The Stars Are Legion(15)
She wrests her iron arm from my grip. “We are done dancing,” she says. She pushes past her security people.
I open my arms for Jayd, but Jayd does not come to me. She runs after Anat. So I scramble up and follow Jayd, and this time, the security women don’t bother to hold me back.
“I have made a bargain,” Anat says to Jayd.
But just as I catch up to them, the security women decide to pull me back after all. I yell.
Jayd looks back once. Anat says something to her, and amid the stir of women, I cannot hear it, but I see something in Jayd’s face change. At first I think it’s fear, but as she turns away from Anat, I realize it is triumph.
“Come away!” Sabita’s voice. She has come back. She snatches at me from behind.
“Get her out of here,” a security woman says. “She’s disturbing the Lord of the Legion.”
“Quickly,” Sabita says, and though I yearn for Jayd, Jayd has already disappeared after Anat, and their path is swallowed by the security women.
Sabita and I are left behind in the dim corridor. She is trembling.
“What is it?” I ask.
“Don’t trust Jayd,” Sabita says. “I’m sworn to help you achieve what you need to. I will keep her safe for you as you asked, but—”
“What are you talking about?” I say.
“You didn’t tell me this time,” she says, “another time. The first time. Before you lost your memory.”
“If you know who I am—”
“Only Jayd knows that,” Sabita says. “You never even told me that. Whatever is between you and her has survived all of her betrayals. I don’t pretend to understand it, but you need to listen, because she will fill your head with lies. Stay true to your purpose. I was supposed to tell you that, every time. Your purpose. Not Jayd’s.”
“But I didn’t tell you my purpose?”
She shakes her head. “I’m sorry. It frustrated me as much then as it does you now. I think you suspected that would be enough to . . . trigger a memory of some kind?”
“When did I get here, Sabita?”
“Several rotations ago,” she says.
“And I’m not a Katazyrna.”
“Hush,” she says. “It’s not safe to speak here. Let’s go back to your rooms.”
She takes my hand in hers, and leads me farther from Jayd and her mad mother.
“AT THE HEART OF EVERY SHIP IS A WITCH. SHE IS THE ONLY ONE OF US WHO REMEMBERS EVERYTHING. AND IT’S THE KNOWING THAT HAS DRIVEN THEM ALL MAD.”
—LORD MOKSHI, ANNALS OF THE LEGION
6
JAYD
A bargain?” I say. Zan is yelling from the corridor, many paces behind my mother and me, but this is far more important. I stick close to Anat as she marches back to the umbilicus to head down to the second level. “With who?” My heart flutters.
“The Bhavajas.”
I skip a step, and nearly stumble. “The Bhavajas? After all this time?”
“They offered peace before that last run. I told them I’d think about it. Seems they wanted to push me again and remind me of what meddlesome insects they are.”
“What are their terms?” I ask.
Anat rounds on me. “You know what they want, Jayd. The same thing every world wants. They already have the ability to make new worlds. But I’ve always had many daughters who could do things theirs couldn’t. They’ve raided six worlds to get what you carry. They think adding a new sort of woman and her offspring to Bhavaja can save them.”
“You wouldn’t do that.”
“Wouldn’t I?” She puts her hands on my shoulders. Grips me hard with her iron hand. “You will be the mother of worlds,” she says. “The Bhavajas have asked for you to marry their general, Jayd. You know Rasida Bhavaja. And I have given my consent. It is the best decision for the Legion.”
I have to turn away then. I choke on a cry, but it is not the cry she expects. It is not the cry she has been trying to wheedle out of me all along, the cry she is hoping for.
I turn away so she cannot see that it is a cry of relief. I turn away so she cannot see me smile.
*
I watch Anat take the umbilicus down to the second level along with her security team. It’s the security team that’s made it so difficult for Zan and me to overwhelm Anat, after all these cycles. To be fair, the arm makes her deadlier too, and the arm was my fault. For all her swagger, she is indeed a clever, brutish woman, and she has confounded our plans many times But not this time.
I steady my breath and my resolve. I have been pushing Anat toward this final solution with the Bhavajas for so long that I don’t know what to do with myself now that it is decided. The Bhavajas need a marriage to a woman like me. They need the potential I carry. And I need to get off the ship so I can steal what they have and we don’t. Everything depends on me getting off this ship. Zan can handle Anat from here.
It has taken longer than Zan and I anticipated, to twist Anat into gifting me to Rasida, and we have sacrificed more than either of us expected, but we have convinced Anat in the only way she can be convinced—through trickery and obfuscation. Yet it’s a lonely victory. Zan is the only person I can tell about this change in our fortunes, but she will remember none of its significance.