The Stars Are Legion(17)

The Legion is dying. We will die with it if we don’t act.

Anat thinks the solution lies in the Mokshi. She believes she can control it and use it to wage war on the rest of the worlds of the Legion. It’s the only world that has ever clearly been able to leave its orbit, and though Anat waged a war on the Mokshi, too, when it first arrived, she was never able to board it. Not like Zan could.

Not like I could.

Maybe Anat thinks she will put it to better use than the Bhavajas, who will no doubt use it for salvage as they do every other world. But even Anat’s vision is myopic. She cannot see past the Legion. Even so, she has been willing to sacrifice her daughters to achieve her ambition.

Zan and I are willing to sacrifice much more.





“IT’S A SIMPLE EXCHANGE OF GENETIC MATERIAL: MY DAUGHTER FOR YOURS. BUT THOSE EARLY EXCHANGES SIGNALED THE BEGINNING OF THE END. WHEN THE WORLDS WERE NO LONGER ABLE TO BE SELF-SUSTAINING, IT WAS ONLY A MATTER OF TIME UNTIL OUR EXTINCTION.”

—LORD MOKSHI, ANNALS OF THE LEGION





7


ZAN


Sabita takes me back to my quarters to rest. “You should know that I will do what I can to help you,” she whispers, as if fearing the walls themselves can hear her.

“Unless you can give me back my memory,” I say, “or tell me how to board the Mokshi, there’s no useful help you can offer me. Why is it Jayd tries to keep me away from everyone else?”

“You’re kept cloistered while you’re in recovery,” Sabita says. “Some of that is for your protection, and the protection of others. Sometimes, when you come back, you have very violent fits. Perhaps that’s to do with the means through which you lose your memory. I don’t know. But I have cared for you in recovery. Many times.”

“This is a fool’s game,” I mutter.

“It’s coming back, isn’t it? You should have had some memories resurface by now.”

“How do you know that?”

“We have done this many times,” she says again. A cry comes from the corridor. “I must go,” she says.

“Wait—” I say, but she runs into the hall, and the door purls shut behind her.

Outside, someone is screaming.

And screaming.

I cover my ears, and the screaming stops. My legs are shaky; hunger pinches my belly.

I lie back on the bed, thinking over all that has happened, and all that I remember so far. Every new memory brings with it a knot of horror that grows every moment. The panel of the wall lights up, and tangled blue and red geometric designs dance there. Is it a language, as I suspect? What is it telling me about the ship?

I don’t know how long it is before the door opens, but it’s long enough for me to consider if it’s possible to eat through the door.

Jayd enters, her face looking haggard and drawn.

“The bargain,” I say.

“Rasida Bhavaja, Lord Bhavaja, has always loved me,” Jayd says. “Or perhaps just been obsessed with me. We have parlayed with their family many times over the years. And now I carry something else that they have been fighting many other worlds to get a hold of. That combination . . . is potent. Anat proposes that I give myself to Rasida in exchange for peace, so you can board the Mokshi unhindered.”

“You agreed to this?” I say, incredulous.

“One does not disagree with Anat.”

“Don’t do it,” I say. “I can take the Mokshi without a truce. I can go in alone. No armies. If I go in alone—”

“When you go in alone, you come back without a memory,” Jayd says. “To protect you from whatever happens in there, and to take the Mokshi properly, you must get more women in there with you, and we can’t do that with the Bhavajas picking off whatever the Mokshi doesn’t. You can’t do it alone. We’ve tried.” She presses her lips firmly together, as if she’s said too much.

“We can try again,” I say.

“With another army?” Jayd says. “We’ve lost too many of our sisters, Zan. It’s not working.”

“I can protect you,” I say, and I know in that moment I can. I feel it fiercely.

“Oh, Zan,” Jayd says, and she opens her arms and I fall into them, resting my cheek against Jayd’s head, holding her close enough that I can feel the trembling of her heart. She is afraid. I don’t trust anything she says, but this fear is not a lie. “This is everything we wanted, Zan. But I’m going to have to do so many terrible things.”

“Why?” I say.

She does not answer, only continues stroking my hair. This is among the many things she does not want me to know. I wonder if they are the things that would make me go mad.

“You can convince Anat to hold off,” I say.

“There have been many chances,” Jayd says, pulling away. She wraps her hands in mine. “This is the only way to have peace.”

“Peace for who?” I say. “There’s no peace when you’re a slave.”

“It isn’t like that,” Jayd says. “Rasida Bhavaja is a smart, handsome woman—”

“She’s bought you like some animal!”

“It will be a fair exchange,” Jayd says, and her tone is dark. “I will make sure of that. She has asked for me many times. She once told Anat she would exchange a whole world for me, but Anat knows the Bhavajas too well. She knew Rasida would do something like attack and retake that world the moment we were joined.”