Diadem from the Stars by Clayton Jo;

Author:Clayton, Jo;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Media Sci-Fi & Fantasy
Published: 2016-05-10T04:00:00+00:00

11

The suns were high when she woke. Tarnsian came in with a bucket of water and some rags. He cut her free and shoved them into her hands. “Clean up this mess,” he grunted.

Pausing in the doorway, he said, “We’re rolling in three minutes. Throw the water out the door when you finish.”

She watched him stump out of the caravan, then used the water first to wash herself. “Ai-Aschla,” she gasped as she touched her mangled face. Hobbling painfully across the narrow space between the walls, she stooped and looked into the mirror.

Her face was a grotesque lumpy mask with black eyes extending in purple glory over her cheekbones, nose a smashed, distorted purple lump, upper lip gashed deeply and swollen to three times its normal size. “Aschla’s claws! He sure made a mess of me.” She touched her nose and winced as pain stabbed into her brain, then looked back into the mirror. “Ahai! I’m ugly.” Shuddering, she dropped onto the cot and stared at the stinking smears of vomit, feeling black depression chilling in her stomach.

The stench from the vomit finally made it impossible to sit any longer. Reluctantly she sloshed the rag in the water and mopped at the mess on the floor, almost vomiting again as the smell coiled in her throat. Once again the cold clogging her nose was a blessing, cutting down the stench to bearable strength. She scrubbed the floor clean and tossed the water out the door, sighing with relief as it splashed to one side of the trail taking the smell and to some extent the uncomfortable memories of the night with it. She stood in the door a while and watched the thickly growing trees slide past on both sides. For a minute she considered jumping, then the black wings fluttered and she gasped, catching desperate hold on to the doorjamb to keep from being thrown under the clawed feet of the following yara.

Hastily she shut the door, her hands shaking and her stomach cramping again. She stumbled to the cot and collapsed on the soiled blankets, wincing as the pain in her face stabbed at her. She probed at the sore spots with the tips of her fingers. She thought of Daimon’s mate and wondered.

Lying back on the couch, she turned her attention inward, sliding into the deep tranced outreach where heat flowed back and forth like tongues of flame over her aching flesh, then she was immersed within the cool soothing waters of a vast black river.…

After a while the trance transmuted into sleep and she dozed during the morning leg of the journey.

The caravan jolted to a stop. Aleytys woke and lay blinking, forgetting for the moment where she was, then the bitter taste of slavery poured back, bringing with it the image of her mutilated face. She prodded at her nose and grinned as she felt the familiar straight slim bone. Scrambling eagerly onto her feet, she hurried to the mirror.

The purple bruises were gone. So were the lumps.

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