Your Pain is Also Mine

Shaira entered the village of her captor, tied by the neck and wrists, despite Angro’s protest when he saw Omawit preparing the vine rope.

“That’s not necessary. Look at the girl’s condition. She can barely walk.”

“She’s an enemy of our people,” Omawit replied as he passed the rope around Shaira’s neck, “An eteri, or have you forgotten, my friend?”

Eteri, enemy of our people, traveler of the stars, Shaira repeated in her head.

What was all this? Why were they calling her that? Did it have something to do with the past she couldn’t remember? Was that why she was there?

“The girl can barely stand, you’re just humiliating her,” Angro protested again.

“She’s my slave, my possession, I claimed her, Angro, I can do with her whatever I want,” Omawit responded, raising his voice.

“You’re going too far, that’s all I’m saying.”

Omawit drew a thick, double-edged knife and pressed it against Shaira’s neck, just above where he had tied her.

“This would be going too far,” Omawit said, pressing the knife into the soft flesh of Shaira’s neck, which contracted nervously.

Angro clenched his fists and took two steps toward Omawit, ready to do whatever it took to defend the young woman.

“I know you want her, Angro, that you wish you had been the one to claim her and take her to your home to warm your bed tonight, but that’s not the case, my friend, I claimed her, she’s mine,” without releasing the knife from the young woman’s neck, Omawit sniffed Shaira’s hair, “She smells good, she’s a young and fertile female, attractive, whom I’ll use tonight, Angro, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”

Omawit smiled as he saw the helplessness on his rival’s face.

“I’ll buy her from you,” Angro exclaimed, his voice barely hiding his desperation.

“She’s not for sale, at least not until I’ve tired of her and used her to my heart’s content,” Omawit replied, his smile never fading. “Maybe in a few moons, my friend, or perhaps after another harvest cycle, I’ll be willing to sell her to you, though I don’t think Amari, your fiancée, would be pleased to have an eteri in her home, much less a slave you’re attracted to.”

“Please, Omawit. I’ll give you a very good price,” Angro insisted, his eyes fixed on Shaira, who was struggling to understand how she had become an object of possession for which two men were arguing.

“No, Angro, I already told you,” Omawit replied, pleased to deny what was beginning to sound like a plea from the man he despised most. “The slave is not for sale.”

With those final words, Omawit finished tying the vines with which he dragged Shaira towards the village, once the exploration mission following an eteri ship’s passage over their territory had concluded.

Following the pair at a safe distance was Angro, who couldn’t get the young foreigner out of his mind. Since he had seen her, no, even before, since the moment he had smelled her, he felt connected to her by a force that went beyond attraction; it was something much stronger than that, so strong that this was the real reason it hadn’t even crossed his mind to ‘claim’ her as if she were an object. On the contrary, he worried about her, her wounds, her identity, her past, and what had brought her to this unusual situation. In other words, from the first contact, he had considered her an equal, even as if she were his soulmate.

He would not allow someone as vile and depraved as Omawit, whom he had known since they were children, and whose heart he knew was dark, to defile the woman to whom he felt so deeply connected in such a supernatural way. He had never felt anything like this before, not even for Amari, his fiancée and the most beautiful woman in the village, and daughter of Chief Owen ‘True Arrow.’ No, what attracted him to the eteri was something much stronger.

“What’s going on, Angro, why are you following Omawit?” asked Zania, the scout and Angro’s best friend, as she approached him.

“Don’t you see? He’s carrying a captive, a girl we believe to be an eteri.”

Zania sharpened her scout’s gaze and saw the young woman walking beside Omawit. Her condition was pitiful; she limped, still bled from some open wounds, and was tied with thick vines that were beginning to leave reddish marks on her pale skin.

“An eteri? Where did Omawit find her, and why do you care so much?” Zania asked.

“She was in the forest, likely coming from that ship of the star travelers we saw flying over the village,” Angro replied with obvious bitterness in his voice. “I saw her first, but I had to leave due to the danger calls, so Omawit found her afterward and claimed her. Now he’s taking her as his slave.”

Zania felt a pang in her heart, one she was already accustomed to. Angro had referred to the captive girl with interest, an interest that went beyond simple concern for the fate of a prisoner. Once again, a young woman, who wasn’t her, had stolen Angro’s attention—the kind of attention Zania had wanted for herself for so long... as countless as the stars.

“If she’s an eteri,” Zania murmured, her voice catching with fresh pain, “Chief Owen will want to interrogate her.”

Angro nodded without saying anything. His stony gaze remained fixed on Omawit and the girl he was dragging along. The native warrior was enduring immense pain as he witnessed this cruelty. He vowed to himself that he would not allow his rival to continue treating the young woman this way.

“Why didn’t you claim her, Angro?” Zania asked as they neared the village. “If you say you saw her first, why didn’t you do it?”

Angro’s gaze hardened even more, so much so that he noticed it frightened Zania, his loyal friend. He quickly calmed down. She wasn’t to blame for his clumsiness, but how could he explain what he had felt at that moment for the eteri? He hadn’t claimed her because he saw her as his equal, even as something more, a concept for which there was no word in their language—something like his ‘partner,’ his ‘match,’ his ‘soulmate.’ How could he express it, and if he did, would Zania understand?

“I didn’t because it didn’t feel right,” Angro replied.

“You want her, don’t you?” Zania asked, despite the pain in uttering those words.

“I don’t want Omawit to have her... I don’t want anyone to have her, really.”

Zania sighed. She understood perfectly what her friend meant.

“Well, maybe there’s a chance,” the young scout said, feeling Angro’s pain as her own. That’s how much she loved him. “You could talk to Owen, your father-in-law, to have him free her.”

Zania was invoking the Law of the Ancestors regarding war. The chief could demand the release of a prisoner if he deemed it in the tribe’s interest, even if the prisoner had been claimed as a slave by one of the warriors. But what interest could the young eteri represent for the tribe? Asking Owen to intervene was an option, yes, and Zania wasn’t wrong about that. If Angro asked his father-in-law, the chief would surely find a way to do it, but how could he explain to his father-in-law, the father of his fiancée, why he was interested in freeing this eteri?

That’s where his hope of invoking the Law of the Ancestors to free the young star traveler ended.

“It wouldn’t be appropriate,” Angro replied after that brief reflection.

Zania took a deep breath. The village was in sight. Omawit was displaying his trophy at the entrance, all the children crowding around the strange captive with such pale skin, wanting to touch her, regardless of the fact that the young woman was still injured.

“I’ll help you, Angro. I know how important that girl is to you; I can see it in your eyes and the words you use to refer to her. Seeing her like this is hurting you, and your pain is also mine.”

Angro turned and looked into his friend’s eyes. He interpreted Zania’s pain as his own, without realizing that the torment clouding the young scout’s eyes had a different cause.

“I appreciate your concern, Zania. You’re a good friend,” Angro’s hand rested on Zania’s shoulder. That was the only physical gesture she would receive from him. “But you know Omawit is a dangerous rival, best not to get involved with him.”

“I’m not afraid of Omawit,” Zania said with a touch of anger. Why did Angro always underestimate her as a warrior? “If this means I have to face him, then I will.”

Angro thanked Zania once again, and although he accepted her help, the young scout knew that he was still reluctant to value her as she was. To Angro, she was like a younger sister, and that filled her with rage.

“What is all this commotion?” asked Owen ‘True Arrow,’ with his powerful voice, upon seeing the crowd around the entrance to the village he led. “Oh, I see,” he said upon noticing the cause of the unusual gathering, “An eteri, a star traveler, claimed by Omawit.”

Omawit bowed his head in respect to the elderly leader, satisfied with the recognition of his possession.

“If you wish to interrogate her, great leader,” Omawit offered the ropes that bound Shaira’s freedom, “I only ask that you respect her integrity, for having claimed her, I intend to make her my concubine.”

As he spoke those last words, Omawit directed his gaze at Angro, who had already entered the village and, towering over everyone with his great height, was watching the scene.

“I authorize you to make her your concubine, Omawit,” Owen said solemnly, “but I forbid you from marrying her because the opranchi do not marry foreigners, much less those who are enemies of our people. The Law of the Ancestors forbids it.”

Omawit nodded respectfully as he handed over Shaira’s bindings to the great chief.

Everyone gathered around Shaira, attentive to the imminent interrogation to which the young star traveler would be subjected.