"See you at midday."

"Yup!"

Lasher jogged off and took the left corridor, heading in the direction of Justice's quarters.

When Bronse entered his quarters some time later, after his interesting informational encounter with Ender, the sound that came to his urgent attention was the steady beep that seemed to seek out his spine and wrack it with a foreboding chill. He knew the sound well. His eyes darted to the ComVid as he rapidly approached it. Sure enough, a redlined message was flashing in wait on the screen, its accompanying tone indicating that the First Active team had just been issued orders.

Bronse felt as though someone had poured molten lead into his gut. Was this merely coincidental? Or had Trick's stealthy skills been overestimated? He dreaded taking his team out on any operation without knowing if he or they would at least be safe from the resources that were supposed to be backing them up.

Bronse cursed viciously under his breath as he punched up the orders. The swearing only intensified when he saw the operational locale.

Ebbany.

They were going back to that desert h.e.l.l-acre with its strangely colored sands and enemies that were plotting with the upper echelon of the IM. Oddly enough, it gave him comfort to see that it was JuJuren who had signed the orders and approved the mission. It meant he didn't have to wonder if the mission would get shot to s.h.i.t. He didn't have to worry about when the next attempt would be to murder him. He had the exact date and time flashing on the screen right before his eyes. By now, Lasher, Ender, and Justice had also become aware of their orders and all their implications, and no doubt they were furious and chomping at their bits with the need to act. They were soldiers, and that was what they did-act. But what could they really do?

Bronse sighed and looked around his rooms thoughtfully. He reached for a metal bangle sitting on his night-stand and snapped it around his wrist. The handsome piece of jewelry was finely etched, the silvery metal glinting in the center so the design was highlighted, but burnished to a duller tone at the ends where they touched together in a pair of intricately woven knots. What was not so readily seen was a seam in the etching where the cuff would break easily into halves, exposing a good two feet of delicately barbed garrote wire strung between the halves. This was one of the hidden tools that were not standard military tricks. He would arm himself with others as well.

Someone was going to find him a very difficult target to terminate.

Kith flinched outwardly, though he tried his best to resist the reaction. Nevertheless, when Ravenna took the vicious blow to her back and fell to the dirt floor, no doubt skinning her knees as she landed on them, he felt the physical pain himself as it shuddered up and down her spine. That, of course, was why he was here. They knew that he would feel every moment of Rave's agony, knew that it would be torture for him to kneel there helplessly watching as they did their worst to her.

Finally, they reached for the back of her gown, tearing it roughly, their huge, mauling hands rending the Yojni silk with eager ease. One of the Banda Nomaads chuckled with that grunting way they all had when they saw the smooth copper skin of Rave's back. Then the b.a.s.t.a.r.d reached out with rough, short fingers to stroke her lasciviously. Kith felt Rave's sudden wash of revulsion and shame as well as blinding fury, both his own and hers, as she was violated by the common sc.u.m of this tribe. He tried to surge to his feet. The guards behind him were prepared for his reaction, though, and they easily shoved him back to his knees with their harsh hands on his shoulders. His arms were bound to a prison stick running horizontally across his back; otherwise, he would have ripped out their cursed hearts.

The guard continued his foray across Rave's skin, and Kith could feel her embarra.s.sment and anguish right down to his soul. He could not see her bowed face from behind the fall of her hair, but he knew she had lost her pride to slow, pained tears. The guard made free with her, stroking under the silk of the torn gown and around to her breast. Kith wanted to scream, to roar his emotions and hers to the entire universe. Surely, feelings like this had a power more useful and more potent than to shred a spirit apart!

Why did she not fight them? G.o.ds, how he wished he could touch her mind and force her to resist. He knew she was holding back, lying in wait, biding her time for her "hero," this warrior she saw in her visions. She had made Kith promise that no matter what happened, he would not betray her secrets until she was ready. It was a promise he now despised himself for.

"Rave!"

"No!" she cried back, because as always she already knew what he was thinking.

If she could bear this humiliation, then Kith must bear it, too, she thought, squeezing her eyes tightly shut as coa.r.s.e, clumsy fingers jerked at her sensitive nipple. She knew they would not, could not rape her. They couldn't lessen her sale value in that way. Though they could probably do everything but. They would do it not just to make use of her, commoners suddenly able to access a Chosen One; they would do it just for the delight of torturing Kith. She knew Kith wanted her to fight. She knew they both had the power to escape this prison chamber and these callous ruffians, but there were other lives at stake, and she could not tip her hand until the time was right. She felt it in the marrow of her bones: Bronse was coming. He was even now hurtling toward his destiny with her. If he survived the test to come, he would be her deliverer. If she left it up to herself and Kith alone, they might escape the room, might even escape the stronghold if they were extraordinarily lucky, but there were only enemies and wilderness all around them after that.

No, what they needed was a direct route off the planet. And Bronse would come with that. She knew it a.s.suredly even though she knew so little about the method of escape she sought. Her confidence was borrowed from Bronse, she believed. His knowledge was so secure and so self-a.s.sured in these matters that she knew he would know the way. Just as she knew he was even now finding the way to her side. She let her feelings of faith and sureness in her rescue wash through her with more power than her shame and her fear, knowing that this was the only true way to communicate with, and help, her brother.

Kith felt all his empathic senses flare to life, turning in focus as Ravenna manipulated her connection with him. He wanted to be furious with her, but he could not. He could not begrudge her whatever hope or conviction she needed to make it through these next minutes. Selfishly, he could not begrudge himself, either. It would destroy him to see her abused. So he let her well-being of emotion soak into him, even though he fixed his shimmering hazel eyes on the scene before him. He would remember every moment of this, every action and every sin. Just as he would remember each of the men's faces and each of the acts they individually subjected her to. He would remember for as long as the sun and moons stroked Ebbany's back. He would remember until the blood of these men warmed his hands and their deaths warmed his tortured soul.

Ravenna wished she could command herself suddenly to sleep. It was strange that something that had troubled her for so long had suddenly become a haven and a comfort. When she slept, if Bronse slept as well, she could feel him with her. Not as powerfully as their last real communication, when she had actually felt him beneath her hands and against her body, but almost as though they somehow held each other loosely, a linking of spirits that gave them rest and peace now that they had clarified the messages they had been sharing.

But she would not seek his comfort, she knew, when all she would deliver to him would be distress and an outrage to his sense of honor. Funny, she thought, that she should know that about him. That though he was a soldier and a man of war, he had an honor that would never allow him to do to a woman what was being done to her even now.

"Bronse ..." she whispered, not knowing why she felt compelled to say his name aloud. But hearing it gave her a measure of comfort.

The Nomaads were riled up now, calling encouragement to the one who touched her so disgracefully. Their noise brought her back to the dreadful reality of the moment as her abuser's second hand stole around to clutch her other breast in a bruising grip. She cried out with pain despite her intentions otherwise, making them roar with approval and delight. They mistook her pain for their idea of an aroused response, and she felt the Nomaad's burnoose fluttering around her as he moved to rub himself against her back. Tears welled once more, and she swallowed back all further sounds of dismay. His hard male member was pressed between her shoulders, and he pushed with increasing fervor against her in a mock of mating. She sensed his l.u.s.t. She knew he wanted to force her to do terrible things, just as his friends did. There were ways of raping the Chosen One without taking her precious and coveted virginity.

"Areste!"

Kith caught his breath when Rave finally spoke, her bold, authoritative voice barely showing emotion as she commanded them to halt in the Banda's own tribal language. It said a lot about the lore and legends of the Chosen Ones that every guard in the room froze, even to the point of forgetting to breathe. Kith lowered his head to hide the twitch at the corner of his lips and the amus.e.m.e.nt in his eyes. He waited as his sister let the command stretch out a good minute before she continued to speak in their tongue. She had learned quickly in her captivity, he marveled. As he listened, he barely was able to translate.

"You have touched me and I have had a vision from it," she spoke over her shoulder to the one who still clutched at her body. Her announcement elicited a few cautious chuckles and some quick whispers. "Would you know your fate, Banda? Or would you prefer to live in ignorance?"

Kith gave his bowed head a little shake, letting his sandy blond and brown hair fall forward to further conceal his features. Let them think he was being submissive, when in fact Rave's ruse was making him grin. He knew what Ravenna looked like when a vision hit, and he knew she needed to touch someone in a particular manner in order to specifically read their personal future. She had definitely done neither in the past thirty minutes that they had been confined to this chamber. But during her captivity among this tribe, every one of the Nomaads had come to learn about the Chosen One Ravenna and her stunningly accurate visions.

The Banda Nomaad suddenly jumped away from Rave as if she had burned him. She sagged forward with her release, but only for an instant. Kith watched through the fall of his hair as she threw back her shoulders and her hair with incredibly regal grace, and then hoisted herself to her feet so she could turn to face her a.s.sailants. It was no simple trick for her to regain her footing from a kneeling position when her arms were tied to a prison pole against her back. But Ravenna did it with poise and made it look easy. Kith felt so proud of her then that he was close to bursting with admiration and love. She had everyone's attention, but Kith knew that it was not her intention to escape, only to buy herself a little time, and a little power while she was at it.

"What fools you are, wasting your opportunity with a Chosen One on beatings and l.u.s.tful games when you could be finding out your futures. I can tell you the present and the past. I can tell you when you will die or when a family member will pa.s.s on. Would you not wish to know ways to obtain riches? No. You prefer to waste your time playing like barbarians! Pah!" she scoffed. "You wouldn't know what to do with the glory of a Chosen woman even if she drew up detailed instructions! I have a direct love with the G.o.ds!" she said feverishly. "They tell me their words and touch my mind! I am their child! They are looking down upon you even now. And what do you think the G.o.ds are feeling for you as you molest their daughter?"

Rave let that sink in as she glanced surrept.i.tiously at Kith, checking to see if her sensitive brother was well. Through the fall of his dusty hair, she saw the shine of amus.e.m.e.nt glittering from his hazel eyes. Rave then looked boldly at the guard who had thrust himself against her. He had turned white as chalk, not easy for a swarthy-skinned Banda Nomaad. He was also sweating up a storm under his burnoose even though the climate underground in their new prison was cool and controlled. She stepped up to him and saw his Adam's apple working hard as he swallowed.

"Do you wish to know your future, foolish one? I will give you another chance if you promise never to violate a Chosen woman in such a manner again. I will speak softly to the G.o.ds about you and convince them to ease their wrath."

"Yes, angel, I beg you." He bowed at his waist, touching his fingertips to his forehead and then his heart in a traditional salaam. "We were ordered to lash you and to take the spirit from you, so you would be more docile a bride for the Shiasha of the ruling tribe."

"Yes, angel," spoke up another guard quickly. "Though you have the queenly grace and manners that the Shiasha would find valuable in his bride, and your status as a Chosen One will bring our tribe much reward, your stubborn manner and prideful att.i.tude is most unappealing in such a role. The Shiasha would be angry with our tribe if we produced a less than suitable-and biddable-bride to him."

"So you were ordered to shame me? To mar my perfectly unblemished skin with lashing? You think the Shiasha would want a scarred bride? Idiots! Who gave such a stupid order?"

"The Shia of our tribe."

"Your king then. A minor king who thinks he knows what the Shiasha wants in a bride?" Again she scoffed with queenly derision. "And your little king would have a daughter of the G.o.ds beaten and then gifted to the Shiasha so that the curses of the G.o.ds would follow me to his household?"

Every guard, to a man, gasped in horror. The Shiasha of this area was a powerful warlord. Everyone curried favor with him and sc.r.a.ped and bowed to avoid his wrath in even the smallest way. Even Rave and Kith's own village had eventually betrayed them, sold them out to this higher-powered tribe, making gifts of them to the high king, the Shiasha, to help placate him and honor him. They were willing to risk the ephemeral fury of the G.o.ds they could not see in order to appease the brutal warlord breathing down their necks.

Rave and Kith had spent time in captivity in their home village, and now in this more barbaric Nomaadic one that Kith could hardly believe was called civilization. Their village may have been small, but it had been far more educated and peaceful. At least he had thought so, until they had been sold as slaves to these barbarians. Valuable Chosen Ones to be offered like delicacies to the Shiasha-one to be a bride, one to be a personal slave to the Shiasha.

Neither position was a welcome one. Kith would spend his days chained by his ankle to the throne of the Shiasha, using his Chosen powers to tell the warlord what people were feeling, if they were lying or not, and-his special talent-touching objects to learn their historical value, their stories, and their lives.

As a bride, Ravenna would do little better. She would join an already expansive harem, no doubt. The Shiasha was a man in his fortieth year at least. He had acquired a great many "gifts" like Ravenna over the years of his s.e.xual maturity, although it was not likely that he had been gifted with a Chosen One before. Chosen Ones tended to live in sacred temples, as priests and priestesses, just as Rave and Kith had lived before their village had bartered them away. The Shiasha would think he could gain power by bedding Rave. There were many who thought that. As if psychic ability were catching like a s.e.xually transmitted disease. When he tired of trying, he would get her with child, forget her, or use her just as he would use Kith. In fact, Rave's powers were ten times what Kith's were. She would be the more valuable of them, if she ever let it be known.

However, Rave believed that she and Kith would never meet that terrible fate. And when Rave believed in a specific future, Kith had no choice but to follow her on faith. She had been right too many times. This time she seemed almost fanatical about it. He had never before seen her believe in her gift with such zeal. She was putting all of her bets on this warrior she saw coming. Kith could only pray that she was right. She would be crushed if this soldier failed to show, or failed to be everything she had envisioned him to be.

For now, Kith watched her hold the attention of the Nomaads with the power and aplomb she had used to keep the temple in order. As High Priestess, she had called powerful beings into harmony. These non-Chosen men were a puzzle hardly worthy of her mastery. They had leapt into her palm in a single heartbeat. Now she would spend her time slowly closing her hand and squeezing her fingers about them.

Bronse turned fitfully on his bunk, flipping onto his back with a frustrated sigh as he tucked a hand beneath his head and stared up at the metal plates of the ceiling above him. They were en route to Ebbany, taking the trip there far slower than they had when they had last left it. They had been forced to stop at a supply depot on one of the more distant planetside stations on Ulrike, and it had taken two days before they were mission-ready. He and the crew had taken the time to work out varying strategies, but the delay had chafed at Bronse interminably. Time, he felt, was slipping away.

And it was his dreams that were telling him so.

For the most part, they had become something less defined, but comforting in their vague way. He knew she came to him at least once during every sleep cycle. The visitation in his mind was of varying lengths of time, sometimes all too short, sometimes long spans of a coc.o.o.ned existence where her steady, calming essence seemed to surround him, and his surrounded her and was received as if it gave her equal depth of peace. Sleep had come quicker and easier these past nights, his troubling insomnia now gone since the dream in the gym.

Until tonight.

Tonight they were s.p.a.ceborne, hurtling back toward Ebbany at a steady clip. They would reach the planet in two more days. He wished he could attribute his sudden sleeplessness to the anxiety one would have when making a forced march to certain death. However, he had too much faith in himself and his junior officers, in spite of ominous portents and obvious plots, to truly be that worried and fatalistic.

So he was suddenly afraid that something else was amiss.

"Great Being, Chapel, when did you get so superst.i.tious?" Bronse muttered aloud to himself.

He closed his eyes, trying to settle himself and his thoughts. He heard the treading of metal just outside his quarters and knew that it was Ender pacing the corridors just by the weight and cadence of his steps. Justice was asleep, as was Lasher. That left Ender on maintenance. Bronse smiled softly. Lasher was supposed to be on maintenance, but clearly Ender had made other plans. Bronse had no cause to object. He knew that Ender would have stayed on shift either way, even if he was ordered to his rack. The arms master did not like knowing he was on a suicide mission that someone else had plotted for him. Granted, that was probably the very definition of their jobs, but this was different. This was betrayal and treason at their most malevolent.

Bronse had given each of the crew the choice of an out. He could not in good conscience do anything less. In his quarters, after they had received their orders and while sharing the midday meal, he had given each of them the opportunity to back out of the mission. He'd almost faced a rousing mutiny at the very suggestion, and he still felt unbelievable pride in his crew when he remembered it. He had not thought they would abandon him in such a clear hour of need, but he had been obliged to give them a choice. They would likely be cut off, unable to depend on IM resources until they returned to the actual base. If he were JuJuren, Bronse thought, he would not make the same mistakes twice. This time he would see to it that Bronse was somehow cut away from his best resource-his crew-and then JuJuren would make his next attempt. The crew was a man down-their communications officer at that-and this would be viewed as an advantage for JuJuren. Normally it might be, if not for the fact that their comms officer had spiked the IM database already, giving the crew a crucial heads-up on what awaited them for this mission.

"Bronse ..."

Bronse's breath hitched in his chest at that now familiar voice beckoning to him. His heartbeats shifted into double time. He could not help the reaction even if he wanted to. Great Being, how that silky, sultry little accent played over his senses. Did she have any idea how she sounded? For that matter, did she know how she affected him?

He opened his eyes and sat up, throwing his legs over the side of his bunk. Bronse searched for her, waiting patiently for the slow fading in of her image. It came gradually, low to the ground, little more than the sweep of her dark, unbound hair. And yes, it was just as incredibly long as he had suspected it would be. And thick. He could see the density of it clearly now that it wasn't bound into those looping braids.

It took him a moment to realize that she was kneeling on the ground, sitting back on her heels, and this was why he could see only the mantle of her hair.

"Ravenna?"

She turned her head slightly, then her chin dropped down and she turned back away.

"I did not want you here," she said. "Why did you come?"

It was not the greeting he had gotten used to. She had been far more welcoming recently. This felt like a sudden step backward, almost like the sharp stinging slap of rejection.

"I never plan these meetings," he reminded her. It was only a half-truth at this point, however. He may not plan them, but he had begun to look forward to them.

"But it is only a dream after all," she said coldly.

Bronse sucked in a breath as a ferocious chill of warning walked down his spine. Ravenna had never encouraged the breaking off of communication between them. By saying that, she had all but guaranteed the event. Even now he was surprised that he remained asleep. Perhaps he was too exhausted to be so easily put off, or too soon into the visit for such a trick to work. All he knew was that he was grateful her ploy had failed.

But something was very wrong here.

He stood up and began to walk toward her. She suddenly flung a halting hand back toward him, turning her face away.

"No! Don't come any closer!"

Her violent demand and body language made him hesitate for a second. But then her body motion also parted her hair against her back. Bronse sucked in a harsh, choking breath when the unmistakable redness of blood and swelling appeared in an angry red line. No. Many lines, he realized.

"By all that is cursed and holy!" he swore, suddenly rushing to her and falling to his knees behind her. "Ravenna, what in the Great Being's name happened?" Why did he even ask? He already knew, even before he brushed her hair away with both hands as gingerly as he could. The strands, delicate as they were, clung to the wounds, stuck to the dried blood on her back. She had been whipped. There was no mistaking such wounds. No mistaking the ragged tearing of her silken gown down its back.

"Please, don't ..." she whispered.

Bronse could not grant her the request. In their short, vague acquaintance, he had seen a proud beauty who knew her mind and how to express her convictions. She was gentle by nature in spite of that. She was not the type to give anyone cause to do such a thing, not that anyone ever deserved it. He knew it hurt her to be seen like this by him, to be shamed and weakened before him, and he felt his throat closing with fury and sympathetic pain for her because he would feel exactly the same way. He, too, would have tried to push her away had the situation been reversed. Yet he would have secretly welcomed what he was about to do for her.

"Hush," he soothed her gently, reaching to cup her chin in his fingers, his thumb stroking her cheek from his position behind her. "There is no shame between friends, Ravenna. No shame when we are abused in ways we do not deserve."

"Bronse, please," she gasped, and he could feel her shaking with repressed emotion.

"No," he said firmly. "I will not leave you to suffer alone. Don't be so brave, that's my profession."

At last, she broke, a hard, shuddering sob wracking through her. She keened softly in her pain and despair, and Bronse slid around her so he could pull her against him in an effort to comfort her. He did so gingerly, holding her by an arm and the back of her head, knowing that she would feel agonizing pain if he touched or pulled at her back in any way.

"I was not made for this." She wept softly, her face burrowing against the fabric of his sleeping tunic. "I have been cherished most of my life. I believed that the G.o.ds would always protect me. I don't understand why it all changed!"

Bronse suspected that was not true, that she understood it all too well, but he did not expect her to be logical when she was suffering so much. There would come a time, later, when he would be able to understand everything about her with clarity. For now, he worked with instincts he hadn't even realized that a hard-core warrior like him could have. But this woman had always touched him in the strangest ways, even though they had never met.

He gently brushed her hair away from her tear-streaked cheeks, feeling the pangs of so many emotions that he hardly had time to identify them all. Bronse touched his lips to her forehead in comfort.

"No," he agreed softly, "I can tell you were not made for this. None of us is truly made for acts of war and violence."

"You are," she countered, even in her upset refusing to allow him to get away with that generalization.

"Perhaps." He chuckled softly. "But even I have my limits. I'm trained to face this kind of ... of torture in the event of captivity, but I don't have the stomach to mete out cruelty for the sake of my own enjoyment. I have never understood those who like to toy with their victims. That's not to say I don't mete out justice, though. I'm no saint."

"I never thought you were. No saint, but destined to be a savior. Mine." She spoke with such conviction that it gave Bronse a chill that washed down through his guts.

"I hope you're right, Ravenna," he murmured softly against her skin. "I wish I had the faith of your conviction."

"Why should you when you know nothing about me, or this connection we have between us? You would be a fool to accept my word with no empirical proof or data. You are a man of logic, I know, inasmuch as you are a soldier."

"And you are a very wise woman." He drew a deep breath, the softly spiced scent she wore on her skin drifting into his lungs. "Is there no one to tend these wounds where you are?"

"No one who is allowed the opportunity," she said vaguely. "I am being left to suffer because I tried to buy myself some time and ..."

There was something ominous to the feel of her unspoken sentence. It was reinforced when she shuddered with a feminine violence that he had felt once before. Bronse had once come upon a village in the Tari wilderness that had been decimated by a war between clans. One clan had swooped down mercilessly upon the other, slaughtering every single male in the town. As Bronse had walked through the devastation, a woman had staggered into him, gripping him wordlessly as her wide eyes reflected the horrors that had been visited upon her by her enemies. She, too, had worn a dress torn asunder, and blood had stained rivulets down her thighs as she had shuddered with that same violence.

Again, Bronse was overcome with an outrageous wrath that he could barely control. He was not one to feel so stark and wild, so he felt lost, as though he were foundering for direction as he held her tightly against him. "Did they rape you?" he asked heedlessly, knowing it was a terrible thing to ask her even as the words pa.s.sed his wooden lips. But he simply could not help himself. Then, being a man and knowing what men were capable of doing, he amended the question. "Did they violate you, Ravenna?"

She had not reacted to the first question, but she crumbled at the second version of it, giving him an answer he did not have the capacity to deal with just then. He stored the outcries and rage buffeting through him for another time. And he knew that time would come. Soon. Someone would pay for every tear and every tremble ratcheting through this precious woman. He would see to that. Yet he knew that promises of vengeance and retribution meant little to her. Her needs were altogether different right now.

As carefully as he could as he sat cross-legged on the floor, he drew her into the well of his lap, cradling her gently and holding her close to the warmth and security of his body. "You will be safe with me," he promised her. It was a promise for the future and, hopefully, for the present as well. "We will find each other soon. Remember?"

"Yes. If you and your companions survive the separation that is coming."

"We will," he a.s.sured her with all the ETF superiority he could muster. He felt her smiling against his chest, and he smiled, too, in response. "Can you tell me where I will find you?"

"I don't know where anymore. I don't know where I am. I only know we are now underground."

"I keep hearing a 'we' here. Is that something I should know?"

"Perhaps. My brother, Kith, is a captive here as well. They ... they like to make him watch ... what they do to me."

"By all that is cursed!" he ground out, unable to suppress his furious reaction. "You're being held by Nomaads!"

"Yes. How did you-?"

"Well, telling me you were underground was a good clue. But I've seen Nomaadic torture methods before. The one you speak of is an old favorite of theirs. Forcing family to watch." He stopped, knowing she didn't need his recounting when she was obviously experiencing the facts firsthand. She and her brother.

"Bronse ..." She suddenly turned, and her hands slid up over his chest to grasp his shoulders.

He tried. He honestly tried, but he could not repress the shudder of pleasure her touch sent through him. Furious with himself, Bronse shoved down the wayward and inappropriate reactions. He could only hope she did not sense the reason behind his response. Perhaps she had not noticed it.

"It's okay," he said with an even, soothing tone as he tried to hold her in comfort and avoid her raw back. He felt awkward, as if his hands were superfluous, because he wanted to touch her so badly, because he felt that instinctual urge within himself to stroke her and soothe her, feeding her disturbed psyche with the warmth of his strength and good intentions through the touch of his hands.

"Tell me," she begged softly. "How long before you come here? Do you know?"