“Hullo.” He beamed at her.
Callia laid a hand on the girl’s shoulder. “This is Aella. She will be your leash keeper for the duration of our flight.”
“Aella, eh? What’s a Valathean name doing on a Scorched girl?”
Those ruddy cheeks flushed, but her voice was schooled to tranquility. “I was born in Valathea. I am a child of the empire.”
“A what now? Sel-sensitives aren’t born outside the Scorched, little lady.”
Callia sighed and rolled her eyes. “Lord Honding, you are not a naive man in the ways of the empire, so I will not bother to dissemble with you. Selium sensitives are not conceived outside of the Scorched, but they may be born wherever the parents choose.”
“Really. And just where are your parents, little miss?”
Callia’s grip tightened on her shoulder, denting the cloth. “She is a ward of the empire, and is in my care. Now, I must see to other matters. Aella, mind the others but keep a sharp eye on this one. His ancestors were the first confirmed sensitives, and as such he believes he is entitled to certain freedoms, which he is not.”
The girl’s sharp little chin bobbed. “Yes, Callia.”
Once Callia had gone, the girl sat herself across from him on a dusty crate, her small ankles crossed in the fashion of all the young nobles of the empire. She plucked a small book from her pocket, its face blank, and began to read.
With the girl’s attention elsewhere, Detan took a moment to examine his surroundings with care. The ship felt still and calm, and yet he was quite certain they were moving. It was night, so there was little to see outside of the ship, but the lack of city lights and the gentle breeze on his face gave the impression of momentum, or at the very least being out of doors. Regardless, he was no longer in Aransa, or near enough to see it, and that was a worry.
“Where’s this ship headed, anyway?”
Aella didn’t even bother to look up. “Valathea.”
“Big place, that. Anywhere specific?”
She sighed. “The city Valathea, not the whole empire.”
“Too bad, could have gone on a tour. Taken in the sights. Have you ever toured the Century Gates? Grand things. Too bad I punched a hole in them the last time I passed through.”
The girl smiled, but did not look up. Detan scowled and shifted his weight, but soon found it impossible to get himself into anything like a comfortable position. His leg was throbbing something awful, and his calf had been wrapped up in sun-bleached linen. Rusty stains seeped through in some places, and he tried not to shift it as he struggled to find comfort. It wasn’t working out too well.
“Think I could get a pillow?”
“You don’t stop talking, do you?”
“Got nothing else to do, do I?”
“Most of the other convicts sleep on these trips. You should, too.”
“Sleep? Pits below, girl, these people may have their eyes shut but they’ve got their ears wide open. Isn’t that right, grandpa?” He shook his chains, and the old man grunted.
“Please leave your fellows alone.”
“My fellows? Hah, you sound just like Callia. Stiff as a board. Come on, lass, you’re too young to be tangled up in this heartache.”
“It’s not my heartache. And this isn’t the first transport I’ve monitored on, you know.”
“Oh really? You’re a real old hand at the slave trade, eh?”
The girl’s dark cheeks went scarlet and her gaze drifted to the tips of her shoes. “I do as I’m told. Just like you will. It’s better this way.”
“And who told you that?”
Aella closed her book with care and laid both of her hands over it. Her hazel gaze was hard and steady, more worldly than any twelve year-old’s had a right to be. “Is it true you can make selium catch fire?”
He blinked at her jumping topics, but at least she was talking to him. “It’s a bit more than a fire, lass, but yes.”
“How?”
He shook his head. “I don’t rightly know, to be honest. The angrier I am, the easier it is.”
“Show me.”
“I don’t know what ship you think you’re on, but I doubt they’ll be letting me blow up any sel on this one.”
The girl rolled her eyes and fiddled with the clasp on her bracelet. It was Valathean made, just the same as Callia’s, and once it was unclasped she teased a small pinch of sel from it, no bigger than a grain of Black Wash sand. She re-clasped the bracelet to contain what was left and floated it out toward him, bringing it to rest halfway between them both. Detan licked his lips, leaning forward in his chains.
“Go on then,” she said.
He focused on the granule, let all his anger at having been captured flow toward it. The little pinpoint went up, a glittering spark, gone in a flash. Aella leaned forward, her eyes bright and eager.
“Fascinating. You’re one of the more unique deviants we’ve picked up lately.”
“The what now?”
She arched a brow at him. “Just what do you think we’re doing on this ship, anyway? This is Callia’s pet project. She scours the Scorched looking for sel-sensitives whose skill sets fall outside the usual moving and shaping. That man next to you, for example,” she tilted her chin toward the man who pretended to sleep, “is here because he can color-shift selium to blue, and only shades of blue. No other color. The woman next to him can make it vibrate so that it sings, like running your finger around the rim of a crystal glass. We’re all Callia’s little oddities.”
“And what can you do, then?”
She smiled. “How many sources of selium are on this ship?”
“I’m not that refined, lass.”
“Then focus on the largest.”
“Just the buoyancy sacks.”
“Try again.”
Wary, he closed his eyes and extended his senses. There were the inflated buoyancy sacks tied above, huge and out of his reach. Behind him another presence loomed, long and slender. It rose up over the whole of the ship, hemming it in like an old canvas wagon cover. His eyes snapped open, and he tipped his head back.
So far as he could see, there was nothing but black night beyond the ship’s railing, spotted with a handful of pale stars. Stars that hadn’t moved at all since he had first given them a good look.
“You’re doing that?”
“Hah, no. That’s another of the deviants, one of my fellows. I’m the one keeping you, and everyone else, from sensing it. You could have a blob of the stuff right in front of your nose, and I could make you think it’s just empty air.”
“If that sky’s an illusion… Where are we?”
She smiled. “I think you can work that out, Lord Honding.”
Aella went back to her book, but that was fine by him, he had enough to chew on for a while. So Callia was collecting the weirdos of the Scorched, and he was one of them.
When his talents had first been discovered, it’d been after he’d blown his whole line to bits and the workers with it. It’d been an accident, of course, he thought he was just moving sel along with the rest until someone pissed him off so badly he’d unconsciously channeled his anger into the line.
Because of that, his first few weeks in Valathea had been in a prison cell. A well-earned cell, as far as he was concerned. But, once they started the inquiries, the experiments… He shivered, rattling his chains. Aella seemed all right with her place in life, but he reckoned she’d never seen the pointy end of a scalpel. And anyway, he didn’t want a single rotten thing to do with the empire anymore.
He frowned to himself. Why did she show him the trick? Why break down the barrier for him? Maybe she wasn’t so safe in her role here. Maybe she wanted out, too. They were still in Aransa, he was pretty sure of that now, but he doubted they would be much longer. He was also certain they were on the personal cruiser he’d spotted, its real size obscured by the onboard talent.