I watch her, the harsh set of her shoulders, the defiant lift of her regal jaw, before adding, “And I think perhaps you miss talking back without punishment too fierce to bear.” She doesn’t deny it, so despitemy better instincts, I press my luck. “You don’t see yourself as a prisoner, Kori of the Daylands. A runaway, maybe. Even a fugitive.”
“I’m sure my mother will call me worse when you send me back,” Kori says.
“Perhaps our interests align more than either of us anticipated.” I gesture to the rows of glittering, iridescent history. “We’ve been honest with each other thus far, for better or for worse, so do me the honor of being honest with me one more time.” I cross my arms, fold my wings, and stare her down. “You came to the Shadowlands for a memory, at first. Why?”
Kori averts her eyes, beginning to pace in lazy circles around me. “Aspect, my mech. I’ve been programming them for hundreds, maybe over a thousand sleep cycles at this point. They’re starting to ask higher questions, express some degree of near-conscious awareness. But it hasn’t been enough.” She sighs, and I hear the defeat in it. “Installing dayfolk memories in a machine was already a crime. So, I thought, why not take it one step further? Why not give Aspect a glimpse of the other side, the other people, and see if they … wake up?”
No friends to speak of. A mother more like a prison warden or an overseer. It’s obvious from the way Kori speaks that this machine, strange and inscrutable as they may seem to me, is the closest thing she has to a confidant. “So when Lail contacted you—”
“Alpha …? You knew her name?” Kori says, her panic barely restrained and still painfully obvious.
“I know everything that happens in the Shadowlands.”
It’s more bluster than truth, and I think Kori knows it, but the closer she gets to the anxiously racing heart of the matter, the more I’m tempted to withdraw behind my title and authority. I deliberately don’t mention Neo either. Kori doesn’t need to know about him, let alone of the horrible, murderous memories I hope he can remove from me.
“When she contacted you,” I continue, “you saw a chance at … awakening … Aspect.”
“Yes.”
“I brought you to the archives to select and duplicate a record, as a suitable exchange for the sunlight memory you shared. What if you had more than a moment to browse? Three sleep cycles? Seven? Twelve?”
At that, Kori’s nervous pacing draws to an abrupt stop. “What are you proposing?”
“The longer I keep you from your people, from your mother, the higher the ransom they’d likely be willing to pay.”
More weapons. Mechs, perhaps, to use as delivery mechanisms for dayfolk explosives. Perhaps even one of their starships, to launch an unexpected assault from the skies. It would be more than worth a longer wait, if our ultimate deal gives my army enough ammunition to cleanly end this civil war.
“You’re threatening to lengthen my imprisonment,” Kori balks.
“I’mofferingto treat it, for all intents and purposes, as an agreed-upon period of residence among the nightfolk. To your mother, you’ll be my prisoner, perhaps suffering terribly. I can still make that happen, if you’d prefer torture to free reign of the archives.”
Kori takes a moment to process, breathing heavily, her gloved hands curling into fists. “IfI take that offer … what will you do with the credits you ransom from the Daylands? How do I know you won’t use them to stage a war against my people? To spread the Diakópsei’sgiftto the rest of the Pagonians and damn us all?”
“I believe it was you, Kori, who said I don’t seem like a monster, after all.”
“Then be utterly human for a moment.” It’s harsh, but under the circumstances, I can hardly blame her. “Tell me the truth. Why do you need the credits?”
I could tell her I need money to cement my position as the Shadowlands’ new queen with wealth and prestige. I could tell her it’s insurance for the future, given how the Diakópsei uniquely elongates nightfolk lives. I could tell her any number of swiftly fashionedhalf-truths or cleverly crafted lies, but I don’t want to. I can feel her human gaze behind her artificial mask, daring to ask me for truth without either terror or hatred.
So I tell her everything. My desperate attempt at peace, though war drums have replaced my heartbeat and violence now boils my blood. Azarii, damn him, and his hopefully ill-fated uprising in my parents’ name. His upstart army, so horrified by what I’ve become that they’ve rejected their own gifts entirely. I tell her I overthrew my tyrannical parents. I tell her they died in the fighting.
In a flush of burning shame, I don’t tell her I killed them myself.
I tell her the trade is for weapons. I assure her said weapons will be used only to quell the rebellion she personally overheard at the fortress’s gates—not to reignite the ages-old conflict between nightfolk and dayfolk.
When I’ve finished, Kori stares at the polished metal floor for a while, cogs likely turning in her brain. Then, finally, she turns to me with a swift nod. “You need weapons to end a war, not to start one. Likewise, you took the throne to prevent one. I can throw my weight behind that. Especially if it wakes up Aspect.” She curls one hand, absently, into a fist at her side. “Especially if it means I don’t wake up at home within the next sleep cycle, as trapped as I’ve ever been.”
“We have an agreement, then?” I extend one clawed hand before I can think better of it. It’s a threat by my very design, every single claw sharp enough to tear through her fabric gloves and permanently infect her with Pagonian radiation.
Kori hesitates for moment, her gaze darting back and forth as if searching for an escape or any reason to alter her path, but in the end, she takes my hand firmly in her own. Even through her glove, her hand is warm and soft where mine is cold and rigid, her grip surprisingly strong for such a small girl. I’m powerful enough that I could stand my ground regardless, but I let her tug my arm so that I lean down.
At once, we are eye to eye, radiation mask to blue-white face, dayfolk heiress to nightfolk usurper. Our breath plumes between us, snow white, in the archives’ chilly air.
“A pleasure to be your prisoner, Adria.” I hear the smile in her voice, wickedly pleased with this turn of events. “Shall we begin with a tour of the records, or did you have another method of keeping me in line?”
“That depends on if you prove yourself a difficult charge.” I can’t help but smile back, even knowing it shows my teeth, makes me look more animalistic than ever. “Shall we start at the Cataclysm?”
“It wouldn’t do to question my warden. After you, Adria,” Kori says, sweeping out one arm with a flourish. Again speaking my name like it’s nothing, like we’re old friends. I pretend my heart hasn’t skipped a beat as I lead her farther into the first archival hall.
