37 An Unknowable Creature of Air and Water #2
Was that a tremor of insecurity on the normally overconfident princess’s face?
Jealousy? Temmi wouldn’t have thought Spie Expani capable of the emotion.
And that was the problem, wasn’t it? Princess Spielin Expani wasn’t a real person; she was a caricature, a cardboard cutout created for the empire’s consumption.
Spie, however, was a fully fleshed-out woman, as fallible as anyone else.
Temmi might’ve been attracted physically to the princess (it was hard not to be), but something more tender and significantly more terrifying was blossoming for the woman behind the mask.
“Maybe ’cause you’re too busy calling me Trash Girl.” Temmi exhaled a breathy laugh. “You can call me Temmi if you want. But I guess—I guess I kind of like it when you use my full name.”
“Artemis, then.” A shiver ran through Temmi’s core. “It’s a very Expanese name. Roots in Old Terran mythologies.”
“My father’s an Expanese mechanical engineer.”
“That’s right. I remember reading about him in your files. I feel like there’s a lot to unpack there.” Spie slowly un-entwined her hand from Temmi’s to turn it over. Her thumb brushed the brand on Temmi’s palm. “Did this hurt?”
Temmi shrugged one shoulder. “I don’t know. They burned it in the day I was born.”
“They don’t do it here.” Spie showed Temmi both her palms, smooth and brand-free. “Although they just introduced it on the Moons—I didn’t even know until Arbora told me. It feels wrong, doesn’t it? The dehumanization it entails.”
A sentence Temmi never would’ve expected to come out of Spie’s mouth. “You’re not just saying that, are you? You actually mean it.”
Spie stuck out her tongue as though in distaste.
“An incurable disease, empathy. My mother tried to beat it out of me a long time ago. Not that I’ve done anything with it but ignore all that’s broken in the empire.
That’s what’s so easy about being privileged: you can close your eyes and forget that other people are suffering. ”
Temmi stared at the princess, really stared. Took in the way her eyes looked suddenly far away, the way her hands had bunched into fists, the slightly defeated slump of her usually pristine posture. She cared. Spie genuinely cared.
Temmi’s throat grew tight with a sudden lump.
Her chest was too warm and not because of the orrist basalt lying above her shirt.
“Spie,” she asked, breathless for no discernable reason (okay, fine, a very discernable reason that she didn’t want to actually discern).
“What is this?” She gestured between them. “What are we doing?”
“This...We aren’t doing anything. We’re just talking.”
“We both know that’s a lie. We’ve avoided talking about it for weeks.”
Spie scooped sand into her palm and let it sift between her fingers. “You do have a tendency to cut to the heart of matters.” She exhaled a low laugh. “There’s something about you, Artemis. Something that frees me.”
“Frees you from what?”
Spie looked to the sky. “From all of it. From the cage that is being Princess Spielin Expani. From being my mother’s daughter.
From the knowledge that all I’ve ever done is shirk responsibility.
That I’ll never be anything but a disappointment.
That the only thing that matters about me is how I look, how I’m perceived, if I’m desirable enough.
” She lowered her gaze back to Temmi and affected the formal-but-playful tone of a talk show host. “Princess Spie Expani is always down for a good time. Princess Spie Expani is the most beautiful woman in the empire; who wouldn’t want her?
Princess Spie Expani doesn’t need anything more than her hair and fit body to keep the empire’s peace.
” She snorted through her nose. “That’s all I am to Expan.
A pretty face. A good lay. A fun time. Princess Spie Expani isn’t that deep.
I hate it. All of it. Not because they’re wrong but because they’re right. ”
Temmi blinked. “Well, that’s the dumbest fucking thing I’ve ever heard. You’re hot, sure. That’s kinda indisputable. Probably some genetic requirement for running an empire; I don’t know. But I think that might be the least important thing about you.”
Spie’s night-darkened gaze caught Temmi’s.
Moisture brightened the usual intensity of her eyes, but she blinked it away before any tears could fall.
“I’m not sure I believe you, but—with you, I feel like I can just be .
” She crossed her arms over her chest without breaking eye contact.
“Unofficially, I was always the one meant to succeed my mother. It was de cided after Nicky and I were born, though never announced publicly. But I let her down. I—I never wanted the responsibility. Or, I don’t know, maybe I did a little bit and I just didn’t think I could live up to it. So, I didn’t bother trying.
“Now it’s Nicky’s burden, and sometimes, I wonder if he hates me for it.
He’s never said so, but how could he not resent me privately?
He never wanted to be emperor either. He’s too gentle for the brutality the job requires, the loneliness of it, the foreknowledge that to maintain such power means to perpetuate harm.
I’ll have to live with the knowledge that his pain is my fault.
That when he hates himself for who he has to become, who he is already becoming, it’s because of me. ”
This time, the glisten of tears slipped down the hollows of the princess’s cheeks. “I shouldn’t be telling you this.”
Something occurred to Temmi then. “That’s why you were willing to spend two million credits to bring me here.” The wind picked up and Temmi shivered, her bare arms prickling with cold. “You’re trying to ease his burden because you feel responsible.”
Spie wiped at her cheek. “He deserves one thing that brings him joy. Even if it’s fleeting.
And he really likes you, Artemis. I didn’t know if he would when I offered you the money.
It was a shot in the dark. But the way he talks about you, looks at you.
..I’ve never seen him get excited about anyone before.
Ever. He even changed his mind about sending you home, which.
..thank the nebula, but it means he really cares for you.
” She dug her toes into the sand between them.
“Means he might actually be considering choosing you in the end. Our mother will be pissed; New Terra will be pissed, but I couldn’t care less about them.
I should want him to pick you too—that’s what all this is for.
Yet here I am being a shitty sister, yet again, wondering how your lips would feel against mine. ”
Every inch of Temmi’s skin felt suddenly electric. Heat flashed through her core. If she were a better person, she’d stand up, bid the princess a good night, and shove from her mind and body all thoughts of Spie Expani. She’d spare the princess this betrayal.
But Temmi hadn’t been asked to be pitted between brother and sister.
She hadn’t asked for the hot yearning in her gut.
And she’d never been good at denying herself momentary bliss.
Life was a rubber-banded ball sack ninety-nine percent of the time.
So, feel good when you can. Worry about the hangover in the morning.
They might never have a moment like this again. And Temmi needed to know what it felt like. Just once.
“But what if I’m wondering the same thing?”
Temmi’s confession hung in the air between them for a long stretch of a moment. Behind them, the sea quietened. The wind calmed; the moon brightened.
She dropped one hand to Spie’s naked ankle half-submerged in cold sand. Trailed her fingers up to the princess’s knee. Spie’s skin was cold and bumpy with gooseflesh and sand.
Spie shivered, then inched closer. She lifted her hand to Temmi’s jaw, brought her thumb to Temmi’s lower lip, and pressed gently into the plump flesh. Temmi leaned into Spie’s touch, took the tip of her thumb between her teeth. Brushed her tongue against the princess’s skin. Tasted salt.
It was a game of chicken. Two women who weren’t meant to be together careening toward each other at the speed of sound, each daring the other to veer away, neither wanting to. Collision was inevitable. Collision spelled destruction.
“Artemis.” Low, husky, full of need.
Temmi’s eyes practically rolled back in her head. She fully sucked the tip of Spie’s thumb.
And then the thumb was gone, the royal hand wrapping around the back of Temmi’s neck, the royal mouth so close, it blotted out the existence of the ocean, the beach, the cold night sky. Spie’s breath fluttered against Temmi’s lips.
Temmi sought to close the remaining distance, those excruciating final centimeters, but as she pressed forward, Spie retreated.
Millimeter forward, millimeter back, noses brushing, lips never quite touching.
A dance. An infinite breakdown of distance, the destination ever closer but never reachable.
A torture of almost, of pleasure built and held at bay.
“Damn you, Spie Expani,” Temmi growled. “You egotistical, selfish woman.”
Spie’s elusive lips brushed Temmi’s. The ghost of a kiss rather than a kiss. Faint enough to still be deniable.
Fuck that.
Temmi knotted her hands in the loose sweater hanging off the princess and tugged her closer. “Kiss me for real.”
“You’re sure that’s what you want? That I’m not compelling you or forcing you because of who I am? I don’t want to—”
“I said fucking kiss me, Your Highness.”
Spie Expani grinned, tangled her hands in Temmi’s hair, and obliged.