HONG WOKE ON the third night after their return.
He gave no warning, supine beneath the sheets, statue-still, his chest rising shallowly and falling; when Viv tried to time her breaths to his, she felt like she was drowning. He’d not changed since their departure for Orn that she could tell. Perhaps his cheeks had more color. Or not. Or perhaps color would be a bad sign.
But his eyes snapped open halfway through the long night of her watch, wide and staring and brown, and he sat up, hands half-raised to defend against an attack that was not coming. Viv’s heart jumped. The vicious joy she felt to see him move surprised her, scared her. Even after so long watching him she couldn’t think how to show that or speak it. So she drummed her fingers against the arm of her chair, and that drumming drew him out of his nightmares into the room.
“Viv—you’re—” His voice wandered toward her, as if from a great distance. She wondered what he had seen in the depths of his trance.
“I’m here,” she said gently, easing him back. “It’s all right.”
“The duel—the Grand Rector—”
“You won. More or less. You survived, and I talked the Pride down. They’re on our side now. Or, they’re on not-the-Empress’s side. The Rector’s in the crypt, and Archivist Lan’s in charge.”
“I had such dreams.” He seemed so distant even awake, as if he stared at the world from saintly remove. He hadn’t felt his way back into his body yet. “I remember the Pridemother. You stood between the fleets of Pride and ’faith.”
“Yes.”
He touched the gray webs across his chest, exploring them gingerly as if they were cuts or surgical scars. “I—I didn’t save you. I wanted to—I had to make up for—”
His not-quite-apology struck her in a harsh, raw place. She stood. “Do you really think that was the point?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Do you think I broke back into your stupid fleet, overthrew your Grand Rector, changed a religion, because I wanted to give you a chance to apologize?”
Those big earnest eyes blinked once, and at last, she saw the Hong she knew. Sure, he was confused, when wasn’t he? “I don’t understand.”
“I came back for you because we’re friends, you idiot. We both fucked up, but now you’re awake, and we’re going to save the world together or get blown up trying. Now, can you please stand down from battle stations so I can give you a hug?”
He didn’t lower his arms exactly, but his fists uncurled; he looked at them as if only just aware they had been clenched. He still had a ways to go before he made it home. So did she.
She hugged him hard, then harder. His hands settled on her shoulders. He felt smaller around than she remembered, or else softer to the touch. His temple rested against hers; she felt his eyes close, and the big racking breath he drew, not quite a sob, not quite a sigh. She didn’t mention it, didn’t push back.
“I was so lost,” he said in the end. “In there. Nightmare after nightmare. I knew it was a dream, but I could not wake up. I could not stop myself dreaming. As hard as I fought, some part of me clung to the dream. Terror was all I had left. If I gave it up, I’d give up myself. Some monk I am.”
He’d been plugged into all sorts of ancient evil hardware and hypnotic drugs, trapped in mental combat with the Pridemother. Of course he couldn’t just will his way out. But she listened to the tremor in his voice, and knew he knew all that, and it didn’t help. She held him tighter, and he stilled, and set his arms around her, too.
“Come on,” she said when he steadied again. “The Archivist has news. I’m glad you woke up when you did—you’d be kicking yourself if you missed the whole war.”
ALL THINGS CONSIDERED, though, it was probably good that Zanj came late to the meeting. Since returning from Refuge 2.0, Zanj had taken her responsibility as war leader a bit too seriously—training the Ornclan in their ships, stretching their battle instincts into three dimensions and zero gravity. They flew as if born to it, because they were, and they fought well, but the Empress’s Diamond Fleet was no Ornclan enemy to offer mercy and obey rituals of war. Zanj gave no quarter in training; she barked orders and made examples. In skirmishes, she struck the Ornclan from the Cloud, she trapped them in simulations, she spoofed their sensors and twisted their target locks against them, she scattered their ships and burned their minds and sowed discord in their song. Gray volunteered to help, and, after draining a several-ton deuterium cocktail, joined the training exercise as a true representative of the Grayframe, scattering the Ornclan to the winds.
Zanj cursed her students for morons in public, but in private she rehearsed their follies with a proud parental smile. But Viv saw the tension she hid. Zanj had raised one fleet against the Empress before, and lost. She knew how bad this rebellion could get. She channeled fear into workaholic frenzy because that way no one would call her out—who would ever complain that you were too dedicated to the cause?
Viv knew that tune well enough to hum.
The training exercises ran long, and Zanj was late.
By the time she sauntered into the reception hall, the Archivist had shown them the map sphere, explained the weak point she’d identified in the wall, discussed their plan of attack after Viv pulled the linchpin. Gray, munching on a sweet roll, paced beneath the map, indicating defensive positions within the Citadel with a curve of half-chewed pastry. That’s a depot for the crystal fleet, and that’s another. These starspheres feed the wall, but they can churn out fleet drones when she needs them; this, here, is the heart. Here she sits, brooding over the egg of Viv’s world, which she’ll hatch to our destruction.
“We don’t have long,” Viv said. “A week, maybe two. She’s close. The dreams hurt.” Nobody wanted Viv to elaborate. The night before, Xiara had to force a pillow between her teeth to keep her from chewing off her tongue. The pain had been worse than she could bear, but behind the pain she felt the Empress’s thrill. She’d solved the problem, Viv’s maniacal otherself, with her lasers and her accelerators and her many, many arms. Now it was only a matter of time.
Viv hoped she was wrong.
Zanj walked in.
The council turned to her: Gray and Hong, Xiara, the Archivist, sundry Hierarchs. Viv.
“Hi.” Zanj waved, took her seat. “Sorry I’m late. Those meatheads—sorry, Xiara—they know what end of a ship’s forward, but they have too much spirit. Have to break that out of them. They learn fast, though. Maybe even fast enough. What’d I miss?”
Nobody wanted to answer. Even the Archivist’s serene gaze shifted, slowly, to Viv.
Maybe Viv would have grown up more trusting of others if others didn’t keep passing the buck to her.
“Viv? Everybody was looking at me funny, and now they’re looking at you.” Zanj’s smile lost its humor. “What gives?”
“The Archivist decrypted the map,” she said. “We found the linchpin system.”
And she gestured to the glyphs rotating beside the hologram.
Zanj read them. Read them again. And without a word, she stood, and walked, pace steady, eyes front, out of the chamber.
The others looked after her, confused. Viv raised one finger and waited. When the roar came, followed by the crash of a collapsing bulkhead, shattering glass, screaming metal, an electric fuzz of broken wires, and the ting and roll and crack of something expensive and round, she was the only one who didn’t jump.
The ship didn’t lose pressure, and no one died, so all things considered the conversation went better than expected.
Zanj marched back into the room, her hands carbonized and smoking with destruction. “Well.” Her voice was even as a knife’s edge—smooth when seen from far away, but a magnifying glass revealed serrations. “I guess I’m going home.”