The Gender War

by Bella Forrest

  It was hard to imagine just how surreal it must be for this woman to stand in front of her husband and ask us if she could join our cause. She was a Patrian woman—at least, I assumed she was—which meant she had been raised never to speak her mind. She had never been expected to fight, or to be more than a mother and a wife. Now she wanted to be a soldier.

  I looked at Viggo, and noted the way he grated his teeth, the vein in his jaw ticking away rapidly. “It’s we who would be honored,” I said, snapping my gaze back to her.

  The woman’s eyes widened in alarm—probably because I had spoken before Viggo had—but then a little flicker of a smile passed over her face, and she inclined her head gracefully. “Thank you,” she offered sincerely, taking a step back.

  I watched the family depart and turned to Jeff. “Thank you for that,” I said. “Can you please take their names for Ms. Dale and Hen—” I cut myself off, remembering that Henrik might not make it through the next hour, the thought curdling my excitement.

  Jeff, ever full of grace, inclined his head. “Of course, madam. As an aside… you asked about Mr. Solomon? We managed to return him to the truck while he was still unconscious, along with several days’ worth of food. The truck appears to be secure—no damage from the Matrians’ attack. As for Mr. Solomon himself… as the doctor couldn’t be spared from Mr. Henrik’s side, we removed the bullets and cleaned and dressed his wounds as best we could. We’ll try to have the doctor look at him as soon as he is able.”

  I thanked Jeff for taking care of a difficult job with efficiency and care. He left as silently as he had approached, and I turned back to Viggo, who by now was positively seething.

  “Why would you do that?” he asked, his eyes blazing with anger. “Why would you accept their offer to join our cause?”

  I blinked at him. “You and I both know we need people to help us fight. They came to us, remember?”

  Viggo hissed out a breath and ran a hand through his hair. “It doesn’t matter—she has a child, Violet! A child! What are we supposed to tell that child when he gets older?”

  I stared at him, knowing this was also part of his way of dealing with the death we had witnessed today, but that it didn’t help. “We’ll tell him that when their country was in danger, his parents stood up to help take it back.”

  When he didn’t respond, but clenched his teeth and looked away, I continued. “Look, I don’t have all the answers, Viggo, except this one: mothers are the ones who lose the worst in war. Especially when they aren’t allowed to fight!”

  Viggo stared at me, his eyes whirling. Then he took a step back and turned to the window, resting his hands against it and taking several deep breaths, in and out. I left him alone for a few moments before wrapping my arms around his waist and resting my chest against his back, just like I had last night.

  He didn’t pull away, which was a good sign. After a moment, he sighed and drew me around to face him, pulling me tight against him. “I’m sorry,” he breathed into my hair. “I-I’m losing it, huh?”

  “No,” I whispered softly, reaching up to push a lock of his hair out of his eyes. “You’re not losing it. This… We never could have anticipated this. It’s awful. Beyond awful. But we have to take those twenty deaths and use the victory they gave us, Viggo. Or else we’re never going to come out on the other side of this in one piece.”

  He nodded, pressing his cheek against the palm of my hand and staring at me. “I love you,” he said, and I smiled as a trill of unexpected pleasure coursed through me, making my breath catch in my throat.

  “I love you too,” I replied.

  His head dropped lower, and I tilted my chin up to him, my lips already parted in anticipation of his kiss. This one was different than the ones that had come before. It was so sweet and tender. Viggo kissed me as if he were afraid I would evaporate in his arms, with a gentle teasing that made me feel like he was savoring me—savoring us. I kissed him back, clinging tight against him, and savored him in return. We clung to each other, desperately needing an affirmation that we were still alive.

  When the kiss ended, I remained holding him as he pressed us into the window. I knew he was gazing out of it, so I turned my head, curious as to what he was looking at.

  “What?” I asked, snuggling in tighter to him.

  His hands stroked my hair as he sighed. “It’s messed up, but at least we got something out of this horrible disaster.”

  I looked up at him, my brows drawing together in confusion. Then I followed his gaze out onto the lawn, realization dawning as I took in the heloship that was still parked there. He was right—it was messed up—and I knew that both he and I would have returned the damn thing immediately if it meant we would get back the people who’d died. But that would never be an option.

  We were growing desperate, and the heloship might represent a major advantage for us.

  If we could find someone who knew how to pilot it.

  28

  Violet

  Cans. They felt like my entire life now, and I had only been in the kitchen a little over three hours. Ashabee definitely had overly stocked pantries for one man living with a group of servants, but I was okay with it, seeing as we now had plenty of mouths to feed. My task for the day after the Matrian raid was half inventorying, half pre-packing, in preparation for our inevitable evacuation.

  It was the one thing we could all agree on: we needed to leave sooner rather than later. How much sooner was anyone’s guess. We had killed over twenty women when all was said and done, and Tabitha, or whoever was in command, was going to notice an entire group going missing. I figured we had twenty-four to forty-eight hours before they showed up again, and I felt that was being optimistic.

  But with the added concerns of our group of refugees/new rebels, the logistics of moving everyone were getting complicated—and we didn’t even know yet where we were going to move. I stowed several cans in one of the small wooden crates I had labeled ‘protein’ and slid it to the end of the counter. I had already piled several other such crates there, each marked clearly, and turned back to the pantry, eyeing the selection.

  “I suppose it’s time for canned fruit,” I said aloud, and started pulling stacked cans off the shelf and placing them on the wide counter behind me.

  “Seriously, why did you want this job?” came Owen’s voice from behind me. I jumped, slightly startled by his sudden appearance, and whirled, my hands balling up into fists. He winced and took a placating step back. “Sorry—didn’t mean to scare you.”

  I took a deep breath. “Not your fault,” I said wearily. “My nerves are shot.”

  “Mine, too,” Owen admitted, meeting my gaze. I could see in his eyes how much the collateral damage had affected him, too, and I wondered how he was coping with it.

  All of us, not just Viggo, Ms. Dale, and… Henrik… had been deeply affected by the horrible deaths in the past two days. I was holding on by letting the coldly practical side of my mind take over. I told myself that we had won, we had saved people, we were going to move on with the battle. It was how I had looked at our innumerable setbacks. No feeling. Just move on, move on, move on. When that didn’t work—and it wasn’t working well—I tried to drown my feelings in those of the people around me. If I had to be strong to help and support them, then I couldn’t give in to despair. I couldn’t think about the dead children, or Henrik’s worsening condition.

  I was beginning to suspect that if I didn’t have Viggo’s state of mind to worry about, I would have just collapsed into a puddle of angry nerves and then despair.

  But it looked like that was happening anyway. At least Owen and I could laugh about it.

  “How many did you manage to recruit?” I asked, pulling out more cans and stacking them up.

  “Twenty-seven,” he replied. “No pilots, unfortunately, but it’s still great news. Actually, Ashabee’s staff were among the first volunteers. Kind of surprising, but Jeff and the rest of them seem determined to become King Maxen’s ne
w honor guard.”

  I made a face, and Owen nodded. “I couldn’t believe it either. I asked Jeff if he was serious, but he was adamant. Although he did tell me that he didn’t want to keep Maxen alive for patriotic reasons—just that he knows that Maxen is an important tool in this war.”

  I nodded, but my eyebrows still hitched up in surprise. “I knew there was a reason I liked Jeff,” I said wryly as I carefully counted the canned peaches spread out on the counter.

  “I also think that the group of them has had so much experience in dealing with pigheaded men that taking care of the king isn’t going to be a big transition for them,” he offered, and we both laughed bitterly, then moved on to the next question.

  “Has anybody heard anything from Amber and Quinn yet?”

  Owen’s face grew carefully neutral, which I had learned could be a sign of worry. “Not yet,” he admitted. “It’s only really been a day and a half, though… They’re probably still in transit. I’m not even sure if they’ll be able to contact us from The Green. It might not be wise, with Desmond so near. They could be across the border already.” The reassuring tone of his words didn’t reach his voice, which sounded distinctly worried.

  “They’re both smart. I’m sure they’ll be fine,” I said, trying to be reassuring but feeling the exact same way.

  We both fell silent, feeling the weight of the things we couldn’t know, and I scribbled some notes on the paper I was using as an inventory log. “Anything else exciting?” I finally asked, trying to sound relaxed, and wondering if there was something in particular he’d come to see me about.

  He seemed to consider, and then something sparked in his eyes. “Oh! Yes, actually, I thought there was something you might want to see.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s easier if I just show it to you,” Owen replied mysteriously.

  Intrigued, and glad for a distraction from everyone’s grief, I set down my pen and clipboard and followed him through the house. The kitchen sat an inordinately long distance from both dining rooms, so he had to lead me across half the house before we reached the servants’ staircase Viggo had been defending. I slowed to a stop as he did.

  The blood had been mopped off the floor, and all the debris caused by gunshots and Solomon’s rampage had been disposed of. There were still spots of blood on the wall, and I could see the damage to the bannisters, and the places where the dry wall was cracked and broken, presumably because of Solomon. I looked around the scene, and then over to Owen, raising an eyebrow. “I don’t get it.”

  Owen smiled and went over to the wall under the stairs, in the corner, where the steps turned and formed a landing. “Look,” he exclaimed, pointing at one particular crack in the wall.

  I stared at it, and then realized it wasn’t like the others. It was almost perfectly straight, with small cracks branching off, but only to the left. “What is it?” I asked, meeting his gaze.

  Owen’s smile broadened, and he moved in front of the crack and pressed his hand against it. There was a soft click, and then the wall dropped down into the floor, revealing another set of stairs. These led down into a brightly lit, white room. Intrigued, I moved past him and made my way down the steps, my eyes widening in surprise as I took in the wide space, packed top-to-bottom with equipment.

  Military equipment, to be specific. Heavily armored vehicles sat in rows in the vast white room, and table upon table lined the other side, some piled with weapons, some covered in gadgets strewn apart, some holding boxes of ammunition. I whistled in appreciation as I moved to one of the tables and carefully picked up a rifle, mechanically clearing it before setting it back down. “Ashabee?”

  Owen came up next to me. “Yeah—apparently he didn’t deign to tell us about this.”

  “This… is amazing.” My eyes ran over a table of electrical gadgets, noting the ten subvocalizers on it, and I shook my head in awe and surprise. The sadness of yesterday still lay heavy upon my heart, but my brain had a new distraction, and it was already spinning with ideas.

  We walked back and forth for a while among the rows of weapons and vehicles in silent awe. At some point, Owen asked pensively, “Do you think he’s okay?”

  I blinked in surprise and turned to him. It took me a moment to realize he meant Ashabee; it took me even less time to process how I felt about the situation he was in. “Who cares?” I said.

  Owen looked sharply at me, questioning me with his gaze. I shrugged, taking a step back from the table. “He lied to us when he could get away with it, he killed a bunch of people, and the only good thing he did, he did for the wrong reasons.”

  “That’s fair,” Owen said after a while, then gave a rueful smile, as though my vehemence amused him. It didn’t amuse me. I honestly couldn’t bring myself to care about Ashabee’s plight. He had done his best covering for us, but that didn’t mean I was beholden to him. At this point, the fact that he hadn’t told us about the stronghold downstairs was just another reason to loathe the man.

  On the other hand, this stash was basically a rebel group’s dream come true. Now that we had found it, I was glad we were going to be able to use Ashabee’s personal weapons for our cause, rather than letting him squander them on his grandiose pride.

  I asked Owen to let Ms. Dale know about the stash so she could start inventorying it, then headed upstairs, needing a moment to myself. I moved about the house restlessly, pausing outside King Maxen’s quarters. Jay was standing outside, keeping an eye on him. I smiled at him, and he smiled back, then gave me a puzzled look as I stepped inside, as though he wondered what I was doing there. In fact, I kind of wondered that myself.

  Maxen was lounging on the bed, a book in his hand. He looked up at me as I entered, and then ignored me, turning back to his book. I watched him long enough to see him lick his thumb and index finger and turn the page.

  “How are you?” I asked. I wasn’t sure what had prompted me to come in and ask the question, but I was committed now.

  Maxen gave me an irritated expression, theatrically closing his book with a snap. “How am I?” he hissed. “How do you think? Confined to this prison, with nobody worth talking to. Nearly killed by a bunch of women, probably having their time of the month, I might add, and now you—upstart Matrian bitch that you are—have the audacity to come into my room and ask me how I am?”

  I could have shouted insults at him. I could have hit him. Instead, I just stared at him, letting his words roll over me. I found myself enjoying the primal rush of rage that came over me, and I almost smiled as I realized I was inches, centimeters, millimeters away from killing this man as painfully as possible. It took a titanic effort to push that compulsion aside, and a part of me, a very dark part of me, argued that I should just end him—before he had a chance to end us.

  “My people need me!” the king added in the face of my silence, his voice rising to a shout. “I should be out there, not trapped in here!”

  I cocked my head at him and smiled. It was more a baring of teeth than a smile, and I felt the corners of my mouth turn up more when he flinched visibly. “If you really cared about your people,” I said from between my clenched teeth, my voice dangerously low, “you would have at least tried to attend the burial of the twelve men, women, and children who died so that you could hide in a closet.”

  And without giving him a chance to respond, I left, gently closing the door behind me.

  29

  Viggo

  “See, data transfers between Matrus and Patrus happen at eight bits per second, which destroys our ability to download the terabytes of data—well, it’s kind of self-explanatory at this point, but I am more than happy to explain it…”

  It was the third time Thomas had used what seemed like the exact same sentence to explain, and I was having a hard time focusing. I knew a little about computers, but this was out of my realm of understanding.

  I was still exhausted from the day before—although my love Violet had brought me some coffee she had found
in the kitchen—and my head was throbbing again. After the battle, I’d spent hours helping relocate the surviving refugees, getting some of them first aid, and digging yet more graves. It wouldn’t bring their loved ones back, but I knew that it helped to treat the dead with dignity. It was the least I could do.

  “Thomas,” I said softly. It was rude, but I was tired of waiting for the strange little man to take a breath in his lengthy explanation.

  He kept talking, his eyes fixed on the computer as he highlighted another bit of code as an example of what he was talking about.

  “Thomas,” I said again, a bit more loudly.

  The man blinked, but his mouth never stopped moving as he gesticulated with one hand and the mouse.

  “Thomas!” I shouted, and the man gave a frightened yelp, leaping out of his chair.

  “What?” he asked, clutching his hand to his chest, sweat beginning to form on his brow. He turned toward me slightly, panting, his eyes wide and his hands shaking, and I resisted the urge to shake him harder.

  “In the simplest language possible, please give me an update on your research into finding the Benuxupane that Desmond might have stored in Matrus.”

  “Oh,” the man said, seeming to shrink for a moment as he thought about my request. I waited, counting slowly to ten in my head. At about eight, the man straightened, tugging his shirtfront down over his belly. “I can’t get that information,” he said curtly.

  My jaw dropped as he proceeded to turn around and sit back in the chair, his focus entirely on the screen.

  I took a long, slow breath. “Thomas?” I asked.