She imagined that Edwina had gone crying to Paul about how Cordelia chased the Sun-Moons out of the bar. Come to think of it, opening trading relations with outsiders had probably been Paul’s idea in the first place; extending hands and opening minds, his usual feel-good, modernist bullshit. She’d have to get a good night’s sleep and steel herself for the crap he’d dish her. Luckily, Carmichael would also find trading with the Sun-Moons a terrible idea, if that was what they were going to debate about.
And then there was Reach. Storm Lord help her, Cordelia had nursed a huge crush when they’d first met. She could easily summon the image of Reach’s willowy body swaying as she walked. Her whorl-covered brown skin seemed to soak in the light, and her hair, a riotous blend of red and orange, turned heads wherever she went. Her eyes were light yellow and missed nothing, and she smelled like new spring growth.
And then she’d started calling Cordelia “Paul’s metal-skinned niece” as if Cordelia didn’t rate a name. Reach always made certain everyone got a good view of her long fingers with their extra joint, particularly the poisonous claw atop her middle fingers, a not-so-subtle threat. Cordelia had been mystified by her antagonism at first, but when she learned that Paul and Reach had become lovers, everything became clear. Cordelia had been a little jealous of her uncle at first, but when she saw what a pain Reach could be, she changed her mind. Reach thought Cordelia was too hard on her uncle, too defiant. She’d once told Paul that he would get more done if he’d thrash those with contrary opinions instead of arguing with them.
Cordelia leaned back on her narrow cot, resting against the wall of her room. Just big enough for the cot, a trunk, and a lamp, the room seemed like a cage at times, but she never spent much time there, just enough in the evenings to remind her why she left in the mornings. She wondered if all drushka were like Reach, if she’d ever meet any others. She shifted forward and rummaged in her trunk, tugging clothes out of the way until she found the journal, the work of her many-greats grandmother, Jania Carruthers Ross, whom the drushka had called Roshkikan. She’d lived among the drushka, studied them, and ultimately caused their people to split into two groups, one deciding to trade with humans and the other trying to wipe humanity from the face of the planet. The latter half had destroyed Community, though since then, they’d been quiet.
Quite the legacy. Cordelia looked at the names written inside the journal’s front cover, a tree of ancestors who’d been anthropologists or ambassadors working with the drushka. Paul had certainly followed in their footsteps, somewhat. Cordelia’s parents had invited her into the legacy, giving her the middle name Sa, the drushkan word for rain, but that was as far as she went into the family business. After her parents had died in the swamp, it had been paladins all the way.
She didn’t need to read the journal. She knew all the words, and there was nothing that would help her get along with Reach, nothing that outlined the best way to kill a drushka, if it came to that. With a sigh, Cordelia sank down on her bunk and drifted to sleep, the journal resting on her chest.
In the morning, after a quick scrub in the barracks, she stomped up the stairs to the captain’s office. Twice in as many days was unfair. And now she had to meet with her uncle and Reach as well. It hadn’t been an easy night, filled with dreams of sinewy bodies who yelled at her for not visiting her uncle more.
Paul stood as she entered. “Cordelia, how have you been?”
“Uncle…Mayor. I’m good. And you?”
“Never better.”
“Everybody, sit,” Carmichael said. “We’ve got a problem.”
Reach tapped her poisonous middle claws together. “The chanuka grow bolder.” Her accent was thick around the words, her voice deep and smoky. “That is why my brethren were only able to deliver half the hoshpis we agreed to, and now Paul’s metal-skinned niece confirms it.”
Cordelia resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “What’s a chanuka?”
“Boggins,” Paul said. “Loosely translated, chanuka means ‘mud people.’”
Which made her wonder what hoshpi translated to. She knew them as giant bugs that kind of resembled old pics of cattle. Gale had managed to wring quite a few resources from them. “But the boggins are animals, not people.”
Reach just stared. Paul cleared his throat. “The drushka call any creature that eats meat a person.” He glanced at Reach. “Well, person isn’t really the right word. It’s more like—”
Carmichael cleared her throat. “Let’s get back to the boggins attacking hoshpis.”
“The latest report from my people,” Reach said, “tells of the chanuka attacking while the hoshpis were being gathered.”
Cordelia had to smirk. “Can’t handle a few mud people?”
Reach smiled, showing Cordelia her sharp teeth, but she didn’t wrinkle her long, narrow nose in drushkan affection. “It seems you cannot as well. Your captain tells us you had to use one of your coveted bullets yesterday.”
Paul brushed Reach’s wrist with his fingers. “We don’t want anyone, drushka or human, to be hurt if it can be avoided. One of our scientific research stations is also overdue to report.”
Carmichael frowned hard. “Three days overdue. Lieutenant Ross, I’m sending you to find out what the hell happened, see if these smart boggins are involved.”
“Agreed,” Reach said.
Paul nodded. “What do you need from me?”
“A couple of yafanai would be nice.”
He looked up as if doing figures in his head. “I can spare a couple.”
“The day after tomorrow at daybreak,” Carmichael said. “Ambassador, get word to your people to meet the lieutenant and her squad on the Oosjani Road.”
Reach spread her hands. “We will show you what there is to be seen.”
“I’ll contact you if we need anything else.”
Reach stood and headed for the door. Paul seemed as if he might say something else, but Carmichael turned her attention to the papers on her desk. With a shake of his head, Paul shot Cordelia a smile before following Reach.
“Lieutenant, thoughts?”
Cordelia shifted in her chair. “Dank, endless swamp, dangerous creatures. Sounds like fun.” It was also where her parents had died, but she tried to keep that from showing.
Carmichael leaned back, a little smile playing about her lips. “Get your gear together and select a team. You’ll be the only armor. No more than five leathers.” She scribbled a few words on a piece of parchment. “Give Sergeant Preston this order. He’ll be your trail master. Rendezvous with the drushka, and they’ll take you to the research station. You be damn careful with those yafanai, Ross. They’re hard to replace. Dismissed.”
Cordelia saluted and left. The trail masters lingered out back of the keep, so she took the long staircase to the bottom, where all the other pathways branched. They called it the ambush room, so she wasn’t surprised to find her uncle waiting there.
Paul smiled in his serene way, the same disguising expression he’d worn the whole of her childhood. The one time she’d seen it unintentionally slip was when she’d told him she was going into the paladins instead of politics or science.
“I was hoping to catch you.” He gave her wide eyes, just creased at the corners as if barely containing hope. “It’s been a long time since we’ve seen each other. I’ve missed you.”
An old ploy, but it almost made her wince. Sometimes, he looked so much like her father. “Save the guilt for the guildmasters, Uncle Paul.”
His hangdog expression transformed almost at once. “Fine, but I do want to see you more often. No one knows me like you. You’re my favorite sparring partner.”
“Your favorite? What about Reach?”
He ignored that completely. “And I want you to leave those who trade with the Sun-Moon worshipers alone.”
“Ah! Edwina complained to you.”
“She won’t be the last if you take your armored carcass around terrorizing people.”
“Just though
t I’d let my opinions be known, in case you forgot to ask the populace.”
“Wait, who am I?” He felt around his clothing as if looking for a pen. “Oh, right! The mayor of Gale, the one who decides Gale’s trading partners, among other things, and I’m qualified to do it alone.”
“Everyone has the right to an opinion, you always say so.”
“You don’t have the right to be a bully.”
“I have to go, Uncle Paul. I have duties.”
“Don’t we all? If you want to protest trading with the Sun-Moons, don’t buy from the people who buy from them.”
Her favorite bar and the Storm Lord knew where else, but she wanted him off her case. “Fine.”
He gave her a wry smile. “I’ve made contact with the plains dwellers, too, and I hope to move out farther from there.”
“Plains dwellers? Don’t they live in tents? What could they have—”
He grinned, and she knew he’d be happy to stand there all day and argue with her, but she had places to be. She gritted her teeth. “We’ll have to save this for another time.”
“Dinner when you come back. I’ll hold you to that.”
“But—”
“It was your idea. Be safe out there.” He smiled and turned away before she had a chance to respond.
*
Lydia kept her serene mask in place as the petitioner backed out the door into the temple proper, bowing as he went. They were always bowing and scraping and smiling too widely.
She really wanted to jump from her cushions and shout, “Boo!” But that would make most of them bolt, a few cry, and some might soil themselves. Or maybe a handful would laugh, forget that she was the all-seeing prophet of Gale, and just have a conversation with her. That would be nice.
Freddie stepped out from behind a curtain, tablet in hand. “Stop that.”
“What? I didn’t say anything.”
“You had your mischief face on.”
“I was wishing some of these people would talk to me instead of staring at the floor, asking their questions, and then running for their lives.”
Freddie planted a kiss on her forehead. “You don’t need them. You have me.”
Lydia captured her hand and nibbled the knuckles. “I’d like to.”
“After we’re through. Only thirty-five to go.”
Lydia groaned and stretched her back. “Why can’t we do this outside? It’s a lovely day.”
“No privacy. And half the population doesn’t believe you can use your gift unless they sit on pillows in this dark room and choke on the stench of flowers.”
“From a prophet who is sereneness incarnate.” Lydia took a few deep breaths and made her face settle again. “Let’s do this, sweet baby.”
Freddie snorted a laugh and called the next name before she disappeared behind the curtain.
The door banged into the wall as the next petitioners fumbled through, a young couple; farmers, if their clothing was any indication. Lydia knew their question already, no gift required. All farmers asked for the same thing.
“Honor to the Storm Lord,” they muttered. Both knelt and stared at the floor.
Averting their gaze, the one thing she hated more than bowing. “What’s your question?”
Behind the curtain, Freddie cleared her throat softly. The farmers didn’t seem to hear. They fidgeted before one blurted, “A new crop, O Prophet Yafanai. We want to know if the seeds we purchased will flourish in our fields.”
Lydia couldn’t help a quirk of the lip. O Prophet Yafanai was a new one on her. She focused on the couple’s mental energy until her consciousness floated above them and sound fell away to nothing. The future was always mute.
She glimpsed her own body sitting still, saw the tops of the farmers’ heads. Time gained substance around her, coalescing like a ball of thread, surrounding her, spinning out to touch everything, living or lifeless, but she kept her focus on these two. She willed minutes to tick by like seconds and saw herself give the couple their answer, though she still couldn’t hear what she said.
As the couple walked from the temple, her spirit followed, and she willed the hours to hurry, saw the farmers return home, passing before her faster than they could ever move. Days flew by, and the farmers planted. Days became months as the plants grew. Sun and stars and moon wheeled across the sky, and the crops shot from the ground as if catapulted from the soil.
A simple question answered, and she should have let time wind up again, but boredom prompted an extra peek. Years spun away. The farmers had a child, and Lydia slowed time as the boy, at four years old, wandered away from his father during a trip to Gale. A stack of crates teetered, fell. The farmer tore at them, trying to shift their weight, shredding the skin of his fingers, but too late. Oh, how they mourned.
Lydia let time wind faster again, seeing another child, one that grew into a healthy man who founded a new settlement, and they celebrated, sadness in their faces as if remembering. Lydia let their lives wind back into the ball of time until she sat in front of them again, safe in the Yafanai Temple, their children years in the future.
Seconds had passed since they’d asked their question, and Lydia burned to warn them, but the future could never be changed, ever. The populace just liked to believe it could, but everything was fixed, whether they believed it or not.
“Your crops will do well.”
They jerked, startled, probably expected more time to pass; then they grinned at one another, bowed, and dropped their coins in her bowl before they fled, just as she’d already seen them do.
Freddie stepped out, holding a cup of water. “Was it bad?”
Lydia sighed a laugh. “I don’t suppose we have anything harder than water on hand?”
“You shouldn’t look beyond the question, Lyds. No life is perfect.”
Lydia winked at her. “No life without you, I’ll grant that.”
“I’m going to kiss you when we’re done.”
“Bring on the next, then!”
A well-dressed woman barged through the door as if she belonged there, dark green vest embroidered with silver thread. She not only met Lydia’s eye, she raised an eyebrow as if surprised Lydia could meet hers. Still, she had to kneel like all the rest, and it was hard to contain a smirk.
“What do you wish to know?” Lydia asked.
The rich woman had a furrowed brow, and the slight redness around her eyes spoke of recent trouble, never mind the stiff-backed pride with which she knelt. “I haven’t heard from my brother in a few days. He’s a researcher, works with the yafanai from time to time.” She paused, and Lydia wondered if she thought all yafanai knew each other.
“And you wish to know…”
“What happened to him? He went on some swamp expedition, and I haven’t had word in almost a week.”
“I’m sorry. I need someone to follow into the future. I can switch from person to person if they meet each other while I’m looking.”
The rich woman’s eyes blazed before they glittered with tears.
“Describe him to me,” Lydia said. “Then I can follow your future and watch for him.”
She did, and Lydia followed the long skein of the rich woman’s life, business deals and lovers, a great fire that left her stock untouched. She became wealthier until she died.
When Lydia came back to herself, the rich woman was still staring. “I didn’t see him. I’m sorry.”
“Do you mean I’ll never see him again? That’s unacceptable!”
“You’re going to get richer, if that’s any consolation.”
The rich woman opened and shut her mouth a few times. When she stood, she flipped several coins into the bowl. “Something extra for your trouble.”
She stalked out as determinedly as she’d entered, and Freddie slipped out from behind the curtain again. “Well, well. I thought I might have to get violent for a moment.”
“We should put out a sign. Mind your manners or the prophet’s sweet baby will hurt you.”
Lydia sighed and stretched. Would there ever again be a day as long as this? She could have gone into the future and looked, but the idea that there might be a longer one was actually terrifying.
CHAPTER FOUR
Cordelia situated her pack atop her armored shoulders. She watched from the corner of her eye as Sergeant Preston badgered Privates Clemensky and Carter about the sizes of their packs, asking if they were smuggling lovers into the swamp along with their gear. They hid their eye rolls and fussed with their leather armor, all of them starting to sweat in the morning sun outside Gale’s western gate.
Private Jacobs whistled softly and gestured toward Gale with her chin. Cordelia turned as a young man and a slightly older woman marched toward her, more purpose in their stride than if they were just family saying good-bye. They had a relaxed air, the man sporting an overconfident smile, and the woman with half-lidded, bored eyes. They might as well have been wearing signs that said “yafanai,” though they’d traded their ritual robes for plain trousers and shirts.
The man gave a wave. He stood several inches shorter than Cordelia, but most people did, and his partner was even shorter than that. His light brown hair fell over his brows, making him seem about twenty. Her red hair had been pulled back in a severe bun, sharpening the already severe angles of her face.
“We’re ready to go.” He slapped a small bag that hung from his shoulder. The woman tossed hers at Cordelia’s feet.
Cordelia had to smile. The pissing contest had already begun. “Jacobs, take the yafanai’s bag. What are your focuses?”
She raised an eyebrow, but he said, “I’m micro-psychokinetic and a little telepathic.” When his companion stayed silent, he cleared his throat. “Natalya is psychokinetic. I’m Horace Adair, by the way.”
“Macro- or micro-psychokinetic?” Cordelia asked.
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