“Butyou owe it to her to be more careful with her life, Yemi. She should not have been alone protecting you.”
“To be fair, we were in the Green Zone.”
“And what? You expected to conscript drunk, off-duty soldiers into a bar fight at your command?” Her mother cocked an eyebrow. The smile playing about her lips suggested she at least found it amusing, but Yemi knew she was right. She took the queen’s hands, running fingers gently along the parts that were still flesh.
“I’ll apologize to Nova. And to Cutter for the extra gray in his beard,” she promised.
“Thank you.” Her mother took her hand and led her to the bed. The sunny comforter peeled back to reveal layers of soft, juniper-scented sheets in shades of purple. On their best days, Yemi would lie with her until she fell asleep and then creep back to her own quarters. On their worst, she’d take her meals alone in the kitchen and listen to her mother’s screams of agony echoing through the halls.
“Andnow, I want you to tell me about your weekend. Something innocent. I haven’t heard a new story about the sea since your father.”
Yemi laid her head on her shoulder and let her mother pluck her own pins from her braids. “I saw them again. The Mer. They come right up to Father’s ship and watch me through his cabin window. I think one of them waved? Stuck their hand up in the air like this when we put into port.”
“Hmm,” her mother hummed, intrigued, the vibration in her chest soothing as Yemi lay on it. “Did you wave back?”
“No,” Yemi replied, suddenly embarrassed about it. “Duty called.”
“You should, in the future. If, after all this, the opportunity presents itself, you should get to know them. It’s one of my life’s regrets that I never did. My mother told me all these wonderful stories, so I tried when I was small. Went out on the ships looking for them. But I guess the hurt was still fresh, and we were still being shunned. Maybe you’ll do better.”
Yemi tried to imagine her mother as a small girl peering over the edges of boats into her reflection in the ocean waters, looking forwhatever hid itself from her beneath the waves. Imagined her without the weight of a crown, more beloved for her sweetness, her curiosity, than as a fierce protector of the realm. A child, not a Bear Queen.
Yemi idly traced her fingers along the cracks of her mother’s skin. “Your, uh… new coat’s coming in nicely,” she murmured, for want of something to say.
The queen cackled, a rich, loud sound Yemi hadn’t realized she missed.
Her mother kissed her forehead. “Your animus is going to be an asshole.”
4
• YEMI •
“Again,” Yemi barked, returning to position one in her sparring form. The sun was not yet scorching this early in the morning. It was still well before noon. The garden grass was still misty, and a low haze clung to the dirt field they used to train. The city sprawled below them, only distant radio towers visible above the low-hanging fog. The priests of the Kept walked the gardens around them, wafting blessed smoke from bundles of burning herbs. Nova shook out her muscles twenty yards away, toying with her grip on the staff and twirling it in beautiful, if woefully impractical, ways before settling into her stance.
Nova began her rapid-fire assault, and Yemi parried, hissing out her measured breaths with each stroke. The sharp taps of their staffs connecting echoed in the clearing. Nova named positions by their number—one, three, six, seven, twelve—as Yemi performed them.
“I’m sorry, am I boring you? Too predictable?” Yemi panted between strikes.
“Never that, My Light,” Nova said playfully, a response meaningYes, sort of.
Yemi spun her staff, bringing it low from behind and forward in an upward arc swift enough to stir the dust up with it, nearly connectingwith Nova’s chin, had Nova not lanced immediately and rapped her in the ribs. The loud thwack sound rang out, and Yemi groaned, bringing her staff back to rest in the symbolic gesture oftime out.
“That was good. Different,” said Nova.
“Uh-huh,” Yemi wheezed, gripping her side and checking her fingers for blood. They each wore metal subarmor—Yemi’s in royal violet, Nova’s in black. It was thin and flexible, wrapping their bodies from knees to elbows like bandages. Ixia would not be a nation of gunners, but they had to be equipped to deter bullets. Everything the Ixian military issued was bulletproof. The subarmor would protect them from being pierced, but not from cracking bones.
“Again?”
“Naturally,” Yemi replied, but she remained doubled over.
“I’ll give you a minute.” Nova chuckled and handed her a tin cup of water that had been sitting on a low wall nearby. “You’re fast and you can hold your own, but you don’t have to be perfect. That’s why I’m here.”
“I’d fight you better if you were a Drake.”
“I don’t doubt it.” Nova went back to the wall and picked up two short metal sticks. She didn’t carry a shield, not the way other Ixian soldiers did. Her job required her to move quickly and unencumbered. Her weapons had been the last custom creations of the Obé’s famed armorers. What she carried were two large iron fans, collapsed across her back in their closed stick form. When she drew them open, their spokes were bladed, ideal for carving up one’s enemy with a flourish. And when she fit them together end to end, they formed a bulletproof shield. She liked punching people with it.
Now she flicked them open and aimed their blades at the melons that were the centers and heads of straw targets on one end of the field, slicing through innards and faces, respectively.
“Anything yet on the identities of those men?” Yemi asked as she watched.
