her instruments 03 - laisrathera (37 page)

“Oh, I am a woman ruined, and no mistake. I don’t deserve a savior.”

Reese shook that knee a little. “Stop that. You’re stronger than this.”

“Am I?” Surela said. A gleam ran across the wet trails on her cheeks as she looked up. “Yon four-footed creature thinks I may be with child. What then?”

“Oh, blood,” Reese whispered. “Not them?”

“Who else? I had lain with no man before the violence.” Surela wiped beneath her eye with the heel of a hand. “He is not sure of it, but the signs are leading, he says. So, you want to take a traitor into your House, Eddings, and with her a child born of violence?”

“You could….” Reese trailed off, unable to say the words.

Surela snorted, and the indelicacy of the sound made her seem more approachable. “You would have me commit a crime you yourself cannot even speak? You think it a crime, don’t you?”

“It’s not so much that it’s a crime as… my family never had children by accident,” Reese said. “You got an implant when you started bleeding, and you left it in until you mail-ordered your sperm sample and took it to a clinic to get inseminated. Where I come from, children are all wanted.” She thought of her mother. “Even if they don’t grow up the way you want them to. You still want them, in the beginning.” Allacazam tugged her memories away from the corpse of the eucalyptus tree. “It’s not like that in every culture in the Alliance, though. If you wanted to take care of it, it could be taken care of.”

“I could not,” Surela said, quiet. “It is not done.” She sighed. “If it turns out that I am with child, Liolesa will have to hold off on my execution until the baby is born anyway. Though I am sure it would please her to exile me with a child in tow, knowing how difficult it would be for me to raise her alone with my memories of violence to serve as her father.”

“Liolesa doesn’t strike me as actively cruel.”

“You don’t know Liolesa,” Surela said and sighed. “But then, I am beginning to think I don’t either.”

“Look, if you end up having a baby, you can leave it with us here on the world,” Reese said. “She’ll grow up surrounded in Eldritch and I guarantee you, no one’s going to care who her father is. They’re all going to be delighted that you managed to bring a baby to term and that Laisrathera gets to keep her.”

Surela said nothing, eyes lowered and chin resting on her knees. “I still don’t know why I deserve any of your regard,” she said, quiet. “I can feel it in your palm, though I am no mind-mage to sense the specifics of it, or your thoughts, anything beyond the confidence of your suit. I was vain and stupid, and because of my machinations my world is now exposed, Jisiensire set to the fires, my House sundered, my liegewoman dead….” She closed her eyes, fine lines etched around them. “To be executed would be a kindness.”

“Because you wouldn’t have to live with your mistakes?”

Surela jerked her head up.

“Look,” Reese said. “I know a lot about mistakes. I’ve made a lot of them. I broke my family’s heart so badly they disowned me. I murdered a bunch of aliens because I needed money. I treated Hirianthial like the worst kind of dirt, and my crew not much better, most days. It would be a hell of a lot easier if I didn’t have to deal with the consequences of my mistakes. I’m trying to be brave enough to do that.” She lifted her chin. “You showed a lot of courage once you ended up a prisoner with me. Was I wrong? Because I don’t think the woman who could strike back against her own torturers is going to back down from this challenge.”

“You are asking me to live my life as the Traitor,” Surela said slowly. “The One-Week Usurper. To be known forever for my treason the way Athanesin will surely be forever known as the Butcher of Jisiensire.”

“I am asking you to be a part of my family,” Reese said. “And to give yourself a chance to be known for the restitution you made for your mistakes. And to prove that I’m serious about this, I am leaving Allacazam with you.” She set the Flitzbe on the bed, encouraging him to roll over to the Eldritch’s side. Surela flinched, but hesitated when Allacazam leaned on her.

“What… what is this—”

“Put your hand on him.”

Bewildered, Surela touched the fur. “It’s soft.” She started. “It moves! The fur moves?”

“Listen,” Reese said.

Surela frowned at her, then froze. “It talks…!”

“This is one of my best friends in all the worlds,” Reese said. “His name is Allacazam. He’s a Flitzbe, and I think you might find it useful to talk with him for a while. He’s… well, when I’ve been at my lowest points, he’s always come through for me. If you give him a chance, I think you might find him helpful.”

Surela petted him, uncertain. “It… he… really is very soft.”

Reese smiled and stood. “I’ll be back. Or you can have them call me, if you have news about… you know.”

“You would truly do this,” Surela said softly. “Leave your… friend… with me. Issue me the protection of your House, knowing that my actions will reflect back on you, and you the Queen’s favorite.”

“Yes,” Reese said. And smiled, wryly. “Though I don’t know how favorite I am, having argued with her about you. She thinks I’m crazy.” She lifted her brows. “Am I?”

“Yes,” Surela said firmly. “Yes, you are.” Rueful. “I think you are well made that way.”

Reese grinned. “The rest of my crew agrees with you, so that’s a good sign.”

The other woman was still petting Allacazam with tentative fingers. She swallowed, then said, quieter, “I don’t know what my answer will be. To you. About this. I don’t know if I can live so long with my own ignominy. I don’t know if it’s better that I should live, when justice demands my death. Perhaps there can be no healing the world while I live.”

“Surela… no one’s that important.” Reese shook her head. “And justice is important, but so is mercy. You swear by a god and goddess, don’t you? What do you think they’d like better? To see you dead or see you doing something positive with your life?”

“I could spend my entire life doing something positive, Captain, and still not have made up for my errors.”

Reese nodded. “So why are you so eager to die before you even get started?”

Surela froze again. Then winced. “Yes. It does sound selfish that way, doesn’t it.”

Reese glanced at Allacazam, who was turning a soft blue as if to reassure her. She raised her eyes and said, “I won’t pressure you. I know all about trying to do things before you’re ready, or having people push you into making decisions when you hate all the choices you’ve got. Think about it, all right? And call me.”

“Very well, Captain.”

Outside the Medplex, Reese paused to compose herself. Was she doing the right thing? She had no idea. Maybe she really was crazy. And yet… she remembered Surela’s remorse in the cell they’d shared, the willingness with which the woman had admitted to her mistakes. It had taken Reese most of a lifetime to be able to own up to her own mistakes with that much forthrightness, enough to really grow. She had to believe that Surela had a future based on her ability to look her own failings in the eye that way… or what hope was there for herself?

Back in the quarters she’d been assigned, Reese called Sascha.

“Hey, Boss. What’s cooking up there?”

“I was about to ask you that myself. How are things downstairs?”

“This… looks like it’s going to take a while, to be honest. They’re spreading out these people and putting them to work digging graves.”

“Digging—” Reese stopped. “Ouch.”

“Their fault.”

“I know.” She grimaced. “So, they’re going to be busy a while… I’ll stay up here. Are you staying?”

“Until things are done, sure. How else are you going to hear the news?”

“Send up the girls any time, then, and Bryer. I’ll have work for them in a bit.”

Sascha’s tone turned curious. “Oh?”

“I seem to have inherited a castle,” Reese said. “It needs a lot of work, though.”

“Ohhh. Yes, you’ll definitely want at least Bryer for that. I’ll find them and tell them you’re looking for them.”

“Thanks, arii. And for looking out for him.”

“Part of the job, hey?”

“No, which is why I’m thanking you.”

Sascha chuckled. “Listen to you. You’re even prickly about being not-as-prickly.”

Reese huffed, but she was grinning. “You all went through all the trouble of redeeming me. I’d like some respect here!”

“Respect. Got it. I’ll put that on the list.”

“Oh, shoo. Some of us have work to do.”

“Yes, ma’am!”

Reese shook her head and petted the console with her fingers, just once. How had she deserved such people? She was so lucky. At least she’d figured it out before they’d gotten tired of trying to tell her.

Still smiling, she spread a new blank message and tried to find the right words to entice Ra’aila, Clan Flait, to come be the captain of a new trading enterprise on behalf of House Laisrathera.

CHAPTER 26

Watching his enemies bury the evidence of his previous life and responsibilities was a nearly overwhelming experience; the symbol felt too obvious, particularly when the high, bright vault of the winter sky began to clog with gray tatters. He would have found the whole thing painfully melancholic had Val not insisted on dogging his heels.

“You are attempting to keep me from brooding.”

“The significant word in that statement being ‘attempting,’ since so far you’re managing it fine despite my efforts.” Val drew up alongside him. “You should let me trim your hair.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I’m a fine hand at it, as you can see. And you might as well even it. You don’t want to look untidy for your wedding.”

Hirianthial eyed him, then allowed a low laugh. “Fine. You have coaxed a moment of brightness from me. Are you pleased?”

“Not yet,” Val said. “Maybe when you finally admit what you’re really feeling. To yourself, if not to me.”

“And what might that be?”

“Relief,” Val said. “And guilt, because you see all these bodies and all this wreckage and it hasn’t destroyed you the way you feel it should.”

Aghast, Hirianthial glanced at him, and felt a psychic tug, gentle but clear enough that he almost felt like leaning toward it.

“This still exists,” Val said, exerting a soft pressure on the bond. “From our fight against Baniel. Anyone tell you about what it means to draw on someone else’s energy that much?”

Urise’s memories tinkled together, like chimes in a wind. He sorted out the notes. “That you make a link, of course. Apparently, that it is hard to sunder.”

“It can be done. We haven’t yet, though. And we’ll have to sit down somewhere quiet and concentrate to do it.”

Hirianthial considered him. “And you are telling me this… because of some other reason. Because, perhaps, in the past, such links were not things to be sundered, but to be nurtured. Am I right?”

Val inclined his head.

“I see.” He returned to surveying the bent shapes of the men toiling with shovels beneath a sky increasingly grim and low with clouds. In the gloom, Olthemiel’s men shone in their white uniforms. “That would be an entirely new way of doing things.”

“I have a number of entirely new ways of doing things planned,” Val admitted. “If, say, the Queen is willing.”

“Such as?”

“The Lord’s priesthood has always been devoted to the mysteries… at least, on paper. In reality, it was devoted to the talents, and their reaping. They lived at the Cathedral, where their victims were brought to them for questioning and then killing.” Val folded his hands behind his back. “They had a lot of power and money. I’m guessing you can figure why?”

“I imagine the property of the dead came to them in some fashion.”

Val nodded. “I was thinking maybe the priesthood of the Lord should cleave to more humble roots. We can be itinerants. Wander in search of the talents, not to kill them, but to bring them to places to be trained.”

“New ideas!” Hirianthial murmured. “How heretical.”

Val eyed him.

“Put it to the Queen,” he said, more seriously. “I think you will find her a sympathetic auditor. And Theresa as well… in case your new order requires a place to site its first school.”

“In the frozen north,” Val muttered.

“Where Corel died, yes? It seems appropriate.” Hirianthial stopped and said, “You took that burden on yourself, Valthial. If you truly wish to hold on to it, then I would think the symbol pleasing.”

“And we’re all about symbols, aren’t we.”

Hirianthial smiled a little. “I think we always will be. Embracing the outworld will make us more Eldritch, not less. We will have something to pit ourselves against in contrast.”

“May we survive the experience.”

“We will.”

They watched the grim work in silence, one Hirianthial found comfortable. He was well aware of the bond that remained fallow between them, narrow but promising, and through it, a sense of Val’s heart. How much more sane would the Corels of their world have been, had they been embraced thus, rather than thrust away? And yet how hard it was to push through those fears and prejudices. His life for the past year had been an exercise in observing that oscillation: not just in himself, but in others.

“I hope,” Val said, quiet, “that you’re not planning on standing by yourself through some two hundred odd men swearing fealty to the Queen.”

“I would not think of forcing you to stay behind.”

“Knowing how much I’d enjoy it.” Val sighed. “What can I say. I’m Eldritch. We love punishment.”

Hirianthial’s mouth quirked.

The door chime that Reese answered with an idle “Come in,” did not herald the arrival of her crew, whom she’d been expecting. Instead, Solysyrril padded through the hatch and came to a halt just inside the room, her hands folded behind her back and her pale ears perked. Surprised, Reese rose and said, “Commander? Is there something wrong?”

“No,” Soly said. “At least, not that I know of. Which is why I’m here, actually. Can I…?”

Reese motioned her to a chair and rested against the table she’d been working at, hands propped on its edges.

“Things have been hectic, so I haven’t had the chance to get you alone for this talk… but it looks like we have some quiet time, so… here I am.”