“Fan out,” the second man sighed, and Ari heard footsteps moving into her garden. “Lady Ariana,” he continued, his voice heading to the other side of her quarters, “I repeat: we mean you no harm. Our orders have only been to bring you to the Crown Lily in safety.”
What? That didn’t make any sense. Unless for some symbolic reason they’d decided to kill her on Mír’s ship instead of the space station, which might very well be the case. What a way to cast a pall over Lord Geiker’s legacy of loyalty and courage—slaughtering his only child aboard a pirate ship.
“You are in no danger,” the man said. Lying, obviously.
“She said this would be easy,” growled the first man, and Ari almost cried out when she realized that he’d prowled much closer to her corner of the garden. She hadn’t heard him. But now, through the leaf, she could see he was a large, rough-looking man with a prominent forehead and a stubbled jaw. He had enormous hands, and he wore a black uniform with a silver lily embossed on the synthsteel chest plate. He seemed the very essence of pirate-ness. He was probably very good with a gun and a sword and hurting people and killing them and—
“Well, it can’t be hard,” the woman replied patiently. “She’s in here somewhere.”
“She’d better be,” the rough-looking man said. “All I know is, I won’t be the one who tells the queen, ‘Sorry, we couldn’t find a’—”
He pushed Ari’s leaf aside, and his eyes widened as he said, “—‘slip of a girl’—” before Ari cracked him sharply over the head with the flat of the shovel. Then he yelled and staggered backward, covering his head with one hand, raising the other hand to ward off Ari’s next blow.
“You…evil—” Ari cried, “murdering…horrible…you killed her, you killed her!” She raised her arms again, but the pirate had already recovered and seized Ari’s shovel in a very firm grip. Ari immediately kicked him in the shin.
“What the hell is going on over there?” the second man’s voice demanded, and he and the woman pirate burst into view to see Ari kicking and shoving at the first pirate.
“You killed her!” Ari repeated, nearly blinded by tears. “She’s dead—you—”
The first man tossed the shovel away and then spun Ari around like a top and held her so that she was facing away from him while he pinned her arms behind her back. She couldn’t hit or scratch him, and it was harder to kick him, too. All she could say, over and over, was, “You killed her, you killed her!”
“Well, I found her,” he grunted.
“Looks like it,” the woman, short and muscular, said.
“And you’re cowards,” Ari shouted at her. Her heels slipped and gave in the dirt, and only the pirate’s arms held her upright as she struggled. “You only fight people who can’t fight back—you don’t dare face anybody strong—”
The woman’s eyes widened. “Nobody told us she was out of her senses. My God, can’t you shut her up?”
“May Mír forgive me,” said the second man, and before Ari could say anything else, he shot her.
CHAPTER 19
When Ari opened her eyes, the first thing she saw was a splendidly potted and cared-for Barmensis nobu sitting on a small table across from her bed. Her enormous and extremely comfortable bed. Which was not the bed in her quarters.
Ari blinked. The last thing she remembered was a pirate had shot her. So, was she dead now? In some sort of pleasant afterlife? She didn’t think so. Her head hurt too much. She raised a hand—her arm felt very heavy—and rubbed her forehead.
Then she sat up. She wasn’t in her quarters. Not only was the bed bigger, the whole room was bigger, too. On the wall across from the bed hung a painting of the Crown Lily, magnificent against a background of stars. Ari turned to the left, and in the corner of the room by the door, she saw a painstakingly crafted model of an ancient ship—the kind that had once sailed the seas of Homeworld long before space travel became possible.
Both items were surprisingly old-fashioned; paintings and models that were made by hand and didn’t shimmer and move like holographs did. They contrasted sharply with everything else in the chamber, which was all modern lines and the latest technological conveniences. The space was far more sleekly designed than anything in backwater Nahtal, even after the improvements Ari’s father had made. Such a room spoke of fabulous wealth and luxury.
No gardens, though. She already longed for her trees.
Where was she?
Ari slid out of bed and got unsteadily to her feet. The rug was soft beneath her toes. She wandered out of the open bedroom door and beheld another, enormous room outside.
It wasn’t so much a suite as it was one cavernous space arranged so that there was a different place for everything—a sitting-area, an office, even a statue in the middle of it all. It rose proudly in the middle of the room, about eight feet tall: no elegant marble carving, but rough-hewn from stone. Still, as unrefined as it was, Ari could tell it was meant to be a woman. But the central focus was the enormous, floor-to-ceiling window, through which Ari could see dozens of pirate ships and…and the control tower of the space station, facing her directly.
She was on a pirate ship. No. She was on the pirate ship. The Crown Lily. Ari gasped.
So, they’d shot her with a stun-gun, then, and dragged her to the flagship. She’d sort of anticipated something like that, but this didn’t exactly look like a torture chamber. Ari knew that part of her fuzzy-headedness was the fault of the stun-gun, but she had a hunch that even without it, she’d have been confused.
She wandered across the room to the window and pressed her hand against the glass. It was so strange, seeing the station like this. Feeling so exposed by this enormous window, even though she knew that nobody outside would be able to see her. It was even more overwhelming than the great windows of the Observatory.
She wondered what was going on in the station itself. Were the pirates rounding up people? Were they killing them? Or was everybody still in lockdown, still waiting for doom to fall? Ari shuddered. Meanwhile, she was waiting for the very same thing here.
She heard the hissing of a door behind her. She jumped—she hadn’t even realized there was a door, but there had to be one. She whirled around to see who was coming. Pirates, no doubt. Guards or torturers to take her to her doom.
Assistant glided through the door, clad in a long black gown, looking right at Ari with her beautiful blue eyes.
Ari stared at her. There was no sound in the room but her own heartbeat. Then her legs gave out, and she landed smack on her rear.
Assistant paused and looked down at her with raised eyebrows that said more than words ever could; the familiar bemused, beloved smile tugged at her lips.
A sound emerged from Ari’s mouth that wanted to be a cry, but couldn’t be, because she didn’t have enough air in her lungs. And then, before she knew it, she’d jumped to her feet, flown to Assistant, and thrown her arms around her while gasping out, “You’re alive! You’re alive! Oh my gosh! You’re alive!”
Assistant staggered backwards slightly as Ari slammed into her, making an “oof” noise. But she slid her arms around Ari’s waist all the same, patting her back soothingly.
Only Ari couldn’t be soothed. How could you soothe joy like this? “How, how,” she sobbed, pressing her face hard against Assistant’s throat, inhaling her familiar, wonderful scent, “how is this…how are you…I thought you were dead, they said you were dead—”
“Dead?” Assistant said, and the sound of her voice alone was enough to make Ari sob again. “No, I’m not dead.”
“B-but the freighter.” Ari pulled backward far enough so that she could see Assistant’s face, which was a little blurry on account of all the tears in Ari’s eyes. “They showed pictures—it was gutted—”
“There were ten survivors, as a matter of fact.” Assistant brushed her thumb gently over Ari’s wet cheek. She wore an enormous ring on her index finger, topped with a blood-red stone in an oval shape. “Although nine are now priso
ners of the fleet. But alive, nevertheless.”
“Prisoners?” Ari blinked. Assistant had been taken prisoner, too? Were they trapped here together? But…but that was okay. Being a prisoner with Assistant would be okay. Assistant was alive and everything in the universe was a thousand times better—Ari still couldn’t believe it—it was asking too much, that more than a month of grief should be overcome in one minute—
“I have to sit down,” she said.
“I think you’d better,” Assistant agreed, and slid her arm around Ari’s shoulders, helping her to a nearby cream-colored sofa, where they sat down together.
Ari sank into the surface of smooth, rich suede.
“Take deep breaths,” Assistant instructed.
“Truh, truh, trying,” Ari said, and indeed, she tried. After the third deep breath, she felt less like she was either going to pass out or start screaming.
There was a box of tissues on the end table; Assistant offered a tissue to Ari and looked away politely while Ari blew her nose. “Better?” she asked.
“I-I guess,” Ari said. Then she added, “No,” and held out her arms again, shaking like an oak leaf beneath the air recycler.
Assistant obligingly reached out, pulled Ari in, and held her so close Ari could feel her, smell her, hear her heartbeat.
“There now,” Assistant said after a long moment, patting her back again. “This is far too much carrying-on for a woman who ambushed a member of the Honor Guard. You are lucky you weren’t hurt,” she added sharply. “They have far faster reflexes than that idiot guard who hit you. Thankfully they have even faster brains, and he didn’t break your neck. What possessed you?”
“I don’t know,” Ari whispered. “I-I just got a little upset.”
“A little upset,” Assistant mused, and stroked Ari’s cheek. “What you mean is you let your feelings get in the way of your common sense yet again. But why? There was no wayward slave to protect.” She chuckled.
“It’s not funny,” Ari rasped, and Assistant’s smile vanished. Maybe the raw pain in Ari’s voice had gotten to her. “I thought they’d killed you. I wanted to hurt them, too. To k-kill them, even.”
“Did you?” Now Assistant sounded troubled. But her expression was benign enough as she pushed Ari to arms’ length. “Let me look at you.” Apparently, she didn’t like what she saw, and she scowled. “What’s happened to you?”
“Pirates stunned me,” Ari said. She must still be feeling the aftereffects. Ever since she’d seen Assistant, she’d had the faintest ringing in her ears. At least it hadn’t been as painful as the shock rod.
“You look like you haven’t eaten since I left,” Assistant accused. “Nor slept.”
“I sleep and eat,” Ari said defensively. Well—when she remembered to eat a ration bar, or take her sedatives, or when Dr. Eylen or Rellin or Dr. Ishti reminded her. It was better than nothing.
“Skin and bones,” Assistant said. “How did you even lift that shovel?” Her scowl was deepening.
With Assistant alive and well in front of her, it suddenly seemed foolish to say that grief had made Ari lose her appetite. “I’m sorry,” she said instead, because no other response would come to her, even though a million things needed to be said.
“Well, we’ve had one ‘gosh’ and one apology already,” Assistant said. “Things are almost back to normal.” But she still sounded troubled as she rubbed one warm hand up and down Ari’s back. “Did you come down with something?”
“Um…no…” Ari bowed her head and looked at her lap. Might as well admit it. “I missed you,” she husked. “I thought you were dead.”
“Hmm,” Assistant said. She kept her hand on Ari’s back. “If that’s how it is, I’m glad I came when I did.”
Ari blinked at her. “You came?”
Assistant looked surprisingly hesitant. “Yes. I came.”
“But, where are we?” Ari whispered. She glanced around the room. “This place is huge!”
“These are my rooms,” Assistant said. Then she amended, “Our rooms.”
“Ours?” Ari stared at her. “What? We’re—huh?” She pushed her hair out of her face with a trembling hand and looked into Assistant’s piercing blue eyes.
Assistant was looking back at her with the expression she’d worn across Ari’s kitchen table on that terrible day when she’d asked to be set free. Assessing Ari, looking right down into the bottom of her soul, and seeing everything Ari couldn’t hide.
Assistant reached up and rubbed her thumb over Ari’s bottom lip, and then her chin. “Ariana,” she said gently, “who am I?”
Ari longed to say “What?” or “I don’t understand.” But she couldn’t. Because she was suddenly too busy thinking about too many things all at once.
Like the fact that the pirate attacks had stopped right around the time Assistant was captured from that scouting rig. And that they’d started up again once her freighter had been attacked. And that Assistant had always been the cleverest, most authoritative person Ari had ever met, including her own father. And that, for a humble slave, Assistant had always seemed to know an awful lot about, about…
Ari felt the blood draining out of her face.
“Who am I?” Assist—no—she repeated.
“M-Mír,” Ari croaked. “You’re…you’re Mír.”
“Yes,” Mír said, and let her hand fall from Ari’s chin down into her own, black-robed lap.
Black ship, black armor, black gown… Ari’s head spun. “Oh,” she heard herself say. “Well,” and she started to rise from the sofa. Not that she had anywhere to go, but her body was propelling her up and away from the truth.
Mír stopped her with a firm hand on her right elbow. “No,” she said quietly. “You stay right here. We’re going to talk.”
“You don’t like talking.” Ari gripped the edge of the sofa with her left hand while she kept her eyes on Assistant’s grip on her elbow. “I tried to get you to talk and you never would. And I talked too much—”
“Chirped, even,” Mír said, as if she was trying to lighten the mood. Something inside Ari began to collapse at the familiar words, the affectionate tone.
“I’ve found I quite missed the chatter,” Mír said. “But you are right—it’s finally my turn to have my say.” She loosened her grip on Ari’s elbow and rubbed her bicep up and down. “You always wanted to know about me. Here I am.”
“Yeah.” Ari closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead. Think like a scientist. First principles. Go back to the beginning. “When you were captured…they thought, they said you were a slave on the rig.”
“Yes. It’s a funny thing, survival.” Mír looked thoughtful. “How easily the urge for it overcomes pride. When I looked around and realized that my crew was dead, and that our scouter was about to be boarded…” She shrugged. “I had a slave on board. She had a spare dress. I dropped my gun and sword and decided it would be best to be someone else for a while.”
“What happened to her?” Ari said inanely, in the face of all the other, more pressing questions she didn’t want to ask.
“Didn’t I mention that my crew was dead?” Mír said sharply. “I don’t know why I was spared, Ariana.” She chuckled ruefully. “Although they say nothing can kill me. Would it be tempting fate to wonder if that’s true?”
“You…you…thirty-two soldiers from the station,” Ari said. She hid her face in her hands, shaking harder than ever. “It was you. It was you—”
“Ariana—”
“It was you who killed those mercenaries, too, and, and you asked me if the story excited me—before you, before—” Ari wondered if she was about to throw up. She couldn’t look up from her hands.
“I wondered if I’d regret telling you that someday,” Mír said dryly.
“All those people,” Ari gasped, “all those innocent people…you—”
“Innocent? Really? Who?” Suddenly Mír pulled Ari’s hands away from her face, forcing her to look up. Her jaw was tightly set, and h
er gaze was relentless. “The mercenaries? Your father’s soldiers—who made the choice to be soldiers, who accepted the dangers when they signed up for the job? Just as I did, and my own people did?”
Ari wrenched her hands free and scuttled back against the arm of the couch. “But there’ve been others!” she said. “Nobody’s seen your face—everyone knows you leave no survivors—”
“I let no one go,” Mír said. “That’s true. Soldiers are killed; civilians are captured and enslaved. If they don’t know anything and are wealthy enough, they’re ransomed; if they resist, they are also killed. I don’t pretend I’m a good person, Ariana, or a kind one, or a merciful one.” She tilted her head to the side, her blue gaze still boring through Ari. “Except to you.”
Ari froze. “Me?”
Mír rose gracefully and began to walk around the sofa, hands clasped behind her back—prowling, almost, much like she had the night after the banquet, when that man had said she’d needed whipping. Only now she didn’t seem furious. Not exactly. Just sort of…tense.
“I appear to have developed an unaccountable weakness for you,” she said. “Of course, you were kind to me. Did you find the note I left?”
That note, that impersonal note. “Yeah. I did.” Ari swallowed. “You said I’d been nice and you wouldn’t forget it.”
“And so I haven’t. How could I?” Mír chuckled again, gazing out the enormous window at the control tower. “I’ll never forget the sight of you, waving your little coffee branch at that idiot sentry and telling him to apologize for being so rude to me. Oh, my.”
Was…was Mír making fun of her? Now? “He wasn’t an idiot if he caught you trying to sneak out,” Ari snapped.
“True enough, I suppose,” Mír acknowledged with a tilt of her head. “Should he have struck me?”
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