Wearing it down in public felt exotic and wild.
Vesta. Enemy planet. Backward planet. It was all of that. And so much more. The men wore dresses and the women wore pants, and the food was heady and rich.
And Tor, as he’d dressed that morning, had looked anything but absurd in his togata. A cliff broke off to their right, and below that spread the city with all its riotous mix of styles and rooflines.
She stared across at the city, glistening and humming below. Bright and busy.
A trail of tinkling laughter danced on the breeze from the group of women seated on a cluster of divans nearby.
They stared at Klym, eyes narrowed, mouths tight.
“Are they all Tor’s?” she asked.
“No. They were Dillan’s. They would have been Tor’s.”
“And now?”
Janna tucked a strand of her glossy hair behind an ear. “They are all to return to their homes.”
“Isn’t this their home?”
“It was when Dillan was alive. But…”
She didn’t finish the thought, but then she didn’t need to. No wonder they were looking at her like they’d like to push her off the cliff.
She’d displaced them.
She studied the women, clustered together. They had the body language of old friends. A support system. Sisters almost. She recognized it well from her years in the Institute. The safety of long association, the trust that came with time and shared experience.
“They’ve lived here for ten years?”
Janna nodded. “Some came later.”
“Do you know them well?”
“Some of them.”
“Do you like them?” Klym resumed her slow pace.
Janna cast her a sly look under her lashes. “Some of them.”
Klym smiled. “Where will they go?”
“Back to their old homes, I suppose.”
Home. Klym smiled bitterly. Such a strange concept. Her home had never been her father’s house, nor the Institute. Home had existed purely in her dreams, a place with Agammo and a family they’d create.
How many of the felanas had lived with the same hope for Tor and the Roq? Only to have it all come crashing down around them as hers had?
“What will happen to them?”
“Their fathers or brothers will attempt to find new Primes for them. But they won’t make such a good match. Plus...” Janna glanced at Klym. “Tor is young and handsome. Most of the alternative Primes are older. More like Gaspart than Tor.”
She thought about Gaspart’s gut overhanging his belt, and then about Tor’s hard abdomen, rippled, scarred and tattooed, with that vein running south. “And so they hate me.”
“Primes do as they please. It’s not your fault.”
But it was, in a way. It really was. She’d ruined the lives of twenty-seven innocent women, and she wasn’t even going to stay here.
25
I want a new chair
TOR STOOD in the regio’s office, overlooking the gardens and bathhouses below.
He tried to put his hands in his pockets, but they weren’t there. He’d put on the traditional togata that morning. Nothing but cotton met his hands, stopping too far up his thigh for comfort. The breeze around his cock was nice, but his balls felt a little too unprotected for his taste.
He hadn’t actively thought about missing Vesta. If anything, he always looked back and felt a mild sense of shame. He’d laughed and fought and fucked his way through his twenty years on this planet, never really caring about all the men his father ordered to their death. He never worried about the stupid wars, or the miserable felanas who were traded like prize ships. It was only after Punt-Rayabad when he’d come home to his father demanding he rape Sanger’s wife in revenge, that he’d snapped.
And the real shame of it, was that he hadn’t done a thing about it. Hadn’t even tried. He’d just left. And in the time since, he’d been a mean and miserable bastard. Only Jasto had cut through the gloom and made him smile. Until Klym.
She’d made him feel…everything in the time since he’d known her. True rage, it was true. But also happiness, excitement, pleasure, doubt, worry, guilt. She’d brought him back to life, too.
He turned away from the balcony toward Gaspart, seated on the chaise, popping salted elias in his mouth while the commander of troops for the largest segment of his army explained the fifth reason why war should be avoided.
The commander’s name was Windio, a seasoned soldier. His reasoning was sound, but he was far too cautious, and overly impressed by the size of the armies of the Alliance. “Without Himbanna, we’d be facing an enemy on both sides.”
“Maybe.” Tor sat in his father’s chair, the leather sticky under his thighs. “I’m pretty sure I can deliver Himbanna. The nobles there rely on us for grain. And they hate the homeworld tax. What percentage of your household income goes to the Alliance?”
Windio was silent.
Gaspart spoke up mid-chomp. “It’s twelve percent, isn’t it?”
“Fifteen,” said Windio.
“But that’s just the estate fees, right?” Chomp, chomp, chomp.
Windio shifted, the leather of his weapons scraping against the leather of the chair. “Yes. There’s also the half percent on sales, the solar tax, the water tax.”
Chomp. “And a food tax, right?” Chomp. “Kind of silly, isn’t it? I mean, we grow the food here, they tax it, then buy it, then tax it and sell it to us again.” Chomp.
“It adds up.”
“And yet...” Tor tapped his thumb on the desk. “They draft us into their wars. They take our grain, our yenna, and they give us nothing back.” He tap-tapped again. “They send Pijuan to watch us.”
Windio pursed his lips.
Tor leaned forward, annoyed when his balls stuck to the leather. There was something to be said for a cool breeze on a hot day, but sitting bare-assed on leather wasn’t fun. “I asked you here because I trust you, Windio. You taught me how to fight. This conversation stays within these walls.”
Windio nodded.
“We are not ready yet,” Tor said. “I know that, and I wouldn’t ask men to fight a losing battle. But when we’re sure we can win, when we have our allies in place, and the men are
