“Yes,” he whispers. “I owe you my life.” His fingers squeeze mine. “It’s all right,” he adds, louder. Stronger. “I’ve constructed the sound barrier myself now, using your voices, and I’m holding it inside my head.”

“So here’s the plan,” the Gunnar says. “We drive inside the first set of fences. When I park, I fire up the shock fields. Mair activates the compound defense grid. Some of them are going to avoid the shock fields, that’s a given. We’re just going to have to run like hell toward the nearest outbuilding and pray.”

“No.” Mair shakes her head. “You know they won’t return to the caves until they’ve fed.”

“Then what do you suggest?” March sounds as if he’s at the end of his patience.

Mair closes her eyes for a moment, and when she opens them, it’s like she’s another woman entirely. “A sacrifice.”

And no matter who asks her, that’s all she’ll say.

One of the back panels finally rips away and I have the sense of things swarming, although I can’t see them, and my flesh crawls. I hear the sound of something swiping, reaching, and No-Chin’s corpse seems to fly back as if animated, and then I can hear the grotesque sound of bones snapping, the wet sound of the Teras devouring their prize. The wind howls through the open Landcruiser, so cold, so dark now, and an endless night full of slavering fiends.

I don’t realize I’m trembling until Loras cups his other hand over mine. “Don’t worry,” he whispers. “I am your shinai now. I will not let anything happen to you.”

My what?

Before I can ask, the side panel gives, and the Gunnar who told me I’m bad luck, well, he goes screaming, arms flailing, face contorted. I’ll never forget the way he looked as the Teras pulled him out. Perhaps I am dark luck after all.

“Coming into the compound,” the Gunnar says, toneless. Hell of a way to watch your brother die. “Cruiser’s too damaged for shock fields to fire. Whatever you have in mind, clan Dahlgren, do it now, or none of us are going to make it out of this alive.”

“Clan Dahlgren sacrifices to ensure its own perpetuity.” I’m not altogether sure what she means until she bounds out of the Landcruiser, no longer old in her deportment, and somehow, she’s sprinting with preternatural speed. I can smell the copper where she’s cut herself, and it’s an irresistible lure. Clan leader, warrior, whatever else she is, Mair isn’t merely an old woman. I’ve never known anyone who could move like that. I want to ask, but now isn’t the time.

I sense the Teras wheeling away from the vehicle and giving chase to living, bleeding prey. Keri screams, “Grandmother!” and March has to carry her away, as the rest of us make use of the time she’s bought us so dearly. It’s the bravest and most terrible thing I’ve ever seen.

We run, heads down, conscious that the Teras could return at any time. Loras still has me by the hand, and he yanks the door wide, pushing me inside before entering himself. I don’t understand his new care for my safety, then I’m awed, humbled, to hear the live hum of the compound defense grid activating. She’s out there with them, being torn to pieces, and dying, she saved us all.

Tears stand in my eyes, and Keri’s still screaming, fighting March with fists and feet, but he just holds her, gentle but implacable, refusing to let her go back out. She’s lost everyone today—her father, her grandmother. And a lot of it is my fault. I’ll be lucky if she doesn’t try to kill me at some point. I no longer find Keri’s histrionics ridiculous. Whatever her eccentricities, Mair was a woman worth mourning.

Dropping to my knees, I take stock with a glance. Of his clan, only the Gunnar chief made the run. They were all big men. Slow. Our crew seems to be present, although the doc’s blood-spattered and collapses against the wall as if he may never move again. We’re in a storage building. I see crates stacked up against the wall, tools. Dina looks angry, which is pretty much on par. Even though I don’t know shit about Lachion, I know it’s not safe to go back out there. There’s no guarantee all the Teras were outside the perimeter when the defense grid came up. We need to hole up and let them fry, trying to return to the caves.

I hope there’s some food in here. Fragging starving. It seems like forever since I stuffed that square of choclaste into my face, and before that, I hadn’t eaten all day.

Maybe that’s an irreverent thought, I don’t know. But it’s how I function. The part of me that feels unworthy, wounded, totally shaken by everything that’s happened, I shuffle her to the back because she’s not helping me deal. And the Sirantha who steps up, well, she’s a pragmatist.

And she’s hungry.

CHAPTER 11

Also, I need to pee.

But I can’t see anything like san facilities in this corrugated steel box. Dina has already started to rummage through the crates, looking for anything useful. The main house, with all associated amenities, is probably deeper inside the compound, but I don’t think any of us want to go back out there until the drones have a chance to scout around and see what might be lurking in the dark.

Loras has settled down beside me, almost as if he’s awaiting my orders, and March still holds Keri, who appears to have collapsed entirely. Rest is probably the best thing for her right now, but her breath still hitches as children’s do when they’ve cried themselves to sleep. Leaning against the wall, I watch Dina rooting around, tossing out items that may be useful. So far, she’s found blankets, torch-tubes, and what looks like emergency rations.

I snag one, tear the foil open, and yep, it’s the olive green paste that tastes like nothing you’d ever voluntarily eat, and yet simultaneously contains a whole day’s worth of necessary nutrients. Why the hell can’t they manufacture these in choclaste? Making a face, I hand one to Loras, who accepts it and downs his without shuddering. March is watching me, so I pass a pack to him as well. Even if I don’t like him, I’m not going to starve him while he can’t get his own. He’s still got Keri as deadweight.

Dina grabs a couple more and hands them out to the Gunnar and Doc, who opens his eyes reluctantly. Everyone eats in silence. It’s hard to know what the hell to say after a day like we’ve had. The Gunnar just sits like a small mountain, probably thinking about his brothers.

But then I remember I had a couple questions that just won’t keep and glance at March again. Seems like he’d know. “How did Mair—”

He pitches his voice low. “She was a first-rank chi-master, one of the last.”

I blink at that. “No shit?”

March gives me a withering look. But I didn’t even know they existed. All I’ve ever heard is stories—Old Terra monks, who could adjust their breathing, stop their hearts. The greatest of them could completely control their chi, resulting in superhuman feats. Like the burst of speed Mair summoned when we needed it most.

“Did she have a student?” I ask. And his gaze goes to the girl sleeping in his arms. Well, of course. Everything comes back to Keri.

I sigh. What can I possibly offer to counterbalance her loss? Why did she think I’m worth it? Hell, I don’t even think so, and I’m generally the biggest proponent for the survival of Sirantha Jax.

Nothing I can do about it, though, and so I turn to Loras. He’s been watching me almost in the same manner that he scanned the sky for things the rest of us couldn’t see. It’s a little unnerving, to tell the truth.

“So tell me about this shinai thing.”

And March laughs quietly. “That’s right. He’s yours now. You don’t know how long I’ve waited for this day.”

Call me cynical, but anything that makes March so happy cannot be good for me.

“I am now your shinai,” Loras tells me, but there’s sharpness to his tone. “This means I will put your welfare ahead of my own and follow all your directives, except ones wherein you ask me to do harm. That, I cannot do, even for you.”

What the frag…?

“Sounds an awful lot like slavery,” I say.

Loras studies me for a moment as if he isn’t sure if I’m messing with him or not. “That is what shinai means in La’hengrin,” he answers at last. And yeah, there’s a definite edge in his voice.

“How can she be so traveled and yet so ignorant?” Dina asks of nobody in particular, but I’m too busy glaring at March to respond to the insult.

“You have to be out of your mind if you think I’m going to put up with keeping someone enslaved.” Mary, I want to break his neck. I can’t believe I’ve jumped, even once, with someone so monstrous. I need to scrub my mind clean with a wire brush, everywhere he touched it. Bastard. “No,” I tell Loras, shaking my head. “If there’s a ceremony or something, let’s do it because—”

His blue eyes burn as he claps his palm over my mouth. “Don’t,” he begs, although his gaze says something else entirely. “You cannot deny me, or I will die. The La’heng cannot exist outside the protection of another species. It is part of the legacy your people left us.”

Godammit, before I can help myself, I glance to March for confirmation. I fragging hate that I keep doing that. But he’s nodding. “Did you really think I run a slave ship, Jax?” Even though he doesn’t say another word, I sense his disappointment. And maybe I have let him down. Because even though there’s no liking between us, maybe there was a nascent respect.

“You’re serious.” Dumb-ass thing to say—of course he’s serious, and suddenly I do feel ignorant. I have no idea who the La’heng are or why they need to be…shinai. Even mentally I shy away from the real word—slave.

“Yes,” he answers quietly. “When humanity first visited La’heng, we did not greet them warmly. We killed all of their delegations, rebuffed all attempts to establish contact. They correctly adjudged us a hostile alien race and took steps to civilize us.”

I don’t know how long ago this was, don’t know anything about this—I have lived in an oddly insular world, made up of Kai and my CO, who directed me where to jump and to whom I reported when I felt like taking a holiday. “What happened?”

Hate that I’m making him talk about it when it clearly bothers him. Deep down, I know I’m going to hear a tale of conquest and subjugation, and that it’s another thing I can feel guilty for, although it’s racial, not personal.

“They seeded our atmosphere with a chemical that dampened our ability to fight.”

“RC-12,” the doc puts in. “It’s generally only used to sedate violent criminals. It had never been used on a global scale before.”

“They took La’heng bloodlessly,” Loras goes on, monotone. “And fed us more drugs to keep us compliant. They didn’t take into account our physiology. We adapt quickly, integrate changes. The RC-12 produced a new generation of La’heng young incapable of fighting, even to defend their own lives. We’re helpless.”