Chosen (The Warrior Chronicles #1)(44)

“Inkna,” Shanti said weakly, also ignoring Sanders. “They are the financial minds behind the Graygual. They are extremely loyal because the Graygual keeps them in wealth. They are checking your city—analyzing your worth. They are realizing how very rich you are. And how good at defense. They probably now know they cannot take you by force. Not without heavy losses. They are good fighters, but you, as a whole, are better.

“They’ll establish trade. Let them. Start very small. Say you are trying to establish commerce, establishing trust and credit. Make something up. Let the trade trickle increase. Dazzle them with some of your best wares, but keep them constantly trading those that are worst. They know you have much, but they probably don’t know quality. Keep them thinking your quantity is in something not worth as much, and the quality items are sparse.”

“That will hurt our income,” Sanders said, working on breathing to calm himself. His fists were still white-knuckled.

“When they know you have quantity in quality wares, the Graygual will want to run this operation themselves. Your city is small and rich. All your people benefit. It is not how their system works. With them, their cities are giant. Everything is for sale, including sex. Including…um, mind changing devices. I don’t know the word—“

“Drugs,” the Captain supplied.

“Yes, that’s right.” Her eyes drooped. She was so tired. “The rich are about ten percent, mostly nestled in the folds of military. The mid-tier is about twenty. The rest are under the boot. You have too many profiting. If you divide up the wealth in smaller shares, a few get much more. That is how the Graygual work. The few run things. The rest try to find a good place to hide.”

“And your people…”

Shanti felt her heart drop in defeat. There wasn’t much more to hide and he was too strong to kill. Besides, he now knew her value to her enemy. What was the point in hiding the rest? “The Shamas. We were a quiet people with no wealth. Not in material goods, anyway. Our choice. The Graygual were a young, power-hungry nation when they first came to us. They were starting to branch out and wanted to bring us into the fold. They needed fighters—military. They needed muscle. My people fight. It’s what we do. We fight with mind and body. We train all our lives for the conditioning of it. From the memory of a violent past. But we are a small nation. Tiny, really. We don’t procreate well.

“The Graygual didn’t like that we said no. The next time they came it was to teach us a lesson. They didn’t realize women fought right beside the men. They didn’t realize that one of us equaled five of their mercenaries. They didn’t realize that one little girl in the small, northeastern village could kill people from a distance by thinking of stabbing a knife in their brains. She hadn’t known it at the time, either—not until she was pushed to it. Not until survival instinct took over.”

Sanders took a noisy breath and sat down with a heavy plop. The Captain stared, his face blank, his eyes riveted.

“The second time they came was much later. The little girl was a woman. She’d lost her parents in the first skirmish. She then inherited the leadership. The doctrines said that when a girl is born from magic and none, who takes the role of a man, and desecrates with thought, she is the Chosen. She will connect the distant halves into a whole and lead her people to salvation. My father had the Ahna Hasneas—the Warring Gift in your language. My mother had no Gift at all. He took her as his mate anyway, love trumping all, expecting not to have children. They had me. I inherited his leadership when he died in the first battle. I am the Chosen. Apparently.

“Anyway, false labels aside, I had to learn to lead from age five. I had to hone my Gift. I had to be the best fighter anyone had ever seen. I was trained for it mercilessly. I grew into it painfully. The next time they came I was ready, but it was not to be. The Graygual had grown into their leadership, too. They had consumed all nations along the coast and a great many inland. We were their only failure.

“They showed up early one morning, not unlike the Mugdock did the other day. We were long since ready. We had a Seer. She foresaw them coming. Also their numbers. We could not win. I lost the rest of my people two days later. I was ferreted out by my Chance. He was also my Sacrifice when they caught our trail. He stayed behind.”

“How long ago was this?” the Captain asked, leaning forward in his chair with his forearms resting against his thighs.

“A little over a year.”

“You were never captured?”

“You are the first.”

“And they want to finish their task? To wipe out the last of you? You being the last?”

Shanti met his gaze. “No. They want to breed me. They want to build an army out of me. Xandre, their leader, the Being Supreme, wants me for his own. He wants the next generation of super fighter to be of his seed. I thought that threat had ended with me gone. But now there is you. And you have learned to block me. You are also easier to breed. You make se**n constantly. You can be drugged to give it willingly. They can impregnate a whole city with you and hope a few babies pop out with your Gift. Or, they can mix our bodies and have a better probability of success, though I am not sure if they know that.”

“What do you mean, better probability of success?” the Captain asked gruffly.

“My people did not procreate well because like talent has a better chance of producing offspring with like talent. Two Warring Gifts would have about a fifty percent easier time producing an offspring than a Warring Gift and a…Sadna Hasneas. Um…Empathic, I think is your word. Empathic Gift. A Gifted and non-Gifted would have an even worse chance still. The offspring might have some Gift, but not always. Until now I knew nobody with a like Gift. Now, together we are extremely dangerous, both to current military and future military. We should both be killed. But there might be others. Now I’m not sure. Maybe the Graygual already have some? Maybe there are stronger Gifts than mine, or yours. Maybe the breeding is already taking place? Who’s to say?”