“Pisum sativum,” she said. “Isn’t that—in fact, isn’t all of this—”
“It’s a pea,” Ari said, staring at the space on the table where the dapatad had been. She bit her lip. “My pea.”
“I thought it looked familiar,” Assistant said quietly.
Ari gulped. “I didn’t finish reading the article. He, um… I don’t think he mentions me, though.”
“Did you tell him about this when he came here?”
“Of course I did!” Ari said. “It’s—it was my big project. And he’s the Senior Royal—” She gulped. “I wanted to impress him.”
“It looks like you did.” Assistant’s face was, as always, impossible to read, but her eyes were dark. With what emotion?
“Why did he do that?” Ari asked. “He’s a brilliant botanist. He has so much he can do—he’s so important—why did he steal my ideas?” Because that’s what he’d done. He’d stolen them. Stolen them.
“I daresay you are not the first person he’s stolen from,” Assistant said, speaking in a gentle tone she rarely used. “People who get to the top are often gifted at that sort of thing.” Then, suddenly, her voice got sharp. “Ariana.”
Ari blinked. Why did Assistant sound so angry all of a sudden? Nobody had stolen her life’s work.
“People will use you,” Assistant continued. “Do you understand? That is what people do.” She waved the datapad in Ari’s face. Her inscrutable expression was sliding into something that looked almost upset. “This man, this fat, brilliant botanist, is a thief. And he is no better or worse than anyone else.”
“What?” Ari gasped. She stood. “That’s not true!”
“Isn’t it?”
“I-I…” Ari shook her head. “No. That’s awful. That’s a terrible thing to say. I don’t think people are like that.”
“How would you know?”
Ari stared at her, wounded. Like Ari didn’t already feel bad enough, now suddenly Assistant wanted to jeer at her? “I—”
“Get used to it,” Assistant said flatly, and thrust the datapad back into her hands.
“I’m not going to get used to that!” Ari drew her shoulders up straight. “I’m going to write a letter.”
Assistant looked like she wanted to laugh in Ari’s face. “A letter?”
“Yes!” Ari said, her face burning with humiliation and anger. “To the magazine. I’m going to tell them exactly what Dr. Phylyxas did. He shouldn’t be allowed to get away with that.”
“Well,” Assistant said. “Do your worst.”
“I will!” Ari’s hands curled into fists. Suddenly, the metaphor about people having “boiling blood” when they were mad no longer seemed like a metaphor. She had fire in her veins. “And there’s no need for you to be so—so mean about it.”
Assistant blinked.
“Why do you care, anyway? You don’t even like botany!”
“No,” Assistant said. “I don’t.”
“So why don’t you go back to your alcove,” Ari said, “and not-like botany over there. I’ll be in my room.” Writing her letter.
She stormed off and didn’t let the tears fall until the door was safely closed behind her. She even locked it.
She wrote her letter and then wrote it again about five times. Wished she could ask for Assistant’s advice on it. But she wasn’t going to do that. Go meekly to the woman who thought this whole idea was stupid and ask her what she thought? Forget it.
Ari wasn’t feeling all that meek anyway right now. She might lose her temper and make things worse. Talk about “surprising” Assistant, and not in a good way.
After the sixth attempt, Ari tossed the datapad on her mattress and flopped back down on her bed, rubbing her forehead in an effort to hold off the headache she knew was coming.
Someone knocked on the door.
“What?” Ari called.
“I’ve called for dinner,” Assistant said through the door.
“I’m not hungry.”
“Stop sulking.”
“I’m not—I’m not sulking! I’m upset. I’m allowed to be upset,” Ari snapped.
“Have you finished your letter?”
“Yes,” Ari lied, after a pause that went on for just a moment too long.
“Let me in.”
Ari didn’t want to, but there was something about Assistant: something that meant, when she gave you an order in a certain tone of voice, you obeyed her. Ari had pressed the ‘Enter’ button by the side of her bed before she’d even realized it. Assistant glided in, regal as always—and then, to Ari’s surprise, sat down at the foot of the bed.
“Do you want me to read your letter?” she said.
“I don’t think so. No.”
“Are you planning to send it?”
Ari shrugged miserably.
Assistant sighed. Then, to Ari’s astonishment, she reached out and patted Ari’s shin.
Ari forgot about Dr. Phylyxas, and thievery, and even botany for a few seconds, because Assistant was touching her, for no obvious reason, and it felt marvelous—even if it was through Ari’s skirt, and was only comforting, and wasn’t meant to be…intimate. Her hand was warm, and her touch was light, and it made Ari blush so hard that it felt as if her whole face was going to melt off.
And Assistant noticed. Of course she did. She never missed anything, not a single detail. Her eyes went wide, and her hand stiffened on Ari’s leg. Then she slowly, cautiously pulled it away.
Ari had never been so horrified in her life. Dr. Phylyxas’s theft was nothing to this. She had a sudden vision of herself burrowing into the roots of a tree, hiding herself beneath wood and sod and other living things that knew better than to have feelings, to care. That had to be an improvement over looking into Assistant’s beautiful, shocked blue eyes.
But then the door chimed, signaling that dinner had arrived from the mess hall, and digging herself into a hole abruptly seemed like an impractical idea.
Assistant gave Ari one more long look. Ari stared back at her, stricken, feeling as if she should apologize for something she hadn’t said or done, only felt.
But all Assistant said was, “Come along.”
Now she looked…not warm. Not quite. But she didn’t look angry, upset, or mocking, either. Ari didn’t know what that look was.
“I’m really not hungry,” Ari croaked, deciding that she would stay in her bedroom for the rest of her life.
“Are you sure about that?” Assistant said, raising an eyebrow before she left Ari’s room.
Ari tried not to whimper out loud.
~ ~ ~
After dinner, they went to the Observatory, where Ari spent the whole time peering into telescopes or looking out the window or paging through star charts or doing anything but looking at Assistant. And any time Assistant came within two feet of her, Ari started chattering about anything astronomy-related that came into her head, shuffling away as she talked until the two feet had grown back to a comfortable three or four or even five.
But Assistant didn’t seem to get Ari’s hints and kept trailing Ari around the Observatory like the most obedient, attentive slave who’d ever lived, which she’d never done before, and what was she up to? Was she still mad at Ari about the cooling unit thing? Why else would she be doing her best to make Ari want to sink through the floor?
She might stop if she knew about the other feeling, the one that stirred in Ari’s heart and stomach and brain all at once whenever Assistant got close enough to touch but never did. There was no other way to describe it than the hot feeling. So hot that Ari almost wondered if every single cooling unit in the station needed replacing immediately.
When they returned, Ari knew she should look in on Paxium nollinium, but she decided he would just have to fend for himself tonight. She’d get up really early the next day and check on him. Before Assistant woke up. In the meantime, she mumbled, “I’m really tired, I’m turning in early,” and fled into her bedroom before Assistant could reply.
&nb
sp; Only, she couldn’t sleep. After two hours of lying awake in the darkness, she gave up and turned on her lamp. It would be better to read than just toss and turn. She might go out and make some tea in a few more minutes—at this hour, Assistant was sure to be asleep—but not just yet. Better to make sure.
But Ari hadn’t been reading for more than five minutes when her door hissed open. Assistant stood in the doorway, clad in her night tunic, her feet bare. Ari looked her up and down before she could help it, even though Assistant looked like she always did whenever they worked at night. How strange, though, that the shorter skirt on Assistant’s night tunic made Ari feel a little dizzy in a way it hadn’t before.
Ari fumbled her datapad. “What…why—”
“Your light was on,” Assistant said blandly. “I wondered if you were all right.”
“I’m fine!” Ari spluttered. “What are you even doing in here?”
“You didn’t lock your door.”
“So?” Ari said. “That doesn’t mean you can just walk in on people!” She was astonished, really. Assistant, though she could be very rude in some ways, observed all the proprieties in others.
“I’m sorry,” Assistant said, a small smile playing around her lips. “Did I interrupt something?”
Ari blinked, not sure what to make of the almost…purring…tone in Assistant’s voice, except that something began to stir on the very edge of her awareness. Something too much like the hot feeling for comfort.
“I was just reading,” she said.
“Oh,” Assistant said, and came into the room. She pressed the button on the wall and the door shut behind her. “Well, then.”
“Um, I’m fine,” Ari said hastily. “As you can see. I’m sorry if I, uh, worri…disturbed you. You can go back to sleep now.”
“Do you know,” Assistant said, sitting at the foot of Ari’s bed again, “I’m having the most difficult time nodding off myself.”
“Oh.” Ari tensed up, wondering if she should scramble out of bed. “D-do you want me to make us both some tea?”
“No,” Assistant said. “I have a better idea.” She slid up the bed until she was sitting next to Ari, looking down at her.
And for all the heat that had been lurking inside her blood all night, Ari felt frozen solid, clutching her datapad like a shield to her chest. She couldn’t move, couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe. What…surely—
Assistant was so close. Her body was so warm. Her eyes were so blue.
“I’ll tell you a story,” Assistant said. “Perhaps that will help you sleep.”
“Oh!” Ari’s breath left her in one huge rush that sounded so ridiculous she nearly cringed. What had that been? A gasp of relief, or what? What was there to be relieved about?
Or disappointed about?
Of course, Assistant hadn’t meant anything wrong. She might have been teasing Ari like she did sometimes, but that was all. This was obviously benign, even if the offer of story time was still kind of weird. Ari wasn’t a child who needed nursery rhymes to get through the night. But if Assistant wanted… “Okay. I mean, if you like. What kind of story?”
“A pirate story,” Assistant said. “What else?”
Ari’s eyes widened with both surprise and interest. “I thought you didn’t like to talk about that.”
“Well, you wanted to know what it was like to live among pirates,” Assistant said. “Didn’t you? What it was like to keep company with the dangerous pirate queen?”
“You said you never saw her,” Ari reminded her.
“I heard the stories. Everyone did. Everyone in the fleet.” She smiled. It was a little scary. “Though the stories rarely made their way to outsiders.”
“Oh.” Ari curled up on her side, looking up at Assistant. “Okay. That sounds interesting.” Thank goodness, her tone hadn’t sounded too eager. Assistant had already known Ari was wildly curious about this, but it wouldn’t do to sound… Oh, what was the right word, voyeuristic? Like Ari regarded stories of pirate culture as pure entertainment, and not something that happened to real people. People like Assistant.
Still, though, it would be neat to be privy to something that so few outsiders knew.
“Once, nearly ten years ago,” Assistant said, “Mír’s fleet advanced upon a little armpit outpost in the Leinea sector. It wasn’t an official outpost. It didn’t even have a name. What it did have was a rogue, roving band of shabby little mercenaries who had been attacking small trading ships. Small, but sometimes loaded with very lucrative cargo.” Ari nodded. “And they refused to pay tribute.”
“Tribute?”
“Oh, yes. What do you suppose it means to be a queen? You take tribute. Or taxes. However you want to put it.”
“My father says Mír gets a cut of everything,” Ari said, remembering.
Assistant’s lip curled. “Or getting a cut. Fine. It means the same thing.”
“Okay,” Ari prompted. “So, they wouldn’t pay her?”
“Indeed, they would not. They thought they were dealing with one small ship from Mír’s fleet and prepared to engage them. I’m sure they thought they could win, run, and hide. They did not know that Mír’s own flagship was in the same sector, cloaked, biding time between much larger targets.”
“The flagship?” Ari said eagerly. Rumors abounded about that ship, each one more unlikely than the last. “You mean the Crown Lily? Did you ever see it? What’s it like?”
“I’ve seen it. Schematics of it,” Assistant amended. “Nothing like a lily. It’s black. And large. As large as the biggest Imperial vessel.” She reached down and combed her fingers through Ari’s hair. “More than a match for anything within the Empire or beyond it.”
Ari went still. Assistant had never touched her like…this…before. But her fingers were very gentle in Ari’s hair. Almost soothing. And her voice was low, hypnotic, mesmerizing. Yet again, Ari felt like she couldn’t move, couldn’t do anything but listen as Assistant continued.
“And those little swamp rats tried to withhold their tribute from Mír. To deny her something she had demanded.” Assistant’s knuckles brushed lightly over Ari’s forehead. “That never ends well.”
Ari swallowed, and Assistant smiled almost gently.
“There are some people who always get what they want, and she is one of them,” Assistant continued. “Do you know what it is like, to be a person like that?”
Ari shook her head.
“No. Of course you don’t.” Assistant shook her own head. “Anyway. To return to my tale.
“The mercenaries engaged the small ship of the fleet. Mír’s people held their own, but Mír heard of it while it was happening and became upset. Most upset. It was an insult, you see, and if there is one thing pirates do not tolerate, it is insult. The Crown Lily arrived quickly, uncloaked, and demanded the mercenaries’ immediate surrender and payment of tribute. She promised them mercy. They agreed.”
“I bet,” Ari whispered, her eyes wide. “So, what happened? They joined her crew?”
“She killed them,” Assistant said, looking Ari dead in the eye. “Every single one.”
Everyone knew that pirates were awful, so Ari had no idea why Assistant’s words hit her like a stone to the head. Maybe it was the realization—again—that the woman next to her, the closest thing she had to a friend, had lived in such a way that such an atrocity was business as usual. Ari gasped again, and this time, there was no pretending it was anything but horror.
She curled up harder in the bed until her knees were almost at her chest. “That’s terrible.” Her voice cracked.
Assistant’s fingers paused in her hair. “Is it?”
“Of course it is!” Why did Assistant even have to ask? Was she that brainwashed? “Mír said she’d be merciful. She lied.”
“Did she?”
“Well, yes! She, she—”
“From what I understand, the mercenaries were quickly and cleanly killed. That is mercy, in the world of pirates.” Assistant dragged he
r knuckles down Ari’s cheek before returning to her hair. The gesture could have been innocent, even tender, but the look in Assistant’s eyes made it something else. “They chose that life. They chose that fate. Just as you’ve chosen to wall yourself off in this little jungle of yours.”
“But what’s wrong with that?” Ari asked. “So what if I do? I’m not hurting anybody else. I’m not killing anybody, or stealing… I’m not as bad as a pirate or even Dr. Phylyxas!”
To her surprise, Assistant’s nostrils flared, and she almost looked upset. “If I were you,” she said, “I would not compare Mír to the Senior Royal Botanist.”
“Why not?” Ari demanded. “They both steal stuff. At least Dr. Phylyxas doesn’t kill people.”
Assistant yanked her fingers out of Ari’s hair.
“Ouch! Well, it’s true.”
Assistant scowled at her. Ari scowled back.
Then Ari rolled over and looked at the wall. “I didn’t like that story,” she said, her voice shakier than she would have liked. “And it’s not going to help me sleep, thanks.”
Then she felt Assistant’s fingertips again. They were warm. They were stroking lightly over the nape of her neck.
Ari froze again. Then she began to shake like a leaf of Quercus alba in a stiff wind as Assistant leaned down, her breath soft and warm on the side of Ari’s face.
“You didn’t like that story?” Assistant murmured in her ear. “Not even a little?”
Ari swallowed, tried to say something, but she couldn’t make a sound. Assistant’s mouth was nearly touching her ear, and only her ear, but for some reason the hot feeling was back, blooming through her whole body.
“It did not excite you?” Assistant added.
“It wasn’t exciting,” Ari whispered, making her voice work at last. “I told you, it was terrible—What are you doing?”
“You know nothing of the world.” Assistant’s voice was soft as the fuzz on a baby leaf. She smelled wonderful. Intoxicating, like the one time Ari had tried wine. She had beautiful arms and legs. And her voice still wove around Ari like a spell.
Ari felt the lightest, barest brush of Assistant’s lips on her shoulder, against her throat; heard Assistant inhale; realized that Assistant was smelling her, too. Her fingertips dragged slowly up and down Ari’s arm, making goosebumps rise everywhere.
The Lily and the Crown Page 8