Page 2 of Tempting Fate

My eyes prickled with that shameful liquid again. “Some honey mixed with water.” Why wouldn’t my legs hold me up?

“I mean for you. How are you feeling?”

“You tell me,” I snapped. “Where is my medication?”

She paused, working her jaw. “Back on Orith. Tokki said you don’t need it.”

“Then why do I feel so terrible?” Due to my genetic condition, I was well used to dealing with fatigue and nausea, but never like this.

“Withdrawal. You need food.”

I tried to stand again, but the chiyi fluttered on feathery, translucent wings and landed on my other hand. “What I need is to go home. You cannot just demand I come with you, neglect to—”

“Let me get you some flatcakes, and I’ll bring something for the stowaway.” Shohari’s pained expression lingered a heartbeat too long before she turned for the door, leaving me with my anger and the soft chirrups of a ponderous lizard.

When my sister returned, she set a shallow bowl on the bedside table, the sweet liquid I’d asked for reflecting the panel lights in the ceiling. “I haven’t seen a chiyi for years.”

“Because you’ve barely been back to our planet.” I tilted my hand downwards, encouraging the flower lizard towards the drink. The creature trilled and took plodding steps with its rounded, sticky toes. Only when it lapped at the makeshift nectar did I take my own bowl and have a bite of flatcake.

The taste of home hit me in a rush of emotion. Thank Kri for small pleasures. “This is welcome, thank you. Where is the prayer room?” I was late for morning rites already. Hopefully I would have enough strength to stand once I’d eaten something.

Shohari flattened her mouth into a line. “We don’t have one.”

“All Sacrifice vessels have a prayer room.” It was one of the stipulations of the pact. Each trading family would Sacrifice one family member, sending them out into the galaxy in order to conduct trade, but each ship would be equipped to maintain that link to home—to keep them safe.

Shohari tipped her eyes to the gods. “Don’t call it that. This is a trading ship, not a perverse religious duty, and we have a training room. Far more practical.”

Gods. It was one thing to know the galaxy corrupted those Sacrificed to it, but to see the evidence of it, and my own sister, no less?

But for all my confusion, I had never known Shohari to be a liar. Perhaps the Sacrifice was only felt by those left behind. Perhaps that was why her initial voyage was not celebrated but ritually mourned after she’d left on the Dorimisa for the first time.

I swallowed around the lump in my throat. Of all our family, why did it have to be my sister who was Sacrificed while the rest of us remained on Orith’s ground as the gods intended?

Not that I was there any more either. I might never be there again.

After I’d eaten and left the chiyi happily drinking, I followed Shohari on unsteady legs. As she’d said, the prayer room was equipped for training, the entire floor padded with yellow mats wherever there weren’t any machines or furniture. A stepmill. Some racks with weights. A pair of kri’ith staves on the wall.

This truly was not a prayer room, not any more. “Where is the shrine?”

Her flowing headspines pulsed before she wrested them under control. “In a locker.”

She’d put it where? My own slender, misshapen headspines writhed. “Show me.”

She pulled open a hatch. There, amongst folded towels and empty packaging, sat the travel shrine that was supposed to be the focal point of the room.

It looked cosy. Outrage still boiled in my chest, but somehow, nestled amongst the soft fabrics and sturdy boxes, Kri’s likeness seemed content.

“I want it in my room.” It would make keeping my rituals easier if this withdrawal continued to make me woozy and weaker than usual.

Shohari’s face tightened. “It’s yours. I’m sorry this situation isn’t what you expected.”

“What I expected? I expected nothing!” I seized one of the wooden staves, its familiar weight a comfort in my hands, and I attempted to twirl it as I had been taught. I fumbled, my fingers not as dexterous as they should be, and barely managed to plant it on the mats at my feet. I leaned on it for stability. “If not for you, I would be in my garden about now, drinking arl-krei tea and planning trades for you.” And wondering why I bothered because you never thanked me for them.

“I’m sorry, Airi. I only wanted to save you.” Her headspines flared and flattened, and she did nothing to recover them.

Save me—from our parents. From my tiny cottage where I had been confined my entire adult life. From the only life I knew. “At least you knew this was going to happen. And you are still kri’ith, even if you are a heretic.” I couldn’t keep the notes of venom and disdain out of my voice. Nor could I find the energy to flatten my tones as I had taught myself; the strange harmonics I was cursed with rang out, hanging in the air before fading.

“Oh, Airi.” She tugged on her headspines. “You must let go of all that ulthshit.”