Sediryl could hardly believe he was real, and present, and back. When he’d told her at her investiture party that he was going to the Chatcaavan Throneworld, she’d assumed he’d return in a month. Maybe two, if the transport carrying him had felt like running at a leisurely pace. How long did it take to teach a shape to a Chatcaavan? Sediryl had seen the Attendant learn one in minutes. Seconds! And that had been the Attendant’s first, while the Emperor was a veteran shapechanger…! And then the months had streamed past, and so many things had needed her attention, or been exploding, and she’d missed him terribly but she’d put those feelings aside because there was no time to wallow.
But he was here now, holding one of Vasiht’h’s sleeping babies, and it was so good to see him.
“So do we get the story of why you went missing for over a year?” Vasiht’h asked. “It’s been over a year, hasn’t it? How many months…” He started counting them off, laughed. “No, you do it, Jahir, you’ve got more fingers than I do.”
Jahir smiled, and in her husband that slight curve was indulgent affection. “We’ll call it a year and a touch and leave it at that. Alet? Did it really take so much time to give your shape to the Emperor? Was he abroad so long?”
Which was not an idle question, given what that meant about Lisinthir throwing himself into danger. But then, Lisinthir did best in danger. Qora, though, was shaking his head, and now that Sediryl had been around the Faulfenza long enough she could be surprised at this adoption of alien body language, and how natural he made it look. “No, though it did take a while before he could see me. A few months? I don’t remember at this point.” He grinned with his teeth, rather than with the Faulfenzair nose wrinkle. “No, my WorldDancer gave me an errand to perform, and that is what kept me. Did you know that the universe is vast and that traveling even our small part of it is extremely time-consuming?”
“They might not know, but I do,” Vasiht’h said. “I’ve traveled on commercial liners before. If you’re used to careering around at emergency military speeds, you might not understand…” He trailed off and shook his head. “You know, it’s a little scary, how the Alliance would fall apart without Well drives. We’d never leave our world again.”
“Some of us are very aware that the Alliance would fall apart without Well drives,” Maia said. The data tablet Jeasa had set on one of the chairs allowed the D-per to project a holographic version of herself, and the fact that she’d bothered told Sediryl a great deal about how much Maia had missed Qora. “Just think about how I feel, arii. I need Well repeaters to exist.”
“But we do have Well drives and Well repeaters,” Sediryl said, “and we’re aware of their importance, and take steps to ensure they won’t vanish. So let’s not scare ourselves.”
“Right,” Vasiht’h said. “No borrowing trouble. Extra trouble, anyway. So you went junketing around the Alliance, Qora?”
“Less the Alliance and more everywhere else. I have seen interesting places, my friends! And in interesting company!”
“And that’s probably all we’ll get out of you, isn’t it,” Maia said, grinning.
“No, no. This time I will be pleased to tell you that I was taking a tour of significant historical sites,” Qora said. “Did you know the Faulfenza met your peoples before the official first contact date?”
Sediryl didn’t think any of them knew the details of that first contact, only that she thought the Faulfenza were fairly new to the Alliance. Maia, though, had the data. “You mean before the 311 BA encounter? That was when we found Qufiil, or more specifically, we found your scouts and followed you home at your invitation.”
“And you are not the types to do so without invitation,” Qora said. “Which you demonstrated after the true first contact. In 175 BA.”
Maia’s purple ears splayed. “In what?”
“I sense a bad story,” Vasiht’h said, resigned.
“You may choose to consider it one,” Qora said. “Or you can see it as your Alliance acting on its highest ideals.”
“Or both?” Sediryl said, smiling.
“Or both,” he conceded.
“Let’s send the kits to their cradles,” Vasiht’h said. “They’ll pick up on our discomfort, even asleep. And no matter how I choose to frame the story, I bet it’s going to be uncomfortable.”
“Allow me,” Jeasa said, holding our her hands for one of the kits. “They need their evening lullaby.”
Vasiht’h laughed. “They don’t need it, but they certainly like it.”
“And I shall take the last,” Jahir said. “We will return shortly.”
“Or longly, if I decide they need more than one song,” Jeasa said.
Their departure left Sediryl with Qora, and the chance to really look at him. Was there less tension in him? He seemed easier in his skin, somehow. Older, without visible signs of it. But then, what did she know about how Faulfenza aged? Their sexual maturation being divorced from their physical maturation made guessing their ages difficult.
He was studying her too, and with a frankness that made her grin. “Yes, I’ve changed.”
“You have become a mother,” he said. “It suits you.”
“I love it,” Sediryl confessed. “I didn’t think I would, but it’s the best thing. Qora… so much has happened since you’ve left!”
“And I wish to hear all of it, princess. But my news I can impart to all of you, and should.”
“That’s a change,” Maia said, sounding bemused. “You people play it so close to the chest, usually.”
“We are the souls of discretion,” Qora said. “Did I say that right? I have been in company with a Seersa for a year. They don’t think you’re fluent until you know every idiom, no matter how obscure. Is that acccurate, Maia? Are you more Seersa or more D-per?”
Maia peered at him, a veil of lilac glitter rising across her shoulders. “I’m enough Seersa to be amused by that comment, and to wonder just what Seersa you’ve been running with across non-Alliance space.”
“Can’t you find out what he’s been up to?” Sediryl asked, laughing.
“Yes, but I don’t because that would be rude. Until you tell me I can, Qora-alet."
"Qora-arii, not Qora-alet," the Faulfenzair said. “I hope. We have been through a great deal together, and have all the future before us.”
Maia glanced at Sediryl. “Ominous? Or encouraging?”
“Encouraging, definitely,” Sediryl answered. “But a little bit ominous too.”
Her husband returned with Vasiht’h, but without her mother-in-law. “She is singing and shall be along when it suits her.” Jahir settled on the chair alongside hers. “Now I should like to hear about this early meeting of Faulfenza and Alliance.”
Qora pulled his legs up onto the loveseat and sat cross-legged in much the same way he had in the pirate base, when she’d first met him. “You see, we had a prophecy about you, many many centuries ago. Our second messiah spoke of aliens and how they would be our brothers and sisters, and accompany us into a golden age the likes of which we had never seen.”
“Prophecies,” Jahir murmured.
“Yes, we have them, and prophets to spread them, and seers to see them. Which is what I am. I am, technically, not a priest.” Qora smiled ruefully at Vasiht’h. “We don’t have priests.”
“You said so, I think. Maybe I’m misremembering.”
“Maybe. But priests imply religion, and we don’t think of our God as a matter for religion. He is part of our lives, personally, and as a species. And it is from Him that those prophecies came. It is for that reason that we sent scoutships in search of you, and had been since… I don’t know. Faullaizaf was a long time ago. It may have been before there were Pelted or Eldritch.”
“That far back?” Vasiht’h said, surprised.
“In the scheme of things we haven’t been around long,” Maia said. “You figure the Pelted are only about six hundred years old. Six-hundred-year-old nations on Earth were considered newfangled. And the Eldritch definitely can’t be older than Terran space travel, though how old I couldn’t tell you exactly. I’ve only got what the Empress has told me to go on, and evidence from what’s leftover in orbit.”
“Is there anything left in orbit?” Sediryl asked, surprised.
“Debris, at this point… though you’re only going to get the debris from things that survived long enough to become debris. If anything was here before that process began, I wouldn’t know it.”
Something about the way Maia phrased that made Sediryl wonder if Liolesa was looking for evidence of habitation prior to their settlement. Did she wonder if someone had terraformed Escutcheon before them? But if they had, wouldn’t it have been better suited to their crops and livestock?
But back to the things they did know, or at least, were about to be told. “So the Faulfenza were looking for us all this time.”
“Yes. And we found you, or rather, pirates found us. In the system that holds Akana Ris.” At this, Vasiht’h touched his fingertips to his brow and closed his eyes, and Qora patted his arm. “You knew it would be a hard story.”
“I know. But you hate to have your worst imaginings confirmed.”
“In 175 BA,” Maia mused. “That would have been not long after we met the Chatcaava. Akana Ris got handed over to us in 159 BA as part of the treaty.”
“Was it already the mess it is now?” Vasiht’h asked.
“It wasn’t awful,” Maia said, but she sounded cautious. “It’s definitely worse now. What it was then, mostly, was empty. And since it had been recently vacated by the Chatcaava, and had very little by way of population, and it was in a part of space Fleet didn’t patrol….”
“Then it was an excellent place for pirates to operate,” Jahir said. “No one to notice their predations, and few people to object, and plausible deniability if rumors began. Why should we blame independent agents when we could wonder at the motivations of our newest neighbors?”
“Except that no one on the Pelted side wondered,” Maia said. “Everyone was sure the Chatcaava were as good as their word. It was the humans who were suspicious, and that did no one any good, because we’d only just rediscovered humanity and to call that relationship acrimonious would be understating it.”
“What a mess,” Vasiht’h said. “And a Faulfenzair scoutship stumbled into this and got hurt.”
“All of the crew died, except one,” Qora said. “She went on to become our third messiah, who prepared us to ally with you… eventually. When we decided we were ready. This, you understand, was made possible by the Pelted ambassador who discussed the incident with her, and promised we would be left in peace until we chose to make contact.”
“I’m surprised you wanted anything to do with us after that,” Sediryl said.
“It was a matter of debate among us, which is why we waited as long as we did,” Qora. “But that was between us and the Pelted, princess. We had no trouble with you.”
Sediryl wondered if she’d heard that correctly, and was glad when her husband said, “The Faulfenza had met the Eldritch prior to their joining the Alliance? As well?”
“It was an Eldritch who helped that messiah on her subsequent travels through alien space,” Qora said. “Maybe you know of him… you live long enough. I wonder if you know more than I do, in fact.”
“You have a name?” Jahir asked.
“Yes,” said Qora. “Seledor Jesa Galare.”
From the door came a gasp. Sediryl leaned back until she could see her mother-in-law framed in the doorway, a hand pressed to her breast and as obvious a look of startlement as any Eldritch ever wore widening her eyes. “Do not say it! You have news of Seledor Jesa Galare!”
“Why do I feel like I should know him?” Sediryl asked.
“Why, he is part of our family! And his fate was a great tragedy, for he left long ago and never returned! Elesir’s twin, and Elesir you should know, for he married Maraesa, the queen prior to our empress.”
“I thought none of your queens married?” Vasiht’h complained. “That’s what I keep hearing.”
“A pretty tale we tell ourselves,” Jeasa said briskly. “Based entirely on technicalities, such as ‘she was not yet married when she became queen’ or ‘she married late’ or ‘they had children but the union had not been solemnized.’ But no, Maraesa did marry, and Seledor was her brother-in-law, or would have been, had he remained. But he left and no one knew what became of him, and it grieved his twin brother greatly. There are songs about it.” She looked at Jahir. “I sang you some by the cradle. ‘Gone is the heart-half—’”
“’Never the twain, never again,’” Jahir replied. “I didn’t know.”
“He was my great-uncle,” Jeasa said. “The two of you are descended from his bloodline, in one way or another.”
“Why’d he go?” Vasiht’h asked. “Was it restless feet, like some of you seem to get?”
Jeasa lit on an armchair, hands sinking into her lap. “No. He was displeased with the shape of Eldritch society, which at that time had only begun forming, you understand. But it was already lacking in balance. There is another song that calls him ‘seeker of justices not on this world.’”
“Fitting,” Qora said. “Since I think he went looking for captured slaves.”
“And was lost?” Jeasa asked. “I believe it. How sad!”
Sediryl though, couldn’t stop thinking about the Faulfenza. “We were friends. That long ago.”
“Kin, I would call it,” Qora said.
“Seledor would have,” Jeasa said firmly. “It would have been our way, even then. Oh, Qora-alet! You must share this news with Liolesa! She would have heard stories of him from Maraesa, surely.”
“We’ll tell her,” Sediryl said. “So this was what your long trip was about? Finding out how the Faulfenza really joined the Alliance?”
“In part,” Qora said. “Because our prophecies are not yet complete, but will be soon. I think, anyway, and in the judgment of my people. There is more to it.…”
“But you have only just arrived,” Jeasa said, “and we have done nothing but talk at you. We should eat, and then you must rest… you will stay here, I hope? The Faulfenza have an embassy and we shan’t keep you if they’re expecting you, but….”
“But stay,” Sediryl said. “Please.”
“Of course,” Qora said. “And I want to hear all about these children. I left and there were no children, and I return and it is as if an entire field had been left to pollinate.”
“When we decide to do things, we get moving on them,” Sediryl said, thinking of all the heartache and drama that had gone into her children’s conception. Qora had been on-world for that, but busy handling all her various farming projects so she could concentrate on her father’s state, and the Queen and Lisinthir’s visit. Which led her to, “We named our daughter after Daize.”
Qora’s head jerked up. “You did what?”
“To honor her memory,” Sediryl said. “Because she meant so much to me, though I didn’t know her long. And the war took her from us. Adaise. Do you think… Paudii tells me your Shoulders are your afterlife, and all Faulfenza go there. Do you think she knows?”
“That I can’t answer,” Qora said. “But I think she’d be pleased. And it is an honor.” He chuffed a laugh. “Ah, princess.”
* * *
The meal was late, which wasn’t odd in this household given her crazy schedule; Qora didn’t seem to mind, though he didn’t eat much. “Your gravity is so light I feel like I’ve barely done anything,” he said. “And yes, I’ve been told to get fitted for the shoes.” But eventually the dishes were cleared away, and with all the courtesy instilled by their culture, the Eldritch (and Vasiht’h) excused themselves from the dining room, and left Sediryl to Qora alone. Even Maia departed with a swift line written across the bottom of Sediryl’s vision: ‘call me if you need me.’
Qora pushed his plate away. “So. Now you will tell me all that has happened to you in my absence. I’m guessing there’s something there to tell.”
“Beth’s dead.”
She hadn’t planned to lead with that, but once it escaped her she realized nothing else mattered.
“Is she?” Qora leaned back in the chair, hands wrapped around a porcelain cup of tisane.
“And I had nothing to do with it.” Sediryl rubbed her face. “Let me tell you how that happened.”
“Yes,” Qora said. “Begin with this. But tell me the rest, too. I’d like to know.”
Summarizing the year since her investiture made her feel the speed of innovation, change, and tumult on Escutcheon in a way she hadn’t before. Her errands offworld to secure technology for their world; her father’s healing and then becoming head of the military; Lesandurel’s involvement with Chalice accelerating the colony’s development; Lisinthir’s return and the mess with the servant’s lash and everything that had come from that; the trip to Chalice and the ambush and Surela’s involvement. But even the latter paled in comparison to Beth dying. Surela’s meddling had begun and been wrapped up before Sediryl became heir.
“…and we don’t know where Amber is now, though not for want of trying. Even Maia hasn’t been able to find him, and Maia has a long reach when she isn’t throttled. Beth was my problem to solve and the whole affair just… ended. Without fanfare. I was supposed to handle her, Qora. I was supposed to fix it.”
She expected… what? Another quip? Did it qualify when after a moment, her Faulfenzair said, “Were you?”
“Yes! I created her—”
“Now that is hubris.” Qora set his cup on the table. “Bethsaida was a problem before you arrived, arii. If she could be said to be anyone’s other than her own, then she was your Empress’s for selecting her as heir. Yes?”
“But—”
“But,” Qora interrupted, “it was personal—she hurt you—it was a competition. Which of those things?”
Chastened, Sediryl said, “All of them?” And laughed ruefully. “Ugh, that makes it sound so petty.”
“It was not petty. She posed a significant obstacle to goals you wished to achieve for your people. Why should you not feel… as Vasiht’h would say, ‘so many feelings’ about it?”
“I suppose I shouldn’t expect more from myself than I would of someone else… and yet, I do.” She toyed with her cup and allowed herself to be amused. “I guess I’m entirely predictable that way.”
“And we love you as you were made,” Qora said. “But allow me to suggest that Beth’s fate is not the culmination of your story, but hers. Let her have that… ah… can I say ‘dignity’? Would that make sense? She had her own life to live, and choices to make, and part to play in your people’s history. She has done so. You were part of that story for a time, but you were only the smallest sliver of it, Sediryl. And you are still here, with work to do.”
“It’s just that I thought… that handling her was part of my work.”
Qora snorted. “Well, it wasn’t. Don’t you have enough to do?”
“More than enough!”
“Then you should spend less time fretting about Beth and more time on all the things to come. Yes?”
She started to object and saw the uselessness of doing so. Somehow, hearing Qora tell her that she was fixating on something she couldn’t change and shouldn’t think of as her responsibility anyway drove home how indulgent it was. “I am making it about me when I keep it alive this way, aren’t I.”
His gaze gentled. “Understandably. She was an obstacle, princess, and she hurt not just you, but people you care about. But it’s over. Learn from it and move on.”
A part of her that hadn’t released since she’d heard the news finally did, and she drew in a slow breath, savoring the looseness in her torso and shoulders. “All right. I can do that.” She laughed. “I’d better. There’s more than enough to keep me busy.”
He widened his eyes in mock surprise. “Too much?”
“I’d be bored with less. You know.”
“I do! And I don’t think you’ll be bored. Maybe ever.” He smiled a little, and this time it was the nose wrinkle she’d learned to recognize from Paudii and the others. “I think I can safely say that as one of his Eyes.”
“Not a priest, though.”
“No. Eyes are…” He laughed. “Eyes are like your future-seeing empress. We see glimpses of what is to come. Only I have never, princess. I have always known whether the God was satisfied with where I was, but I never had visions like other Eyes of the God, and that has shaped… all my life. My personality. My relationship with other Faulfenza, and aliens.”
“If you’ve never had visions, how do you know you’re supposed to be an Eye?” Sediryl asked.
He plucked at the fur on his arm. “It comes with the coat. White coat, Eye of the God.”
“Always?” Sediryl asked.
“Always,” Qora said. “We are colored like the smoke of incense—it’s the sign the God chose to make our roles clear to other Faulfenza. I was born with an Eye’s fur, but not an Eye’s sight.”
“That… must have been…” Sediryl trailed off. She’d grown up with the expectations of the heir of a noble household, and that had been bad enough. “I can’t imagine it.” She refilled his cup, and her own. “No visions at all?”
“No. Recently, now… I believe I might have had two. Maybe three. It’s hard to say what is a vision and what fanciful imagining. I am not a creature of fanciful imagining.”
Sediryl grimaced. “No wonder you never say anything specific. If you did, people would wonder why you weren’t talking in a similar way about the future, yes? So you decided ‘just be mysterious all the time and people will interpret it to suit themselves’?”
He laughed. “Yes. How trite it must seem! You can’t know what it’s like to be so predictable once you explain your problems.”
Sediryl grinned. “I married a psychologist, and my brother-in-law is another psychologist. Tell me that again.”
“Ah! Fair point.” Qora sighed, smiled. “I am no seer… at least, not the way my people understand one. I have only just learned that this is a problem I wasn’t supposed to solve… much like Beth wasn’t yours.”
“And that you’ve wasted all your life so far trying to solve it?”
“Or run away from it,” Qora said. “Fortunately, we live a long time, we Faulfenza, and I am not old by our standards. But you understand now why I might have some sympathy for you, princess… and no patience, either, with continuing down that dead end.”
“You have enough work to do, too?” she asked, finding the idea funny.
“You have no idea how much! But tomorrow, I will begin to teach you, by showing you the most important Faulfenzair prophecy. The one that has shaped us.”
“I have to wait! Can’t you give me a hint?”
He laughed. “No. But I can also confidently tell you at least one thing about your future.”
Sediryl leaned forward. “This should be good.”
Qora leaned toward her until their noses were close and said, portentously, “I predict that you will have at least one surprise before the end of the year.”
Amused, Sediryl said, “Good or bad?”
He rolled his eyes upward as if thinking, then said, “I predict that you will have at least one surprise before the end of the year. Possibly more.”
She laughed and slumped in her chair. “No wonder you cultivated an air of mystery. You’re awful at oracular stuff, arii.”
“We shall see,” he said, nose in the air. “We shall see.”
* * *
When Qora said he’d share the Faulfenzair prophecy with her in the morning, what he meant was ‘just before dawn when we used to take our Dancing lessons.’ She learned this when he knocked on the door to her suite, waking the dogs and her husband, though Vasiht’h slept through the sound. When she opened the door, she said, “I seem to remember a time when you would sit in the corridor and wait to ambush me.”
“That was before we became such busy people, princess!”
She laughed. “I’ll dress.”
Outside the mist was still close in the trees, and she was glad of the extra layer of clothes she’d donned before heading downstairs. She didn’t mind the chill, but the dew made it cling. It was a beautiful predawning, though; the glade she preferred for Dancing was full of muted brown and lavender hues, and Qora’s pale and apparently deceptive coat looked at home there in a way Auniira’s more saturated colors hadn’t.
“Show me what you’ve learned in my absence.”
“Auniira says—”
Qora waved a hand. “I don’t want to hear Auniira’s opinions. I want to form my own.” He wrinkled his nose at her. “Don’t worry, I won’t judge you as harshly as she does.”
“Oh yes, you will,” Sediryl answered. “Just about different things…!” But she obligingly stretched into the opening prayer, and then started the Dance she’d mostly learned, the Creation Scroll, the first one she’d been able to read on her own. Later, when she finished, she would wonder whether she’d done it well, and if her Eldritch body had managed the Faulfenzair forms. While she Danced, her thoughts flew away and left her with exhilaration, and joy, and the fire in her that swayed to their song.
When she eased out of the final prayer stance, Qora was staring at her with an intensity that boded poorly for her grammar and accuracy. “What did I get wrong?”
Her question startled him, and he chuckled. “Auniira has done wonders.”
“So that was ‘my, I can’t believe how much you’ve improved’ rather than ‘that was terrible?’”
“Something like that,” he said. “With less sarcasm.”
The urge to tease him in response to this novel sincerity was strong because she didn’t know what to do with sincerity from Qora. She thought—possibly—that she liked it. And also that he had changed in his year abroad. “Then thank you. When you suggested I learn to keep my mind off my troubles, I didn’t know how much it would mean to me.”
“Has it? Come to mean so much?”
“Oh yes. Sometimes it’s the only moment of peace in my day, which is regrettable because the other moments of peace are usually centered around the babies. I don’t get enough time with them, to be quiet.”
“Don’t dwell on it,” Qora said, as if reading her thoughts. Or maybe she was wearing her emotions on her sleeve again. She didn’t mind, with him. “Now, sit. I will Dance for you, and then we will talk about the Promise.”
She heard the capitals in the way he pronounced the word and a shiver ran the length of her spine. One of the glade’s useful features was a fallen tree, so she perched on it and waited.
Qora paced in a circle, as if learning the space with his feet… then sprang into the name of his God and from there, into the prophecy. Maia, working with the other Faulfenza, had concluded that the Faulfenzair eye could isolate discrete poses in the middle of motion in a way none of the other humanoid races seemed capable of doing, and to them, the Dance must look like cursive did to Eldritch: a series of interconnected images that flowed seamlessly together to create meaning. The D-per had even begun a catalog of poses so that she and Sediryl could approximate a Faulfenzair’s ability to “read” the Dance. But Maia was discreetly offline, and Sediryl left the translation function off, and was glad… because it made the power of the performance visceral and immediate, and left her wondering why her skin was hot as if she’d gone feverish.
“Beautiful,” she breathed when he had done.
“Yes. Now listen to what it means. This is the Promise of Faullaizaf, our second messiah.”
He began the recitation and it was poetry, line after line of it sufficient to stir an Eldritch heart, and that was without realizing it was about her. About her, and all the Eldritch, and their place in the galaxy….
Others to make with the Faulfenza, Lost Kin and Children of Qufiil a partnership of such strength, such steel, such fire, that you will know an age like no other. A Golden Age of Fire.
…she was breathless, but before she could react, Qora spoke. “Now, the second prophecy. The Promise Renewed. Given to us by our third messiah.”
“The one who met us,” Sediryl said.
“Yes.”
Again, another performance that sucked the wind from her lungs and left her shaking, as if she’d Danced it herself, as if she was learning its meaning by moving through the words. Qora crouched in front of her when it was done and launched into a translation. When he reached the line, “Time itself will bow to love,” she gasped as if she’d been struck.
“Is it soon?” The words tumbled out of her when he was done. “Is it because it’ll be soon that you’re telling me this?”
“It will be soon,” Qora said. “You and I will see it.”
She couldn’t stay still. Rising, she strode from one end of the glade to the other, back and forth, feeling it like a crescendo in a symphony. Was it crazy for her to find this moving? But how could she not? Her husband had mentioned more than once that something was coming. Was this it? She whirled. “But what’s between us and that future? It’s bad, isn’t it.”
“I think—but don’t know—that there will be another war. Paudii will be telling your empress about it.”
“A war you need our help to fight.”
“A war for all of us to fight.”
Sediryl dropped onto the tree seat again, hugging herself because now the cold was inside her. “Oh my goddess. Qora… Qora, I thought we were done. I thought all that was over.”
“Did you?”
Liolesa’s voice: ‘we have ten years. Or thereabouts. Let us use them well.’
Ten years ‘til what?
“No,” Sediryl said, hating the taste of the word in her mouth. “No, I guess I didn’t. I just didn’t want to live through something worse than the Chatcaavan War. It’s going to be worse, isn’t it.”
“I don’t know,” Qora said. “But we are meant for that task, and we were forged for it by the God. I would trust that, if nothing else.”
That made her laugh. “You don’t sound all too certain yourself…!”
His smile was crooked. “I am no more enthused about the prospect of another conflict as you, princess. Possibly less.” He eased himself to a seat beside her. “Let me tell you about the haters, and the bridges. Your empress will soon enough, if I don’t.”
Nothing about that recitation was guaranteed to put her fears to rest… but in a way, it was a relief. To know what they were preparing for. Or at least, to know the shape of their foe. “How… how do we even fight that? With fire? And love?”
“Yes,” Qora said. A beat. “But mostly fire.”
She laughed. “I’ll start Maia on procuring flamethrowers for everyone.”
“A good beginning.” He patted her knee. “There is time yet. And at least one more surprise waiting for you.”
“A good one?”
“A surprise,” he reiterated, and at her expression, laughed. “All right. A good one.”
“Finally!”
“But I don’t know when it will arrive.”
She laughed. “Of course.”
“But before the end of the year. Probably.”
“Good enough.”
* * *
Her meeting with Liolesa later was no less astonishing. “You knew about these wormholes?”
“It is the only explanation for our arrival here,” Liolesa said.
The chill that seized her spine made her move reflexively closer to the window, and sunlight. “You think we used a wormhole, or one of these wormholes?”
“I believe the latter. And the description of the phenomena experienced by those who traverse one would account for certain… issues… that would otherwise defy rational explanation.”
Sediryl’s mind shuddered back into motion. “You think our ancestors stumbled through one of those wormholes and went crazy.”
“Or were otherwise adversely affected, yes. Perhaps worse than we know. Consider the effect of beings able to project emotion powerfully enough to affect non-espers, niece, and how that might strike people who were newly embracing their ability to read thoughts and feelings.”
Sediryl reached blindly for the windowsill and hit Bran’s head instead. Scratching it reminded her that she was alive, she wasn’t crazy, and dogs were great. “That almost sounds like it’s a particularly bad idea for us to use these things.”
“It is suggestive of such.”
Sediryl shook off her dismay and made herself pour a glass of juice from the sideboard. “All right. So I’m guessing you’re elbow-deep in this task force the Alliance has.”
Liolesa laughed. “An unfortunate image! Let us say that I have contributed to its endeavors now and then.”
Sediryl eyed her. “Let me guess. Those mapping expeditions you funded weren’t just to find us a colony.”
“Or to gain us enough goodwill to claim that colony when we were ready? Very good, niece. Yes. I have standing instructions to look for slides, or other evidence of wormholes. And yet, despite looking, I have not found the one that most concerns me.”
“The one that dumped our ancestors near enough here to colonize this world?” Sediryl grimaced. “Funny, now that one concerns me too. Can these things be locked down?”
“That is information we do not have and need. The species that is responsible for them existing, niece, is no friend to life. Not knowing where they are puts us at something of a disadvantage.”
“That’s an understatement so extreme it’s leading.” Sediryl glanced at her aunt. “This is something you’ve been working on for a long time, isn’t it.”
“Sediryl,” Liolesa said, quiet, “this is the foe I’ve been preparing to face since I became heir.”
Which meant… “Then there’s a reason the Faulfenza know us, and have this prophecy, and it’s tied up with these wormholes. It’s all one big pattern.”
“Insomuch as we are ever able to understand the patterns of Lord and Lady,” Liolesa said, “yes. I believe it is.”
Qora was right, then. They had been born for this moment. That… helped. Sediryl sipped, rolled the juice in her mouth: tart apple now, with autumn’s approach. It would have been taken out of storage as a way to signal the season, though Escutcheon had never successfully grown apples in enough numbers to make juice or cider. An ancestral memory of Earth that had become codified in their culture, with a little help from Alliance imports. “What do I do to help?”
“What you’re already doing,” Liolesa said. “We must grow, niece. Grow… and be honed into a people who can face demons. We have a few years of peace to do it in. Every effort that makes us stronger, more numerous, and more resistant to extinction works in our favor. Every effort that strengthens our offworld friendships, and our trust of our allies. Everything we learn, we teach, and we use to refine ourselves… it will all matter.” She canted her head. “I did not tell you this before because I judged it would be too much, too soon. Was I wrong?”
“I don’t think so,” Sediryl said. “This year since my investiture… all the things that have happened needed to happen before I could be ready for a bigger challenge. But I’m glad I know now. There’s so much to do….”
“Just remember,” Liolesa said, “The Divine wants us to win this fight.”
Thinking of the Faulfenzair God, Sediryl said, “That’s not a small thing.” And then, chuckling. “But since Goddess and Lord expect us to use the gifts they gave us… what’s this week looking like? I’ve got the harvest numbers….”
“Then sit, and let us make use of our time wisely.”
* * *
“What do you think of all this?” she asked Jahir later, much much later, when they were alone in bed.
“I think we knew all along that we were not done.”
She sat up a little so she could look at his face. “Did we really?”
That made him laugh low. “All right. Maybe I didn’t, initially. But it didn’t take long.” He kissed her brow. “We have too many gifts to have so little to do.”
“Isn’t that the truth.” She slid back down until she could rest her cheek on his chest. From there she could look up the plane of his face and see the faint shift in texture of the healed scars. “Jahir… are you scared?”
She was expecting some piece of poetry, or a portent. Maybe even a prophecy. When he said, “Of course,” though… that was more reassuring than anything meant to inspire her or bolster her spirits. A matter-of-fact reply, an obvious one. What else? It reminded her that she had feared before, and that the answer to fear was to keep going.
“Exactly,” he said, and kissed her again, on the mouth, and she forgot, for a little while, the future.
* * *
Liolesa’s revelation did not change the shape of the following days in anything other than Sediryl’s mind. The same things needed doing; the same people needed her time, her energy, a solution; the same projects were proceeding along the expected schedules. Now, though, she perceived the strategy behind Liolesa’s actions. She could understand the impulse driving her aunt’s aggressive expansion and utilization of their solar system’s resources. She saw the navy as more than a path for disaffected Eldritch to find purpose, and could just sense the effects rippling outward, where meaningful lives drove greater engagement with society, and with each other, even revitalized interest in larger families and more children. Reese’s fleet of freighters grew and solidified their relationships with their trading partners, and brought the infrastructure that would help increase their population… and arm them. The school system Jeasa was unexpectedly overseeing, with Caramia in her province, was teaching them the skills they’d need to deal with aliens, both good and evil; and Goddess, but Val’s push toward teaching the talents was so obviously pertinent to the coming fight that she had to wonder if he knew it was imminent.
Ridiculous question that, probably.
She could even see the burgeoning communities in the isolationist factions as good signs: better Ulurith should be vital and opinionated than they should lie down for the future to find them sleeping. It had taken some time, but finally she understood why Liolesa kept talking about cultivating all of their people, not just their allies. Because they’d all be targets, eventually, if they couldn’t defend themselves, and any Eldritch their enemies could suborn or destroy would give them a foothold on the world.
No, they all needed to be strong. Better strong and wrong-headed than compliant but weak.
Would she have understood a year ago? Sediryl didn’t think so. A year ago, she’d been too focused on proving her right to inherit, and overcoming her guilt at the failings that had seen too many people die. Innocent people, enslaved people… even people in the Alliance who had needed her to be better at what she’d be doing. Now she could look back and have some peace with the best-of-bad choices she’d made. Vasiht’h would be proud, if he wasn’t so busy himself.
Her council of intimates felt complete once again with Qora’s return, but she was glad that the other Faulfenza showed up when they felt like it. And Dance practice in the morning now involved Auniira and Qora, and she had never felt so fumble-footed in her life, while also loving every moment of it. Because every moment of peace was precious, contrasted with the conflict she could feel looming.
* * *
“And now,” Qora said some months later, when winter had well descended, “I believe it is time for presents. Yes? This is the holiday of present-giving.”
Sediryl looked up from the half dozen documents warring for her attention on her desk, resigned at what the interruption would do to what little flow she’d managed to maintain until that point. Normally she would have been glad for a break, except that part of her toil now was arranging for the Queen Ransomed’s visit in spring, when she was escorting the Emperor’s children over for their fosterage visit. “It will be the holiday of gift-giving yes, but not for a few weeks yet.”
“Alas,” Qora said. “Because my gift has arrived early and I don’t think I should wait to give it to you.”
“If you really think—” Sediryl began as Qora opened her office door, and through it walked a miracle. Sediryl didn’t remember how she got into Daize’s arms and didn’t care. She was crying, and the other woman was stroking her back with a gentle hand, and somehow, somehow, Daize was alive. “But I don’t… I don’t understand,” she sobbed, leaning back and struggling to get the words out. “You were dead!”
“I was sold,” Daize corrected. “But Qora and Captain Osgood’s hold tracked me down and freed me, and most of the remaining crew of the Willseeker.” She smiled. “Faulza willing—and with your permission—they’ll be coming behind me. If that accords with you, princess.”
“Yes!” Sediryl exclaimed. With a gasp, she wiped her face, smearing tears all over her cheek. “Yes, please! All of you are welcome.” She hiccupped on a laugh. “Goddess, I can’t… I’m a mess… I can’t believe this. I can’t believe this!”
“Believe,” Daize said. “The God is good.”
“He is.” Sediryl sighed, managed another watery laugh. “If this is the kind of surprise you were talking about my future holding, Qora, feel free to surprise me with more of them.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Qora said.
“Maia,” Sediryl said, “Clear my schedule for the next hour, please. I have a friend to catch up with.”
“Absolutely. Daize-alet, it’s good to see you again,” Maia said. “Welcome to Escutcheon.”
Sediryl gave Qora a hug too. “I don’t know what to say.”
Qora chuckled and patted her shoulder. “That’s good enough for me.”