Of Fire and Night - Kevin J. Anderson [63]
The food was tasteless in her mouth. She forced herself to chew and swallow while her brothers and sisters talked and laughed.
36
NIRA
Dobro's lonely southern continent seemed endless. Nira kept moving, though she had no idea where she was going. Long ago, as an acolyte, she had toughened her feet by running through the Theron forest and climbing up to the worldtree canopy, where she would sit for hours reading stories to the forest mind. For many years now she'd been cut off from that. She didn't even know how much time had passed.
Her spirit was deeply scarred by the hardships she had endured, but Nira refused to give up. She had escaped from her island, floated a raft across the inland sea, and started walking. Along the way she hoped to spot another settlement, even a ship. That could be her only chance to see her daughter again.
Osira'h was just a little girl, but Nira had poured years of awful revelations into her mind, desperate to tell the truth to the deluded girl. Nira couldn't imagine what that brutal information had done to an innocent child. She suspected that Osira'h had never been a child again after that night. Had Nira done the right thing after all?
Because her journey had seemed impossible from the start, Nira kept no tally of the days. She simply followed the landscape, drinking water from occasional streams, letting her green skin absorb sunlight as nourishment, supplementing her diet with a few bitter fruits, roots, and dry seeds.
She hiked through grassy hills, and the whispering brown blades sawed against her skin. With the uneven landscape blocking her view of the distance, she headed up one of the chaparral ridges from which she could gaze at what lay ahead of her. She wanted to stare toward the horizon, thinking that maybe--maybe--she could glimpse a sign of hope.
Nira forged uphill through the thick grasses, and when she reached the top of the ridge, she looked up at a sound in the sky. The humming grew to a roar, and she spotted several sleek craft cutting lines in the atmosphere. From the other side of the ridge, unexpectedly close, another scout ship swept toward her, barreling low enough to flatten the grasses with its backwash.
Terrified, Nira skidded and slid back down the steep slope. Weeds caught at her bare toes, and she tripped. She thrashed to her feet again and plowed headlong through the underbrush. Scout ships! The Dobro Designate had found her! But what could he possibly do to her that was worse than before? He had kept her as a bargaining chip, but she'd escaped. Nira vowed she would never go back to the breeding camps.
Scouts circled overhead, their engines a booming whine. She kept running, sliding, trying to hide in the tall grasses, but the ships could easily spot her from above. One scout had already landed on the top of the ridge, and several Ildirans emerged, shouting to her.
Nira tumbled down to a valley between the rolling hills. Two scout ships landed on either side of her. Her tormentors were coming from every direction.
"Leave me alone!" Her voice was hoarse and rusty, barely a whisper. She couldn't remember the last time she had used it.
Ildirans hurried toward her. One young man who looked faintly like Jora'h stepped forward, frowning curiously at her. "Green priest, why are you trying to hide?"
In a flash Nira relived the repeated rapes, the times she had been locked in the breeding barracks. Those memories ricocheted like multiple gunshots in her head. Some of her abusers had been monsters in external appearance, others--like Udru'h himself--merely monsters inside. If she'd had the power, Nira would have willed herself to die, dropping lifeless in front of these Ildirans in a final gesture of defiance. But she had no way to accomplish that.
The Ildirans easily seized her. She could not break free, could not even struggle against their hold. Nira let her legs go limp, but the guards held her up and dragged her toward the ships.
37
KOLKER
Without ever being told the reason for their brief confinement-to-quarters,