and stairs they took her through next had her head reeling, even with all the training she’d been put through at the academy. Although, she did feel a little bit better about it when she heard even the aliens arguing over which way to turn next. They finally decided on right, and after a few more feet she saw their destination.
Metal cages, some silver and some bronze, were pushed up against the walls of the hallway, big enough to house even a human adult comfortably. As they got closer and walked past an empty one, Taryn compared her body size to it, and realized that even one of her captors, a snake man, could fit inside. She wondered if perhaps the original purpose of the cages were to hold traitors rather than enemies, then.
“Here,” the snake man hissed, leading her over to an empty cage. Taryn saw something move out of the corner of her eye as they marched, a big something in the cage across from her, though the shadows made it hard to see. With a final shove, the aliens pushed her inside and slammed the door, the clank of metal loud in the dark hallway.
They hissed some nonsense too fast for Taryn to catch, leaving only after taking a moment to laugh – at her expense, she could tell. When they finally turned their backs and exited, the relief she had expected at being free of her captors had a bitter aftertaste as she eyed the cage they’d left her in. She sighed, and moved to sit cross-legged on the steel floor.
It was time to create a plan.
Kanthi
Kanthi smelled her just before he saw her. It was like there was an explosion of comforting scents in the darkness, a gust of breezy summers, sun-kissed fruit, and dirt soaked fresh from a light rain. Kanthi almost didn’t realize that he was getting those happy mental images because of what he was smelling – one moment, he was devising a strategy to break out, and the next, it was like he had been physically filled with hope and optimism, a kind that he hadn’t felt since he was a teenager and his people had finally been free of the Thagzars.
Before they had any knowledge of the toxin that would one day spoil their freedom.
When he found himself breathing deeper, loathed to exhale, he understood that it was his sense of smell, and that it could only be coming from the woman that the two reptilians had just shoved into the cage across from his.
Unlike himself, who was sitting in a silver cage pushed up against a corner of shadows, they had locked her in an antique, a bronze trap of bars strategically placed directly under a light. He could only figure that she was special to them, and that they wanted to keep an easier eye on her more than most.
As Kanthi inhaled another breath, he stared at her, watching her glare at the snakes as they jeered at her from beyond her cage.
“Such a pretty little Eiztar,” one of them hissed.
“A healthy slave,” the other agreed. “And no infection. She’ll make a delicious breeder, when we retake our planets.”
They left to walk further down the hall, their hisses echoing in the quiet. Kanthi, usually eager to be the first to bash in a snake’s head and silence them forever, found himself leaning after them, eager to hear more. What did they mean, no infection? Was this woman immune to the toxin?
He looked at her, leaning against his cage in the comfort of her scent. She shined in the fluorescent light, her olive skin giving off a beautiful sheen against the surrounding darkness. She was tall, for a woman similar to Kanthi’s race, with intelligent hazel eyes that searched the shadows. After a moment, she took to the ground, bending her knees to sit flat and closed her eyes. Strands of her long brown hair fell past her ears, though the rest stayed up, pulled in a high ponytail that kept her vision clear.
If Kanthi had to bet, he’d say that she was some sort of warrior.
He leaned forward, looping his arms outside of his own prison bars and considered talking to her. Perhaps she was even from his own planet, though her appearance was unusual for the women of Eiztar. But then, he hadn’t been home in years. Not since his voyage had begun to find the toxin and bring it home to craft an antidote.