River’s End ch 64: Asking Nothing in Return

Alaysq was my mother’s vedia. The River’s End must have taken and healed her when they retrieved Ishiyae, fully believing, as he did, that Fredo was dead. It made perfect sense, though a part of me refused to accept it. Alaysq couldn’t have that close of a connection to me. Her royal had to have been a relative of mine, yes, but why couldn’t it have been a distant cousin many times removed?

When she shoved me out of our mindscape, I still lay on the floor, Nyen’s back lining my arm. Fredo’s cry for help had yanked me from restless sleep. Now, I stared at the shadowed ceiling and its widowed blade, trying to herd my stampeding thoughts.

Horrible coughs scattered them further, followed by a thud. I shot to my feet, barely able to discern a dark lump crumpled alongside the bed.

Scrambling over the vines, I touched the wall. “{Lights on.}”

An omnipresent glow bathed the room with a delicate touch, revealing Ishiyae in a heap on the floor, eyes squeezed shut. Blood streamed from his ears and coated his lips—Seallaii-na purple, not Shlykrii-na orange.

He wasn’t moving.

Hand still on the wall, I ordered, “{Emergency! Summon medical assistance!}” and tumbled to his side. Pressing two fingers to his throat, I counted faint, unsteady heartbeats. A shuddering sob escaped me. He was alive, but he wouldn’t be for long.

Numbness crawled outward from my core—a self-defense mechanism perhaps, so I didn’t have to feel my vedia die. I leaned closer, hoping for evidence of breath but unsure if I would be able to tell as the void swallowed my cheeks. Tiny burbles climbed into my ear.

Overlapping my palms on his chest, I pushed a rhythm for his heart as I searched for him within our mindscape. He had fallen beneath the sea, still wrapped in chains and sinking, but not fighting.

As I dove in after him, my real body slumped. Did the water’s surface represent some level of consciousness? Could I not delve this deep and remain awake? How far down did this ocean go? If there was a seafloor, did reaching it mean death? Would the fragmented vestiges of my lost entourage lay to rest there like remains of shipwrecks?

If so, it was much too early for that fate to claim Ishiyae. I caught his arm and pulled him to me, but my sister’s chains were rivers carving deep valleys in his skin. To him, they were iron, but in my hands, they snapped like grass.

All these sunk into darkness as we rose. My head breached the surface, then I rolled upon the sea as if it were a sheet of glass. To Ishiyae, though, it remained water. After two attempts to haul him out, it occurred to me that doing so might force him into consciousness, and that might not be for the best. Depending on how much pain he was in, it might even be cruel.

I knelt, submerged hands locked around his wrists so he couldn’t sink. ‘Fredo, come please! Your brother needs you.’

I glanced toward his corner, but winter’s breath engulfed the area, dim and cold, everything it touched rendered brittle. Exhaustion curled like smoke and smelled of it, too. He could have still been battling my sister, Alaysq, or both. Regardless, it didn’t seem he had any strength to spare for Ishiyae. Perhaps it was better he didn’t hear. Selfless as he was, Fredo would have given all he had and then some, even if it killed him.

The vedia description played through my head.

Giving their entire soul and asking nothing in return.

That applied to Fredo more than anyone I knew. The least I could do was distract one of his possible opponents.

‘Alaysq!’

She was there, fog raining into a liquid vessel. The sea rippled beneath her footsteps, then her knees as she bowed, a hand over her heart and a smirk on her face. ‘You cannot imagine the glee I derive from your willing summons.’

‘So glad to know my duress makes you happy. Please tell me you can help Ishiyae.’

Her eyes fell to him. ‘Sil meant to kill him. Though she is young, through her entourage, she has lived a thousand lifetimes. Still, I could teach you to surpass her.’

‘That’s not what I’m asking,’ I snapped. My arms burned in protest of Ishiyae’s stone-like weight, and the surface of my sea grew more like foam than glass, drawing in my shins.

Alaysq’s gaze returned to my face. ‘The answer is yes, I can save him, but not as I am. You must accept the bond with me.’

I didn’t know how to do that, nor did I trust it. She was connected to me through him. If he died, would anything still link us? Or if I accepted Alaysq’s bond, would that bypass Ishiyae? Would she still help him, or was this a ploy to get rid of him?

Was the prospect of help better than nothing?

With a nod, I closed my eyes and let her do whatever this would entail, hoping it was the right choice.

Apparently, the procedure involved an embrace. She wrapped her arms around me and somehow enveloped herself in mine. I did my best to cooperate without releasing Ishiyae, all the while trying to convince myself I wanted this. I was always meant to have multiple vedia. Why not someone so sure she needed me, someone who had loved me as a mother from the moment she knew I would be born?

Something still felt off, like sliding uphill, but I shoved that sentiment aside and determined this needed to happen. Had I hugged Ishiyae to solidify our bond? I supposed I had back on Grenswa in the chaos of battle. He had pushed me away, but I had refused to let go because I thought he was Fredo. I really had forced this upon him.

When Alaysq let go, I didn’t feel any different. Through my lashes, I watched her smile grow like a moon, from a sliver to full, and she was no longer liquid. She pressed her hands to mine, smooth and solid as marble, just like Ishiyae’s. Her fingers fit between my own and met his skin. Light pulsed with an audible double note like the thump-thump of a heart and continued in a steady beat.

It was pure sugar in my veins, and it took me several seconds to realize the buzz surrounding me was not entirely imagined. Back in Ishiyae’s room, the sound meant someone waited at the door.

I sat up, found Ishiyae’s steadying pulse, and ran my other hand over my hair and face before returning it to the wall.

“{Door, open.}”

Instead of the medical personnel I expected, my second order from last night had arrived. Ferrina stepped into the room, dragging a very uncooperative Hent. Her eager-achiever expression plunged in outrage, hoop-filled ears lying flat within her russet hair. With a snarl, she lunged. I scrambled back, allowing her to take my place at Ishiyae’s side.

Her trembling hands hovered just shy of touching him. “[What have you done?]”

I kept him alive.

A more honest answer would have included how I towed him into a mental showdown with my sister, all to save his brother, who he’d believed dead. I had kept that secret from him, and I wasn’t looking forward to that conversation when he awoke. Nor did I want him questioning why Ferrina had delivered the Grenswa-na prince per a message sent in his name.

With this in mind, his condition was a convenience. I couldn’t tell Ferrina that, though.

Apparently, me gaping at her wasn’t the right response either. Rising, she reached for a weapon at her belt and faltered when her fingers closed around nothing.

Hent held the hilt she wanted, its inlaid silver vines glinting the way I would have expected a blade to, but it didn’t have one. It was just a hilt curled in Hent’s cuffed grasp as he surmounted one of the bookcases. Then he flew and bounced off the ceiling, tail wrapped around the grip of the decorative sword. He dove at them, and while the move looked dramatic, Ferrina easily flung him aside.

He struck a shelf and upset a vase, spilling its beads, but he landed on his feet, scales burning more orange than gold. He tossed the sword at me, and I couldn’t say my catch was the most graceful, but I didn’t cut myself, just the floor a little.

“I hear the monster’s heart still beating. Finish him off, Rose.”

Monster. Hent had no reason to think otherwise. He was insane if he thought we could win this, though, as crazy as Ishiyae had been when he kicked at Silvika and Alaysq. River Guardians did not fight; I was a liability with a sword. Hent’s teachers had assumed someone should always be around to protect him, and now he held an unfamiliar weapon that lacked a blade. We were paltry excuses for warriors.

Plus, for my plan to work, we had to slip away quietly.

Lugging the sword over my shoulder, I stepped in front of Hent. “[I didn’t hurt Ishiyae.]”

Ferrina’s gaze zeroed in on my neck and how close the sharpened metal was to it. “[There’s no one else. You expect me to believe his attacker vanished into the air?]”

That was technically true, but it wouldn’t have convinced her.

“[Secret passages are staples of River Guardian design, and they made this ark, no?]”

Her eyes slid around the room, catching on every sliver of shadow.

Hopefully, I’ve made her distrustful of all the walls now.

Imbuing every last drop of my desperation into the words, I said, “[Who hurt him is not as important as saving him. He needs medical attention, but I can’t leave this room. He needs you, Ferrina. Take him to those who can help.]”

She had once released Togdy at my command. This one hit her deeper. She wanted Ishiyae to need her. She wanted to help him. I simply gave her permission to follow that desire while my charisma slashed down any inhibitions that claimed she had other duties. She didn’t need to punish whoever hurt him. She didn’t need to keep Hent and I contained.

Her slit pupils devoured her irises, ears fully upright and tail straight out behind her. She scooped up Ishiyae and raced out as quickly as she could beneath his weight.

Pride at that compromise slapped a smile on my face. Ishiyae would live while we were free to escape. Then I turned and saw why Hent had been so quiet. He knelt by Nyen, scales the same as the jade that tipped the Listener’s fluorescent hair.

Slowly, I sunk to my knees opposite him and gathered Nyen into my arms. “We’re getting off this ship, and we’re taking him with us.”

As I rose, he watched me warily, every color flashing in his eyes—fear’s gold, pain’s crimson, confusion’s lavender, and others I didn’t know the meaning of. The brightest azure, pale chartreuse, a gray I would almost term silver. These told me he was a mess of emotions, but I could only guess his thoughts.

I cleared my throat. “When he stabbed you, he was trying to protect Grenswa. He’ll face whatever consequences he must back home, but I won’t leave him here.”

“I understand that.” Hent stood.

I lifted a brow at him. “And you agree?”

He nodded. “We’ve lost enough already.”

At his easy acceptance, my heart swelled. He might have once threatened to stuff me down a drain for a minor offense, but when it counted, this prince had more compassion than I had any right to expect.

“He’s in awful condition, though,” Hent whispered as I returned Nyen to the shower stream for one last therapeutic soaking. I didn’t know when he would get another, at least someone had cleaned up the gore. Hent was wise enough to wet his scales as well. “What happened to him?”

As I searched the room’s every compartment, I explained the fragments I knew of his tale. For what he had done to Hent, they had gauged his hands. Because he was pretty, Alaysq had let him decorate her transport. Rablah’s gravity had been too much.

“Yet he lived,” Hent called softly.

In a drawer in the base of the bed, I finally found what I needed. “After he got back, he attacked Ishiyae.”

“He deserves a planet’s worth of honor for that, if nothin’ else.”

I returned to the washroom and leaned against the doorframe, the rings in my hair gently tinkling.

Hent’s brow was furrowed, and as when he had spoken to me before the children’s play so long ago, his scales resembled a watermelon striped with topaz. “Listeners only observe. It must’ve taken a lot for him to act, especially to choose...” He left the sentence unfinished, a hand sliding around his back to finger the hole Nyen’s dagger had left in his vest.

I straightened. “You won’t condemn him for it, even once you’re home?”

Hent looked up, and his answer died as his widening eyes drank in my wardrobe change. Pale purple chased away all other hues, and he swallowed. “It doesn’t fit you.”

“Ishiyae and I have different body shapes,” I conceded as I took Nyen into my arms again, “but wearing his armor will grant me some legitimacy while leading two prisoners around the ship.”

I left the helmet, though, not wanting to force it over my hair. I had also fastened my feather and ring skirt over the armor to camouflage the places where it hugged me indecently tight.

As we exited Ishiyae’s room, I ran my hand along the wall and breathed a request for the ship to show me to the museum and the Star’s Serenade at its center.

“That’sn’t Laysis,” Hent noted. “Menyaze?”

Wincing at his volume, I nodded. We walked fast, though I was still readapting to the gravity and launched in a leap as often as I blinked. Each footfall crashed like a felled tree. If only I had studied Nyen’s silent movement.

“You asked the ship somethin’?”

He was a clever one to figure that out despite never having seen that done. He also spoke quieter, so either he had noticed my jumpiness or he, too, felt the restless danger in the air.

“It’s showing us to our getaway vehicle.” We passed through an octagonal intersection, and I pointed out the triangles on either side of the correct passage. “If we get separated, follow these lights until you reach a museum and wait for me.”

He soundlessly agreed, a determined set to his sharp features, scales mottled green and aqua.

My eyes tumbled to his cuffs. They fit our cover story, but I would eventually have to get them off. The looped strap Ferrina had used to drag him hung from their middle, and I wouldn’t touch it, not even for appearances. Barbs on the inside of the bracelets already hooked into his brittle and cracked scales. At least the brief soak seemed to have helped. Despite our brisk pace, he wasn’t breathing as heavily.

He wasn’t the only one whose condition had improved. Within, I no longer kept Ishiyae from sinking. I held him down.

Alaysq’s warm breath caressed my inner ears. ‘If you keep pressing him under, you will take from him again, and he has nothing to spare.’

So, I let him go and hoped our head start was enough.

Hent walked ahead of me, scanning eyes memorizing the route and any possible hiding spaces. “What did you say to Ferrina to make her run away?”

“What she wanted to hear.”

He glanced back, teal trickling through his aqua, gorgeous as ever.

“She wants to save Ishiyae because she…” The word ‘love’ weighed on my tongue but refused to sortie. Did she love him, or was it only an effect of his charisma?

Hent would term that mind-control, not love, but could love and charisma not exist in tandem, working together to form something stronger than either?

With a hard swallow, I hoped I wouldn’t regret bringing this up. “You say your feelings for me are only because of my charisma.”

The jagged corridor spilled into a wide rotunda, and Hent halted at its border. “I said I couldn’t be sure.”

Two Shlykrii-nas in brown uniforms sat at a desk in the center of the space. I held one’s eye as I adjusted my grip on Nyen and took Hent’s arm, and the watchman gave an acknowledging nod before returning to his screens.

On the far side of the rotunda, revolving doors in a wall of glass marked the museum’s entrance, and I waited until we were beyond them before resuming our conversation. “Ishiyae has the same charisma I do, and it doesn’t stop you from hating him.”

Hent snorted. “He doesn’t want me to love him.”

Again, he made me think. The stallion Lan would do as I asked if he liked me, so I had desired his affection, and Blu had been much too close on that occasion.

Even if I hadn’t consciously wished for the giapro’s good regard, they resembled the Amparth who despised me for my resemblance to River, slight as that was. Deep down, I wished they would see me instead so I wouldn’t have to fear reptilian faces hiding in the bushes beyond Menyaza’s walls.

Then there was Grr, and I wanted him to adore me. At every step, I had been unable to protect him, yet how invigorating the belief that I had power.

I slowed, staring through the exhibit to my right. Ancient, fringed armor protected headless mannequins in tidy military rows behind a velvet rope.

Consciously, I had not used charisma on Hent, but had I not wanted to change his opinion of my kind? I had liked it when he refuted Blu’s claim on me. Jealousy burned when he danced with others at the festival, and when I saw that he would kiss me, I wanted that, too. If I had been a pink Amethyst raised by River Guardians without charisma, would those things still have happened? I wanted to say yes, but like him, I couldn’t be sure.

“Is it wrong, though?” I murmured.

Hent, far ahead, turned back. His face scrunched, scales somewhere between pink and plum, as his tail swayed in slow, tight coils. “I suppose it depends on if what you want from me differs from what I want for myself.”

With a smirk, I hurried to his side, passing displays of taxidermied beasts and racks of chipped blades. “You say that like you wouldn’t be able to defy me, but I’ve yet to win an argument with you. In fact, with most of the things we’ve disagreed on, it’s you that changed my mind.”

He nudged me playfully. “You think Seallaii-nas are beautiful monsters now, too?”

Yes, but I couldn’t say it. Ishiyae, Alaysq, Lily, my sister? None fit my wise, peaceful paradigm.

I returned his teasing push and scampered on ahead, but relics of the violent past were an anchor on my heart. Curtsying mannequins lined up in gorgeous clothes on either side of me. The elite who had worn them had amassed their fortunes on the backs of the powerless. Did the injustice that allowed this art to be created make it wrong for me to appreciate it?

Slinking along the path behind this display, Hent sobered, swirling lavender and teal. His torn and bloodied vest didn’t match the exhibit’s elegance, yet his regal beauty did. He would have looked so amazing in any one of these high-colored, embroidered jackets, even a moon would have swooned.

I drew a breath to tell him this but instead choked on the musty air, and he spoke before I could. “Ishiyae looks like your Fredo.”

My gasp brought on another round of coughs.

“They’re brothers,” I eventually rasped, “though Fredo doesn’t remember him.”

“You’re sure this Fredo wasn’t involved with the attack on my home?”

My teeth cut into my cheek as I debated how much to say. I had brought the tracker, but I hadn’t known. Fredo’s sister, or some version of her, had been behind the attack two hundred years ago that nearly wiped out Hent’s people.

“Fredo had nothing to do with it,” I began, primed to launch into an explanation about how the Shlykrii-na groups differed and what they wanted, but I reached the end of the row.

Beyond a larger than life statue of a persnickety Shlykrii-na astride the shoulders of a norahn, a railing ringed a sunken space two stories deep. In the center rested the Star’s Serenade, shaped like a lily laid upon its side. The stem served as the nose, and eight petals formed the tails, colored a ghostly purple-white.

“There it is, our ride home!” I cried, tears clouding my vision. This was better than I could have hoped. A clear dome capped the space, and while it was likely sturdier than glass, the Star’s Serenade was stronger, especially if it had been absorbing the energy of this starlit view for over a decade.

Nyen stirred, tucking in closer to me. It was colder here than any part of the ship I had seen thus far.

“Hent, hurry!”

He didn’t answer, and hope’s warmth became panic’s flames.

“Hent?”

“I heard you.” His voice wobbled and broke. “How many can that vessel hold?”

I traced the sound, following the curved inner path toward him. “Dozens. We can set the air to be warm and humid and full of oxygen. We can even flood a whole room so you can swim.”

As I rounded the corner, he stepped back. His eyes and scales were red dipped in darkness. “Where are the others?”

With another stride, I hefted Nyen. “I don’t know where the other abducted are, but we have to—”

“I’lln’t leave them. I can’t.” He tried to retreat and collapsed, gaze angled too far to the right to be on me.

I tracked its line. Out of all the relics in this museum, he had encountered the worst. The white war machine’s skull-like face glowed beneath the spotlights, diode eyes scarlet but not active. It was inert, posed with a shooter aimed at where Hent had stood. It might not have been Paqo, but it looked exactly like it, right down to the crack I had put in its side.

Swallowing, I placed myself between Hent and the display. I wasn’t tall enough to block it completely, but at least my back hid the clawed left hand and its ghastly prize—Blu’s necklace stained with azure blood.

“The others won’t be abandoned, but we need to get you off this ship.”

He shook his head. “They’re the ones in danger. Stop wastin—”

“If you stay, these Shlykrii-nas will use you to break Grenswa.” I dropped and gripped his shoulder. It felt like ice. “You defeat them by leaving.”

I wasn’t sure he heard me. His unfocused gaze definitely didn’t see me. Watching a scene already past, it matched the star-speckled void beyond the dome.

His voice was just as hollow and lost. “He screamed and screamed. I begged them to stop hurtin' him. They told me to beg the camera, so I looked right at it.”

Ishiyae was on the move, though I didn’t dare check where. Heart thudding like a leempree’s hooves, I set Nyen down alongside us and cupped Hent’s cheeks. “Look at me.”

His gaze remained distant, the shine in his ebony scales erratic. “I saw my own reflection in the lens, torn and filthy, but I spoke to Blu. To Timqé, to Mother, to everyone in the world. I said to keep fightin', to claim victory like we did before.”

Hent knew the history as well as I did. Grenswa had repelled those first invaders only after they were stirred into a frenzy by the death of their beloved queen, a role he now played.

I wrapped my arms around him and hissed in his ear, “You’ll live, Hent. I’ll take you home, and you’ll hug your mother and brother. You’ll meet your nephew.”

He flinched. “They kept hittin' Blu until he couldn’t scream anymore, and I couldn’t even scream for him because they’d send the image home. I told him he'dn’t, we'dn’t be Grenswa’s downfall.” He squeezed his arms between us and buried his face in his hands. “They should've killed me instead.”

They wouldn’t, though. They would break his heart and his soul over and over until they got what they wanted, and if they killed him then, they would call it mercy.

Sobs shook him, but not as they had Ishiyae only a few hours before. My vedia’s grief was old and had grown with him. It was wild, riding the wind and just as unpredictable. He had hugged me tight enough it hurt, as if I were air and he had held his breath all this time.

There was rhythm in Hent’s raw sorrow, a song with the most heart-wrenching beat. It might have been wrong, but I wanted him to cling to me as Ishiyae had. I wanted to be what Hent needed.

As he tried to curl in on himself, I looped his connected wrists behind my neck and drew him closer, recalling times when a much smaller me had comforted Fredo like this after his nightmares. I hadn’t seen them back then. When I couldn’t be there for him, Dollii was, or Lord Lokma, murmuring a lullaby.

I hummed that same tune, but the words were different. I told Hent he could grieve, but he had to live. I said I had composed a dirge for Blu, but I would show him only after we had launched. I promised to sing for him and even play an instrument, any one he chose, but he had to get up now and board the transport.

He couldn’t. The cold, dry air and lack of oxygen had taken its toll. Each place we touched, he shivered less, but my heat was not enough to keep him conscious.

The movement of his lips against my neck felt like a caress. “That’s what it means to be a prince: You make sure everyone else’s safe first.”

Before I could argue, he slipped through hibernation’s door, body stiff as Nyen’s had been.

“Idiot prince.” Preparing to stand, I reached for the Listener and found him staring. “You didn’t hear that.”

He tilted his head and smirked.

I huffed and pulled him to his feet. “You’re even prettier without the mask, you know.”

His brows lowered, wary, but the smirk remained. He was barely awake, though, muscles too stiff to walk, so I hauled him along with one arm while balancing Hent on the other.

Out of all the things in this museum, these two were the true works of art. If I thought Hent beautiful before, it was because I hadn’t seen him asleep. His peaceful lines refused to release my gaze. Every jewel-tone pulsed through his scales as they strove to glean oxygen from the air. Because they couldn’t find enough, his small breaths ruffled the hair on the back of my neck, sending tingles all the way to my toes. I almost dropped him ten times before the hatch of the Star’s Serenade opened at my elbow’s prompt.

The scent of decaying yewn greeted us. Lights gradually brightened, leading us deeper into the stem, and I tiptoed, intrigued by everything. This was a real Sojourner ship. A clan of over a dozen had lived here once—Fredo’s family. It was probably just my imagination, but the ship seemed just as curious of me. After all this time, a River Guardian had come for it. It awaited my command.

I had it fill two tubs with warm water, then amended the request and made one of them cool. Nyen narrowed his eyes at me, but he would get the warm one.

“I’ll heat Hent’s after we’ve launched,” I told him as I gestured above the center console to pull up the holographic controls. I didn’t know how to fly a vessel like this, but the ship offered a manual when asked, and I skimmed the instructions on the screens.

Moving freer now, the Listener swam to the edge of his tub and reached for the prince.

“Nyen, don’t. He’ll be angry, but he’ll live, and that’s what matters.”

He puffed his cheeks and didn’t stop stretching toward Hent.

“When you fall in the cold tub, I don’t want to hear you comp—”

If I finished that sentence, I didn’t hear it above the stomping in the corridor.

A second later, armored Rablah-nas surrounded me, and Ishiyae’s voice was a wheeze in my head. ‘Don’t fight them. We don’t have time for that.’

‘You’re right about that last bit. Call them off.’

‘Go with them.’

Instead, I kicked at the first one to draw near. He scrambled back, and I sprang at a second. My heel struck his chest, and as he teetered, I flipped and connected with a third’s jaw. My toes tapped the floor, and I shot off again, but as my punch reached a fourth, my hand refused to form a fist. My knee bent too far as I landed, absorbing all momentum, and a gloved hand captured my wrist.

‘You barely have the strength to mind-speak, Ishiyae. Controlling my body will kill you this time.’

‘I just have to slow you, and that doesn’t take too much.’

Both of my arms and one leg were restrained now, but I jerked and writhed. Another carried Hent. I didn’t see Nyen.

“Return him to the water, and I’ll go with you,” I cried. Fragmented plans shimmied through the corners of my mind, trying to stay out of Ishiyae’s notice. If I touched a wall, could I set the autopilot and launch this ship once I was outside? I didn’t want to be exposed in the museum when the Star’s Serenade shattered the ceiling and opened this room to outer space, though. That would be a last resort.

I managed to kick off one wall and slam my shoulders into a captor’s gut. At the same time, I rounded on Ishiyae in our mindscape, sweeping his legs out from under him. He was barely standing as it was, and we landed hard on the surface of the sea. The few stars he had left flickered within the nebulous shadow that made up the rest of him as he rolled and pinned me. I kneed his back and flipped our positions, slamming him against the sea’s glass until it shattered.

Shards of it edged his voice. ‘Alaysq needs you. Veloi-na arms dealers attacked her on Rablah because I wasn’t there to stop them.’

‘I can’t save her any more than I could save you a few hours ago.’

‘At least try.’ He yanked me under the sea with him.

‘What’s to try?’ I sputtered. ‘I don’t even see her in here.’

‘She shut herself off because she doesn’t want us to experience dying with her.’ Terror surrounded him as a white-hot glow.

I stopped kicking and clawing for a second. ‘You don’t even like her.’

‘She’s like a mother I hate and love at the same time.’

I guessed he felt similarly toward me. For most of his life, Alaysq was the only other Seallaii-na he had known. He probably expected me to be just like her. She was my mother’s vedia, after all.

‘You’re a Sojourner, Ishiyae. You could go anywhere in the universe. I know you tried to run once. It’s why you fixed the Star’s Serenade.’ Slipping free of his listless grasp, I swam for the surface.

Outside, the Rablah-nas had carried me far. Flashing diodes covered dark walls. Curtains waved. Someone threw a sheet over me. I lay on a hard, mobile bed, limbs strapped down.

Ishiyae’s response was a whisper on the breeze. ‘My clan didn’t name this ship the River’s End. They called it River’s Vow, a promise to the surviving high caste Surra-nas that they would not be abandoned. I’m the last one left to live up to that promise.’

‘Shkykrii’s revolution happened long before you were born,’ I argued, tugging at my straps. ‘You owe them nothing. Get me out of this, and let’s leave.’

‘I’m a part of it, and it’s a part of me.’

‘Sounds like the civility you say you despise. You fancy yourself their hero.’

Instead of words, something else trickled through, eagerness and dread. He stood in a hanger, stores stacked against the walls, transports lined in tidy berths. He approached one shaped like a bird.

‘Is that another Sojourner ship?’

‘Thanks for returning my armor,’ he said, then put as much distance between us in our minds as the leash would allow. ‘Save Alaysq, and if I survive this, we’ll talk later.’

If he survived. What if I didn’t survive? Alaysq hadn’t wanted these doctors to know I was royal, the half of the bond they hadn’t studied. Now they attached wires to my head.

Asking nothing in return, my foot. No, this vedia asks a lot.

Continued in chapter 65: A Huge Loss

Thank you for reading!