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Be the calm
I lean back behind the wall and listen to their conversation The savages’ accents are thick, their voices sluggish and drunken From Earth’s North Pole One criticizes the flavor of theI do not understand So about the Ice Another is irritated that she clai of the ship She asks if she could buy the Sunborn frohs at her with his s to their jarl, body and meat The Sunborn; the Gold
I expect Lorn would kill them My own pride would see reater than the fear I now feel But pride is a vanity I cannot afford My grandht when you can maneuver? I find a way around the commissary and continue my search, listenin
g for any sound of life
My pre-allotted time ticks away I’ll have to double back in twodown the halls and the unhappy rattle of distant generators Then…I hear so from behind a bulkhead I find the door and clasp the narrow handle It opens slowly, sliding back into its fra to Jove that no one heard I wait, poised withNone do I slip into the room
It is filled with the rest of the crew They litter the floor in es that constrict around their bodies All lowColors And hanging above the is a thin wire net that’s been looped around a gas pipe It sways back and forth and inside it, and hanging upside down as the wire cuts into her bare skin, is the body of a naked woils upon the backs of her hands
I RUSH FIRST TO THE GOLD
Her body is contorted and twisted inside the confines of her prison A bentbeen used to beat her as she hung in the net Her right hand is a charred, burnedtorch that sits on a table Blood seeps there, dripping onto the floor The s my eyes water
She’s dead She has to be
“Help us!” a Red woman whispers out of a bloody mouth “Dominus…”
“Quiet,” I snap, glancing back at the door Dozens of pairs of eyes stare out atwith me
I creep closer to the Gold, and as I reach to touch the net, her eyes flash open in the low light Goryhell I aline oil has been slathered over her body, along with fouler-ss
“Dominus…” a Brown hisses
“Salve,” I say to the Gold in a Thessalonican drawl “I’m here to help My naiving no sign that she even understands “I’ to help you out, but you have to be quiet and quick The Ascomanni are still outside Do you understand?”
“Yes, I understand,” she says Hers is a rich Palatine accent It startles ht She’s fro all the way out here?