He'd been so amazed at how quickly I'd come to love them.That had been another tactic, hadn't it?I would have done anything for them.When it came to weighing my own chance at victory against their lives, of course I would do anything to help Creche Thiel, to help Araxis.
Noble, perfect Araxis.
"I thought I loved him."The words spilled out, aching.
On the call, Alet Trident's eyestalks pinched closer together in concern.It was the closest she ever came to caring, a proprietary worry about the well-being of an investment."I am certain you do," she said."You can love people who betray you.You can love people who harm you."Then, with a slow, thin smile, "You even love me in your own way.You are hungry for it, Sashen.You will pick up scraps of love from the dirt, filthy and discarded, and you will call them a feast.That is who you are.Send the file now."
I tapped on my wristband and sent a copy of the CPEF claim document, and then closed the call without saying goodbye.
She was right, wasn't she?
My feast, which turned my stomach even as I kept devouring.Because now that I knew, now that Iknew, all I wanted was to go to Araxis, for him to touch me and explain and make it all okay again.
I sat there on the floor, staring into nothingness, and space had never felt quite so empty or hollow as what was left inside of my chest.Eventually, Nilli found me, cooing her concern and stroking my head and assuring me that my wait would be over soon.She was sure that tomorrow Araxis would be victorious and that I would be reunited with my sinnenthi.Tomorrow, she promised me gently, all would be right again.
I didn't tell her that I couldn't tell what was right or what was real any more.I didn't say that I felt like a puppet in a play, pulled by strings I had believed to be stirrings of genuine emotion.A toy, a tool, nothing at all.
Of course that's why he'd wanted me.
And I, a starving fool, hadn't thought to question the outstretched hand.
Nilli must have been concerned enough by how I'd behaved that evening that when I stirred the next morning, she insisted that I get dressed."Today, your sinnenthi will win," she assured me, laying out some clothes in approximately my size: dark blue trousers with apurple tie at the waist; a long-sleeved black shirt with a wide neckline that showed all of my collarbone; a jacket in ink-dark black that was threaded through with little glints of gold; my own boots, which seemed to have been scrubbed of any remaining blood and dirt."We will take the shuttle and wait in orbitoffThenat-6.We all wish to see you happier, Sashen of Creche Thiel."
So I scrubbed myself clean in the bath.I took some time alone to stare at myself in the narrow mirror: I was still mottled with fading bruises and flaking scabs, and if I looked, I could still see the mark Araxis had left on me with his mouth.My finger brushed the juncture between my shoulder and neck where his teeth had found purchase, and I shivered despite the steam pluming the air.
What was I going to do now that the illusion had shattered?Now that I had woken from my dream and found myself here?I gripped the counter hard, glaring into the green of my own eyes and ignoring the shadows beneath them, the haunted look lurkingbeneath the surface like sharp rocks just below the gleam of water.
Five.
I was alive.I wasaliveand I had protection.What kind of dipshit would be upset about that?
Four.
Okay, yes, I'd been used.I was still being used.I'd thought I was, I don't know, in a real relationship with someone who genuinely cared about me.It turned out I had just been naive.I should have known better.No one had ever really cared for me without wanting something in exchange.Stupid.
Three.
Creche Thiel still needed me.I was acoup, Zirric said.I had some power, now that I knew that much at least.Even if I'd given a bunch of it away with that declaration – what had I evensaid?what did itmean?– if I stopped playing, Creche Thiel was on the line politically.They'd pulled in favours based on, I don't know, getting me?I had power.
Two.
I had power.There was still going to be an investigation.We'd have to participate in some way, but I had power – with Creche Thiel and with other creches too.I needed to understand that, so I could use it.I hadn't had that before, not ever.
One.
What was I afraid of?So Araxis didn't love me like I'd thought.So what we had, what I'd dreamed of like some lovesick teenager, wasn't real.Whatwasreal was my status.And the more power Creche Thiel gained, the more power I would gain.
The real question was, what did I want?
I'd had to think about it a lot over the past few weeks, and that had given me some clarity, even if I had carved the shape out through the negative space of what Ididn'twant: I didn't want to hate myself and I realized, distantly, that Ialsodidn't want to die.That was new.
What Ididwant was to feel valued, to be cared for.I wanted freedom too, as much as I could have.I wanted a life with more depth and variety than I'd ever had.I wanted to drink deep from the well of knowledge.I wanted to learn andseethings and go places.I wanted to make friends.I wanted to touch trees and smell fresh air and go swimmingand stand in the rain.Maybe I wanted to go to a beach.I'd never been to a beach, and Zirric seemed to think they were great.
Really, though, if I was very honest with myself, I could admit that I wanted to love someone and to be loved back.
Well, that one I might not get.Although those kids were something else, and while loving a child wasn't exactly what I wanted, not really, I thought I could probably find comfort in that anyway.I didn't get to have a grand romantic love story, but I could have something like a little family.And maybe what I needed and what I wanted were different things anyway.Maybe what I needed was to cuddle some kids and to be the adult in their lives that I'd needed in mine when I was a child.Maybe that would fix whatever the broken thing was inside of me, finally.
I could do that.
