Sweep of the Heart (Innkeeper Chronicles #5)(48)

“Are you okay?”

“I miss you,” he said.

“I miss you, too.”

“Young love,” Gaston purred.

“Disgusting,” Tony said with mock derision. “If it wasn’t for the mission, I would mute you both.”

A trumpet-like sound pulsed through the arena, announcing the end of the break.





Surkar of the otrokars stared at Oond in his fishbowl. This was clearly not the opponent he would’ve preferred. Too bad for him. The orbs had been set up at random. Even I didn’t know which was which.

“Am I supposed to debate a fish?” he demanded.

“Xenophobia has never led anyone to a path of enlightenment,” the First Scholar told him.

Surkar raised his eyes to the sky briefly, as if inviting the sun to witness his tribulations. He was about to debate a space fish, and their discussion would be presided on by a space chicken. This was not a trial appropriate to his stature. His hero-of-the-Horde image was taking a bit of a beating, but throwing a fit about it would make him look like a fussy baby and he knew it.

“Ask your question,” he growled.

“What is best in life?” the First Scholar announced. “You have one hundred moments to consider.”

Oh, sweet Universe. “Sean, I know it was you,” I whispered.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Sean said.

“We just rewatched that movie a month ago.”

“Let’s see what he says.”

Surkar straightened his shoulders, as if he was going into battle on familiar ground and just noticed a gap in the enemy’s line.

“To crush your enemies,” Sean mumbled in a horrible imitation of an Austrian accent. “See them driven…”

“He isn’t going to say it. There is no way.” There were few things that I was willing to bet my life on, but Surkar of the Hope Crushing Horde not having seen Conan the Barbarian was one of them.

The First Scholar’s egg turned white.

“Victory,” Surkar announced.

Oond spread his fins and let them float down gently like delicate veils thrown into a breeze. His translator flashed, and a soft voice issued forth from the speakers in the base of his fishbowl. “Safety.”

“Victory is the only way to achieve safety,” the otrokar champion growled. “Crush your enemies.”

Sean made a strangled noise in my ear. Tony snorted.

“Slaughter their armies. Drive them back. Force them to submit. Fill their hearts with fear and dominate their minds, so they tremble at the mere mention of your name. That’s how you ensure safety.”

Oond’s fins wavered back and forth. “Untrue.”

Surkar glowered. “What does a fish know of battle or honor?”

Oond’s fins unfurled, twisted, and snapped. “I know of deep water. I have tasted the darkness so thick and cold, it blinds all senses, a place without a current where no direction exists. I have witnessed the things who live within it. I have seen the jaws of monsters who span the length of the ocean. I know the value of safety. No matter how powerful you are, there are enemies one cannot crush.”

“Spoken like a coward.”

“You seek to belittle me. Have you swum in the deep water? Can you kill a leviathan?”

Surkar shrugged. “Fine. How do your people obtain safety? Enlighten me.”

“Within the ocean, there are vast corals reefs. A coral grows slowly through the efforts of tiny creatures, and yet over the years it spreads and shelters other lives. Fish dart around it, playing and feeding; mollusks crawl, cleaning up the ocean floor; dozens of species feed, live, and reproduce within its growth, and, should a predator appear, they will withdraw within the coral’s sturdy walls and most of them will survive. If you wish to secure safety, you must become a coral. Help others. Make yourself indispensable to them. Show them that apart you struggle but together you prosper.”

Surkar sneered. “That’s the way slaves are made. Make yourself indispensable, and those who are stronger will chain you to serve them. Why should they respect you or care about your wellbeing, if they can simply force you to do their bidding? Without the power of retaliation, none of your talents matter. You will become the lowest of the low, doomed to a wretched existence. No. My people will not live like this. I cherish my freedom. I will not set it aside. I will not cower.”

“Untrue.”

“I don’t lie, fish. I have no need. I’m strong enough to force others to suffer through the discomfort of my true words.”

“Kill your enemies,” Oond’s translator said, its voice soft and sad. “Murder parents. Slaughter offspring. You cannot grow safety this way. You grow memories. They sprout deep in the bellies of the survivors, like sea urchins covered in spikes. They hurt and hurt until those you have crushed return to crush you and rip the source of their pain out.”

Surkar bared his teeth. “They will regret it.”

“And then the eggs of pain will be sown again. In turn your people will grow their own anguish and will seek revenge. And so it will go, a cycle of pain never ending.”

“The crucible of revenge makes us strong,” Surkar said. “I had six siblings. The war took four. Only my brother and I remain. We are the strongest of our clan. By achieving victory, we proved our right to live.”