her instruments 03 - laisrathera (36 page)

“Then you have nothing to fear.”

Hirianthial backed away until they’d cleared the horse’s restive hooves and then woke his Alliance sword, glowing a purple so bright it left streaking lilac after-images.

“And how is that fair?” Athanesin growled.

“It isn’t,” Hirianthial said, and leapt for him.

One parry, Hirianthial gave him, a disengage he allowed to slice the outside of his arm on its way past.

One parry.

Then he lunged into the other man, and his fingers stroked the hilt of his foreign sword, begged it to be true, to have the reach, to make the ending. It grew narrow as a needle and long as a lance, and took Athanesin through the chest. The man paused, shocked, grabbing for the wound and losing his fingers to the blade as Hirianthial pulled it out, rocked forward, and took his head.

The sword steamed its blood mist, dripping plangent drops in the utter silence that followed. Hirianthial darkened the sword, the obedient sword, until it clicked off.  Then he put it back at his belt and looked across the field at Athanesin’s men. He saw one or two begin to lift their hands… and stopped them.

No.

They thought about resistance, but he discouraged them. There was no gentleness in it. He did not need to kill to be implacable.

No.

They let their hands drop, and he released them.

The standards came down the hill, and in their wake, the Queen. She halted beside him, bringing the aura of her satisfaction, hot as banked embers. “Recommendations, Lord of War?”

He studied the lot of them. How many had been swept away by passion and the power of the mob into acts they’d regretted? How many of them had enjoyed the violence and cruelty? How to tell? “Put them to work burying the Jisiensire dead and towing away the wreckage,” he said, quiet. “And when that is done, call for them to swear their fealty to you.”

“With you at my side?” she asked without looking at him, and by that he knew what she was asking.

Could he do it? Police a man’s thoughts? He could, but was he wise enough to forgive error?

Some privileges, he thought, must be arrogated only to God and the Lady.

“I can watch for signs of violence against your person,” he said. “But what is in the heart of a man must remain between him and the Mysteries.”

A faint smile curved her mouth. “I thought you would say as much. Well. Let us put these creatures to work, shall we? Then you must rest.”

“Yes,” he said, feeling the strain in his shoulders and wrists and back. How tired he was, and had not realized it.

CHAPTER 25

“Looks like they’ve got that crowd to work with,” Sascha said, climbing the hill to join her. “And Soly and most of her people are going to come down to ride herd on them too. You want to join them, Boss?”

Reese tugged the collar of her coat a little closer against the rising wind. In her free hand, Allacazam seemed to be napping… was that the cold or the wan winter light? She would have to ask when he woke up. “I’ve got an errand to do upstairs, if things here aren’t teetering on the brink of world-changing disaster or anything.”

“Nah, I doubt that.” Sascha drew abreast of her and gazed out at the tableau: the uncertain group facing the Queen and Hirianthial, the dead body of Athanesin, the twin standards beginning to shiver in the breeze now that there was finally one blowing: not strong enough to lift the heavy tapestries, but more than strong enough to make Reese wish she was somewhere more climate-controlled. “They’re not gonna try anything with all the firepower hovering overhead, plus Hirianthial’s down there mind-maging at them.”

“He’s going to be tired,” Reese murmured.

“Fortunately there’s an enormous ship in orbit with real showers and soft beds.” Sascha managed a grin as he ran a hand over his hair, tousling his own forelock. “I could use one of those myself.”

“Which, the bed or the shower?” Reese asked, smiling.

“The rate I’m going, I’ll fall asleep in the latter and save myself the trouble of choosing.” He rubbed his arms. “I didn’t sleep all too well last night on the ground. Thermal blankets and sister or not.”

“We could have used the Pad to go somewhere more comfortable….”

“Except then we would have been abandoning Hirianthial, and we can’t do that.” Sascha smiled, one ear sagging. “We did what he had to, Boss. Go on and do your errand. I’ll stay down here, tell him where you’ve gone if he gets done before you.”

“Thanks.”

Reese trudged through the cold toward the Pad being guarded by the Swords, keeping her chin down where the coat could protect it and her lips from the cold. She wondered how she should feel about seeing her Eldritch healer execute someone with such skill. No, she thought—be honest—how she felt about her future husband executing someone with such skill. Because she should feel something, right? Other than a small, quiet satisfaction that he could defend himself. But that was all she had, and maybe that was all right. She’d spent so much time haranguing him for his helplessness and vulnerability, and then being afraid of his competence, that it was a relief to let go of all those things and admit that all of it was just fear: fear that she’d lose him, fear that he’d hurt her, fear that she was getting too involved, fear that she was living in a world that needed that kind of violence.

She was still scared—that she was going to mess it up, this time—but strangely that was a fear she could get her arms around. She’d been afraid of messing things up for so long that she couldn’t really take it seriously anymore. Allacazam even woke enough to murmur a sleepy agreement, something that felt like an extra scarf around her throat. She sent him an appreciative response.

Crossing the Pad took her from the moist cold of the early Eldritch winter to the shocking warmth of a battlecruiser’s Pad facility. There were two more Swords there, standing guard in lieu of the Fleet personnel that couldn’t be spared, but they recognized Reese and saluted her, which was… startling. She didn’t know how to respond to the courtesy and settled for nodding her head the way she’d read fairy princesses would, and that seemed to satisfy them. She was halfway out the room when she realized she didn’t know where to look for her quarry.

“Um, Asaniefa?” she asked. “Surela. Is she in a cell or….”

“In the Medplex.”

The Medplex… still? Had her injuries been that severe? Reese said, “Thank you,” and hurried on, shedding her coat as she went. Allacazam’s neural fibers started wiggling in response to the heat, and she felt his vague curiosity. “Just worried,” she murmured. “You’ll see.”

The last time Reese had seen the inside of a Medplex she’d been recovering from her emergency surgery on that first starbase. A Fleet cruiser’s Medplex was smaller, of course, but not as much smaller as she’d been expecting… and it had an actual wall composed entirely of an aquarium with floating fish in it. She was shocked they’d survived the pirate takeover and was still staring at them when a sardonic voice said, “The tank was nearly dead when I got here. I restarted the water cycle and released a few of the cryo-stored fish to get it going again.”

Her speaker was the Ciracaana from Soly’s team, looming over her as he joined her to consider the wall.

“You restocked the aquarium?” Reese asked.

“Instead of doing something more productive?” Jasper chuckled, his ears sagging. “Trust me, Captain Eddings, it was productive. For me. I needed to calm down a little. And it helps the patients, which is why the ships have them, or something like them. Now, can I help you with something? Got a contusion or two that needs attention now that all the major problems have come through?”

“I’m here to see someone, actually,” Reese said. “Surela Asaniefa, one of the Queen’s prisoners.”

“Oh.” He eyed her. “I hope you’re not here to agitate her. She’s not up to agitation.”

“No,” Reese answered. “I… might be the closest thing to an ally she has.”

He sighed. “Fine. Follow me.”

At the threshold to the room, he added, “Don’t tax her.”

“No,” Reese promised. After he left her with one more reluctant look, she cleared her throat and said, “It’s Reese. Can I come in?”

A long pause. Then: “Yes.”

There was no halo-arch pinning Surela to the bed, so that was a good thing. But the Eldritch was sitting with her knees drawn up to her chest, the same pose she’d defaulted to when trapped in the cell with Reese, and that seemed like a very bad sign. The woman looked physically well, but wan and disinterested in everything around her: for someone whose presence had snapped with the vigor of a flag in a strong wind when wresting the throne from Liolesa, that struck Reese as a signal that the game was over, at least as far as Surela was concerned. And how could Reese convince her to live if she’d already given up?

“Mind if I….” She pointed to a stool.

“Go ahead.”

Reese dragged it to the bed and sat, setting Allacazam on her lap and resting her hands in his fur to keep herself calm. “I guess asking you how you are is kind of gauche.”

Surela looked away. “Just tell me why you have come.”

The abrasive demeanor, the brusque comment… it reminded Reese strongly of who she’d been a year ago. It firmed her determination to give Surela the same chances she’d been given. “I talked to the Queen. Your crime still merits execution, but she’s agreed to commute your sentence to exile if you’re willing to go.”

That got the woman’s attention, along with as stunned a look as Reese imagined any Eldritch ever allowed herself to show. “I beg your pardon?”

“She also says,” Reese continued, “that you’ll have to give up your name. That’s… not a punishment specific to you. All of Asaniefa’s being disbanded, and the tenants are going to end up working for someone else, and the nobles will have to petition to be admitted to some other House. Or, I guess, end up working on a farm somewhere themselves.”

“That… is… more mercy than I expected,” Surela said, but she grimaced.

“I guess Eldritch don’t work on farms.”

“No.” Surela touched her fingertips to her browbone, eyes closing. “That is how we ended up in this contretemps.”

“Nothing wrong with a good farm,” Reese said.

“If it bears fruit, certainly. But our soil does not yield what we need, and so we will remain forever indebted to you.” Surela sighed then, pulling the blanket up closer. “What is it you want, Captain Eddings?”

“I just wanted to bring you the choice—”

“The choice,” was the bitter reply. “And what choice would that be? To die… or to go alone into a world I know nothing of, where I now intimately know to be particularly dangerous to people of my race? Liolesa had given me the choice between an immediate demise and a protracted one, probably preceded by enslavement of the kind I have only just survived.” Surela smoothed the blanket down, wrist shaking. “I cannot do that again. I would rather die quickly than suffer that again.”

“It doesn’t have to be that way!” The vehemence in her voice lifted the other woman’s head, and Reese went on, “Look, you can go out there and live and thrive. Other Eldritch have done it. Hirianthial did—”

“I am no Sword to be my own defense,” Surela said.

Reese stared at her. “You stabbed a man in the
eye
, Surela.” She paused, then reiterated, “
In the eye.
”

“I was under duress,” Surela murmured.

“And then in the throat!”

“I wanted to make sure he was dead.”

“You did!” Reese forced herself not to grab her braids. How could the woman be so blind? Allacazam whispered the music of windchimes into her mind, distracting her from her distress. “All that can be taught. Defending yourself can be taught.”

“That would require money,” Surela said. “Of which an exile has none. Nor does an exile have references, or friends. And who would sponsor me into the alien worldscape, anyroad? ‘Former traitor to her country’ makes a fine recommendation. I am certain to be trusted wherever I go.”

“That part I can’t help you with,” Reese said. “That’s the bed you made and have to lie in. But the rest of it….” She sucked in a breath and said, “Look, I have a ship and I can’t run her anymore. I have too much to do here. But I also can’t let her sit idle when there are so many things I need brought back. The
Earthrise
is used to having an Eldritch on board by now. You could go with her.”

Surela stared at her, eyes wide.

“You’re not going to be expected to know anything about cargo-running,” Reese continued. “You’ll have to learn. And you wouldn’t be in charge for the obvious reason that you don’t know anything about ships, cargo or the Alliance.” She thought back to Kerayle and said, “I have an idea where to find the seed for a new crew. And while they’re going to be good at the cargo-running part, they could use a little instruction on how to do the social engineering thing. You probably had a lot of practice with that, running Asaniefa. It won’t be very glamorous but… it worked for me for a long time, until I figured out what I wanted with my life.” She petted Allacazam, feeling the tickle of the neural fibers beneath her palm, remembering those first lonely days when it had been just her, the echoing corridors, and for a while, the Flitzbe. “I’ll give you my name. I’m sure that comes with… I don’t know. Some expectation from me that I’ll keep you clothed and fed. I don’t know about my responsibilities yet, but Liolesa said you can’t keep your name, and it would be cruel for you not to have one.”

Surela whispered, “You… you would trust me?”

“Most of my life I’ve been the opposite of trusting,” Reese said. “And that held me back. A lot.” She looked up and met the other woman’s eyes. “I don’t know, Surela. You tell me you’ve changed. Were you right? Am I right to trust you?”

“If I said ‘yes’ I could be lying,” Surela said, wide-eyed.

“You could be, sure.”

“I could be conspiring to sabotage Liolesa’s reign again, in revenge.” The other woman was shaking now.

“You could, yes.”

“I could be venal, a liar, a schemer, and….” Surela turned away, pressed her face into her knees, and started sniffling.

“Hey,” Reese said, surprised. She reached over and set a hand on Surela’s knee. “Hey, no, don’t cry.”