by K. B. Wagers
“Weren’t you just saying something about having faith?”
I drained the last of my yablok and set the mug down. “We haven’t sparred in a while. Help me piece this together,” I said with a wave of my hand.
Aiz smiled, but rolled his left shoulder and advanced on me. “Slow,” he said. “You know I’d have to call Mia to heal you.”
I nodded in acknowledgment. We still weren’t sure if the coms virus had only affected the Shen’s communication systems or if Aiz trying to heal me would impact my smati. So at the moment the safest course of action was to wait and keep everything separated.
“Though,” he said after a moment, “maybe getting you two in a room together so you can tell me what’s going on between you might be a good thing.”
Apparently he had noticed the tension between us.
“So Adora’s on the ship and the Hiervet show.” I decided to ignore his comment and took a swing at Aiz instead, reversed it into an elbow, and clipped him on the jaw. He moved fast enough that it was only a glancing blow and I watched the pleased smile curve his lips. “She figures she can get out with Priam, but then Emmory puts a crimp in that plan so she calls Thyra instead.”
“All right, I’ll play along here. You’re going to have to tell me eventually, though,” Aiz warned. “Thyra jumps in, gets Adora, and is back out before the ship blows.” He stepped in, slipping a palm thrust past my guard into my ribs with enough force to knock me back a step. “That’s why the Hiervet stopped shooting and left rather than continuing the fight. They did what they were there to do. We assumed Adora was dead and out of the way. I should have followed up on that.”
“We all should have.” I caught his arm, dragging him with me. My attempt to sweep his leg failed, so I slid my hand up the underside of his arm and jammed my thumb into the soft flesh just below his armpit.
Aiz yelped and laughed as he danced away from me. “Thyra hid Adora from us. While we were finishing the peace negotiations, she was gathering her troops.”
“Explains why the riots calmed down so quickly, too. Then the moment I left she moved in on Faria.” I snarled several colorful Cheng curses. “I miss being a gunrunner. Everything was so much simpler then.”
Aiz grinned and launched an attack. “If it helps, I am glad you are here. We couldn’t manage this on our own.” He threw a punch. I countered and responded with one of my own, but Aiz was already behind me and his kick to the back of my knee put me on the ground.
I landed harder than either of us had intended and felt the pain shoot up my legs as my knees connected with the concrete floor. I fell forward onto my hands.
“Damn it,” Aiz swore. “Hail?”
“Majesty?”
“I’m fine.” I held up a hand to Gita. She still moved from her spot at the doorway toward us, but not before Aiz could hook his arms underneath mine and lift me to my feet.
“This whole thing is still supposition,” he said, letting me go once I’d patted him. “We don’t know for sure if this is Adora. It could be Rotem working with Thyra.”
“I know, but it fits.” I shook my head. “Honestly we don’t have the luxury of spending too much time wondering. We need to figure out what we’re going to do.”
A shadow flickered in the corner of my vision and I froze. But when I turned my head to stare at the corner of the room there was nothing there. I frowned.
“Majesty? What is it?”
“Nothing. I thought I saw—” I shook my head. “Nothing. Where’s Emmory?”
“Working on the Hailimi.” Gita smiled at my sigh. “You know he won’t let anyone but us mess with her, Majesty.”
“I’m not judging. It’s just more than a little amusing he’s willing to leave me unsupervised in favor of the ship.”
“It’s our only way home. No offense,” Gita said to Aiz.
“None taken.” He grinned.
“Speaking of home, have you talked to Admiral Amo?” The few Shen ships with us had avoided the strange virus infecting the coms. It was a bonus both in allowing Ragini and her team a control group as they tried to figure out what the problem was, and in that we still had access to the Shen codes necessary to contact the rest of the fleet.
“This morning,” Aiz replied. “We’ve worked out a new system to let ships know when they can accept an incoming com. I still want to know how the fuck they infected us in the first place.”
“You and me both. Ragini will figure it out.” The unspoken fear the virus had caused was still hanging heavy in the air. My tech thought she’d isolated it and that none of the rest of us were at risk as long as we kept things apart, but the thought of losing all our coms and our smatis at a crucial moment was paralyzing.
“Speaking of that, I need to go meet with her. She’s going to test out a new solution on me.” Aiz gave Gita a nod and left the room.
“I’m proud of you, you didn’t put your hand on your gun once,” I teased, and Gita shot me a look.
“The enemy of my enemy,” she said with a shrug.
“Is not my friend, but worth working with given the right circumstances,” I finished with a grin. “Hao used to say that all the time.”
“Hao’s an ass,” Gita said, but there was too much softness in her face for the words to carry much weight. “Majesty, are you all right?”
The abrupt question surprised me. “Yes, why?”
“I have noticed—to be honest, we all have—that you haven’t spoken to Mia since we arrived back here. And you seem distracted.”
Make that multiple people who’ve noticed.
“Emmory told me of your fight. I understand if you don’t want to talk about it, but I wanted to let you know I’m here for you.”
I wrapped an arm around Gita’s waist and leaned into her. “You’ve always been there for me. I am okay. What’s going on between me and Mia needs to stay between us until she chooses to deal with it. Well, mostly.” I sighed. “I’m going to have to drag Aiz into it to get her to see reason and I’m not looking forward to the fallout from that. But there’s nothing you can do for me.”
“Of course, Majesty. I didn’t mean to pry.”
“You weren’t.” I felt a little sliver of guilt at her quick apology, but I wasn’t about to tell my Dve all the details of the argument. Just like I hadn’t told Emmory anything beyond the basics of what I’d seen with Mia. It shouldn’t have surprised me that he told the others about my fight with Mia.
I knew without a doubt if I did that the moment the Hailimi was repaired I’d be back on it and safe on Pashati in the blink of an eye.
I squeezed Gita again and felt her arm tighten in response before she let me go.
“What else is bothering you?”
“You mean right now?” I laughed. “There’s a whole list.”
“What’s at the top?” Gita waved, and I turned my head to see Johar and Alba in the doorway.
“Why did the Hiervet want to talk with us?” I asked.
“Exactly what I want to know,” Johar said, grabbing a chair and spinning it around to sit in it with her forearms braced on the back. “I’ve been talking with Captain Zov. It’s a bit hard to blame her for reacting the way she did.”
“She disobeyed an order, but I’m less mad about it than I was.” Dirah had done a lot in the last few days to make up for her mistake, and that wasn’t limited to the offer of safe haven for us or the repair of our ships. I’d seen her talking with Johar and Mia, and there seemed to be Shen everywhere now patiently working with Istrevitel troops.
It couldn’t replace actual combat experience, but maybe the presence of so many war veterans and the incident with the Hiervet ship would wipe away the impulsiveness that had been clinging to them.
“Majesty, I think what Johar is trying to bring up is that the Istrevitel’s attitude is wrapped up in the histories of the Svatir.” Alba sat next to me with a smile. “Which is part of the problem, isn’t it?”
“How so?” Gita didn’t sit with us,
but she hadn’t moved back to her position with Kisah at the door.
I shared a look with Alba. “Stop me if I’m not having the same thought you are. The problem is we’re getting two stories about the Hiervet—or three really, just to confuse things. Thyra started with saying their people were harmless, but she’s backtracked on that and her story lines up more with what the Svatir experienced.”
Alba nodded in agreement. “And we’ve seen the Hiervet act out both those lines of thought. They attacked Adora’s ship, but left ours alone. They didn’t even fire back when Captain Zov’s ship attacked them.”
“There wasn’t really time for them to react.”
“There was,” Johar replied with a shake of her head. “We’ve been over the video. It would have been close, but if they were as experienced at war as everyone claims? They could have gotten out of there. Shit, they could have disappeared the same way they just appeared.” She spread her hands wide. “Because we still don’t know how they got there without setting off any of our radars.”
I muttered a curse. “Who’s lying?”
“It’s not even about lying anymore, Majesty,” Gita said. “We’ve seen the apparently paradoxical behavior with our own eyes. It’s a bit like watching someone you know can take a punch flinch when you throw one. Something’s changed the narrative.”
A flinch.
I held up a hand and Jo dropped back into silence as I got to my feet and paced toward the door, willing my brain to remember why that word seemed to resonate with me.
“The Svatir,” I said. “He flinched.”
“Need you to tell the rest of us what’s going on in your brain, Hail,” Johar said.
“In a minute. Gita, where’s Dailun?”
“With Hao, I think. Hang on.” A moment later, Gita nodded. “They weren’t far, they’ll be here in a moment.”
“Do we have to wait?” Jo asked, and I sat back down in the chair next to her.
“When we met with Tsia Brov and the others the first time. Captain Zov was talking about the ferocity of the Hiervet. There was a guy in the back of the room who never introduced himself to me. He flinched when she said it.”
“Why?” Alba asked. Johar looked thoughtful.
“That’s what I want to know,” I said.
31
Who is this person?” I played back the memory for Dailun. “They never introduced themselves to me.”
“His name is Timur, jiejie.”
“Why was he there?”
Dailun was surprised by my question. “He is a Memory Keeper. They are required to be present for events like this.” He sat across from me when I gestured at the chair.
“You mentioned this before,” Hao said.
“My people do have access to all our memories, but for obvious reasons no one carries them all.”
“A lot, though?”
“Yes.” His smile was quick. “Compared to humans, it’s overwhelming. But there are those among us, the Memory Keepers, who are responsible for holding the memories of every Svatir who has ever lived.”
“He’s a walking library of your people.” I lifted my eyebrows as I picked up my fresh mug of yablok and drank, remembering how Dirah had told me that the Memory Keepers could erase and alter memories. “Interesting. How many are there?”
“I don’t know,” Dailun replied. “There are some who are public figures—the ones who are part of the Tsias and the Librarians, for example. But many are kept secret and sworn to secrecy.”
“To keep your people safe?”
“Yes, it’s to preserve us should something happen. As long as one of the Memory Keepers survives, so will the Svatir.”
“So you want to tell me why he flinched when Captain Zov was talking about how brutal the Hiervet were?”
“I’m sorry, jiejie, what?”
Everyone was looking at me now. Emmory had shown up with food at the same time Hao and Dailun had arrived, and I’d ignored my plate in favor of pressing Dailun about the mysterious Svatir. Johar, of course, had dived right into the food, but now she stopped eating and watched me with a half smile playing on her lips.
“You saw it, didn’t you?”
“Now that I know what you’re talking about, yeah.” She nodded. “Didn’t know what to make of it.”
I pointed my cup at Emmory.
“It didn’t move him anywhere on the danger list, Majesty, but it did bump him in the list to watch.”
“The danger list?” Aiz asked. He’d returned shortly after Emmory, but his report on the virus progress had been shelved in favor of this more pressing topic.
“Emmory keeps a running tally of people who are a danger to me. Mostly the ones he might have to kill,” I murmured. “You and Mia were probably in the top spots there for a while.” I resisted the urge to ask where Mia was. I’d expected her to join Aiz for this meeting, but he’d arrived alone.
Emmory tipped his head. “For security reasons, I’m not sharing who’s on the list right now.”
“Fair enough,” Aiz replied with a smile.
“It was guilt.”
Everyone’s eyes, mine included, slid to Hao. He lifted a shoulder and then reached for his cup. “I just rewatched it. I’m slipping, didn’t see it the first time.”
“Guilt?”
Hao shrugged at Gita’s question. “Watch it yourself. He curls inward, like he’s trying to escape something. If he’d been outraged or offended he would have straightened, puffed his chest out. Gotten ready to respond to the allegations. Timur did none of that. Instead he looked like he wanted to disappear through the floor.”
“He’s right,” I murmured, calling up the scene on my smati again. “The moment Dirah says ‘brutality’ it’s like he’s trying to escape from the word.”
“It gets worse, though.” Even as Hao spoke I saw the rest of the playback and could immediately pick out the reaction. “Something about not only that memory but the fact that all Svatir have that memory really upset him.”
The second flinch, Timur curling even further into himself like he wanted to disappear.
“Dailun, how do I speak with Timur alone?”
“Alone?” He shook his head. “The Tsias will not allow it, honored sister. You are not only an outsider, but you are dangerous.”
I couldn’t stop the grin from spreading over my face and several people laughed.
“I’m reasonably sure that wasn’t a compliment, Majesty,” Emmory said with a chuckle.
“I’ll take them where I can get them. Figure out a way to get me into a room alone with Timur, Emmory. I’ll handle the rest.”
“Your Majesty, I have an idea.” Alba tapped a finger on the table. “What if you don’t make it about Timur? Isn’t there a Memory Keeper stationed here with the Istrevitel?”
“There’s not,” Dailun replied with a shake of his head.
“Really?” I didn’t know why I found that surprising. From everything we’d seen, it fit in line with how the Svatir treated the Istrevitel as if they were a separate, unspoken race.
Alba wasn’t deterred. “Dai, what if she invites Tsia Brov here? They will bring a Memory Keeper with them, won’t they?”
I grinned when Dailun nodded.
“Yes, I believe so. They don’t often travel anywhere without one given their positions, and the empress is enough of a reason to make sure there is a Memory Keeper present for an unfiltered memory. It would most likely be Timur who came with them.”
“Well, I guess I should come up with a reason for an invitation, then, shouldn’t I?” I rubbed my hands together.
“Jiejie, you still won’t be able to be alone with Timur.”
“Oh, you let me worry about that,” I replied.
“Your Majesty, Captain Zov wishes to speak with you.”
I looked away from the falling snow and nodded to Zin, who in turn gestured the Istrevitel captain forward. She had a dark knit cap pulled down low and was bundled up in a heavy coat that was the same as my own.
Dirah didn’t speak right away. Instead she stood in silence with me, watching the snow fall. It had been snowing steadily for most of the day, the white flakes collecting on the trees clustered around the building turning them into great white rockets pointed at the steadily darkening sky.
“Your Ekam came to speak with a group of new recruits today. It was most informative.”
“You sat in?”
Dirah dipped her head with a smile. “It seems as though I should set an example for my people and be the first in line to not only admit I don’t know what I’m doing but be willing to learn.”
I ran my tongue over my teeth. “I was perhaps a tad harsh with my words, Captain.”
“You were not, Your Majesty. They were necessary and needed. We had not seen true combat until that moment, and in my arrogance I ignored your order. I did not think it mattered, but I see the way your people carry themselves and now I can recognize the difference. I hope to change that.”
“I hope you realize the intent when I say I hope you never go to war.”
Dirah’s laugh was as bright as her hair. “I understand the sentiment, especially coming from you. You have seen enough war for a lifetime, Your Majesty. Your suggestions for the simulators were interesting.”
“You can just say you think I’m nuts,” I replied.
Dirah laughed. “You are not at all what I expected.”
I shot her a wry grin. “I get that a lot. What did you expect?”
“No disrespect, but I thought you would be colder.”
“I’m plenty cold.”
She laughed again. “We can go inside.”
“I was mostly joking,” I replied. “I like this. I haven’t seen much snow since I left home.” I smiled at the memory. “Though it was snowing the night I came back to Krishan.”
“Why did you go home?”
“Honestly? Emmory didn’t give me much of a choice.” I laughed. “But I stayed because my people needed me. I tried the unfeeling empress, Captain; it didn’t feel right. So I decided to be myself instead.”
“I have seen the video of your death. That is how I thought you would be, calm and composed. You are far more human, to steal a phrase, than that moment shows.”
