I wiped away the tears as we turned onto the street next to the park, where the Veril's main military base in the capital had been set up. The adrenaline rushing through me when I saw the checkpoint helped me to compose myself a little; I could not afford the luxury of a mental breakdown right now. I needed to stay alert while I was being dragged away into the General's world--the General who was sitting silently at my side, still too close to me. His presence was all-encompassing, like a black hole, making me gravitate towards him. At least he was focusing on something else and didn't have his hands on me for once.
The street was blocked by a provisory wall reaching up to the height of a human's shoulders, made out of a strange combination of wire, sand bags, and plants that grew in thick and twisting thorny vines over the barricade.
Some of the plants were emitting the strange blue undulating glow that I had come to associate with Veril magic, and I remembered the stories about Sleeping Beauty's castle, surrounded by vines that would ensnare anyone who came too close to them, trapping them to die a gruesome death in their thorns.
We drove straight on, and to my complete fascination, the plants untangled themselves and parted as soon as the car in front of us had reached them, revealing an opening between the wall of sandbags, and I was starting to believe that all the stories were true after all.
The heavily armed Veril warriors standing guard in front and behind the barricade--some of them carrying guns, others crossbows--had stepped aside and saluted by moving their right fist towards their hearts in one simultaneous motion. I shivered as I realized that the man next to me commanded all of them. I glanced over to him, but he was merely looking ahead, seemingly unimpressed by what was going on.
Cold dread took a hold of me as we crossed into Veril territory, and I had to fight down the panic rising in my stomach.
I dug my nails into the fabric of the seat, as if holding on to it could keep me from being dragged deeper into this place that had once been a normal part of the city but was now so strange to me that it might as well have been the Veril dimension itself.
My arm brushed against the General's leg, and he looked down at my tense fist grasping the seat.
"You have nothing to fear of my soldiers when you are with me," he said, placing his hand on mine.
My skin tingled at the contact. I was getting really tired of my body's reaction to him, but I didn't dare to pull away. Why did he always have to touch me?
"I'm more afraid of you than of your soldiers, Gen...
Shenik
Tsul." My response was almost a whisper.
His eyes narrowed as he fixed me with his gaze. "I see," was all he said in reply.
After a moment of silence, I asked, "How did the soldiers know that it was you?"
I hadn't seen any insignia on the vehicles that could have identified our convoy as the cars of General Tsul.
He laughed a little. "You are scared of me, yet you are so comfortable asking crucial information about the organization of my army?"
I thought that this would be the only reply I was going to get: insinuations and enigmas, as always. But then he pulled the right sleeve of his uniform up to his elbow, exposing the faintly glowing marks running all over the green skin of his muscular forearm.
The General leaned over to me and smiled. It was the same pleased expression he'd had when he explained why killing with a blade was better than with a gun. I shivered, not sure if I even wanted to hear the explanation. His thoughts and views were a constant reminder of how different he was from a human man.
"My soldiers know it is me because they can feel it through the mark of the Kirtim Shenk." He took my hand, which had still been trapped under his, and guided my fingers over his arm until they came to rest close to his elbow on a symbol composed of a half circle sitting on a thin line inside of a full circle.
The glow of the marks rippled almost imperceptibly under my touch, like water in a breeze. Fascinated, I explored them with my hand, letting my fingertips trace the slight elevations on his soft skin. They felt like scars, and I remembered how it had stung when he marked my face. These seemed somehow deeper and more permanent.
"Did they hurt?" I asked him.
His smile grew wider, revealing his pointy teeth and lighting up his face. He was so beautiful that I felt the urge to kiss him and forgive everything he had ever done--to me as well as to the world.
"Oh,
so
much. You have no idea, my sweet." He laughed. "But of course it is a
great honor
," he said, lowering the corners of his mouth mockingly.
"Don't you think so?" I asked him; he had peaked my curiosity.
"Where I come from, a man without marks is not a man. So it is really not a question of what I do or do not think about them. Besides, they are undeniably useful."
I shuddered as I recalled that the marks on both of his arms reached up as high as his shoulders. How much pain had he endured to get them? I shook my head. Too bad; it served the asshole right. But still, I couldn't keep from running my fingers over his skin.
I took my time studying the symbols and inhaled sharply as I recognized one of them: three lines below a three-pointed zigzag topped with four small circles. I looked at the General as the image of red lines on a white cloth fluttering in the wind above Hamburg's City Hall flashed before my inner eye.
"
Tsul
," he said simply. "The first mark we get is our family name. And I got this one a few weeks later." He pulled up his other sleeve and showed me the mark of the Kirtim Shenk, which was repeated on his left arm.
I raised my eyebrows, and he caught my gaze, just smiling down at me for a while.
"Ch'ish, you are so sweet, mishtz'in. All the things I am going to do with you."
I glared at him, but his eyes narrowed. A warning reminding me to stay nice and obedient if I didn't want to make the powerful General angry.
"Do you long to be disciplined again, keltz'in?" he said his voice was low and almost hopeful.
The car shook a little and saved me from giving him a reply that I would have regretted later. Startled, I looked out of the window and saw that we were on top of some sort of embankment, crossing a deep ditch that ran off to infinity on the left and right sides of our cars. In front of us, like a wall of darkness, rose a three-meter-high hedge composed of the same plants I had seen at the checkpoint earlier, only thicker and thornier.
"Try to restrain your excitement, my sweet. We have reached Volkspark Friedrichshain," the General smirked as the vines revealed a craftily forged bronze gate that now blocked one of the former entrances and had definitely not been there when I visited the park last fall. The detailed and organic Veril structures posed a surreal contrast to the gray, uniform cement of the large apartment blocks behind us. It was truly like the frontier between two worlds.
Our car came to an abrupt halt, propelling me forward a little bit, and I reflexively grabbed the General's strong arm for support. Three Veril soldiers carrying assault rifles had appeared seemingly out of nowhere in front of the first car, forcing the driver to stop.
The General spoke a low order to Vik Ichel, and the colonel got out of the car in one rapid movement. I watched interestedly as the sentinels greeted him with a salute. They exchanged some words, and the three soldiers looked very uncomfortable. The General to my right grunted in annoyance, placed my hand that had still been holding on to his arm on my thigh, and opened his door.
When he stepped outside, I quickly unbuckled my seatbelt, assuming that I was supposed to follow, but he turned back to me, his eyebrows drawn together.
"Stay," he ordered, and slammed the door shut.
I breathed out as I watched him walk away, his gait graceful despite how large he was. It was the first time tonight that he was not around me--on top of me, inside of me, touching me, ordering me around, teasing me--and I felt my mind and body relax a little.
I looked through the window. The soldiers were standing tall, at attention heels together and fists on their hearts as they were saluting. Their bulky shapes would have been menacing had it not been for the General standing in front of them; his whole demeanor left no doubt about who was in power. If the soldiers had looked uncomfortable talking with Vik Ichel before, now it seemed like they wished for the vines behind them to swallow them forever.
The sentinel in the middle gestured apologetically in my direction, apparently trying to explain something, and I saw the blue light of the cars reflecting as he handed something shiny to the General, who nodded once and returned.
I was about to buckle my seatbelt again, but instead of going to his seat, he opened my door, yanked me out by my wrist, and pulled me towards the sentinels. The grip of his strong fingers was biting into my already bruised skin. I really wanted to protest as I stumbled behind him, the hard earth and stones of the street stinging my bare feet, but I was sure that the General would not tolerate any disrespect, especially not in front of his subordinates. The soldiers stood straight and saluted again.
My stomach twisted at the thought of how pathetic I must be looking in their eyes--dirty, abused, and almost naked--truly nothing but a toy for the mighty General. He pulled me closer; his face was expressionless, but my eyes widened when I saw that what he was holding in his other hand was a delicate silver knife. For a terrible moment, I believed he was going to kill me right then and there.
When the General moved, it was faster than my eyes could see. He twisted my wrist so that my hand was facing upwards and dragged the blade across my palm. He had been so quick that the pain didn't hit me until seconds later. I bit my tongue at the sharp burn, not wanting to give the General the satisfaction of a scream. But he gently caressed my wrist with his thumb, and my hairs stood up at the unexpected softness of his touch.
One sentinel stepped closer, holding a delicate vial. He was about to seize my arm, but the General hissed a harsh order that made the soldier freeze in place as if he had run into an invisible wall. He bowed deeply and handed the little bottle over to his commander.
The General twisted my wrist, making the blood drip down my palm into the dusty ground below us. I felt the warmth as one of the drops hit my foot. He caught some of it in the vial and handed it back to the sentinel, who bowed again. I wanted to roll my eyes, but the soldier had turned to me.
