Dust

because it had taken so little to intoxicate her or because her symbiont filtered her blood. She thought of Tristen, the glide of his razor along the edge of his jaw, and reached out and stroked Perceval's scalp, the soft stubble prickling her fingers.

She felt Pinion watching, but the parasite wings permitted her touch.

It was a kind of opposite, wasn't it? Tristen couldn't wait to shave the beard away, and here was Perceval, all shorn like a sheep, and defiant with it. Rien thought she could shave Perceval's head for her, too. If Perceval would let her.

With a rustle, Pinion unfolded. But not violently. Rather, like the wings of the sleepy pigeons Rien had once tended in their cote, before the job was handed down to a younger Mean. Perceval's head moved under Rien's hand. She turned and blinked drowsily, brown eyes made enormous by the unrelieved bones of her face.

'Is it time to get up?'

'No,' Rien said, and kissed her.

She looked hard, but her mouth was tender. Rien cupped her face in both hands, feeling skin—soft, with rough patches, the hard oval of a blemish. Perceval's mouth was wet, resilient. So much more yielding than Mallory's.

The kiss tasted of bitter sleep, the sourness of the wine. Something brought by each of them.

Rien's heart pounded as if she had just walked out of a sauna. Perceval's long hands lay flat against her shoulders; without touching, Pinion unfolded, arched over them and crossed behind Rien's back, a sort of bower. For an instant, Perceval kissed her back, and the beating wings were in Rien's bosom.

And then Perceval slid her hand around, pressed her fingertips to Rien's chest beneath her collarbone, and gently levered her away. 'No,' she said, softly. 'Rien, I'm sorry. I'm fallow. Asexed. I don't want this.'

'You're female.' Not like Head, Rien meant to say. But Head might be dying or already dead, half the world away. And somebody had used Perceval to do it.

She had kissed Rien back. And so Rien leaned down, as if she would kiss Perceval again, because she hurt so, and was so lonely, and because she loved Perceval as she had not known that she could love. And was stopped by no more than the pressure of Perceval's hand.

'Being male or female has nothing to do with desire.'

'You don't want me.'

'I don't want anyone,' Perceval said. Rien stepped back, still half drunk and groggy with wakefulness, and watched Perceval rise. She crossed to the window and threw the drapes open with a flick of wingtips. 'Desire is a distraction from duty. I prefer to be celibate.'

Rien pressed the back of her hand to her mouth. Her lips still tingled. 'But you could get it fixed.'

Fixed. Like a cat. Rien was ashamed as soon as she'd said it.

'I could,' Perceval said. 'But then I would not be me.'

'I love you,' Rien said, hopelessly. And Perceval turned back, framed between the patterned russet drapes, and grasped and squeezed Rien's hand.

'I love you,' she answered. Then she tugged Rien's arm, bringing her around to the window, where they could stand side by side, watching the suns' reflected light filter through the black trees beyond. 'Where did you go?'

'To see Tristen,' Rien said. She leaned against Perceval's side, and Perceval let her. She had been the strong one; she had been the savior. And now they were in Perceval's place, and any salvation would have to be Perceval's. 'What did your father want?'

Perceval turned to her, and Rien already knew her well enough to hear the conversation they let pass unspoken. 'Our father,' Perceval could have said, and Rien could have answered, 'He doesn't think so,' and that would not have been exactly true, any of it.

And so Perceval said, 'To apologize.' When she shrugged, her parasite wings brushed the ceiling. She jerked her eyes at the arch of them, a gesture that managed to include her maiming, her shorn hair, and maybe the world.

Rien could not imagine a member of the Conn family seeking forgiveness. Even if she had seen a portion of Benedick's apology with her own eyes.

Well, perhaps Tristen. But Tristen was different.

And Tristen was theirs. Hers and Perceval's. After a fashion. 'Tristen and I think the whole thing was planned. That you were meant to be a sacrifice.'

'Father agrees. He said he wondered what might have happened if Ariane had killed and devoured me. If there was another virus in me; if I am poisoned more ways than one.'

She said it so plainly, as if the words sent no pang to her heart. Perhaps the pain they caused Rien was pain enough for both. Rien was still considering that when Perceval continued, 'Did you and Tristen have any suspicion who might be behind it?'

'Somebody who hates Rule,' Rien said. 'And doesn't like you very much either.'

'Or doesn't like Benedick.'

'He's had longer to collect enemies,' Rien admitted, and was glad when Perceval laughed. 'Tristen told me about the .. . about how his blade got broken. Twenty years ago, he thinks.'

'What can shatter an unblade?'

'Another unblade,' Rien said.

'But there aren't that many—oh. Ariane.' She paused. 'But why trap him there? Why not kill him? Why not.. .'

'Eat his colony, then?'

Perceval nodded, her throat working as she swallowed.

'If she had him in her head, the old Commodore might have noticed. And she wasn't ready to take him on.'

'So she hoarded him,' Perceval said, sickly. 'Like a wasp hoards paralyzed spiders.'

'It's amazing that he's as sane as he is.'

'We're a tough family.' Perceval fiddled with her fingers. 'There's something else. When Pinion kidnapped me'—the shadow wings rustled—'it, or someone speaking through it, professed love for me. Someone named Dust claimed me.'

Rien thought about what Perceval had just said, about celibacy and duty. She felt Perceval's tension, the loathing she would not let show in her face but couldn't keep out of the set of her shoulders. 'I won't let that happen.'

'Still,' Perceval said. 'If you need to keep secrets from me, so the wings don't hear, I understand—what's that?'

She pointed. Outside, the day grew brighter. Achingly bright. Eye searing, red-white, like staring into the unfiltered suns. When Rien raised a hand to draw the drapes, she saw the bones of her hand.

'Shit.' Shutters would be gliding over windows on the dayside, even now. It was just a flare, she thought. Or Hero Ng thought for her, and even in the midst of her fear she wondered how long it would be before she stopped remembering that.

And if it wasn't only a flare, they would know soon enough, and there was nothing she could do about it.

'These suns were never stable,' Rien said, with Hero Ng's conviction. 'And they are dying now.'

17 shipwreck star

Tho' much is taken, much abides;

and tho'

We are not now that strength

which in old days

Moved earth and heaven, that which

we are, we are,—