Martial spire, Tephaine
Two weeks before operation Viper
The building smelled of cordite and counterseptic. Announcement chimes and whirring air filters were the first sounds he noticed, though more distantly he could hear the muffled roar of jump jets and the sharp report of gunfire. The sounds were those of war - but for all that, the Nebula training centre was probably about the safest place he could possibly be right now. Still, Arcolin knew better than most how quickly something could
change.
Executor Krol sprung our trap too soon. a courtier had complained, to the sub-governor’s own face. Whispers of discontent brought into the open didn’t stay whispers for long.
He should be silenced quietly, but soon. Arcolin flinched at the thought. That was the Blue Devil talking, but he wasn’t wrong.
And Matlock, that damned cardinal whose heart was still half Imperial.
We suffer for what you and your brother have done. As if he wasn’t speaking to the woman who had saved Adrantis thrice over, both under the Imperial banner and against it. Arcolin had known many intractable fanatics, but for some reason the ones from the Imperial church were always the worst. Noble, arbiter, heretic...any version of Arcolin would have gladly strangled Matlock with his own entrails; he knew that much.
A stern word had quietened the dissenters in the moment, but
only for the moment. No, Arcolin thought with grim amusement, he was far from safe. Even here, with the familiar, solid presences of Tyria and Sharma walking either side of him. He took note of everything accordingly; scanning the floor, the ceiling, the wall pillars, with the eyes of a noble scion who knew how deadly inventive the spire-top class could be when they were able to afford every covert, lethal device available to their machiavellian imaginations.
He saw no tell-tale laser lines scattering through the dust, no suspiciously drilled holes; but he did note the difference in architecture as they passed beyond the gilded reception hall and into the brutalist, functional interior, and said so.
“Visiting dignitaries never go past the atrium.” Sharma replied, with a wry smile.
Arcolin ran his tongue across his teeth. “A deception should run deeper. You never know how deep they’ll probe.” His scarred cheeks wanted to match Sharma’s smile with that of the Blue Devil, but he froze them in place. “Then again, a bit of brutal professionalism underneath the pomp and ceremony is probably reassuring.”
Sharma grunted a laugh. “That’s what the colonel said too, Mr DeRei.”
Away from the court, they called him by his true name. He should thank them for that.
Executor Krol was just another mask, albeit a convenient one to slip on when he needed to stamp his authority on his return to Tierce’s war room. He had been wearing so many masks and for so long that he was no longer sure what lay beneath them. What was Arcolin DeRei?
Weak. he answered himself without mercy. No more coherent than the words he had scrawled across his den in the abandoned city, or the words he had spoken on Concordia.
One babbling, pleading truth against a lifetime of lies. It had deserved to fail. Only Alicia, who was searching desperately for a family, had been swayed. Only her and Ella, who could see that his tortured confession was at least genuine. He wondered what the astropath had seen in him with her blind eyes. What she saw now.
He wouldn’t ask her - it seemed unfair to Alicia to divide the attention of her closest confidant. A confidant that, brother or no, Arcolin knew he couldn’t truly replace. The Blue Devil had had too much influence on Alicia’s path already, and he was not yet sure what Arcolin could offer in his stead. No, he would not distract Ella. Besides, he could already guess what she saw when she looked at him, through him.
Broken. Fragmented. Weak. And now, in one more of the raven god’s perfect ironies, his body reflected it - thanks to Marc’s little needle, and the man’s suicidal, berserker desire to kill the Blue Devil.
You were lucky, Alicia. And not just in having six months to find yourself while I rotted on a hospital bed. The Smiler of Solomon and the Blue Devil of Adrantis defined him to almost everyone of note - even, to an extent, governor Tierce. And what was there before that? The scholem, and the arbites; two organisations even more soulless than he was. He wasn’t unaware of Alicia’s ambivalence towards the heroine persona that Adrantis had foisted on her, but he did envy her one thing, even though he would never tell her aloud. House DeRei may have bred them both as literal empty vessels for the Tain, but at least
she had been required to play the part of an individual human being - and had been accepted in kind by the Nebula corps, a rough kind of brotherhood though it had been. The stern, cold arbites had never been that for him...and that had been
before they knew his family were a viper’s nest of heretics.
His cheeks twitched again. He glanced to either side, at Sharma and Tyria. Oh yes, they had a stake in him thanks to the harrowing experience they had all survived on Concordia. Tyria had fought like hell to save him - he was the Heroine’s brother, after all - and there was even a certain charm in the way Sharma venerated his renunciation of Chaos, tiresome and paternal though it was. But they were soldiers of the Nebula corps first and foremost, and Adrantis could not spare two of their premier military force in such dire times - certainly not to guard a former cultist who Tierce agreed was far better kept from the public eye than in the centre of it.
And, Arcolin added, and this time he could not hold back the bitter smile,
even Sharma and Tyria would try to kill me, if they only knew that all of this was originally intended to burn Adrantis, for the Change.
He rubbed his temple, half expecting the Smiler’s voice to rise unbidden as he invoked the name. Who was Arcolin without them? He needed to find out. He needed to - he chuckled ruefully to himself -
change. Gather together the pieces like broken flect shards, and hope against all odds that someone of worth was reflected back.
“So who have you found to spar with me?” he asked his two escorts, if only to drag himself away from those dark thoughts. He
was genuinely curious. The Nebulas would be deploying imminently to Marioch - and so despite the number of them training hard in the fight cages, gun ranges and sim environments around him, none of them were likely to be here in a week’s time.
“One of the Malfi delegates.” Tyria answered. “Well,” she corrected herself, “She’s one of their bodyguards.”
Arcolin’s mind sewed the pieces of information together and drew the stitches tight. It could only be Ani Vardanyan, the sour young woman who was always hovering near Tumasian and the electro-priest. The woman who, if the gossip was accurate, Sharma was sweet on.
Did the Malfians want something in exchange for her time? executor Krol would have asked.
Did they suggest her themselves? the arbiter would have wanted to know, thinking of secret assassins, honey traps and sleeper agents with rigged compulsions.
I hope she’s pretty! the Smiler would have joked, deliberately needling Sharma since he knew - courtesy of Alicia and Tyria - that Sharma’s chaste approach was legitimate devotion, and not a ploy to get Vardanyan to lower her guard.
He tried to find what was common between the disparate voices. What was
him?
“Why
did you put her forward?” Tyria went on, talking to Sharma.
The pious Nebula soldier raised his hands defensively. “Don’t look at me. It was lady Seren that suggested Ani.”
Arcolin filed that interesting bit of information away for future use. “Tell me about Ani, then.” he said, directing his question at Sharma.
Sharma took a moment to consider. “She’s observant.” he said at last. “A competent fighter. Quick learner.”
Anyone could have inferred that from the fact that she is a bodyguard. Arcolin raised his eyebrows, prompting Sharma for more.
A smile twitched at one corner of the soldier’s mouth. “She’s not much for conversation.”
So you approached her, then. Arcolin concluded.
“And...” Sharma hesitated, frowning. Arcolin could see by the way his hand rose to thumb the Aquila hanging around his neck that he was uncomfortable. “And she worships...a different god.”
He held Arcolin’s gaze for just a moment longer than necessary.
That’s not just his missionary talking. He thinks it’s something I specifically know about. Something that he had experience of. Something that he could, implicitly,
help her with.
One of the Four? Likely.
“You’ll get to know her soon enough.” Tyria confided as she keyed the access code for one of the gymnasium suites splitting off from the corridor. Arcolin saw her grin slyly as she looked past Arcolin at Sharma, who stood a little straighter as the armourglass door clicked open. The sound of fists hitting leather greeted Arcolin as he stepped into a floodlit room with mirrored walls, occupied by a single figure who was aggressively working a tackle-bag that hung from the ceiling. Vardanyan was a wiry young woman; attractive as Sharma might well judge such things, though making no great concession to it. She wore loose, functional black shorts and a matching sleeveless shirt, one side of her head buzzed short to the level of her temple, the rest of her blonde hair pinned back in a ponytail. She was still laying into the bag, though Arcolin had caught the switch of her eyes towards the door the moment Tyria had extended her hand towards the keypad.
Observant, as Sharma said. She would just rather stop in her own time than ours. She inevitably put him in mind of Kally Sonder, in both looks and temperament. He briefly wondered where Kally was now.
The further away the better, for both of us.
Vardanyan gave the bag one last solid jab, then turned towards them, raking a sweaty strand of hair out of her eyes. She tugged for a moment at the gauze wrappings around the knuckles of her right hand, as her eyes darted suspiciously from Tyria to Arcolin to Sharma.
“Hey.” she greeted them brusquely.
Arcolin looked her up and down for tattoos and jewellery, and saw none.
She’s not fool enough to wear any obvious sign of devotion to the Four, at least not openly. He wondered for a moment at her right hand, the one she had touched as they entered, as if to check that something was safely covered.
“So you’re my training partner.” he said to Vardanyan.
The bodyguard’s cheek twitched. “Obviously.” The look she was giving him said
go frak yourself.
What did she see? Arcolin wondered again.
“We’ll leave you to it.” Sharma said, seemingly untroubled. “You both know where to find me.”
Vardanyan nodded. “See you.”
That grudging answer was her version of relaxed. Arcolin deduced.
And it was hardly for me and Tyria. She likes him too.
The Smiler would have cackled, sensing opportunities for leverage.
The two Nebulas exited the room, and Arcolin caught what he expected was some light teasing from Tyria as the door clicked closed and muffled her playful jab at Sharma. Arcolin rolled his shoulders, and shook off his jacket. Vardanyan seemed like the type to appreciate getting straight down to business. She was smaller than him, with shorter reach, but Arcolin himself had been in a hospital bed for the last six months.
“Just so you know,” he offered. “I’m rusty.”
“I’ll go easy on you.” Vardanyan replied. Her face suggested that she wouldn’t.
Arcolin didn’t give her the Smiler’s grin, but he did briefly chuckle in his throat. “I hope you don’t.”
He could already guess that she was not the type to do him any favours because of his executor’s title, nor for being Alicia Tarran’s brother. If anything, she would be glad of the excuse to punch such a person.
How refreshing!
He stepped forward, shifting his weight onto the balls of his feet, and assessed his opponent’s stance in turn as she squared her shoulders to meet him. Hands and forearms up to guard - a little high, as if to accommodate kicks as well as punches. He slid to one side, weaving back and forth a little to gauge her distancing and footwork. Vardanyan switched her feet fluidly, dodging a long jab, and closed to land two blows on his raised forearms that almost distracted him from an attempt to kick his left knee out from under him. It was an unfamiliar martial art, but there was something of the Nebulas in the kick - something of their philosophy of getting their opponent on the ground as fast as possible. Vardanyan was an offworlder, so she had to have picked it up from sparring with Sharma.
Adaptability...the Change? But she also has discipline, like a follower of the Blood God.
“Where did you learn to fight?” he asked as he tried to find a way past Vardanyan’s defences with his longer reach, only for her to duck inside his guard and drive him back towards a corner of the room.
“A dojo.” Vardanyan answered as she blocked his attempt to slip past her and recover space. “In Vaxanhive.”
“The
under-hive.” Arcolin observed. He didn’t know her accent, but there was no spire-top precision in it, none of the cut-glass enunciation that seemed to transcend planets and unite nobles across the Imperium.
“So?” Vardanyan challenged him, slamming a fist into his upper arm for emphasis. She was scowling, as if she thought he was judging her.
Arcolin tried to force his way out of the corner. They traded blows, but it was him who failed to parry. Vardanyan’s fist hit his jaw, hard enough to slam his head a second blow against the wall. He gasped, falling to one knee.
I’ve gotten far too slow. Vardanyan skipped back rather than pummel him further, for which he was grateful, but the blow continued to hurt; distracting him with the throbbing pain.
I’ve gotten soft, too.
He rose and tried again. Vardanyan twisted away from his arbiter’s grapple and hit him hard in the ribs - hard enough that he suspected that they would have broken if they had not been replaced with steel after the meltagun incident in Makita hive. Vardanyan retreated, flexing her impacted knuckles as they both hissed in pain. He met her eyes with a look of grim amusement as he clutched his bruised side. Her
unusually dilated eyes, he belatedly noted.
Ah. He decided to test the theory.
“I have nothing against the underhive.” he wheezed, picking up their previous conversational thread as he returned to guard. “There’s many followers of the Prince down there, after all.”
Vardanyan’s scowl told him that his guess had been right. She sidestepped and landed a painful body blow with her foot, followed by a leg sweep that put him on the ground. “What would you know about it?”
“I lived there.” Arcolin coughed, his mechanical lungs vibrating in protest behind his ribs. “For a long time.”
“Bullshit.” Vardanyan refuted, cuffing her jaw. “Even if you didn’t start in the spires, no way you’re sump born.”
Clever girl, the Blue Devil would have grinned. “I bet you enjoy the chance to beat up a noble.” Arcolin said instead.
Vardanyan grinned nastily at him as she waited for him to get back up. “I’ve gutted a few.”
A crude and blunt attempt to intimidate him.
Scarcely worthy of the Prince, the Smiler would have taunted. Arcolin twitched as a throb of pain pulsed through his head. “I wasn’t lying. I was the Raven God’s emissary to the underhive for several years.”
“Yeah, I heard.”
Now that was not common knowledge, even among the Tephanian court. Either she truly
was dangerously intelligent, or one of the other Malfians had figured it out for her. Arcolin mulled the implications for a moment before realising that he had missed the obvious.
She doesn’t care.
He pushed himself upright with gritted teeth, looking at the apathetic face that was just beginning to pinch with contempt for the effort it was costing him to get back up. “Come on, spire boy. I didn’t hit you that hard.”
Arcolin really did laugh then, as the irony became too much for him. Gutter-born, untrusting, angry...if the fates had brought them together on Vaxanhive, then Vardanyan was every inch one of the desperate, down-and-out scummers that the Smiler or the Blue Devil would have tied up in puppet strings. Who the arbiter would have smashed down with his maul and thought no more of. Who the spire-born noble - Krol or DeRei - would have sneered and turned away from, had he even deigned to consider her at all.
And of all the people I’ve ever met, she’s the only one to whom none of them mean anything!
He realised then that he wanted to do as Sharma had asked, and help her. Not for the raven god, though he knew that It would appreciate the final irony. Turn one young woman away from the Four, a stand-in for all those innocents whom he so readily beguiled into forfeiting their souls to the Change? The Smiler cackled eagerly at the amusing pretentiousness of it. The arbiter approved of cutting out the spiritual cancer before it spread and became terminal. The executor of Adrantis saw a chance to prove Tephaine better than the heartless imperium.
They all wanted it. Which meant that the desire was his. Arcolin’s.
He could do it. Convince her that he had changed one last time. Convince himself. He could do it.
She doesn’t know me. She doesn’t care.
“You heard...and you don’t mind?” Even though the apathy on her face was clear and guileless, he still didn’t quite believe it.
Vardanyan snorted. “Why should I care? I don’t know you.”
“Most Emperor-fearing imperials would at least pretend to be shocked.”
Vardanyan looked irritated. “Well, I’m not an Emperor-fearing imperial. That’s still allowed here, right?”
She hunched her shoulders and re-raised her guard.
Why are you still talking, old man? Put your fists up so I can carry on beating the shit out of you.
Arcolin had had enough of having the shit beaten out of him for now. He kept his arms loose by his sides.
“I suppose we both don’t know each other. We should remedy that.”
Vardanyan’s expression froze, suddenly guarded. “Why?”
Arcolin shrugged. “Ella needs a bodyguard that Alicia and I can trust.”
It was a lie, but this was not a time for fumbling truths. Even if she was looking at him now without bias, he did not want her to know how helping her would help himself. How, when all was said and done, he was using her for his own selfish ends. He had already done that for too long, to enough people like her.
But not for an end like this. If he was to use his own life as a warning to talk her away from the Four, then in turn she might help him slowly doff the masks and begin to bring the flect shards together.
The back of Arcolin’s neck prickled as he imagined the Blue Devil laughing at him.
If you see a face in a flect, it’s a daemon. And then you’re doomed.
+ + + + + +
Hive spire, Tephaine
Alicia had described the martial spire to Ella once. She had described it as a truncated peak atop one of the lesser spires, crowned by an adamantium dome that overlaid three sub-levels dedicated to war preparations. Ella couldn’t see it, but she remembered which of the windows looked out towards it, and she couldn’t help glancing over as she tried to focus on the news-reel.
“Will Ani be alright?” she asked, unable to keep the thought quiet any longer.
Beside her on the sofa, Nara trilled a laugh. “I’d be more worried about mister Krol.”
If only she knew why, Ella thought, her stomach fizzing uncomfortably. Stan had asked her to look after Ani, and so she would. If Arcolin’s turn was as genuine as it seemed, then she was the person most likely to listen to him without judgement. And maybe he in turn could be the warning for her, pushing away the daemon - Purple, as Stan had named it - that was sniffing around Ani and Nara’s souls. Ella had seen the potential in her borrowed tarot, but before now she would never have taken it upon herself to actively push the two of them together. It felt less like following the Emperor’s plan and more like playing regicide with human pawns.
She half turned to focus her warp-sight on Nara.
I learned at least some of that from you. Somehow, it felt better than taking the lesson from someone like Dashing, or Souvage.
“What did he say?” Nara asked, jumping away from the topic without concern. She waved a hand at the pict-screen spread across the concave wall. “He’s talking too fast, I missed it.”
“He said another refugee ship from Baraspine broke warp this morning.” Ella supplied, glad of the distraction.
They were speaking Tephainian, after Nara had pleaded that they try and wean each other off the
ugly looking, awful sounding translator headsets. Ella was picking the language up faster, though Nara was better at the accent and intonation - disappearing into the native tongue like a chameleon while Ella still felt like a stilted outsider.
The news anchor cycled back to his previous story, which was old news from the Mariochi front. Ella couldn’t see his face; the screen was a swirl of grey smoke, with no soul-imprint for her vision to cling onto. The news itself was two weeks old. The Republic had too few astropaths, and delays were chronic. Ella had volunteered to step up several times, and each time governor Tierce had refused her.
You’ll work yourself to death, Ella. he had said, not unkindly. And so other astropaths worked themselves to death instead, because they did not have the luxury of being the face of the Republic’s propaganda campaign.
“
And regarding the incident on Reshia, governor Tierce has suggested a false flag operation, as the Crusaders continue to push the claim that Republic forces were involved in the assassination of bishops Gao-Fan, Dellacruth and Belannor…”
Ella sensed Nara glancing in her direction as the familiar name cut through the air like a bullet. She cuffed at her fringe. The news was old enough that it no longer drew tears out of her, but it still never failed to settle a cold, empty feeling in her stomach. Perhaps it was because Solvan hadn’t been on Concordia orbital, and so the Emperor had spared Ella from seeing his shocked, pained disbelief at her betrayal, but her memories of the old priest were that he had always been kind to her.
And to Alley. She was sure that Alicia felt the open wound of Solvan’s death just as much as she did.
“We’ve done enough studying for today.” Nara said briskly, reaching for the control wand and silencing the screen. “What should we do instead?”
She was trying to distract her, and Ella was grateful for that - even as she wished that everyone couldn’t read her moods with the seeming ease of having warp-sight themselves. She cleared her throat, and cuffed at her fringe again.
“I think
The Path of St Drusus is playing tonight at the theatre.” she said, recalling an argument between some of the spire nobles about whether the play was too pro-Imperial, and whether it should therefore be boycotted.
Nara’s aura shimmered, the way it always did when she was pulling a skeptical face. “An
opera?”
The cold feeling in Ella’s stomach eased a little, and she felt herself smile. “Of course. It’ll be a girl date.” She mentally kicked herself as soon as the words were out of her mouth, and hoped that she wasn’t visibly blushing. “And,” she recovered hurriedly, “You can rub it in the Tephanians’ faces when they start talking about it and don’t expect you to be able to contribute.”
Nara hummed thoughtfully at that, her aura flickering with faux solemnity as she pulled her data-slate out from between two of the sofa cushions and tapped it. “You mean you’re passing on the guild of millers? They’re hosting tonight.”
Ella did her best impression of an apathetic Nara shrug. “That sounds like a real grind.”
Nara let out a very unladylike snort. “Okay, you’ve convinced me. We’ll leave the true Adrantean bread to the true Adranteans.” She declined the meeting with a satisfied poke, and tossed the slate carelessly away across the sofa. “Us foreign girls are going out! Now let’s find a pretty sari for the pretty young prophet.”
Ella folded into herself a little. “You don’t have to call me pretty.” She was still no good with personal compliments, even when they came from Alley.
“Modesty isn’t a virtue on Tephaine.” Nara proclaimed loftily as she rose and stalked away into the bedroom that adjoined the living space. “Or else,” she shouted back through the open door, “You have no faith in my abilities as a handmaid, which I absolutely will not accept.”
Ella had no answer to that, and a satisfied chuckle carried through the door in response to her silence. As Nara bustled away, intent on dress-hunting, Ella reflected that it was hard to imagine her as a former gang enforcer. Then again, perhaps that was the point - while Nara wrapped everyone round her charming fingers, the nobles of Tephaine would never guess how sharp and bloody her claws really were.
Ella sat and fidgeted for a few moments while Nara clattered around the bedroom’s three wardrobes. Ella hadn’t seen, let alone worn, most of the clothes that she now apparently owned, following a dozen propaganda ops and the enthusiastic donations of several spire nobles, the ever-accomodating governor Tierce among them. She rose and began clearing up her and Nara’s tanna cups to give her hands something to do.
“Oh don’t bother with that now.” Nara chided her, her aura shimmering with triumph as she reappeared with a bundle of sari fabric folded carefully over one arm, and a blouse over the other. “Here. This one is gorgeous.”
She held the blouse up against Ella’s shoulders, assessing the fit. Ella fingered the hem gingerly, her thumb running over swirls of decorative beading. The fabric felt expensive - and the hem also felt rather short on her torso.
“Um…” she said uncertainly.
Nara’s aura flared thoughtfully. “Too daring?”
Ella nodded, imagining her pale, scrawny belly on show to all the Tephainians who still had working eyes.
“That’s alright.” Nara said, patting her hand.
“It is?” Ella asked. She was surprised that Nara hadn’t pressed to convince her; she rarely relented once she wanted something of someone.
“Of course.” Nara trilled brightly. “If you’re feeling self conscious you can’t glow. And I want those spire-born snobs to see us
glow.” She tossed the blouse carelessly over the arm of the sofa and scurried away back to the bedroom. “I’ll be right back.”
They eventually settled on a more modest gown, with Nara even going robed and veiled in solidarity as they made their way to the marble odeon in the centre of the noble spire. Statues with outstretched hands flanked the arches, carved from the stones of every planet in the Tephaine system. The interior had been renovated only once in its 600 year history, and Ella could feel the imprints of ancient stonemasons still clinging proudly to their work, glowing down from the semicircular rings that stepped back from the stage. Ella and Nara were shepherded to one of the secure boxes above the dress circle, with a door that locked as soon as the valet servitor had delivered their wine, and a two-way refractor field that veiled them from observation by the rest of the theatre.
The wine was too heavy for Ella’s unaccustomed palate, and she felt her cheeks flushing as St Drusus strode confidently onto the stage to begin the first aria. He was little more than a smear at the edge of Ella’s warp sight, but his voice carried strongly, and Ella felt a familiar sense of euphoria buoy her up as she let the acoustics of the ancient theatre wash over her. Her psychic sense she instead trained on Nara, anxiously turning her attention aside every few minutes to see how she was reacting. At first she was thrilled to see the Vaxan’s aura pulsing an elated pink, but the excitement slowly began to blanch as the opera went on. By the middle of the first act Nara was sitting with her opera glasses tapping against her crossed legs, her aura-shape a complex swirl of colours.
Ella leaned over. “Is there something on your mind?”
Nara hummed to herself, the blurry psychic impression of her face hitching up a smile. “Always.”
Ella chewed the inside of her cheek at the unrevealing answer. “Um...are you enjoying the show?”
Nara considered. “I’m trying to decide if I love this new music or if I would rather have some dustcore...or maybe hate metal.” She cackled in self-deprecation. “I suppose you can take the scummer out of the underhive but you can’t take the underhive out of the scummer.”
“Well,” Ella countered reasonably. “I have a…” She had been about to call Marc her “friend”. Her stomach gave a guilty twist.
I burned that bridge. “I used to know someone who liked hate metal.”
“When they were gearing up for a fight?” Nara guessed, nodding.
“When he was
working.” Ella corrected, with a bittersweet smile at the memory.
Nara seemed to ponder that for a moment. “It certainly gets you pumped up. I’ve always thought the name’s a bit misleading. If I had to pick a word for how it makes me feel I’d have to say…” She waved vaguely, as if hoping to snatch the Tephainian word she was hunting for out of the air. “Euphoric.” she finished triumphantly. Her hovering hand went for her wine glass, but when she sipped it her aura flashed green. “Urgh. This, however, is shit. Someone take it away and give it to Souvage so they can be shit together.”
Her tone was light, but her aura continued to pulse restively after the two of them lapsed back into silence. To Ella, it felt like a deflection.
“Was there something else on your mind?” she ventured after a moment.
Nara smiled thinly. “Ah, I keep forgetting.” She tapped her head.
“I didn’t -” Ella began quickly.
“It’s okay,” Nara interrupted her soothingly. “No thoughts, just auras, I remember.” She exhaled, thoughtfully. “To answer your question...well, if I’m honest, this is not what I had in mind when you said
girl date.”
Ella blinked her blind eyes. “I didn’t -” she stuttered for the second time.
Nara chuckled. “Of course you did.”
Ella felt her cheeks prickling, her pulse ticking painfully hard in her throat. “I don’t even -” She had to stop herself again, afraid that
I don’t even like you would sound too much like an insult.
“Of course you do.” Nara said before she could rephrase herself. The Vaxan was still clearly amused. “Even
Ani can tell. Now hush up and listen, sweetie.” She snaked her arm under Ella’s so that she could take her hand, their fingers laced together atop the velvet armrest. “It’s okay that you’ve been sneaking peeks.”
Ella blushed harder, too frozen to move her arm.
Of course Nara had noticed. She was like an open book. An open book designed for particularly stupid juvies. “I’m…” she managed to force out. “I’m sorry Nara…”
Nara chuckled again, softly. “What’s there to be sorry about, Ella?” She gave Ella’s fingers a gentle squeeze. “I always take it as a compliment when someone takes a second look. Well,” she caveated herself, “Someone
pretty, lest you think I’m grouping you alongside the Dashings and the Souvages. And it helps if they’re
interesting too. Luckily you’re both.”
Ella had to look away, scrunching her blind eyes shut as if it would remove Nara’s aura from her perception. “Oh Throne.” she groaned.
“Oh Throne indeed.” Nara purred. She sighed airily and put her second hand over Ella’s, gently massaging the skin with her thumb. “Your hands are really cold, you know that?” She shuffled sideways in her seat, a little closer to Ella. “So anyway, tell me. Does the kitten play while the cat’s away?”
Ella’s heart was thumping like it wanted to wriggle out of her chest and flee the scene. She quietly slithered her arm out of Nara’s grip and curled up in her seat, her head in her hands. Everything was too loud and too vivid; from the music to the buzzing of the forcefield to Nara’s aura, which was still flickering with uncertain expectation.
“I…” Ella sighed out a long, ragged breath. “I want to be able to keep at least one promise.”
She wished Alicia was here, instead of hurtling through the warp with death ahead and a daemon smiling behind.
What the Horus am I doing at the opera while she’s out there? She curled up tighter, her ears ringing.
“It’s okay.” Nara murmured.
Ella sniffled. “What?”
“I said it’s okay. My mama and papa stayed together, which isn’t exactly common in the underhive, so I know that committed couples exist. So I can respect that. I’m not angry or anything.”
That was true - although her aura was tinged with the blue flicker of disappointment.
That’s twice now she hasn’t pushed me, Ella realised, as her pounding heartbeat receded just a little. Now, alongside the shame and embarrassment, she also had to grapple with the fact that Nara was, actually, a good friend.
“It’s not as if you can control how you
feel about people.” Nara went on gently. Her aura rippled with flickers of blue and pink, and Ella knew instinctively that she was thinking about Stan. His aura looked the exact same whenever he spoke about Nara and their…
complicated relationship.
“Don’t worry.” Nara said, surfacing from her momentary reverie. “I’m not going to say anything to Alicia.”
You’re not going to say anything. Ella thought, sinkingly. What about everyone else? “You said even Ani noticed?”
Nara exhaled, just short of a laugh. “I exaggerated a bit. She noticed after Stan told her.”
Ella uncurled a little. If Konstantin had told Ani anything, she could not imagine any malice behind it, nor him being careless enough to provoke malice from another. “I thought she didn’t like being around me.” she murmured, hugging her thin arms.
Nara
hmm’d sympathetically. “It’s not you, sweetie, it’s...well, it’s every psyker.”
Ella nodded her understanding. She had enough experience of that, even though she counted herself luckier than most psykers in the company she had found herself with over the years.
“It’s how she was brought up…you know.” Nara went on, scratching her cheek. “And after Petrosyan lost himself to the Prince she doubled down.”
“Petrosyan?” Ella asked.
Nara smiled in poignant memory. “My old boss. He was a rogue biomancer, and a good man...or at least he was once. He gave Ani and the others purpose. He even cured me of my degenerative disease.”
Oh. thought Ella with a sudden stab of foreboding. A Fell psyker’s powers...was that how Purple first tethered itself to her? If so it might be harder to purge than Konstantin hoped.
“Lesions on the brain stem.” Nara shrugged, misreading Ella’s concerned expression. “Incurable without juvenat treatments, and not even treatable without some fairly expensive midhive drugs. He fixed it with a touch. Yes, he was a good man until the Prince became his only obsession.”
She sucked her lip in thought.
“Ani took that betrayal hard. And then there was Sam the Slaver,” She smiled thinly. “Another psyker who, as I’m sure you can tell by the name, didn’t use his gifts so altruistically. During his...fortunately short tenure as leader, he humiliated her by forcing her to have her mind read.”
“I...see.” Ella said slowly.
And I’m a telepath too. No wonder she doesn’t want to be around me.
Another wan smile rippled through Nara aura. “If it makes you feel better, she hates most other people too. Well, except that Nebula she’s been having a lot of
intimate sparring sessions with.”
That was news to Ella. Nara chuckled at the way her head tilted up in surprise.
There I go again. Like a stupid open book.
“I’m actually being entirely literal.” Nara grinned. “He’s
celibate, the poor man.”
“I’m not sure she’d want you telling me all this.” Ella said, wishing that Nara would drop the subject of relationships.
“Oh, she wouldn’t care, sweetie. Our Ani’s greatest vice and virtue is that she does not give a single solitary frak. But if you prefer, we can focus on the play.”
Ella’s caution put out an arm, holding back her gratitude. “Are you sure we’re…?”
Nara squeezed Ella’s forearm, platonically this time. “We’re fine, Ella - I promise. I’m sure you can see I’m not awkward, and I’d hate to see you feeling it for the rest of the night.”
Ella managed to smile, and the silence became companionable once again as the orchestra struck up the next movement of the play. A slender dancer with elaborate prosthetic horns spun down onto the stage on an unwinding ribbon and began to circle the hero, as the stage lights turned a seething red.
Nara tutted loudly. “I’m hardly pious, but that’s honestly offensive. I mean,
of course the Slaaneshi villain is a woman, and
of course she’s throwing herself at Drusus like a bitch in heat. Ridiculous.”
In spite of the privacy field, Ella glanced reflexively at the door behind them, nervous at how brazenly Nara had said the name of one of the Fell Powers aloud. Nara just raised her opera glasses to her nose and hummed appreciatively.
“At least she’s good looking…and that Drusus guy
is wielding an impressively sized sword.” Nara sighed wistfully and lowered the glasses as Drusus pushed the daemonic temptress away from him, brandishing his sabre. “Okay,
fine, I’ll allow it.”
Ella turned her head to give Nara a quizzical look.
“What?” Nara shrugged. “Like I just told you, we can’t control how we feel about people. It’s not like I’m going to act on it and tackle him off the stage.” She took up the opera glasses again. “Although...”
Ella couldn’t suppress a smile. “You were saying something, Nara - something about offensive stereotyping?”
Nara put down her glasses with exaggerated care. “Ella Zoe Seren,” she accused, pronouncing each syllable with scandalised severity. “Are you calling me a slut?” She gasped dramatically, and clutched a hand to her chest. “Ouch!”
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