thirty-seven #2
“So funny, Sul.” Once she was halfway down, he followed, pulling the door closed atop them. Once the giant clang! finished echoing in his ears, he continued, calling down to her, “I’ll have you know it was the same girl I’ve been visiting the past few weeks! From Raindrop!”
“The redhead?” Sulim lightly jumped down past the last two rungs, her boots absorbing most of the shock of her landing. “All night, huh?”
“I had to wait for her to be in the mood.”
Sulim couldn’t scurry ahead of him quickly enough. “After which you wooed her the only way you know how!”
“And what were you doing, huh?” He caught up to her quickly. “Wooing the priestess?”
“Actually, it’s mostly her wooing me. You know me.” She patted his cheek before skipping ahead. “I like it when others do the work.”
“Fucking pillow princess,” was what she heard as she jogged down the concrete tunnel to the fortress. “You have a type!”
“So do you, slut!”
“I’m not the slut!” he shouted back. “You—”
“Hey! Watch it! I’m a lady!”
“My ass you are!”
They joined the fray of an active mercenary fortress on a typical morning.
Servants hustled through the corridors, performing the infinite loop of cleaning, airing out, and gossiping.
Recruits who lived on the lower levels milled about the public spaces—some were already gambling or getting into scraps so early in the day.
As they passed the entrance to the infirmary, the woman in charge, Narlami, reminded them that they were both due their semi-annual physicals.
Neither was inclined to make a reservation for her time right there.
“Over-under on us having a job?” Sulim was reminded of making bets when she saw two young recruits arguing over whether someone was using a weighted die. “Or are we going through another lull where Olma is distracted by domestic matters instead of getting us work and making us retirement money?”
Sonall was caught up saying hello to someone who intercepted them at the intersection of corridors. When he rejoined Sulim on their way to the chief’s office, he said, “Don’t know about you, but I’m okay with a month off to bust some recruits’ heads instead of, I dunno, killing people some more.”
“Mm.” They navigated upstairs and down another hall, the passageways becoming narrower as they reached a higher security clearance.
Luckily, the chief trusted them both enough to give them carte blanche clearance up until they reached her office.
“I thought you were keen on making as much as you can.”
“Hey, with you managing my investments, I’ll already be a millionaire when I’m out of here in another ten years. Everything else is just more reasons to drink.”
You’re already a millionaire. You were before, too.
Sulim did not voice either of these out loud.
He didn’t need reminding. Although, yes, I’ve seen his portfolio.
I’m in charge of it. Sulim didn’t advertise how adept she had become at the Federation market, if only because she didn’t want everyone asking for her help.
Never mind how many already didn’t understand that investments were not liquid, and no, they couldn’t rob her and hope to get off Cerilyn before Sonall killed them.
The fewer people who knew about her ability to make people rich from only a few thousand dollars, the better.
Besides, she had impetus—not only for herself, but for Sonall, who had suffered more trauma than her on his journey to Cerilyn.
The crew that had been assigned the assassination of his parents and the recruitment of him and his sister had done a bang-up job.
Mother and father died. Sister died. A few more casualties.
And a teenager en route to Cerilyn forfeited his inheritance.
The sister did not last long. If Sulim had not befriended the Gardiah recruit in time, Sonall might have killed himself.
Well, directly. He slowly killed himself with alcohol and other bad habits every day.
And he wants me to retire back to Arrah with him?
Sulim knew what that would look like. Sure, they could afford a piece of land and a house to put on it, but once the adrenaline wore off?
Once the cold winters settled in? Once Sonall was no longer the center of attention no matter where he went?
Oh, then it would be about weaning himself off whatever substance kept him afloat, and Sulim did not want to be his therapist. Or his mother, for that matter.
Besides… she had plenty of plans with Mira already. Sulim fancied herself viable for a Garlahzian visa, where she could study and be of some use to the locals. Even the julah ones.
And maybe wear clothes that weren’t black again…
A bodyguard was posted outside of the chief’s office door.
Sulim greeted her with a lazy Cerilynian salute and asked Giselle how things “were going.”
The Cachayan woman with long, black braids adorned with colorful beads and a figure to rival Sulim’s checked her holographic clipboard for their appointment and let them in.
Usually, Chief Olma’s office was the picture of organization.
She had done little to change it up from the previous chief, which was hilarious to Sulim, because the garish curtains on the latticed windows were always down to keep the oppressive heat out, and nothing looked sillier next to plain and stoic Olma than frilly curtains, an ornate desk,
and the clash of dark greens and golds alongside dark woods was like the universe attempted to put a personality upon a woman who let it wash over her like she didn’t even notice it in the room with her.
Today, however, Sulim thought about calling for a medic because Olma was moving.
“Uh…” She barricaded her arm across the doorway to keep Sonall from entering. He stood behind her, hands on his hips while letting out a whistle. “Should we come back later?”
Olma turned around in front of the closed curtains, her eyes wild, mouth slightly agape, and sweat streaming down her arms.
The fuck? The woman was usually the image of clean and composed.
The whole reason she was chosen as the last chief’s second-in-command was because she knew how to run this ship without getting distracted by the usual assortment of vices that plagued most of the higher-ranking mercenaries.
I’m the anomaly around here. Sulim and Olma had that in common, except Sulim also had a love life.
“What’s going on?” Sulim asked. “Was your office broken into?”
Olma slammed both hands on her desk, her thick arms flexing with sweat as the screen on her computer flickered. “Sorry,” she grunted. “I lost track of time… and slept like shit.”
“Well, we’re here for our—”
“I know. I have no work for you at the moment. Come back next week. Please, go.” She slammed shut a drawer that contained nothing. “Sorry. I’m… had a long night. Go.”
They didn’t have to be told twice. When the door closed behind them, Sulim turned to Giselle, who shrugged while leaning against the wall.
“She’s been like that since I started my shift,” she told them.
“Just in her own head while turning her office inside-out. I was hoping that having some meetings today would help her calm down, but nothing.”
A crash, followed by a loud curse, echoed from the office.
“Great. Last time I checked in on her after a big sound, she yelled at me for bothering her. Do you know how hard it is to be a bodyguard when your boss won’t let you exist?”
“I’ve done enough bodyguard assignments, yes.”
Giselle snorted. “Then you know how it is. Be grateful you don’t have to do my job.”
Sulim took that to heart while escorting Sonall back to the main corridor. “What the hell is that about?” he asked when she dropped her hand from his arm.
“No idea, but I don’t like it. Olma is the star by which we all point our ships. She’s the only one around here who has a level head on her shoulder, so if she’s—”
“Not getting us work?”
Sulim did not appreciate him interrupting her, but said nothing about it. “Everyone’s acting weird lately. Actually, you’re the only one who isn’t.”
“I dunno. Giselle seemed normal.”
Shaking her head, Sulim headed toward the mess hall the moment it opened for lunch. Sonall eventually followed, and they spent their light meal discussing what must have been in the water while a string of people stopped by to ask if they knew why the chief was acting strange.
The fact that everyone noticed, but nobody knew why… foreboding. Sulim had been a mercenary long enough to trust her gut, and her gut told her that something had changed the natural reverberations in the air. If she wasn’t careful, she might get caught up in it, too.
After conferring with Kema and Hannu, which confirmed what Mira suspected, she told them to go back to Yahzen and pack whatever they could carry. She apparently needed them there on Cerilyn. Or, at least, her mother had sent them there to perform some task.
They know. That was what Mira contemplated as she waited, knowing it would take both Hannu and Kema a few hours to figure out what to pack and procure some money to fund their stay.
Mira was to make them reservations at the better inn in town, since there was zero room for an extra body in her humble Temple, but was soon distracted by the thoughts that plagued her.
They know.
Kema was the first to confess what Mira had already deduced—that she remembered another life, one in which she ended up on Arrah alongside Mira and her mother.
“Knowing that I once walked with and spoke to Her Holiness… I can hardly believe it. What does it mean?”
When Hannu chimed in with corroborating stories, Mira knew what was true in her gut all along.
She wasn’t the only one to Cross.
But why did Kema and Hannu remember, but not Sulim?
None of what Sulim said or did suggested that she actually knew about their life together in another world.
We have a bigger life together here, let’s be real.
The two of them had no impediments to a relationship here on Cerilyn, where Mira’s biggest crisis was Sulim’s youth and the fact that she was technically a parishioner.
Keeping their romance a secret for a few years had been easy enough, and Mira liked to think that her charms had helped to protect her beloved out on missions.