Chapter 22 – To Cherish, To Hold
Silver Sea met me in my room the next morning. Her gold eyes gleamed as she settled down on the low couch facing a bank of windows.
"Your numbers continue to trend upwards," she said, watching me as I paced across the carpet. I'd been watching footage from the interview over again after she'd pinged it to me in the early hours of the morning, and it wasn't the kind of thing I was able to watch while sitting down.
I had replayed the interview with Araxis and the abayan news source about six times already, trying desperately to understand what had been said even with subtitles.
In the end, there were only two things I felt sure of: the first was that I didn't know shit about abayan culture, and telling myself that I had understood Araxis at all when I'd been back on Creche Thiel's ship had been monumentally arrogant and foolish; and the second was that I could hardly be surprised that he didn't want me in the end.
Araxis was doing something important, and not just for his family.
He spoke so clearly and coherently, and with such deep conviction, that I'd been left breathless the first time I watched.
He carried the weight of not only his creche on his shoulders, but of the future of abayan politics at large.
The fundamental questions about where the empire was headed seemed to hinge, at least in some part, on what he was doing.
The scope of his work was dazzling and unfathomable in equal parts.
I'd mostly accepted he was a prince, or whatever the equivalent was – but watching that clip over and over was the first time I really realized what that meant.
The nobility with which he conducted himself was at such impossible odds with…
everything about me. And when he'd been asked why he'd made whatever overture he had made – when he'd asked me to declare for him, said with all the weight of a cultural practice and with none of the accompanying explanation – his answer had said everything I needed to know.
It was best for me. He wanted to keep me safe. It was what any sinnenthi would do for any virra.
I sat with that for a long time before Silver Sea arrived.
I remembered the strange feeling that had settled over me when we'd first spoken on camera about what it meant for me to be virra, back when he'd made me food.
I'd realized, in a distant haze, that what he felt for me could only be explained to the audience because I was virra.
Why else would he care? And while I'd wondered if that might be true, I'd held on to the assurance that he cared for me in a way that was real and tangible. He saw me, I was certain.
So to hear him say that he cared for me because he was sinnenthi and I was virra, to have him put it so plainly, struck me like a knife to my lung, sucking all the air out of me. In the end, that was all I had to offer – my body, pliant on camera – while the rest of me was a liability.
So I decided not to think about it. I couldn't. It was just more scraps and tatters for the dark and cluttered corner of my soul.
Instead, I'd skipped forward to when the reporter from The Good News had started in on me, and that was when Silver Sea had appeared in my apartment and made herself at home.
"Well, at least I have my metrics," I said, throwing myself down on to the couch next to Silver Sea as I examined the freeze frame I'd stopped on. "I must be making you pretty rich."
In the footage, I looked about half a second away from breaking that stupid woman's face. Flushed, my eyes bright green, the lines in my body tense. And next to me, Araxis had been perfectly still, like a bird of prey hanging in the air before a deadly strike.
But I didn't want to think about him, so I chose not to. Instead, I advanced the frame and scowled at the frozen image of Adelaithe's face, paused mid-smile. Her bullshit sweetness, her pouty lips and pinched brows, like she actually gave a shit about me, my feelings, or my experiences.
"What was she trying to do?" I asked, baffled, flashing up the transcript of her 'questions' again. It had bothered me all night: she hadn't asked questions, she'd led me along a merry fucking path and gotten all the airtime she wanted to chat about Seraphim and how mistaken I was.
"The outlet has filed another official request for a meeting with you. I've put them off." Silver Sea plucked away at her wristband. "Do you wish to speak with them?"
"Absolutely not."
"I suspected as much. If anything changes, I will let you know. This has not been beneficial for Grace Mining Initiative: their shares have gone down, and they have lost out on several contracts for asteroids in voltaar territory. More fallout may come."
I snorted. "Yeah, I guess if anyone would get mad about religious imperialism, it would be voltaari.
" I scrubbed at my forehead and tapped the clip shut.
"What's next then? And before you say anything, I have looked at my schedule, so I know it's the same as every day.
But, you know, I mean what's next." I gave her a meaningful look.
Silver Sea blinked several times, and then tapped something on her wristband. A moment later, the room gained a hushed quality, like we'd just slipped underwater. The cameras had gone off. "I have had another request for a meeting."
"More good news, I'm sure. Let me guess," I said. "Someone I once gave a lap dance to has decided to sue me for emotional damages."
She barked out a laugh. "I will keep you apprised of any changes to your legal status, Sashen Solar. I have been speaking with another ketaari who is Araxis of Creche Thiel's handler. He has asked her if you might meet later today – without cameras."
My mouth went dry. Today was Day Ten, and apparently Araxis was still operating under the assumption that we'd be fucking – or at least pretending to for broadcast.
In my mind, there was a box. Last night, I had carefully sorted through every sweet memory I had of him and every soft feeling he stirred in me, and I had folded them up and shoved them inside that box, and sealed the whole thing tight.
And then I'd dug a hole and buried the lot deep down in a place I never went and resolved to never go near again.
Knowing that Araxis apparently thought we were still on, that he was continuing on as if nothing had changed, was like taking a pickaxe to that dark, awful corner of my soul, and with every strike, it became clear that was I was unearthing wasn’t sweet and soft.
It was hardened, brittle, hurt – and it was fucking angry.
"What did the abayan broadcaster mean?" I asked, pulling up the translation of Araxis's exchange with the abayan reporter who had barely looked at me and certainly hadn't referred to me by name. "About forcing the matter?"
Silver Sea's mouth pinched tight for a moment. "I do not know. I found it strange. Abaya can be very secretive about their cultural beliefs. They are a… stiff people."
Araxis had rarely seemed that way with me. Then again, I'd just been a fun little diversion on a trip to his proving ground. I probably hadn't even counted as a person.
Not that it mattered to me now.
"What are the odds he wants to make out with me?" I asked finally, forcing a smile to my face. "They're shy, right? Got all sorts of weird reservations about sex?"
"I suspect you would have a better understanding of that than I would," she said with an amused chortle. "Ketaari find all of it very strange, the shapes you humans and other species bend yourselves into about sexual pleasure."
"To be fair, some species connect sex with reproduction, so you know – there's some baggage there."
She grimaced. "Yes, it is easy to forget.
If you would like, we can arrange for this meeting to happen – the other ketaari and I have been speaking – but I am not willing to do it for free.
I can arrange for there to be no video footage; however, I will require that you consent to audio recording.
The audience is very keen on seeing how you and Araxis of Creche Thiel resolve your… tension."
"So maybe they'd like to hear us resolve that tension?" I joked, feeling sick. "Yeah, sure, whatever. Put it in my schedule with wherever it is I need to go, and I'll go. I'm not making any promises though."
She stood and started typing away, presumably to the purple ketaari who had accompanied us to the media room and still hadn't offered her name.
"You do not need to make promises," she said distantly, ambling toward the door.
"Let your instincts guide you. They reliably produce excellent results – at least for our numbers, and my bottom line.
" She shot me a smug look over her shoulder, and then headed out into the halls beyond.
I couldn't think about Araxis. I didn't want to train around the other participants. I couldn't allow myself to replay that interview. So what did I have between now and my daily interview and that upcoming... appointment with Araxis? I had nothing at all that didn't hurt to think about.
I wished, then, that I had my own wristband with its old Earth media.
I'd have loved to watch some videos about little birds who mate for life and give each other gifts in the desolate tundra.
And I could think of three kids who would have liked that too – well, two in earnest, and one who'd pretend not to care but would ask to see the video three times in a row.
So I went over to my pack, long since thrown into the corner of the closet, and I dug out my old journal. I sat down on the couch with Devala’s blue marker and the notebook, and I started writing.
A long time ago in a place that's very far away, there were three very brave children on an adventure on a strange and wonderful planet called Earth. Here is where they went and what they saw.