Birthright

CHAPTER THREE

The man wore navy-blue pants and a button-down shirt, with a padded black vest over the shirt, a pair of black leather boots, and a heavy duty belt around his waist complete with two reinforced blades made for breaking through a mature Sanser's shield. A single-lens cader was positioned over one golden eye, and Kray knew the man could retrieve all sorts of information about him through it. Where he lived, his relatives in Saranth. His family history.

"That's him right there, Enforcer Tinsley," Oliver said with a nasty smile on his face. "He attacked me in the woods right behind the amphitheater."

Kray's stomach sank. So that was Oliver's story. Convenient of him to leave out that part about Malkan.

"Kray Eagan," Tinsley said. The cader glowed softly with a purple hue. "Is it true? Did you attack this boy earlier?"

People were noticing them, drawing closer to witness the spectacle. Kray stuck his hands in his pockets and said gruffly, "No, sir. I didn't lay a hand on him until he swung first. I caught him and his friends beating up some kid in the woods."

Oliver laughed. "What a liar."

"Who is this alleged kid?" the man asked.

"Malkan Kovos. The son of a Faithful." Kray chose the word Faithful intentionally, in a feeble attempt to emphasize that Malkan wasn't a hostile, wasn't from a family of hostiles, and that he deserved as much security in the Mainland as any human did. The Faithful were small in numbers, but they were protected under the laws of the Allied Native Forces, because they'd proven loyal to the humans. That had to count for something.

"You mean the son of a Sanser."

He tightened his jaw. It hadn't worked. This Meta clearly wasn't sympathetic toward Sansers—which wasn't surprising, since Oliver would only pick out Metas like him.

"Yes, sir," he said.

Someone drew nearer to them, a thin, bearded man wearing a checkered shirt. "I know this boy, Enforcer," he said, jabbing a finger toward Kray. "His parents were killed for treason years ago. And now he's aiding Sansers against his own kind. It's just not natural."

A few murmurs of agreement. "A night in jail might rid him of his attachment to those savages," someone said, eliciting laughter.

Kray stood unmoving through all of it, his hands balled tightly in his pockets. Judging by the Meta's faint sneer, he agreed with them. All of these people were against him: Oliver and his buddies, Tinsley, the strangers, even Leah, who stood quietly to one side and observed the scene.

Swallowing the thickness in his throat, he kept his gaze straight, focused on the Meta. "Am I being arrested for being attached to savages? Not sure if that's a real crime in Saranth. Maybe in Calsin." That province hated Sansers more than this one did, which was hard to fathom.

"Watch your mouth, boy," Tinsley snapped. "Not only did you injure this boy here, you are now disrupting Liberation. How about you leave before this becomes a real problem?"

"Gladly, sir," Kray said. He pulled the money out of his pocket and flung it toward Leah. "Tell Alex this isn't my kind of scene. I'm out of here."

He marched off, his chest tight with rage and something else. Something that felt too much like sorrow.

#

Sunday morning, Kray woke up early. For a moment, he lay on his back, staring up at his tiled ceiling and wondering why there was a hollow feeling in his gut. When he remembered the incident during Liberation, he closed his eyes tightly, wishing he could go back in time and head off in the opposite direction of Berkley Park, instead of making a fool of himself to Alex and then to half the attendees.