forty-two #2
We feed off the spiritual matter of our host planets as much as we give back. It matches the law of physics, which says that all actions must have an equal reaction.”
“You learn this in school, huh?” Sulim asked Mira beside her.
“We learn this before school,” she replied. “To live is to breathe; to breathe is to live. It means that the very nature of a spatial world implies we were meant to be here, and vice versa.”
“Bit too esoteric for me, thanks,” Sonall interrupted. “How do we deal with this bastard?”
“Easy.” Ramaron snatched the market and tossed it between his hands. “Find the two Relics. Secure their safety. Should Nerilis arrive, well… perhaps we stand a chance.”
“You’re going to reach out to allies on Yahzen, yes?” Mira asked before the humans in attendance could balk at the thought of going up against the most powerful sorcerer in the universe. “We’re going to need all of the sorcerical power we can muster.”
“I’m trying. It’s difficult to know not only who we can trust, but if they’ll act.”
“Let’s focus on these Relics,” Olma suggested. “Where, what, and who they might be with. Because if we don’t have access to them here among Second Tribe land, it will be up to us to do some negotiations of our own with the other tribes. And that’s not easy.”
Especially First Tribe. Sulim didn’t think that just because her own allies were over in Third Tribe.
First Tribe was bigger than both Second and Third combined, comprising entire armies for hire.
Spear City was the largest settlement on Cerilyn, boasting dozens of casinos, brothels, taverns, and fighting clubs.
And, certainly, the Chief of First Tribe was a dour woman who made bad bets and enjoyed the power it brought her.
Third Tribe are fucked in their own way, but I understand them.
Sulim would never understand how denizens of First Tribe got on.
The brainstorming session lasted the rest of the meeting, with the humans making practical suggestions about what the Relics could be while the julah clung to their usual metaphysical stock.
It didn’t help that they often reverted to Julah when discussing things among themselves, despite everyone in the room being natively fluent in Basic as well.
Sulim was used to Mira switching between languages with ease, but for a matter as important as this, she wished they could see how they left the humans behind.
She brought this up when everyone else left.
She also meant to bring something else up, but Olma returned to the apartment that was once hers and announced that she and Mira needed to go over “practical, boring, tribal matters.”
For while Mira was putting a moratorium on new contracts, there was still work among the fortress.
Like assignments. The purchasing of supplies.
Oh, and where was the money to do so coming from now they weren’t bringing in an income?
“Worry about that tomorrow,” Sulim said when she and Mira were alone again. “Tonight, you should focus on the reason you became chief. You’ve given up a lot to be here.”
Mira lurked behind the sofa that separated the meeting area from the bedroom. “Have I?”
Sulim looked askance at her from the table.
“I’ve given up my parents’ names. Only my mother’s name hurts a little. I’ve gone by ‘Mira Lerenan’ for so much of my life that I sometimes thought I really was the scion of House Lerenan. But no. I was the despondent daughter of House Dunsman,
who has now distanced themselves from two maculate scions. I truly am my father’s daughter. In their eyes, I mean.”
“Your career…”
“As a priestess?” Despite wearing her Temple whites for lack of any other wardrobe, Mira now courted a vulgarity that did not match the holy airs she had put on. “Asha, I only became a priestess to follow in my mother’s footsteps—and to atone for my father’s sins.”
Sulim clutched the back of her chair, desperate to go to her girlfriend and assure her that, surely, she had other, grander ulterior motives for going into the priesthood.
Yet she knew it was futile. Mira had said what she said because it was her truth.
It was painted on her countenance like the stars swathed the night sky—only the unknown creator could have rearranged them.
“What about the other life?” Sulim did not get up, but she pushed her face farther forward, whispering. “Why did the other you become priestess?”
Mira’s demeanor did not deign to change as she considered that. “Because I didn’t know what else to do. Family business.”
“I think there must have been another reason.”
Chuckling, Mira made her way to the bedroom. “Because my mother was beautiful and passionate, whom everyone loved, and I wanted nothing more than to be like her.”
Sulim finally got up, dashing from the ascetic living area to the bedroom.
A large bed lumbered against the wall, taking up much of the space, with its plush comforter and spacious pillows suddenly reminding Sulim of something that had left her stomach sour and her mind full of lies for a singular moment.
Yet when Mira closed the sheer curtain behind them and erected a ward of indifference to keep any visitors away, Sulim remembered what she had wanted to say.
“And I love you. As far as I’m concerned, you’re well-loved, passionate priestess.”
Mira stood at the foot of the gigantic bed, her visage softening as they faced the later hours together. “I wish you could have met her in this reality. She really liked you.”
Sulim wondered if she were blushing. “She loved the me who wasn’t a mercenary.” She didn’t touch on the married part—let alone to whom. “I’m sure I was more refined.”
“You might be surprised.” Mira gestured to the bed.
“Are you staying tonight?” The hopeful voice only served to make Sulim more self-aware of how she behaved.
This is where Ayna Aiya once… She didn’t like to think about it.
While Sulim didn’t consider herself a victim, looking back, she understood why others put down their hard-earned pay to end the bitch.
Since Mira became chief, she either didn’t sleep in here or Sulim had conveniently been elsewhere for the night. This was the first time one directly addressed the other.
“Sulim…”
“It’s just… the last time I was in here…” She hated that nothing had changed. Olma had changed nothing, including the ostentatious bedspread that boasted tassels on the fringe. Tacky. That was the least of its crimes. “Well, Ayna Aiya was chief. You know what she was like.”
Mira’s jaw was set in place as Sulim’s knowledge got comfortable in this strange space. “I see. You never told me.”
“I mean, it wasn’t like that. I was a recruit. She had a taste for young… women…”
“Did she hurt you?”
Sulim’s mouth was open, but she couldn’t speak.
Can I answer that? Honestly? She acknowledged that she had little choice in the situation, but she hadn’t experienced the harrowing tales that some of the old chief’s “favorites” cursed in the middle of the night.
She hadn’t been cut, branded, or bruised for acting out of turn or accidentally saying the wrong thing.
She hadn’t been commanded to betray her sexuality, her ethics, or the religion of her homeland.
But it had been wrong. And Sulim knew that, should Ayna Aiya continue to live, those very things would have happened to her eventually. They did to everyone.
“Not like that.” If she could be meek in front of anyone, it was Mira, who was one of the few to have seen her cry since coming to this place. “But I don’t care for this bed. Even if you took me in it next, I’m afraid it wouldn’t be enough to wash away the stains of a hundred others.”
“You mean the ones she hurt.”
“Yeah…”
“In this bed. Where I hear she was found. Dead.”
“Your handiwork.”
Mira smirked, lips glistening in the muted light. “A fitting place for her to meet her end?”
“Ah…”
Mira turned, waving her hand until the bedspread ripped off its mattress and folded itself on the floor.
Fingers twitched, and pillows rearranged.
The sheets were stripped before Sulim’s widening eyes.
The tepid scent of womanly musk, of fields of wildflowers, accompanied Mira’s sorcery as she turned the bed inside out and slashed through its fabric with the dagger looped in Sulim’s belt.
She didn’t even know it had been pulled from her grasp.
“You’re right,” Mira cheerily said. “We should burn this thing. Get ourselves a new one.”
“Ourselves, huh?”
“Of course. You’re mine, aren’t you?”
Sulim’s throat was dry. Does she know that’s what she used to say to her girls?
“And I’m yours,” Mira reminded her. “Nothing happens here without us wanting it.”
She approached, finger beneath Sulim’s chin as she tilted back her head and closed her eyes. Sulim accepted the open-mouthed kiss that soon pressed her against the wall, her other dagger clattering to the floor as Mira undressed her soulmate using nothing but sorcery.
Sulim understood. They would change the energy of this room.
They would transform it from a place of bad memories to one of their own.
Nobody else would ever come in here again.
From that night on, until the potential end of the world, the human Sulim was as equal as the sorceress who purified the bed and renewed it from the inside out.
Just like she did to Sulim a few minutes later.