Ari managed to get down about half of the generous portion, even though the steak had been perfectly cooked. Mír ate like this every day? She must have felt starved with Ari, but she’d never said anything about it. Ari covered the tray, pushed it away, and sat back on the sofa with the thermos of coffee in her hands.
If only she knew enough about Mír, beyond the horror stories she’d heard and the behaviors she’d observed. What was going on inside that razor-sharp mind? It would be crazy to antagonize her or make her angry until Ari was surer of her own place in this new world.
Problem was, Ari was still plenty angry herself, and the more energy she got from her rest and her food, the worse it got. Fear would have been better—at least a little of it, enough to keep Ari from saying the wrong thing or overstepping in a way that would end in catastrophe.
She’d been cross with Mír before: angry when she’d hurt her wrists in a futile struggle, insulted when Mír had implied she was a hermit, downright furious when Mír had told her people were basically bad and laughed at her letter to Dr. Phylyxas. Ari hadn’t bothered holding back her pique. Far less had been at stake on all those occasions, but Mír had never seemed annoyed by any of Ari’s displays. She’d even seemed to respect them.
You can’t count on that here. You can’t count on anything. Ari worried her bottom lip.
The door hissed open. Ari looked around with a gasp as the door closed again behind Mír, who stood in the doorway for a moment and silently regarded Ari. She looked a little tired but unharmed.
About a third of Ari’s brain was protesting, saying she needed more time to think. Another third was ready to get this over with, however it ended.
The final third, the worst and most treacherous part, went dizzy with relief at seeing Mír safe and sound. Maybe love really does make you weak, Ari thought, and then told herself to shut up, because thinking about either love or weakness wasn’t going to help.
She cleared her throat, set down the coffee, and stood. “Um…hi.”
“Hello.” Mír began walking toward Ari, the black silk of her gown rustling as she moved. Ari remembered her from the holos—clad in black armor and helm, always from a distance. It’d looked natural on her, that was for sure. But so did the dress, and personally, Ari was glad Mír wasn’t wearing any intimidating armor right now.
“Are you feeling better?” Mír asked.
Ari almost cringed as she remembered the way she’d carried on before falling asleep. She had to do better this round. “Yeah.”
Mír glanced at the covered tray and nodded in approval. “I’m glad you’ve eaten something. Did you rest well?”
It was so solicitous, as if Ari was a guest to be made comfortable instead of…whatever she was. A prisoner? A companion? Both?
Might as well respond in kind. “Yes. Thank you.”
Her tone of voice—polite, almost reserved—clearly caught Mír’s attention. Her eyes narrowed a little, and even that was enough to make Ari’s heart rate increase. Mír didn’t seem angry, but she was already on alert.
Stay calm, be cool, test the waters… “How did the meeting go?”
“Fine.” Mír glanced out the window at the space station. “I have what I need for now. We’ll depart soon.” Then she looked back at Ari, her eyebrows raised. “I wasn’t terribly impressed by Lord Koll.”
Ari couldn’t hold back a snort. “Neither is anybody else.” What would Mír say if she knew her opinion was backed by Nahtal’s medical staff during their off hours?
She surprised herself by adding, “It was stupid of the Emperor to send him out here.” Then she snapped her mouth shut. She hadn’t meant to say that, she wasn’t sure she’d even thought those words before, but the truth seemed so obvious now.
“On that we agree.” Mír drew closer to Ari, but not as close as she had before, when their bodies had nearly pressed together. Now she left a couple feet of distance between them. “Your Empire is infected with incompetence and sloth. The infection is growing outward from the center.” She spread her hands. “Here I am with the cure.”
“You mean, you?”
“Exactly.” Mír looked Ari up and down. “The dress is too big, but green suits you.”
“Thank you,” Ari said, but she was not to be deterred. “You really want to be Empress?”
“I will be Empress.” Mír gave Ari a canny look. “Surprised?”
“Sort of. Maybe. I thought…” Ari ran a hand through her hair. “I would never have guessed it before I knew”—she paused—“I mean, before I met you. But now…”
“That was a telling hesitation, Ariana,” said Mír, who had never let Ari get away with anything and obviously wasn’t going to start now. “You don’t feel you know me?”
“You told me I didn’t!” Oops. Ari lowered her voice to sound less snappish. “When I said I…” Loved you. It hurt too much to say now.
“You didn’t know me then.” Mír raised her chin. “I think that’s fair to say, don’t you? But the big secret’s out. You’ve got the final piece.”
“I don’t think so.” Ari willed her heart rate to go down. “I should have figured it out before now. Not that you were—but I should have realized something. I feel so stupid.” Unable to meet Mír’s piercing blue eyes, she looked at the statue again.
“We’ve been over this.” Mír sighed. “You’re not stupid. Naïve and trusting, certainly.”
Ari fisted her hands and walked away from Mír toward the statue. “It feels like the same thing right now.” She looked up at the woman hewn from rock. “Is this you?”
“Yes and no.” The cautious tone was back in Mír’s voice. She was undoubtedly keeping her gaze trained on Ari. “I took her from a dig site on Helenor 5 perhaps…five years ago? Shortly after the reconstruction of the Crown Lily. She’s supposed to be over two thousand years old, but I see myself in her.”
“So do I.” Ari looked the statue up and down again. “She’s beautiful.” It was true. Even roughly carved, the figure carried a great deal of dignity on her stone shoulders. “You ‘took’ her?”
She turned on her heel to see Mír watching her with a wry smile. “Yes, I did.”
“Well, now that you’ve got all my money, maybe you can pay them back,” Ari said bitterly.
After a pause, Mír said, “You’re serious, aren’t you?”
Ari hadn’t realized it until then. She nodded.
Mír exhaled through her nose. “She wasn’t for sale. She was about to be sent to some museum’s warehouse, perhaps to be trotted out for a special exhibit now and again—but more likely never to see the light of day. Now she faces the stars. Which strikes you as more of a waste?” She crossed her arms. “Nothing is black and white. Not out here, or even back there.” She gestured at Nahtal.
“You can’t just take what you want.” Here it came. Ari braced herself and tried to breathe evenly. “Not all the time.”
Mír pursed her lips. “Tell that to the current Emperor while he lounges around all day on silk pillows. I know what it means to sacrifice.”
“Sacrifice what? Why do you even want to be Empress?” Her father had said once that he wouldn’t take on such a job for all the riches in the Empire.
“I don’t want to be, I need to be,” Mír said, and then looked a bit surprised—as if she, too, was saying things she hadn’t meant to. “This has been in the works for a long time, Ariana. Accelerated, I admit, by the time I spent on the station.”
Accelerated thanks to Ari’s money, she meant. Not to mention the useful information Mír had picked up. Ari closed her eyes.
“What would you prefer?” Mír continued. “That my fleet keeps rampaging while the Empire grows weaker and the Kazir close in? You might be surprised by how little I wish to see that happen. Or would you rather that we give it all up entirely, and go enjoy sybaritic lives on some tropical world?”
That last one didn’t seem so bad. There would probably be a lot of plants. “It sounds safer.”
/> Mír rolled her eyes. “You let me worry about our safety. In the meantime, I don’t suppose you’ve noticed that this little revolution has largely been accomplished without bloodshed?”
“Carellian turned on the Imperial forces,” Ari reminded her. “They blew a ship into pieces!”
Mír clicked her tongue. “There were some growing pains.”
“Growing pains?”
“Of course. This is a new enterprise. It wasn’t on my orders—I have since made sure that no one makes such a move without my permission. Carellian now has a new commander.” Mír lifted one shoulder in a half shrug. “I will grant you that I didn’t write the Emperor a note of apology.”
“Oh, for…” Ari glanced back at Nahtal. Had it always looked so dingy and small? Or was the Crown Lily already distorting her perceptions, shrinking everything else around her? “Are all the pirates leaving? Are you going to keep any ships here?”
“No,” Mír said. “There is more work to be done back in our pocket of the Empire. I don’t wish to overextend my forces by leaving some of them stranded out here by themselves. We got what we came for, and now we’re leaving.” Her eyes gleamed. “Although we’ll be back.”
“You said you wanted stuff besides me.” Ari hesitated. “Like what?”
“Many things,” Mír said, sounding careless—and then she reached out and hooked her arm around Ari’s waist, pulling her in closer.
Ari squeaked, Mír smirked, and Ari’s heart began to pound.
“Schematics of the mining shafts on Exer,” Mír added. “Records of outputs and resources.” She paused, smiled a little, and added, “And let’s not forget about four hundred tons of ore. That’ll fuel one third of the fleet for a full cycle. Not bad, is it?”
“Um…”
“And on a lesser note, those excellent star charts in the Observatory. They really were a revelation when I saw them for the first time. We have nothing to equal them in the fleet.” She smiled softly. “I memorized as much as I could. I can’t tell you how useful some of those precise co-ordinates have proven. But it’ll be nice to have all of them at my fingertips.”
She slid her hand up and down Ari’s back. Ari grabbed at her shoulders and squeaked again as their bodies pressed fully together.
Mír said, “Speaking of what I have at my fingertips…”
Before Ari could say anything, Mír kissed her.
The kiss roused Ari, all right, but not in the way Mír undoubtedly intended. Mír’s lips were so soft, so familiar, pressing against Ari’s as if everything was as it had been before. And, as always, it felt so right—but Ari couldn’t let herself be fooled that way again. She’d allowed herself to believe all along that what they’d been doing was right just because she’d wanted it so much.
She wanted it now, too. She hated herself for it, and she hated Mír, and she loved Mír, loved the way their bodies fit together and how Mír’s embrace felt like coming home. It was all too much to contain, and with a groan, she turned her head away and pushed, stumbling back when Mír let her go.
Shaking, she met Mír’s gaze, which had darkened considerably. Ari had to say something. But what could she say? What was most on her heart?
“You’re angry,” Mír said coldly. “Aren’t you? Angry that I’m not who you thought I was. Angry at the life I lead and the blood I’ve got on my hands.” She sneered, looking as contemptuous as she had on the day they’d met. “How dare you be angry at that? How dare you judge what I—”
“I’m angry you left me!”
Silence fell. Mír’s sneer vanished. Her eyes widened.
Ari was shaking again. She’d found what was on her heart, all right. Okay, so…she couldn’t blame Mír for lying about who she was on the space station. Mír would have been crazy to trust Ari with her real identity. And if she really was trying to change her ways, be something more than a pirate—a force for good, even—Ari should at least try to be open-minded. Hear her out, talk it through, and learn more.
This, though. This.
Mír had let Ari think she was dead. She’d let Ari think, for over a month, that she was dead, and that it had been Ari’s fault for letting her go, and that Ari was alone in the universe, and…
“Couldn’t you have told me?” Ari whispered.
Mír frowned. “Told you what?”
“That you were alive.” Ari swallowed harshly. “Didn’t you know I’d think you were dead? Didn’t you know I’d hear about the freighter?”
“I assumed you would, but why—”
“What do you mean, why? You could have just sent me something saying you were still alive—not telling me who you really were or anything, but—”
“Impractical,” Mír said firmly, holding up a hand. “Any transmissions from a pirate ship would instantly have been intercepted by your station. In fact, you would have gotten in a great deal of trouble if they thought you were communicating with pirates.”
“I wouldn’t have cared. I would rather have known.” Ari would have traded every plant, every seed in her garden, every drop of blood in her own body for the knowledge that Assistant—Mír—had been alive and well. She curled her hands into fists.
“I cared,” Mír said. “It would have been much more difficult to snatch you from some Imperial brig than the safety of your own quarters. You might consider that.”
“Oh,” Ari said, startled. “You—you would have done that?”
“No,” Mír said, “because I would have cunningly avoided the possibility in the first place by not sending you a message.”
“Oh,” Ari repeated, wondering why this wasn’t making her feel any better. Mír was alive. She had, in fact, come back. She’d had good reasons for not telling Ari the truth. So why did Ari still feel as if she was about to come apart at the seams?
After a pause, Mír spoke again. She sounded as if she was carefully spacing her words when she reminded Ari, “For what it’s worth, I came for you as soon as I could. Sooner than I should have.” She stepped forward.
“I…yeah.” She tried to breathe more evenly. “You did.”
“I admit, I hadn’t guessed you’d be quite this upset,” Mír said.
“What?” Ari wondered if her eyes would pop out of her head. Surely Mír hadn’t really said— “Are you kidding? You didn’t…how could you possibly—”
“Possibly think you would have starved yourself?” Mír asked coolly. “I knew you wouldn’t be dancing down the corridors, but are you telling me I should have anticipated that?”
“I didn’t do it on purpose! I wasn’t thinking straight. I…” Ari grabbed herself in a tight embrace. “I don’t remember much about it. It was just that you were dead, and so was my father, and I didn’t, I didn’t know what…I didn’t know how…” Her voice cracked, and her throat grew thick at just the thought of how awful those days had been. “I just remember waking up in sickbay and they put a tube in my arm.”
Mír said nothing, but she reached out and touched Ari’s shoulder. This time, Ari couldn’t move away. She couldn’t look away from Mír’s eyes, watching as realization dawned in their cool, blue depths.
What was she thinking? Perhaps that Ari was weak, pathetic, a quitter. Mír would never give up on anything, even if she did lose people she cared for. Ari managed, “Honestly, I wasn’t trying to…” She couldn’t finish. She waited for the judgment, for Mír’s stern reproof of her weakness. Or, worse, for the mockery that would drive Ari to say something really, really imprudent.
To her surprise, Mír only told her, “Well, that’s all over now. Everything’s all right.” Her voice was surprisingly light.
It had, in fact, been a little too light. She was trying to sound that way.
Ari kept looking into her eyes when she asked, “Is it?”
“Of course it is. We’re together again, and we won’t be parted.” Mír cupped her shoulder and rubbed her thumb against Ari’s skin. “Why shouldn’t it be all right?”
Ari stood for a moment i
n silence, struggling with herself. Then she took her courage in both hands. She was going to need all of it, considering that she was about to defy the most dangerous person in the known universe.
“It’s not all right,” she said.
“What?”
Ari closed her eyes and braced herself. Here went nothing. She was either going to take the emperor or lose the game, and what would happen then? Nothing good, that was for certain.
But she had to say it anyway.
She whispered, “Will you really not let me go?”
Mír snatched her fingertips from Ari’s arm. Ari tensed all over, unable to help the frigid wash of fear. Mír wouldn’t hurt her physically. But Ari had learned that there were ways to break people that had nothing to do with their bodies, and Mír probably knew them all.
Mír clamped her hands around both of Ari’s arms. But her voice was even and calm when she said, “No. I told you not to ask.”
“I know.” She opened her eyes again to see that Mír had gone paler. “But you really won’t?”
Mír’s grip was almost painful now as she stepped in close enough for them to be pressed together, almost nose to nose. This close, Ari could tell her heart was racing in her chest, nearly as fast as Ari’s own. Ari didn’t try to shake her off or protest.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Ariana.” In the space of a few seconds, her voice had gone from even as glass to rough as the rocks. “I said—don’t make me repeat myself.”
“I don’t want to be your slave,” Ari said, hating the way her knees shook, unable to stop them. Be like the trees. Take root. Be stronger than stone. “You’ve been a slave. You know what it’s like. Any freedom you had came from me—that’s not how it should be. Why do you want that for me?”
“Stop,” Mír said. “I told you that you don’t have to—you are not a slave.”
“So, what am I? A prisoner? I know you said—”
“Why are you talking like this?” Mír demanded, and for the first time since they’d met, Ari heard a crack in her voice.
The Lily and the Crown Page 25
