Chapter 18 #2
"Sentelli, enough." Nizanin's light voice cut through the tornado starting to rip through my mind, shredding my thoughts to pieces.
Sentelli stepped back, falling into place at Nizanin's side again, the blaster back in his grip and glinting darkly at his side as it tilted in my direction.
My own hand raised, unbidden, to my throat, curling against my skin protectively.
My eyes were hot with unshed tears and I forced myself to blink, staring down at the edge of Tam's messy desk.
I sucked in a hard breath, but the air only smelled like blood and the sharp tang of blaster fire, and despite my best fucking effort, I couldn't stop my hands from shaking.
"You see," murmured Nizanin, and although I wasn't looking at them, I was sure they were staring at me with that same eerie, unmoving attention, "We are all friends here."
I suppressed a shiver, and let my stare drift down to the floor.
"Maybe don't threaten to shoot me as soon as Araxis comes in," I said in Standard.
"If you want to have a conversation." Then, with a furtive glance at Nizanin, I added in abayan, "My sinnenthi cares for me well.
He – protects me. He will –" Fuck, how did I say flip his fucking lid if you open the door and your guard dog has his blaster pointed at me?
Why hadn't my lessons ever covered that vocabulary?
"He will have concern?" I tried, wincing even as it came out.
All the words I could normally find were drifting away, scattering like motes of light before my desperate grasp.
Nizanin leaned back in their chair, slow.
Their hands rested on the table in front of them, carefully clasped.
"Hm. Ankalas, greet Araxis of Creche Thiel in the hall and assure him of the safety of his virra.
Sentelli, see that your weapon is holstered, and your impulses are well in hand.
" Ankalas stepped around the desk, swiping past me and jostling my shoulder.
"And say that Elethenn is safe too," I added before she left, twisting in my seat. Ankalas's black eyes stared holes into me before she ducked out, and I turned back to look at Nizanin, scrambling to correct my grammar. "Apologies, I meant would you say Elethenn is safe too? Please –"
Nizanin clicked their talons at me again, and I again fell to dutiful silence. "He is worth little to you," they said. "He was discarded by his former creche, and he has conducted himself poorly tonight, and other times as well. He would be an insignificant loss."
I wanted to say, not to Creche Thiel – but, fuck, didn't that just give them more leverage? So instead, I tried, "Araxis is a very good head of house. He takes his duties seriously. He will… protect us all."
Nizanin smiled, then, the expression slowly unfurling across their features as if they had to move each muscle individually.
"He takes some duties seriously," they amended, and then pointedly, deliberately, reached and tapped the juncture of their own neck and shoulder, where the collar of my shirt had slipped a little and which would have been covered if someone hadn't stolen my fucking jacket.
"That's private," I snapped, before wisdom or good sense could catch up with me. And then horror cascaded through my body, a physical wave of ice and sharp-edged adrenaline. Now wasn't the fucking time for my mouth to get ahead of me.
Across from me, Nizanin blinked in surprise. "Hm. Tell me more."
Well, I'd made this bed, so I'd better lie my way through it, I thought distantly, frantically, trying not to let that show on my face.
I reached for the words and did my best to find them, which was particularly challenging for something that was also mostly a lie.
Although lying in another language was easier than in one I was more fluent in: I struggled for words and spoke awkwardly no matter what in abayan.
"The mark means something else for humans," I tried, heart hammering.
"It means – owning, like a thing. It means – I would be not deserving of respect.
I want it when I can have it and feel it the abayan way.
Araxis knows that now, so until then, we wait.
" Then I added one of the pretty stock phrases Inmadra always had me practice.
"Apologies for speaking with inelegance. I am a novice, as you know."
"Perhaps a novice," said Nizanin, "but a fascinating creature nonetheless. It is a comfort to hear that your Araxis tends to you in such a gentle way. But he was trained in the old ways, our most honourable and ancient practices. I should not be surprised. Ah, he must be arriving now."
I didn't know how Nizanin could say that: maybe they had supersonic hearing or something.
What I did know was that the door behind me creaked open and Araxis stepped into the fucking mess I'd found myself in.
His stare skated over the room, dark and incisive, taking in Nizanin, the body, Elethenn's state, and then settling on me.
Araxis stepped over Tam's legs and turned his back on Nizanin, imposing himself between us in an easy motion and facing me while Ankalas shut the door with a loud click. Behind Nizanin, I could see that Sentelli had let one hand drift to his blaster, although he didn't move to unholster it.
I barely noticed that detail through my peripheral vision, because in truth, the only thing I saw was Araxis, his ink-black eyes looking down at me. "Are you well?" he asked. He shrugged out of his jacket as I nodded, trying to communicate everything with him just through our locked stare.
I didn't know what the fuck was going on. These three knew things, things no one should know, and we were in danger here. Real fucking danger, and I was the one who'd put us here.
But if Araxis was worried, it didn't show on his features.
"Lean forward," he murmured, and I did, and he draped his jacket carefully across my shoulders.
All at once, I was enveloped in the smell of his skin, like spice and smoke, and I shivered beneath the fabric.
His long fingers pulled the lapels closer.
He then raised his hand and brushed the side of my face before his stare dropped to my wrist, held against my chest. Araxis sank down to a crouch before me. "Show me."
I extended my wrist, already puffy and bruised. He held it gently in his hands. "It was an accident, I think," I said, refusing to look at Ankalas who was probably glowering at me. Behind Araxis, Sentelli had leaned over to hiss in Nizanin's ear, no doubt translating our conversation.
But I didn't care. Araxis was here, and so everything had to be okay. Araxis looked at me and nodded, touching the skin so gently that it didn't even hurt.
"I'm okay," I added. "It's just been a weird night."
How he managed to smile at me in these circumstances was beyond me, and yet he did. "Yes," he said, eyes warm as he looked up at me, "I imagine it has been."
"Sorry to add another meeting to your schedule," I tried, and although I did my best to smooth out the wobble in my voice, I could hear how unsteady I sounded. "I didn't know – I – You know that I thought we might... do other things with our time."
Impossibly, he trilled, short and sharp. "It is unexpected for us both, but such is creche business. I had also hoped that we might enjoy some dancing before retiring for the evening. I had hoped I might visit your apartment."
I felt like if I laughed, I was going to sound absolutely mad, but I could feel it bubbling up inside of me and threatening to spill out, panicked and wild.
"You know, I'm free after this," I said, almost breathless.
"We could make plans. I'd like to take you back to my place. I'd like to go dancing."
Araxis's mouth hooked up at one corner and he fluted out a breath.
"You are dressed for it. We'll have to see how weary I am after this next conversation.
" And then, finally, he set my wrist back in my lap, standing and shifting carefully to the side of my chair, hand settling on my shoulder as he looked at Nizanin.
He still hadn't so much as glanced in Elethenn's direction, as if he hadn't even noticed – although of course I knew Araxis must have.
My stomach was tight and roiling; I let myself look at Elethenn, just to check, my heart lurching in my chest. Elethenn sat, his head tipped forward, his eyes nearly closed, although I could still make out the barest sliver of black.
Ankalas still loomed behind us at the door; our stares met, and I immediately whipped my head back around, not wanting to provoke any more of her attention.
Nizanin, however, seemed entirely unbothered, blinking slowly as Sentelli straightened, now that we were finished speaking.
"Araxis of Creche Thiel," Nizanin said. "I have heard a great deal about you, and yet I find that you are not quite as expected. "
Araxis's fingers tightened, although he was unmoving beside me. "I'm afraid I cannot say the same," he said, voice quiet and soft. "Violence follows in your wake."
Nizanin's eyes glinted. "Ah, you misunderstand the scene into which you have walked.
Here: we have brought your Sashen a gift, to demonstrate the value we place in our relationship.
" They glanced at Sentelli, who nodded and stepped off to the side of the room where he plucked a small crate from the floor.
He set it on a pile of papers on Tam's desk, and then stepped back.
"Would you care to open this?" Nizanin asked me, stare crackling with some sort of energy I couldn't quite place.
"Hm, his wrist is hurt," said Araxis. "I will open it." He stepped forward and clicked open the latches, shielding the contents of the box from me with his body. There was a beat of silence, and then the lid clicked shut again.
"Do you not think he should look, to confirm we found the right one?" asked Nizanin, mouth curling on one side as their slow smile grew self-satisfied.