Chapter 29 #4
I saw the flash of shadow in the meeting room and I let a cascade of words bubble up inside of me, desperate. "Okay, okay, you're right, you win. I'm sorry, I'll defer – whatever you need me to say or do, I will, I promise. Please –"
I like to think that it was the pleasure of having me beg that distracted her in that final moment.
I like to think it was her over-confidence that played against her as she watched me pleading, her features flushing with smug satisfaction.
Because, with her dark eyes trained fully on me, her shoulders angled forward, her stare hungry, she didn't feel the shift in the air behind her or hear the soft step against the wood floor.
She didn't notice anything at all until Elethenn surged up and in one vicious, confident motion, snapped Crozani's neck, her body falling limp to the floor in front of him.
I wheezed out a sound that might have been a grim laugh, even as my skin still crawled with the buzzing remnants of blaster fire, my chest aching.
I pushed myself to my unsteady feet and staggered, my body still not fully under my control; distantly, I was aware that the muscles of my shoulder were pulsing with red and ragged pain, and I was pretty sure from the sharp ache in my side that I'd torn my stab wound open too – but I couldn't think too much about that. I didn't have time.
"Give me my wristband." I moved forward, skirting Rodil's corpse, stepping over Crozani's, my hand extended as Elethenn stared at the violence that had been done here. "Elethenn," I said, sharpening my tone.
He gave his head a tiny shake, and then Elethenn pulled it from a pocket and placed it in my hand.
I called Araxis immediately. "Sashen –" he started the moment the call went through, his face hovering above my wrist, eyes pinched as a razor-sharp subvocal whined through the speakers of my wristband.
"I'm okay," I said, fast. "I've got Talvi and I've –"
I hesitated, looking at Elethenn, who had stepped back firmly against the wall of our bedroom, hands folded behind his back, head tilted downward, his arms trembling. A submissive posture.
"I've got Elethenn," I finished. "Rodil's dead and – fuck, Crozani of Creche Naival was here, and she's fucking dead too. But I got it all on audio. I recorded it all. Went full conglomerate on them. I thought – I thought we'd need that, right?"
"Sashen," repeated Araxis, firm. "Beloved. Stay where you are. I will come to you with a transport. But it may take me a few minutes once I arrive in the ward. I do not trust the guards; I'm doing my best to avoid raising attention."
I nodded, threading through the meeting room and into the hallway toward the kitchen – I'd deal with Elethenn later – so I could check on Talvi, who I found happily eating some snacks Elethenn must have dug out. "Is there anything I need to get while I'm here?"
"We can replace anything. And I am certain we can arrange for anything left behind to be sent to us in Xitera.
What cannot be replaced is you, Sashen. Be ready to move when I give word and then we'll determine what to do next.
" A ragged sound escaped his throat as he looked at me, the skin around his eyes tight.
"At some point, we will need to discuss your tendency to throw yourself into peril when I can't get to you. "
I pulled up short, looking at the projection of his perfect face.
"You can scold me as much as you want once we're all back on our ship," I said, my chest warm in a way that had nothing to do with being shot a couple of times.
"But I'll always put myself on the line for you and the people I love.
" His expression softened, and I blew him a kiss and promised I'd see him soon before ending the call.
I paused long enough to pull Talvi into a tight hug until they squirmed, restless, against me, and then I kissed their forehead. "You wait here," I said. "I've got to talk to Elethenn before our Araxis comes and picks us up."
Talvi nodded sagely, wiggling out from under my hands. "You smell like blood," they said, nostrils flaring.
Fuck, was that the kind of thing that traumatized a kid? Was that –
"Our Elethenn said I can eat as many buns as I want," continued Talvi, blinking up with their massive black eyes, cheeks still tear-stained even though they looked entirely unbothered now. "Am I allowed?"
"Yeah, yeah," I said distantly, "Of course. And – I know I said I can be scary, and I know it might – Maybe it's scary knowing that I had to... That I can..."
Talvi made a curious snuffling sound, almost a trill, as they sat back down in their nest of cushions.
"Our Sashen is so silly," they said, hauling a veritable tower of buns toward the edge of the table, folding their bare feet beneath them.
"You're only scary when people are bad, and it's good to be scary when people are bad.
" And like that, they set to slurping down juice and shovelling buns and slices of fruit into their mouth, which was as much of a dismissal as a child could give me.
I huffed out an incredulous breath, and then left Talvi in the kitchen to go speak with Elethenn – because I thought it was likely I needed to be scary with him as well.
He was waiting in the same place I'd left him, standing stiff and uncertain against the wall. "You stay there," I snapped. "I don't want you out of my sight." Elethenn's whole body actually tensed as if from a raised hand.
I needed a second to figure out what I was going to say to him when all I really wanted to do was grab him by the front of his jumpsuit and shake him until he – I don't know, started crying. Although he'd probably do that on his own anyway.
I searched the corpses for anything useful – maybe a signed confession of wrong-doing? A letter from some big wigs in Naival or Hanalthi admitting they'd been scheming? – but all I came away with was the depressing realization that rifling through a dead body's pockets somehow didn't bother me.
I thought it should probably bother me. And yet…
I grabbed my arc lance, and then Crozani's blaster while I was at it. I thought about how sharp and hungry those eyes had been when she first approached me; now, they were dull and empty.
She deserved nothing better.
We had a few minutes probably. Time enough to maybe grab a few things for the ship, at least, since we wouldn't be coming back here.
I shot Elethenn a dark look, although he was still staring at the carpet beneath his feet.
"You," I said, sharp enough that he startled and glanced up at me.
"Come with me while I pack a few things. "
I planted my hands on my hips, looking around the bedroom I'd shared with Araxis.
It had seemed impossibly grand when I'd first set foot in it, although it seemed less grand now that there were a couple of corpses on the floor.
All around me were little signs of life, proof that we'd been here, that we'd lived here together: an unmade bed; an empty cup on a table; a pearl-like button that had come off of one of my tops; a stack of books Valerie had sent to me; the plant sitting near the window, its green leaves trailing downward.
I scooped up the plant, holding it in one hand before I turned to look back at Elethenn, who was still hovering just inside of the door. "So," I said, low. "Xitera demands awful things of us all."
"Yes," said Elethenn, voice worn and rough. "I did tell you."
I brushed past him to go grab some things from the closet, but not before I shoved Araxis's plant hard against his chest, Elethenn's hands flying up to take it on reflex. "What you haven't told me is why. So how about you start there?"
"I – Rodil already explained," he tried, actually wincing under the glare that bullshit excuse won him.
"I – They approached me in Radiant Ward, once you had...
started coming by. My former head of branch – he agreed that this could be...
an atonement for me. If I introduced you, if I – I made myself available to Creche Naival... "
I couldn't look at him as he tried to explain, instead stepping into the closet and hastily grabbing the bag that had seen me from Yellow Fin to Thenat-6 to Sozamia, and that would now see me to Xitera.
I rifled through our belongings, grabbing the clothes I thought we might need right away – mostly formal wear and a few extra sweaters, because the ship was frigid and we were going to need to jump into a string of very difficult meetings the second we arrived in the empire.
"So, what," I said, flat. "Your declaration was bullshit? "
"I –" From the proximity of his voice, I knew he'd come to stand in the door to the closet.
My hands were moving quickly, rapidly as I flicked through clothes and shoved them violently into the bag in rumpled balls.
"I – It was in earnest. I hadn't expected – I didn't think it was possible, to be...
seen in the way that I have been, here in Creche Thiel.
It was beyond my wildest dreams. It was – This is a singular creche. There is nowhere else like it."
Nowhere else like it, huh? Considering that we'd come very close to being completely obliterated, that was pretty fucking rich.
"Then why the fuck didn't you say anything?
" I snarled, whirling to stare at Elethenn as my heart kicked into a furious gallop, as if I was facing down someone with a gun again.
"They almost killed Araxis, Elethenn! They – Fuck, they did kill Avelthe, and if I hadn't been with Araxis, he'd be dead too.
They dropped him in a second, and then they stabbed me and it was only because I'm a fucking monster that we managed to make it off that ship alive.
" The words punched out of me, as vicious and sharp-edged as my swords. Spattered in gore, just the same.