Dead and Buryd

Chapter 37: The Inmate and the Influential

“I’m sorry,” she muttered.

“Sorry?” he asked, letting out a snort of derision. “Apologies are a little late, Ven, after the crime has been committed.”

“No, I mean…” Georgianna shook her head. “To you. You think badly of me.”

“My opinion of your actions are neither relevant nor warranting apology.”

With the tsentyl lying open on his palm, Edtroka glanced between Georgianna and the device, his expression not softening any.

“You admit that you were a part of the escape by two dreta from their Adveni owner?” he asked.

Georgianna nodded slowly.

“Who were you acting with?”

“No one.”

Edtroka let out an impatient breath, grasping the tsentyl tightly in his hand as his gaze fixed, unwavering on her. Georgianna, unable to stand the way he looked at her, broke the gaze and stared at the wall. Edtroka snorted lightly and lifted the tsentyl.

“The trackers in the cinystalq collars worn by the dreta Alec Cartwright and Nyah Wolfe, owned by Commander Maarqyn Guinnyr, began moving at sun-high,” Edtroka commented slowly. “A time in which you were inside this very compound.”

Chewing on her bottom lip, Georgianna fixed her gaze on a single brick in the wall. She didn’t want to answer him, she didn’t want to risk that anything she said might give them a hint as to who else was involved, even though they clearly already knew that there were others.

Edtroka crouched suddenly, smacking the flimsy mattress next to Georgianna’s leg.

“Med!” he snapped.

Georgianna looked back at him, sitting up straight and putting as much distance as she could between them.

“You won’t help yourself by keeping their names,” he told her.

“There is no benefit to me giving you names,” she answered. “Not for me. We both know that I will rot in this prison or be sold to an Adveni.”

Edtroka watched her for a moment, his expression that of a hunter staring down his prey. Finally, when Georgianna did nothing but look back at him, he pushed himself to his feet. He began pacing, tsentyl in one hand and the other coming up to run his fingers over his short hair.

“You were useful, Med!” he murmured finally, a sadness to his voice that Georgianna had not expected.

She blinked, chewing on her bottom lip. The other guards would have been crueller than Edtroka was now, but she almost wished she could have had one of them asking the questions.

“Will I be sold?” she asked quietly.

Edtroka glanced at her, his jaw tightening before he quickly looked away and continued pacing.

“I have no control over that.”

“That’s not what I hear,” she whispered. “I was told you are one of the guards that sells on the yard. You stopped my sale to that man before.”

“Because you were not an inmate!” Edtroka snapped. “My control over the dreta on the yard is limited, Med. My influence does not stretch as far as Maarqyn or other volsonnae.”

“But you could organise a sale before that?” she begged. “You could do it privately. Please Edtroka, do not sell me to him!”

Edtroka lunged forward in a motion Georgianna could only describe as a predator moving in for a kill. He didn’t hesitate. Every movement of his body was fluid and skilled. He reached down, grasping her face by the jaw and tightening his hold under her chin, pulling her seamlessly to her feet.