“Tove.”
Sela folded her arms. “Not without me.”
Five
Considering the dated splendor of the Splitdawn audience chamber, Tove’s rooms were not the grand showcase of powered armor and weapons Jon would have imagined. It was hardly the inner sanctum of a Guild Imperator or, for that matter, even a young woman of privilege.
There were no hunting trophies or prized spoils of war. It bordered on monastic. The far wall was hung with drapes through which Jon glimpsed the hunched shapes of furniture. Thick stacks of books and charts lined one wall. On the table, an interface chirped away to itself. Jon noted the screen was open to Cassandra schematics.
The route that they’d taken to get here felt disused, secret. There was a pervasive notion that this was a meeting of which Maxim would never approve. He felt a trickle of dread.
Incense burned on a small altar in the corner blessed by statuettes he did not recognize, likely their house gods. Next to this stood an empty suit of powered armor. A horrific gash marred its side, nothing the occupant would have survived. Considering its position in the room, its nearness to the altar, he assumed it had belonged to someone precious to Tove.
Maeve settled into a dim corner and flashed him a smile that could mean anything or nothing. Noticing the strange woman’s attention, Sela placed herself between them, part protective, part possessive. At this, Maeve rolled her eyes and flopped onto an immense, carved wooden chair sturdy enough to hold her armored form. She looped one leg over its arm. Her attention swiveled to a small table nearby laden with pitchers of blood-red nectar wine and an unidentifiable assortment of fruit. She reminded him of a trickster wraith from one of the Old Sissa’s stories, a wild spirit that craved chaos.
“I wanted him alone.” The voice drifted out of the darkened alcove beyond the curtains.
“That one insisted.” Maeve flapped a hand at Sela, who remained rigid and staring. He knew she could do that for hours, as unnerving as it was. It was a habit he’d hoped would leave her eventually, but for now, he found himself grateful for it, no matter how strained things had been between them.
“No matter.” Tove shuffled into the room. In the Known Worlds of Origin, she would have been discarded at birth—labeled skew. Here, she seemed kept like a nasty secret. The simple black garment made her skin look that much paler. Up close, the knotted purple scar that wound around her throat seemed impossibly deep.
A man dressed in powered armor far more battered than Maeve’s stood at Tove’s elbow. His head was shaved closely at the sides and allowed to grow into a tousled dark blonde mess in a line along his scalp. For all of his ferocious appearance, the man’s moves were tender as he helped Tove to her chair. He leaned down to whisper something to her. The act was too intimate to make him just the honor guard that the emblem on his armor indicated. He was something more to her, and she to him. Jon felt the pull of kinship with their exchange. Something about it reminded him of his own arguments with Sela, particularly one he’d just lost but was still trying to be gracious about.
Tove moved like someone accustomed to illness and pain. There was dignity to it as if she’d earned this decrepitude somehow and wore it like a badge of honor. He got the sense that her plainness, her deformity, were camouflage from which she avidly watched all.
That’s what she wants—to be discounted and ignored.
He realized he’d been staring again.
“Thank you for coming.” Tove said it as if he’d faced a choice. The rasp of her voice was unsurprising considering the wicked scar at her neck, but there was steel in it too. This was not the meek woman who had suffered her brother’s open insults in the audience lodge.
Jon drew in a breath to speak, but Sela beat him to it. “What do you want with him?”
“You’ll address her as Imperator,” the armored attendant growled.
“Grith, please.” Tove pressed a bone-white hand on his gauntleted forearm—a child staying a giant. She looked at Sela. “Stand down, Volunteer. We still treat. There’s no threat to either of you here.”
“It’s alright, Ty.” Jon rested a hand on Sela’s shoulder. The tense muscles he felt there vibrated beneath his fingers. She glanced at him with a clear question in her eyes. Do we believe them?
He gave a barely perceptible nod, then turned his attention to Tove.
“Apologies…Imperator.” Jon bowed at the waist, a sign of respect in Origin but uncertain how it would be received here. Maxim had certainly not been impressed.
A feral laugh erupted from Maeve’s corner, followed by a snapping, crunching sound. She spat a seed onto the carpeted floor. Her dark eyes were avid as if she were watching a holovid.
“You’re not Eugenes. You’re Palari…a Human.” Tove did not offer it as an accusation. There was no space for debate. She watched him for a reaction, measuring. Her pale lips tugged into a thoughtful frown. “But you speak our language. Know our ways. Wear a Kindred name: Veradin.”
Sela moved her body at an angle, weight shifting onto her back foot. Her hand went to the A6 cradled at her right thigh.
Jon was careful to keep his face bland. How could they know? And why would it be important? Here, of all places?
This wasn’t Origin. There were no purity codes here. These people clung to some traditions and cursed in the face of others. Would the fact that he was Human mean something to these warmongers?
“Yes. I’m Human.”
“Splendid.” Maeve cackled. “Best story I heard yet.”
The confession earned a raised eyebrow from Tove. “How do I know? You wonder. My brother is prone to devious things: toxins, genetic poisoning. Assassins sent to kill me. I’ve placed considerable resources in biodetection devices. All newcomers are scanned to a genetic level. Threats come in many forms. Your kind is known to us out here, in the realms that border the Thermalyea Fray.”
“Why do you do nothing if they invade your territories?” Sela asked, sounding incredulous.
Tove watched Jon as she answered, eyes hungry for some tell, judging. “I have no quarrel with the Humans. They are enemy to the Sceeloid as well. I watch. I collect information. I see what benefit they may be to me. My impression is that they’re here to surveil. I doubt they know of my awareness of them. And it suits for now.”
The underlying message was there: if the Humans overstepped or became a threat, Tove would have no problem acting against them.
“’Sides, they did a favor without ask…cleaning out the Sc’loid outpost in the Fray,” Maeve chortled, picking through the tray of food. “Save me the work of it. Been watchin’ them, stealth-like.”
“Then you have intelligence on them.” Sela’s tone was expectant, the curl of frustration buried in it. “Information that could help us.”
The air thickened, full and tense. There was weight to this. It was written in Tove’s steady gaze and the way Grith flexed and stretched his hands.
“Information that should be earned.” Grith’s lip curled.
Maeve did not speak until Tove nodded. The woman’s lazy posture did not change. “Over two years standard, it’s just the Humans there on their little hunk of rock, all lonesome like. No supply ships coming in. No ships going out. Doing nothing but hidin’ like burrow-ticks. Maybe watchin’ us as much as we watch them.” Maeve shrugged in her armor. “Then, last few weeks, they start sendin’ out ships. They transmit bounties writ in common for a female fugitive, but on false idents, to places along the edge of the Fray. Narasmina was one of ’em. Lots of chatterin’ in their queer tongue. Somethin’ got ’em riled.”
“Or someone,” Tove added. “They attacked the outpost at Tintown—cut down the Ironvale guildsworn there.”
“Not bein’ a huge loss,” Maeve sneered.
Erelah. Jon’s pulse ticked in his throat. Things slid into rough place, but frustrating gaps remained to the question that plagued him. Someone or something in the Human enclave was looking for Erelah. And had found her. But why? How?
>
“Why would the Humans go to such lengths to obtain one person? Who leads them?” Grith growled. His armor magnified every move, making the smallest nuance appear menacing.
“I don’t know. Really. I’m just…here.” Jon held his palms up in a beseeching gesture. Sela risked a glance over her shoulder at him. “I just want to get my sister back.”
“How nice to have a brother willing to risk all for you,” Tove replied. The words were wistful and bitter.
“Lies.” Grith spat the word. “More of Corsair’s games. There’s a reason Ironvale burned him. And this man’s a part of it.”
“My love, you promised,” Tove admonished.
Grith nodded and fell silent. But a muscle twitched at the exposed line of his jaw.
In the corner, Maeve sipped directly from one of the pitchers. Her teeth flashed red from the wine. “Those Human muckers killed over eighty Sc’loid for that hunk o’rock. You think they hand her back easy-like?”
Interesting. So they knew more about the Human incursion than they had pretended in the audience chamber.
“I don’t think it will be easy,” said Jon. He licked his lips. Tove would be immune to simple flattery, but perhaps her retainers wouldn’t. He had to try. “But the power of Splitdawn is well known. Undeniably, an easy feat for even a few of your famed warriors, my lady.”
“Ain’t no lady, crester.” Maeve scowled. Her sneer drifted over Sela, challenging. “Ain’t no pet breeder, neither.”
Sela pivoted in the woman’s direction. Remarkably, she stopped before Jon could say a word. There was a popping sound of knuckles as her hands curled into fists.
“Maeve, enough.” Tove’s gaze did not leave Jon as she waved a hand over her shoulder. It was said in a way that suggested she was used to correcting the woman and that Maeve’s manners were tolerated because she had a value to Tove. “Be quiet or leave.”
The feral woman sobered slightly, but the dangerous amusement in her eyes was barely squelched. “Yes, Imperator.”
“What do you want?” Sela’s growl was barely controlled. Her gaze slid back to Tove. “Imperator.”
“An exchange. I imagine you have something to offer in payment for the use of my fighters and unimpeded passage through the Fray.”
A frigid wave invaded Jon’s stomach. The jdrive in exchange for Erelah. I’m doing Corsair’s damned bargain after all. Did he plan this too?
“Imperator, what we have to exchange is—”
“My brother wants me dead. I refuse to grant his wish.” Tove spoke over him; her fingers traced the purple scar that ringed her throat like gruesome jewelry. “He is nothing if not persistent. He is paranoid I will surpass him.”
The admission did not surprise Jon, considering the dysfunction on display in the audience chamber. “Unfortunate.”
“But not our problem,” Sela added.
Tove dismissed it with a shrug as if she’d just described some bland weather or yesterday’s meal. With a grimace, she pushed up from the chair. Grith reached out to her. She patted his arm. The giant kept a steadying hand on her back.
As she stepped up to him, Jon caught the musky scent of graceweed, likely something she ingested for pain. The herb grew in the wild on Argos. Old Sissa would brew it into a strong, bitter tea. It had been her cure-all for the illnesses that seemed to plague Erelah throughout her childhood.
Tove made a vague gesture toward Sela. “Your shield maiden…she does your bidding?”
He chewed the inside of his mouth, longing to correct her. Sela. She has a name. She’s more worth my courtesy than you crazy people. “She’s her own person, Imperator. My partner does as she wishes.”
“That much is apparent.” Tove did not bother to look at Sela, who had turned aside, watchful frown building.
Another step and Tove pressed against him, looking up into his eyes. Inhaling, she studied his face. “My father said you know a man by his eyes: what he hides, what he covets. I see the pain in yours. You’ve lost a great deal. You must be desperate indeed, to partner with Corsair. You did not flinch at Maxim’s threats of arrest.”
He rocked his weight back into his heels. The room seemed inordinately hot, the collar of his tunic too tight. He got the sense that there was an assessment of a different sort going on here. She had no interest in what they had to offer in exchange. What game was she playing?
“Shall we speak plainly then, Imperator?”
“Please.”
Tove shuffled back to the chair, pausing long enough to rest her measuring stare on Sela. He watched another torturous dance with Grith helping her into place before she spoke again. “Maxim’s paranoia is not without basis. I would surpass him if I could. It was what father had intended after all.”
“He’s too ’fraid to be anywhere near Tove. Not for nearin’ three years now,” Maeve added.
Sela frowned. “But he was there. In the audience chamber.”
“What you saw was his avatar, a projection that he uses for audiences he considers…trivial.” Tove paused, allowing the insult to sink in. “My brother is a foolish, scheming thing. Worse, he has become Poisoncry’s creature, bought and sold, from his shiny armor to the whores in his bed. Poisoncry is the source of his strength. I have only the loyalty of a few great houses of the Splitdawn Guild, bonds forged by my father. That loyalty can go only so far.”
Grith spoke as if he’d been waiting for his cue. “In three days’ time, Tove is to return to the Citadel for the gathering of the Splitdawn houses. Her actual physical presence is expected, as is Maxim’s. Guild law demands it. Tove can take her rightful place as sole Imperator only if Maxim is dead. But it must seem the work of another hand. It can never come back to her. No one must ever suspect it. The houses of our Guild, even those loyal to her father, would never tolerate such an act.”
“I don’t….” Jon swallowed, uncertain of the words that came next. His mouth went dry.
“Spell it out for the crester-muck,” Maeve harped with murderous glee.
“Maxim will no doubt try to kill me once again.” Tove’s eyes flashed with hatred. “I want you to kill him first.”
Jon coughed. “I cannot—”
“Do this, Veradin,” Grith pressed. “And you’ll have the help you need to retake your sister.”
“I’ll do it.” Sela stepped between them, her back to Jon. “But I have terms.”
Six
Sela’s hands ached to do something grand and violent. At times like this, they seemed to be their own creatures. She perched upon the galley’s lone table, her boots resting on the seats gouged with graffiti by occupants long gone from the Cassandra. Absently, she sawed the combat blade along a mar she’d discovered on the table’s edge, freshening the wound in the dull beige coating.
We must act. We must move. We waste time.
That same drive thundered through her veins. It would never be tamed, no matter Jon’s patient attempts at domestication. It was asking a raging torrent to obey a quiet riverbed.
Yet Jon and Corsair still talked. Over her. Around her. Words with vestigial wings and dull teeth. Two men pretending to argue about something when the decision was made; a deal was struck. For Sela there was never a question; it was just a pause before the next storm.
“We can’t let her do this. There has to be another way.”
“Would you go in her place, then? You endin’ up dead wouldn’t help your sister much.”
“Maxim is paranoid. Guarded day and night. It’s a death sentence for whoever does it or even attempts it. I’m not going to send Ty off on some suicide run.”
“She’s already agreed to it. Besides, she might actually make it.”
Her voice was firm, bloodless, falling into a lull in their arguing. “Tove has accepted my terms. You will receive passage through the Fray. Maeve can take you without detection.”
In truth, Jon had all but pulled her from Tove’s room before they could discuss more of the details, insisting that they have time to co
nsider it. And now his face was etched with such a strange mix: apprehension, hope, and sorrow. It did not suit.
“You don’t know what you’re saying.” His tone was one you’d use on a child. Is that what he saw?
“I’m my own person.” She felt a stab of scorn. “Did you not say that?”
He looked down at the blade in her hand, the work it had done to the table. Remarkably, the gouge in the table’s surface was nearly an inch deep. The bare metal beneath the coating bled through.
“What do you expect from her?” This from Corsair. He was defending her. It stung. She didn’t need his sympathy or his help. He shifted under her stare, reading it. But continued to run his mouth. “Why is this even a question— ”
“Can you find some other place to be morally nebulous?” Jon growled.
Corsair made a lumbering show of pulling himself up from the bench as if he had eons of time. She did not miss the look as he crossed the threshold. Was that pity? Pity from him. Of all people.
To think I’d thought to forge an alliance with that man.
Her combat blade sawed restlessly at the tabletop. Back and forth. Back and forth.
Jon’s hand was warm against her wrist, stopping it. He leaned against her. His breath was soft against her neck. She stared down at the blade, still and stupid in her hand. She felt the sticky rush of guilt from plunging ahead in her partnership with Corsair, not involving Jon.
The irony did not escape even her: in helping Jon to reclaim his sister and in seeking to protect him, she had very well earned his ire, his anger. This was the first display of his usual tenderness she’d received from him since they departed Narasmina. It gladdened her, regardless of the strain between them.
“This is reckless. There’s got to be some other way.” His voice softened.
“There isn’t. And you know it.” He had to see that they were out of time. Out of options. This was the only solution with even a marginal chance at success.
To this he said nothing, simply drew in a long slow breath. His beard rasped against the skin of her neck. Weariness radiated from him like a fever.
Allies and Enemies: Exiles, Book 3 Page 3