Chapter 8
Igo down the stairs a little quicker, but as I approach the end of the hallway, I slow down. I walk through the archway, and the conversation stops instantly.
All three of them look at me. Just staring from their places, Talarin turning his head to see me properly. Their steaks are on their plates, and mine is at my place, with potatoes already served for me and my glass of wine waiting beside it.
Arrek grins. It isn’t wolfish this time. He’s just appreciating me.
I don’t say anything.
As one, the three men rise.
They’ve changed while I was upstairs. White battle robes, fastened over their left shoulders and belted at the waist, leaving their right chests and sword arms unobstructed.
Arrek extends his hand. I take it, and he helps me up onto my seat. I settle upon the pillow, my posture perfect. Then he takes the black collar and puts it around my neck, wrapping it slowly. I enjoy the feeling of his fingers against my pulse.
I look up at him and bat my eyes.
For a moment, he just stares down at me, then he bends his head.
His hand slips behind my head, his fingers caressing me through my hair, and he kisses me deeply, suddenly taking my breath away.
His lips are against mine, his tongue swirling against mine as he pulls me against his body.
That bushy beard prickles against my sensitive skin, and I feel so small against him.
He’s absolutely starving for me.
We kiss like that until there is the sound of a throat clearing.
“Her dinner is getting cold,” Mero says, a little amusement in his voice.
Arrek pauses, his mouth still close to mine. Then he draws back and looks at me for another moment before settling onto the bench beside me.
I turn towards my plate, trying to remember what I was about to do.
Beneath the table, Mero’s hand settles on my thigh and gives it a gentle squeeze. His fingers stray a little higher for a moment before becoming still. I glance towards him.
He looks perfectly composed as he raises his wine glass in a toast. “Marnai drakothir; thaeren nau sorlirarant. Marnai sorarir, un ka un; thaeren varnoth nethes. Marnai nolar; varen raunant.”
“What does that mean?” I ask.
“It’s a thank you to every bloody, half-dead one of our forefathers who took the time to drag himself to the cryo-chambers to make the next iteration of himself anew.” Arrek grins, then drinks again, draining his cup and filling it once more.
“And to the hope of becoming something more,” says Talarin, watching me with that intense gaze of his.
“I see. Aren’t you piloting your Reaver tonight? With live ammunition?” I ask, watching as Arrek fills his fishbowl of a wine glass up again.
“I can shoot the eye of a hummingbird out with my eyes closed from six thousand feet,” he boasts.
I really hope he’s not speaking from experience.
“Well, then an eye the size of a swimming pool should be no problem for you,” I say dryly, and as I take another sip of the wine, I’m surprised I’m so…
light about this. The fact that they’re doing something about it made me go from feeling so powerless to feeling, not in control, exactly, but like at least we have a plan.
I like having a plan.
And I have to admit, being in the room with these three feels...
Safe.
I cut into the fillet. The knife passes through it so easily I barely need to press. And the first bite? Oh. That first bite is perfection.
I take another, dragging it through the juices on the plate before putting it in my mouth, then follow it with a piece of potato before I’ve even swallowed.
Then I remember that I just spent quite some time getting myself nice and elegant.
I swallow, then very carefully reach for my wine glass and take a rather dainty sip.
“We’ve spent too long treating them as something to avoid,” Arrek says, cutting into his own steak, ripping through a chunk of fat. “A storm. A hurricane. A force of nature. Something you pray does not notice you.”
“Until now, reaching the other side was always the objective,” Mero says. “We were always Shifting towards a battle, or a fight, or an emergency. All we wanted to do was reduce casualties on the way there. But that’s not how we can look at this anymore.”
“Obsidian used his future sight to see where they would be,” Talarin says. “So he could avoid them. That was how he got through the Rift while our ships were being ripped apart by their teeth.”
“And now Emperor Doman’s answer is to forbid us from entering the Rift at all.”
“The creatures were asleep for a long, long time,” Talarin says. “But there are accounts of ships lost in the Rift during the Galactic War, when we fought against the Toads at the borders and the Planet Killers were used. But in the centuries after, the danger of the Rift faded.”
“And then it unfaded. We were losing men in the Rift long before Queen Jasmine massacred trillions,” Arrek says. “It’s not the fucking Planet Killers. Or at least that’s not all the story.”
“Now wait. There were Planet Killers used, and not so long ago,” Talarin says. “Rav’nok, the mad Aurelian. He brought them down and destroyed Caladin. Many, many lives were lost.”
Mero sets down his glass. “Gorrund followed.”
I know pieces of these stories. Names of people who did terrible things, names of people who stopped them. It all feels so far away. But hearing them discuss it makes it feel so much closer.
“Do you think they would have stayed dormant if the Planet Killers had never been used?” I ask.
“That may have woken the first of them,” Talarin says. “And as we fought against Obsidian, we continued using the Rift. More ships. More passages. More disturbances.”
“They eat Orbs,” Arrek says. “That’s all there is to it. Planet Killers have the biggest Orbs. They sense them. They’re hungry. They come. That’s it.”
He puts down his knife. “The Mark-13s could draw them out if you stick a few Orbs in a Reaver. A juicy cargo load. Send them ahead and let those fucking things chase after them while we drive an Orb beam up their assholes.”
He looks at me. “Pardon my language.”
I give him a funny look. As if he hasn’t said much, much filthier to me, and with no apology.
Talarin nods. “Send one Reaver crewed by a triad of Mark-13s. We could use autopilot, but it would be a waste. The Mark-13s have the reflexes to cut them down.”
All three of them have that eagerness in their faces again. They lean forward, their meals forgotten. The robes make them seem so warlike, even here, with wine in their glasses and steaks cooling on their plates.
“These things must live for millions of years,” Talarin continues. “We don’t know how they experience time. How quickly they think. We could kill many of them before they even know what’s happening.”
Arrek shakes his head. “They move quickly enough.”
“True. But we don’t know how much is instinct and how much is thought. Perhaps they don’t adapt.”
Mero’s mouth curves up in a cruel smile. “Perhaps they will be dead before they understand that now they are the ones being hunted.”
That chilling smile.
He looks as though he is enjoying himself. It should frighten me, but instead I’m…
Reassured.
“I saw a legion of them once,” I say.
All three men look at me.
“The Marks. Three years ago, when I was seventeen. There were hundreds of them, marching in perfect formation. Are they people or machines? I thought I saw one…” I pause.
“There were migrating birds flying overhead. All of them kept looking forward except one. I swear he looked up and watched the birds, just for a moment.”
Talarin considers me across the table. “Some unholy mixture of both.”
“Do you mean they have their own thoughts? Or do they just do whatever they’re programmed to do?”
“The early models had too much of a mind of their own. The later models were developed by Evelyn Surkao, a human woman. Prince Bruton’s Fated Mate.”
“A human made them?”
“She helped make them what they are now. Helped make them obey. Helped make them do exactly what they’re told.”
He takes a drink before continuing. “I’m not inside their minds, and I don’t know if they truly think or if they truly feel.
But I know that many of my friends would be dead if it wasn’t for them.
I’ve watched them walk into Fanatic fire without an ounce of fear.
And I’ve watched them die in the place of men I went to the Academy with. ”
I push a potato through the juices on my plate.
“Meat shields. And you want them to be meat shields against those… creatures. The Aelor-dravir.” Saying their name out loud somehow makes me less afraid.
“If we are permitted to try,” Mero says. “But we won’t be able to get authorization to enter the Rift. Not to hunt those things. Not while Doman wants us to stay quiet as mice and hope they go back to sleep.”
He looks down at his glass.
“They might. You never know. I don’t know these things. But I need to.”
“What if the Marks don’t want to go first?”
Arrek takes a drink of wine. Talarin remains still.
“What if they decide they don’t want to be sent ahead to die?” I ask. “Or even just to draw attention. It’s risky, isn’t it? There must be at least five of them for every one of you. I’ve heard they march around in the streets of the capital. You’re outnumbered. What happens if they turn?”
Mero lays his hand over mine, covering it almost entirely. “You think of every possible catastrophe, don’t you?”
“It seems an obvious one.”
“Don’t worry,” Talarin says. “Doman would not allow them to exist without a kill switch. And they will not turn. As I said, the early models were too independent. But the newer ones are far more machine.”
“That’s better?”
“For following orders. For trusting them in a battle. We used them. Commanded them plenty. I have a great respect for them. And yes, many died because of my commands. Many died.”
Mero raises his glass again. “Marnai drakothir; thaeren nau sorlirarant.” I drink with them, my glass empty, and Arrek fills it for me. My head is starting to swim, a little, happy and hot.