Chapter 106:

They took Sukren to Lost Technology Castle. It took the rest of the day to get there by foot; by the time they arrived, Sukren was ready to collapse into whatever corner he was shown to. That corner ended up being the corner of an elevator. “Lady Nari wants to see you first thing in the morning,” he was told. “If you want to sleep, sleep now while we go up.”

Sukren slept. He was awoken several times throughout the night by people getting on and off the elevator, but broken sleep was better than no sleep. By the time he was told to get out, Sukren felt marginally better. He was even able to recognize the rest of the route to Lady Nari’s chamber: transfer from the elevator to a lift, then get out and sweep past a grass-planted wall, then skip the open balcony to the right, yes, there was the air rushing in, and now a short set of stairs, and then a doorway at the top of the stairs –

“So you’ve returned,” a voice said.

Sukren’s heart – he couldn’t help it – was filled at once with fear and love and awe. “Lady Nari,” he whispered in reply.

“Leave us,” she said, presumably not to him. Sukren heard the tread of someone behind him, then the opening and shutting of Lady Nari’s chamber door.

“What happened to your eyes?” Lady Nari asked.

“They were stabbed.”

Lady Nari said nothing, which was not a good sign. Worn out though he was from traveling all day yesterday without eating or drinking anything, Sukren kept himself upright and still. He had to focus, had to be careful. This meeting would determine whether Sukren spent the rest of his life locked up in a cell or whether he lived long enough to spend any time in a cell at all.

“I hear you brought Mayah back.”

“It wasn’t me,” Sukren said at once. Here was his chance. “It was Vek who brought us both back. He wanted me to make a request of you, on his behalf.”

“What is it?”

“He wanted me to ask you for permission to join the Cursed. He believes the Chenta no longer value him as a member of the tribe.”

Again, there was silence. It was broken by the sound of Lady Nari laughing. That unnerved Sukren. It was the first time he’d ever heard her laugh. And her words, bitter, mocking, full of emotion. Was this Lady Nari? She’d never – not in years – expressed any sort of feeling like this to him – not since he was fifteen.

The laughter, thankfully, soon ended. “And why didn’t Vek want to ask me himself?”

At her question, Sukren knelt on one knee and bowed his head, the way a serf would before his new patron. His courage failed him then, and he hesitated, before reminding himself that he had just pulled it off with Gerath, that he still had the power to use words to reach into a person’s heart and turn it towards his will…

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But once more the love and awe and fear from before, from years of before, flooded through him. Lady Nari was not just any person. She had taught him everything he knew. The next words Sukren spoke had to be true because she out of everyone would be able to see through his falsehoods.

“Vek doesn’t know you like I do,” Sukren whispered.

“And what is it, Sukren Kanari, that you know of me that Vek does not?”

There was a bite to the way Lady Nari said his name, but Sukren took it as a good sign that she called him by his patron name at all. Bowing his head even lower, his heart hammering, Sukren said, “He doesn’t know that you love us.”

This time the silence was expected, and Sukren continued speaking into it. “He doesn’t know that you love the serfs. That every decision you’ve ever made was on our behalf. That you sacrificed your whole life to raise us out of the dirt and into the light.”

Still Lady Nari did not speak.

“I know right now that it looks like everything you did was for nothing. That the serfs are split along Rajas-invented ethnic lines, that we can’t escape the shadow of the Golden Castle. But I also know that you’ll bring us through. The serfs will unite as one body under the bio-dome. We will return to Earth. Just like you always said.”

Sukren stopped then. With bowed head and bated breath, he waited. After a little while, he heard Lady Nari ask, her voice half a sigh, half a hiss, the question he’d been waiting for. “Why did you leave me, Sukren?”

“Because you love the serfs,” Sukren whispered at once. “You love the serfs, and only the serfs. And Mayah, she’s a Rajas. I knew you wouldn’t love her the way you loved me.”

There was silence. Then – “Get up.”

When he was on his feet, Lady Nari continued. “Vek doesn’t have to join the Cursed. He’s scared, but he doesn’t realize that this push for Chenta ethnonationalism is temporary. I’ll get control of the people again. But you…”

Sukren waited. When Lady Nari spoke again, her voice was unfamiliarly soft. “The Free Serfs have been waiting a long time for an explanation as to where the Promised Daughter was. I’ll tell them what you did. I’ll tell them you placed her above your loyalties to us. They’ll want to punish you. I will have to punish you.”

“I understand.”

“This will be your punishment. You’ll go and be one of the Cursed, and be Sukren Kanari no more.”

She was releasing him. She was releasing him from her patronage.

There was a knot in Sukren’s throat. A desperate part of him wanted to cry out, no, no, please, keep me, don’t cast me out, keep me and punish me if that’s what you want, but don’t do this to me, anything but this! For what was life without Lady Nari as his patron lady? What would it even mean anymore? To not have her attention or her care, to not seek to please her, to not fear her wrath – what was left?

Yet at the same time, Sukren was flooded with a sense of grace. Free now, for the first time, yes, that was what he felt, no longer under orders to lie and manipulate, to spend himself on a vision he couldn’t see. He would no longer be a Free Serf, no longer be a serf, and there was a gift in that that he knew Lady Nari was giving him deliberately.

This was her last act of love.

“Yes, Lady Nari,” he whispered.

“Do the Cursed have someone you think can act as their representative?”

Sukren groped for an answer. “Yes. Someone named Rajani.”

“Go and tell my attendant waiting outside to send someone to fetch her. I’ll send for both of you after she arrives.”

“Yes, Lady Nari.”