“And…” I gesture around at the mounds of finery, feeling a little helpless. “What do people wear to these Council meetings?”
“It’s less that there’s a specific standard,” he says, running his fingers over a long black silk dress. “It’s more that we like there to be a sense of occasion. Here, hold this.”
I take the wisp of fabric he hands me. He looks at us together for a moment, shakes his head, then takes it back and sets it aside.
It turns out this is only the beginning. Zarun digs through the heaps, pulling out garment after garment. Some of them are familiar to me—Imperial kizen and Jyashtani robes—while others are more exotic. Dresses with wire stays, to spread one’s skirts across half a room, and slim, slitted sheets that would barely qualify as underwear back in Kahnzoka. Elaborate lace confections, dripping with gleaming gems, and loose-woven fabric in an overlapping pattern of colorful threads.
Soliton had visited every city with a harbor and fine clothing was apparently a popular sacrifice. The collection stretched back in time, too—I could see double-fastened kizen of the kind that only grandmothers now wore. It was a remarkable collection of frippery, and I couldn’t help but marvel at the waste of it all. Every one of these dresses represented days, probably weeks, of labor, all to give some fine lady a way to impress her friends for an evening.
Rotting aristos.
Zarun sorts through the piles, holding garments up to me like I was a paper doll, then rooting around for new ones. I fidget uncomfortably while he works.
Eventually, out of awkwardness more than anything else, I say, “Can I ask you something?”
“Of course,” he says, glancing between a frothy blue lace confection and something black that shimmers like ravens’ wings.
“Why are you helping me? Why all of this?”
He looks up at me with a slight smile that doesn’t touch his pale blue eyes. “Oh. A real question.”
“I’m just struggling to understand what you get out of it.”
“Having the Deepwalker associated with my clade helps my prestige,” he says, looking back to the piles.
“But you came to meet me before that,” I say. “Try again.”
“Even at that point, it was obvious you were a superb fighter,” he says. “Any of the officers would be happy to have you.”
“You’ve got plenty of fighters. You haven’t given Thora or Jack their own pack to lead.”
“Thora prefers a more personal role,” he says. “And Jack … is Jack.”
It was hard to imagine the mercurial girl getting anyone to follow her. But I shook my head. “Still. You don’t need me.”
He pauses for a moment, then holds up another dress. Or part of a dress—it’s hard to tell. It’s slashed open in so many places it looks like it was attacked by wolves. Being naked would be more modest.
“Fine,” he says. “Ever since I saw you in the pit, I wanted you in my bed. When I heard you could fight as well, I was sure of it.”
I smile, crookedly, and take a step closer to him. “Please. I’m honest enough with myself that I know I’m not the sort of beauty that turns men’s heads.”
“Maybe not most men.” Zarun’s smile widens. “I have particular tastes.”
I break eye contact for a moment to look down at myself. “You like skinny, gristly girls?”
He puts one finger on my chin and lifts my head up to face him again. “I like girls,” he says, “who can hold their own.”
We’re close enough that I can feel his breath on my face. My heart beats faster, and my chest feels hot and tight. For all that a certain princess has infested my dreams, there’s no denying that Zarun is toothsome, to use the late Ahdron’s word, lithe and lean, dark curls just the right length for me to twist in my fingers, sparkling eyes. And there’s a flush in his cheeks that says his interest is genuine.
But he’s also lying.
I turn away, grabbing a dress at random from the piles. “What about this one?”
I hear him let out a breath, not quite a sigh.
* * *
Zarun ends up handing a half-dozen dresses to Feoptera, who looks me over with a practiced eye and says that she’ll see what she can do. We leave the shop before I fully realize that we’re done, back out into the muted sunshine of the Upper Stations, which feels bright after the gloomy interior of the tower. Around us, the market is in full swing, hawkers shouting the virtues of their scavenged morsels to the passing crew.
“So what happens at this Council meeting?” I ask Zarun, as we walk side by side. “Aside from you introducing me to the other officers.”
“The Council will meet in closed session beforehand,” he says, sounding bored at the prospect. “At the reception we’ll talk to the pack leaders and other notables.”
“And what happens in the closed session?”
“We take any decisions that need to be made. Unless there’s instructions from the Captain, of course.”
“Can you bring issues to him, if you need to?”
Zarun shrugs. “I suppose we could, but it almost never happens. The Captain is … not like the rest of us. He controls all of Soliton, not just the Stern, and he’s mostly concerned with where we’ll head and whether the sacrifices are adequate. Dealing with the crew he leaves to us.”
“He could help, though. What if he sent the angels to fight the crabs? Or—”
“He has his reasons,” Zarun says, cutting me off. He gives me an irritated glance. “You won’t get very far asking questions about the Captain.”
“He doesn’t like being questioned?”
“He doesn’t care a bit, as long as he’s obeyed. But there’s no point in asking about things nobody understands.”
“I don’t know about that,” another voice says, with a thick Jyashtani accent. “In my experience, those are the only really important questions.”
I look up to find another group approaching us. At the head is the Jyashtani I saw on the officers’ podium, with the round glasses that reminded me of Naga. He has the light brown skin of northern Jyashtan, dark, curly hair long enough to be a bit shaggy, and he wears a modest robe. He has a silver-headed walking stick in one hand, and as he comes closer I notice his right leg drags behind his left, foot sticking out at an odd angle.
Beside him, enormous even without her crab-shell armor, is the Butcher. She’s wearing civilian clothes, a leather vest and trousers stitched together from a patchwork of oddly colored pieces. Without a helmet on, her surprisingly curly blond hair hangs in a loose tail at the back of her neck. She glowers at everyone, but her face darkens considerably on her sighting Zarun, and then goes positively stormy when she sees me with him. Behind her are a half-dozen crew, including the bald-headed Haia.
“My esteemed colleagues,” Zarun says, making a little bow.
“The fop,” the Butcher rumbles. “And the famous Deepwalker everyone finds so precious. What a lovely pair.” Her lips twist. “Has he bent you over a bench yet, or are you still just sucking his dick?”
“Now, now,” Zarun says. “Just because you no longer have access to my bed—”
“Not that he can manage much else,” the Butcher says, looking down at me. “If he finds the right place to stick it, you can count yourself lucky.”
I admit I have a hard time imagining the Butcher rutting with Zarun. She’s a head taller than him and easily twice his weight, her limbs wrapped with slab-like muscle, with a neck like an ox and breasts like overgrown summer melons. She seems like she would crush anyone not built to her own heroic scale.
“I believe you know the Butcher,” Zarun says, ignoring her. “And this young man we call the Scholar.” Zarun puts a hand on my shoulder, with a possessive air. “I’m bringing Isoka to the Council meeting for formal introductions.”
“Lovely,” the Butcher snaps. “I’m sure we’ll all enjoy making conversation with your whore.”
Zarun’s hand tightens on my shoulder, as if in warning. It’s unnecessary—it’s clear that making trouble here would be counterproductive, and in any event I’m used to people insulting my virtue, even if they’re usually men I’m about to kill. It’s amazing how many people, in the face of a cold-blooded killer, think the worst thing they can say about her is that she spreads her legs. So I keep up a smile, because I know it will annoy the Butcher. She stomps past us, brushing deliberately too close, and her crew follows suit.
“I look forward to getting a chance to speak with you, Deepwalker,” the Scholar says, inclining his head. “I’ve been hoping to interview you about what you saw in the Deeps.”
“The Scholar is the one who likes to ask questions about Soliton,” Zarun says. “The rest of us put up with him because he occasionally comes back with something useful.”
“I putter,” the Scholar says modestly. “There’s so much that’s beyond our understanding. I’ve always thought—”
“Scholar!” the Butcher roars over her shoulder. “Hurry up, if you want your rotting piece of junk.”
“Another time,” the Scholar says, with a smile. He nods again and hobbles off after the Butcher and her crew.