8. Gnash #3
“Redback course!” she bellows. “Guests may request server assistance without shame if their hands are weak, their reflexes poor, or their ancestors failed to prepare them for dinner.”
The Reapers roar.
Gobold cracks his knuckles. “Finally.”
Wilcox mutters, “Do not turn this into a contest.”
Gobold grins. “I am sitting at a Reaper Blood Feast. Everything is a contest.”
Theryki’s expression remains composed, but she quietly signals an aide to accept server assistance. Sensible. Strategic. Dull.
The cages open in controlled sequence. At the high table, I pin my skitterling with two claws, sever the head cleanly with a table blade, and drop the steaming body onto the hot stone plate.
Around me, Reapers do the same with varying degrees of flourish.
Gobold’s skitterling launches at his chest; he catches it midair and looks absurdly pleased with himself.
Wilcox accepts server assistance and preserves both dignity and sleeve.
Voss’s skitterling escapes his plate, climbs over his cup, and is recaptured by a Reaper child who happens to be serving water.
Then the laughter comes from far down the left table.
It starts as one sharp bark from a Reaper warrior, followed by another voice, then a burst of amusement that spreads in widening rings.
This is not the cruel laughter my people use when an outsider panics.
It carries surprise in it. Approval. Challenge met and exceeded.
The sound rolls down the table, gathers force, and pulls the attention of warriors who had been too busy with their own food to care what the lower guests were doing.
I turn.
Ursa Ramone is on her feet.
Her skitterling hangs pinned beneath an overturned metal bowl, trapped neatly against the table.
The creature’s barbed legs scrape at the inside with frantic metallic clicks.
Her left sleeve is torn at the cuff, and one thin line of blood runs across the back of her hand where it must have caught her.
She has a table knife in her right hand, held correctly enough to prove someone taught her, and her face wears an expression of grim, furious concentration.
A Reaper across from her says something I cannot hear.
Ursa answers loudly enough for half the table to catch it. “I was told not to let fear make me cruel to the food. Nobody mentioned the food being rude first.”
The nearest Reapers erupt.
Vesk stands against the wall with one hand over his mouth, failing to hide his grin.
Rikka, who has appeared behind Ursa as if summoned by potential chaos, folds both arms. “You trapped it.”
“It jumped at my face.”
“It respected your movement.”
“It can respect my movement from under the bowl.”
More laughter crashes through the hall. Even Skahar makes a choked sound beside me.
Rikka leans closer. “Can you finish it?”
Ursa looks down at the bowl. Her throat moves once.
She is frightened. I see it in the tightness around her eyes, the careful set of her shoulders, the way she keeps her breath measured.
But fear does not rule her hands. That is the important thing.
Fear sits beside her like an unpleasant guest, and she works around it.
“Yes,” she says.
The room quiets by degrees.
Ursa shifts the bowl with controlled pressure, uses the knife to pin the skitterling behind the head, and hesitates only long enough to confirm placement before making the cut. She exhales hard through her nose, sets the blade down safely, and looks up at Rikka.
“Was that correct?”
For one suspended moment, Rikka stares at her.
Then the cook throws back her head and laughs.
“Good enough for a human with soft fingers.”
The Reapers cheer.
The sound spreads from her table through the hall until even those who missed the moment join because approval has its own current.
Warriors pound tables. Someone shouts a toast to the small scholar.
Another calls for a bigger bowl. Griv, the little menace who should absolutely not be this close to the feast service, appears between two servers and yells, “She owes me dessert money!”
Ursa turns her head toward him with startled outrage. “I absolutely do not.”
The hall loses itself.
I should laugh with them.
I almost do.
Instead, I watch her.
She stands amid heat, blood, noise, and the delighted judgment of monsters the galaxy taught her to fear, and she does not preen.
She does not perform disgust for distant viewers.
She does not pretend the moment has cost her nothing.
She wipes the blood from her hand with a cloth Rikka tosses her, lifts her chin, and takes her seat with the stiff dignity of a person who intends to survive embarrassment by making it useful.
Something shifts under my ribs.
I do not welcome it.
Skahar’s voice comes quietly beside me. “There is your variable.”
Down the table, Ursa Ramone looks toward the high seats.
Not searching wildly. Not begging for approval.
Simply looking.
Her green eyes find mine across the firelit roar of the Blood Hall, and the room that has belonged to me all night suddenly feels far less obedient.