"You must be tired," Araxis tried.
I shook my head, although I was."Do you know the number of all-nighters I pulled back at the den?There were times when we'd have these ridiculous special events for important guests and they'd run for a few days.A fewendlessdays.And you know I needed the credits, so I'd work as much as I could.I might sleep for an hour or two, but mostly I was working."I shrugged as Araxis drifted to the low table and poured us two fragrant cups of tea.
As he did, I turned it over in my mind.Nizanin had information that was more or less a grenade.What could we do about that?Vivith had handed them a weapon, and that put us in an absolutely shit negotiating position.
Why would Vivithdothat?
To put Araxis on the back foot, in case they needed to tug on the reins a bit more firmly.To make inroads with a group whose help the creche needed, even if they were volatile.To persuade Nizanin to remove me from the equation, if things went Vivith's way.It was a gamble.It was astupidgamble, and Vivith was a lot of things, but they absolutely weren't stupid.
"Who knows?"I asked suddenly as Araxis passed me the cup, settling down again by my side.
"Who knows what?"
"About me?"At his blank look, I continued, "About paying to release the debt claim so I'd have to enter the Tournament."Araxis flinched, and I reached for him."Sorry, I know.But you can tell I'm not upset when I say it, right?I'm not upset now."
Araxis looked at me, a distressed whine vibrating in his throat."Yes.I can tell.And I am upsetforyou."He swallowed, tongue flicking out to his lower lip."Hm.Vivith and I know.Alet Trident knows.Youknow, and the justiciar and translator, I suppose."
I leaned back, staring up at the ceiling as I tried to think through it all.If someone went looking for intel, would Valerie share it?Would Perseus?Not with an organization like the Unbound, surely; I didn't know much about them except that they weren't a fan of the big, bad galaxy and they certainly wouldn't be eager to make friends with a human organization from the other side of space.We were safe from that angle, at least."And what proof is there?"
"Proof?"
I nodded, tipping my head sideways so that I could look at Araxis."Did you sign a contract of some sort?Is there a paper trail?Are there messages?"
Araxis shook his head."The business was conducted in person."
The business.It was a funny way to think that, two months and change since I'd discovered what he'd done and how he'd used me, we were able to talk about what had been the most devastating discovery of my life in this detached way.Like it might have been anything.Like it wasn't my entire life, my future, any hopes and dreams I might have had.
Although I could see now that Alet Trident's den was where hopes and dreams went to die.I'd been on my last legs there, even if it would have been nice to choose to leave instead of being shoved out the door and into arms waiting patiently to catch me for political purposes.
As the silence stretched between us – he could always tell what I was thinking about, so of course he could now too, or maybe he was just mapping entire realms onto my silence that were charted by the route of his own guilt – Araxis's throat hummed again with a sharp subvocal, and his stare dropped away to the floor, head ducking.
"It'sokay," I stressed."I'm not upset."
"That is even greater reason for my shame," he muttered."Yours is a generous spirit, Sashen.Nizanin had my measure on that at least; I do not deserve your loyalty after such callous disregard.I used you horribly –"
"Stopit."Araxis fell to pointed silence, unable to look at me.I didn't have it in me to do this now, not when we had to try and untangle what Vivith had been thinking and how to handle the Unbound and their writ.But I knew that the more I put off hearing what Araxis had to say, the harder it would be.Part of me wanted to forget the entire thing, but as much as the apology wasforme, it wasn't entirelyaboutme.It was about us.It was about what we wanted to build together.And, fuck, we were certainly going to need a strong foundation to face whatever was coming our way.
It was clear that Araxis was haunted by what he'd done, that it was always lurking just beneath the surface.And as I was locked in an eternal battle against all the things I wanted to drown in the darkest corners of my soul, I could acknowledge that maybe it was important, sometimes, to try a different approach.Maybe some things needed to be hauled out and looked at, so that they didn't rot instead.
He needed this.He needed absolution, which Vivith had said I'd been denying him.Maybe he couldn't be the head of house he needed to be without that.
"How about," I tried gently, "we do the apology in the morning?"
His stare flicked up, though his chin was still tilted downward, shoulders drawn up."You would listen?"
"Yes," I stressed, and I would.And, because I felt all weird and vulnerable and a bit hurt and also very ashamed of how I'd been at the root of so much of the fuckery recently, I added, "And then maybe we can fool around.I think we've earned it."
Araxis jerked back, a startled trill loosing from his throat."Hm, yes.You are right, I think.You did make a number of very interesting suggestions before our unintended meeting."
"Yeah, somehow I don't think we'll be going back to my little love shack in Radiant Ward," I joked, sipping on my tea as my heart pattered against my ribs."But wecanstay up and figure out how we're going to deal with Vivith and the Unbound.Let's talk leverage, and then we'll look over that… agreement on the disc thing, and then we'll figure out what we're going to do if Vivith starts running their mouth to other people."
Which is exactly what we did: we talked through options with Vivith and what might trigger the need to remove them from the creche and how we could assure their silence, none of which felt particular satisfying to me – but Araxis was certain he could call upon Vivith's sense of duty and honour if he needed to or, failing that, effectively discredit them.Vivith may know a great deal about me, Araxis had said,but I know a great deal about Vivith, and of the two of us, I have significantly more social capital.He'd said that while looking at me with particular softness, so I assumed that I was figuring into that equation in some capacity.We reviewed the terms of the agreement with the Unbound, which largely involved transporting unspecified goods in exchange for a guarantee of future meetings in Xitera and access to information networks about the Concord creches.The mysterious cargo made us both antsy, particularly because the agreement was crystal clear: once it was loaded, the Unbound would then seal the shipping container it was in, and we couldn't go poking around; it was, the contract specified,private.
"But –" I'd said, frowning as Araxis read that particular clause to me again; the word for private was obscure, ghosted with some implications of that felt religious, almost, "I mean, what the fuck would they be bringing back that we wouldn't be allowed to know about?It could beanything,Araxis.They could be shoving bombs into our cargo hold.Do they blow places up?And if theydoand wehelp–" I'd just watched a similar storyline unfold onAcross the Timescape, but it felt decidedly less exciting when it might beyourship andyoumight be the one aiding and abetting acts of terrorism.
"The cargo is not dangerous," he'd said, plain."It's written into the agreement.It poses no hazards to the ship or to Creche Thiel.It is onlyprivate."He used the abayan word again, and seemed convinced that, if something was in little glowy letters, it had to be fact.I knew better than to believe that – I'd seen the aftermath of many clad-in-iron agreements coming to a dramatic end at the den – but maybe this was unique to abayan culture.I was still learning.He continued, "We'll register the container to a proxy, so that if thereareany questions, they will lead to a shadow far away rather than to Creche Thiel.There's a company that we've used before when we needed a registration ID tied to no real person or organization.It was Vivith's idea, back when –" But he'd cut himself off, jaw tight, the mention of his hatch-mate's name casting a shadow over him as it had all evening.
Because we'd also had to make tentative plans for what we would do if certain privileged pieces of information came to light – information that apparently Vivith hadn't minded sharing, although if anything should have been private, that was it.That plan involved a lot of whole-hearted denial and then very public appearances together to leverage the good will we'd generated in the Tournament.I'd been able to suggest a few ways we could use Silver Sea to help, if we needed to, and Araxis had seemed startled that I so readily offered up my own connections to help.Although of course I did: this was aboutus, and there wasn't anything that I wouldn't do to help Araxis anyway.
