Winter's Orbit

by Everina Maxwell

  “What happened to me is not important right now,” Jainan said, his voice thin and determined. He removed the guardrail from the side of his bed and swung his legs out. “People need to know. Someone needs to recover the remnants. We are all in danger.”

  “We’ll blow it wide open the minute we’re out,” Kiem said. “Sunlight will cure it. Can you walk?” He couldn’t feel the technician breathing. He searched compulsively for a pulse; he couldn’t leave someone dying here. His fingers had only just touched her pulse point when someone else stepped into the pool of light.

  The footsteps were such an ordinary, everyday sound that at first he didn’t even look up, preoccupied with trying to find a sign that he didn’t have a corpse on his hands. It was Jainan’s cut-off, strangled choke that made him raise his head.

  A voice Kiem had heard far too recently said, “So Aren wasn’t lying. You are here.”

  The form supporting itself with one hand on a storage rack wasn’t the hallucination Kiem had just seen. Taam was almost unrecognizable. He was wearing casual civilian clothes, but he didn’t fill them out anymore; his body was wasted and stringy. There were the shiny outlines of burn scars on his neck. His mouth curled in a nasty echo of his previous expressions as he met Kiem’s gaze. “You might as well stare, cousin. Thought I was dead, didn’t you?”

  “You are dead.” Jainan looked transfixed; his voice was strained. “You can’t be—we would have known.”

  “I was in some trouble,” Taam said. “Not that you were a lot of help, were you?” His voice sounded more tired than anything else.

  Kiem stepped between him and Jainan. “Keep back.”

  Taam’s manner turned uglier. “Keep back from your partner? Oh, no, wait, from mine. I heard about your sham of a wedding. Don’t get between me and Jainan.” He went to shoulder Kiem aside, but Kiem planted his feet and didn’t move. “I’m not going to fucking repeat myself.” Taam drew the capper at his hip.

  A rustle of cloth was the only warning either of them got. Jainan seized the loose guardrail from the bed, stepped around Kiem, and cracked it down on Taam’s arm.

  “Fuck!” Taam dropped the capper and grabbed his shoulder, swearing, while his wrist hung limp.

  Jainan faced Taam, shifting his focus away from Kiem. He pulled his makeshift staff back. “Don’t touch him.”

  Taam stared. He didn’t seem to be able to process what was happening. “What are you doing? Put that thing—shit.” He’d tried to move his wrist. The strain of ignoring it wrote lines of pain across his face. “Jainan!”

  “Step away,” Jainan said. His voice sounded measured, though Jainan was capable of sounding measured well past when normal people would fall apart. “Two steps back will do.”

  “Jainan,” Taam said. It wasn’t clear what he expected the word to do. Jainan didn’t move. Kiem’s fist clenched, but he stayed still. “Jainan. Look at yourself. You’re making a scene with that ridiculous … thing.”

  “Very possibly,” Jainan said. “Step back from Kiem, Taam. I will not tell you again.” His grip tightened on the length of rail.

  Taam took a step back. “You need me,” he said. The edge of anger hadn’t left his voice, but now there was something else there: he sounded lost. “I’m your partner.”

  Jainan stood disturbingly still. He looked at Taam like he was a stranger. Kiem found he was barely breathing. The air smelled of metal.

  It was a long, long moment before Jainan shook his head slightly, as if freeing himself from a cobweb. “No,” he said. “I think I was finished some time ago.”

  He dropped the makeshift quarterstaff on the floor. It clattered, metal against metal, with a ringing sound that was shockingly loud and made even Taam flinch away. The ringing didn’t die away. Instead it hung in the air and echoed, unnaturally, growing louder and louder until Kiem had to clap his hands over his ears.

  Taam’s form was blurry in front of him. Kiem looked down once more at the technician; she had the face of his prime five friend. The room wavered.

  CHAPTER 28

  And Kiem opened his eyes.

  The first thing that hit him was the headache. That and the faint smell of station air circulation; he realized that though the hallucinations had been near-perfect, there had been no smell at all. He lifted the helmet off his head and saw the storage module as they’d left it.

  “Welcome back.”

  Or not quite as they’d left it. Aren Saffer sat on a pile of crates in front of him. He had a military-issue capper in his hand, and it was pointing straight at Kiem’s head.

  Kiem groaned internally. He was almost sure this wasn’t another loop, but of all the things not to be a hallucination. “Thanks,” he said, to buy time. Jainan was on the bed, but his eyes were closed, and he was slumped and still. The technician was unconscious on the floor. At least both of them were breathing.

  Bel stood uncomfortably against the storage rack opposite, her hands behind her head. Her capper was on the floor by Aren’s feet. She looked ruefully back at Kiem. “Sorry,” she said. “He got the drop on me while I dealt with her. I was never a combat specialist.”

  “Now,” Aren said conversationally, keeping the capper trained on Kiem. “I don’t mind admitting that I’m in a bit of a hole, here. No, don’t move,” he added, “I will absolutely fucking shoot.”

  “You might have been able to cover up Jainan’s death in custody,” Kiem said, “but no way are you going to be able to cover up mine.”

  “I don’t need to,” Aren said. “If you don’t start cooperating, I can get rid of you, and the Tau field will convince Jainan he did it. Don’t talk to me about sunk costs. Don’t move.” He swung the capper back and fired a ray in front of Bel, who had shoved herself off the wall and was halfway to her own weapon. He’d shot too fast: it only hit her outstretched hand, but even that was enough for the shock to run through her. She choked and fell to her hands and knees as she fought for consciousness. Kiem started toward her instinctively but pulled back, raising his hands, as Aren turned the capper on him.

  Aren got to his feet, still aiming at Kiem, and kicked the extra weapon under the nearest pile of hardware. “Why is everyone an idiot?” he said. “Your Imperial Highness, do me the favor of getting the fuck away from that machine. I’ve put a lot of effort into tying up this loose end, and you’re ruining my technician’s hard work.”

  “So you can try brainwashing Jainan again?” Kiem said. “No thanks. Wait, have you used the Tau field before? You must have. Actually, I know you have—you used it to make Colonel Lunver forget what we told her, didn’t you?” That must have been a less drastic adjustment than the one Aren had just tried on Jainan, but Kiem felt a chill about how well that had worked. “Why? Did she find out what you were doing?”

  “Listen,” Aren said, his patience visibly fraying, “It’s the middle of the night. In about six hours, I have to walk into General Fenrik’s office and give him proof that Jainan was behind Taam’s accident or I’m finished. I’d rather keep the number of dead royals to a minimum, but I don’t have to. Step away and let my technician back in.”

  A coughing sound from the bed made both Kiem and Aren look over. Jainan had opened his eyes and now raised his head with what looked like painful effort. “Let Kiem leave.”

  Aren swung the capper toward Jainan, then back at Kiem. “Thought that might have an effect,” he said, sounding more cheerful. “It took me a while to understand what was going on with you two, but now I get it. Your romantic mountain trip, this quaint rescue mission—you’re attached, aren’t you?” Kiem didn’t hate easily, but he was starting to now. “So this whole thing becomes easy. You’re staying here until the Thean invasion has started. And Jainan cooperates with the Tau field, or I shoot you.”

  Jainan’s hands were still cuffed in front of him, but he had managed to push the helmet off his head and was now painstakingly using both hands to try and remove the wire patch from his forehead. A trickle of blood was forming around it.
His face was a corpse-like mask.

  Aren was part of the plan to invade Thea. Cooperating wasn’t an option. Kiem tried to catch Jainan’s eye without Aren noticing and somehow communicate that it was all right, he knew Jainan would let both of them die before he helped Aren, but Jainan wouldn’t look at him.

  “I’ll do it,” Jainan said hoarsely. “I’ll help you. Leave Kiem out of it.”

  Kiem choked. “Wait—”

  “Kiem.” Jainan grasped the guardrail and pushed himself up as far as he could with the wire still attached to his head. “I need you to understand.” He took a breath, as if it was hard for him to speak. Then he turned his head to meet Kiem’s eyes and snapped, “Five!”

  Kiem felt the word settle into his brain. Jainan yanked the guardrail out of its sockets and threw it awkwardly at Kiem’s feet. Kiem’s thoughts ran slow as treacle as he watched the rail clatter to the ground, and then it clicked. Five. The quarterstaff lesson with Gairad. He grabbed the rail.

  Aren started to realize what was going on, but it was already too late. Jainan shoved himself off the bed so violently the wires ripped out of his head and his arm. His falling body crashed straight into Aren’s legs, just as Kiem brought the rail whistling around to smack into Aren’s wrist. It wasn’t a good blow, but Aren wasn’t prepared. The capper skittered across the floor. Aren fell heavily and sprawled after it, smashing into one of the metal crates. Jainan’s body landed on top of him.

  Kiem abandoned the loose rail. He fought down the sick terror and crouched to scoop up Aren’s dropped capper. Aren was on the floor halfway between Kiem and the bed. Kiem aimed the capper at his chest. “Don’t move.”

  By this time Aren had managed to sit up. Jainan was no longer conscious, but was still a dead weight on his legs. “That’s a lot of blood,” Aren said. He touched the dark patches on Jainan’s scalp.

  Kiem kicked Aren’s hand away and stepped back again. “Don’t do that,” he said. Jainan’s eyes were shut. How much bleeding was too much? Kiem aimed the capper very carefully with both hands. He had never shot one of these at a person. He couldn’t risk hitting Jainan, but Aren was at an awkward sideways angle to him. Would hitting Aren’s arm be enough to knock him out? It had worked on—

  Bel. The space where she had been lying was empty.

  Aren saw the look. “Where’s your raider friend gone?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Aren gave him a rueful smile. “So much for loyalty, eh?”

  Kiem leveled the capper at him. He wasn’t going to shoot lethally; he just needed to put him out. There was no reason for his heart to be hammering this hard. His finger closed on the trigger.

  “Careful,” Aren said. He wrenched Jainan’s body up to cover him. A wave of terror went through Kiem and made his arms spasm up. The capper ray passed over Aren’s head.

  Aren had Jainan by the shoulders, cradling him in front of him. Jainan’s eyes were closed and his head hung down on his chest. Kiem recovered his aim, but his hand was shaking now. Aren smiled at him. “You wouldn’t want to hit someone you don’t mean to,” he said. “A capper ray would probably be really bad for Jainan right now.”

  “Let go of him,” Kiem said.

  “Or you’ll … shoot me?” Aren said. “No. Let’s talk.”

  Kiem took a long, slow breath. The capper felt heavy in his hand. “I’m listening.”

  “If you’re still trying to salvage some kind of treaty from all this, you’ll need my cooperation,” Aren said. “Let’s just say, you need to convince the Auditor that Thea really wants to be part of the Iskat Empire. I have some stories on you and Jainan that could tank both your reputations and sink any chance at a treaty. The Thean newslogs always love stories about their representatives.”

  “You’re bluffing,” Kiem said.

  “Do you want to chance it, though?” Aren said. “I can see why Jainan thinks you’re an improvement on Taam, but let’s face it, once he’s adjusted, the shine’s going to wear off. What have you really got to offer? Even Taam managed to keep him from getting savaged by the press.”

  It hurt too much to look at Jainan’s face. Kiem turned his capper around in his hand compulsively, fidgeting in the way that had made his instructors at cadet camp turn white. “Okay,” he said. “All right. Just … just step away from Jainan. Please.”

  “I’m glad we’re on the same page,” Aren said, smiling. He lowered Jainan down to lie on the floor and freed his own legs, until he was kneeling beside Jainan. “Better?”

  Kiem gripped the capper, flung up his hand, and shot him in the chest.

  Aren didn’t have time to get out any words. He choked, his eyes wide, then slumped forward over Jainan.

  Kiem dropped the capper. He had to press one hand over the other to stop them from shaking. He fell to his knees beside Jainan and shoved Aren off him. Jainan was unconscious, either because of the Tau field or the blood still coming from his scalp, but that was all Kiem could tell. He laid Jainan out on his side so he could breathe properly. When he touched a hand to his hair, a wave of helpless despair went through him.

  He couldn’t fix this. It hurt more than anything had hurt in his life. He didn’t know when Jainan had gone from someone he just wanted to draw a smile from to someone he would rather die than lose, but it was true, and he was desperate.

  A whine in the distance started and stopped. It took Kiem a moment to register it was an alarm.

  When the soldiers burst in on them, accompanied by station security, Kiem was crouched beside Jainan watching his chest rise and fall. Aren and the technician lay slumped not far away. Kiem glanced up as the handful of guards and soldiers clattered down the aisles and surrounded them, pointing cappers at him and the unconscious forms on the floor, and said, “You could have gotten here faster.”

  That seemed to stymie the two soldiers who had their cappers trained on Kiem. The one in front of him had sergeant markings. “Hands on your head!”

  Kiem lifted them without taking his eyes off the sergeant. “This man needs a medic,” he said. “This is Count Jainan of Feria, the Thean treaty representative, and if you don’t get him to a medic right now, you’ll be answering to the Emperor for the diplomatic crisis that is going to ensue at any moment.”

  “Quiet,” the sergeant said, but Kiem could hear a crack of doubt in it. The station security guards—the civilians—seemed to be at least as suspicious of the soldiers as they were of Kiem. “Everyone in this module is under arrest.”

  “After you’ve answered to me,” Kiem said flatly, “the Emperor will seem like your nursery teacher.”

  “You can’t—”

  “Internal Security is already telling the Emperor you used a Tau field on a diplomat,” said a familiar voice. “They made using it a war crime for a reason.” At the back of the group, just coming through the door, a man in a station security uniform was guarding Bel. She had her wrists handcuffed in front of her. “Don’t think you can cover it up either. I called Chief Agent Rakal before I found you bunch. Even the Emperor wasn’t expecting you to go that far.” She raised her eyebrows at Kiem. “This is the first and last time I get voluntarily arrested. How’s Jainan?”

  “Bad,” Kiem said. “But this sergeant here is about to get him medical attention. Right?”

  The sergeant crouched beside Jainan to check his breathing. “He’s still under arrest,” he said. “Corporal, fetch the paramedic unit. Move!”

  The corporal left at a run. “The other man is Major Saffer,” Kiem said. “He tried to kill me. The woman was his accomplice.”

  The sergeant got to his feet again and had a short, intense argument with one of the station security guards. “Everyone is in custody until we sort this out,” the sergeant said. “Secure the other two on the floor. The … the diplomat will have all possible assistance. Prince Kiem, will you cooperate?”

  “I’m waiting until the medics come,” Kiem said. “You can arrest me after that.” He took Jainan’s hand and didn’t mov
e.

  CHAPTER 29

  Jainan could not establish a strong enough grip on his own mind to understand what was going on. There were wires attached to him again, and sometimes it was light, and sometimes it was dark, and terror was like a sea beneath his feet. Beyond that he knew very little.

  People’s faces melted into other faces. They asked him about Aren, about Kiem, about himself. Jainan refused to answer. Mostly the words were indistinct, but sometimes he was nearly tricked into saying something and had to bite his tongue to stop himself. Once he bit it so hard he tasted blood, and then there was a commotion and figures leaning over him, and someone pressed something into his mouth to force his teeth apart. He swallowed, over and over again, and felt sick with the taste.

  Sometimes he knew it was the skin on his head that hurt, and everything else was his imagination, but other times he forgot that. At one point he realized he’d cried out, and a voice said, “At least he’s talking,” and another, “Wouldn’t call that talking.”

  Then there was a moment when he opened his eyes and all he saw was the white ceiling of a med room. A screen on the wall played a loop of ripples lapping at a riverbank.

  He drew a cautious breath. The air smelled faintly of antiseptic and had a dry, filtered feel he associated with nanocleaners. His head hurt fiercely, but there didn’t seem to be anything attached to it. A tube from a drip fed into his wrist. He felt—not like death, but like death had happened some time ago, and against all odds he had recovered.

  He tried to pull himself forward, and to his relief found that his body responded enough for him to sit up.

  An orderly he hadn’t seen in the corner of the room lifted his head from his reading, startled. “Awake?” He propelled himself up from his bench. “Here, let’s fix that bed for you.” He adjusted it so it rose with Jainan.

  “I can sit up,” Jainan said.

  “Sure you can,” the orderly said cheerfully. Jainan leaned back against the upright mattress and chose not to pick a fight.