Vendoin seemed satisfied with her answer. “Bramble, if you were to promise me to behave as a good guest, could I believe you?”
Bramble hesitated, knowing that a quick yes was as good as a no, I will kill you as soon as I have the slightest chance. Torn between behaving in a believable way but not trying to seem too intelligent, she said, slowly, “What do you mean by ‘good guest?’”
“That you will do as you are told, and not attempt to leave our hospitality. Then you might be given some more freedom to move about the ship, and to help Delin.” Vendoin fixed her opaque gaze on him. “He has said that his health is failing, though there was no sign of this on the expedition.”
Delin regarded her steadily. “I was much exhausted by our trip through the enclosed city. The poison and drugs did nothing to make my condition any better. I am an old man, by my species’ standards.”
Looking at Delin, Bramble wasn’t entirely sure he was lying. She said, “You should let Merit help him.”
Vendoin said, “We have our own physician. If I allow you to move about the ship, to help Delin, would you take another drug mixture without protest?”
Bramble went still. She wanted to growl but she kept her gaze on the deck. Delin stiffened and said sharply, “That is not necessary. You will harm them if you poison them again.”
“It will harm them if we have to use our weapons on them,” Vendoin spoke to him in Kedaic. “It would be better if you urged her to cooperate.”
Delin’s lip curled, like he was about to snarl.
Bramble felt like she had walked herself and Merit into a trap, but . . . No, if they want to poison you again, they’ll do it. They don’t care about your permission. This was a test, obviously. She knew what Vendoin wanted her to do, but her instinct was to bargain. She had a growing sense that Vendoin liked to think herself right about everything, and Bramble hoped that worked in their favor. She made her voice low and hesitant, and said, “I want to help Delin, and I could promise to be good if . . . If I understood why you took us?”
Bemadin glanced at the rock on the table, as if it had something to do with the question. Huh, Bramble thought. Maybe it wasn’t a rock, maybe it was an artifact, stolen from the foundation builder city.
“If you cooperate, explanations might be forthcoming,” Vendoin said.
That weak promise wasn’t worth another dose of poison, but Bramble couldn’t think of any other way to bargain or stall. She set her back teeth and made her voice sad, and said, “I’ll cooperate.”
“Bramble . . .” Delin began. She flashed a glance at him and he shook his head in helpless dismay. If Vendoin does what she says, it’ll be worth it, Bramble told herself.
Vendoin said, “Well. We will see. You may go back to Merit now.”
Bramble managed to look humble and grateful, and not bare her teeth and think about what it would be like to tear at a living person’s throat.
Bramble followed the Hians back down to the cage. The one who seemed to be the leader gestured at the opening in the floor and said, “Please.”
Bramble hesitated, and asked, “Will Vendoin keep her promise, if we take the poison?” She didn’t much care about the response, she just wanted to get this particular Hian accustomed to speaking to them.
The Hian looked uncertain, and said, “I—If Vendoin meant what she said, she will surely do it.”
That wasn’t exactly an enthusiastic yes. Bramble said, “What is your name?”
The Hian hesitated again. Bramble thought for a long moment she wouldn’t answer. Then she said, “I’m Aldoan.”
Bramble said, “I’m Bramble,” and climbed down into the cage.
As Aldoan and the other Hians fastened the grill overhead, Merit bounced with impatience. “Well?”
Bramble motioned for him to be quiet, waiting as the Hians’ footsteps moved away on the floor above. She described the first part of the conversation, then winced in anticipation of Merit’s reaction. “Then . . . Vendoin asked me if we would take Fell poison again, willingly, and I said yes.”
Merit stared at her. “Uh. Why?”
“Because that’s the plan. Make them trust us.”
“It’s not the plan,” Merit pointed out. “It’s a plan. A bad plan.”
Bramble took his wrists, trying to persuade him. “Delin is pretending to be ill. Or maybe is really ill. Vendoin thinks I’m a servant. And I think she wants to tell us where we’re going, what she’s doing. She wants to brag. I need more opportunities and we can’t get them in here. I’m right about this, Merit.”
Merit pulled away, and paced back and forth across the chamber. But he said, “I know we don’t have a choice. They’ll give the poison to us anyway, whether we agree or not, and this way, maybe we can make them think we’re not dangerous. But . . .” He stopped, and rubbed his hands over his face. “I hate letting them think we’re . . . cooperating. I want to kill them.”
Bramble wanted to kill them so badly she could almost taste Hian blood. But she knew trying would be their last act, only to be done when they had exhausted all hope of escape. “That’s why we’re Arbora, not Aeriat.” She didn’t think a warrior could keep their temper in this situation. “Aeriat wouldn’t be able to do this.”
“Moon might,” Merit said.
Bramble conceded the point. The court had always realized that Moon, living as a solitary for most of his life, was not a normal consort. It wasn’t until Bramble had seen him in life or death situations that she had really begun to understand what that meant. She still wasn’t sure she understood the entirety of it, but she did believe Moon was capable of almost anything. “Moon’s been in a lot of strange situations.”
Merit took a sharp breath. “I hope he’s still alive. I hope the Hians didn’t—”
“Something made it sound like they had to leave the sunsailer in a hurry.” Bramble was thinking of Vendoin’s reaction to the remark about not getting a winged Raksura. She was holding onto that hope with all her claws. “Maybe because the others were waking up.”
Steps moved down the corridor above and she hissed softly for silence, even though they had been speaking Raksuran. The steps drew closer, and Aldoan leaned over the opening to say in Altanic, “I have the medicine. Will you take it?”
Merit made a soundless snarl at the blatant misuse of the Altanic word “medicine.” Bramble lifted her brows at him. After a moment, he nodded reluctantly. She called up to Aldoan, “Yes, we’ll take it.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Chime was in the big main cabin of Niran and Diar’s wind-ship, watching as Dranam the Janderi horticultural tried to find the Hians.
Dranam sat on the deck of the cabin, leaning over two open pottery containers of acrid fluid and the strands of moss growing inside them. A fabric map was spread on the floor and Chime crouched on the other side of it, with Lithe and Shade beside him. Niran, too impatient to sit down, leaned on the wall near the doorway.
Chime tried not to breathe too loudly and distract Dranam. Kalam had hired her at the port of isl-Maharat where they had left the sunsailer, and she wasn’t used to Raksura yet. Chime wasn’t certain Kalam had told her she would be traveling on a Golden Isles wind-ship with a group of shapeshifters. Before this, she probably hadn’t known what Raksura were, or that they, unlike Fell, didn’t eat groundlings. Chime wasn’t entirely sure she believed that now, despite how unafraid the Golden Islander crew was. But since she seemed to be trying as hard as she could to help them, maybe her personal beliefs didn’t matter.