forty-one
“Ican’t believe she’s thinking about doing it.”
Sonall drank more of his alcohol as Sulim took her time studying the cards in her hand.
I am very aware his half-drunk ass has the upper hand on me.
He had instinct and experience when it came to cards; she had a good memory and ability to track what was in play.
Games of chance were usually what they played together to even the field, but tonight, he talked her into a game that she would normally beat his ass at.
Instead, she was heavily distracted by the thoughts dancing through her head.
“I mean,” Sonall mused, while tapping a sweet stick against his lips, “after what happened last night, I don’t really care who is in charge, as long as we get out of this alive.”
He had a point, but Sulim was an overthinker when she was stuck on Cerilyn with nothing much else to do. Unless you include trying to save this sorry world.
“Can you imagine having a julah for a chief?”
Sulim played the worst card in her hand without realizing it.
Sonall raised an eyebrow at her, giving her the chance to take the card back and try again.
Guess he wants a challenge, after all. They had both bet a small amount of money to keep things interesting, but as the tavern moved around them, Sonall drank and sucked on his sweet stick while Sulim tried to forget the scene from earlier that morning.
“It’s never happened before. We’d be seeing unprecedented history.”
“And you’d be sleeping with her, so there’s that.”
“I’m not even thinking about that.”
“Maybe you should. Lots of advantages to be had sleeping with the chief.”
“Do you even remember what it was like with Ayna Aiya around? That woman had a harem of girls, and I was next on her list of reluctant child brides.”
“I remember. I dated Kila for a while and heard all about it.”
“She got it the worst.”
Sonall sighed. “Mira did everyone a favor cutting the head off that serpent. Metaphorically, I mean. Olma is the High Priestess of Mercy compared to that crazy bitch.” He glanced at Sulim before playing a card. “Did you pitch in some money?”
She shook her head. “I didn’t have any back then. I didn’t even know about Mira’s involvement until later.”
Pillow talk escalated after they began sleeping together.
Something that Sulim thought took much too long to get around to, but Mira had been hesitant to begin an affair with a recruit.
“Come back after your first mission, kid,” she had flirtatiously said when Sulim had flung herself at Mira, “and I’ll assure that you’re a woman, all right.”
Well, Sulim had survived her first mission, which hadn’t been much more than an escort of a troublemaking VIP, and she ensured that Mira was good on her word.
Everything escalated from that. The first two things Sulim did whenever she returned to Cerilyn were take a bath and hop into Mira’s bed—all while this man across from her hit the bar and the brothels.
“We all have our vices here,” Sulim had once explained to the priestess, to help her better understand how to serve the mercenary class.
“It’s how we compartmentalize while waiting around to go face death again. Turns out you’re my vice.”
Sulim rarely drank, avoided drugs, and never gambled, present company aside.
Yet she was grateful that her love life had been safe enough, especially since she discovered that sex was the best high to chase around Shield Town.
“Crazy to think that all of this might get winked out of existence.” Sonall played another card and took the stick out of his mouth to drink. “Good riddance, but I obviously don’t want people here needlessly dying.”
She caught him gazing out at the patrons in the bar that night, never mind the civilian employees keeping things clean and the food moving.
While many of the people who ended up in the service industry on Cerilyn were leaving unsavory pasts behind, Sulim was not the one to judge them for avoiding the Federation.
Everyone had a story. So did she. So did Sonall.
So did Mira.
Even she’s killed somebody. Sulim had been responsible for a few deaths during her time as a mercenary, but she had never directly murdered someone.
Not like Sonall, who often did the killing for her, even when he wasn’t her lookout.
And when they worked with others? He does the stupid thing where he keeps a headcount with the other guys in our groups.
She often wondered what it was like to kill so easily.
After nearly ten years on Cerilyn, Sulim still had some ethics keeping her bones in her body.
“Whatever we think of this place, the treaty, and the people who have to live by it…”
Sulim knew she was losing when Sonall played his cards so quickly after her, “it’s not Nerilis Dunsman’s right to decide who lives and dies. He doesn’t get to pluck a star out of the sky and say it doesn’t exist anymore.”
“I still don’t know how it works.”
“We were supposed to talk about it today… then Olma almost got herself killed.”
“She really knelt on the floor and asked Mira to blast her?”
Sulim nodded. “Eerie as shit. I guess she was compelled by the High Priestess.”
“Who is your lover’s mother…” He chuckled.
“You’re taking all of this well.”
“Zel,” Sonall said, using the term of endearment that applied between both lovers and friends close enough to court rumors, “I just had my mind stretched and blown like a courtesan at the biggest birthday party of the year. I saw shit in my dreams that made no sense, yet when I woke up,
I knew exactly what I had to do. Nothing fazes me right now.”
“Oh, and you had to break into my room? Was that it?”
“Got the job done.”
“Give me back my key, zel.”
Their impasse ended when Sonall claimed his winnings because Sulim didn’t know how to play anymore. Ah, shit. It would have been embarrassing if anyone had seen it, but Sonall kept the bragging to a minimum. Probably because his “winnings” were enough to close out his tab.
“I’m still thinking about some of the shit I saw,” Sulim said, leaning her elbow against the table. “In that vision, I mean. Dream. Whatever.”
“Yeah… me too.”
“Now I know why Mira joked about us being married somewhere. Crazy to think… but I guess we would be different people if we never ended up here.”
He pushed his back against the bench, arms crossed. “Yeah. I think about that a lot.”
Sulim averted his gaze. I didn’t lose much when I was taken…
he lost everything. His home. His family.
His birthright. The few times Sonall talked about the attack on his family, Sulim put together a portrait of bloodshed and fates worse than death.
He once remarked that he was grateful that his sister was killed while being apprehended, because it meant she never had to come here, let alone see what happened to her little brother.
“Let her die thinking I’m artistic and sensitive.”
Sulim would argue that he was still both of those things, but he wouldn’t listen.
“What a lucky bastard,” Sonall muttered.
“What?”
He chuckled at the thoughts in his head. “There’s some version of me out there who is still with his family, and married to you. That’s one lucky son of a bitch.”
She matched his mild amusement with her own snort. “Wonder how the universe bent over backward to make that happen. How would we have even met, if it weren’t for Cerilyn?”
“Maybe it has everything to do with who was sent on what mission. If it changes between timelines, anything is possible, I guess.”
“That’s what Mira says her other self saw. That we were married. We met on Qahrain. You came to my town.”
“But why?”
“I don’t know. Either the attack didn’t happen, or you all survived somehow.”
Something darkened the slight dimples in his cheeks. “Wouldn’t that be something?”
“Still thinking about asking me to retire with you back to Arrah?”
He neither shook nor nodded his head.
“Because I would be an awful wife for you.”
“Ah, come on.” He waved off her words like flies on fruit. “Don’t sell yourself short. I could be an even worse husband.”
“Sona—”
“Nah, nah. It’s true. Whatever lucky idiot met you in that other world Mira came from… well, I may not be him, but I can tell you, the Sonall of that world could not make you, of all people, happy. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about you over the years, it’s that you’re too… you.
It would be like keeping a bird in a cage… if I took you to Arrah, I mean.”
“Ah.”
“But don’t get me wrong. I’ll keep asking. Because the thought of a day when we both retire and go our separate ways bums me out. You’re my best friend, zel. We didn’t work as a couple, but life will be fucking wrong without you around.”
It was one of the kindest, most honest things he had ever told her, and Sulim didn’t know what to say.
“Maybe there’s some world where you’re perfectly happy being my Lady Gardiah. Now that’s the real lucky bastard. Until then…”
His eyes lingered on someone who had just come into the tavern, a travel scarf wrapped around her darkened head and a linen cream-colored dress hanging on her womanly frame.
“The Sonall of this world shall pursue other fillies, eh?”
Sulim looked toward Kema, who approached the bar after removing her scarf. Hair similar to Mira’s shimmered in the light. “Watch it,” Sulim teased. “That’s a proper Yahzenian citizen there. You have to treat her like a lady. Not one of your courtesans.”
“What are you talking about? I treat all courtesans like ladies. It’s ingrained into me.”
“You never treated me like a lady when we dated!”
“Well, now, I wasn’t paying you, now was I?”
Their raised voices caught Kema’s attention at the bar while she waited for her food. She quickly turned away again when she realized Sulim and Sonall were looking at her.
“I bet there’s a universe where I’m married to that,” Sonall teased. “Maybe a few dozen.”
“You could do a lot worse than a beautiful hybrid woman.”
“Oooh, maybe there’s a universe where I’m married to Mira for some asinine reason.”
“Now there’s a woman who would be miserable as your wife.”