Chapter 29 – The Static Between Stars
"What the fuck did you do?" I hissed at Alet Trident's face, which was hovering above my forearm while her eyestalks swivelled every which way.
The spectral outline of her hands occasionally flashed in the projection while she flicked through her constellation of floating screens, only giving me a sliver of her attention.
"You changed your contract," she said, voice thin.
"Yeah, I changed it," I snapped, before wincing.
I was trying to keep my voice down since Nilli was just in the other room bustling about making food.
She'd been asking about food from my childhood and, after a passing mention of cake, had decided to make an abayan equivalent to help 'soothe my nerves.
' "You didn't even tell me about residuals. "
"You did not think to ask, Sashen Solar. You should read contracts carefully before signing." One eye twisted on its stalk to look at me, her skin flushing an angry, mottled purple.
"If you'd been a bit more transparent, I wouldn't have felt betrayed. So you should consider treating your employees – ex-employees – well enough to earn some loyalty."
"Are you making a very expensive call to complain?" she asked, her face shimmering with distortion over the great distance. I'd locked into a couple of pricey relays, but she'd accepted. I was sure I'd receive a bill later with an additional fee for her time.
I sucked in a hard breath, willing myself to grind down the edge of my irritation, which currently felt sharp enough to cut. "I guess I'm looking for some information," I said finally.
The eyestalk twisted back my way. "Are you?" Her voice buzzed with the static of deep space. "It is not free."
Well, I fucking knew that. "I want to tell you a story, and then I want you to tell me if I'm more or less right about what happened. So I'm not asking for new information. I'm asking for confirmation."
Her long mouth flattened. "Fact-checking is expensive. How will you pay?"
Part of me wanted to say that Creche Thiel was going to pay, but I couldn't even think about Araxis without going white-hot with fury, which was chased immediately by a sorrow so deep and black that I knew I could lose myself to it forever if I looked too hard.
I didn't want to owe him anything, not ever.
So I wracked my brain, thinking about what I had that might be valuable.
Besides a couple massive debts and a CPEF claim against me, I was out of anything worth, well, anything.
Although…
"CPEF has ruled a claim against me legitimate," I said.
"Yes, I am aware."
"Are you aware that it also names the other injured parties?"
Her second eyestalk flicked my way. "The investors from Mar?"
"It doesn't give their personal names, but –" I pulled up the file to check. "I've got investment firms. I bet you could work with that. Knowing which ruling warrens are stuck in with Seraphim could be pretty valuable information for the right buyers."
Her breath fluted out her thin nostrils, whistling. "Tell your story, and I will determine if this information is a fair exchange."
The fact that she wasn't insisting that I send the CPEF paperwork first was a good sign. And that her eyestalks had pivoted to look elsewhere at something more interesting. It was a done deal, in Trident's mind anyway.
How the fuck had I ever thought she cared about me in the slightest?
Then again, how had I ever thought Araxis did? How had I believed he could?
The thought was like a spike of ice driven into my chest, and I had to take a moment to catch my breath, looking away at the windows that showed slices of the blackest parts of space.
It hurt; god, did it hurt. But I had to know, didn't I?
No matter what I had signed myself up for, knowing was… essential.
Maybe I would throw myself out of an airlock after all. That was a good back-up option. Oblivion was always waiting, just in case.
"A number of months ago," I said, voice low as I sat on the floor on the far side of the bed, where I'd be hardest to see if Nilli got concerned, "someone from Creche Thiel contacted you. Either they were looking for a virra and had heard you had one, or you'd put the word out yourself."
"They were looking," she said, sounding bored. "Some abayan clients made noises and word got out to a few select circles."
My heart throbbed, pulsing weakly, like the death throes of a sick animal. It was going to get worse. I knew it was.
I swallowed, throat thick and gummy. "Araxis must have come to see me and pick me up.
You just needed a reason for me to leave – and there had been a debt claim against me stuck in limbo for years.
Seraphim tried to file six times; there was no reason this one should have stuck, unless you let it.
It was good leverage to have waiting in the wings for when you needed it.
And you needed it when Araxis wanted me, so you had your friend dust off the last claim and send it through so that I was ripe for the picking. "
Alet Trident was quiet, hovering in the space in front of me.
I shifted, my elbows slumping down to my knees, legs crossed in front of me; the angle made my back pull tight where I was still healing, but I couldn't bring myself to care.
I looked through her translucent projection, humming and flickering across the vast distance of space, toward the windows and into the great void beyond.
I knew what came next. I could see it all now.
"So you sold me, basically. Araxis wanted a virra, and he needed one who would be easy to get to declare for him. "
"I did not sell you," said Alet, nostrils flattening in her angular face. "I simply removed a layer of protection you were not even aware of, for a reasonable finder's fee."
"But – did you plan on having me enter the Tournament?" I asked, throat tight. Because it was one thing to come after me and to – lure me in under false pretenses. It was something else to –
"Yes," said Alet Trident, flat. "Did you think it was coincidence that you kept hearing about it from every client and the other dancers?
Your participation was part of the arrangement.
And you did perform well. Apparently your audience engagement was quite impressive.
" She sniffed, a wet sound that crackled over the wristband's speakers.
"I would have liked those residuals very much. "
I couldn't even muster enough energy to care about the way she spoke about my suffering.
I had expected this – getting the truth, accepting the truth – to hurt, and it did…
but that pain rapidly dissolved like salt in water until I felt nothing.
I was numb, the universe around me slipping away inch by inch, like it had when Andiri had squeezed her fingers around my throat.
I couldn't feel the floor under me, or the weight of my elbows on my knees.
I couldn't feel the soft sweater against my neck or the weight of my head on my shoulders. I was nothing and no one.
They had known all along who I was. Araxis had chosen me, and then pretended everything else that happened had been real: the drawn-out tension between us, the sword-dancing, the thoughtful meals and the late night conversations, how assured he'd been when he kissed me that first time, the plan to participate in the Tournament, even when I met the kids –
He'd been so amazed at how quickly I'd come to love them. That had been another tactic, hadn't it? I would have done anything for them. When it came to weighing my own chance at victory against their lives, of course I would do anything to help Creche Thiel, to help Araxis.
Noble, perfect Araxis.
"I thought I loved him." The words spilled out, aching.
On the call, Alet Trident's eyestalks pinched closer together in concern.
It was the closest she ever came to caring, a proprietary worry about the well-being of an investment.
"I am certain you do," she said. "You can love people who betray you.
You can love people who harm you." Then, with a slow, thin smile, "You even love me in your own way.
You are hungry for it, Sashen. You will pick up scraps of love from the dirt, filthy and discarded, and you will call them a feast. That is who you are. Send the file now."
I tapped on my wristband and sent a copy of the CPEF claim document, and then closed the call without saying goodbye.
She was right, wasn't she?
My feast, which turned my stomach even as I kept devouring. Because now that I knew, now that I knew, all I wanted was to go to Araxis, for him to touch me and explain and make it all okay again.
I sat there on the floor, staring into nothingness, and space had never felt quite so empty or hollow as what was left inside of my chest. Eventually, Nilli found me, cooing her concern and stroking my head and assuring me that my wait would be over soon.
She was sure that tomorrow Araxis would be victorious and that I would be reunited with my sinnenthi.
Tomorrow, she promised me gently, all would be right again.
I didn't tell her that I couldn't tell what was right or what was real any more. I didn't say that I felt like a puppet in a play, pulled by strings I had believed to be stirrings of genuine emotion. A toy, a tool, nothing at all.
Of course that's why he'd wanted me.
And I, a starving fool, hadn't thought to question the outstretched hand.