Once they have gone—out of sight, out of earshot—Taheen turns to her. “What do you think of the warlord? Now that you know everything.” Their expression is almost blank, tightly controlled. A smooth surface, a hermetic seal.
Suzhen looks at the recreation of Vaisravana, a sight that hitches her breath even now. Almost she wishes she could undo those hours in the cabin, the things she said, what tumbled out of her mouth with no restraint for Ovuha to hear and receive. She imagines her hand beneath the Thorn’s mask, sliding under the clasps, lifting off the heavy metal. She imagines them meeting like that for the first time, fateful and implausible. “I’ve been doing quite foolish things because of her. But I don’t believe she’s using me. For one she would’ve been better off seducing—I don’t know, an Interior Defense captain. A person like Bhanu. I’m hardly a prime option.” She trails off. “I appreciate that you’re tolerating her for my sake. Although—how much do you…”
“May I touch you?”
Her pulse jitters. “Yes. Of course.”
They approach her as if suspecting she might bolt like a skittish deer. This is new too; for more than two decades—closer to three—she and they have been comfortable with one another. Their hand, hardened by chitinous armor, brushes across her own. It climbs the incline of her arm, the slope of her shoulder, comes to rest at her jaw. “I’m still me. Nothing’s changed—I just got fourteen years of memory back. Formative, but not decisive.” They cup her face. “I love you. I’ve always loved you. Now I can say that.”
“Oh.” She does not know, quite, where to look; where to put herself. She catches Taheen’s free hand, lacing her fingers through theirs, a gesture that feels the most natural in the world yet utterly foreign. “I don’t… the entire time I thought… because you never said. I resigned myself to just—” Having them, without having them. Accepting the comfort they were willing to provide and asking for no more.
“I’d have said everything you needed to hear, if not for… The conditioning changed me, made me avert my heart. But I can’t blame that alone.” Their voice is very soft. “I remember that when we kissed for the first time, we were holding hands just like this. You wanted to know what the act felt like.”
“I thought you just took pity on me.”
They lean forward until their nose is touching hers. “I must’ve done a tremendous job of pretending I was so worldly and suave, back then. You were my first kiss, Suzhen. Among other things. And now I will treasure and honor you, as you’ve deserved all along.”
She tightens her fingers in theirs. “I will treasure and honor you in return.” Then, speaking rapid-fire so she would not lose her nerve, “When all this is over, will you marry me?”
Taheen’s mouth hangs slack for close to a minute. “Well that’s—yes. Of course I will. I will, I will anytime, anywhere, in any fashion you want. I’ll wear whatever you like. I’ll make the most brilliant dress so you’d look like a sun—”
They shove her into the floor. Three gunshots sound in rapid succession, harsh thundercracks that momentarily take Suzhen’s hearing. When she regains her feet, she comes up to the sight of two Deratchan proxies lying in the soft grass, blood at the corner of their lips. Both are naked, the details of anatomy lifelike. One has fallen on its side, head pillowed on its arm. The other has fallen on its back, thighs parted, knees wide. Both have their eyes open, staring. Her eyes—she doesn’t need a close look to know those have been recreated perfectly. Nausea tugs at Suzhen.
“Why do they look like you?” Taheen fires one more time into a prone Deratchan. “Is that some sort of fetish? Do AIs have fetishes?”
She licks her dry mouth. “No. Klesa?”
“I do not have a fetish.” The AI projects xerself over the two downed units, blessedly blocking the view. “I’ve made all three of you mobile blind spots, in theory Samsara and her branches shouldn’t be able to see you at all. I haven’t yet been able to take over nearby surveillance, so sadly I can’t monitor the area, but I’d judge that the Deratchan units arrived a few minutes ago.”
A few minutes ago. Suzhen shakes herself into sensibility and activates her defensive array. The small drones lift into the air, fanning out behind and around her, moving in orbits. Her mouth has thickened with panic, sour and bitter. She keeps her gaze up, away from the Deratchan corpses, her likenesses. “You think Bhanu contacted Samsara. He wouldn’t do that, what’s in it for him?” And he has ensured her survival all this time, has adhered to that last duty.
“I wouldn’t know.” Klesa cranes xer neck, xer eyes scattering across xer collarbones like beads of mercury. “But prepare yourselves. More are coming.”
The door locks behind them, and Ovuha suspects it won’t open again unless she has the wherewithal to blast it apart. The carpeting is still synecdoche grass, as soft and luxurious as the real thing, if barren. The preponderance of skeletal furniture continues, tables like polished femurs, seats like delicate ribs. Membranous upholstery, a draping of translucence as though these are the remains of unearthed creatures that once dwelled deep undersea. “You must have been on Anatta for some time,” she says, holding back the urge to touch the material. “To have amassed so much personal property. I don’t suppose you have partners? Family?”
“I would prefer you disarm.”
“I’m not going to shoot Suzhen’s host and benefactor. I’m sure you are armed yourself. You have nothing to fear from me—if anything I’m at a disadvantage.” She raises her eyes to meet his. Whorls of beehive brilliance rove across his irises. “You have something you want from me that you weren’t going to say to Suzhen.”
He crosses his arms. He looks out at the commemoration of Vaisravana that fills his window, replacing the view of Himmapan. “Mahakala remains undiscovered. That’s a feat on your part and even though I watched the Peace Guard vaporize your armada, I have to assume you’re still in possession of troops and ships. Why have you allied yourself with Suzhen? Is she a useful tool to you in some manner I can’t see?”
“I don’t evaluate people purely on the basis of their utility. Do I present some potential use to you that I can’t yet see?”
“You vex me,” he says in the same even voice.
“I have a question.”
“You’ll ask it whether or not I let you.”
“During my time here,” Ovuha says, “I was given assistance. Were you the one my predecessor made a contract with? Or was it between her and the Mirror?” Bhanu would be Ovuha’s contact here, in exchange—she is almost certain—for conveying Suzhen and Xinfei to Anatta. The one successful act of diplomacy between warlords, unique and singular in history.
“A peculiar question. I will not answer that. Speaking of which, what is your opinion on Samsara’s governance?”
Ovuha follows his gaze to the Vaisravana he must have recreated from memory. It is a view from high up, looking down upon low square buildings. Agricultural centers are spread out, heavily shielded: glasshouses and aviaries and kennels full of organisms too delicate to survive even under the aegis canopy. Ecosystems within an ecosystem, precarious and precisely maintained. This must have been a view from the Warlord of the Mirror’s home itself. A unique perspective: the grand vantage point, through the eye of a person who loved that serrated skyline. “Seeing that I’ve been beaten and waterboarded under its tender administration, I must say my opinion is very poor. On a more abstract level, Samsara’s conviction that humans express ourselves through violence and brutality alone is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Designate a class of people as subhuman, deserving of brute existence and abuse, and sure enough they’ll be treated as animals.”