I might have stopped to wonder how, in such a careful plan, they had stumbled into an amenable ally for the arena.The ideal character for their little drama that would play out on galactic broadcast.The odds were impossible, and I should have noticed.I should have had the thought that perhaps it was all a little too perfect.But Araxis told me so much of the truth that I didn't hear the silences that are, in retrospect, deafening.Instead, I listened and I laughed at his jokes and wished desperately that our shuttle would never arrive, that we could stay in that liminal space forever.Safe and together while the endless black of space slid by.
Thenat-2 was a small green planet with several cratered moons and a good-size travel waystation, which offered refuelling from the gas fields on the planet below.Plumes of smokedriftedinto the planet's thin atmosphere from the refinery, and the spidery travel station was humming with activity this close to the Tournament.Cruisers and shuttles zipped around the station like ants around spilled syrup.Araxis turned his attention to communicating with the station's traffic controllers, getting permission to dock at a smaller berth.The shuttle sailed to a line that threaded its way in an arc by one of the jagged moons spinning slowly around the sickly green planet below.
I left the co-pilot's seat as we inched closer and sat instead on the bench by my bag.Carefully, I took the quill Araxis had given me – long and mostly white, the tip darkening to black, and thinner than I'd expected – and I threaded it between the stitches in a seam at the side of my swords' sheath.Once it vanished into the dark fabric, I ran my fingers over the seam, pressing, and I exhaled softly: I could feel the ridge of it, just there.
Any time I touched my swords, I'd be touching some part of him.Something real in the middle of all the bullshit.
God, I was insufferable.I was embarrassed, just thinking it.How had I become so absolutely pathetic?Maybe I could blame it on a decade of being lonelier than I'd been able to admit.Araxis had come along and been kind to me, hadcaredfor me, and I was so starved for affection, forrealaffection, that I'd wanted to lick every scrap from the plate he offered me.
No one took care of me.I didn't need them to.Itook care of myself, even if I did a shit job of it sometimes – but it was nice to know someone wanted to.And even if I didn'tneedsomeone to take care of me, maybe I could admit to myself that I mightwantsomeone to.That I might want Araxis to.
"Nearly there," Araxis said, his soft voice disrupting the spiral of my thoughts.
"Great."The word was strained."Good."There was a flash as the shuttle winked through the waystation's shielding, and then we jostled as he set us down.A waystation didn't need airlocks, too busy for such a slow process.Instead, the atmospheric shielding let ships through while keeping the airtechnicallybreathable in the shuttle bay and docking areas.It would be thin and unpleasant, though, and I was already preparing myself for a quick walk to the passenger's concourse, which would be a hell of a lot more breathable although it would have its own array of mystery fumes too.
I forced myself to my feet as soon as the shuttle settled down at the dock.Araxis surged upward, our movements in sync."Well –" I started, heat prickling in my throat.
"Could I have those papers after all?"he asked in a rush."It is a good idea, Sashen."
"Oh."I nodded, slung my bag down off my shoulder and dug out my old journal, tugging out some of the loose pages and handing them to him.He reached with both hands and clasped my hand between them, the pages crinkling as he touched me.
"I will win the Tournament," Araxis said, his eyes bright, his touch firm against me."Stay alert, but do not worry."
Of course I was going to worry.How could I not, when all it would take for Araxis to die, for thosechildrento die, would be a moment of inattention, a slip, a stumble?But if I was there, at least I could make sure I got in the way of any errant blades.
I wanted to kiss him, one last time.I wanted it so much that my bones ached.
But I thought it might break something inside of me that was barely holding on, so instead I pushed the papers hard into his hand and hauled my bag back over my shoulder.I had the chip from Vivith tucked safely in an outer pocket of my bag, so I had everything I needed.Even if I didn't have everything I wanted.
Who got everything they wanted anyway?That was a fairy tale.Pure fantasy, especially for someone like me.
"Alright," I said, working hard to keep my tone even and relaxed even though my heart was fluttering against my ribs."See you soon."
With that, I left the shuttle and stepped into the thin, greasy air of Thenat-2's waystation and tried to pretend that I hadn't spent the best thirteen days of my life with someone who had to become, once again, a stranger.
I tried to pretend I hadn't met him at all.
Interlude
Is there an end to the loathing I am able to feel for myself, the contempt with which I regard my own choices?I think I am a vile creature – but that is the situation into which I have been forced, step by certain step, until I could be nothing else.This is what they made me, this is the shape they shoved me into.Some might suggest I should turn my revulsion not on myself, but on the Concord for how they forced my hand.
I know, in my core, the truth of the matter: I might have told him at any time.The Concord did not still my tongue; they did not insist on my silence.I made a choice, and I made it again and again, over and over.
I knew, then, that he trusted me entirely.I knew that, though he imagined himself hardened, difficult to read, a skilled wielder of artifice, that he yearned for my affection like a flower tilts toward the sun.He brightened under my care; he allowed himself to fall open, to show me the secret soft places where he had been hurt before.
The claim has been made that Sashen fell under my spell, that he was drawn to me as a virra is drawn to a sinnenthi.These are stories from our history that I have never believed; they are a holdover from times better left forgotten.
And yet – As I listen to him –
Sashen says it was gravitational, that how we fell toward each other was inevitable, and he is nearly right.I was drawn to him as well, but I did not permit myself to be pulled.I held the tether; I twisted the rope; I drew him near; and I did not tell him what was happening.
If he had known everything, he might have chosen differently.With the entire scope of our plan, he could have chosen, in the fullness of knowledge, to be a true ally.A partner.My equal, in that and all things.
Instead, I used him.I took control and set him into motion, a tool to be wielded.
I am meant to serve, to guard, to protect, tocare.
I failed as sinnenthi, and no one can be more sickened by my failures than I am.
