To the Victor

by R Coots

  He took the cup from the table where Delfi’d left it, refilled it at the sink, and set it down in front of Jossa. “Sure. He’d be the Fuerrus. Right now there are so many people fighting over the throne, no one can sort out who’s really got sai and who’s making their women fake it for them.”

  Well, there was that. But that had been going on since time immemorial. Even the occasional commoner had turned up, claiming some member of the Progeny either sired or birthed them in an alley somewhere. Some had even managed to parlay that supposed blood tie into positions at court. There were just too few children in the Imperial line to pass up the chance that a spare scion might be useful at some point or another.

  They were certainly good for keeping the legitimate Progeny in line.

  “Dikoch kezs ihwehriks nih,” Delfi sang, laying her head on the table with a giggle.

  The warlord looked at Jossa. She translated, then reached for that inner pull. Still nothing.

  He laughed. “Truth in death? That’s the oldest fucking wise man’s saying there is. Problem is, by that time there’s no use in knowing the truth. Can’t rule the Galaxy if you’re dead.” He frowned. “Drink your water.”

  Jossa looked at the cup, then back up at him. He bared his teeth in an unpleasant grin. “Drink it. This isn’t a choice.” From the way he hooked his thumbs in his belt loops, she didn’t think he’d stop with making her drink just the water.

  She picked up the cup and drank. He watched her, leaning against the table, emotions still held tight under his skin. He was considering something. But what? Without Feeling, without reaching out, she wouldn’t know.

  She didn’t want to reach. She’d already spent too much time with this man. Jossa shook her head. She should be grateful to have her sai back. That he was hiding his emotions and the insights they brought was an extra blessing, unlooked for and doubly precious because of it.

  ::Joss.:: Delfi’s voice in her head was quiet. Almost gentle. ::Joss, just tell him the rest.::

  “Why?” she muttered. “He’s the one who found us. He knows more about that Ancestors-be-damned system than we ever did.”

  There went the curiosity again, paired with a shipload of speculation. They crawled over her skin, settling in through her pores and burrowing into her brain. He wanted to know what just happened, and what other talents her sister had that he hadn’t read in her maruste.

  Jossa wished she dared to give him a taste of her talent again. Whatever he was, he wasn’t stupid. He could tell when she was manipulating his emotions. The bathing room had been an accident, and look what he’d done then.

  But it was so tempting.

  Delfi leaned around the warlord and glared. Jossa glared back. And lost, just as she had every time she’d ever tried to out-stubborn her sister. “Fine,” she snapped. “Fine. Have it your way, you illaf asjokojek bittehek!” She tried to fling her hands in Delfi’s direction, but the tethers yanked her back. “I broke her, ok?” She scowled at the table and clenched her fists on the bench. “I broke my sousi.”

  Syrus raised an eyebrow, but didn’t say anything. His emotional barometer didn’t change either. She wanted to hit him. Get a reaction of some sort. But even if she could, he’d probably break her arm in retaliation.

  “If I hadn’t been the one to find the system, we would have kept on running. We might have been caught, but at least—” Jossa sniffed. “At least Rui and Denz and the crew wouldn’t have thrown themselves away trying to draw the hunters off. At least we would have died together! Not three hundred years apart and stuck on a ship with—” she waved her hands out at her sides. “Slaves, Del. Again! That’s what we are! You just haven’t been awake long enough to realize it!

  “And now your words are all scrambled up and the translation isn’t coming, and I’ve broken you! It’s all my fault, and if we’d just stayed with the crew! Just stayed put and never gotten in those tukovaf caskets!” Jossa scrubbed her cheek on her shoulder, feeling the synthcot of her borrowed shirt scrape and rasp at her skin.

  Same as her guilt was doing to her soul.

  “You’d be dead now anyway. If you were lucky, you would’ve gone out in a blaze of glory and taken the rest of your crew with you.” Syrus planted his hands on the table and leaned down to look her in the eye. His emotions were locked down, his face serious. “Said it yourself. They wanted to pump you full of come and pop as many brats out of you as they could. Don’t need your mind for that.” He straightened and picked up the cup again. “Instead, you’re alive. At least you’ve got that.”

  “We’re still slaves,” she spat at him.

  He shrugged and turned back to the sink. “So’m I, in a way.”

  She gaped at him. What made him think he was in any way a slave? Even if it were true, what was wrong with him that he could say so and accept it?

  She was still staring as he came back to the table and set the cup in front of Delfi again. He stood there for a second, his hand on the rim of the little silplat cup, and met Jossa’s eyes. And, very deliberately, he slipped his shields. The rage hit her in the face, bringing with it ghost images of beatings, the sting of an activated maruste, and shouts she couldn’t understand.

  She clutched at the table with fingers that blistered and bled as she groped along her bond to Delfi, looking for sanctuary. Delfi caught her, reeled her in, and pulled the emotions along with her. Jossa cried out as the hurt and anger of a lifetime poured through her and down, deep into the abyss that was Delfi.

  Somehow, as the cold numbness of Delfi’s blessing moved through the bond, Jossa managed to form words. “You—” Her breath caught in her throat and she groped for different words. Better words. Something to say that might, might, be enough to turn his attention away from the topic at hand. “You said your plan included us?”

  The warlord—for that was what he was, no matter what he might call himself—let go of the cup and curled a lip. “Sure do. But I’m not done with the questions. Not just yet.” He pulled his shields back into place and Jossa felt some of the ominous pressure in the room ease. She licked her lips, found them whole, and risked a look at her fingers. Smooth skin, whitened by her grip on the table.

  A hand, huge and work worn, seamed with small scars, landed gently on the surface in front of her. The other hand, its fingers careful, gentle even, cupped her chin and pulled her face up. The warlord bared white teeth. “Still got plenty of time before I need you to play rescued slave. And plenty of questions.” His snarl turned to a malicious grin. His shields wavered. Something flickered out and licked at Jossa’s mind, sharp and hard. It vanished under a wave of oily smugness. “Such as the rumor that the sai of isk Churusimpir lis Kuchruog lis isk Fuerrus¬¬¬—” he grinned wider at their reaction to the name. Yes, he’d paid attention to Jossa, “—would put on shows for him, when he needed a bit of entertainment.”

  >Chapter Twenty-Four

  Jossa

  Leaving aside the issue of the soul’s existence, it is an apt metaphor. How else would you describe a mental link this strong? Not even marriages have the endurance shown by those with the soul-sibling bond.

  -observations, Professor Rusithe, New Hopks College of Medicine

  Jossa stared up at the underside of the bunk above her. What was that ancient saying? One engine forward, two in reverse? It certainly fit. Staying alive counted as forward movement, but Ancestors knew how long that would last.

  She thumped her head against the wall behind her a couple times, wishing she’d managed to keep her mouth shut and not completely infuriate the man. But no. She’d added scalding water to the burn of Delfi’s words, and now she and her sousi were stuck in here, shackled to the wall.

  Jossa thought about it, then thumped her head again, this time to enjoy the feel of impact against her skull. If she was going to die, at least she wouldn’t be wearing a crown to the event.

  Still, she was probably going to die.

  “I blame you,” she said.

  At the other end of
the bunk, Delfi kicked her sister’s ankle. Lightly.

  Jossa brought her head down and glared. “You little! You’re the one who started calling him names!”

  Delfi spared a glance from behind the curtain of red hair over her face and went back to fighting the shackles holding her to the wall. Her arms shook as she pulled against the tether between the metal cuffs and the anchors stuck to the wall.

  “What are you doing?” Jossa asked, leaning forward to see. The shackle and tether assembly on her wrists brought her up short, and she slumped back rather than fight them.

  “Gahtsylii ahlihksii yahzihii neh. Gahtsylii wehkach dikoksii kaeshyj nih,” Delfi snarled. “Jehniahjy, nehkeh kaeshyj neh!”

  Jossa groaned and thumped her head on the wall again. “That right there is what got us locked in here instead of keeping us where we could learn anything. You and your mouth.”

  Delfi threw up her hands and gave a wordless cry. Frustration blew down the mind bond like air before an explosion. ::My mouth?:: Delfi wailed down the mind bond. ::What about yours? He couldn’t understand anything I said! Nobody ever will again!::

  Jossa moaned and pulled her knees up to her chest, trying to hold herself together. She was going to fly apart soon. She was going to lose all control, and she couldn’t do anything with it, because she was chained to this fikekoj wall while that piece of filth hid where she couldn’t get to him. She was going to kill him when she got loose. She was going to—

  ::Oh no. No, please. Jossa, no.:: Delfi’s tone of voice changed abruptly. Jossa felt the anger drain out of her, sucked towards Delfi and swallowed up. Gone. Taking the murderous thoughts with it.

  ::I’m sorry, Jossa. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean-:: Delfi lurched forward against her tethers and held for a moment before they snapped her back. ::I shouldn’t have.::

  Jossa coughed and uncurled, letting her arms drop to the mattress. “It’s ok,” she managed. Her throat didn’t want to work. Her tongue felt thick.

  Delfi writhed in the mind bond like an unsettled cat and Jossa put out a mental hand to soothe her. ::Shhh. No harm done.::

  ::Everything is all wrong,:: Delfi whimpered. ::How can it have been so long? Will we ever know why they didn’t come back? Denz—:: She cut herself off with a choked sob.

  Jossa put one foot out and rubbed at Delfi’s leg with her toes. “I know, I know. Just a few weeks ago, I had hope. We were going to see our family again. And now?” She tipped her head back, this time to keep the tears from falling out her eyes. It didn’t work. They trickled along her cheekbones and down her neck. “Now we’re . . .” She fluttered her hands helplessly and shrugged.

  ::We’re stuck,:: Delfi said, her mental voice a little firmer. She fed warmth to Jossa, the warmth of love and family. ::But we still have each other.::

  Jossa swallowed hard and took the comfort offered, letting it wrap around her mind like a warm blanket. Oh, Del. What would the world be like without Del? What did it cost her sousi to shove all her feelings down and away? To offer peace when she herself hurt so?

  At the other end of the bunk, Del snorted and went back to fiddling with her shackles. ::If we’re going to lay blame for why we’re tied to the walls, he didn’t get truly angry until you opened your mouth and asked him if the first thing he does with a pair of sai in front of him is ask if they fingerbang each other for people’s entertainment.::

  “Maybe.” Jossa sighed and rolled her shoulders, trying to find a position that didn’t strain the tethers too much. They were already starting to pull. Too much longer down here, with the anchors reeling her in tighter every time she moved, and she’d be trussed up like a bird for roasting. “But he may not have lost it if you hadn’t already been cursing him and his lineage.”

  Delfi looked up and frowned. ::I’m speaking gibberish. He wouldn’t know what I’d called him.::

  Jossa raised an eyebrow. “You used the word.”

  Puzzlement fizzed along the mind bond. Delfi’s fingers stilled. ::I said his mother was a whore, his father must have been a blind drunk who didn’t know where he was sticking his prick, and it was amazing a barbarian—:: She stopped. Jossa decided Del must have done the mental translation and figured out what He’la word she’d used to set the warlord off.

  “He’s more sensitive than most to being called nehkeh.” Jossa settled her back more firmly against the wall and hitched her hips so she could stretch out her legs. One of her feet landed on Del’s thigh. She draped the other over the edge of the bunk. “The He’la meaning is less . . .” She hmmed and tried to think of the right way to put it. “Less caustic than what it’s come to mean with High Navlad.”

  ::But they boil down to the same thing in the end.:: Delfi looked down at her hands. She had a thin piece of metal that blinked at one end buried in a seam of the shackles. Jossa didn’t know where she’d gotten the makeshift lock pick, but knowing Del, she’d taken the keys off the warlord himself when he grabbed them and hauled them down here. Jossa nodded. “Yes. And to make it worse, he really is nehkeh. He doesn’t like having his nose rubbed in it.”

  ::Of course he’s nehkeh. Aside from the truly spectacular muscles, there’s the way he talks.” Delfi wiggled the piece of metal in her shackle and something creaked. Something else made a little spitting noise, and the shackle fell apart in her lap. ::This Fleet is the perfect place for him. They’re all violent lunatics who get off on killing people.::

  ”Figure that out just from a little rampage down the halls?” Jossa grinned as her sister’s face twisted. The warm blanket of comfort didn’t go away, though, so she couldn’t have been too put out.

  ::They might have noticed how naked I was, but they were much, much more interested in the blood. Honestly, there might have been a little drool.::

  Jossa laughed. She couldn’t help it. The image Delfi sent along the mind bond was so ridiculous. All those hard-faced men, panting and drooling like dogs.

  ::There you go.:: Delfi smiled and started in on the second shackle. ::You just need a little humor to hold you over. Then we’ll go up to the bridge and take care of the warlord. Between your sex appeal and my fists, we’ll get this boat headed someplace safe.::

  And just like that, the real world came crashing in. Jossa took her foot off Delfi’s leg, pulled the other one up from where it dangled over the edge of the bunk, and curled in on herself. ”No. We won’t. He won’t allow it.”

  Delfi’s hands stilled. She stared at the shackle around her wrist, face hidden behind her hair. ::What do you mean, won’t?::

  Now Jossa had used the word Del hated most. She would have smacked herself in the forehead for her own stupidity, if she’d been able to move her arms that far. She almost opened her mouth to answer, when something else occurred to her. So she shut her teeth with a click and used the mind bond instead. ::I mean that he may be nehkeh, but he holds our bonds. And he knows exactly what that means.::

  The warm blanket Delfi had been holding around Jossa’s mind fell away as fear surged in the younger woman’s body. Jossa felt the acid burn of it in her throat and eyes for all of a second, before the scalding heat of fury seared her face and chest. Then, just as quickly, it was all gone. No comfort in its place. Just a gaping, empty maw, devoid of thought or feeling.

  Delfi sat frozen, skin covered in gooseflesh, barely breathing. Jossa quested along the link towards her, inching carefully into Del’s mind, clinging to the edges lest the vacuum of emotions pull her in. ::Del?::

  Delfi’s body gave a single convulsive quake, but she didn’t answer.

  Jossa reached out one foot and ran it gently up Delfi’s leg. She felt the fine hairs, evidence of too long in cryo. She felt the chill of a body with compromised circulation, still realigning with life instead of sleep. But she didn’t feel Delfi. “Del,” Jossa barked, scared now. Had she broken her sister? Again?

  Delfi quaked again and raised her head, using her free hand to brush her hair out of her face. ::I’m here.::

  The words were the
re. The emotion wasn’t. Jossa took a deep breath and nudged Delfi’s shackled hand with her toes. ::You going to finish that or not? Where did you even get a lock pick?::

  The glowing bit on the end of the piece of metal shimmered as Delfi waved her hand a little. Her laugh was shaky, but it was still a laugh. ::He left the crown taker-offer sitting on the counter. I managed to grab this off it while he was carrying us out.::

  ::You little sneak. So it was all a show? The insults and the—::

  ::Oh no, I meant every word.:: Delfi wiggled the lock pick one more time. The shackle popped open. Grinning, she stuck the bit of metal between her teeth and crawled over to plant herself in Jossa’s lap.

  Jossa grunted at the impact. “You were too big for this when you were six, you know that? He decides to come back in here right now, you’ll have to do a lot worse than call him names to convince him that sousi don’t engage in sex as part of their bond. We’re practically giving him the show he asked for.”

  Delfi snorted and tucked her head under Jossa’s chin for a moment. Jossa closed her eyes and breathed, letting the presence of her sister ease the worry and fear and heartache. It wasn’t permanent. But for now, she could sit and revel in the fact that Delfi wasn’t dead. That their bond was still in place. And that whatever happened, they’d face it together. For the first time in nearly a month, Jossa felt true peace. Quiet. Calm.

  Then Del sat up, wiggled back so she could get to Jossa’s shackles without undue strain on the tethers, and got to work on the first lock. ::Tell me about the warlord.::