Chapter 73 Shadow of Restitution, Lorian #2
The upper mess is a low-ceilinged chamber that reeks of cheap spirits. Jin Kol is the only one here at a table surrounded by empty bottles of Arcus Flare and a glass in his hand.
When he sees me, he laughs. “Sovereign Lorian. Have you lost your fucking mind—or your wardrobe? Or both?”
I stop in front of him. “Take your sword and stand and face me, you milkless man. You know exactly what this is about.”
He leans back in his chair. “I know one thing; I’m not nearly drunk enough for your ancient religious nonsense. What are you doing here naked? Trying to frighten me into a false confession about your human pet?”
“Get your sword and remove your clothing.”
“Why?”
“I challenge you to the Rite of Restitution.”
He looks around the room, searching our small audience of men for help. The Ariel Station guards all avoid his eyes, and the station workers linger in the doorway, whispering to each other. “You’re insane, Lorian. Does your brother know you’re here?”
I use my sword to flick at his shoulder, cutting his IGC uniform.
“Why would you challenge me to a duel? I’ve not broken any galactic laws, but you and your brother have bent them beyond recognition. You’re the guilty ones. Especially you.”
“I’m challenging you for what you did to Eve Eden.
For the lashes you ordered and increased.
For selling the footage of her conjugal punishment.
For making an example out of a human woman who didn’t deserve it.
For this, you will die by my hand, as it is the justice of the goddesses and my justice. ”
The crowd of onlookers draws closer around us, and Jin Kol’s hand twitches toward the blaster on his hip, but I shake my head slowly.
“No. Not that way. My men are prepared to shoot you down if you don’t get your sword.” I don’t need to look back at my men to know they have their weapons drawn. Instead, I look around at the crowd. “And it doesn’t look like you have anyone here who is going to stop them.”
Vo’s voice comes from behind me. “Witnesses recorded. Time mark initiated. Tribune Jin Kol I recommend you get a sword.”
“And if I refuse?”
I laugh bitterly. “I’m sure the men behind you would be more than happy to strip you naked and put a sword in your hand.
It wouldn’t be the way most men would want to publicly die, but maybe that suits you?
By their expressions, it looks like it would definitely suit them.
To be forced into it like the unworthy coward that you are. ”
Jin Kol only hesitates for a second before he sets down his drink, unclasps his uniform, and lets it fall to the floor.
So, not a coward after all.
His body is leaner than I expected for a bureaucrat—corded muscle with faint silver seams running under the skin like old burn scars. They glow when he moves; obviously, the IGC has been illegally upgrading its employees’ bodies.
It doesn’t matter. This is justice, and the goddesses will protect me from him.
An old sword is produced for Jin Kol from the crowd behind him, and he takes it.
I raise my sword. “Now, under the watchful eyes of the goddesses, I challenge you to a duel, Jin Kol.” I square my shoulders and let the sword settle in my hand so it becomes an extension of my arm.
“I accept, Shadow Sovereign Lorian, you fool. You’re going to die today. You know that?”
I strike hard and it tells me everything I need to know; he’s artificially altered himself. The strength behind his swing is not normal. It hits with a resonance that vibrates through my bones as if I had hit metal.
I strike again and again, as fast as I can, but he’s matching me. He’s faster than any natural man I’ve ever dueled. But I will not die here. Not like this. Not when I now have Eve waiting for me.
“It goes against the goddesses to alter oneself like you have done.”
“Every one of us is a sinner in some way,” Jin Kol says.
Each of his movements coming a fraction before my instincts.
It must be the predictive subroutines firing inside his nervous system.
And for the first time in years, I have to fight defensively.
Thankfully, Rafe has been particularly brutal these last months during our sparring.
“Yes, but to sin in that particular way, to defile your body daily, is a greater sin. It’s no wonder that no one wants to be near you.”
The crowd around us gasps as Jin Kol drives me back toward the mess’s wall, but then I think of Eve, and push back harder.
He feints low, then high—my blade answers and I nick his forearm and draw blood. In my mind, I can hear Kellen from the Spire call the point. Here, the crowd surges closer, but I don’t let them distract me.
“You sold the video,” I say, so it’s on record that everyone hears. “The one of me, Rafe, and Eve at the Obsidian Palace. You sold it to seventeen buyers. You made a market of her pain and punishment.”
“Business—” I cut him off with my sword. But he continues, “She’s a criminal and is guilty of a crime…”
I lunge at him, barely holding my anger in check.
He throws a cup of Arcus Flare into the air to blind me—the kind of small theatrics a coward tries. Foam and liquor splatter across the floor and wet my bare feet.
Then he lunges back at me. “You think this is justice?” he sneers between strikes. “You’re just another Reima Two Outcast who wishes he was still Imperial and born of a legitimate line. It’s no wonder you and your brother love a human. You’re both degenerates yourselves.”
“You talk too much,” I say, slipping beneath his next cut. The pattern of his augments flickers—every surge of red light is a command pulse from the implanted core behind his heart. I realize now he’s only running himself through an algorithm of sparring. And all algorithms can be broken.
I shift my tempo, giving him chaos instead of rhythm. The next time I see the red light, I catch his wrist and twist as hard as I can while I use my sword to cut and watch as bone and metal shear apart. Followed by a fountain of bright sparks and coppery blood that sprays the floor all around us.
Jin Kol stumbles, breathing hard. “You can’t—stop—law—I am better than you. I always will be.”
“The law doesn’t bleed,” I tell him. “But you do.” Then, I drive my blade through his chest with a satisfying slicing sound that ends with metal hitting metal behind his heart.
Then I watch in fascination as the light beneath his skin erupts, circuits begin overloading, and the smell of burned flesh surrounds us.
“I hope you’re greeted properly in the Afterlife by all those whom you have wronged. ”
Jin Kol opens his mouth to say something, but only black smoke and blood escape his lips. Then the sparking and the lights within him fade, and Jin Kol is just a man again—naked, smoking, mortal and most importantly dead.
No one around us makes a sound.
I look down at his burned flesh and say, “That was justice for Eve.”
Vo breaks the silence by marking the time.
I draw my bloody blade free and then turn to my men. I don’t speak. There’s no reason to. I’ve done what I came here to do, and I don’t think anyone is going to stop us from leaving. This was all legal. And even if they don’t think it was, they obviously don’t care if Jin Kol is dead.
We return to the ship in silence, once there, I give the order: “I want an emergency trajectory locked into the Celestial Spire. Chain the jumps. Ignore the degradation warnings. If the hull screams, let her scream. I want to be at the Spire by tomorrow morning.”
I’m coming to get you, Eve. Just hold on a little bit longer.