Saketa took a series of long, soothing breaths. Her body still hurt, but she’d had much worse aches, and the warm ecstacy of the shower weighed up against it. Her spirit was a bit more complicated.
She’d used the shower stall as the place for the ritual cleansing, symbolically washing off the violence while leaving behind its lessons. The blood and death she could live with. The other developments she wasn’t as decided on. The mixture felt like it was still boiling, and she simply didn’t know what would emerge from the container. But for better or worse, something would change. Something would give.
From a peg she took a small robe marked with the hotel’s logo and put it on. Then she stepped out into the main room. It was cushy enough as temporary dwellings went. There was a big, comfortable two-person bed and a three-person couch, as well as an entertainment setup.
Leaning up against the main door, on the other side of the room, was Vanaka.
“How are you?” the Vylak asked softly.
“A shower helps most any situation,” Saketa replied.
“It really does.”
“But how are you? I know violence is not your natural element.”
“No, but it becomes steadily less shocking each time. I can still state that I have never killed anyone. Just… helped.”
She looked distant for a moment, but only for a moment.
“But nevermind me. How is your scalp?”
Saketa touched the cut the fighting had left her with. Losan had been carrying a tiny first aid kid, the sort soldiers often used to fix small injuries.
“It is fine. Your man knows what he is doing.”
“He does,” Vanaka said with some pride.
“Where is he, anyway?”
The Vylak pointed in the direction of the next room over. The hotel didn’t allow more than two guests per room, so Vanaka and her two ansoti had been staying in two rooms.
“He is resting. I ordered him to rest. He has really earned it in recent days.”
“He has,” Saketa agreed.
Besting a Vartana acolyte, even a heavily injured one, was no mean feat for an ordinary person. And the man had done it twice.
She looked at the sword. Nara’s Warden sword. It rested on the bed, looking beautiful and elegant and deadly; the result of centuries of honed craft and power. She picked it up and drew the blade slowly, close to her face, and found a strange amount of pleasure in just the sound of it.
Then she just looked the weapon up and down for a few seconds.
“They are worried about you,” Vanaka said. “They didn’t go on about it, but they clearly are. Nara said she loves you.”
“I love them too…” Saketa muttered.
The blade went back into the sheath.
“How did you four find me?” she asked.
“I got advice about potential locations for the cult,” Vanaka said. “Nara and Pietr gave us some pointers. And Fredrak and Ayna found footage of you boarding a train. Then we just compared its route to my list of locations. Then we rented that skycar.”
Saketa nodded. It was all simple and rational.
She ran her fingers along the scabbard, noting the very slight differences between this one and her own.
“Nara knows what she is doing,” Saketa commented sadly. “She wants me back among my brothers and sisters, among the elders in the hills of Kalero. And I cannot neglect returning her sword. Or at least seeing to it that she gets it. But… I…”
She trailed off. How could she possibly justify leaving that up to someone else? Whom could she ever trust with that task?
“You look at that like... “ Vanaka hesitated. “I was going to say like a mother at her child, then I was going to say like a faithful at a holy object, but I really can’t think of a good comparison. Those swords really do mean everything to your people, don’t they?”
Saketa continued idly handling the weapon, not looking for anything, just taking comfort in the feel of it.
“A Warden’s power comes from balancing between equal but opposing forces. Life and death. Healing and destruction. The high and the low. Peace and violence. The glow and the shadow. The paragon and the beast. Our training allows us to open ourselves up to both of these, and stand on the border where these two meet. Where opposing forces meet you will find great energy.”
“So you stand between good and evil?” Vanaka asked.
“It is not as simple as those terms. And we stand in them, a part of both, because both are ultimately a part of us all as human beings.”
“Then why is it that every Warden I have ever heard of, and indeed met, devotes their life to doing good in the galaxy?”
Saketa looked at her. Then she sat down on the couch and let her eyes unfocus.
“Because... “ she began in a whisper, “Because… once you have seen both, and I mean truly seen, with your mind, with your being… when you can have even just one foot in the light, and truly know the light… you can only love it. Even if the shadow side is there too. The good is still worth the existence of the evil. And once we have seen it, felt it in the waves, then we set out to be its champions.”
Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.
Vanaka walked over and joined her on the couch. Saketa looked at the borrowed sword yet again.
“But there are dangers. Our ancestors learned that a long, long time ago. Good may not be potent without the darkness to form an alloy, but the darkness all by itself can swallow you. That is why the swords are special. Each one is unique, forged by special craftspeople in the Kalero highlands, and then given upon completion of the trials. A warrior must then attune to the blade in a place of power, making it theirs. Then they become a Warden. The sword is a balancing pole. It is a focus. It is nailed into the spot between light and dark and provides us with grounding. The sword is a Warden’s will. And one cannot break... unless the other one does.”
That was it. That was as much as she was willing to say. She just reached over into a corner to rest the sword there in an upright position, then she leaned back on the couch and closed her eyes.
Vanaka snaked an arm all the way across Saketa’s back to rest a hand on her left shoulder.
“You are one of my most favourite people,” she said soothingly. “You know that, right?”
“I know that you want to bite me.”
“Of course I do.”
Vanaka rested her other hand on Vanaka’s right forearm.
“My people, we take from strangers on occasion, as needed, but it is unfulfilling. What we want are partners. The people we take into the fold are people we are fond of. We find folks we like, whom we are willing to spend a lifetime with, and make them ours.”
She stroked the arm. Saketa didn’t turn to look at her face, but it existed vaguely on the periphery of her vision.
“That is the normal way of life for us. The one we are taught growing up, and the one the elders have found to work for our society. But working with the Chainbreakers... I am biting all these awful, despicable people. They disgust me, and having them in my grip always feels gross.”
Vanaka moved her hand on top of Saketa’s, and intertwined their fingers in a loving grip. She also came in a little closer.
“You made such a difference in my life, Saketa,” the Vylak breathed. “You gave me an example to follow. You made me realise what kind of person I can be, if I just have courage and will. I love you, in a very Vylak way. So of course I want to bite you.”
The words were soothing. The kind touch was soothing. And Saketa closed her eyes and opened her mouth.
“Go ahead.”
Vanaka pulled both of them down, until they were lying across the couch with the Vylak up against Saketa’s back. Then she put her lips against Saketa’s neck and bit.
The sedative effect was instant, blocking any pain from the fangs. That strange sensation she remembered from before washed through her system as the venom took hold and paralysed all of her voluntary muscle movement. She was completely and utterly at peace as Vanaka started drinking.
The girl took tiny sips and let long beats pass between each one. Saketa didn’t try to resist the venom as she had back on Hammurri. She simply let the haze close over her wits, and her whole world became just the sipping and Vanaka’s little noises of satisfaction. It was a lovely stupor.
It slowly dawned on her that the girl had stopped, and was now simply stroking Saketa’s hair. Like a pet owner.
“My champion,” Vanaka whispered happily. “My Warden hero.”
There was a strange freedom in all of this. A complete abdication of all worry and responsibility. It was another thing Saketa remembered from the last time, and she felt she suddenly had a better understanding of the hold the Vylak had on their partners. And in her pliant state the praise felt very good.
“Tell me what happened,” Vanaka muttered sweetly right into Saketa’s ear. “What happened to your sword? Why are you so troubled?”
“Your… are... cheating,” Saketa mumbled, even as the pressure to do as she was told hit like an irresistible wave.
“I am a Vylak,” the girl said back. “We cheat.”
She gave Saketa’s hair another loving stroke.
“Now tell me.”
“The war injured me,” Saketa said. “Volkan Vol’s war. I fought so hard to end the bloodshed. Towards the end I just went from one battlefield to another, not resting, not cleansing. I hoped to stop it all by cutting his head off, but his officers kept the fighting up for a while more. More died. More burned and blew up.”
“Keep going,” Vanaka said.
“Once it finally ended I went home. And just as I did, Kalero was under attack. They’d come for us, finally, after all this time. With ships and power and ancient hate.”
“Avanon’s people?”
“A different branch on the same sick tree. A mistake our ancestors made a very long time ago. Before we fully understood the powers we open ourselves to. Before the swords and the strict standards for trainees. Those who broke, those who fell into darkness, were exiled to the Valley of Vartana. In time they made it offworld, and splintered into different seeds. Avanon’s branch… it survives as a set of ideas, of teachings. Mould growing in the darkness, never fully eradicated.”
Vanaka stroked her hair. Saketa hesitated a little, but the venom kept her talking.
“Those who came to Kalero were a different breed. Stronger, cohesive, and with allies. They’d gained control of a fleet, and it bombarded the surface. I fought so hard. I Shifted from ship to ship, killing, killing, killing, until I reached the leader. We fought. I really thought, I desperately hoped, that I could stem it all. That I could cut the head off the beast. But I couldn’t. The ship crashed. The bombardment continued. And my sword broke.”
“I’m so sorry, Saketa.”
“Kalero has allies. They did show up to strike the final blows against the weakened fleet. But I was cast adrift. I had no balance. The darkness swallowed me. I am no Warden anymore.”
Vanaka hugged more tightly, and put one leg around both of Saketa’s.
“Can’t something be done?” the Vylak asked.
“The elders wanted me to seek healing. But I… I couldn’t stay. I left.”
“And why couldn’t you stay?” Vanaka asked in her sweet, soothing, coaxing voice.
“Because I failed. I should have been better.”
“You are only human, Saketa.”
“I always excelled. After I was selected, I threw myself into being everything a Warden should be, in skill, power and conduct. Everything. That was my whole life. I had an ancient legacy to represent, and I was going to do it right.”
“And you did.”
“My sword broke.”
“You are a wonderful person,” Vanaka insisted. “How many people like me are there out in the galaxy, that you’ve helped, saved from danger, or inspired?”
“I don’t know.”
“But aren’t there many of them? Dozens or hundreds that you’ve met in person, thousands at least that you saved in the war? Aren’t there? Tell the truth.”
“Yes. There are.”
Saketa couldn’t deflect or twist the praise. She couldn’t retreat from it into the darkness. The venom had her defences completely down and Vanaka’s words entered into her completely undiluted. And she herself couldn’t lie.
“I may be young, Saketa, but I do know that people need each other. Vylak know that better than perhaps anyone else. We are so very social. We die otherwise.”
“Mm.”
Saketa didn’t know if her own vocalisation had any meaning behind it. But she accepted the girl’s words as truth. Of course it was truth.
“You deserve to be happy, Saketa. You do. And you have people who love you. You should let them take care of you.”
“I should.”
Vanaka took a long, happy breath.
“Your paralysis has worn off.”
“So it has,” Saketa said after moving a finger experimentally, but she was content to just lie still. She rearranged her legs a little bit, and then just relaxed into the ongoing embrace. She hadn’t been hugged in quite some time.
“Are you fine with staying like this?” Vanaka asked.
“I am.”
“Then go to sleep.”
Saketa obeyed.