Rua entered a home she’d intended to never return to with some level of trepidation. In a perfect world, she’d have burned the pce to the ground and there would have been no consequences. But Seat Hyleah was tradition, a bastion in a pce that had nearly lost all of its culture and ideals in the space of ten years. Even a disgraced symbol was still important.

  And then there were the servants. Out of the household, only Liaru and her wife had known where Rua had gone. They alone had been trusted with that secret, alongside Leilynn, and they had been given the house’s coffers and control of the finances to make sure the estate continued to run smoothly. Rua might have abandoned her duties, but she hadn’t left a complete void in her absence.

  Jua wasted no time making herself at home, stabbing her spear into the floor and seating herself on a couch, putting her feet up on a table while barking orders at servants that weren’t her own. It was behaviour that Rua had long since come to expect from her, but even now, it was a little too animated, a little too forced.

  Rua wanted to just stand and observe. It was ever her part to py, the silent watcher. But no longer the assassin. Never again that.

  “Come, sister,” Leilynn said, her voice soft and serene. She csped hands with Rua, and suddenly everything was all right again.

  The sitting room wasn’t particurly vish. While Rua’s family house was the rgest in Ri Oa, much of its wealth had been sold off and given as reparations to the people of the Isnds. In Rua’s childhood, it would’ve been gaudy and overdecorated, filled with the pilged loot of nations. These days, it only had a couch, a table, and two chairs, the room illuminated by glyph stone firepce, and lightmoss spread out across the ceiling.

  They sat on the chairs opposite Jua, still close enough to remain hand-in-hand. Jua frowned at that, her eyes narrowing, but ever faithful Liaru appeared, providing a drink, and suddenly Jua’s focus was there, downing half the gss in one go.

  “Wine?” Jua compined. “I wanted vareesu.”

  “We’re out,” Liaru said. “The apologies of the House.”

  “Well, get me whatever you have that’s strongest. And one of those fru cakes.”

  Liaru made a graceful bow, and then departed, empty gss in hand.

  “Please tell me you’re not here to abuse my staff and drink all my liquor,” Rua said.

  Jua waved a hand at that. “If I wanted to get drunk, I’d be at some dockside tavern. At least there, I can get a good fight in, maybe a good fuck.”

  “Haven’t you already impregnated half the tavern workers on the docks by now?”

  “Which means I still have half of them to get to.” She said it with an obvious leer on her face, one that tracked in the direction Liaru had gone.

  “What’s your business? Tell me, so you can leave.”

  “Did little Rua grow a backbone while she was gone? Leilynn, did you foresee this? Is that why you sent her away?”

  “I sent her away because that was always what I was going to do,” Leilynn said. “Just as she would always leave, and always return one year ter.”

  “Tale-telling Dream-touched. I can’t have a single normal sister, can I? One can’t tell one day from the next, the other abandons her duties the moment it gets a little difficult, and Kir… Well, we all know what she’s like.”

  “That’s not her fault,” Rua said.

  “Oh, nothing is anyone’s fault according to you. You can bme her Pact all you want, but underneath it all, she’s the one abusing it, not the other way around, no matter what you think.”

  “Someone’s at the door,” Leilynn said, her voice soft and faraway.

  “Then the servant will get it,” Jua snapped. “We have a problem in this fabled city. And we need to impress upon Rua that she needs to pick a side.”

  “A side?” Rua asked. “I wasn’t aware we had sides in Ri Oa.”

  “We’ve had two sides since we drove the Cribs out to sea. The Mikovians are becoming a problem. They need to go.”

  This again. For someone tasked with the defense of the Isnds, Jua was remarkably short-sighted. They needed the Mikovians’ numbers and artillery, pin and simple. The Siyan Isnds just couldn’t compete with the Criobani Empire’s legions, and especially not with their Vexurians.

  But there was no point in arguing it. Rua had made these arguments for years. And no one ever listened to her. They only wanted one thing from her.

  “You want me to kill Kirhae,” Rua said.

  “Well, someone has to,” Jua said. “Lei thinks you’re the key to breaking through her Pact. If I could, I’d just do it myself.”

  Rua released Lei’s hand. “Don’t tell me you endorse this pn. She’s our sister.”

  “Adopted,” Jua muttered. “And unwanted.”

  “A confrontation is coming,” Leilynn said. “I’ve foreseen it.”

  Rua shook her head. “And what have you foreseen? You get glimpses, a few minutes at best, out of context.”

  “The city in fmes. Siyan killing Mikovians in the street. Screams in the air, calling for justice for the murderer of Sureya.”

  A stab of pain hit Rua, like a knife piercing her lower jaw and up through her nose. She kept the reaction off her face, even though it’d caught her by surprise. She was just so accustomed to it by now. But never from Leilynn. She lied only about little, unimportant things. Never something like this.

  Rua almost called Leilynn on it, then and there. Throw them both out of the house, remove herself from whatever this was. Then have a long bath with Otter, followed by a meal, then sex so intense that it caused her mind to flee from all of whatever this was.

  But Liaru, always with her impeccable timing, stepped into the room carrying a ptter, and dispensed drinks to each of them. A golden cake was left on the table, and Liaru once more departed, likely to see to other issues with the house.

  “And what does Aunt Sureya have to say about all this?” Rua asked, keeping her tone neutral.

  “We haven’t mentioned it to her,” Jua said, taking the entire cake without bothering to slice it up. She took a bite, crumbs falling every which way.

  “You think she’s about to be murdered, and you haven’t thought to mention it to her?”

  “We can’t change what I foresee,” Leilynn said.

  “She should know.”

  “Why?” Jua asked with a mouthful of food. “So she can worry and fret over it? No, better it happens as… easily as it can. Let her have peace in her final days.”

  “Yes, because that’s what you’re known for. Your empathy.”

  Jua tossed the remains of the cake back on the table. Some of it even made it onto the pte as it fell apart on impact.

  “Listen to me, my dear, idiot sister. I love Aunt Sureya. I want what is best for her.” Jua paused, letting the words soak in, and Rua knew she was forcing verification of the truth of what she said. “I love my sister Leilynn, spacey as she may be. I love my sister Rua, even though I would kill your traitor father in an instant and piss on her corpse, and wish to all the Dreamers you’d been born full Siyan. And also that you wouldn’t abandon your duties when things got tough. And that you dressed better. Or had better liquor in stock. Or have a better house than me. And–”

  “I get the point,” Rua said.

  Everything she’d just said had been true. Jua genuinely loved her. Even if she was a rude little monster. Rua tried not to let it get to her. She still had to wipe a tear away, and swallow a few times in the wake of the pain bubbling in her throat.

  “And I dislike that you’re a weepy little idiot,” Jua said.

  “Well, I dislike that ugly face of yours.”

  “Lucky for me and half the dockside workers in Ri Oa, it’s not my face people are interested in.”

  “And what of Kir?” Rua asked. “How do you feel about her?”

  “I don’t know how I feel about her, beyond that… it’s time someone put her down. My feelings don’t factor into it. I don’t know if she’s Pact-crazed, or addicted to consuming soul crystals, or if she’s just become as bad as the Criobani, but I’m certain she’s going to try to take the Isnds for herself.”

  Rua nodded. There was enough truth there. Not all of it was, but enough of it that there was only a small ache.

  “I’m not going to do it,” Rua said.

  Jua swore. “I take it back, I hate your guts. Can’t you just do your fabled duty, just once?”

  “I did it long enough. Every single time you or Kir urged me to kill in the past. I’m done. I have enough blood on my hands. I choose my battles now. Not you.”

  “Feh. Well, I did what I could. When Auntie Sureya is dead, that one’s your fault.”

  “We can’t change Leilynn’s foretellings, you said that yourself.”

  “Yeah, but now it probably happens because you didn’t act. And that’s on you.”

  Rua shrugged. “No. It’s on Sureya’s killer, not me.”

  DorenWinslowe