After rounds of congratutions, Ronda and Corey expined that they had only known for a few weeks. It was still too early for them to make official announcements, but they’d told people close to them. Corey, ever the generous soul, wanted Ronda to be able to tell friends from her childhood in addition to the people of the first household.
The girls got to talking then, with Khana regaling Ronda with all the horrors of pregnancy. Volithur went fireside with the other guys to tend to the meat and warned Corey about the possibility of mood swings.
Ulysses ughed. “Khana was like a sister to me growing up and I feel confident that mood swings are nothing foreign to her nature.”
The confident decration rubbed Volithur the wrong way. He still remembered how Khana had read the heartfelt poem to confess her feelings to this man. Now he cimed to be an expert on her nature? No doubt he thought himself too good to be with such a woman.
Corey deftly steered conversation towards happier topics. “Harridan, my mother speaks of you in such contradictory terms. You are a genius and imbecile all at once by her estimation.”
Ulysses tilted his head like a confused dog. “How is that?”
“Let’s just say I was not a quick study with transit spheres.”
“You must be good at some aspect to be beled a genius!”
Corey pced a hand on Volithur’s shoulder. “Harridan gained a true insight into chaotic emergence. He is able to draw cosmic energy on any world as easily as here on Tian. My mother considers him to be a future star of the transportation enterprise. Given his advantage, one day he should make lord as well.”
Ulysses stared at Volithur a moment. His eyes flickered towards Khana with a wrinkling of the brow. Volithur could read the expression like words were written across his forehead. ‘Why is a guy with such a bright future with Khana?’ It should have angered him, but the sheer honesty of the reaction made that impossible. Volithur felt only a stab to his heart.
It was certainly a thought he’d had before. Away from the fifth household and the constantly reinforced status reminders, the lie inherent in the nobility of blood couldn’t stand. Being the descendant of someone powerful or wealthy did not confer any inherent greatness. Indeed, a family culture of indolence did quite the opposite.
When you took talent into account, he’d married beneath himself.
It hurt because he loved Khana with a purity that could only be felt for a first love. It hurt because he couldn’t ignore the truth of the assessment. Khana was zy and entitled and petty. The st two he could forgive as he certainly had fws of his own. The ziness, though, that was a problem. They stood on Tian, where they could soar to the heights of power if they made the effort. His insight would elevate him, then his status would enable him to buy the resources for her – but resources alone would not lift someone beyond level six. The recipe for success required hard work. And she wouldn’t do it. They were years away from that being an issue, but Volithur knew they would reach that point. It was inevitable.
He was betrayed by his own feelings. Partly for judging the love of his life so harshly. Partly for loving too easily. It all came down to the fact that at a fundamental level he did not respect his wife. She was a yabout who would eventually compin that Volithur became great while she did not. No doubt it would be his fault for not giving her enough resources to keep up. What could he do about any of that? Was he supposed to just put up with it until she eventually died of old age and then marry someone with more ambition? That… that was not right.
“You are a rare creature, Harridan,” Ulysses finally said. “I wish I had such talent. My efforts have all been towards preparing for battles that now will not come.”
“I should not say this, but ancestor Thrakkar is not giving up his war so easily,” Corey said. “The other Amaratti lords are entertaining the truce offer, but our family has other pns.”
Ulysses perked up. “Truly?”
“The Jinn and Arahant have been cooperating upon an unempowered world. Ancestor Thrakkar is going to hit them there hard enough that they have to fight back.”
So carelessly had Core spoken those secrets. Something cold and hard within Volithur shifted.
“This is great news,” Ulysses said.
“Keep it quiet for now. I shouldn’t have spoken.”
“Of course. I won’t betray your trust.”
Corey removed the basket from the fmes. They returned to the pavilion and began filling ptes with their bounty. Meat and maize and a doughnut for each of them.
Volithur discovered that he enjoyed the taste of elk. They feasted, washing down everything with diluted wine. The others complimented him on the ‘foreign confection’ he’d brought and they had a good time. The three who had grown up together reminisced about days gone by.
Then, towards the end of the party, Corey brought out a surprise. A gold psma elixir for each of them. The dose was only half a standard vial each, but it was still beyond generous. They toasted the future together and drank.
As they left, Corey asked Volithur to accompany him on a hunt. It was not something Volithur could refuse, especially after the gift of the elixir. So they agreed to arrange a hunt some time after they were both fathers.
On the walk home, Khana crowed about how Ulysses had been proven inferior to her husband.
Her words, which should have been welcome to his ears, meant very little. Volithur couldn’t help but worry over the facts that he increasingly could not ignore. He’d settled. That fact would come back to haunt him in time, no doubt. For now, he would just have to make a lot of happy memories while things were still good.
And also, he would have to visit his home world. He had vital information to share with the Jinn there. Military intelligence about an upcoming attack from the Lord General. When they were in bed at home, Volithur felt a fierce smile bare his teeth in the dark.
The hatred pnted at the death of his parents had waited a long time for release. It had been fertilized by the mistreatment heaped on him at the fifth household. It had been watered every time someone called him by a stranger’s name. Macabre fantasies entertained him as he drifted into happy slumber.
Three days ter, Volithur returned to his home world. To facilitate his purchases, he swiped a wallet from an affluent man using his domain. He used the credit card to purchase some wife snacks from a gas station convenience store, then flew towards the heavily guarded lithium mine in the distance. Openly dispying his power caused people to stare and point.
They remembered the Xian quite well.
Volithur crossed the distance as rapidly as possible without losing his precious cargo of sweets. Arriving inconspicuously might be safer, but his greater concern was being dismissed by those in power. He didn’t have infinite time to mess around. If people back home noted his extended absence before the Lord General suffered a crushing defeat, they might realize his betrayal.
Guards with rifles ran out to train their sights on him, hiding behind chain link fencing as if that could stop anything he wanted to do. For the first time, Volithur truly felt his own might. Unless those bullets had some Jinn tricks enhancing them, they would do no more than rip his clothes. And ruin the doughnuts. That would be annoying.
“I need to speak to the Jinn,” he announced.
After a few minutes, a supervisor spoke over a public announcement system, muffled voice squawking in a way that almost hid the thread of fear. “The visitors are not here.”
Volithur squinted at the men below him. His enhanced vision let him zoom in with some effort. He’d been told as a child that eagles could spot a mouse from vast distances, that a human with simir attributes could read license ptes from a mile away. He didn’t know if that was true or not, but he could see quite well.
One of the men in the shadows of the guard shack wore sungsses. Behind those obscuring filters he could glimpse an inhuman gssy orb in pce of one of the eyes. Unless his home world had begun creating cyborgs, the Jinn had left a man to coordinate with the locals. Volithur reached out with his other senses to verify his find. Sure enough, strange energies flowed through the Jinn. A stiff, clunky, oddly articuted energy.
He drifted towards the man, whose impassive features morphed into a pained grimace. The Jinn pulled a gleaming chrome weapon from his belt and trained it on Volithur. “That’s far enough, Xian. There is no war barge here for your masters to fight. It’s just me and my death will bring you no great honor.”
“I have information for you,” Volithur decred.
The Jinn smiled around his strange weapon. “You can speak, but I will believe nothing from one of your kind, Xian.”
“I was born on this world, Jinn.”
“If that is the case, then your new allegiance has done well for you.”
Volithur spat towards the ground. “Don’t insult me. My parents died in the attack. The Lord General’s men dragged me away as a sve.”
“Am I to believe you’re here to offer valuable military intelligence, then? A mere three years ter you are elevated to a level six Xian but somehow also determined to betray your generous masters? You strain my credulity.”
“My information is free to you. Will you agree to pass it on?”
The Jinn lowered his gleaming gun. “Speak, Xian.”
“Most of the Amaratti lords are considering the truce offered them.”
“Forgive my disbelief,” the Jinn interrupted.
Volithur gred the man into silence and continued, weaving honesty and deception to paint a rger target on his lord’s back. “The Lord General feels slighted by the ck of battles. He will never cease his war efforts.”
“Then invite him to visit us on Terra. We will entertain him there in the way he likes best.”
“He learned recently of another unempowered world where Jinn and Arahant consort together. The Lord General will be bringing his armies there. I don’t know the exact timing, but you should have your people expect his attack.”
The Jinn offered no snarky comeback. Volithur cleared his throat. “Being prepared to defend costs your people nothing. My request is very simple. Hit the Lord General with everything you have. You and the Arahant, if your alliance is strong enough to request their aid. He is the main obstacle to peace with the Xian. Kill him and you are almost guaranteed a truce. You can fight monsters or whatever it is you pn to do.”
For several seconds, the Jinn stared at him. Then the man nodded. “I will pass this information along to my superiors. Don’t bother waiting around this world. Nothing more prestigious than a cargo ship comes this way. You can’t ambush a worthy opponent.”
“I have no interest in harming your people. Just kill the Lord General.”
“Just kill a Xian lord. If such a thing were easy, we’d do it more often.”
“Just let your superiors know my words.”
“I’ve already agreed, Xian. Be gone now.”
Volithur gestured dramatically as he summoned his transit sphere right there, enjoying the spectacle he made. As he sped between universes, Volithur felt the closest to peace since the day invaders attacked his world. He might very well die for his treason, but it felt good.
