Nyx hadn’t cared much for the old half-breed hag and the bureaucratic tape she wound around the apprehension of terrorists. It had cut into Nyx’s business in a bad way. The current queen being a half-breed hadn’t been terribly popular either.
“My mother realizes what is best for her health,” the queen said, “and the health of Nasheen.”
“That’s good to hear,” Nyx said, and wondered what she was trying to say with that. Rumor had it Zaynab was an enterprising sort of queen. She’d been running the country on her own for years while her mother dabbled in astrology and sand science.
“Nyxnissa so Dasheem,” the queen said.
“Nyx, yeah.”
“Nyx, a pleasure.”
“Uh, thanks.”
“Thank you for answering my summons,” the queen said. There was something on the table at her elbow, a transparent globe. An information globe. Nyx hadn’t seen one of those in more than a decade. “I was told that you served at the front.”
“A long time ago.” Nyx glanced over at Rhys and clenched her left hand, the one he’d brushed during their long walk from quarantine to the queen’s chambers. What little she knew about Rhys she hadn’t learned from him but rather from the magicians and boxers in Faleen. He was from some rich family, and he’d spent time at the Chenjan Imam’s court. He was used to dealing with mullahs and politicians and First Families. It explained his uptight dressing practices and strict manners. She hoped he was a lot more comfortable right now than she was, even if he was the Chenjan.
“Volunteered?” the queen said.
“Yeah.”
“Two years of service, honorably discharged at nineteen, so I’ve read.”
Nyx stiffened. It was a bit early in the interview to be bringing up her file. She had managed to keep a lot of things out of that file, and even more out of the public one—things she didn’t talk about with anybody, especially not her team. She didn’t look at Rhys.
“You came back with burns over eighty percent of your body,” the queen said.
Nyx opened her mouth to cut her off. The queen kept talking, minor details, and Nyx saw her looking at the globe, checking her notes.
“Your military file says you were put into the care of the magicians for reconstitution.” The queen paused to eye Nyx over, as if looking for evidence that Nyx had once been a charred, blackened husk of a woman. “Is that right?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
She remembered the mud between her toes, the taste of the rain in the yeasty air and the way the wet made the long grass shine. They had been in Chenia, in Bahreha, sweeping for mines. She went barefoot when she was doing sap-per work; she liked to feel the ground under her, the way it responded to her weight. She believed it gave her a better idea of where the Chenjans had set the mines. Her whole squad had been there, sweeping up from behind her. She led, pushing farther into the muddy grass, until she reached the end of the cleared field. That’s where she had gone down on her belly, a knife in one hand and her other palm flat on the ground, a mantis at work. She remembered finding the mine, a flat green disk the size of a bottle cap, the same as half a hundred others she’d cleared from the same field. Nothing special. Nothing different.
She had been good at what she did.
Until that day.
“I had a good magician work on me. The best in the business,” Nyx said. And then he fucked me over and sent me to prison, Nyx thought. But that was in the file too. No need to repeat it.
“I went against the advice of my best counselors in asking you here,” the queen said, and now she wasn’t looking at the globe anymore. She smiled, but it was a too-sweet grandmotherly smile, like she was doing Nyx a favor. A favor she’d want repaid real soon.
It all started to click together in Nyx’s head now. The aliens from Faleen, the queen’s recent abdication, the fact that the queen was calling in Nyx—a hunter, not a bel dame.
This might get tricky.
“Sorry I’m not more popular,” Nyx said. She was better at killing her own people than getting rid of foreigners. Nobody liked to hear that, but it was true.
“They told me that you served some time in prison for black work. You were delivering zygotes to gene pirates.”
Yeah, that one had definitely gone into the file.
“I did,” Nyx said. She was being tested. But for what? Her loyalty to Nasheen? To the queen? The queen’s laws? To what end?
“You have some sympathy for illegal breeding? We have no need for rogue mixers or illegal half-breeds, like Ras Tieg or Druce. Our compounds perform those functions. It’s disappointing to see a woman waste her womb on a single birth.”
“Your mother was a half-breed, wasn’t she?” Nyx asked.
Rhys made a strange little choking sound that might have been a laugh.
“Excuse me,” he said, “may I have some water, Honorable?”
The queen cocked her head at him. She raised a fleshy hand, and Kasbah called in a retainer. They gave him a plain glass of water. Nyx and the queen were silent through the whole performance.
Nyx’s mother and all the rest who were authorized for child rearing had to go through the filtration and inoculation process on the coast. Just as Umayma had been tailored to suit the people on it, the people on Umayma had been tailored to suit the world. Half-breed illegals like Taite had a tougher time getting around. They burned more easily, died sooner, and suffered from more cancers and diseases. Most of Taite’s childhood stories were about things experienced while bedridden. The former queen and her children wouldn’t have had that problem, of course. The high council would have approved their pairing and gotten them the inoculations they needed. It strengthened Nasheenian ties with Ras Tieg.
“I was into black work because it paid all right,” Nyx said, getting back into safer territory.
“More than being a bel dame? Collecting blood debt is rewarding.”
“Only if you’re good at it,” Nyx said. “I wasn’t.”
Rhys shifted in his seat and gave her a pointed look.
“Nyxnissa is being modest,” Rhys said. “She brought in every note she was assigned. Her final note as a bel dame prevented an outbreak of what we now know was blister fever. I believe a similar contaminated soldier was responsible for the deaths of more than four hundred people in Sahlah last year.”
“Indeed,” the queen said. “And who is this Chenjan man in your company, Nyxnissa?”
Nyx said, “He’s my magician.”
“I read that your other partners did not last long while you were a bel dame.”
“It’s a good thing I changed professions, then,” Nyx said.
“Nyxnissa is many things,” Rhys cut in, “including stubborn. Determined. If you’re looking for a woman to stick to a note until the bitter end, you’ve summoned the proper woman. She has a black mark—the black work— yes, but she was also young and foolish then. She’s tempered a good deal since.”
Rhys was a much better liar than she was.
“Stubborn, yeah,” Nyx agreed. “But maybe just stupid.”
“Neither of us has gotten where we are by being stupid,” the queen said.
“Oh, I’ve done some pretty stupid things,” Nyx said. Going to the front had been one of them. This conversation with the queen might be another. “I heard you’ve called in a lot of hunters for this note. Not just me.”
“Hunters, yes. A few mercenaries. Most have already given up the hunt, however.”
“You haven’t called in any bel dames to pursue the note?” Might as well ask, Nyx thought.
“I have my reasons for keeping bel dames out of this particular affair. I need someone….”
“Desperate?” Nyx suggested.
Rhys pressed his lips together and looked at the table. He discreetly covered his mouth with his hand. Being blunt shocked him.
