–6. Votum

vōtum ~ī, n.

1. a vow, promise, dedication

2. a hope, desire

The church does not forgive. But it does allow Rain to forget, for a time.

This church in Low Ward is cobbled together with scraps of cheap, untreated whitewood—sawdust and mold and a faint sheen of oxidized gold covering it all. He prays at its altar for the lives he’s taken; every Spider’s Hand contract, every crew member of the H.R.M.S. Endurance slaughtered so that Polaris could storm in and take over the ship.

It was the only way they’d let him into their ranks—the greatest gesture of good faith he could muster. They had no leader, only leaders—foremen on substations who were eyewitnesses to the grueling conditions, nurses and professors sick of the rampant corruption. They came from all walks of life and training and seemed to share the burden of leadership equally. No ringleader, no mention of any noble, but Rain knew—when all else failed—to track the money. The majority of their ordinance was not stolen—it was cleanly and newly manufactured. He found the shipment logs with Green-One’s help; the crates came from a smattering of subsidiaries all under the same umbrella of a company called Idaxvale. Now, it was just a matter of discovering what noble House owned Idaxvale and what methods would make them talk.

Rain didn’t need to pray when his brothers and sisters were still alive—merely seeing their faces after a long day felt enough like absolution. But they are gone. His father, his brothers and sisters…all his family is gone save for Green-One. And…

Outside the church’s doors, a holoscreen plays the Supernova Cup; Heavenbreaker and the girl inside it tearing across space; a girl who feels like family.

An elderly woman prays beside Rain, her grandchild beside her and a dock worker beside them, oil-smeared and graying. For this brief moment, he is one of them—the innocents, the flies, the prey—and it is a bittersweet surrender muddled by the dust in his nose and the bright colors it outlines the world in. The moment Polaris accepted him, he turned back to the sweet relief of the green powder they offered. Every day, he fights the edge of unfounded paranoia the dust brings, but there is no ignoring the real signs. He has caused them so many times before; whispers first, glances second, the illusion of peace last. The Web is furious at his departure. He has weeks before the recluses close in on him—assassins meant for assassins, the best of the best.

At most, he has four weeks to live. At the least, two.

Yellow condensation drips down the sagging eaves of the church and pools in the well-worn steel steps. The elderly woman watches her granddaughter play in the puddles as they wait for the tram. Rain sees without seeing as the Web taught him to—she’s staring at him.

“Your eyes, dear,” the old woman finally croaks, peering into his cowl. “Very pretty. They look like that rider girl’s.”

Her. Synali von Hauteclare. Rain has seen grief, but never like her—it takes a while, grief—but for that girl it broke her mind instantly, as if her mother was all that kept her alive. He remembers the baskets, the worn blankets, the glass fragments hung in the shabby little window. It had been an apartment lovingly remade with a daughter’s love for her mother.

He doesn’t know who gave him his eyes—Father never spoke of it before his passing. Few of his siblings in the Web had brightly colored eyes like nobles choose, and when they were children they whispered beneath the covers with him at night:

“Maybe you’re special.”

“Or maybe you’re a bastard. Nobles love their unique eye colors and hate bastards.”

“Nobles hate everyone but themselves, stupid.”

A surveillance drone buzzes overhead and cuts his painful memory by the umbilical cord.

“She’s very strong,” the old woman insists. “A bastard, the rumors say—commoner, like the rest of us. But she’s riding in their tourneys, isn’t she? The first one.”

Rain’s hand twitches to his belt; if he leaves this old woman alive, it will be one less week he has to live, and yet…his hand relaxes. The recluses are not his kind—they do not kill civilian witnesses unless they defend the target.

“When they come,” Rain says softly, “you must tell them everything about me without hesitation.”

The old woman peers up at him worriedly, as if her years have given her knowing. “Will you be all right?”

The sound is like family. Like care. She doesn’t see it, but beneath the cowl he smiles for the first time in months; small, weak, lost and then found again.

“One day, perhaps.”