer it?!” the voice cried.
The courier took one of our remaining rifles and held it aloft.
“Mean to kill us’r’trade?” There was muted laughter.
“Trade!” I called.
There was a pregnant pause before another voice sounded, “You got you a girl with you?”
In one fluid motion, Djince cocked the rifle back with one hand and braced it against his shoulder.
“Easy now! Just a question!” another voice squealed in protest.
“Fuggin’ Verisians’re always so godsdamned jumpy!”
“Yes, I’m a woman,” I said up to them. “Is there some concern?”
“No concern, Madame,” the first voice said. “No concern at all!”
“You stayin’ long?!” another voice called.
I looked to Djince and he gave me a faint shake of his head. I shouted up to them, “We’re just here for supplies. We’ll be on our way after.”
“Oh, I dunno,” one voice said morosely. “Might take a while to get everything all wrapped up. Put a pretty bow on it, y’know? Gotta find us a pretty bow for such a pretty lady.”
“Come on,” Djince said, shouldering the rifle and turning around. Blinking in surprise, I resituated my saddle and turned to follow him. There were cries of surprise and anguish from behind us and looking over my shoulder, I saw the gates being dragged open.
“Djince, they’re opening.”
“Keep walking,” Djince said. “Stop looking back. They’re rutting.”
I struggled to keep up with his suddenly fast pace. “Rutting? Like… in mating season?” I’d never heard of the phenomena in humans.
“At the sign, just go.”
“What’re you doing?”
He dropped his saddle and I almost ran into him. “Covering you,” he said before he turned around, rested the rifle on my shoulder and sighted down the barrel. “Don’t move,” he told me and pulled the trigger. There was a cry behind me, closer than anticipated. My blood started roaring in my ears. Djince grabbed my shoulder and pulled me toward him, tucking me under him. I shifted my saddle and ran for the sign at the road.
I heard another gunshot, muffled for the ringing in my ears, and threw my saddle onto the ground before pressing my palm into it. “Djince!” I yelled as my gravbike rose up off the ground. “Let’s go!”
He looked back at me once before pulling the trigger and felling another man in ragged clothing. They were pouring out of the walled town like they were fleeing a burning building. Old and young, all of them shared looks of ravenous desperation. Some of them were in the middle of disrobing as Djince shot them. After another four shots, Djince threw the rifle onto the magnet on his back, swapping it for his sheathed sword.
“Come on!” I yelled at him. He visually debated between bearing his sword or grabbing up his saddle with his free hand. I cupped my hands around my mouth and shouted, “Don’t you even think about it! Get your ass over here!”
He grabbed up his saddle and swung it in an arc to knock the nearest man to the ground. Then he turned coat and ran towards me. He palmed his saddle before he was even on it and when he got to me, he gave me one nod and was off, flying over the plains with me close behind.
We rode northeast and then east for a few hours, stopping every now and then to stretch our backs. I was still reeling for our escape. I didn’t say anything until it was twilight, and we were scouting out a place to rest for the night. We had three skins of wine left and no food. My stomach made a growl of protest as I filled it with a liquid dinner.
Djince was cleaning the rifle he’d used when I said quietly, “Those men back there… Were they going to eat me or… you know?”
He looked up at me. We hadn’t bothered with a campfire, fearing trackers. He let out a breath. “What do you think?”
“Both.”
He nodded, refocusing on his work. In the dimness, his progress was slow, but I suspected he didn’t mind.
“You aren’t like that,” I said.
He shook his head in agreement.
“Ethis wasn’t like that.”
He looked up at me, his hands pausing.
I winced. “Was he?”
Djince opened his mouth, but closed it after a moment and went back to wiping out the cylinders. He pulled a spring and a pin and started rubbing at them with a blackened cloth. He fitted them back in place and restored the cylinder. He cleared it out a couple times before he got tired of me watching him. He said, “Ethis… was a hungry person. Millplace was his place. He had rights to everyone there. He could… pick his woman.”
“They were his slaves?”
“No. He had rights. It’s different. He was a privileged of the House of Veris by blood. He could tell them what to do and they had to.”
“Sounds like slavery to me.”
Djince sighed. He squirted some clear fluid from a tiny bottle onto his rag and started wiping down the outside of the rifle, taking care to scratch in all the grooves and crevices.
“Did he have rights to you? Is that why you had to listen to him?”
Djince paused again. He set the rifle in his lap and said, “Partly.”
“Then what’s the other reason?”
“I made Mother a promise that I would serve him.”
“But you were the eldest.”
“Not by blood. I’m a Kallos of House Veris in name alone.”
“So he gets the power and the title, and you get the short end of the stick.” I shook my head. It seemed unfair, but at least I understood their dynamic. I said airily, “Blood ties are important in this new world… Seems like a step in the wrong direction.”
Djince grunted. “It’s a step,” he said. He went back to cleaning.
“It will be better, one day,” I said.
“Mm,” Djince said, using a clean cloth to give the rifle its finish.
“It will be,” I insisted.
“Mhm,” he agreed absently.
“Djince.”
“Mm?”
“Are you even listening to me?”
“Mhm.”
“What did I just say?”
“You asked me if I was listening.”
“Before that!”
“You said my name.”
I fell back on my bedroll and put my palms to my eyes. “You’re gonna kill me,” I said with a laugh.
He huffed a laugh. “No… just Mordis.”
I let my hands flop down beside me. “And the mood, evidently.”
“Hm?”
“Nevermind… I’m gonna get some sleep. The wine’s getting to me.”
“Tell it to stop.”
“You first.”
“Stop getting Papyrus drunk, Wine!” Djince demanded indignantly.
I laughed aloud then. “I don’t think it worked.” I rose up on my elbows to regard him. “Are you drunk?”
He shook his head. “I don’t get drunk.”
“Yes, you are! That’s why you’ve been so talkative! Mystery solved!”
Djince put the rifle aside and rested his back against his saddle, crossing his arms and looking away. In the moonlight I could see the tops of his cheeks were red. He cleared his throat self-consciously.
“Bingo!” I declared.
“Bingo,” he agreed in a dry tone.
“It’s good,” I said.
“Mm?”
“For a while there, I didn’t think you were human.”
“What did you think I was?” I could see his green eyes even in the semi-darkness. They had a mirror-like quality about them, not dissimilar that of a hawk or a night vision camera, for that matter.
“I don’t know,” I said, considering. “Just not human.”
He snorted a laugh and looked away again.
“If I had all the answers, I would never ask questions.”
“I don’t think that would stop you,” Djince disagreed.
“And what do you think about me?” I asked, then shook my head. “Ugh! Don’t answer that. I didn’t think…”
“Why not?”
“It’s a drunk question.”
Djince waved a hand in a ta-da sort of gesture.
“Alright… What do you think about me?”
Djince took a breath before he said, “Capable fighter. Soft. Naive.” He shrugged. “You… believe in things beyond yourself. You wish things. You think things will be better.”
“But what do you think?”
Djince looked uncomfortable again. He squirmed a bit, crossing and uncrossing his arms before he looked at me and said, “I respect you.” His face was more red than his helmet’s optical. He looked away and said, “Ethis claimed you, but… if he’d tried to do anything… I think I would have stopped him.”
“Why? You served him.”
Djince gave me a surprised look. “It wouldn’t have been right.”
It was my turn to look surprised. “So there is a tiny little moral compass in you somewhere! That’s a relief.” I gave him a winning smile and laid back down on my bedroll. “You would kill on his orders, but you’d stop him when it came to women. That’s good.”
“That’s not what I said,” Djince said slowly and I craned my neck to look at him. The star on his scalp looked like gunmetal as he turned to look at me in kind. “I said I would stop him if it was you.”
“Oh,” I stated dumbly. “Oh… dear…” I felt around in the dark for my wineskin and took another drink from it.
“Papyrus.”
“Uh huh?”
“I--Can… Should... I shouldn’t have said that.”
“No! No, it’s good that you did. I’m glad you did.” When Djince didn’t say anything else, I sighed and said, “Well, you won’t have to protect me from his attentions anymore.” Then I winced. That could have been worded a little better, I thought to myself.
Djince grunted a laugh. “You’re right.” Then I heard him lay down.
I got up on my elbows a bit. He was laying with his back to me, his sword still strapped to its magnet. “Djince…” I began, but when he didn’t stir, I said, “Good night.”
I couldn’t be sure but about the time I was drifting off, I could have sworn I heard him say, “Night,” back to me. Regardless of the truth, the thought that he had replied made me happy and, as I entered sleep, the darkness behind my lids began to lighten and the world inside me seemed to expand.387Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIT8KRZtX2W
