Alsea Rising: The Seventh Star (Chronicles of Alsea Book 10)

by Fletcher DeLancey

  “There’s no need—”

  “I know. You’re right, I need more than one day of relaxation. What did the High Council say?”

  Andira examined her, then shook her head. “Just like that?”

  “Just like that. Tell me.”

  “Stubborn warrior.” She gave in. “I asked my communications advisor to give them his conclusions. He said, and they agreed, that your status as the Savior puts you in a unique category. You—”

  “The Savior?”

  “After the battle, the media stopped calling you the Savior of Blacksun. You’re simply the Savior now, chosen and temporarily inhabited by Fahla.”

  “I guess that would be a unique category.” Her sense of humor was beginning to reassert itself.

  “If the Lancer shares a dual tyree bond, and the other tyree is the Savior, Miltorin thinks that’s a story that tells itself. Everyone on Alsea watched you save us last moon. They won’t disapprove of our relationship, especially given that their Bondlancer is also in a dual tyree bond with their other favorite Gaian. If anything, this will enhance my reputation. It’s not every Alsean who can land the Savior.”

  “Oh, is that what you did? Landed me?”

  “You’re here, aren’t you?”

  Ekatya looked back at the Guards, who had not moved. Then she slid her arms around Andira’s shoulders and pulled her in.

  “Yes, I am,” she whispered against her lips. That she had surprised Andira gave her confidence, and she made their kiss last until she had shortness of breath for a much better reason.

  When they separated, Andira was smiling. “Unique is right.”

  “I do try.” Ekatya’s skin tingled. She was exhausted from their run and her attack, yet exhilarated by coming out of it with enough flair to recover her pride. “Then you’re going public?”

  “I’m not doing anything without permission from you and Lhyn.”

  “Do it. You’ll have Lhyn’s permission two pipticks after asking. She doesn’t deserve to be kept in the shadows, and I—” She stopped, now understanding her earlier trigger. “I’ve spent a cycle protecting everyone I care about by isolating myself. This last moon has been so freeing, but I still had to be careful about you because of Sholokhov. I don’t know what he could have done once that treaty was signed, but finding out we tricked him would not have been good.”

  Andira nodded in understanding.

  “But that ended yesterday. It’s like I’m finally remembering how to breathe. The mere idea of being pushed back there, of being used as a weapon against you—I can’t live that way. Not one day more.”

  “That won’t happen.” Andira’s confidence left no room for doubt. “We’ll defuse that weapon before it can gain any power. Perhaps going public will help others, too. I’ve wondered whether my parents would have acted differently if they’d had the option. It’s not unheard of, but at their level of society . . .”

  “Ensigns can do things captains can’t,” Ekatya said with a nod. “But captains can set new precedents.”

  Andira looked at her silently, a small smile playing at the edges of her mouth.

  “What?”

  The smile grew. “I’m glad you’re home.” With brisk movements, she stood and offered a hand. “Let’s get back and clean up. You smell like a wet holcat.”

  “Charming. As if you’re any better?”

  They made their way to the main path, its colonnade of ancient tree trunks framing the State House at its end. Lhyn and Salomen were in that colossal building right now, taking her grandparents on a full tour.

  I’m glad you’re home, Andira had said. Not I’m glad you’re back.

  Alsea had felt like home for some time, but only now was it truly sinking in.

  She never had to leave again.

  35

  Not the usual way

  Fahla had a twisted sense of humor, Salomen decided.

  Between the preparations for the battle, the recovery afterward, the normal hard work of Hol-Opah in high summer growth season, the additional work of her planned surprise, and the waiting—great Mother, the waiting—for Lhyn and Ekatya to return from their moon aboard the Phoenix, she had been more than ready for an unofficial bonding break.

  She had not been ready for Ekatya’s grandparents.

  Nikolay and Elanor were smart, loving, fascinated by everything they saw in Blacksun, and relentlessly in the way. They had come a very long distance to see Ekatya and Lhyn, and while Salomen certainly understood prioritizing family, she was chafing at the unexpected delay.

  “They don’t know who we are, tyrina,” Andira said. “Until Ekatya and Lhyn tell them, we have no standing.”

  “How are you so reasonable about this? You’ve been waiting longer than I have.”

  “Because I’ve been waiting longer than you have.”

  That was exceedingly unhelpful, a fact she verbalized with every bit of her annoyance.

  What was helpful, she reflected later, was Andira’s innate understanding of her, even when she didn’t understand herself. Their joining had been fast and hard, burning off her frustration, and the sweet caresses afterward settled her in ways she hadn’t realized she needed.

  “You could move up the media announcement by two ninedays,” she suggested, her cheek resting on Andira’s thigh. “Then Ekatya wouldn’t have to tell them.”

  Chuckles bounced the stomach she was stroking. “You’ve been in the State House too long. You’re learning manipulation.”

  “Ha. You think I didn’t know before? I merely chose not to use it.”

  “Most of the time,” Andira said unwisely.

  Corozen and Alejandra joined them for evenmeal that night, a lively and distracting event. They had already scheduled their creation ceremony, which earned Corozen a good bit of teasing from Andira. He bore it with genial ease, immune to any embarrassment.

  “I’ve been ready for half a lifetime,” he said. “So has Alejandra.”

  “No, I haven’t. I’ve been ready for about six days.” Alejandra picked up a forkful of mallowfish. “This is delicious! One thing I’m looking forward to here is the food. Mmm.”

  “Half a lifetime, six days.” Andira waggled her hand back and forth. “Your sense of time needs to be calibrated, Micah. You’d better fix that before having a baby.”

  “Either that, or stop speaking for your partner,” Salomen added.

  Still chewing, Alejandra pointed the fork at her with a smirk.

  “Yes, it reduces the risk of catastrophic error.” Andira poked his arm. “Take it from one who knows.”

  “Now you’re giving me relationship advice?”

  “Who better?”

  Alejandra dabbed the corner of her mouth with her napkin. “In his defense, I do understand what he meant. I’ve missed having a child for half my life. It might not make sense, given that Josue would have been an adult long ago. But he’s frozen in time for me.”

  “It makes perfect sense,” Andira said. “My parents are frozen in time for me, too. They would be the same age as Micah, but I cannot envision it.”

  Salomen looked over in surprise, having never heard that before. “Will that happen to me with my mother?”

  “I think it happens to everyone. We remember them as they were, not as they would be.”

  “I don’t want to remember her as she was. Frail and dependent—she hated that part of being ill. It wasn’t her.”

  “Don’t remember her at the end,” Alejandra said. “I did that for far too long, and it suspended my grieving process. Remember her as she was before. The illness was a tiny fraction of her life; it didn’t define her. If you imagine her before then, what do you see? Don’t let yourself think, just envision it.” She snapped her fingers. “Right now.”

  “I see her walking across the fields,” Salomen said without hesitation. “With a stride that left all of us behind if we let ourselves be distracted for a moment.” She smiled, the picture coming into better focus. “She’s wearing
a frayed sun hat that’s cycles past the fashion, but she’s the one who taught me to value comfort over appearance. Her work gloves are tucked into her belt, because it’s summertime and none of us wear our gloves until we need them. But we always have them with us. That’s something else she taught us, to keep our tools nearby.”

  The focus became a little too sharp, and she cleared her throat. “She’s pointing something out to me, saying we need to take care of that next, because she was always planning ahead—and she always said ‘we.’ I think that’s what hurts the most about losing her. I lost that partnership.”

  “That’s beautiful,” Alejandra said as the others nodded. “No mother could ask for more than to be remembered like that.”

  “How do you remember Josue?”

  The table went silent with wary expectation. It was a presumptuous question, but Alejandra had begun it. Salomen felt no compunction about turning it back.

  “If you had asked me a cycle ago, I would have said ‘badly.’ Then I’d have told you the topic was not up for discussion.”

  “And now?”

  One hand idly spun her glass of spirits. “Now I see him sitting on our front steps. That was where he liked to play with his toys, running them up and down the steps and inventing stories. Complex stories, given his age. He’s smiling up at me. Always smiling,” she repeated, her gaze far away. “He was a happy child. Every time I showed him something new, he thought it was the most wondrous thing ever.”

  “It probably was,” Salomen said quietly.

  “He made me laugh more than I ever had. You lost your partnership, I lost my laughter.” She refocused, her emotions unburdened despite the topic. “Lanaril says part of the grieving process is finding the things we lost. Even though we can’t find them in the same place.”

  “Even when they’re not what we expected,” Salomen agreed. “I found a partnership that surpassed my wildest dreams. Then I found another.”

  “I’m still learning how to dream.” Smiling at Corozen, she added, “But I think I’ve found a good teacher.”

  He reached for her hand, his emotional signature a brilliant spiral of happiness and pride.

  “That’s one of his best skills,” Andira said. “A toast, then. To laughter and dreams.” She waited until they had drunk before adding, “And a creation ceremony brimming with both. Where will you be holding it? Here, the temple, or a pleasure house?”

  “A pleasure house,” Alejandra answered. “In Whitesun.”

  Salomen understood immediately. “Rahel.”

  “Mm-hm. Micah and I can do it anywhere. She needs—” She paused when Corozen choked. “Not what I meant,” she said, patting his back.

  Andira was grinning widely. “He’s a little sensitive about these things.”

  Corozen held up two fingers in a rude gesture, which only made her laugh.

  “Save that for the right time,” she quipped.

  “We’re surrounded by children,” Alejandra informed Salomen before raising her voice. “As I was saying, Rahel needs a more specific environment. Since she won’t be taking the usual route of sexual pleasure, her surroundings are critical to the process.”

  “I’m still amazed that will work,” Salomen said. “Rahel said it would, but we didn’t get a chance to discuss details.”

  “It’s fascinating.” She leaned forward, sparkling with an intellectual eagerness reminiscent of Lhyn. “Gaians don’t have any control over gamete production. For females, one hormone starts the process, another kicks in as the egg matures, and a complex interplay of hormones drives sexual receptivity to encourage fertilization. Your biology is almost the reverse of ours. The hormones that drive your gamete production aren’t produced until you stimulate receptors in your brain with sexual pleasure. Then you limit fertilization with the maturation process. If you don’t keep the hormone levels high for five days, the gametes will reabsorb without ever reaching maturity.” She waved a hand self-consciously. “I’m sorry, this is telling you what you already know, but I find the whole thing so damned brilliant.”

  “Something new and wondrous?” Andira suggested.

  She straightened, startled by the repetition of her own words. “Yes. Wondrous. Now that you’re making me think of it, I suppose Josue got that from me.” A smile broke across her face. “Here’s something else wondrous, and this part you won’t know. Being sansara means sexual activity won’t drive Rahel’s hormone production. That’s not what activates her receptors. She needs comfort giving.”

  “So you’re holding your ceremony where she’s most comfortable.” Andira had caught on. “Her own pleasure house.”

  “With the help of the people best equipped to give her pleasure. The injections will push her levels near where they need to be, but there’s a limit to what synthetic hormones can do. She still needs to produce some of her own.”

  “Great Mother,” Salomen blurted. “You’re making this a family event. Ravenel and Sharro will be there, won’t they?”

  She nodded. “I can’t be her sole provider.”

  “She’ll be busy helping me with my hormone levels.” Corozen glowed with joyous expectation. “It’s not the usual way of doing things, but neither of us has ever done things the usual way.”

  His words stayed with Salomen throughout the following day. She had never done things the usual way either, and for that she had paid a lonely price. Now she was surrounded by people who stood together in their willingness to stand alone.

  She was still pondering it at the musical performance that evening, sitting in their reserved seats with Lhyn and Ekatya beside them and Nikolay and Elanor one row behind. With the Voices of the Deep providing glorious vocals, the Blacksun Symphony played compositions chosen to represent the Battle for the Stars. Salomen was transported by the music and chorus, her throat occasionally tightening at a particularly beautiful or haunting passage. So lost was she in the memories that intermission came as a surprise, pulling her back with a jarring mental thud.

  As the lights came up and people began moving toward the lobby, Lhyn let out a long exhale. “Fucking stars. I’ll need a glass of spirits to get through the next half. That was—”

  “Well chosen,” Andira said. “If the intent was to put us right back in the battle.”

  “I can get that for you.” Nikolay stood up and patted his pockets, then pulled out a credit chip. “Ah! I knew I had it somewhere. Ekatya, would you like one as well?”

  “Yes, please. Something from the Whitesun region if they have it.”

  “Andira? Salomen?”

  When they declined, Nikolay left with Elanor right behind him, stating that she needed to stretch her legs.

  “I’m sorry,” Ekatya said.

  Salomen looked over in surprise. “For what?”

  “For making us wait. Again. I thought I was done with that, but—” She dropped her head back with a frustrated groan. “I don’t know how to tell them. Gramps is so proud of me and Grams is having such a wonderful time, and I can’t—Hades, I’m sorry. Some Savior I am, eh?”

  “You’re not obligated,” Andira said. “Only you know what’s best for you and your grandparents. If the time isn’t right, then it’s not right.”

  “We have a lifetime ahead of us.” Salomen’s impatience had vanished in the face of such distress. “We can wait until they return home.”

  “I don’t want to wait. I want them to know you. But they won’t if I don’t tell them.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you’re not you when you’re hiding.”

  Salomen looked from her to Lhyn, who nodded.

  “You’ve been very reserved,” she said. “Andira is more skilled at presenting open body cues and conversing naturally, even when she’s holding back.”

  “Gramps says you carry yourself like an officer keeping a professional distance. Grams says she can’t see past your eyes. It’s an idiom from her region; it means—”

  “I understand what it means.” Salom
en saw the reaction even as she sensed it, an instinctive withdrawal at her sharp tone. She looked over the audience below them, taking a moment to regroup.

  “They think highly of you.” Ekatya scrambled to fix the perceived slight. “Grams admires your perfect manners—”

  “She thinks we could learn a few things from you,” Lhyn put in.

  “—and Gramps is dazzled that we’re friends with the equivalent of royalty. Sometimes I’m a little dazzled by that, too.”

  “Ekatya.” Salomen was disarmed by the last comment. “I’m not royalty. I’m a producer who fell in love.”

  “Oh, I disagree. I saw the footage of your march through Blacksun. You were the leader of your people.”

  “She’s right about that.” Andira slipped an arm around her waist. “I’ll never forget how you looked, standing at the bottom of the State House steps. Like a warrior queen, Micah said. And you know how much it takes to impress Micah.”

  “These days, a mention of hormone injections would do it.” Their laughter eased the tension jangling her senses, and she spoke from her heart. “I want to know them, too. They’re your family. You know what family means to me.”

  Ekatya nodded.

  “But I’m not like Andira. I cannot be open without being fully open.”

  “I know. Believe me, I understand what it’s like to hide a significant part of who you are. You shouldn’t have to.” She scrubbed her face with both hands, exasperation making the air heavy around her. “At my medal ceremony, Andira said you arranged a getaway for whenever we were ready. Is it like a bonding break?”

  “It is, yes.”

  “Then I’m ready. Grams and Gramps have seen most of Blacksun, and I can’t relax here. Everyone sees me as the Savior. Maybe if we go somewhere quiet, it’ll be easier. And if we’re somewhere where it’s just family, that will definitely be easier.”

  Salomen could hardly believe the solution had dropped into her lap. “We can go tomorrow, if you like.”

  “Done. What do we need to bring?”