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  The eastern Mykahnol pillar loomed over Lyndbury Compound, onyx bricks towering into the sky, sending a long shadow sprawling over the large, oppressive building. The sun had barely hoisted itself above the mountains, but the sky was already such a clear, bright blue that it could only mean another blistering day.

  Georgianna Lennox brushed her long, blonde hair away from her neck, sweeping it high onto her head: a mess of waves and curls that she tied haphazardly into a knot with a ribbon. The dirt track from the end of the tunnel to the gates was already giving off waves of heat under her leather boots. The dense, heavy air stuck her clothes to her skin. Grasping her leather bag to her side, her brown-eyed gaze settled on the building up ahead. She let out a deep sigh, and trudged towards the gates.

  She had promised to spend the day below ground helping the Belsa rebels with any medical emergencies that came in. However, she’d not even reached the hidden tunnels before her tsentyl device had beeped, informing her of an emergency within the compound walls. Changing her route, she’d made her way through the eastern tunnel instead, heading out of the city. There were multiple entrances along the line, but most Veniche people didn’t use this particular tunnel, driven off by the knowledge of what waited at the other end.

  The Adveni had built it when they first claimed dominion: a large compound they had named Lyndbury. While criminals of the Veniche tribes used to be marked for what they were and sent on their way to live alone, far from those they would rob or hurt, the Adveni had a different method. Instead of sending the criminals away, they would lock them up, keeping them all together in the compound.

  The creation of Lyndbury had sent outrage spiralling through the people. Who were the Adveni to lock a man in a single place, especially through the volatile seasons of Os-Veruh? At times, Georgianna could almost understand it. A man who committed murder should be kept away from others and not given any opportunity to commit his crime elsewhere. However, the Adveni did not offer that. Instead of keeping criminals away from other people, they locked them all in a building together, and let them do as they pleased so long as they never left the compound walls.

  One group of Adveni had been tasked with guarding the compound. Specially trained and working with ruthless efficiency, the Guards of Lyndbury were infamous within the city. The Veniche of the city described the inmates as being “buryd alive”, after the compound’s name, Lyndbury: though your life was over and there was no escape, your body remained alive.

  The Veniche people might not have considered it so bad if the Adveni were fairer about it, punishing those who committed crimes the Veniche agreed with, but the common opinion was that the Adveni punished crimes without understanding them. They didn’t look at the starving family of a thief, nor did they care for the claims of five other victims when they said the man a woman stabbed to fend off an attack had also attacked them. There was no justice, only punishment. Even those who refused to bow to Adveni rule and register themselves were labelled as criminals and sent to the compound. Those sorts, however, never stayed inside the walls for long. Instead they were sold off in the drysta yard as slaves to whichever Adveni would pay the highest price.

  Georgianna hated going there. She detested the sight of the inmates burned by the sun when the Adveni forced them outside into a fenced yard while the sun was high. She abhorred looking at the women, locked in the cell block with morally lacking men who had not seen a woman in so long that their urges overcame them. She heard her brother’s pleas that she stay away, that the Adveni would, at some point decide she was no longer useful and lock her in there as well. Whenever the tsentyl communication device she had been given lit up, however, she answered it, because she knew that no one else would. The Adveni didn’t care if a Veniche man died in the block in a fight over food. The body would lie in the block until count if the Adveni wanted. It was only her continued service that meant that someone saw fit to call for a medic at all.

  Turning towards the compound, Georgianna brushed an errant lock of hair out of her face, and walked the last couple of hundred yards towards the high metal gates looming in front of her.

  Inside the gate, two Adveni men stood watching for her approach. She was not even ten feet from the metal fencing before one of them pushed the gate forward to allow her entrance.

  “In the block,” one of the men explained bluntly. “Edtroka will take you.”

  Georgianna glanced at the other guard and nodded politely. Without so much as a word, the guard, Edtroka, turned and began walking away with long, purposeful strides, leaving Georgianna to hurry to keep up in his wake.

  Georgianna had met Edtroka many times before. He was the first guard to take her through the routine of being let into the block. He showed her the items she would not be permitted to take inside and showed her how to work the Adveni tsentyl device that would let her inform them that she was ready to leave. His Veuric at that time had been broken and difficult to understand. Over the two years since her first visit, however, his use of the language had improved dramatically. Unfortunately, Georgianna could not say the same for her Adtvenis.

  “Do you know what happened?” she asked, struggling to keep pace with him.

  “Fight,” he answered, his thick Adveni accent clear through the Veuric words. “We found him this morning.”

  “And what are his injuries?”

  Edtroka turned his head, glancing down at her with what she could only imagine was derision, though it could have been amusement, the way his brow quirked like that. Edtroka was always slightly odd. He wasn’t cruel or insulting to her like the other guards would be, but he had never shown her any obvious kindness either, only unreadable expressions that he never explained, even when she asked.

  “I thought you were the medic.”

  “Well, I am!” she answered. “But surely you’ve seen his injuries if you called me?”

  The guard shrugged, and she wondered if he had not seen the injuries on the prisoner, not paid enough attention, or not cared enough to remember what he’d seen. He didn’t pause as he led her through the drysta yard towards the doors, and though the sun was now high enough to make being outside uncomfortable in mid-heat, the Veniche people set to be sold as dreta were lined up along one side, a group of Adveni looking at them with interest.

  The Adveni were easy enough to spot even though in face and shape they resembled the Veniche in almost every way. Yet most Adveni stood almost a head taller than the average Veniche, and were also built better, with broader shoulders and longer legs, making them faster and stronger. It hadn’t taken long for the rumours to begin circulating through the tribes that the Adveni bred differently to them. Unlike the Veniche, who paired most commonly for love, the Adveni were put to numerous tests. If their tletonise—the Adveni way of referring to what the Veniche people knew to be the aspects of a person passed on to their children—did not pass these tests, they were forbidden from creating offspring. Georgianna had often heard the term they used for people with undesirable genetic qualities: Zsraykil.

  Most Veniche didn’t spend a lot of quality time speaking to Adveni, not when they didn’t have to, but they all knew that the Adveni considered most, if not all of them Zsraykil.

  The strength and skill of the Adveni was also due to their extensive training. Georgianna had heard, from a friend who, in the ways these things happened, had heard it from another friend who knew someone, that the Adveni were trained in combat from childhood upwards, until they were ready to take their nsiloq and become an adult.

  Georgianna had been trained to fight too. Life on the trail could be hard and attacks from outcasts and animals were not uncommon. However, Georgianna was certain that the Adveni’s combat training had probably gone further than a lesson from their father, a lesson which included instructing them to aim for the face if the attacker was female, to go for the groin if male, and if an animal, to run as fast as your legs could carry you, preferably screaming to get the attention of people nearby.

 
One drysta at the end of the line, a man in his early twenties, caught her eye and opened his mouth to call out. Georgianna quickly shook her head as she strode behind Edtroka, though she longed to run and gather him in her arms. Letting the guards know that they recognised each other would not be a good idea: not when she knew that he had been a Belsa, and not when she knew that the Adveni had already killed his brother Alec for the same reason. She couldn’t bring herself to remember that name, not now. If they discovered Landon’s affiliation, he would not be heading for a life as one of the dreta, he would be heading for execution. The idea of being sold as an Adveni slave like that, like cattle, disgusted her, but she simply turned her head and looked in the other direction. The good she could do was not in stopping the system; it was in making sure that those within the system had basic care. She was a medic, not a revolutionary.

  Once they were through the heavy metal doors that led into the compound, the guard Edtroka patted her down and had her empty out her bag onto a sturdy table. He looked through each item. Deeming that none of the objects were dangerous, or intended to be passed on to prisoners, he allowed Georgianna to pack everything haphazardly back into her bag.

  The corridors through the compound were wide with clear visibility. Where corridors intersected, they opened into wide, curving mouths, offering little cover. For all the things she could fault about the Adveni, their knowledge of attack theory was not among them: within the compound there was nowhere to hide.

  Inside were three blocks: one for those who would become dreta, personal slaves to whichever Adveni had enough money to purchase them, and two for the compound inmates. Georgianna was rarely asked to the compound to visit the dreta block. The Veniche inside were given far better care than the other inmates, in order to be in peak health for their new owners.

  Georgianna had learned very early on that the compound inmates were sent into the block and left to fend for themselves. The only time guards went into the block was each morning and evening to carry out a mandatory count. During her time in the compound, she had heard many horror stories about men killed in fights after count and left in the middle of the block until the count the next morning or evening. Most of the time, when fights broke out in the block, there was no point in calling a medic because by the time she’d been contacted, the man was past saving.

  The only time prisoners were allowed out of the block was once every other day when they were allowed into a yard kept solely for the permanent inmates. Personally, Georgianna was sure most of the inmates would have preferred to be kept indoors instead of being sent out into the burning heat, but they did not get much choice in the matter. It wasn’t called being buryd for nothing.

  As they approached the thick, red, metal door, Georgianna hitched her bag a little higher onto her shoulder and glanced at the guard. He seemed completely uninterested in her, and for a moment, Georgianna felt the familiar fear that once she was inside, she would not be getting out.

  The guard, Edtroka, pulled out a device and placed it against the lock on the door. She had seen it on every trip into the compound, and yet still had no understanding of its mechanics. He turned it, and a buzzing sounded from the lock. Next, he brought up a polished black card and placed it against a reader. Lines of a brighter blue than Georgianna had ever seen in the natural world slid across the panel from the spot where the card connected, and slowly, the door creaked and slid open.

  “You know how to get out?” Edtroka asked.

  She nodded. He asked her the same question every time he walked her to the block. Georgianna couldn’t help wondering whether it was something he had to ask, whether he had once found himself locked inside, or if he just thought her stupid.

  “I have my tsentyl.”

  Edtroka nodded for her to go in, and as soon as she had stepped through the opening, the door began sliding closed. It shut with a rusty groan.

  It was almost an hour before Georgianna sighed, slumping back on her heels. She reached up, about to rub her fingers wearily into her eyes when she realised that they were covered in blood. Pushing herself up, she stepped to the basin in the corner of the cell, twisting the tap until tepid water spurted angrily from the spout beneath.

  “Med, what you doing?” Owain, one of the inmates, asked from his spot on the other side of the bars.

  She scrubbed the stains from her hands, thinking of what to say. Owain had been rather vocal throughout, always asking questions, telling her the story of how it had happened. The prisoner, Jace, currently sprawled across the flimsy mattress, had gotten into a disagreement with Vajra and Ta Dao, two of the more powerful men within the compound. Though the guards ruled the compound, these men ran the block once the doors were closed. Jace had apparently refused to bow to one of their strict rules and his injuries were their punishment for his disobedience.

  As soon as the lock had fallen into place after count, they’d come for Jace. They’d hurt him just enough so that it would be a long, painful death before he was found the next morning. Jace had not died before count thanks to the quiet help of a couple of the inmates, Owain included. However, from Owain’s constant quiet chatter, Georgianna had realised that most likely, those who had helped Jace might be the next to receive a visit once the block door slid closed.

  Once her hands were clean, she turned to look at Owain, frowning when she saw his hopeful gaze.

  “There’s nothing more for me to do,” she answered. “I’ve done all I can for the wounds, but he was left too long. Infection has gotten in. I only have two options now, to give him drugs to make it easier, or see if he can fight it off.”

  Owain glanced both ways as Georgianna dried her hands on her trousers. For a moment, Owain watched Jace, a frown knitting his brow as he finally nodded.

  “Give him the drugs,” he said slowly.

  “You don’t…”

  “Just give him the drugs!”

  Owain’s voice was stronger, rougher, and she knew better than to argue. While Owain had been kind to her during her visit, she had no doubts that he knew how to deal with those who weren’t helping his friend. He had the look of a man who had been in the compound for a while. He probably knew what happened to those who couldn’t fight off infection within these walls.

  Finally, Georgianna nodded, crouching and digging into her bag for the small bag of pills she hated using most.

  Walking towards the end of the cellblock, the door didn’t budge as Georgianna pressed her thumb and middle finger to opposite sides of her tsentyl. Holding it tightly until the cube shuddered, the feeling of a wave travelled up her arm. She didn’t know how it worked, or what the odd sensation proved, but she knew that it sent a signal to the Adveni on the other side of the door, telling them that she was ready to be let out. Sure enough, only moments passed before the thick red door began sliding open. Throwing a look over her shoulder, Georgianna caught the gaze of a beautiful blonde woman sitting on one of the upper levels, her legs dangling over the side. With her arms on one of the railing bars, her chin resting on her hands, she gave Georgianna a brief nod and smile. She’d been watching the entire thing from entrance to end. Any time she glanced out of Jace’s cell, she had spotted the blonde in her position, her bright blue eyes watching from above, like a guard in the tunnels waiting for something.

  She pursed her lips, blinked, and turned back to the waiting guard.

  “You do your thing?” Edtroka asked.

  Georgianna frowned and stepped out of the block.

  “No,” she answered as the door slid closed behind her and Edtroka came to her side. “He’s dead.”

  It was almost sun-high by the time Georgianna left the compound, once again searched by the guard to make sure she was not taking anything out of the blocks. No matter how many times she visited, the guards still didn’t trust her not to break their rules. It didn’t surprise her. They barely trusted any Veniche, and she wasn’t really any different.

  Walking back towards the tunnel entrance, she shrugged off
her outer shirt, splattered with blood, and stuffed it unceremoniously into her bag. She knew the dangers of going bare-skinned under the sun, but as she was only going a short distance, she didn’t see the danger in being a little more comfortable. There was next to no breeze, even outside the city, leaving the heat to lie dormant, baking from above and radiating out of the hard ground in visible waves.

  It was a welcome relief when she stepped over the threshold and began descending into the tunnel, leaving the direct rays behind her and disappearing into the shadowed underground. The tunnel was deserted this far east, and as pity for those held fast in the compound began creeping up on her, Georgianna shook it off and began humming a tune her mother used to sing while doing chores. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to feel pity for the poor souls buryd, but pity would do them little good, and it would only make continuing on after the death of a patient that much harder.

  By the time she reached the main line, she was singing softly under her breath, letting her arms swing back and forth as she walked. After a moment’s pause, instead of turning right to travel north towards Belsa territory, she took the left turn onto the main line, joining the flow of people heading down underneath the Oprust district.

  Up ahead, two Adveni in full military gear walked side by side, large copaq guns at their backs. While the men were walking slowly, far more slowly than the pace most in the tunnels would choose, nobody moved to slip past them and hurry onward. Even Georgianna found herself slowing her steps to keep a safe distance behind. It may not have been a crime to overtake and walk in the large space they had created before them, but nobody wanted to risk angering Agrah Adveni when it could be avoided by hanging back.