Chapter 2 #3
I'd huffed, throwing a little bouncy ball I’d picked up at the market against my kitchen wall and jerking my hand up to catch it.
I rocked the chair I was perched on, balancing it on two legs and shooting her projection a sideways look.
"No," I said. "It's the same. I love him, and it's fucking awful.
" And then I'd thrown the ball so hard that it ricocheted off the wall and back into the cups I had drying on the counter, two of which pitched off the surface and broke on the floor.
I'd hung up not long after that, irritated at myself and at Araxis and at – at everything. How unfair it all was. How cruel.
Because it should have been impossible, loving him in the way that I did while he seemed fine to pull away, bit by bit, without ever giving me time to figure this out.
And the intensity of what I felt when I allowed myself to acknowledge it – in the quiet moments when I walked between wards; while he held me as I tried to breathe after a nightmare; when he looked at me sideways during a meeting with a private smile and a knowing look; when he listened patiently to one of our creche-mates, kind and generous even though he was stretched so thin – felt like I had swallowed a star and was trying to keep the light from leaking from my pores.
This love felt like it might tear me apart if I let myself feel it.
Because, sure, he wanted to apologize – but he never sounded like he meant it.
He sounded like he was reciting another entry on our to-do list on the days I was working.
We will meet with Creche Eshos to finalize our contract for textiles.
I have an appointment with a tailor; you can accompany me, if you like, and we'll have some clothes made.
I would like to apologize to you, if you're willing to hear it. There is a creche dinner tonight.
I thought there was a good chance the complexity of what I was feeling would, in fact, shred my squishy human brain, if the repeated batterings in the gym combined with hours of language study every day didn't get there first.
I hated trying to think about Araxis and how I felt about him and what he was to me, so instead, nearly four weeks into our time on Sozamia, I just sat on a grimy little bench in Radiant Ward, sipping on one of the electrolyte drinks that Tam had gotten me hooked on, and I flicked through the document I'd started to put together about the different creches we'd met with so far.
The information was embarrassingly scant: I had creche names, the representatives, and if I thought they'd been dicks in the meeting.
I knew Creche Eshos wanted us to bring back some luxury goods from their provisioner on Sozamia.
Creche Idrelli needed a particular alloy for their ship manufacturing, which apparently was connected to Thelessia in some way.
Creche Amadath wanted Araxis to support their proposal around lowering the import tax on ketaar-made building components.
It was pathetic, but I hadn't yet figured out how to do all of this – how to be a good virra; how to remake myself; how to sit with all of these fucking feelings – while also doing some light spying, or whatever.
I flashed my display off, slinging one arm across the back of the bench and breathing in the cool, greasy air of Radiant Ward.
I was just around the corner from Tam's gym.
The loose neck of my shirt was dark with sweat, and I scrubbed a hand through my damp waves.
Today, Tam had gotten me in a nasty grapple after a few hours of pounding away on some punching bags and doing some drills, and despite that, I'd managed to worm my way out from beneath his massive red hands and get enough distance to crack him in the sternum with my elbow.
He'd still slammed my head into the wall and made me spit blood all over the floor, but the point was I was getting better, demonstrably!
And I was pretty sure I'd understood what Avelthe and Yalrinn were gossiping about when they'd been chattering away in the kitchen that morning: apparently, Avelthe had struck up a correspondence with an old flame and Yalrinn was helping him keep that from Evreni because, and I quote, we all deserve to have a little fun, even if our Araxis will not do the same for his virra.
And then they'd looked pointedly at me before wandering away, carrying a tray of tea to their spouse who I'd once thought of as paranoid but now thought of as appropriately suspicious.
My head hurt too much to think about compiling details about politics and trade agreements, though, so I picked myself up and headed toward my apartment, glancing at the time.
I had the whole afternoon to myself, since I'd already met with Inmadra in the morning and then let Tam brutalize me mid-day.
I could pick up some food and start on the pile of homework Inmadra had sent me.
If I was particularly efficient, I might even let myself watch some broadcast. I was extremely behind on the latest season of Across the Timescape.
That sounded like a good way to spend my time, right?
Doing things I wanted to do. It was my day off.
That's what I was supposed to do. Maybe I'd even see if Khrelen Tintissi could take a call back on Yellow Fin.
He'd poached all of my favourite clients from the other dancers, so no doubt there was a lot of gossip to catch up on.
Telling myself firmly that I was satisfied with my plan, I cut across the courtyard outside of my apartment, doing a quick scan of the vendors – I might be able to pop by and chat with Elethenn; I needed to practice conjugation based on perceived social hierarchy, and he'd been bringing steamed buns lately which were more or less the greatest thing I'd ever eaten – but his cart wasn't there.
I paused and did another scan, squinting.
There weren't any abayan vendors at the market. In fact, the market looked noticeably emptier without their presence; abaya had to make up about a quarter of the vendors who were here on any given day.
Weird. "Hey," I said, drawing near one of the carts that served these fried little bug nuggets I'd grown quite fond of. "Is there something happening today? There aren't any abaya here."
The auvril blinked up at me with her massive, glossy eyes as she worked a pan of bugs over a small flame. "Some speaker," she said, beak clicking a couple times in a tic that meant she was feeling a little harried. "At the abayan cultural centre. You want any of these?"
I nodded, and she dumped the pan into a waiting paper cone.
The brin sitting off to the side on the lip of a dry fountain, which had become, instead, just a bowl of refuse, cried out in protest. The auvril pressed the cone into my hands.
"He tips, and he doesn't complain when there are extra legs!
" she snapped. "Maybe if you want to cut the line, you should be a better customer, Solna! "
I paid for my food, and I paid for Solna's too.
And then I asked the vendor if she could send me a ping with the cultural centre address, which she did while frying her next batch.
Solna, placated by the promise of free bugs, had gone back to rifling through the garbage in the fountain, looking either for treasures or, I don't know, more bugs.
I pulled up the map of the ward on my display as I started crunching on the spicy beetles, the location of the cultural centre glowing as a soft yellow dot.
It was out of the way and on the other side of a tangle of twisting tunnels I'd heard someone call the Graves because, from what I'd gleaned from the few news stories that made it out of Radiant, it wasn’t uncommon occurrence to come across bodies that had been dumped there.
But I was pretty sure they were just dumped in the warren of alleyways with its endless dark corners and shadows, rather than being murdered there, so I decided to risk it – and what I'd learned about Radiant Ward so far was that, if you didn't fuck with people you should leave well enough alone, you'd be fine.
Everyone minded their own fucking business, which is why I liked it so much.
So, crunching on my bugs and shrugging on a protective posture of nonchalance, I picked up the pace and headed into the Graves.
It became clear very quickly that these alleys made no geographical sense at all, having seemingly been carved out of a series of warehouses and defunct refineries so that hallways split into rooms before opening into broader thoroughfares, none of which was remotely intuitive.
If I hadn't downloaded a map of the area, I'd have been lost before I realized it.
I tapped the brightness down on my display, dumping the paper cone in an overflowing waste bin before threading through the haphazard series of hallways, switchbacks, short staircases, and branching rooms that had somehow become streets.
It wasn't good to advertise in a place like this that you weren't exactly sure where you were going.
I carefully ignored anyone I saw when I rounded corners, and they, in turn, happily ignored me.
Which was good. I wasn't sure the ward guards even came down here, except maybe if they were dumping bodies of their own.