“An ambitious woman thwarted,” Liolesa offered, bland.
“I’m not—” Sediryl bit back the lie and shook her head. “If I were you, I’d be crazy to give me that kind of power.”
“What would you do with it?” Liolesa asked, curious. She held up a hand. “Not your first impulse. ‘Destroy everything’ is not a plan. What would your destruction look like? How would you accomplish it? What exactly is it you want, cousin?”
“When did I become your cousin?” Sediryl asked suddenly. “When I became useful?”
Liolesa chuckled softly.
“I would...” Sediryl stopped. What would she do with power? With Liolesa in her corner? A woman who wanted to remake their world in an image more suited to modern mores? To actual civilization? To have been Sediryl Nuera Galare, head of the Nuera Galares... that was power, yes. But that was nothing to being someone the Queen trusted to help her... fix things. Fix everything. And fixing everything would destroy the world that had tried so hard to warp her. She could make it so that her sons and daughters would never suffer the sort of things she had, that her father had.
The possibility staggered her. For once, her hands grew still.
Liolesa canted her head.
“I... would want a little more guidance on what’s going on,” Sediryl finished, finally, cautious with the words. For once, she cared that they might affect something. “So that I wouldn’t accidentally burn anything we needed.”
That satisfied smile... it would have frustrated her before. Now that she was responsible for producing it, she found it a little more sororal. But still the Queen didn’t say anything, which meant she was waiting.
Sediryl inhaled, chuckled. “So, my Lady. I hear you have a job opening? I would like to offer myself for it if so.”
“Ah! Delightful. I think you’re just what we’ve needed.” Liolesa beamed. “Why, just think of the paroxysms your mother will undergo when she discovers what you’re about.”
Sediryl shook her head, trying not to laugh. “All right. After all these years, you’ve coaxed me out of my shell. What should I tell Fleet? That you’re willing to host, but that you need to know when?”
“Yes,” Liolesa said. “They will know why I’ve couched the response thus. But it is also important that you understand, cousin, so if you will attend me I will reveal what concerns me now.”
There it was: the lance of terror and elation. For so long she’d craved responsibility, had been trained to its weight, had expected to bear it... until she’d been denied. She’d wanted the fruit of the blackberry bush and longed for its honey; here at last were the thorns.
But scratches healed. Sediryl drew in a breath, found a chair and sat down. “All right, Lady. I’m listening.”
Her first political briefing, delivered by no less a power than the Queen of all their race, was harrowing. A new mind-mage in their midst? Traitors? Slavers and Chatcaava mixed up in it all, and the fate of their world and all its population uncertain? Her heart raced until she felt sweat sliding down the curve of her neck and she found herself clutching her knees. She had wanted so badly to destroy her world. Now that she knew how close it was to far worse a destruction than she could have imagined, all she could think about was the smell of Nuera’s fields in spring; the way the sunlight played on leaves in the forest; the thread of the road, so vulnerable, that had led her from Nuera to her great aunt’s home, and freedom.
“So,” Liolesa said. “There it is. Now that you perceive our difficulties, Sediryl Nuera Galare, what will you do?”
She met the Queen’s eyes. Her Queen’s eyes. “You chose a sword for your personal emblem, my Lady. Can I do any less in your vanguard? Give me your sash. I’ll don it.”
That glow in the Queen’s eyes... that was pride. Liolesa had certainly let her see it, but Sediryl was glad she had. She couldn’t remember the last time a woman who mattered to her had been proud of her, and it was humbling to discover that it could move her.
“Cousin. You live up to expectation.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t say ‘every’ expectation,” Sediryl said, hoping to lighten the mood so she could survive it.
“We are hardly begun! Let us see where the path takes us.”
That glint of merriment again. Sediryl wondered how often the Queen suppressed it, and whether she would have the privilege to find out. “All right.” She hesitated, then added, “Thank you, my Lady.”
“Cousin,” the Queen said. “Call me Liolesa.” The look in her eye was definitely impish now. “I will be sending along your credentials shortly.”
The connection closed.
For several minutes afterwards, Sediryl stared out the window, seeing nothing and feeling... relaxed. All the tension in her body seemed to have dissipated. She imagined it sinking into the ground, flowing out to enrich the crops like the ancient stories of women who watered the fields with their blood to make them thrive. The image struck her powerfully, ominous and potent—because she knew now that the war she’d thought pending had already begun—but it also exhilarated her. She had never realized how bitterly she’d felt her exile until now.
Bells’s barking brought her out of her reverie. “Fine, fine,” she said to the dog dancing around her feet. “I know. It’s time to check the crops. I’m coming, just let me make this call first.”
As the dog plopped down at her feet, scattering his solidigraphic fish halo, Sediryl waved her interface awake. “Connect me to Fleet Agent Meryl Osgood. Priority first.”
CHAPTER 11
“This is my least favorite activity, you know.”
“Oh, I know,” Lisinthir said.
“And that is why you are dragging me into it, no doubt.”
“You love so much to be coaxed,” Lisinthir replied airily. “I am obliging you, you see.”
Jahir eyed him as they walked through the early morning traffic in the Hull’s lower corridors. The Pad station had whisked them to a less decorative part of the starbase’s wall, one that looked more like the popular conception of such places: tree-lined corridors interrupted by large chambers that hosted various rooms or halls, the flexglass, metal, or plastic surfaces filmed with murals by local artists or soothing outdoor vistas imported from viseo feeds across the Alliance. The salle his cousin had engaged was off one of these large chambers, and they were passing the morning commuters on their walks to their places of business. It was… very normal, particularly in compare to the blacklight market in the Trenches.
“Come now, I have hardly earned that look.”
“You have hardly earned it… yet,” Jahir said.
Lisinthir pursed his lips. “That I accept.” And grinned. “All will be well, cousin. We will do the work that needs doing, and then I will kiss you quiet and you will be content.”
Jahir quelled the shiver that ran his length. Mostly. “Perhaps we can do the work that needs doing by kissing alone?”
“So quickly I have converted you to my religion,” Lisinthir said with a laugh. “But no. This needs a sword or two, and a staff.” He indicated the portal leading to the gymnasium complex. “After you, cousin.”
Jahir sighed and stepped through.
Lisinthir had brought his own swords, so they stopped at a desk to allow the personnel to run a security check on them and to rent them a staff for Jahir for the session. The salle they’d engaged was innocuous enough: its wooden floors and mirrored walls could have served dancers for a studio, or gymnasts. He could almost pretend they’d come for some other purpose; barring that, he could at least imagine that most people who used the room did so for less violent activities.
“You really do have too great a distaste for it, cousin,” Lisinthir said, shucking his coat off.
“I deplore violence.”
“Except when it’s exercised on you.” He held up a finger. “And no, that was not flirtation.”
Jahir ignored his blush because it had been incited by shame and anger. He preferred his blushes more positive
in inspiration. “I cannot change who I am, cousin.”
“We all change,” Lisinthir said. “Pick up the staff.”
With a sigh, Jahir lifted it.
“Aim for my head, if you will. And strike like you mean it.”
Jahir’s eyes narrowed.
“Don’t worry,” Lisinthir said dryly. “You won’t hit me.”
So he lunged and his cousin stood there and there was no time to pull the blow. He tried and failed… and connected with the air an inch from Lisinthir’s cheek. A chime sounded, startling him into looking up at the ceiling despite knowing there would be nothing to see.
Lisinthir’s hand gently pressing the staff away brought his attention back. “I have arranged things so that we won’t connect with anything vital.”
“Anything vital,” Jahir repeated. He’d thought he’d reached the limits of his wonder with Alliance technology, but he’d been wrong.
“The rest of our blows will hit,” Lisinthir said. “Bruises teach.” He grinned, sly. “And arouse. Up staff, Galare. Let us see what we’re made of now.”
Jahir ignored the obvious innuendo—barely—and resigned himself to the lesson. They had not sparred this way on the courier, where it had been Jahir’s staff against Lisinthir’s hands and what would ordinarily would have been a crippling handicap had been mitigated by his cousin’s far greater skill. Pitting a staff against a sword—and only one, for which he was grateful—was even less the equal contest.
“Distance, Galare.”
“I am keeping it, you’ll note.”
“If you keep me at bay forever, you’ll never award me my bruises.”
“Unlike me,” Jahir said, stepping back to avoid the point of Imtherili’s too-sharp blade, “you are not fond of them. What are we here to learn, cousin? And when are you going to start using your talent to shove me off balance?”
“I’m not going to use my talent to shove you off balance,” Lisinthir said, pressing the attack. “We are here to exercise you, cousin, not me.”
“Oh are we?” Jahir sucked in a breath at the jab that creased his tunic. The salle wouldn’t allow the sword to pierce him, but it did approximate the blow. He didn’t doubt he’d have his bruises, on top of the aches he’d retained as souvenirs of his second night of trysting. “What is my assignment, then?”
“Your assignment is to compensate for your lack of skill with your new talent.” Lisinthir stepped out of the way of Jahir’s thrust with an ease that looked and probably was far too casual.
“By projecting my emotional state onto you.” Jahir paused, dubious, and received a rap on the tip of the staff from the strong of his cousin’s sword.
“Don’t stop just to talk. Don’t stop at all until you’ve immobilized me. I am your enemy, recall?” Lisinthir shoved his staff back into motion. “Continue. And this time, bring your new ability to bear as well.”
Useless to protest or resist when he knew Lisinthir wouldn’t let him out the room until he’d made the effort. And perhaps some part of him was curious. A small part, granted, but enough that the next thrust he made he coupled with a mental stab, shaping his reluctance and revulsion into a weapon.
“Too obvious,” Lisinthir said. “If I can tell it’s an attack then I will be moved to defend.”
Jahir failed to dodge the sword that gave him a sharp rap on the top of his wrist. “You are playing with your food, Imtherili.”
“Because the chef is lacking in subtlety. Come, Galare. Yours is not the path of brute force. Subvert me.”
Jahir snorted and retreated hastily out of range, ruefully admiring his cousin’s lunge. He continued through several more exchanges while struggling to frame his next ‘attack’… how to project an emotion he wasn’t feeling? Perhaps by shaping it with his thoughts. The next time he pressed, he tried extending a thought and let the emotions trail it like streamers. Alarm. Guilt. You want to miss.
The point he took to the chest proved that one hadn’t penetrated. He frowned, parried badly, wished for a sword short enough to carry through with a riposte. Pity. Tenderness. You want to give me a chance to win.
Nothing. That next exchange drove him almost to the wall. He forced his way back to the center of the salle mostly by taking blows he shouldn’t have. He was allowing far too many of them to land; had he been unarmored by the Alliance’s real-time shielding he would have died long ago. Frustrated, he pulled from the memory of Lisinthir’s fight on the courier, thought of too-hot blood, the joy of conquering and the madness of the fight, of being fevered with lusts more vicious than any sexual drive. You want to kill me, you want to watch the blood spilling, you long to see me dying at your feet—
“Ah!” Lisinthir exclaimed, eyes flying open. “YES! Good! Again!”
Jahir rammed that blood-lust through with the next few blows until his own head pounded with it, until his vision bled crimson. Several of his thrusts connected, finally. He stopped, panting. Wiped his brow. His cousin let him, resting the flat of his blade on his shoulder.
“You are teaching me to use this talent as a weapon. But it doesn’t have to be one.”
“Oh?” Lisinthir asked, far too innocently. “You seemed to think it was only capable of serving as one not even a day ago. I thought I’d believe you.”
“God and Lady, Imtherili, but you are infuriating…!”
“Because I’m right?”
Jahir’s hand tightened on the staff, fighting outrage. The constant challenges were hard enough, but the intimations that accompanied them were outside of enough: that he was inflexible, morose; that he shied from the duties bequeathed to them with their titles, which included the inevitable need to defend their families. Just because he was willing to call anathema what it was! He took a step forward—
Vasiht’h’s expression over the comm-call flashed back to mind: the wonder, the happiness. The Goddess’s gift. All the anger drained from him like blood from a wound. He saw himself in the mirror and read the fear that shaped the tension in his shoulders, that lay simmering beneath the anger it had inspired.
Jahir forced his fist to relax and cursed, quietly, under his breath.
Lisinthir crossed the distance between them, paused to search his eyes. And because that was a tacit question, because Jahir knew his cousin would always ask when matters became delicate, Jahir dipped his head and accepted the hand that slid over his neck to rest on the nape, beneath hair gone tacky with sweat. It was tempting to resist the pull that hand exerted on him, to allow his anger to shove a barrier between them, but how fair would that be? His cousin had been right. Jahir sighed and rested his brow on Lisinthir’s shoulder. “You prefer to teach through demonstration, apparently.”
“I did say bruises made for the best lessons.”
“So you did.” Quieter, silvered, “You illustrate my own contradictions to me. I know I am not always gracious when you do. I am sorry for it.”
A kiss on his hair, then. “I seem to recall having vented my outrage on you once or twice myself, Healer.”
“Even so. I am sorry. And… I am grateful. Thank you.”
He heard the smile in Lisinthir’s voice. “Always, cousin. Now, shall we continue?”
Jahir straightened and pushed his hair out of his face. “I thought we’d just agreed that this ability was not solely a weapon?”
“It isn’t. But it still requires exercise.” Lisinthir grinned at him. “You’re a smart man, cousin. Find a use for it that I haven’t thought of.”
Jahir snorted. “Oh certainly. A use you haven’t thought of yet. That’s likely.” He lifted the staff.
“Ready?”
“Continue,” Jahir said. “Just remember, every bruise you put on me will require payment.”
Lisinthir stepped back, sword at ready. “Ah? And what coin am I compensating you in?”
“A kiss on afflicted skin,” Jahir said, bringing up the staff. “And by now you will have at least an hour’s work before you.”
“Only an hour! By all
means, let us go on. I won’t settle for less than two.”
Jahir snorted and pressed the attack, if only to have some say in where the next bruise would blossom. Lisinthir obliged him and they resumed their very unequal sparring. In no universe would they ever be well-matched… even attempting to slide his emotional jabs in with his attacks, Jahir found no purchase. His cousin was expecting him now, was in fact, indulging him. Instruction might have engaged him; Jahir had taken lessons from him on the courier and his cousin seemed to enjoy the challenge of imparting what he knew in the most effective way possible. But to spar as a contest with someone as poorly suited to him as Jahir was? He had no doubt Lisinthir was only partially present.
What must it be like, he wondered, to be so good at something so lethal? In the few memories he’d received from Lisinthir during their more intense communions on the courier, he’d received impressions of it: of the joy of combat, of the absolute trust in one’s own body that came with such supernal skill, learned not just in the salle but in the wild. Hunting boar alone, and from horseback! Only the sight of Lisinthir riding convinced Jahir that had been no idle boast, the sight and the feel of his supreme confidence when they’d been linked—
Jahir inhaled. Could it be done? But then, hadn’t he done it already? Lisinthir drove him back and he retreated, watching the sword, reaching, not to attack, but to sink in, to expand, to surrender. Give it to me, cousin. His staff met the sword. Lend it to me. Let me be it. Again, another parry. Press, something whispered, and he did and almost touched flesh. Yes. Again. He blocked, shoved, made space for himself. Dodged a blow that would have landed. His body knew suddenly where to step. No doubts. Raise the staff—higher—turn, step forward, feint, lunge, connect. Again. Faster, faster. He gave the reins to his cousin and rode Lisinthir’s skill, and the more he let go the quicker it came to him, until nothing was getting through his guard. He caught Imtherili’s sword and met Lisinthir’s eyes over their crossed weapons and in them he saw an exhilaration that caught him off guard.
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