Ellisandre
Ellisandre left their boots by the front door and entered Sevastyan’s new flat.
The condo, he called it, but condos were still flats in Ellisandre’s mind, no matter how long they lived in the States.
It was hideous, in a self-important, fit anybody, above reproach sort of way, decorated, if one could call it that, in whites and light tans.
“You need a paint store and an antique mall.” They pulled off their gloves and slapped them down on the arm of the white couch. Even that amount of green against the white went far towards relieving the apocalyptic heaven vibe the place had.
Sevastyan came out of the kitchen carrying drinks. “It’s hideous, I know.” He set the drinks down on the end table and offered one. The glass was blue and the drink inside red. If they spilled a drop it was going to look like there’d been a war.
“It’s beyond hideous. It’s soulless. Which is worse.”
Ellisandre narrowed their eyes at their beloved.
He wore a green linen tunic and matching loose pants, reminiscent of Indian kurta and pajama, though the tunic was cut too short to be traditional wear.
They had the look of being custom made. At least he was not dressing in the monotone of the new flat.
“It’s temporary.” Sevastyan glanced around.
Ellisandre snorted. “This country has taken soulless for property value too far.”
Sevastyan smiled at them fondly. “You know that I trade art for a living, right?”
“And some artists tape a banana to a wall and call it an installation.”
“It was art.” Sevastyan grinned and took a sip of his drink. “You noticed it, didn’t you?”
“I think what I heard was that the janitor threw it away. Or perhaps I’m mixing up my stories.” Ellisandre waved the incidental details off. “I want to feel something other than anger when I see a piece. When I think that so much money was spent on something so . . .” They shook their head.
Sevastyan smirked. “How plebeian of you. You probably cannot understand how that one circle of orange on a white canvas carries meaning.”
Ellisandre narrowed their eyes. “Kindergarteners can put an orange circle on a piece of white paper and they’d be encouraged to use more of the paper. I was.”
Sevastyan laughed. “Of course. The single orange circle is rebellion, a refusal to fill up the space, and the orange is peace, the search for nirvana, the same color as a monk in a temple.”
“Does this orange circle canvas exist?”
Sevastyan shrugged. “Perhaps.”
Ellisandre shook their head. “It may well be art, but I don’t have to like it. Tell me where our boys are.”
“Sleeping. I put them through it this morning, training. They’ll sleep for another hour. I wanted to see you.”
“Well, I am here to be seen.” Ellisandre gestured to their full self. “At four I’m picking Alice up for target practice.”
“I wish I had Lisa in target practice.”
“He could join Alice.”
“What about being seen?”
“It’s a private range, no cameras.”
Sevastyan frowned. “You’re certain Alice won’t talk?”
“Certain. And she won’t know who Lisa is. We’ll go in my vehicle, he can stay masked, and I’ll make sure we have the range to ourselves.”
“How often do you go?”
“Twice a week.”
“Send me the schedule. I’ll make it happen.”
Ellisandre nodded, a warm feeling spreading in their chest. He was trusting them.
Sevastyan dropped his eyes. “I am paranoid for a reason.”
“For several thousand reasons,” Ellisandre agreed. They sipped their drink. It was bitter with cranberries and gently sweet with something they couldn’t name. “How’s your mother?”
“Quiet. She’s waiting for me to make a move.”
“And will you, move?”
“I’m going to be called back to Seoul at any moment. I don’t want to trigger her power strategies just yet.”
“And you don’t want to kill Anton.” Ellisandre set their drink aside. Drinking to a man’s death was churlish.
Sevastyan set his own drink on a coaster.
It was white stone, of course. He let his hands hang between his knees, leaning forward on his elbows.
“No, I don’t. Even if I should. He’s a coward and a liability. I have no doubt he would sell me out at the first hint of a threat. Even killing Dirk was a risk. If he sees me moving towards taking power, he could sell me out to save his skin.
He’ll be afraid that others will see him as a party to my goals.”
“We could kidnap him.”
Sevastyan grimaced. “That’s riskier.”
“And you’d have no head to give your mother.”
Sevastyan nodded.
“Give a rundown on how we need your mother’s support.”
“It’s more that we need her not to be throwing her support against us. Any step I take towards power, she has to believe is in her interest or she will move heaven and earth to cut me down. On the positive end, if she reads my moves as favorable to her and makes motion to take power in the Yadro,
the attention of the Merchari will be split. They’ll be fighting internally. It could very well take most of the Russian Merchari assets out of play while they brutalize each other. But she will expect me to participate.”
“I assume she’s excellent at keeping her assets alive.” Ellisandre let the words hang in the air with a heavy tinge of sarcasm.
Sevastyan grimaced. “Not as good as she’d like her stooges to think. If I help, I’ll insist on planning and leading any missions I’m involved in. Otherwise, I’ll refuse. And she knows why. We had that fight before I was even fifteen.”
Ellisandre raised an eyebrow. They hadn’t expected it to go back quite that far. But at least it set precedent.
Sevastyan rubbed his face. “If my mother becomes one of the directors in the Yadro, I could probably manipulate her to show me the vaults. Those are where the records are located. Deals that have been struck, sales of slaves, where they’ve been sold and resold. The location of weapons caches.
We’d be able to recover lives. Possibly resecure compromised borders.”
“You want to bring down justice.”
“I want to undo as much of the harm that I’ve caused as possible.”
“And you think you have to kill your father to do this. To keep her from assassinating you or worse.”
Sevastyan grimaced. “I think I might have to kill my father to keep Rei safe.”
“That’s a different calculus.”
“It is. My mother wants me under her thumb. Right now, she’s recalculating what that takes and if she needs more leverage. She needs a sign of my loyalty soon, or she’ll create a situation in which I have to give it to her.”
“You might have to eliminate her from the playing board sooner rather than later.”
Sevastyan grunted and rubbed his face. “I’ve considered that. I’m not sure I have enough status to survive such a tactic, even with Alexi’s backing. I’m close, but . . . right this moment, not close enough.”
Silence settled over the room, heavy and ominous. They both drank from their glasses.
“You really thought I would kill you for owning Rei,” Ellisandre murmured. It wasn’t a question, but a remembrance, the vision of Sevastyan begging them not to let Rei see.
Sevastyan ducked his face again. “I know how you felt about people being used. It’s what you hated most about your father, the fact that he trafficked people. You didn’t have a reason to believe me, that I was different.”
“I had so many reasons to believe you were different,” Ellisandre murmured. “Starting with the fact that the way my father looked at his cargo and the way you look at Rei are only in the same universe because all of humanity is in the same universe by default.”
Sevastyan’s lips twitched towards a wry smile. “Technically, we were never in the same universe. One of us was dead before I ever set eyes on Rei.”
“True.” Ellisandre smiled and reached for their glass again, half hiding behind their drink.
“Setting the question of Raska aside, tell me what you’re planning now. Dirk is dead. You have a new flat. The invitation for the party next month arrived. Lisa and Rei are healing and in training. Lay out next steps.”
Sevastyan pressed his hands together. “I’m trying to convince myself to trust Richard. And I’m trying to figure out how to buy Jun time. Sentiment is shifting in the Yadro and South Korea. Taking out Dirk wasn’t enough. They still look like they’re coming for Jun. One side wants him dead,
preferably arrested and sentenced for murder. The other side wants him back under Bak Gyeong, working like before, without Richard or Damian in the picture. I only have until they call me back to decide how and where I can tip the scales.”
Ellisandre leaned forward.
Sevastyan took a deep breath. “If I can’t buy Jun time, Richard has no reason to work with me. I don’t have anything he wants. And he will have everything to lose. I have to offer him a deal worth taking, and right now I have nothing to offer him.”
Lisa’s urgent shout came from the primary bedroom.
Ellisandre surged to their feet. Sevastyan was even faster, jumping over the back of the couch with one hand braced on the back and sprinting ahead. Ellisandre swept around the end tables and followed him into the bedroom.
Lisa was holding his side, eyes wide, and trying to keep Rei down. Rei’s eyes were closed, but his eyes were moving behind his eyelids. He jerked against the sheets, fighting something that couldn’t be seen.
“Back,” Sevastyan ordered.
Lisa flung himself out of the way. Ellisandre helped him. Sevastyan dropped his weight down on Rei, caging his slave in with his arms and legs. He whispered against Rei’s ear, moving his face to avoid being hit as Rei thrashed.
Ellisandre checked Lisa. “Are you hurt?”
Lisa touched his leg. “Tender, but fine”
Ellisandre grimaced, looking back towards Sevastyan and Rei. Rei’s movements were growing more still. One of his hands came up and gripped Sevastyan’s shirt by the collar, the whites of his knuckles showing.
“Room, please,” Sevastyan said, voice strained.
“You have it,” Ellisandre slipped an arm around Lisa’s waist and helped the man limp away. His leg was more than a little tender. Ellisandre got him to the couch and attempted to settle him.
“No furniture,” Lisa hissed. He leaned towards one of the cushions on the floor.
Ellisandre grimaced and helped him down. They went back to the bedroom and shut the door, then went back to Lisa. The slave’s teeth were gritted and he was holding his thigh near the still healing wound.
“We should check that,” Ellisandre said.
Lisa nodded.
Ellisandre helped him pull the pants down. He wasn’t wearing anything underneath, because of course he wasn’t. Ellisandre kept their eyes fixed on Lisa’s thigh. Business. This was just business.
The wound site looked abused and angry, but it wasn’t bleeding. “He kicked you?”
“Kneed me,” Lisa corrected. He rocked back and forth. “Wouldn’t hurt so bad if this blasted thing wasn’t there and we hadn’t done so much practice.”
“The stitches are still fine. You’re going to have another bruise.”
Lisa shook his head. “Not worried.”
“Pants up, then ice.”
Lisa nodded. He helped, pushing his ass off the floor so Ellisandre could pull the loose pants into place.
In the kitchen, they found body packs of ice already in the fridge. Sevastyan did know what he was doing. There were towels in one of the drawers. They wrapped the ice pack and returned to Lisa. The man’s eyes were closed and he leaned back against the couch, exhaustion in every line of his body.
“You practiced hard this morning?” Ellisandre settled the ice on the bruise.
Lisa nodded. Then swallowed and worked his throat. “Yes.”
“You don’t have to answer.”
Lisa shook his head and peeled open one eye. “Have to answer a direct question with a verbal answer, unless otherwise directed. Training, remember? And as much as I fucking hate this . . .” He shook his head, closing his eyes again. “I’m not going to fuck it up.”
Ellisandre sat on the couch opposite Lisa. “I don’t know if I could do what you’re doing.”
Lisa laughed. “No one can do it. You just do do it.”
Ellisandre watched his face, the third phrase Lisa hadn’t said ringing in their head. You crumble from doing it.
Ellisandre opened and closed their mouth.
Even being near to the Merchari, just preparing to fight them, wrought damage.
The knowledge of what they did, their existence, was poison in the air.
It was jarring, the space they could feel between themselves and Lisa, just with his choice to assume the posture of a slave, to know that they could sit on the couch and he could not.
There were reasons the Merchari had rules for their slaves. They had to “other” them. To be able to do what they did to other humankind, they had to position them as not the same.
Ellisandre settled in silence. Lisa met their eyes, the edge of his lips twisting towards a sardonic smile.
“Uncomfortable, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Ellisandre said. They weren’t going to hide their displeasure.
“It wouldn’t be, if you viewed it as my place. You’re with Sevastyan. Just treat us like you’re one of the masters. You’re dominant, after all.”
“I won’t be them.”
Lisa narrowed his eyes. “So you can’t make as much of a sacrifice as Sevastyan?”
Something cold flushed through Ellisandre. Lisa’s smile widened. He had them cornered and he knew it.