“Of Pijuan?”
“Yes.” He just came into a regio’s home and threatened to take the selissa. Leaders across the planet would resent letting the Alliance have that kind of power. It just might be the proof that would tip the scales for any leader still in doubt.
Janna and their mother made the exact same expression. He could practically see the cogs and gears turning in their brains. They hit understanding at the same moment.
“You mean—” said his mother.
“But then—” said Janna.
He turned toward Gaspart and Jeor. These four people were his family. And now, finally, he trusted them. “Sanger’s in the study. We need to make a plan.”
It took longer than he’d have liked.
Gaspart would act as regio in his absence.
His mother would send copies of Janna’s holo to her contacts.
Jeor would go personally to meet with a few of them.
And Sanger. Sanger had to go back to Didgermmion. That was the final piece to delivery.
38
I will not
STARIA STARED at her reflection in awe. She’d put on Klym’s evilest bustier. “My boobs look amazing.”
“Just wait,” Klym said, and yanked on the ties at the back of the bustier. She pulled tighter and cinched Staria’s waist in another inch.
“I can’t breathe.”
“Then don’t. You’re not meant to breathe. You’re meant to look pretty.” The words sounded sullen, and she felt bad. She’d been poor company for Staria. Even getting dressed each day felt like work, and waking up in the morning seemed too hard. She mustered up a forced smile as she tied off the last of the laces. “Next comes the dress.” She dropped it over Staria’s head.
“It looks like a tarp.” Staria stared forlornly at the mirror. “I liked it better when you could see my boobs.”
“Wait until it’s laced.” Klym yanked on the laces at the back of the gown, and Staria winced. She was slimmer than Klym, and the dress made her look willowy and slight.
She’d let Klym coil her hair for her too, and it gleamed in an elaborate, low chignon. “You look lovely, Staria.”
And she really did. The gown was one of Klym’s favorites, a deep gold, that set Staria’s pale skin and dark hair practically glowing, and she’d added golden Vestan filigree bracelets and earrings. She looked exotic and intense, and Klym had no doubt every Argenti at the ball that night would stare.
“I’ll be dead and lovely if you don’t loosen this thing.”
Klym ignored her and set to work putting on her own dress in preparation for a ball, where she’d see Spiro. The thought sent a sharp stab of longing through her for Tor. It was impossible to believe that after everything they’d been through, she’d ended up right back here, in Merentide, engaged to Spiro.
Her father hadn’t given her a choice, though. Go to the ball or see Spiro at home, and Staria had turned on her with her big, black eyes, and Klym couldn’t say no. Staria had come all this way with her; the least Klym could do was go to a ball with her.
Her own dress was so wide it bordered on absurd, silvery gray with a lacy underskirt. The back laced closed over the thick boning of her stays, and it left her shoulders bare. She tried not to imagine what Tor would say if he saw her wearing it, probably something rude and funny about her breasts.
The thought brought such an intense burst of homesickness that her eyes stung. She’d left Tor twelve days ago. Today was meant to be the day of the feast.
She stared at her reflection. She should be wearing the outfit from Itta. The one with blue flowers in her hair, and her mother’s pearls, but she’d sold those for enough yenna to buy passage on a freight ship that had stopped on four separate peace planets.
They’d arrived only yesterday. Within five minutes, her father had announced her engagement to Spiro Willo back on.
She turned her back to Staria. “Will you do up the laces?”
Staria met her eyes in the mirror. “We could always find a way to comm Janna. Find out how he is.”
Klym wrapped her hand around a bedpost, and Staria yanked on the laces.
She winced. “It wouldn’t change anything.”
Yank. “He might ask you to go back.”
“I’m sure he would. For peace.”
Staria tilted her head. “Maybe not.”
She tightened her grip until her knuckles stood out, pale as bone.
“Klymeni,” said her father from the doorway.
She turned to him.
“I have urgent business tonight. The chauffeur will take you in the hover.” His jaw clenched as he took in Staria in her formal gown, standing by her side.
“Both of us,” Klym said. “We both go, or neither of us do.”
When he’d come to get them from the Merentide Spaceport, he’d begrudgingly agreed to let Staria stay with them. He hated the Vestige with the fiery passion of a thousand blazing suns, but evidently, he found their women harmless. Then again, he’d never met Tor’s mother.
His mouth pinched, but he added, “Both of you. Spiro will meet you there.”
Klym clenched her fingers to keep them from shaking. “I told you before, Father. I will not Bond with him.”
A vein just below his hairline pulsed. “You will.”
39
This will probably hurt
TOR LANDED HIS SHIP at the coordinates Franno had given him, in the middle of a blue field a few miles west of the Merentide, Klym’s hometown.
He’d polished Miannya during landing, and checked his rezal and all his knives. But it didn’t really matter. He could have every weapon on Vesta at his disposal and it wouldn’t change a thing. He was one man, landing on an enemy planet.
If Franno double-crossed him, he’d be arrested, interrogated, tortured for more information, and eventually killed.
And it wouldn’t be a pretty death.
The civilians of Argentus may be like Klym, polished, gentle and polite, but the Tribe, the Argenti military, were as fierce and as hard as the fiercest on Vesta. If the plan went south, he was screwed, and Sanger would be Regio of the Roq,
