Liolesa looked up at the firmament, her profile limned by starlight, revealing its uncompromising lines, glowing in her eyes. Then she looked at him and said, “I knew that I would come to this moment after bloodshed and horror, if I came to it at all. That my plans were never meant to grow slowly, but to be torn from the body, bleeding and screaming. But for all that, Hiran….” She returned her gaze to the sky. “I am satisfied. The moment has come. I am here to seize it. And our people will survive this.”
“My Lady,” he said.
“You’ll be my Sword?” she said. “Not the White Sword, who guarded my safety. But the Lord of War, who wards my people.”
That made him smile, a little. “This from the woman who took the sword as her personal emblem in defiance of the customs that mandated that a woman should bear the seal and shield alone?”
She pursed her lips. “Sooth.” She considered him, then nodded. “And a nuance deftly exposed. You are right… you are no sword, not anymore.” A grin, fierce and focused. Words gone white for hallowed ground and holy vows. “The Shield, then. Of a world. That is a better metaphor for the Lord of War, who must direct the defense of a nation.”
His heart paused. The world did not; the wind still dragged at the back of his exposed neck, teasing a chime from the prayer bell at the end of the hair chain. It seemed an unreasonably cold night, a quiet one, to hold such an offer in it. The healer who was also a warrior. A task suited to his talents. A responsibility, he thought suddenly, that would give him purpose after the woman he took to wife died. He closed his eyes.
“How well you know me,” he said at last.
She set a gentle hand on his forearm.
Reese returned to the camp and among the silhouettes had no trouble identifying the one she most wanted to see. “Kis’eh’t!”
“Reese?” The Glaseah brightened, then jogged to her and enveloped her in a warm, solid hug, smelling of cinnamon like the pies she liked to bake. “Reese! And… oh, Irine, Sascha… Bryer… I’m so glad to see you all well! Here’s someone who’s missed you, too, Reese—oh, where’s Hirianthial?”
“Over with the Queen,” Reese said and then stopped as the Glaseah deposited a soft, familiar weight in her arms. Her mind exploded with a trumpet fanfare and shimmering confetti, overwrote itself with a confusion of voices and the comforting warmth of blankets after having slept in them long enough for the fabric to go knobby. She laughed and cried, “Allacazam!” and pressed her cheek to the Flitzbe’s body. “Oh, am I glad to see you too. Go easy on the talking, though, you’re going to give me a headache!”
Chagrin fell like nightfall, soothing the excitation of her nerves. Reese sighed and looked up at Kis’eh’t, hugged her again. “It’s so good to see you.”
“We missed you!” Irine added.
Surprised at the extra hug but keeping her arm around Reese’s shoulders, Kis’eh’t said, “I missed you too. Tell me everything?”
“Everything’s going to take a while,” Sascha said. “As usual.”
“Come on,” Irine said, tugging at Kis’eh’t’s free arm. “Over this way. There’s not much left by way of buildings around here anymore, but Soly’s given us some heaters.”
“All the comforts of civilization,” Kis’eh’t said, amused, and allowed herself to be led away. Once they’d settled around one of the thin cylinders, stuck into the soil like a torch but radiating a far more consistent and powerful warmth than any fire, she said, “All right, I’m listening.”
The story took a while to come out. Reese let the twins carry it, adding her bit when it seemed appropriate, and spent the time relaxing into the realization that they were all in one place; that somehow, they’d gotten through this and were together again. She loved her crew. How had it taken her so long to realize?
Allacazam’s jab felt like a stubbed toe. “Hey,” she said to him. “I’m getting there! Go easy on me.” A laugh then, like the tinkle of windchimes. She grinned and petted him, and caught up with the story… almost over now.
When Irine finished—with less of a flourish than usual, given the desolation that they were camped beside—the Glaseah blew out a breath. “Well. That’s an adventure, then.”
“What about you?” Reese asked. “Did you get to spend any time with Liolesa on the way back?”
“A fair amount, yes,” Kis’eh’t said. “I like her. She’s a thinker.” That earned the Glaseah some guffaws, which she accepted with a good-natured grin. “I know. A very Glaseahn compliment. But you wouldn’t believe the amount of work she’s been doing out in the Alliance while everyone on her world was complaining about the evil influence of the alien. Lots of risks and research and investments, almost all of them against her world here falling apart. All the way here she was making calls. If it wasn’t for Fleet having the lock-down on most of the military stuff, she’d have found a way to buy a navy and gone pirate-killing herself.”
“Risks and research and investments,” Reese said, quiet. “Sort of like….”
“Us?” Irine’s ears perked.
“I guess if you’re betting your world’s going to need supplies, you could do worse than rescuing a few freighter captains from debt,” Sascha said.
“Yes.” Kis’eh’t nodded. “A lot of long-term thinking. I greatly enjoyed my conversations with her. In fact, she… ah… might have asked me how I felt about becoming….”
“Becoming….” Reese prompted.
The Glaseah rubbed the back of her neck, sheepish. “A royal advisor.”
The twins laughed; even Bryer snorted.
“You!” Sascha exclaimed. “Really? When you were lambasting this place for its backwards, feudalistic culture only a few weeks ago?”
“That’s just it. She wants me because I find the culture backwards. Because she wants to remake it into something that isn’t, while keeping it true to the principles that drove the Eldritch here in the first place.” Kis’eh’t managed a weak smile. “How could I say no to a challenge like that?”
“You couldn’t, obviously, because you didn’t.” Sascha laughed. “So that leaves the rest of us to figure out what to do around here.”
Reese looked down at her hand on Allacazam’s fur, reminded herself to keep petting him. “I hope you know you have a place with me. I have that entire run-down castle to fix.”
“You should see it!” Irine twined her tail around her brother’s. “It’s covered in roses.”
“I’d like to,” Sascha agreed. “But… I also think… I might see what Hirianthial decides to do. I’m used to following him around, keeping him from getting killed. It would feel strange to give that up.” He glanced at Reese. “Of course, that might not be a problem, if the two of you….”
“I don’t know,” Reese said quickly. She took a steadying breath, the air cold enough to lift goosebumps under her coat. Calmer, she said, “But… I think things are going to work out there. After all this gets resolved.”
“All this,” Kis’eh’t agreed with a touch of a growl, looking toward the remains of the village. “Barbarism at its worst.” She shook herself until her fur smoothed down and said, “Not for much longer, though, if Liolesa has her way. Speaking of which… I think she’s heading for us.”
They all stood to await the woman’s approach. When she drew nigh, the Queen paused and inclined her head to them before saying to Reese, “Theresa… if you could spare a moment to attend me.”
“Sure. Of course.” Reese started to put the Flitzbe down and stopped when Kis’eh’t waved her on. “If I can bring…?”
Liolesa smiled. “Certes. I am acquainted with Allacazam from the voyage.”
Reese nodded. “Be good, you people.”
“We’ll keep the heater warm for you, Boss.”
There were more fields than forests in this part of Jisiensire and Liolesa led her some distance across them, far from the rest of the camps. Keeping pace with the taller Eldritch meant having to work a little harder than she was used to, but the exertion k
ept her warm, and Allacazam’s soothing presence, like the trickle of a distant stream, was familiar and made everything feel far less alien.
“So, my liegewoman,” Liolesa began without preamble. “You have acquitted yourself well on my behalf.”
“If you count leading one only partially successful raid and then getting thrown in a dungeon successful,” Reese answered, rueful. “I guess Hirianthial told you what’s happened here since?”
“He has, yes.” The woman slowed to a stroll even Reese found comfortable. “You think your efforts useless, but anything that agitates and distracts the enemy has value. You were also responsible for the eventual death of the Chatcaavan, without which my cousin would have fallen to his brother.”
“I didn’t have anything to do with the shapechanger dying. That was all Surela.”
Liolesa stopped and faced her. “…and who gave Surela her only weapon?”
Stumbling to a halt, Reese swallowed and said, “It wasn’t so much a weapon as a lock pick with delusions of grandeur.”
“You succored my enemy.”
“I….” Reese stopped. She’d known this moment would come and yet she hadn’t prepared any speeches to answer for her own actions. “Yes. She was their pawn. They needed someone who hated you to help make this trouble, and she was convenient, and yes, she did the job. But when she realized she was wrong, she tried to fix things. She tried to stop Hirianthial’s brother. And for that, she got thrown in a cell with me and beaten and raped, multiple times.” Allacazam’s muted support helped keep her spine straight. “She was willing to kill the Chatcaavan, my Lady… even knowing that the only way she could do it was to wait until he was lying on top of her and stab him. And you know what? She did it. She’s probably never so much as killed a chicken to feed herself, but she put a nine-inch needle through a person’s eye. A person who was still raping her. And when that didn’t kill him dead enough, she ripped it through his throat. For an encore, she gave me her medallion so we could get her supporters to surrender, while she was still naked and crying.”
“So you think she warrants leniency.”
“I think she deserves a second chance, yes,” Reese said. Her heart was hammering, but she kept going. “I’ve been a pretty awful person myself, but people gave me another chance to grow up and learn how to be a decent human being.”
Liolesa’s eyes narrowed. “You did not betray your entire nation.”
“No,” Reese said. “But I murdered a third of the entire population of a species of sapient crystals. The only reason I’m standing in front of you now and not in some jail waiting for extradition is that they didn’t want to punish me; for whatever alien reason, they spared me. I haven’t spared me, though. I still think about it… that I cut down a few hundred innocent beings just because I was too proud to admit that my life wasn’t working for me. Surela’s life wasn’t working for her… but some part of that is your fault, Lady, because you keep things so bleeding close to your chest that no one realized the world is going downhill.”
“I beg your pardon?” Liolesa asked, brows lifting.
“Do you think Surela could have coasted to power had everyone realized that you literally need the Alliance to survive?” Reese asked. “Your ruling class was existing in some fantasy world where food came out of nowhere if the peasants failed to grow enough and the only penalty they earned for their mistakes was you being angry at them. Those people came to your palace on their fancy horses, in their fancy outfits, and they haven’t known a moment of want in their lives because you keep compensating for their mistakes.”
“Allowing their mistakes to go uncompensated for would have resulted in people dying.”
“Maybe,” Reese said. “But I’m betting it wouldn’t have taken many people dying for them to realize it was your way or no way at all.”
“I think you overestimate their sense of duty.”
“And if I am, then what the hell are they doing still ruling any of this world for you?” Reese said, her exasperation edging painfully close to anger. She forced her fingers not to tighten in Allacazam’s fur. “If they could just watch their tenants die and go back to playing darts or whatever the hell it is Eldritch nobles do with all their time, then you should have killed them and gotten it over with, rather than let it come to this…!”
Liolesa paused, then sighed. “All it would have taken, Theresa, was me killing one of their number, and then the rest would have allied and come for my throat.” She smiled faintly. “And then truly the species would be extinct, since I really am the only one with the outworld contacts to keep the food in the larders. It is not as simple as you make it out to be.”
Something in the other woman’s voice… Reese said, hesitant, “…but?”
“But you are correct, in that I perhaps erred on the side of covertcy. I did so because I believed that half the world would rebel if they discovered where the aid was coming from… but perhaps I was wrong.”
Reese grimaced. “Or maybe I’m being too hard on you. But Surela… Surela had a few days of being queen, and I think if you talk to her you’ll find she doesn’t want your crown anymore.”
“And what precisely am I to do with her now?” Liolesa sounded tired. “You rescued her… very well. You must have some notion of why she might deserve it. I cannot give her back to Asaniefa because I cannot allow Asaniefa to remain whole.”
“What… what does that mean?”
“That the province will be given to a new family to manage, or folded under another,” Liolesa said. “The blood direct will be scattered and forced to take shelter with whatever House will accept them, but they will no longer be nobles themselves. I suppose if they prefer death, they will be permitted to choose that path.”
“You’d let them commit suicide?” Reese asked, aghast.
“Rather than have them live to become my enemies?” Liolesa shook her head minutely. “Theresa. This is not the Alliance. We live under different codes. We may evolve from them to something saner—and I hope we do—but until then, we cannot force people to live by a standard of conduct they do not respect. Speaking of which… Hirianthial will be executing Athanesin, tomorrow.”
“I figured,” Reese said, subdued.
Liolesa nodded. “I intend to ask him to become my… defense secretary.”
“I bet that has a more flowery name here.”
A smile. “Lord of War, if you will.”
Reese sighed and smiled. “He’ll do that well. He likes protecting people.”
Liolesa nodded. “So he does. Prithee, marry him directly, and do not wait.”
Had the woman slapped her, Reese wouldn’t have been more startled at the sudden shift in the conversation. “W-what?”
“He will linger on the matter with Athanesin if given the opportunity. And this matter with Jisiensire….” Liolesa’s sigh was quieter, more personal somehow. “It is a bad, bad business, Theresa. Do not give him time to become mired in sorrow. He is already given to melancholy.”
“Just like that, you want me to propose to him,” Reese stammered.
Liolesa arched a brow, and Reese swore there was a hint of mischief in her eyes. “You do love him? Yes?”
“Of course—”
“Do you know that it can be a fruitful union?” This, more hesitantly, which Reese thought altogether fitting given the topic.
“Yessss,” she said, slowly. “Surela told me. And that my children would be like you.”
“Does this concern you?”
“A little?” Reese said. She flushed. “But… not enough to stop me.”
“Then is there some other reason you would prefer not to wed him? I assure you, I can vouch for his character.” Now she was teasing, Reese was sure of it. “I have known him a good six centuries….”
“I… I just… I’ve never asked anyone to marry me!”
“Of course you haven’t,” Liolesa said. “If you had, you’d already be wed and we wouldn’t be having this conversation.” She s
miled. “Theresa… on this world, women ask men to be their husbands. You are the seal-bearer of a new House, and one with powerful royal favor. If you have chosen your man, let him know. He might assume a lack of interest otherwise.” Liolesa paused, and added, exasperated, “Knowing Hiran, he will. The man is positively expert at self-effacement.”
“I noticed,” Reese muttered. “All right. I won’t wait.”
“Good. We no less than you can afford wasted time.” Liolesa turned and began walking back.
Reese watched her, then blurted, “What if I took Surela into Laisrathera?”
Liolesa stopped and glanced over her shoulder with narrowed eyes. “You believe, truly believe, that she has changed so much as to be safe. You trust her enough to expose her to a House that will be composed almost entirely of the aliens she despises.”
Did she? Reese thought back to their conversations in the cell, remembered her surprise that someone might want to give her advice on pursuing the man she’d once wanted for herself, remembered the courage it had taken to strike back against her abusers when all her upbringing had howled for her to give in and accept her ruination and death. Tried to image the kind of bravery it had taken to face that she’d been wrong about things, and to do something about them. “If she’ll accept the offer, then I’ll believe in her.”
“And if she does not?”
“Then… I guess she’s yours,” Reese said. “But I hope she’ll be mine. I hope she’ll choose life, Liolesa.”
The Queen considered her, then smiled. “Strangely, you make me so hope as well. This however does not absolve me of the responsibilities I have to my own people.”
“Which means….”
“If she accepts your offer, I will commute her sentence from death to exile.”
“Exile!” Reese exclaimed.
“Better than dying, yes? And is exile to your own Alliance, where you have lived and loved, so horrible a sentence?”
“It might be to her!”
“And if it is, then she is not the changed woman you think her to be.” Liolesa shook her head. “This is as far as I can go for you, Theresa.”
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