He shoots a glance at the other men. “If she was an escaped slave, there’d be a bounty on her head. Easy coin. If not, then we could sell her again. That’s all. We were just looking to have a little taste and make a few coins.”
So they would rape a stranger and sell her to the first buyer all because they thought she might be a slave.
“She’s got cuff marks on her wrists,” protests one of the others. “And she’s wearing a slave shift. We did nothing wrong.”
“I should cut your throats and feed you three to my turtle,” I hiss at them. They quail, shrinking back from me and eyeing my trident. I tap my leg. “Vali, come here.”
That makes her look up. She gives me an indignant stare, clutching the remains of her dress to her breasts, but slowly gets to her feet and moves to my side.
“Should I kill them, wife?” I ask, folding two of my arms over my chest and brandishing my trident with a third hand. “Say the word.”
“Yes,” she says immediately.
I’m surprised. I thought she’d beg for their lives, say it was all a mistake. But her tone is hard and just as angry as mine, and it’s clear there’s a dark streak in her.
“Wait! Wait!” the bearded human says. “We can come to an agreement!”
“We have gold,” says another, taking a step back and glancing at the shack in the distance. He clearly wants to run for it. If he does, he’ll find my trident lodged in his spine.
“Show me your gold and I’ll tell you if it’s enough to buy your lives.” I turn to Vali, gesturing at Akara in the distance. “Return to the tent.”
She shoots me an equally venomous look—and I am surprised by her all over again—but does as she is told and retreats to the safety of the turtle.
The humans do have a fair amount of gold for poor fishermen, and it’s clear Vali is not the first they’ve attacked. I clean them out of their riches and find out which one hit Vali and deliver a hit of my own…and a warning. If they touch what’s mine again, I’ll kill them and rob them. The smell of urine follows me as I abandon them on the beach, as the eldest has pissed himself with fear.
I return to Akara’s side, moving to her head and running a hand over her sharp beak. She blinks large, dark eyes up at me, reaching out with her thoughts. She smells humans on the shore and doesn’t like it. I prod at her, wondering if Vali’s scent bothers her, but she only sends a mental picture of me back—she associates Vali with me now, her scent with mine. Hunh.
The humans are troubling, though. If they attacked Vali, then I cannot simply leave her near a settlement. If I do, she will be enslaved again before the day is out. I’ve seen the cuff markings on her wrists as well, though I didn’t know slaves had a particular sort of garment. All seakind wear as little as possible, our women as bare as our men. I know nothing of human dresses. It’s not my fault they mistook her for a slave.
Even so, I’m glad I arrived in time. I don’t like that they hit her. I don’t like that they tore her clothes and attacked her. Just thinking about it makes me furious, and I’m tempted to go back up to the hut and cut their throats anyhow, just to sate my anger.
I stroke Akara’s bony head and think of the large fish I saw earlier. Is this Lord Vor telling me that this female should be my bride after all? Did he send her to me? It is something I will have to think about. For now, I need to return to Vali and reassure her, as she will no doubt be full of tears and gratitude that I have saved her yet again. I’ll give her the gold from the men, I decide. And if she offers to touch me again, I’ll still turn her away, but I like the thought of her offering.
If she is to be my bride after all…the idea irks me less this day. I think of how warm she was, how soft in my arms last night. I don’t need a bride, but perhaps I am too much alone after all.
I duck into the tent, looking for the woman. She is seated in the back, the bags neatly arranged to allow more floor space. Her dress is off and she’s busy knotting it, trying to piece it together again. The blood still trails from her nose, and when I enter, she looks up and sends me a look of pure anger.
“What am I to you?” she demands.
I am taken aback by her tone. She has been pleasant and eager to please all this time and now she is like this? “Excuse me?”
She grabs another torn end of the fabric in her hands, not caring that she sits naked in front of me. Her hands knot material in jerking, angry movements. “I want to know what I am to you. You asked for a bride. I volunteered. You said yes. Yet you treat me like I’m a wart that has suddenly appeared on your nose. It makes me wonder, and so I am asking you—what am I? Your wife or your slave?”
I scowl.
“I’m asking because I can’t tell. You treat me like I am nothing to you. You don’t answer when I talk to you. You act like my questions irritate you. Your home has no comforts for a person, much less a man seeking a bride.” Her accusing gaze flicks up to me as she makes another furious knot in the clothing. “You address me in front of others as if I’m a dog, tapping your thigh and telling me to come.”
I narrow my eyes at her. True, I did do that. I simply wanted to get her away from those men attacking her.
“So am I a dog? A slave? Because you tell me not to call you master. What am I, then? You cannot say I’m not a slave and then treat me like one around others. I don’t know how to act. I don’t know how to please you. Tell me what I am to you so I can behave accordingly. If I am a slave, I know how to behave. If I am your wife, I know how to behave. But I cannot be both.”
She’s chastising me, and it only makes my mood blacker because…she’s right. I don’t know how to act around her. My plan was to abandon her at a human settlement, but she doesn’t know that, just as she doesn’t know that I’ve changed my mind now that I’ve seen the humans in question. I have to figure out what to do with her. “Where is your family?”
Vali laughs and shakes her head, the sound mirthless. She makes another tight, furious knot in her garment. “Dead and gone. My father was killed years ago and I was sold into slavery. My city was just now razed by Aventine, so there’s no one to send me back to, if that’s what you’re asking. Parness is nothing but stones and burnt fields.”
She’s more observant than I’ve given her credit for. I’m not surprised by her answer, either. While it would have made my life easier to turn her over to family members, I somehow knew there weren’t any. Who would let a young, clever, pretty woman in their family get taken by slavers if they could do anything about it?
Vali makes another knot in the clothing and then jerks it back over her head, shoving her arms through the holes and settling the garment on her body. It’s a terrible fit, the material bunched at her neck and jagged, held together only by the knots she’s made. Her dress is now a great deal shorter, the neckline completely changed thanks to the rips, and yet she’s not demanding a new gown or fretting over the tears. She’s making do with what she has.
Something tells me this is not the first time that Vali has simply made do with scraps.
A dark bead on her bare arm catches my attention. As I watch, a line of blood slides down her skin. It’s not from her nose, which has dried on her upper lip. This is a different cut on the fleshy part of her bicep. “You’re bleeding.”
Her hand goes to her nose and she winces. “Aye. Those cretins hit me. May Vor fill their pants with nothing but sand lice.”
I hold back a snort of amusement at her creative prayer and reach out to touch her arm. “Here, too.”