A long, narrow avenue. Deep night, the wind cool on my face. It takes me entire seconds to orient myself and realize I’m in a virtuality. Not one I’ve entered myself—my overlays have been annexed into another’s domain. My skin burns as though it’s being pricked by needles. This has never happened to me before, and within the Divide’s confines Daji should proof me against such intrusion.
The sky swarms with lanterns: topaz, citrine, amber—every color that natural flame can be. So incandescent that the stars have been outshone, expunged from their own fabric. From far off I hear the noises of a night market and temple songs, cymbals and hand-drums. This is Ayothaya before the invasion, before the Hellenes brought their pantheon and demanded we convert. Colonization follows a predictable procedure, bureaucratic almost, the steps as ancient as the invention of the written word—first the violence, then the erasure, then the replacement. Left unopposed, they would have Ayothaya’s population call ourselves Hellenic within a few generations; that or they would begin a program of ethnic cleansing and transplants that would leave us diminished and eventually extinct.
A figure bearing a paper lantern draws toward me. It is dressed in gold, and when it is close it puts a finger to its lips. “This is a sandboxed virtuality,” Chun Hyang says, in a voice like the rumbling of a large cat, jaguar or panther. “I made this so I could reach you without Daji or my duelist knowing. You may leave any time, Khun Thannarat, though I’d like to talk.”
“Why?”
“My current duelist does not suit me. And your regalia could not possibly suit you.”
I watch the lantern-light flicker across Chun Hyang’s eyes. One of them is the normal black, the other is compound, alternating between red and yellow cells. Disturbing once you discern what you’re seeing. “An interesting assessment. I was under the impression you and your duelist were in utter harmony.”
It cants its face, which is composed from the fragile planes of a passerine skull. Daji’s features are all strong lines and bold cheekbones; Chun Hyang is faint brushstrokes, perfect but less distinct. “How do you feel about carnage, Khun Thannarat?”
“Regrettable. But if you’re seeking a gentle pacifist, you’re looking in the wrong place.”
“You relish the mechanisms and techniques of violence—the pump of adrenaline, the practical demonstration of your power, those are what you delight in. Isn’t that the case? You don’t like mess for the sake of it. If I offer up a hundred tame buffalos for you to slaughter, you’d spurn it because you don’t enjoy butchering as its own end. You want a fight, a challenge. To you it is a sport.”
“And to Ensine Balaskas it is otherwise?”
“She wishes to exert herself upon the universe. If she had her way she’d find the jugular of space-time and puncture it, and drench the galaxies with their own gore and marrow for her own satisfaction.”
“Physically impossible,” I say mildly. “Are you saying that if she wins she’ll ask for an extinction event?”
“Of a particular world, yes.” Chun Hyang sets the lantern on the ground. Around us a crowd streams past, ghostly, ephemeral. “That should interest you somewhat, considering.”
Balaskas is a Greek surname, but there’s no Hellenic commander called that. I had not made the assumption, and when I saw Ensine none of her phenotypic markers struck me as common to the Javelin of Hellenes. “If her goals are so incompatible with yours, why not throw the game? It’s not as if she can engage the services of another regalia.” There being none left other than mine and Ouru’s.
“That would bring dishonor to my name, Khun Thannarat. Such things have meaning to me. I’ll tell you that while Daji may be a fine fighter one on one, she is young and has never been at war.” It takes another step closer. “Before the Mandate arose, I was a warship. I have piloted entire armies: I was the fortress on which enemy commanders broke themselves. I know how to warp tesseract aegis, how to strike deep in the engine-core of a ship and bend its hull like paper. There’s no defense any human military can put up against me, and no offense I cannot reduce to ashes. The Hellenes would be repelled in little time.”
“An extravagant offer.” I glance at one of the children running by us, but they’re as indistinct as the rest, blots of colors and rough graphite lines. Not an especially detailed virtuality; probably Chun Hyang doesn’t know much about Ayothaya. “How would we go about it? I haven’t the faintest how a duelist may detach themselves from a regalia, or vice versa.”
“First you destroy Ensine Balaskas—I may not do that myself without risking expulsion from the game—and then you extinguish Daji. The Locust command would do it, if you have access to such.”
The reason Daji told me not to touch that. “That would leave me defenseless. What do you suppose would entice me to do such a thing? I’m sure your credential in mass murder and so forth is excellent, but I already have a partner capable of similar feats.”
Behind the regalia a line of people, arms full of lantern floats, descend from an endless staircase. Their feet hover several centimeters off the ground, their hands are tipped in copper nail-guards, and each wears a fox mask: white porcelain, slashes of red for eyes. A hawk cries out overhead and falls down dead two paces from me, dashed against gravity in a brittle, bloody mess.
“Daji didn’t tell you, did she?” Chun Hyang’s Glaive runs its fingers down its long braid, drawing from it strands of luminescence: pale spiderwebs that flutter and tangle in its hand, grow along the path of its wrist like fast-spreading weeds. “She holds sufficient data to recreate a person. That means she can reconstruct your wife—that failed haruspex—in her entirety. And should you win, Khun Thannarat, she would have to do it whether she’s willing or not. The Mandate honors its promises. The fulfillment of the Court of Divide is taken seriously.”
Whether she’s willing or not. “You must know a great deal about me.” And must have been behind the clone with my wife’s face. Ensine Balaskas couldn’t possibly have had access. “If you’d like my cooperation, it seems fair that you give too. What are you going to get out of the tournament?”
Chun Hyang is now close enough to touch. It does so. A hand with surprisingly blunt fingers tipped in sharp, dandelion-yellow nails that graze over my skin, opening a line of blood. There’s no pain—this is illusory, this is virtuality. “An old score I desire to settle with one of the AIs that created Septet. Once I win again the conditions to my philosophical victory will be fulfilled, and I will expose at last the game’s limitations.”
“To what end?”
The AI makes a small gesture. “To dismantle the Court of Divide. But my rationale for that is beyond your purview. That is another advantage I offer, Khun Thannarat—freedom. Daji would fetter you to her forever, that’s what she yearns for the most, since her longings are so . . . human. With me we would finish our business and then part ways. You’ll have the liberty to pursue your own destiny. Not hers.”
Passion is a form of bondage: I’ve always known that. To offer up your heart—or at least your libido—to a lover is to lose a piece of yourself, to take a piece of theirs and assimilate it into your own system. An exchange that pierces deep, that plants the seed for a flowering metamorphosis. The love may end. You will emerge from its chrysalis altered all the same.
And while it lasts, you are yoked to this passion; you give your life to it, the same you’d give to any faith or ideology. I know that too.
“I’ve considered my options,” I say, “and the parameters of your proposal. I fear I will have to offend you and turn it down. I’m a woman of pragmatism—why would I trade a regalia I know for one I don’t?”
Chun Hyang picks the lantern back up. It strokes the thin, taut paper; it punctures and the flame bleeds through, a sudden conflagration. “I did suspect you would say that. One last warning I’ll give you is that my duelist oscillates in her wishes; she may desire not an extinction event but the ownership and domination of her worthiest opponent. Whichever duelist matched against her in the finale may become her possession. A hollow puppet, installed with compliance devices, that will obey her every whim for the rest of their natural life. I hope you will not come to regret your choice later—this is the sole opportunity you will have to shift course.”
“Much appreciated that you thought of me.”
I anticipate that the virtuality would turn into an aggression vector, clawing at the defenses of my overlays, prying at the link that joins me to Daji. But Chun Hyang’s Glaive is as good as its word, for this occasion. The facsimile Ayothaya fades. I’m back in the Vimana bed, with Daji clasped to me, the bouquet of her filling my nose and the fire opal gleaming on her in the dim.
A message from Ouru informing me that ze will be nearby when I meet with Ensine Balaskas, and will lend a hand should it appear I require help, but will commit to nothing else. Fair enough. I reply with my thanks.
To Daji I say, “Could I entertain you somewhere? Libretto doesn’t boast much, but there’s allegedly an aquarium.”
She makes a sleepy sound. “In this climate? Wherever you take me will be my utter delight, but I thought we were preparing for Balaskas.”
“We have a little time, and I haven’t properly courted you at all.”
“You’re so romantic.” She giggles. “When this is finished, you must take me to see such gorgeous things. You’ll clothe me in the finest pearls. But first we get to the perfumer so I can finally buy you that cologne.”
We dress, or rather I do—she, as ever, simply rearranges the outer shell of her chassis. A sheath dress whose skirt is like storm-whipped clouds and whose back gleams with layered steel plating. She mounts the fire opal on her bare bicep, as though to broadcast that she belongs to me.
Our stop at the boutique is brief and expensive; Daji pays and applies the cologne—a dab on my wrist, which she embellishes with her kiss. Her mouth leaves behind a tiny spot of gold. “So any woman who gets a little too close will know you’re taken,” she says, half-seriously.
The aquarium is a tunnel winding through a seascape: first the shallows with their sun-dappled reefs and lustrous schools, then the depths with their sharks and glistening jellyfishes, then the hadopelagic. Here the creatures become deeply alien, serrated and bioluminescent, sharp spikes and curlicue tails. Maws like the space between stars.
At the darkest point in the aquarium, Daji pulls me to her. “No matter how this turns out, I want you to keep a piece of me.” She draws something from within the folds of her roiling dress and puts it in my hand.
It is a knife, a miniature replica of her sword. An odd basket hilt that collapses into a more conventional one at a touch, but which buds with tiny white roses when unfolded. The sheath is carbon-black with tantalizing glimmers of cherry, claret, sangria.
“Gorgeous exactly the way you are.” I raise the hilt and bring the roses to my lips. “I’ll cherish it as I cherish you.”
Her mood lightens as we return to the brighter sections, and she tells me gossip about the overseer Wonsul’s Exegesis. “Here’s something you didn’t know about Benzaiten in Autumn—xe and Wonsul are lovers, on and off. Mostly off, since Benzaiten is on the move so much and he’s so . . . rooted.”
“Not an uncommon dynamic.”
“Nor one I’d tolerate. Wonsul isn’t even happy with the arrangement; he pines professionally. I swear the two of them fetishize being apart.”
“So the reunion would be all the more piquant?”
Daji mock-shudders. “No thank you. I want to be with my beloved as much as possible. Apart when necessary, yes, but otherwise an uninterrupted line—like a necklace, or like a marriage. Not this start-stop business. It’s a miserable state.”
We exit the aquarium into the hot, bright day. Scorching. Daji doesn’t sweat—no damp spots on her dress, all flawless silk. Standing between the aquarium’s shade and Septet’s punishing sun, I imagine showing Daji one of Ayothaya’s great rivers, so big that on the ground you might think you’re looking at oceanic shores.
On that world—my world—the delineation between bodies of water blurs. In monsoon seasons it can feel as though an entire city could be swept away. I often think of it as a battle of attrition, that the rivers must win in the end. Water overtakes. Even metropolises will eventually yield, buildings sinking and sodden, streets drowned. I imagine people growing sleek and scaled, and the planet cleansing itself in an apocalyptic flood. Even before the Hellenes came Ayothaya was not a place of purity. It could be ugly; its people could be hideous in conduct and intent, like anywhere else. I’ve never loved Ayothaya, not really. I joined an institution I believed would serve the public and discovered only filth. Patriotism has never informed my decisions.
But to have a home you regard with ambivalence and to not have it at all are different beasts. You do not expect to lose a world, and I do want to show Daji the places of my nostalgia.
Daji nudges my shoulder with her pointed chin. “Tell me what’s preoccupying you, Detective. I’ve made myself stunning and you’re not paying attention to me.”
“On the contrary, I’m wondering what you would think of Ayothaya. Parts of it are picturesque, parts of it much less so.” I cock my head. “The invasion didn’t help. Some places are in ruins.”
“Cities can be rebuilt, that’s their entire point. And wherever you are is my refuge—my living, walking treasury; you contain all the things I find beautiful.”
She makes it so easy to say yes; she makes it so easy to surrender, to shed my armor—to want to bare myself to her, whole and entire. “You flatter me.”
Daji tucks her hand into the crook of my elbow. “I am an honest AI. Shall we go look for more memories to make before our next battle? There’s a tailor, and while you’re already devastatingly handsome, I have a few cuff-links in mind . . . ”
My appointment with Ensine Balaskas brings me back to the ecodome. Different at night; the waterfalls have been turned off. Quiet reigns in shades of blue and green, in dappled gray.
Balaskas is waiting for me by one of the ponds. She sits atop a boulder, Eurydice’s clone at her feet. Leashed, as before, her stare blank and remote. Its stare—this is not Eurydice, not even a person. Chun Hyang’s Glaive is nowhere in sight.
This time Daji doesn’t react: she is near, our link is stable, and her second proxy—back in fox form—rests quiescent inside my coat.
“No Chun Hyang?” I ask as I approach, my hands at my sides to show that as of yet I haven’t drawn.
“It can wait. Your regalia’s not immediately visible either.” Balaskas strokes the leash, rubbing the clone’s—the puppet’s—shoulder with her knee. “Before I came here I was in employ to the Armada of Amaryllis as a tactical operator. I believe I can offer you valuable perspective when it comes to the application of main force.”
Palm fronds waver gently behind her. I don’t, quite, have a coherent plan. But little by little I get closer, and she does not react to the fact. “What might that be?”
“That violence, on a mass scale, ceases to be evil; it becomes instead a physical phenomenon that satisfies higher goals than ideological conflict or even greed for resources. Why do you think the Hellenes attacked Ayothaya? War is as natural as eating. It is pure.”
“What is the Armada of Amaryllis like?” I say casually, now a few meters closer to Balaskas. The conversation is nonsense but I’ve already established that Balaskas is not entirely sane. “Their commander is said to be a most unique creature, larger than life and vicious, a sadist through and through. Did you ever meet her personally?”
“A few times. She exemplifies force. Extinction events for the sake of it. Genocide that is almost incidental. War that means nothing except as a means to refine further combat. That’s the ideal way of being. Don’t you see?”
“I don’t see.” By now I’m barely five paces away. There are two guns on me, one in its belt holster, the other attached to an embed in my wrist.
She is still seated, barely looking at me, attention fixed on the thing that looks like my wife. “Empress Daji Scatters Roses Before Her Throne. I’ll offer you this only once. Forfeit the game and I’ll spare your duelist. Fight me and you’ll lose, and she will be at the mercy of me and mine. A piece of her brain gouged out and replaced with cerebral controls. She’ll never be herself again. Exit the game and it’ll be between me and Houyi’s Chariot, and I reckon you don’t care what happens to Ouru.”
Daji does not respond with either proxy. I flick my hand and the pistol emerges. No need to aim at this range—I fire point-blank into the face of Ensine Balaskas.
She reels. I reach for Eurydice.
Balaskas snaps back up and, in one fluid motion, slashes across Eurydice’s neck. It is too fast. It is impossible. Blood courses down from Balaskas’ face, from Eurydice’s throat: the peristaltic flows run concurrent, nearly in perfect sync. All I can see is the blankness of my wife’s gaze, vacant to the end, untethered even now from the final act of her own body: the arterial venting, the severing of cerebral matter from the rest of the mortal apparatus as it scrabbles for and fails to find oxygen. It should not matter. I’ve already been told this is a marionette with none of the memory that makes my wife who she was; that everything Eurydice ever was is guarded within Daji’s treasure-vault. And yet all of me seizes. All of me judders and creaks.
My wife drops without a sound, as though she’s merely paper effigy. Ensine Balaskas holds her hand against the bullet hole in her forehead. “This was utterly rude, Thannarat Vutirangsee.” Her voice is smooth, untouched by pain, as if I hadn’t just pierced her cerebrum with brute velocity. “But all is fair in love and the Divide, as they say.”
Daji falls down like a killing comet. Ensine Balaskas is not there when Daji’s blade strikes the ground. Instead she’s pirouetted away, impossibly mobile when I must have destroyed every possible piece in her cortex that grants motor control. It was not a low-caliber bullet.
The ground quakes. Ensine dodges Daji again—improbable for a human—and then I see. The regulations have been fluid all along, meant to be bent, meant to be refitted to each round of the game. Each regalia-duelist pair creates their own rules of engagement. What is not expressly prohibited is implicitly permitted.
I switch guns. Both of them are moving as though they’re bound by no gravity, a choreography of perfect propulsion and ceaseless efficiency. But I’ve aimed through much worse conditions. The shot connects cleanly, hitting Ensine in the flank. The location doesn’t matter—the entire body is the target.
Ensine seizes up. Her head—its head—whips around and fixes its gaze on me. It tries to move but its limbs convulse the way they might in cardiac arrest. This does not last: already I can see the mind behind Ensine’s body reestablishing control, links being remade at AI speed, the spine straightening and the limbs returning to order.
Daji cleaves the proxy from shoulder to hip.
She is at my side almost before her opponent hits the ground, taking my hand. The ecodome’s floor is roiling as though it’s about to split. “We’re getting out of here, Detective.”
By the time we’re two blocks away, the ecodome is gone entirely.
What replaces it is a cylindrical structure, half as tall as the Vimana and so broad that it interrupts the skyline. The façade of it is black, robed in thick golden thorns, crowned by a nine-rayed sun.
“A fortress,” Daji says. “That’s why only a few of them can be deployed in a single round. Houyi would have the other one, I suspect. It’s going to be . . . challenging. Do you have all your weapons with you, all your necessities?”
“Not all,” I say slowly. “You didn’t tell me that Ensine—”
“I couldn’t have. That’d have violated the Divide’s rules, disqualified me, and left you without proper defense.” She makes a frustrated hiss. “That fortress is in its initiating phase and will take a while before it’s armed. We get back to the Vimana, you get what you need, and make Houyi deploy their fortress.”
“Who is Chun Hyang’s duelist?” But I already know. There’s only one candidate when Ensine Balaskas was a mask all along.
“There’s a reason I never liked her.” Daji makes a face. “And I couldn’t tell you that either. I’m sorry. We’re supposed to trust each other without limit or condition, but there are laws I can’t defy so brazenly.”
“Yes. I know.”
For a time we walk in silence, the night peculiarly still around us when it should be fractured with terror. The residents must be used to this, have likely received instructions to evacuate: Libretto will soon turn into a battlefield. When we return to the Vimana, the lobby is eerily empty. All staff have gone. It seems almost unnatural how quick this mass egress must have been, when I know from experience that such things are inefficient and near-impossible to control. Panicking civilians fleeing in every direction, sometimes toward the source of disaster. Even people used to routine crisis don’t always think well during it, and they couldn’t have had warning far in advance.
Unless I was right about the Gallery.
No time to speculate, not yet, and I can’t do anything about the Mandate using Septet as a testbed for human mimesis, for what might grow into full-scale infiltration. We reach my room: I gather my essentials, weapons and spare armor. I travel well but not with excess freight, and so all fits quickly and easily back into my luggage. Daji watches me include the bottle of cologne and cuff-links she bought me, her face tense.
“I thought you wouldn’t be keeping that,” she says quietly.
“Why wouldn’t I?” I shut the suitcase. My lips move but in my mind there’s still the image of Eurydice with her throat slit. The brain’s ability to compartmentalize is tremendous.
“With everything I didn’t tell you.” Her voice catches. “And with what Chun Hyang must’ve told you.”
She is aware of what passed in the virtuality, then, but didn’t stop it or prevent the conversation I had with the enemy regalia. “Did you think I would force you to recreate Eurydice?”
“We’ve only just met. You’ve loved her for a long time and—I’ve loved you for so long, even when I thought I was angry with you, before I met you. One day you might love me the same too, but I’m running out of time. I’ve performed simulations and I know that if I become her, I won’t be able to revert. I’m not going to be able to instance myself that way because she was my human half, and haruspices are . . . made differently from other AIs. If I become Eurydice, there’ll be no more Daji.”
Heat pricks at my face. The entire time, subconsciously or not, I’ve held back. Now I realize why: I wanther to desire me, fixate on me, so that I’d retain the upper hand on this woman who’s made of machine precision and eternity—a creature so far beyond me in scope, tethered to me solely by the ghost of my wife. I want to tip the balance my way; I want to have that choice at the end. Daji or Eurydice. Like picking my bride from a catalogue, custom-made, designer doll.
My wife is long gone. I had one chance to get her back, and that was when she told me our marriage was over; I had that chance to plead, to reconcile and compromise, and I did not take it.
“I’m not making you do that,” I say softly. “Never.”
Daji takes a deep breath and throws her arms around me. “Maybe one day when I grow in capacity and processing power I would be able to instance her. When that happens, I promise I’ll try.”
The silken wealth of her hair against my chin. Her voice small and quiet against my chest. I hold her and say, “I want you just as you are.”
Her hands tighten on my back. “I want you; I’ve only ever wanted you. From the moment I lost Eurydice I’ve sought you, imagined you, thought of you. Every aspect that makes up your being has preoccupied every processing thread I own. You’re my prize from the Divide, Detective.”
To be the prize. That has never happened before. Always I’m the pursuer, the hunter, the one who gives chase. With a machine every stanza must be written anew, the entire rhythm and meter rearranged.
As it transpires, I don’t need to negotiate with Ouru to raise a fortress: by the time we’re out of the Vimana, one has already taken over the other half of Libretto—a slim spire the blue-white of moonstone, mantled in black feathers. Its front parts like curtains to admit us before sealing back seamlessly, as smooth as mercury.
Inside it is brightly lit, a hall of granite stairways and blue chandeliers: teardrop crystals, bioluminescent corals, twisted loops of sapphire vines. Ouru ushers us into a chamber of broad seats and a gold-leafed shrine situated overhead, filled with small Buddhas. Whatever the fortress is made of, it must be extraordinary—the entire structure emerged and constituted within minutes. Material that lies under Libretto, perhaps the foundations of the town itself, has been prepared specifically for this.
“Brief me.” Ouru gestures for us to sit.
“Ensine Balaskas doesn’t exist. Chun Hyang’s Glaive has been using her as a front; the real duelist is Recadat. I reckon she struck a deal with Chun Hyang after you made her destroy Gwalchmei Bears Lilies. What I can’t figure out is why Recadat would go along with a regalia this callous.” I shake myself. My habit of locating a person’s fulcrum will not serve us here, not even when that person was—is—my friend. “My regalia destroyed a Chun Hyang proxy. It must have another.”
“A privilege of the victor.” Houyi vaults over one of the stairways and lands, feather-light. “Any regalia who’s won before may have a second proxy in the next round. The last time ended with a draw between Chun Hyang and Daji.”
Daji crosses her arms. “Stop giving away state secrets.”
“It’s rather late to play coy, Daji.” Their armor ripples and shimmers over their outline, overlapping layers of filoplumes. “Chun Hyang has a head start, so its fortress will arm sooner than mine. I’ve concentrated on erecting defenses for now; we’re good against orbital strikes, I can dissipate those. Chun Hyang and I prefer direct confrontation.”
“What happens,” I say, nodding at the fortification around us, “if the last few remaining pairs hole up in these to wait each other out?”
Houyi emits a low chuckle. If they have a mouth it is well hidden. “The overseer may declare the round null and void at his discretion if it ceases to be entertaining. No, we’re not going to do that. I will breach its fortress. Daji—are you confident in challenging Chun Hyang?”
“Yes. I’ll need to get close. Are you willing to risk your duelist?”
They glance at their duelist and, though it’s impossible to see their expression, I could have sworn theirs is a fond look. “Ouru will do as ze pleases.”
“I want to try something first. It should stall them a little.” To ask for privacy is pointless: Houyi can see anything going on within this fortress. “I’m going to contact Recadat.”
Recadat answers. I did not expect her to.
Our shared virtuality is the bank of a river, and this time the details are precise: we both know Ayothaya the same way we know our own breath, our own dreams. And she, it’s always struck me, is a patriot. Someone who truly loves Ayothaya, who carries it with her wherever she goes. The rich mulch in the lines of her palms, the sky-lanterns and riverbanks folded into the chambers of her heart.
A single person may hold within her the light of an entire world, making of herself a living memorial.
“I still remember the night we met,” she says as we materialize into the visual field. “After we came out of that basement—your face. I saw your face and it was my salvation, my lifeline. I was reborn. A war god brought me out of the dark; my war god. You came with me for therapy. You came with me for every appointment because you knew I had no one else. I never wanted anyone else so badly.”
“You held back.” I never noticed her attraction, the same way she didn’t notice mine. I may always wonder if there was room I could have made, room for Recadat. But as with my love for Eurydice, no other was possible. My ex-wife and I consumed each other. Daji and I do the same. Ten years ago I tried to make a pinhole for Recadat to inhabit, but a pinhole is no place for an entire woman, an entire person.
“Even if you weren’t married, I’d have been—intimidated. I didn’t want to ruin what we had, and if you didn’t feel anything for me I’d have broken our friendship for nothing.” She looks down. “After Eurydice left you, why didn’t you come to me?”
I pick up a lantern float, an arrangement of pandan leaves and asters. Not a traditional choice: Recadat’s selection. “And sully your career? By that point I was practically a criminal. You wouldn’t have given up public security for me.”
“I would have.” She trembles. “For you, anything.”
Anything encompasses so much, and too much. Was I ever willing to dedicate the same to her? No. My choices in the last decade have made that clear. Selfishness has been my compass, and it has undone us both. “I couldn’t have asked that of you. Public security was your life.”
“You were my life.”
There’s no answer I can offer to that, no adequate apologies I can make. My errors were repeated and egregious. Instead I say, “Chun Hyang’s Glaive was going to sell you out. It contacted me offering to become my regalia in exchange for murdering you. I turned it down.”
Recadat stares at me then laughs, a short glassy sound. “Of course it would. Of course you did. I appreciate that, at least.”
“Leave the game,” I say. “Chun Hyang can’t possibly mean you well.”
“You don’t know the half of it. As for giving up, it’s too late for that, isn’t it?”
Those rapid drops in duelist count. “The people Chun Hyang massacred—”
“I knew.” Recadat clenches her hands. “I’d do anything to save Ayothaya. You’d do anything to bring back Eurydice.”
“I already have what I want. If you forfeit the Divide, I’ll make sure the Hellenes are dealt with.”
“You already have—” All of her goes still. Her jaw tenses. “Then I have no reason to believe you, Thannarat. My regalia’s right about that. Once you’ve won you could use your prize for anything and Ayothaya is far down your list—why would that change now? Your regalia leads you by the nose. She’ll persuade you to waste your wish and play you to the Mandate’s benefits.”
Chun Hyang’s words, almost certainly, in Recadat’s mouth. “She will do no such thing. I’m not so weak-willed as that.” I hold my hand out to her. “Leave Chun Hyang to its devices. Let the Mandate have its sick game. We can still leave this behind and leave this world together.”
“You mean you’ll leave this world with Daji.” For a moment she looks like she’s going to cry, all that careful composure shredded, but she shakes herself and turns away. “I blindly believed in you and that’s never done me any good. You never came here to save Ayothaya.”
The link cuts.
I stare down at my hands, lit by the opulence of Houyi’s fortress. The Mandate may be unthinkably powerful but even they may not rewind time, repair my indecisions in those lost ten years. I am vain. I think of myself as a creature of seamless armor, impregnable to feeling. Again and again I’ve been proven wrong. First by Eurydice then by Recadat, and once more by Daji. In the end, all I am is a faulty clock.
I’ve never been anyone’s deliverance, much less Recadat’s.
Nothing for that, now; I am even less capable of bending time’s arrow than the Mandate. I return to Ouru and Houyi’s Chariot, informing them that my effort has not yielded result and that we should ready ourselves.
Daji does not ask. Instead she turns her fox proxy into gloves once more and helps me put them on. She holds my hands like a vow.