40. Trigeminus

trigeminus ~a ~um, a.

1. (literal) three born of one birth

The triumvirate conference is held as soon as I can stand on projection crutches.

The three of us don’t look at one another.

Jasmine perfume wafts from my left, where Mirelle sits, and Rax’s herbal scent comes in from my right. Our makeup today is heavier than even the tourney makeup. The flashing lights of the vis cameras crack like the lightning in Esther’s storms—white, disorienting, like the impact light between steeds. My body is hyperaware of Mirelle’s every shift and nail inspection, of Rax’s chest rising and falling as he breathes. The room seethes around us in reporters and guards jockeying for positions. The small studio crowd behind them fills in the gaps with relentless chattering, and yet the three of us are dead silent.

“So,” Rax starts, voice light. “Anyone do anything fun for the weekend?”

Mirelle snorts. “Your glibness will be your downfall.”

“Most people say it’ll be my devastatingly good looks.” He turns to me. “Opinions, Hauteclare?”

“I don’t share those with the likes of you,” I drone.

“Smart,” Mirelle agrees cuttingly. “And yet not smart enough to realize House Hauteclare would never stoop to the likes of killing commoners.”

I make a Dravik smile aimed straight ahead. “I said the same thing to my mother’s corpse, Lady Mirelle, when she was rotting on the floor.”

There’s an uncomfortable beat. Rax shifts in his chair. Mirelle crosses her arms over her pure-white riding coat. “Every accusation you make is baseless without proof, murderer.”

“I am the proof. I spent six months in a brothel finding proof. House Hauteclare has a private assassin in the Spider’s Hand guild. He kills only for you. He killed my mother, and he tried to kill me.”

“Then why are you still here, inconveniencing everyone?”

“Mir,” Rax starts. “Lay off—”

“Do not”—Mirelle cuts to him like ice—“start talking to me now.”

Something strains between them, creaking tight like bone just before it breaks. The host slides in with a smile, ignorant of the mood. “Are we ready, milord and ladies?”

Rax exhales. “Give us five—”

“We are ready.” Mirelle raises her chin. “You may begin filming.”

The host looks to me. I nod, and with that he turns to the cameras and gives a hand signal. A hush falls over the room, and a hundred red lights spring to life, blinking in the corner of each vis screen to indicate recording; a hundred eyes waiting, and millions more waiting behind those.

“Welcome, once again, to the Supernova Cup triumvirate conference! I’m your host, Terren Helgrade, and today—”

The floodlights suddenly flicker and then expire, plunging the entire room into darkness and murmuring. The moderator’s voice pierces above it all—“Apologies, milord and miladies. It’s fine—just get the generators online! Someone? Someone get the generators!”

“You okay, Hauteclare?” Rax asks. “Not afraid of the dark, are you?”

I don’t dignify his attempt at insulting me. I train my eyes on the Supernova Cup trophy kept at the front—a grand spire of white-gold metalwork. It’s strange to think: the day I hold that trophy is the day I die. Rest at last.

The floodlights kick on once more, the moderator slightly winded but just as eager to get going. “Let’s take it from the top. Three, two— Welcome to the Supernova Cup triumvirate conference! I’m your host, Terren Helgrade, and today we have the utmost pleasure of hosting the three youngest non-royal competitors in the Cup—Sir Rax Istra-Velrayd, Lady Mirelle Ashadi-Hauteclare, and Lady Synali von Hauteclare!”

The audience gives a polite few seconds of applause. Someone in the crowd projects their vis to say MARRY ME, RAX, but the security abruptly forces them to turn it off.

“Sir Rax, you’ve dominated your past three matches without once getting hit. You’re the clear favorite to win. What do you think about the competition this year? Is it up to standard?”

I don’t miss the way the moderator’s eye flickers to me with that last question.

“It’s more than up to standard, Helgrade.” Rax laughs. Reluctant awe washes over me—every shred of discomfort is suddenly gone from his voice. He can hide things after all. “I’ve never had tougher matches in my life. Everyone’s trained really hard, and I’m proud of us all. Mirelle in particular is having a great season.”

“I am, thank you for noticing,” she quips, then continues. “I believe Synali von Hauteclare deserves special recognition for her efforts—this is her very first formal tourney, after all.”

Efforts. I kill the urge to sneer, kill the creeping uncertainty that she might be right—all effort, no real skill. The cameras shift to me, and I focus beyond them to the shadowed crowd.

“Thank you, Lady Mirelle,” I say. “I couldn’t have asked for a higher compliment from a peer of mine.”

A peer—implying she and I are equal. Her twitch is only visible on her knee—golden nails tapping an irritated rhythm.

“You’re very welcome,” she rebounds with a razor-perfect smile. “And you have my best wishes for a quick recovery from your recurring injuries.”

Clever. Cruel. Rax steps into the silence effortlessly. “I think it’s safe to say we’re all looking forward to meeting each other on the field.”

“Indeed.” The moderator grins. “Now, it’s a terrible shame about Sevrith cu Freynille’s overload. You were the last one to face him, Lady Hauteclare—any words?”

I grit my teeth. Plenty of words, plenty of feelings, and I open my mouth, but someone glows softly out of the audience—pale hair and a blue dress and their eyes burning pinpoint silver. My jaw goes slack.

“Lady Hauteclare? Are you all right?”

Astrix is brighter than ever, her outline no longer fuzzy or wavering or just an imprint. I can see every detail of her face—round cheeks, soft shoulders, patient smile. Exactly like her portrait. Why?

“Excuse me, Lady Hau—”

“Sevrith was my friend,” Rax interrupts. “And he was like a mentor to us younger riders. He’ll be dearly missed—won’t he, Mirelle?”

In the audience next to Astrix sits a man with dark hair. Silver eyes. He winks at me silently.

“Of course.” Mirelle straightens. “He was a well of experience and riding expertise, and we lost him too soon.”

Why Sevrith, too? Dravik only sees his mother, but I see two. I’m worse. I’m worse, somehow, but I’ve only been riding for a few months. Every word the host says becomes faint.

“What do you think about your fellow young competitors, Lady Ashadi-Hauteclare?”

Mirelle smiles. “Rax is, of course, my greatest competition.”

“And is Lady Hauteclare your competition?”

“Synali rides like the early soldiers of the War—frightened of their steeds. Her maneuvers against Olric screamed fear, and that manifested clearly in her movements. With time, she might become a braver, truer rider. But as of now, she isn’t worth fighting.”

The audience titters, Rax shifts, but I only have eyes for Sevrith, for the way he looks so real, down to the crow’s feet around his eyes.

The host leans in. “Do you have a rebuttal for this, Lady Hauteclare?”

I blink, and the four silver eyes are gone. My head moves slowly to the host, to the mic, to the hundreds of cameras. “Only a fool believes in anyone else’s measure of their worth.”

The audience’s murmurs crescendo, and at first I think it’s my comment, but the look on the host’s face says something different. Next to me, Mirelle leans judiciously away, and Rax stands abruptly, fishing something out of his pocket. I look up to the monitoring screen—my face zoomed in on, the matte makeup covering my pockmarks but not the trickle of pale silver leaking from my nose, and it all comes crashing down: they’re not holes. They’re pockets. Filled with nerve fluid.

There’s a moment. And then the frantic break.

“Is she overloading?”

“Someone get a medic, quick!”

Rax leans in with his handkerchief, gently dotting at my lip. “Oh shit—that’s a lot of it,” he murmurs. “Turn the cameras off.” The host is shocked stiff, and Rax’s face contorts as he bellows, “Turn the goddamn cameras off, Terren. NOW!”

Mirelle stands and looks to Rax. “Get her backstage. Quickly.”

I barely feel him nudging me up from my chair. He guides my arm to brace around his neck and leads me offstage, his weight the only thing keeping me from falling. I feel far away from myself—like I’m looking down on someone else’s memory again. Cameras blur as we pass, red lights and blue screens and the screeching synth hydraulics of the door and finally the dim, musty quiet of the hall.

My eyes unfocus into the ceiling—I’m doomed. Too far gone. But I always knew that. Will the coma be like resting? Like death? Will I get to see Mother there?

Faintly, a voice.

“…at me. Look at me, Hauteclare, please.”

My eyes refocus; a face like a lion, proud nose and proud chin and glass-cut angles on his bones. Handsome. No—too close, too much touching. I pull away from his grasp, but he won’t stop staring, words hoarse on the edges.

“What’s your full name?”

“Synali.”

“Full name.”

“Synali Emilia Woster.” Pause. Think. “Synali von Hauteclare.”

“What year is it?”

“3442.”

The muted cacophony in the studio leans heavily against the quiet. Rax reaches for my face, but I wince back, and he offers his handkerchief instead. “There’s still some under your nose.”

I wipe it on my sleeve—the blue silk comes away wetly silver and sticking in my short, black hair strands. “Nerve fluid. I was right.”

“You wore the handkerchief Sev gave you during the Olric match, right?” Rax presses.

“None of your business.”

Of course I wore it, but he doesn’t need to know anything about me—my riding habits least of all. I focus on the windows lining the long room, the view of Mid Ward seething quietly outside.

“Listen, I get it; you’re a busy lady. You don’t have to ping me back or tell me what’s going on, but I need to know you’ll be okay when we leave this room.”

“I told you already,” I find the energy to snarl. “I’m not going to sleep with you. You can drop the act of pretending like you care.”

His brows knit. “You think this is an act?”

“It always is.” I wipe more silver out from under my nose. “Noblemen like you take advantage and then pretend to care afterward to appease your conscience. Like clockwork. You’re just doing it earlier than most.”

“I don’t—I don’t want the advantage on you, Hauteclare. I just want to know you’re okay. Riders look out for other riders.”

“I’m your enemy.”

“No—you’re my opponent. There’s a difference.”

Is there? My eyes trail up to his face, but I can only look at his redwood eyes for a few seconds before the churning in my gut becomes too strong to bear.

He smiles then, and it’s like watching a sunrise. “There we go. You look a little better.”

The tingle of his voice down my spine, the brief flicker of delusional hope that enemies aren’t all we’re doomed to be…but it all goes cold the moment I hear the click of heels announcing reality. Mirelle.

“Is she overloading or not?” Her voice echoes. She tosses my projection crutches to the ground in front of me, and Rax straightens.

“She still knows her name and the year, so.”

Mirelle smiles like a dagger as she walks over. “You’re all right, then.”

“Does this ever happen to you two?” I ask.

She shrugs one shoulder. “Never to me. It’s an older-rider problem. Rax has had it a few times, haven’t you?”

The numbness starts to wear off, and I feel more myself with every word, feeling enough to hate the pitying way Rax murmurs: “Nowhere near as bad as this.”

“Well.” Mirelle turns to me. “You must have very little inherent resistance against the nerve fluid. I suggest you discontinue riding, lest you end up like Sir Freynille.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” I lob back. Her smile widens.

“Which? You quitting? Or you going the way of Freynille? Both would solve the issue of my family being murdered—”

“Enough, Mir,” Rax interrupts. “You should go rest, Hauteclare. The two of us can finish the conference on our own.”

It stings that he thinks I’m not as strong as them. I am. I have to be. I snatch my crutches up and head for the doors back into the conference room…and then it comes.

A ripple.

At first I think it’s my arms giving out, trembling on the crutches, but then it happens all over and everywhere. The entire studio quivers, lights rattling their delicate glass bones against metal rigging and wires knocking loose from the ceiling panels. And it’s not stopping.

“Hauteclare—”

Rax’s call cuts off, and the holocandles lining the walls shiver fiercely, boxes of equipment tipping and spilling their contents all over. I look back to see Mirelle sidestep one, her face a grim mask of worry and her hand firmly on a railing. Rax’s gaze is on me as the vibrations become stronger, faster. It’s not g-force but something worse, something instantaneous and furious, and no matter how softly I clench, the crutches slip from under me, marble dust pouring from the ceiling, screams from behind the studio door echoing and Rax shouting for me, and it finally lands—a shock wave ripping through the world, the windows shattering inward—

I wrench myself away, ready to feel the glass pierce…but there’s nothing.

The blast passes, and the shaking stops as quickly as it began. That fresh herb smell. Warm pressure against my body. I crack my eyes open to see Rax crushing me to his chest, blood snaking from his scalp and dripping off his cheeks. He smiles down at me with bloodstained teeth.

“Did any of it get you?”

“Rax!” Mirelle staggers over, hands hovering frantically. “Your back—”

“I’ll be okay, Mir. S’just glass.”

“Okay?” Mirelle shrills. “Stay here—I’ll find a med-kit.”

Her heels clip frantically down the ruined hall. The air turns chilly as Mid Ward seeps in—the sound of hovercarriage horns and vendors yelling—and I can’t move. His heat burns into me, the feel of his arms around me and his ribs against mine… I duck out of his grasp and double around him only to swallow a swear; his breast coat is shredded, the red of it dark with blood and gleaming with countless glass shards as big as fingers stuck in his back. Blood spatters the ground. Mirelle’s heels left bloody footprints.

“Why—” I help him sit on a nearby box as best I can. “Why would you do that?”

“Told you.” Rax sucks in a breath as he sits. “I need to make sure you’ll be okay.”

“You—” I choke. “Why?”

“Because,” he insists, softer. “You’re cute.”

“Shut up.”

He laughs, his breathing labored, and his mirth goes quiet. “Because when I started riding…no one was there for me. I want to make sure you…have someone.”

My stomach twists. “I can’t have anyone.”

The redwood of his eyes crinkles. “I won’t…I won’t bother you. Just, if you need anything or if you’re scared… I don’t know how to help you or even if I can. But I want to.”

Beneath my cross pendant, my heart feels like it’s bursting in slow motion, and then it stops.

I have been kissed before, but I’ve never kissed someone. I’ve never chosen to lean in and take someone’s lips in mine, to hold the face I’ve feared and thought about in equal measure in my gentle hands. Gentle. Nothing about touching has ever been gentle to me, but now he moves in, and he is like silk in my mouth, searching, curious, his hand glancing behind my neck and cradling there, and for a split second, and for the first moment in my life since Mother died, I feel just…me.

I feel everything inside of me quiver and shake and plead for more, but he never tries for more; he moves precisely as far and as fast as I do. Every cell in my brain knows this is wrong, and every cell in my body doesn’t care, and he tastes like blood and skin, and my fingers clench in his collar, and I’m going to die—

This is pointless. I can’t like this. I can’t want more. He is a noble. I am a bastard. There can only be victory, not…whatever this is.

Whatever this is slows and then stops as I pull away. Looking at his face is even harder now, so I stare at his chest as it rumbles with his dark-syrup laughter.

“Was that you trying to scare me off, Hauteclare? Because lemme tell you…it did not work.”

His collarbone is exposed. Smooth skin. It’s the sight of his smooth skin where mine is scarred that drives the cold stake of reality back into me.

“There cannot be a second time,” I say carefully. I don’t see the flinch in his face, but I see it in his body.

“Right. Yeah.”

The vis suddenly starts screaming between us, our wrists blaring ear-piercing alerts in concert as an emergency broadcast flashes past.

MISSING CARGO VESSEL H.R.M.S. ENDURANCE COLLIDES WITH SUBSTATION THETA-7. STATION DAMAGE NEGLIGIBLE—ALL VITAL SYSTEMS INTACT. LOW WARD SECTOR D, MID WARD SECTOR C, H, L EXPERIENCING MINOR GRAVITY DESTABILIZATION: LOCATE NEAREST SHELTER AND REMAIN THERE UNTIL FURTHER INSTRUCTION. THIS MESSAGE WILL REPEAT. MISSING CARGO VESSEL—

I throw up my screen so we can both see it. Every news station is a wreckage of fire and metal against space, and my stomach drops—I can pick out the prow of a ship spiraling into nothing, the dock of a substation shredded until barely recognizable. How many people were on board? How many were working the substation?

“Ah, there you are.” I look up to see Dravik standing in the hydraulic doorway of the frantic studio, his cane flashing sapphires and his eyes flashing between Rax and me with an expression so stony it bruises. “Thank you, Sir Istra-Velrayd, for protecting my charge. I will take it from here.”

Rax lowers his bleeding head as if preparing for a fight. How does Dravik know Rax protected me from the glass? Is he having me followed? No—there was only Mirelle, Rax, and me. The timing of all this, the fact he was here at the studio all along when an emergency occurred—

“Did you…” I point to the substation destruction on the vis. “Did you do this?”

His expression softens as he tilts his head at Rax. “Did you do this?”

“I found it!” Mirelle’s voice cuts through the hall as she runs up panting, a med-kit in hand. She goes still when she sees Dravik and even stiller when she sees his silver-blue cane, her bow not fully formed but her glare very much so. “Your Highness.”

“Lady Mirelle.” Dravik smiles at her. “Please take care of Sir Istra-Velrayd. Synali and I will be leaving him in your hands.” He turns to me. “Won’t we?”

Words beneath words; I will leave Rax behind from this moment on. Whatever happened in this hall was a fantasy—a dream to be shelved away, a memory not mine. Dravik is my partner. House Lithroi is why I am here and why I will win. The reality is Mother, dead. Four more circles to die. The reality is a ship run into a substation, many more dead. The chessboard moves.

I wordlessly pick up my crutches and leave with the prince.

The pawn moves forward.