The Stars Are Legion(19)

When Anat enters, holding her iron arm aloft, its green glowing core painting harsh shadows across her face, I straighten and move closer to Zan. Even now, I feel protective of her. It’s my fault she’s in the position she is.

Gavatra comes in behind Anat. “Our guests have arrived,” Gavatra says. “Let us assemble for the exchange.”

I take a deep breath and move away from Zan so I stand halfway between Gavatra and my sisters.

Anat comes up beside me, and it is not difficult to pretend at apprehension. So much depends on this moment.

Anat’s boxy face is split wide with a little half-grin that I find repulsive. Two skinny bottom-worlders stand beside her, armed with burst weapons, which I think would provoke more than reassure, but I say nothing. These talks have been going on for some time. We have fought the Bhavajas for generations, since long before the Mokshi appeared on the Outer Rim, cut loose from the Core. Whatever the Katazyrnas want, the Bhavajas want, and vice versa. It’s been a long, weary dance.

Rasida Bhavaja strides into our assembly room with a great retinue of her family behind her; a dozen, all told. I recognize her mother, Nashatra, and two of her sisters, Aditva and Samdi, and Rasida introduces them and the others to Anat and my sisters. It seems like a terrible number of Bhavajas to have on our world, but we are armed, and they would not have been allowed weapons. I honestly expected Rasida to send one of her sisters in her stead. But no. I know her face because I know all the faces of my enemies intimately. It is in my best interest to know them. I glance over at Zan.

“You’ve grown, Jayd,” Rasida says. She is a tall, handsome woman, with not a single visible scar. I know she has others underneath the long drape she wears, but from a distance, she is untouched. One might think her soft for all that, if not for her flinty eyes. She stares at me, unblinking, as if a predator peers out from her eyes. Her gaze at once thrills and haunts me, as it has since I was small. The last time I saw her was during a parlay on another world, now long dead, when my sister Nhim commanded the Katazyrna armies, long before Zan joined us. Nhim had been an intimidating person too, but Rasida seemed to loom over her, though she was shorter and thinner than Nhim. When Nhim left the room to send a message to Anat, Rasida leaned over and whispered in my ear, “What would we do here, alone, you and I, if we were not enemies?” and the question haunted me afterward, because the desire was so thick in her voice that it made me tremble. Why is it we always want a thing we should not have?

“Growing is a thing children do,” Anat barks.

I wish there was a soft, politic bone in Anat’s body, but that is like wishing I could swim through the walls of the world.

Anat holds out her left arm, the great iron one, and Rasida glances from the arm to me, then to Zan. For a moment, I think Rasida is going to say something, but she lets it lie. The arm is clearly a war trophy—no one knows how to make anything so fine anymore. Wearing it in Rasida’s presence could be seen as an insult, or perhaps a reminder, that all Katazyrnas are warmongers.

“You have seen my daughter,” Anat says, “now where is my peace offering? Do I get a kiss?”

Rasida shows her teeth. “We have been at this too long, Katazyrna.”

“Let’s sit and pretend at friendship,” I say. “I’ve been waiting for this war to end all my life.”

Anat glares at me. Rasida’s expression is more calculating. Does she think I’m insincere? It’s true I’ve always wanted the war to end. I never said I wanted it to end like this.

Rasida clasps Anat’s iron arm, and Anat grins.

The room takes a collective breath. Rasida and Anat move to the high table. Zan leans into me, whispers, “What if they’d brought some weapon with them, or are launching an assault on the Mokshi right now? How can you or her trust people who are no better than bandits?”

I gaze at the human skin stretched over the table. Zan follows my look and quiets. “We are all villains here,” I say.

“I’m not,” Zan says, and I do not correct her.

We assemble at the table with great ceremony. A bevy of elevated bottom-worlders begin to spin stories, accompanied by the high, thin voices of the chorus behind them. I pay only half attention to them. My gaze returns again and again to Anat and Rasida. I am passably good at reading lips, but they are eating and speaking at the same time, and that complicates things.

Rasida sneaks looks at me often, enough that Zan grumbles about it. When Anat toddles off to go relieve herself, Rasida rises and comes to me.

Zan shifts so she is pressed hard against me.

Rasida takes my hand and says, “You will be my shining star. The mother of a new world.”

“I’m just a woman,” I say, “not a star.”

“You will be my star,” Rasida says fiercely, and her intensity surprises me, though of course it should not. She has been waiting for this day a long time. Maybe a part of me has been too, a part I don’t allow myself to think about, because it feels like another betrayal, and I am tired of being a traitor.

Zan says, “For all the talk of stars, what do you have to give her in return?”

I shush Zan, but Rasida laughs. “And what are you calling this one, Jayd?” Rasida says. “She looks like some conscript. What world is she from?”

“This is my sister Zan,” I say quickly.

“Is that so?” Rasida says. “Is that who you are?”