Rebellion

by Rachel White

  Jevites believed the Exalted were gods; the Adesi considered them monsters. Whichever was true, it didn't matter, for the Exalted had left Lyr after constructing the citadels, never to return. No one had laid eyes on an Exalted for nearly a thousand years. Rallis wasn't entirely convinced they had existed at all.

  "It's not so easy. We're trying, but the amount of food we need to cultivate is enormous. Besides, the technology is breaking down."

  "Why don't you just repair it?" Rallis asked.

  Lieutenant Taarq got a peculiar look on his face. After a moment, he said, "We don't know how."

  "You don't know? A thousand years, and you don't know how it works?"

  "We know how most of it works," Lieutenant Taarq assured him. "I'd say we probably know about… eighty percent. The problem is, the twenty percent we don't understand has a tendency to be the most important part."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Take these fliers." Lieutenant Taarq lightly touched a nearby flier, his fingertips just barely brushing the burnished-metal surface. "They're powered by engines in the core of the machine that are based off the enormous engines keeping the citadels afloat."

  He looked up at the great citadels floating overhead, and Rallis looked too. From the ground, they were only dark shapes among the clouds, but Lieutenant Taarq was no doubt seeing something very different.

  "Scientists developed these smaller engines over the course of hundreds of years of refinement," Lieutenant Taarq continued. "It started out an attempt to replicate the citadel engines, but after a while, the purpose of the fliers changed and the engines themselves changed too. Now they're smaller, lighter, more versatile… What you see before you. But in all that time, with all that effort, we still don't understand how the engines in the citadels work. A flier engine lasts a few years and then wears out. Whenever we've tried to make a direct replica of the engines in the citadels, they overload in days, if not hours. We can't do it. The ones that were given to us have been powering the citadels for nearly a thousand years with no signs of stopping."

  "You said they were breaking down."

  Lieutenant Taarq smiled crookedly. "True. Fine, I'll amend: with no signs of stopping until recently. Still, it's far beyond what we can do. All of our own creations are facsimiles. Shallow copies of the real thing. We're just imitating them, like children imitating their parents. Our fliers can carry legionnaires to the lowest cloud banks. Their ships carried them into space."

  Beyond the citadels, bright pinpoints of starlight were appearing in the evening sky. Adesi lore said those stars were Nur and Her sister Athonya's doing, left over from when they created Lyr, but perhaps the Exalted had come from one of those discarded suns.

  The darkness of the sky drew him back to the present. "I should be going home," he told Lieutenant Taarq. "It's getting late."

  "Of course. Shall I walk you back?"

  Rallis began to assure him it wasn't necessary but stopped at the hopeful look in Lieutenant Taarq's eyes. He wanted to talk further. So did Rallis.

  "If you like," he said instead, and together they made their way toward the motherhouse, speaking of nothing in particular. Even so, it was an exceptionally pleasant conversation, and Rallis found himself disappointed when they rounded the corner and his eyes landed on the familiar walls of the motherhouse halfway down the street.

  He bid Lieutenant Taarq farewell at the end of the street and went through the front gate alone, just in case. It turned out to be a good idea, for Naravi was in the courtyard, his cloak thrown over his shoulders.

  "Where are you going?" Rallis asked, making him jump.

  "Out." He pulled the hood of his cloak defiantly over his head. "Where were you?"

  "I was with a friend."

  "That filthy Jevve?"

  "Yes," said Rallis steadily. "Lieutenant Taarq. You know you won't be able to get in if you're not back by the twentieth hour. Miana—"

  "I know that," Naravi snapped, striding forward. "I was going to spend the night at Faida's anyway, so it doesn't matter. Stay out of my business."

  "Doing what?"

  "Stay out of my business."

  "Naravi." The note in Rallis's voice made Naravi stop, though he was extremely resentful about it. He scowled over his shoulder, his face half-hidden by the shadows of the hood.

  "What?"

  "Be careful with Faida. Whatever the two of you are doing, don't forget your situations are different. Don't just blindly follow him."

  "I'm not," Naravi muttered, and then, "What do you mean our situations are different? How are they different?"

  "The Tlirrs are far richer than we are," Rallis told him. "They have enough money to buy Faida out of any trouble. We don't. Keep that in mind when you're listening to his grandiose speeches. He has nothing to lose—you have everything."

  Naravi's eyes narrowed, slits of black anger. "You don't know what you're talking about. Faida would never betray me."

  "I don't think he'll betray you on purpose, but if you get caught—"

  "We're not doing anything. Leave me alone."

  He stormed off before Rallis could say anything further and Rallis let him go. The clang of the courtyard gate had a discomfiting finality to it. Above his head, the stars were bright and cold in the inky black of the night. He tried to imagine what the Exalted might be doing, out beyond Lyr, but the starlight only reminded him of the clear gray of Lieutenant Taarq's eyes, the way they lit up with pleasure when he made a particularly clever play.

  Nur's heart, if Rallis wasn't careful, he would completely lose his senses. He was already veering dangerously close to sentimentality. He went inside resolving to forget all gray, shining things, stars and Exalted and Lieutenant Taarq's eyes alike.

  Chapter Five

  Two months after Rallis began meeting with Lieutenant Taarq, an unknown assailant attacked two off-duty Jevite officers.

  It was the most recent incident in a long string of trouble, which had been worsening at an alarming rate. Not a week prior, someone had tried to sabotage the Exalted temple again; days before that, eight legionnaires had been treated for poison at the central hospital. The perpetrators were unknown, but their motivations were clear: they wanted Jev out of Adesa, at any cost. According to Lieutenant Taarq, Jev was considering a monitoring system, where people would need to report their movements to the legionnaires and get permission for their actions. The Empress was pushing very hard against it, but many in the Suulsen supported it. If it passed, it would be just another shackle around Adesa.

  That was the way of things and had been for months. Each time Adesi rebels struck out against the Jevite authority, Jev's retaliation was swift and decisive. More frustrating still, it always applied to everyone, which meant that even people just trying to keep their heads down and go about their lives were being continuously burdened with new sanctions.

  Three days after the officers were attacked, House Yy hosted a supper for House Devas as part of Miana's slow-burning plan to find Naravi a spouse. She had been mulling on it for a while, seeking a good match. Naravi's abrupt ascension to House Hand had complicated things, for he was no longer a khas piece to be moved at will but a vital part of House Yy. Even so, a marriage to another House would cement alliances and foster stronger rapport. And, Rallis knew, privately Miana was hoping marriage might settle Naravi down a little.

  Kellend Devas was twenty, the youngest son of Head Devas. He had seemed like an ideal candidate on paper, but in person he was petty and arrogant, with a quick temper and an indifference about others that veered dangerously toward cruelty. It took Rallis a quarter-hour to exclude him as a marriage candidate, but he and his parents couldn't be removed from the motherhouse that quickly, so. Supper.

  "I think," Kellend was saying, into his third cup of wine, "that the rebels and the Jevites should just kill each other off."

  They were talking of the attack. It wasn't ideal suppertime discussion, but Kellend had steered the conversation that way, not dissuaded
by either his Head or Miana. He wasn't rebellious; he just seemed to enjoy the scandal.

  Rallis looked toward Naravi. A statement like that ought to have piqued his interest, but he appeared as sick of Kellend as Rallis and Miana. When he noticed Rallis's eyes on him, he rolled his own, and Rallis had to fight back a laugh.

  "Kellend," his father hissed at him. He had been doing that quite a lot. Head Devas, on the other side of the table, turned a placid smile on Miana. She was from the previous generations of Heads and had somehow been absent during the massacre. It was clear she thought Miana very wet behind the ears.

  "And what do you think of the rebels?" she asked. "My understanding is that House Yy has demonstrated some…revolutionary inclination."

  That made Naravi look up, fire in his gaze, though thankfully he managed to stay quiet. Miana's return smile to Head Devas was just as placid and politic, without a hint of the impatience she must have been feeling. House Devas wasn't exceptionally rich or influential in Adesa, but they were bankers and knew other families' secrets. It wasn't wise to cross them without cause.

  "Like everyone, we only want peace and prosperity for Adesa," Miana murmured. It was difficult to tell if Head Devas was pleased or disappointed by the answer.

  "What about that one? He's got Jevite blood in him." Rallis started in his seat, stomach cold, as Kellend indicated him.

  "What about me?" he asked.

  "Are you a traitor?" Kellend continued. "Do you support the rebels or Jev?"

  "Neither," said Rallis curtly. His mouth tasted of copper. He had bitten his cheek in his surprise. "As Miana said, I support peace. Whatever form it takes."

  Kellend looked contemptuous. Naravi appeared little better. If he mentioned Rallis's regular visits with a Jevite—an officer of the Jevite legion, no less—House Devas would spread the word to all the other Houses in the city. House Yy's position was precarious enough after Hesse, and the last thing they needed was more taint. Such an action would damage Naravi's marriage prospects, of course, but he wasn't going to care about that.

  But he didn't speak. Perhaps he sensed Rallis's desperation, or perhaps he just didn't want to ally himself with Kellend. Either way, Miana took the opportunity to swoop in. "Rallis is a full member of House Yy and beloved family," she said. "He's as loyal to Adesa as the rest of us."

  Kellend's snort was rude, as was Head Devas's coy little smile, but thankfully the conversation moved on to other things and Rallis could breathe again.

  Do you support the rebels or Jev? The answer to that question was part of the tricky game they all played. To favor Jev was to be branded a traitor among the Adesi, but to express too much support for the rebellion would call the legionnaires down on your head. Everyone settled for pithy comments about their love for Adesa—not the Adesa they lived in, but the ideal Adesa, the Adesa of old, free of Jevite and rebel alike.

  It was like praying to a dead god. The Adesa they loved was gone, never to return. Rallis just hoped people would realize it soon; at the rate they were going, Jev would order another strike to subdue Adesa for good.

  Later, after supper ended and they were able to bid farewell to the Devases, Miana sighed and shook her head. "Well, we can eliminate him."

  Naravi scoffed. "I wouldn't have married him anyway," he told her. "Our star signs weren't aligned at all. Besides, he had bad teeth. I'm going to sleep."

  Without waiting for a response, he disappeared into the bedroom, shutting the door firmly behind him. Alone with Miana, Rallis gave her a wry smile. "Now what?"

  "I suppose we keep looking."

  Kellend Devas was the fifth potential spouse they had met. Though three of the other four had expressed interest in Naravi, he had invariably found fault with all of them. The prospect of more suppers, more interviews, more scrutiny… It was grueling.

  "Don't look so glum." Miana patted his cheek. "We'll find him a spouse and settle him down some day. You'll see."

  "I hope so," said Rallis, who doubted it very much.

  *~*~*

  "Do you celebrate the Festival of the Thousand Suns?"

  The question pulled Rallis out of his thoughts, which were focused deeply on the game. In the weeks they had been playing, Lieutenant Taarq had improved immensely, and he was starting to be—if not a challenge—a reasonable opponent. At present, he was carefully expanding his hold on the northern side of the board by building pior kuul and kuul ganna, and Rallis was trying to decide whether to cut him off or use his turns to seize his own territory to the southwest.

  He looked up from the board to find Lieutenant Taarq gazing at him with consideration. "Yes. Why?"

  "I've been hearing about it lately. I'm not familiar with it."

  On impulse, Rallis set his unnae in the south. He would let Lieutenant Taarq play at conqueror for a while more. "What do you want to know?"

  "What is it?" Lieutenant Taarq asked, placing his piece kuul ganna tev. "Some sort of religious ceremony?"

  "Partly. It celebrates when Nur and Her sister Athonya came together to create the world." On his next turn, he moved northward, toward Lieutenant Taarq. "They created a thousand suns before they picked this one to be Lyr's sun. When they did, Nur took the world of light and Athonya took the shadows where the sun didn't reach. That's why we have life and the afterlife—because they gave it to us. The festival is to thank them for their kindness."

  "Hmm." After a moment of contemplation, Lieutenant Taarq placed his unnae close to Rallis's. It was an unexpectedly aggressive choice, and Rallis quickly reexamined his next few moves. "Are you devout?"

  "Not at all. Why?" The best thing to do, he felt, was to form a defensive border along the southern half of the board and then move upwards toward Lieutenant Taarq's pior kuul. Rallis had some dead territory in the northwest corner he might be able to revive with the right series of plays. He could leverage that into victory in the end game. Lieutenant Taarq was good, but not at Rallis's level, and it was unlikely he would see Rallis's trap in time to prevent it.

  "My commanding officer…" Lieutenant Taarq paused and watched as Rallis made his next move, then set his own piece karus kuul, back to tending his own territory. "My commanding officer received a suggestion from his superior," he continued.

  A moment later, it occurred to him that Lieutenant Taarq's comment had been leading somewhere. "A suggestion?"

  Lieutenant Taarq breathed a laugh. "An order, really," he admitted lightly, "but phrased as a suggestion. Tensions have been growing lately. Not that I need to tell you, I'm sure."

  "You don't," said Rallis, using his turn to set his unnae betre kuul. Of course he had noticed the tensions. He lived under them every day.

  Lieutenant Taarq inclined his head. "Quite." He set an unnae in the northern part of the board, oblivious to the threat Rallis was cultivating. As Rallis had thought, his earlier aggression was just a one-off. "It's not what we want. Not—not that I mean I want Adesi submissive and fearful," he added hastily, as though expecting Rallis to lash out at him. Rallis hadn't even opened his mouth. "That's not it. What we'd prefer is for there to be… harmony. I know peace might be too much to hope for, but at least accord."

  "Even that's a lot to hope for." Rallis built into betre galir. If he could grow the dead territory into kuul galir ganna, he could shatter Lieutenant Taarq's northern holdings from the side. "Your people invaded us and killed us and seized our land and possessions. You'll understand if we're unwilling to be very harmonious."

  "Yes," said Lieutenant Taarq softly. "I do." After peering at the board for a while, he set a piece kuul betre. "I know this is a lot to ask."

  "You haven't asked me anything," Rallis pointed out, making him laugh again.

  "True. What I intended to say initially was, do you know any families who might be willing to host some Jevite officers during the Festival of the Thousand Suns? It's my understanding that you have a supper as part of the celebration. It's… Some among the legion think that it might be a good kind of outreach.
If the Adesi can see that we're willing to celebrate with them and share in their ceremonies…"

  "It seems forced." In fact, it veered close to condescending. Most Adesi wouldn't appreciate it as a gesture of goodwill; they would see it as further intrusion into their way of life. Jev had already pushed itself into so much of Adesi culture, smashing through the boundaries set before them. This would just be another invasion.

  "Yes," said Lieutenant Taarq, lingering over his next move. "It does, doesn't it?"

  "Do you like this idea?"

  He glanced quickly at Rallis. Another man might have been trying to assess what the correct answer was, but Lieutenant Taarq seemed to want to look at him. "I'd love to attend a supper," he said. "But not because I want to smooth over Jev-Adesa relations. It just seems very interesting."

  Because he liked Adesa and wanted to learn more about it. At least his motivations were sincere. "My family might be able to host," Rallis told him. "As long as it was a small group."

  Lieutenant Taarq brightened immediately. "Only four or five officers. Myself and a few others. If you would be willing, that would be excellent. I'd truly appreciate it."

  Heat rushed to Rallis's cheeks, he stared at the board to hide his reaction. "Davinna," he said, setting his next piece kuul galir ganna. "Your stronghold has broken."

  But instead of forfeiting, Lieutenant Taarq set another piece down right beside Rallis's. "Daneya. As has yours."

  He had been so focused building his own trap, he had missed Lieutenant Taarq's. The collection of territory to the north drew his attention away from the lines of Lieutenant Taarq's territory winding southward, like corruption spreading through a wounded limb. The game wasn't over yet. Rallis might actually have to work for the victory.

  Lieutenant Taarq's smile was half-nervous and half-proud. "Do you think I'll win this one?" he asked lightly. "Forgive me, I distracted you with discussion of the festival."

  "I wasn't that distracted," Rallis admitted. "You might. It would be my own fault for not seeing what you were doing. I'm impressed."