Chapter 15: CHAPTER FIVE—LORELEI VAUSS

Teldara Kinesse.

Ciara Zehr.

Teldara Kinesse.

Ciara Zehr.

Their names were an obsession, running through my head like the lyrics of a song you don’t like but can’t push out of your mind. They were the pulse of my heartbeat, and a pain behind my eyes. I’d let them down. I’d let them down.

My Europax ladies in waiting collected some clothing for the girls to wear, and pressed cups of hot Larandi tea into their hands. We sat together, Calder, the girls, and me, in a well-appointed sitting room, lavish enough to be fit for royalty, but small enough so as to make them feel safe. The floor was covered in colorful handwoven rugs, and there were chaise lounges and plush divans to sit on. We were clustered together, as though they did not want to be too far away from one another. I could only guess at what they’d been through.

“I have sent a distress signal to the Atria,” I said, after the girls had had a moment to drink their tea. “They should be coming for us.”

“When?” Sara asked, her eyes wide with concern.

“Soon, I hope,” came my uneasy reply. “I haven’t had a response from them, but I know they will come. They were probably already looking for Tierney.” Tierney, who still had not said word one to me, stared into her mug of tea. “We are going to get you home, Calder and me.”

“Thank you,” Sara said, and Lore offered a warm smile and a squeeze of her hand, before turning her attention to the other girls.

“What are your names?” I asked of the short-haired Europax and the tiny Pyrtan.

“Winnie Xershan,” said the Europax.

“Padva Shiris,” said the Pyrtan.

“And where can we take you?” I asked. “Where do you want to go?” Padva and Winnie exchanged glances but said nothing. Like Tierney, they simply stared down into their tea.

“What is going on with you guys?” I asked, glancing around the lot of them.

“Maybe they just need some time to rest,” Calder gently suggested. He could not speak the language we were speaking amongst ourselves, but he could tell enough by our tone and body language that things weren’t going smoothly, so to speak.

“I want to get them home, so that they can put all this behind them,” I said in Qeteshi to Calder before returning my attention to the girls. “Please, tell me who I can contact on your behalf. Tell me where you were abducted. Tell me what happened to you, so that I can help you.”

“We don’t want your help!” Tierney shouted, finally breaking her silence. “We don’t want your help and we don’t need it.”

“Speak for yourself, Mafaren,” Sara Yve interjected, rising to her feet and abandoning her tea on a small side table.

“I am,” Tierney went on, “I am speaking for myself. And for Winnie and Padva.” Tierney turned a pair of limpid blue eyes on me, and the intensity of her gaze made me sit back in my chair. “Listen to me, Lorelei Vauss,” she said, her voice low and full of purpose. “You took us away from…You have no idea what we were all forced to leave behind when you asked for us.”

“What?” I asked, stunned. “Took you away—I thought I was rescuing you.”

“You did rescue us,” Sara said. “You rescued me.”

“We agreed,” I went on, reaching out to take Tierney’s hand, but Tierney jerked back where she sat. “We agreed, if any of us were to get away, that we would rescue the others. What do you think I’ve been doing since we were separated?”

“It seems like you married an alien King,” Tierney shot back. “It seems like you set things up pretty well for yourself. Well, guess what? What happened to me wasn’t a tragedy, just like it wasn’t for a lot of the girls.”

“I don’t understand—”

“The Quarter Moon is doing exactly what the Echelon is doing,” Tierney asserted, looking to the other girls for support. “They are doing exactly what the Echelon is doing. Trying to save species from extinction.”

“It isn’t the same!” I was slack-jawed with my shock. “They are abducting women out of their homes, off of transport vessels, and selling them to the highest bidder!”

“Everything is a transaction,” Tierney said, “and you’re foolish if you think otherwise. Look at you and your King. Why did you marry him? Why did he marry you?” She looked between Calder and myself, and I couldn’t turn to look at my husband; I knew his face was stony and cold. “A transaction. You traded something. I don’t know what it was, exactly, but if I had to guess? You traded your freedom for protection from the slavers. Did I get it right?”

My silence was all Tierney needed to confirm her assumptions. She smirked. “Ironic, isn’t it? To trade your freedom for that?”

I scowled. “I traded my freedom to help you, you thankless ass.”

“Help me?” She echoed. “You took me away from the only man I’ve ever loved—that doesn’t help me. And I have no idea how to get back to him!” Tierney broke down then into wracking sobs, and I was left gobsmacked in the aftermath. Sara went to her side and tried to comfort her, but Tierney shot to her feet and retreated to a far corner of the room. She did not dare leave—no, she was too well-trained for that.

And that’s when I understood. “Stockholm syndrome,” I said. “Or…or or brainwashing. Something happened to you, to all of you.”

Sara nodded; she was the only one with any clarity. “I think, after we were in the hands of the slavers themselves, the buyers seemed a bit like saviors in their own right. Our buyers were with us aboard the slave ship—they were using it as a transport vessel as well as an auction block, so we stayed with them aboard the ship. The men who bought Teldara and Ciara docked with their own shuttles and left with their purchases.”

“Do you have any information about who took them?” I asked, desperate to find them before they were lost for good.

But Sara shook her head. “I’m sorry. I don’t know a thing.”

I proffered a thin-lipped smile and squeezed her arm. “Why is it that you aren’t…you know…”

“Acting like them?” She said, finishing my thought for me. “Because my buyer didn’t spend any time with me. I never met him. Once I’d been purchased, I was left entirely alone. A blessing, I think, but it also didn’t give me the opportunity to forget any type of bond.” She looked at the other three girls. “I don’t know what their experiences were like, but they must have been profound for them to be as devastated as they are.”

I nodded my head, and turned to Calder, speaking to him in his mother tongue. “Let us let them rest.”

“Of course,” he said. “Tell them that I will have private rooms made ready for them, along with a hot bath.”

I translated for the girls, and they looked up and protested in unison, “No! No, please don’t separate us.”

I relayed this to Calder, and he nodded gravely. “One room, then. As you wish.”

They thanked us, and Calder and I slipped quietly from the room. Once in the hall, I collapsed back against the cold metal walls of the Spire and heaved a heavy sigh. “I did not expect that,” I murmured to Calder. “They miss their masters.”

“They will adjust,” he said, squeezing my arm, “surely, they will adjust.”

I nodded, trying to clear my head. “I have to get to the Atria, I have to find Ciara and Tel, before it’s too late. Before they’re taken to some…some remote corner of some distant galaxy. I have to find them.”

Calder bent forward and pressed a kiss to my forehead. “And I will help you,” he said. “Come,” he took my hand, “there is much to do.”