the medical table while the scanner roamed over her body and the maikshel attended her.
“Why does she sleep?” I asked.
“We gave her a sedative, BoKama,” one of the maikshel said, her head bowed.
Narrowing my eyes, I watched the healer and her cohorts as they fussed over the Ikma’s clothing and limbs, but nothing they did served a purpose.
“Get out,” I said, my voice cold.
Bowing lower, they dipped for me in deference and then stepped out of the medical room.
“Unless you received a grave head wound, you can’t possibly be sleeping,” I said.
The Ikma’s chest rose and fell in a deep sigh, and she turned her head toward me, blinking in the bright light hovering over the table.
“If you must know, my head does ache tremendously,” she said.
“Sedatives haven’t worked for you in ages,” I said. “You’re avoiding my wrath.”
“You’re calm for someone claiming wrath,” she said, pushing herself up to sitting.
“Hysterics help nothing,” I said, remembering many times when the Ikma had flown into rages. “You kept knowledge of a prisoner from me,” I said. “Performed the raxfathe.”
“It was my due,” she said, her voice hardening along with her intense eyes. “I suffered from the terror-dreams and visions until I was desperate for relief. The day that Naraxthel refused me, I found a trespasser in the Goddess’s Garden. Right after you castigated me for sending the Lottery Five on the quest for the Waters of Shegoshel.”
“You were unjust,” I said, calm but firm. “Your decision was borne of selfishness without thought for the consequences.”
“And I have rehearsed my regrets with you these past weeks,” the Ikma said, her demeanor gaining strength. “The trespasser’s suffering gave me the ability to reform my ways. I released those imprisoned by my hasty judgments. I stopped punishing our servants and staff.”
Frowning, I cocked my head. I was not supposed to know that her raxfathe victim was an alien. “What kind of a trespasser satisfies your lust for raxfathe?” I asked.
“Do not pretend ignorance,” she spat. “It doesn’t become you. You know it was another alien, just like the one who evaded you on Ikthe.”
“The Ancient Writs and Ways are clear in our responsibility to the people and enemies to the people,” I said, leery of the Ikma’s right hand disappearing behind her skirts. “There was no ceremony. No ritual.”
“The prisoner was my gift from the Goddesses,” the Ikma said, lowering her voice. Tendons stood out in her neck. “Else why should it have been found in the Goddess’s Garden?”
“Was I not entitled to receive such a gift as well?” I asked, confronting her.
“You would have wasted it,” she said, a gleam in her eye the only warning before she struck me a fierce blow.
Blocking her with my forearm, I saw the slender wicked blade she held, having intended to maim or kill me. I noticed it wasn’t the Blade of the Ancients.
Before she could drag it across my arm, I spun into her where she still sat on the table, grasped her knife hand in a powerful grip and threw her off the table with my back, managing to swipe her weapon from her as she fell to the floor. A coughing fit seized her, and I felt the tickle in my own throat, but swallowed it down.
“I have sight-captured this conversation,” I said. “The people will demand a Tribunal.”
“The people will demand revenge against the trespasser,” she said from the ground. “It has caused the disruptions and upheavals on Ikthe and between us. It deserves the raxfathe and death!”
“And where is the trespasser now?” I asked. “Does she wreak mayhem in the fortress? Is she raining terror in the markets? Is she preventing the hunt and starving our people?”
The Ikma squinted at me.
“She?” she asked, her voice solemn. “You betray yourself, BoKama.”
My heart skittered when the Ikma pushed herself to standing.
“How could you know the trespasser was female, unless you knew about the others?” she said.
“The others?” I replied, unable to prevent my swallow.
Gaining strength, she stepped closer.
“The other trespassers on Ikthe,” she said with finality.
How could she know about them?
“Your silence shouts into our hearts,” she said and found the sight-capture lens in the medical room. “Should your Queens allow Trespassers onto the sacred hunting grounds, or in the people’s fortress, without punishment? I have sight-capture of an Invader who runs free on Ikthe even as the BoKama quibbles with me. I have reason to believe there are multiple invaders, and they can only be in pursuit of one thing: our precious Ikthe and its resources!”
“No!” I said without thinking. “The Ikma twists everything into a knot. What of raxfathe? You cannot do the ritual without ceremony!”
The Ikma soothed her expression into one of serenity, and I finally saw it. Her glinting malicious eyes flicked to my weapon before she disguised her expression, and I knew. She had not changed. She had not experienced regret or remorse for her actions these last many weeks. All of her choices were calculated and measured to what might benefit her the most. I had abandoned my allies in service to the Ikma Scabmal Kama and myself.
“When you produce the trespasser’s body, then will I submit to the Tribunal,” she said. Her cough pounced without warning, and she leaned against the table to support herself, managing to look weak and pathetic. Seeking the sympathy of the people. “I believe these alien invaders have brought a disease with them and infected your Queens,” she said into the lens again, garnering sympathy even as she twisted the truth and pretended loyalty to the Ancient Writs and Ways. Her words would induce panic. Any of my attempts to bring the Ikma to justice and introduce the humans as allies and heart mates would now appear ridiculous and dangerous to the Theraxl.
The Ikma pitted herself against me and once more appeared to care more about our people than her previous actions showed. She blamed the humans for closing the hunt, causing upheaval and bringing disease in a few short sentences, and I had no defense without betraying the entirety of my knowledge. If I ended the sight-capture now, the people would rise up and demand the humans’ capture. But the more the Ikma spoke, the deeper she sunk into her lies. I wished I had not switched my loyalties so easily. I needed VELMA’s help to untangle the morass.
“You cannot prove the trespasser made you ill,” I said. Unfortunately, my suppressed cough erupted, and I was forced to bow under its pressure until it waned.
“My people,” the Queen declared. “While the maikshel toil night and day to heal our illness, you must prepare our ikthekal to return to the hunt. Bake sister-bread. Divide your provisions. Send the hunters to Ikthe, that we might replenish our meat stores. But pray to the Goddesses, because the trespassers have brought a great evil to our shores, and they must be stopped! Not only will our hunters hunt meat, but they will also hunt these invaders who profane the sacred ground—and the Lottery Five who harbored them and evaded their Queen. As your Ikma Scabmal Kama, I declare: Open the Hunt!”
Ensconced in the recesses of the fortress, I couldn’t hear the roars of battle cries, but I could imagine them. The screens in the market would have played at full volume; the private devices relaying sight-captures wherever Theraxl roamed across Ikshe would have signaled the incoming message.
My plan to catch Ikma in her lies and betrayals had burned to ashes, and I had thrust the Lottery Five and their human heart mates into a more powerful danger than ever before.
What could I do now but attempt to dampen the Queen’s edict and remind the people of the Ancient Writs and Ways? But they would have developed bloodlust at her rousing speech, and my pleas would fall on stoppered ears.
Not only had I failed to reveal the Queen’s true character, but I had solidified her mistrust in me. I must watch my back before the Ikma stuck a weapon in it.
“Let it be known that the BoKama requests a Tribunal against the Ikma Scabmal Kama for intentional disregard of the Ancient Writs and Ways,” I said, my voice booming in the quiet room. “For performing the raxfathe on an enemy of the people without proper ceremony. And if I die within the next span of a month, then let it be known that I suspect the Ikma of planning my death, and I demand the Tribunal enforces an inquisition into it. Let it be known that I, the BoKama, the Younger Sister, have the best interests of the Theraxl people at heart, and I will never betray you into the hands of enemies.”
With that, I gave the Ikma a pointed salute and stalked out of the room, half-expecting to feel the sting of the Ikma’s weapon between my shoulder blades.
“VELMA?” I said, once I donned my helmet in my private chambers. “I don’t know if you can hear me, or if you’re still stalking the lightning pathways within the fortress, but you need to warn the others. The Ikma is sending the ikthekal to Ikthe. She has called for the hunting and capture of the Lottery Five, and the humans. As far as I know, she is only aware of two humans. But I think she suspects more. I’m sorry I failed you.” Another coughing fit seized and burned my chest, and I wanted to cry. The illness threatened to hold me at bay before the Queen could. But she was sick, too. If I could outlast her, then all could be made right.
My attempts at securing Ikma’s trust were in vain.
I no longer had her trust, but neither did I have VELMA’s or the humans’.
Retreating to my bed, my failure blanketed me with despair so thick, I feared I may never come up for air again.