by R Coots
He decided that calling attention to whatever was going on would backfire in a massive way. Might as well get what he could out of Jossa while she was using real words. “Been over two hundred years since we had a fuerrus worth the name. None of them last more than five or ten years. None of them keep stables of women anymore.”
Delfi spat something at him. He glared at her. “Get up here.”
She didn’t move.
“You want that crown off or not?”
She narrowed her eyes at him. He snarled and tore a hand free of Jossa so he could point at the bag he’d left on the table. “That’s the shit that’ll get it off. Keep her upright. You.” He glared at Jossa. “What about the concubines? Why would any man want a pile of women around who could kill him in his sleep?”
Delfi got up on her knees and waddled along the bench. She watched him like she expected him to reach out and hit her again; but she took her bonded’s shoulders when he let go and held her upright as he eased out from the bench and went back to the bag. He was fucked if they could communicate subvocally. If the crown didn’t block Jossa’s sai skin to skin, it wouldn’t work on any communication through the bond, but he’d just have to take the chance. Only Delfi was in any shape to kill him anyway.
“Conditioned,” Jossa said after a moment. “We weren’t just there for sex. We were his guards, too. Allow no harm to come to him.” She laughed. There was enough bitterness in the noise to turn the whole galley sour. “Have to start it early, you know. Doesn’t take. Have to find them young and teach them well. Lucky, you know.” Her head lolled on her shoulders as she tried to look at him. Delfi nearly lost her as the taller woman started to flop over sideways. Cursing, the young woman wrestled her back upright.
When it looked like she’d lose the fight with gravity and dump her sousi off the edge of the bench seat instead, Syrus reached over to help. Touching the crown didn’t hurt, so he shoved Jossa’s head in the direction of Delfi’s shoulder. She hit with a yelp and they both landed in the bench with a mingled squawk and a sprawl of arms and legs.
“Know conditioning,” he said. “Seen it started too late. Think that’s what fucked up . . .” He frowned. “What’s her name. Likes bruises.”
Jossa muttered something he couldn’t understand, probably because she had a lock of her bonded’s hair stuck in her mouth. Delfi’s hands flailed and she barked out a couple words that could only be curses. For a moment he considered leaving them to sort themselves out, but with his luck they’d get themselves all the way sorted and he’d wind up having to kill them. Not really something he wanted to do right now.
Instead he held up the neural interfacer he’d just put together. “See this? Who wants to go first?”
They just looked at him.
Bitches. You’d think they’d want a chance for freedom. He was waving it under their noses. Literally. Now they got all scared and meek? It was true what they said. People from the Core were crazy.
“Fine.” He grabbed a fistful of Jossa’s shirt and pulled her off Delfi. “You then. I take this off, you going to be able to translate for me?”
Of course, if the red-headed Foreseer really did have a prophecy locked in her head, he might already be fucked. But somehow, what little he’d heard about that particular breed of sai didn’t make him think she could to get around the crown the way Jossa had. They either knew something or they didn’t. Touch didn’t factor into the equation.
No. Chances were, the words she spouted were a result of something in her brain having gotten scrambled, either by the long-term cryo or whatever had woken her up without any of Iira’s alerts going off. Fuck, it could have been the fact that she’d been crowned before regaining consciousness.
Jossa was either too far gone to think of any of that, or she was more lucid than he knew. “Can’t,” she whispered. Her lips were cracked. Her skin was starting to take on a texture that reminded him of plant husks covered in dust. “Know the words. Words aren’t the problem. Translation comes from . . .” She fluttered her hands near her chest, then reached for her head. “It’s the bond. The pairing. Takes the meaning behind words and sets it in order.
“Del,” she choked and tried to turn in his grip, reaching for her sousi with trembling fingers. “Del has been calling you names. And—”
“Yeah, got that part. Can’t get anything done with you crying and her speaking in tongues. So. I take off the crowns. She,” he pointed at Delfi, who glared. “Will stop acting like a spoiled child. Then you’ll find out if it’s just the crown making her talk like that or if it’s something else. Deal?”
She frowned. “And what then?”
“If you hadn’t noticed, we’re on our own. Headed away from the Fleet.” She blinked at that. Hope and suspicion bubbled and crawled over his skin. He raised an eyebrow at her. He was about to crush the hope flat. “Right now we’re aimed straight at the most secure military facility this side of the Core. You’re going to help me get inside.
“Now hold still. This is probably going to hurt.”
>Chapter Twenty-Three
Jossa
Crowns were one of the first things developed, child. How else are we to keep gifts of such strength as yours from bursting you at the seams? How else can we hold you inside your skin until you’re sane enough to do it yourself?
-Chataf Kuchru lis Churus isk Fuerrus, to Jossalyn
Having a crown removed almost hurt worse than having one attached to her skull and its insides. Jossa couldn’t remember her first crown. She’d been too young when it was placed. She did remember when Iira had forced this most recent one on her. Now, as then, there was nothing to dull the pain. From one breath to the next, her brain ignited as a million threads of fire retreated along neural pathways. She knew she screamed, but it wasn’t until someone slapped her lightly on the face that she realized she’d actually passed out.
The warlord held a cup in one hand. In the other, he had a jumble of curved metal plates loosely joined by the wires running along their undersides. It took her a moment to recognize the crown, now that it wasn’t on her head.
She groaned and tried to touch her face. Her hands came up short. Frowning, she tried again. She didn’t make it half as far that time. What?
“Didn’t kill you.” The warlord set the crown somewhere out of sight and reached for her. She cringed away. Her back met a soft, but resistant surface. Nowhere to run. If she could even get her feet moving.
His frustration reached her first. She tried to pull away. Stars and black dots swam in front of her eyes and the room spun. His hand cupped her head, fingers threading through the hair near her ear, his emotions grinding at her mind, and half-formed visions of people she couldn’t recognize floated before her eyes. Jossa nearly cried with relief. Not even the pain was enough to dampen that reaction. She wasn’t a prisoner in her own mind anymore. She’d been able to feel him coming. Before he’d touched her!
He held the cup to her mouth. Jossa sipped on reflex. The water was tepid, but he didn’t make her drink faster than she could handle. When she closed her lips against the flow, he took the cup back. He didn’t let go of her head.
He was closing himself down. Even through contact, the grinding frustration and its odd echoes of . . . Sorrow? Loss? . . . faded to nearly nothing. The ghosts dancing at the edges of her mind faded too, though she reached for them. For a man who seemed to exist on the edge of his temper, he was remarkably good at hiding his feelings when he chose. Especially considering that he was a man. And a Savage at that.
His mouth twisted and his eyes hardened. Standing, he walked away from her and over to the other end of the table. “Your sousi likes to sleep. She always this lazy?”
Jossa blinked. She’d been so focused on the warlord, she hadn’t noticed Delfi sitting across from her. Unconscious. De-crowned. The panic rising to swamp her dropped just as fast as it had risen. She slumped back against the bulkhead, swallowing down the last of her fear. “Maybe it’s just you,” s
he whispered. Then gulped and added, “Milord,” before he could round on her.
He laughed. “It’s Syrus for now. I know you know it. You ‘milord’ me where we’re headed, we’ll all die.” He scooped the cup of water off the table, amusement rising in the air, and grinned down at her. “Let’s see how good you are at translating.”
He dumped the water over Delfi’s head.
She came up shrieking. “Jehkawyjneh! Ahlih deh’oh niayj ch kihdayjo ch yshohyj iyahzaks! Uksu ch yshohyj shahvih zi wehryj neh! Gohoyj ch yshohyj iuriwe fehnao ch nuh yshohyj neh! Joss! A’apahih zohturyj?”
Jossa stared at her sister. She couldn’t look at the warlord. Couldn’t meet his eyes. Couldn’t do anything but gape in horror and claw frantically for the most important part of her sai.
It wasn’t there. She’d been so sure it would be there. How could she have lost her ability to translate? Half her talent was gone. Was the bond permanently damaged? Was it Delfi? Was her sousi the one who was broken? But Del had always been the strong one! Delfi had always been the one who—
“Ijehkea’oks yshohyj ekhi uyrru, jehkawyjks neh! Jephili ch no yshohyj—” The smack of flesh on flesh cut Del’s tirade off aborning. Jossa heard it, but didn’t react. She’d gone deep, diving into parts of her mind she hadn’t touched in . . . far too long. Where was it? Where was the pull? Where was the soul deep tug that told her what the words really meant? Nothing. Just the echoing ring of Del’s voice off the wall.
Del had told the warlord that all his children should be born with two heads, and that his usik should fall off and his seed poison all his women. Something in that mess should tell her what lay in the warlord’s future. Something! He deserved every word.
Nothing. No deeper meaning, no translation. Where was it? The crowns were off. There was someone present to hear the prophecy, as required. Even if Delfi’s prophecy had originated in something old and buried—even if it had been an echo caught in Del’s head until the crown was off—it should be freed now! The translation should still come through the bond! She should know! It was why they paired! It was how they worked!
“Well, this is a fucking nightmare. Should’ve spaced you both, you know that?”
::Joss!::
The fear and rage and shame in Delfi’s mental voice were enough to rock Jossa where she sat. She shook her head and clamped her mouth shut.
Delfi had pushed herself as far as the tethers would allow, clinging to the edges of the table to keep herself in place. ::Joss, focus! Look at me!::
Just like that, Jossa’s mind cleared. The fear and horror were still there. She knew. She’d lose it again in a moment. But for now, she had her anchor. Delfi was here. She hadn’t completely lost her mind. Really, how bad could things be if her sister was awake and decrowned? They’d muddle through somehow. They always did. The two of them and the crew and . . .
Here came the grief. The suction her sister had set up through the bond failed, letting all the memories come rushing back. Twofold, now that Del’s could touch her in return. Of all the times not to be crowned. This part had been easier to deal with when she was still locked inside herself. How could she have let this happen? All her fault. It was all her fault. Everything.
“The two of you don’t quit babbling about whose fault it was and whatever the fuck it is you’re saying, I’m sticking both of you out the airlock. Then I’m going to depressurize it. Really slow. Got me?”
“Should have never made Chethalin kill him,” Jossa whispered, half to herself, half to the warlord. She felt her hands hit the end of their tethers as she clutched at the ends of her hair. “It’s all my fault. Ran and ran and ran. Shouldn’t have run, either, except the truthsayers would have found us sooner. Not later. Reconditioning is worse than conditioning started late. Wanted to be free.”
“Ohzoh iikeha’oh,” Del said softly from the other side of the table, voice cracking on her grief. She was still holding on to the edges of the table, her eyes burning behind the curtain of hair. “Ohzoh iikeha’oh,” she crooned, softer.
“Until they found us!” Jossa rubbed the tears in her eyes off onto her shoulder, feeling the tethers pull at her arms and not caring. “Until—” she gulped down a sob. “Ancestor’s Seed, I should have known he wouldn’t let us go so easy!”
“Who?” The warlord’s grip on his emotions had slipped somewhat; she could feel curiosity dancing over her skin.
“Iiphilih,” Delfi snarled, and then she yelped.
Jossa looked up. The warlord had Del by the ear. But he wasn’t looking at the Foreseer. He was looking straight at Jossa. “Who?” His voice was quiet. Dangerously so. Something unnamable and dark leaked out of him like radiation from a cracked core.
She sighed. “The feuerrus datevataf. He had a very minor sai of Hearing.”
The dark stuff transmuted to something else, then pulled in before she could identify what it was. Syrus sat there on the edge of the table, still holding Del by the ear, ignoring her flailing hands and the scratch marks she was leaving on his arm. Just when she thought he’d forgotten about them entirely, he frowned. “What happened to concubines when the fuerrus died?”
::Finally,:: Delfi muttered. ::The right questions.::
::You’re going to get us both killed,:: Jossa shot back. Delfi’s flare of anger along the bond told her she’d struck a nerve. If the warlord had been any sort of sai, they might have been in trouble.
Steeling herself, Jossa looked up, praying he hadn’t noticed her lack of attention. If he had, he didn’t give any indication beyond a raised eyebrow. Like one of her instructors when she hadn’t given an answer in time.
::We’d be free right now if I’d been able to find a gun!::
Jossa blinked. How had she not thought of that?
“Got that fucking sousi look on your faces.” The warlord leaned over to glare at Del. “What did she say?" Delfi twisted against his grip on her ear and stuck out her tongue.
“Guns,” Jossa whispered. Then louder: “Guns. Why weren’t there any?”
“Oh. That.” He settled his weight back and shrugged. “Keep them locked up. They fight each other to gain rank. Things are bad enough when they Challenge each other with knives. We’d all end up in vacuum or fixing life support and the locks every other day if they could have guns outside of active combat. Can you imagine letting a bunch of lunatics run around with pulse rifles and random projectile weapons on a fucking spaceship?”
She stared at him, trying to decide if he was serious.
“Back to the story,” he said. “I don’t have a full chrono to wait here.”
“Guards in life, guards in death,” Jossa told him. It was easier to answer than arguing about gun safety on a ship. “When the fuerrus died, we took up residence around his tomb. When we passed on, our death tablets would stand around his, closer even than his children’s. Until then, none but his Progeny were allowed to approach. For worship.”
He snorted, but rolled his hand in a keep-going gesture.
“The prince wanted to change the order of things. He—” She stopped and shuddered.
“You were already brood mares.” The warlord let go of Delfi’s ear so he could lean forward and meet Jossa’s eyes. “He wanted to stack the odds, see if he couldn’t turn his own recessive throw into another. Strengthen the bloodlines.”
“Jahnudyj neh,” Del spat, rubbing her ear against her shoulder. “Tahts aksyikrys nih. Tsets lohteks jehkehsaks skaeks kasheks ihrithaks nih.” She slammed a fist down on the table, narrowly missing the warlord’s hand. “Kashyj kehsaks ohzoh ihkeha’oks nih.”
Syrus looked at Jossa and growled, his irritation warring with her own despair as it crept up under her skin. She didn’t need to be told twice. Not that she thought he needed translation for that last bit, considering Del’s tone of voice.
“We’d spent our lives dancing to the whim of the fuerrus,” she said. Translating directly from He’la to Imperial was almost harder than translating a prophecy. She looked
down, trying to pick the clearest words she could. The surface of the table had little chips of reflective material embedded in it. “He forgot that while we might be the most powerful sousi pairing in isk Churusimpir lis Kuchruog lis isk Fuerrus, we were also a Foreseer and her translator. We didn’t have much warning of what he’d planned, but we had enough. We attacked him. We ran. Rui—” She stopped to swallow down tears. “Rui and his crew took us in. Hid us. We thought we were safe.”
Syrus snorted and levered himself off the table, taking the cup with him. Liquid ran. She looked up to find him standing by the little sink, holding the cup under a stream of water. “Figures.” he said. “People with power don’t give it up if they can help it. No matter how far you run; take something they think is theirs, they’ll fucking come for you. Just a matter of time.” He set the cup in front of Del, who stared at him through her hair.
The warlord might as well have been wrapped in shielding panels, for all Jossa could read his emotions. She knew he was angry. The thread of grief was back as well. But for the life of her, she couldn’t tell why.
::Del? Can you get anything off him?:: Delfi’s secondary talent was to Hear the thoughts of others. If she could glean some hint of what the warlord was thinking, maybe they could figure out which way to jump when he exploded.
Delfi didn’t answer. Instead, she reached out and caught the cup of water with her fingertips, then inched it closer to herself and sipped, staring at the warlord the entire time.
One eyebrow climbed up his forehead, but he looked back at Jossa instead of commenting. “So,” he said. “You ran. Someone decided they still wanted you. Obviously they found you.”
Jossa snorted. “Every concubine and noblewoman worth the name is a sai. Of course they found us.” She looked down at her hands, laced together in her lap. At least the tethers let her do that much. “Twenty generations of breeding in our veins. When my parents sent me to isk Fuerrus, they received three solar systems and the accompanying Barbicans as payment. They were rich systems. Each had an Ajiri planet and several Kovavek facilities. Delfi’s family didn’t need any more planets. They took promises of future breeding stock—children—when the lines were diluted enough that inbreeding was less of a risk. A direct link to the fuerrus into perpetuity.” She looked up at him. “Do you know what that would have been worth? If a son of their line had ever shown sai?”