“Earn it? As if it were only that easy,” Sami scoffed. “You heard what she just said. I took everything from her. I can’t just give her everything back.”

  Otter stared down at Sami. How weird to see her like this. On her knees, tears in her eyes, nose threatening to run, absolutely filthy and hair in disarray. Emotional. Losing control. Normally perfect and composed Sami, reduced to this.

  And Otter had done it to her. It wasn’t her fault. But maybe if she’d handled things differently in the past, presented the truth instead of just running away with it.

  She had to fix this somehow.

  “Foolish outworlders,” Rua muttered. “On the Isnds, if someone wrongs another in a way simir to how you wronged… Mayumi… or if someone were to save your life, you would owe them a debt.”

  “Sua’noa,” Holt said with a nod. He looked entirely too pleased with himself.

  “The old term for it. You know about Siyan customs?”

  “I took the time to learn a thing or two. You know, as a hobby.”

  Rua’s eyes narrowed, and her lips thinned into a grim line. “In either case, a Siyan who has accrued Sua’noa offers service to the party they are indebted to. They determine the worth of the debt, and what they pay. Some outsiders cim it as a form of svery, as many of the Isnds’ greatest and most devout warriors in the past were those working off Sua’noa. They don’t understand it is voluntary.”

  “Think of a knight swearing an oath of service,” Holt said. “And determining how long that service is, and what duties they will fulfill themselves. I always found the concept of Sua’noa very… romantic.”

  “It is,” Rua said. “Many of our histories’ greatest moments and greatest tragedies involve Sua’noa, and those who’ve sworn themselves to it. Everyone should aspire to that level of service, of being willing to give everything for a cause, a belief, a person, while hoping they never know the shame that goes into the requirement to make that commitment.”

  “I don’t know if I’m comfortable with having my own knight,” Otter said. “Or that knight being my ex-girlfriend. Seems like I could abuse it pretty easily.”

  “It’s impossible to abuse,” Rua said. “The servitor decides how they serve. You give no orders, no demands. She obeys by the dictates of her own conscience, and pride.”

  Pride. Of course it came down to pride. Sami was the proudest person Otter had ever met.

  Well, better to nip this in the bud. She didn’t want to see what levels Sami would debase herself to in order to satisfy a life-debt.

  “Pass. Hard pass. The hardest of passes. I don’t need or want Sami to make herself into a sve just to satisfy a guilty conscience for something that, A) I already forgave her for, and B) Is barely her fault as it is. She had no way of knowing the stupid ass Fives system was going to turn my brain into mush. And let’s face it, we already know it’s basically mashed potatoes already. If anyone’s to bme, it’s the jackass who built it.”

  “It’s not your decision,” Sami said, her face going steely. “What do I need to do to swear this oath?”

  Rua shrugged. “There is no set method. Everyone who has accrued Sua’noa makes her own undertaking. Most make up their own rituals, some kind of symbolic gesture to show their devotion to their cause, some make speeches to crowds, some just begin their service.”

  Sami nodded to herself. She turned to Holt, and said in a voice that brooked no dissent, “Leave. Now.”

  Holt looked about to protest, but then took another slurp from his drink before tossing it and his tub of popcorn to the side. Both winked out of existence before they hit the ground.

  “Fine. Fun part was over with already. You still have about half your time left. Use it however you want.”

  He stood, stretched much like a cat would, all leonine grace and uncaring indifferent to his surroundings, and then vanished.

  “Is he gone?” Sami asked.

  Otter summoned a Thread of the Scourge and shed the area where he’d just been standing, and stuck only air. “Probably. But who knows, with his power.”

  Sami nodded, and then as if it were the most mundane thing in the world, unfastened the shoulder rig holding one of her swords, and let it drop, before tugging at her shirt and pulling it over her head.

  Otter made a strangled noise. “What are you doing?”

  “Swearing Sua’noa, or whatever the term is.”

  “One does not swear Sua’noa,” Rua said. “One accrues Sua’noa, and by recognizing the debt, pledges themselves to the task of erasing it.”

  Sami got her top off over her head, and let it drop to the ground. She kept her expression and gaze steady, and Otter had difficulty keeping her eyes locked where they were supposed to be. The mashed potato part of her brain really wanted to look at Sami’s boobs. She kind of missed those.

  “And, uh, why do you need to be naked for this?” Otter asked.

  Sami stood, kicked off her shoes, and began to unbuckle her belt. “To show you I’m hiding nothing. It’s symbolic.”

  “I’m not taking on any sex sves to absolve any deeds, so if that’s–”

  “Don’t be crude.”

  “And she doesn’t technically serve you,” Rua said. “She serves Sua’noa, the debt itself. She determines the service, not you.”

  “Well, I don’t want any service that involves her being naked. No power imbances, unless they are by mutual consent.”

  Sami finished with her belt and second sword, letting them fall to the ground, and worked at her pants. Otter would’ve thought the way she shimmied them down was flirtatious or even sexy if not for the grim face Sami had.

  “I swear to hide nothing from you,” Sami said once fully naked, dropping down to one knee.

  “Don’t do this. You… you don’t owe me anything.”

  “She determines what she owes,” Rua said. “Not you.”

  “Yeah, well–”

  “Please,” Sami said, tears in her eyes. “Just let me do this. I failed you as a lover, a leader, and most of all, a friend. I’m… I’m not fit to be in charge. Of anything. I need this more than you do.”

  God, how weird it was to see Sami like this. Not just on her knees, but emotional. Desperate, even.

  Otter didn’t know what to say. So she just nodded.

  “I failed you in your st life,” Sami said, drawing the sword on the floor, and stabbing it into a crack between the stone bricks that made up the floor. “I failed Mayumi. So I swear to protect you… to protect Otter, in this one. I will safeguard you against what harm I can. I will be your shield, your knight, your… your samurai.”

  Otter still couldn’t find the words, and for once didn’t immediately fuck it up by trying to deflect with a joke. She even managed not to stare at all the naked flesh in front of her, instead focusing on Sami’s face.

  Did this fix things? The truth coming out, even if it wasn’t by Otter’s volition, and Sami swearing to make amends? Was that the magic bandage they both needed?

  Probably not, and if Sami’s expression were anything to go by, she had no idea either.

  This was uncharted waters for both of them, and while Sami was adaptable as both a leader and a fighter, she’d always been useless when it came to stuff like this.

  So, Otter took the lead.

  She reached forward with one hand, brushing Sami’s cheek, who closed her eyes and leaned into it.

  “This’ll work,” Otter said. “It has to. I accept. I forgive you, Yamamoto Samishii, and if that’s not good enough, then I accept your penance to work off what you owe.”

  She almost said ‘think you owe,’ but stopped herself before the words fell from her mouth. It would do neither of them good to pretend like the wound wasn’t there. Because for all the good face Otter presented, she did miss being Mayumi.

  But that chapter of her life was gone. And it was time to enter the next.

  “I missed you,” Sami said quietly. “I missed just… talking to you. Being with you.”

  “I missed you, too.”

  “You missed the sex.”

  “I can miss more than one aspect of a person. Can you believe I missed the discipline? The demands, the quest for perfection the most?”

  Sami snorted. “You missed the submission sex.”

  “Ow. Wounded by my own knight, like twelve seconds after she swore to protect me. This has to be a record.”

  “I miss our arguments.”

  “Weird thing to miss, but okay.”

  “How many steps did our pce have?”

  “Fifteen, the floor counts as a step, don’t start.”

  “It’s not part of the construction. If you were to separate the physically built staircase from the building, the floor would not be taken with it. There are only fourteen steps.”

  “Without the floor, there is no staircase! It needs the floor to survive. Otherwise it would just fall over and serve no function. Certainly not going up anywhere.”

  Sami smiled, a rare, genuine smile, and gave a soft kiss to Otter’s hand. “See? I love your mind.”

  “Now I know you’re odd, because we all know I’m not that bright.”

  That smile went back to her resting bitch face. Or maybe Sami really was annoyed. “Your problem isn’t that you’re not intelligent, it’s that you don’t think before you speak. Or act. I want a promise out of you.”

  “Oh, we’re making demands now? I thought I was your liege lord or whatever.”

  “What you are is complicated. We’re complicated. But we’re going to work it out. But I need one thing from you.”

  “Fine. What is it?”

  “If anything happens… you can’t cut me out again. You can’t ditch me. You can’t ghost me. You can’t abandon me. If there’s a problem, you communicate with me. No more martyring yourself, no more ripping what we have, whatever it is, apart just because you think it’s easier. And while we’re at it, you promise Rua that, too.”

  Rua, who’d been content to just watch, stood a little straighter, her fists clenching, as if she hadn’t considered the possibility Otter might ditch her and was now very invested in making sure that never happened.

  “Ah, right,” Otter said. “I promise not to abandon you. Either of you. I’m not sure I could leave Rua behind, the way we’re linked.”

  “Linked?” Sami asked.

  “Long story. We’ll need to, uh, talk about it ter. I think we’re running low on time, and you’re gonna want to put on pants soon, I think.”

  “No, circle back to that now. What do you mean ‘linked’?”

  “Otter has a Pact ability,” Rua said. “We don’t know fully what it does, and she experimented with it in exactly the way you’d expect her to. We’re bonded together. We can… sense each other. We have a general idea of where the other is at any given time, can feel each other’s emotions, and get a vague sense of the other’s thoughts.”

  “Mostly we’ve used it for sex,” Otter said.

  Sami snorted. “Of course you have.”

  “There’s an implication that we’re bonded by fate, though,” Rua said. “The link might run deeper than we think.”

  “That sounds… ominous. And invasive. And makes me a little jealous at the same time.”

  “There’s no need for jealousy,” Rua said.

  “Why not?”

  “We’ll be bonding you next. We should probably do it now, before our time’s up.”

  DorenWinslowe