Eztli set the lungboat down in the clear landing area next to the Welcome Frieze. The ride back had been free of conversation. Not merely the short lungboat ride from the airfield, but the whole skywhale ride from Azcapotz to Acerbia.

Five days wasted. Several lives wasted. When the Dux of Azcapotz had called on Eztli after her return to civilization debrief her, she'd informed him that six of the men he'd lent her were dead and another nine injured. Fifteen of thirty-four. Almost half of her command had been casualties.

That had been an unpleasant discussion.

Luckily for Eztli, Txaxan was no conversationalist. He'd left her in her tiny cabin during the journey back to Acerbia and hardly said a word during the lungboat flight.

The boat sighed in gratitude for the rest as it settled onto the ground. Eztli jumped free and strode toward the Welcome Frieze, not waiting for Txaxan to join her.

The Nethress legionnaires tensed as Eztli approached, but they wouldn't challenge her. All the better for them. Her temper was not as explosive as Ilhicamina's had been, but she was still a child of their father, and no stranger to outbursts when frustrated.

That was why she controlled herself so tightly.

The Frieze slid open as she approached. Legionnaires turned and slapped their hearts as the Ductrix of Acerbia exited, leaning on the arm of her faithful lapdog, the ebony Stigmatized.

When two Erae met, they could not afford to pass without comment, not even when their Gentes were sworn enemies. No--especially not when they were sworn enemies. "Ductrix Senrii," Eztli said as they passed one another. "I'm glad to see you've recovered."

Senrii grimaced. "Yeah, I'll bet you are."

Eztli ground her teeth. No matter how many olive branches she presented to Nethress, they still insisted on trying to antagonize her. Today was not the day for her to give in to anger, however. She would not reproduce her brother's mistakes.

Not even if those mistakes were precisely the behaviors that had gained him power...

Not trusting herself to speak, Eztli stepped into the steel-floored lift, waited for Txaxan to hurry in after her, then gestured toward the Nethress guard to activate the lift and send it below.

Piotr whispered something to Senrii. She raised an eyebrow. "So, you've been gone the past few days."

That was the last straw. Eztli held up a fist at chest height: Nxtlu finger-talk. Halt. Apparently Nethress finger-talk was somewhat similar, because the legionnaires manning the lift's door and controls froze. "Era Ductrix Senrii," Eztli ground out. "I am Generosa Nxtlu, not Nethress. I do not answer to you."

Senrii shook her head, looking confused. "No, that's not what I meant--"

Eztli was in no condition to hold a conversation about the intentions of her family's sworn enemies. She pointed to the legionnaires.

Senrii spoke again as the lift door closed. "I just meant, thanks for saving me."

Eztli groaned and leaned her head back against the smooth rock wall. "Open it back up."

Sunlight flooded the lift as the door slid open again. Senrii and Piotr were right there, casting shadows that ate away at the mote-filled air. "I mean, I know you said it wasn't necessary for me to thank you last time we talked." Senrii tilted her jaw back and forth as if considering her words. "But it's probably good form, anyway. So thanks."

Eztli nodded slowly. "You're welcome, Ductrix."

The younger woman looked earnest. Distracted, too, as if she was trying to read something in Eztli's face. "May I help you, Ductrix Acerbiae?" Eztli asked.

Senrii and Piotr shared a look. "You seem like you could use a walk," Senrii said at last.

No, what Eztli needed was to delve deep into a problem. She needed to translate impossible texts, do something to distract her from her utter failure in the jungle--

Senrii tilted her head in the direction of the Thunderhammer cannon. The Xipe Totec, as Ilhicamina had called it. One of Eztli's brother's greatest discoveries in the Libraratory, first turned against Nethress, now in their hands.

Senrii tilted her head again more insistently. Eztli was no Nethress commoner to be ordered about by their Generosi, but Senrii didn't seem to know how to give orders even if her life depended on it.

So it wasn't an order. It was an invitation. "Txaxan, commence your inquiries. I will be below presently," Eztli said.

Eztli, Senrii, and Piotr walked silently across the expanse of the Archives' parking lot toward the rubble surrounding the Thunderhammer.

Senrii climbed up onto one of the pieces of rubble, then sat down with a grunt, her legs dangling off the side. Piotr stood over her. Eztli chose to stand beside him.

Senrii gestured vaguely toward the Thunderhammer, which towered above them. "Pretty gaudy, isn't it? But intimidating."

"I was impressed that your Gens chose to continue its attack when the cannon rose," Eztli admitted.

"Didn't have much choice. We had to take the city back, or else..." Senrii ran a finger across her throat and made a gurgling noise. "Probably dead was better than definitely dead. Besides, the whole 'eating ships alive' thing kinda took us by surprise."

Eztli nodded but said nothing. They both knew wartime slaughter was nothing personal. That was different than poisoning the men, women, and children of your enemies, though. And far different than piggybacking on the genophage to do it.

"But that's over and done with." Senrii looked up at Eztli. "Isn't it?"

Eztli held her gaze. "Clarify, please, Ductrix."

"There's no secret poison in the device you used to save me, is there?" Eztli almost took offense at Senrii's question, but the girl looked troubled and earnest, not accusatory. How unlike Princeps Dorsin. "You really were just saving my life."

Eztli bit back her initial frustration. "Not to my knowledge, Ductrix. And yes."

"Not to your knowledge--"

"You know as well as I do that Last Era technology can be unpredictable. If the blueprints for the healing pods included lethal contingencies, however, I am unaware of them. And yes. I was only trying to save your life."

Senrii nodded as if it made sense to her. Was she truly wiser than her father? As if reading Eztli's mind, Senrii said, "My dad thinks you're up to some nefarious plot." She pulled free a pebble's worth of stone from the shattered marble and flicked it further into the debris. "But you're just trying to help."

"No," Eztli said. "I'm just trying to keep from igniting another war between our clans."

"It's more than that. You didn't have to save me," Senrii pointed out.

"Saving someone who would otherwise be an enemy is a sign of good intentions," Eztli said. "I think you agree, or else we wouldn't be having this conversation."

"Nah. It's worth more than that, I think. Look, Ductrix Eztli, I don't want a war either. My dad... he doesn't even think I can handle my own duchy. I'd like to think his judgment is poor." Senrii puffed out her cheeks and blew out a longer breath than should have been possible. "But I'm worried he's the one who sees things clearly and I'm the idiot."

The girl wanted reassurance. Eztli couldn't speak to Senrii's insecurities regarding her fiefdom, but she could certainly speak to her own motivations. Eztli slid down onto the rubble next to Senrii. "I killed Ilhicamina," she said softly.

Senrii's head snapped toward her.

"I gave the command to shoot him," she clarified. "Tvorh was too busy restoring his mother to think of it. I watched as my brother tore through your army and your family, who were only fighting for their survival in the face of a new strain of a horrible disease that threatened us all. I could not stand by." Eztli leaned back and stared up at the sky. "Ilhicamina had to die, and mine were the only hands that could do it."

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

"Wow," Senrii said. "Well, I guess that explains how you took control of his legions so quickly afterward."

"Too quickly, I'm sure," Eztli says. "Doubtless your father already suspects my complicity and has already ascribed nefarious motives to me. A desire for Ilhicamina's power, perhaps."

"Yeah, that would be consistent." Eztli dropped her voice into a low imitation of Dorsin's. "'Killing your brother just to get ahead is exactly what a tricky Nxtlu beast would do.'"

"Except..." Eztli mused. "Except I can prove that the act was without malice toward Nethress. I argued with Ilhicamina."

Senrii chewed her lip thoughtfully.

"Not merely him, but the inquirers too. In the Palace of Inquiry, the Palace of Governance, and the Libraratory." As quickly as they had arisen, Eztli's hopes of proving her honest intentions fell. "But the inquirers are dead. You slew them in your attack."

"Yeah," Senrii mused. "But the palaces are full of aural units. Have been for centuries."

This was news to Eztli. Then again, in the brief period during which Acerbia had been in Nxtlu's hands, they had never performed a full sweep of the biotechnologies embedded in the old Nethress buildings.

Piotr spoke for the first time. "And Gens Takahashi is currently digitizing our records."

"I thought that was only for Libraratory data," Eztli said.

"No. As long as we have the use of their data-integrators, we are making the most of them."

"Older recordings," Senrii said. "You think that they might be searchable?"

Piotr nodded. "It is possible. If not, it would take more effort, but we could pull the bioencoded recordings and scan through them--Ductrix, where are you going?" he asked as Senrii leapt to her feet and pushed past him.

"Going to check the recordings," Senrii called behind Eztli. "Hear what was said, see if by throwing it in my dad's face we can stop this stupid cold war between him and Eztli from warming up, right, Eztli?"

Eztli smiled. "Of course, Senrii."

Somehow she doubted that this would be enough to convince Dorsin.

#

Operational dispositions for Nethress military actions were harder now that Dorsin had to include anti-genophage aerosol shipments with any of his family members who left Acerbia. There were distant cousins, of course, and Orti from other families--Tvorh foremost among them--who were Magi and didn't need to worry about the novel genophage, but Dorsin hated to keep his brothers, uncles, and nephews from doing their parts as generals and leaders.

It wasn't merely a need to keep tight control over the legions. "Ask nothing of your servant that you would not be willing to do oneself." How could Dorsin ask his soldiers to go to war and not send Ductrix Lenaa, Dux Viklas, or another member of the Comitatus with them?

Oralie yawned, putting a hand over her mouth daintily. At her request, Dorsin had had a couch of hairsilk brought in to his office, as well as a xocolatl table--his one nod to luxury. Oralie deserved only the best.

Her papers were spread over the table. Some she'd merely signed; others were covered in blue-ink scribbles. It was good to have a partner to see to the matters of the duchy.

Senrii's duchy. And Senrii's matters, which she'd never seen to. But it would be irrational of Dorsin to get angry at his daughter for taking a sword to the gut, and what was done was done.

Would those papers someday soon be replaced by flexible graphene screens and crystal-digital records? Already the new screens could display photographs at a much higher resolution than weaves of living paper could manage. Tellus was changing--no, rolling, picking up speed like an enormous boulder pushed down a hill. Would Dorsin be around to see how it ended, or would it flatten him first?

At least Oralie hadn't changed. The Symbiont had enhanced her telomeres and restored some of her youth, and Dorsin was grateful for that. The couch was only used when she was in the room, but that use was not always for paperwork...

But Oralie had been restored to a younger version of herself, not a different person. She was the same Oralie Dorsin had always known, always loved.

So as she lowered her hand from her mouth and opened her eyes, Dorsin did not look away from his soul, his heart, his deepest meaning.

Oralie's yawn shifted into a coy smile. "Was there something stuck to my teeth, Dorsin?"

Dorsin was a straightforward man and had never been very good with flirtation. Oralie had fed him an easy line for that reason. "Perhaps. It bears a closer inspection."

She laughed, glancing at the couch and then at the papers on the xocolatl table. "Please, no more talk of inspections, Dorsin. I have had quite enough." She cleared her throat and straightened up. Dorsin regretted seeing her curves become straight lines. Well, straighter. "Mycoprotein vats." She held up another sheet of paper. "Numbers of bullets of a given caliber per armory. And vine grenades, and flesheater bombs. No wonder our daughter preferred her other duties."

Dorsin slid onto the couch next to Oralie and touched her chin, pressed his lips chastely to hers. "These are Senrii's duties, Oralie."

"Don't lecture me, Princeps," Oralie said. A hard vein ran beneath the playful words. "I'm not making excuses for her."

Dorsin wrapped a hand behind Oralie's waist and kissed her again, more deeply this time. "She just needs to learn," he whispered between kisses. "What is important. What can be delegated."

"To her mother," Oralie murmured through a throaty, womanly giggle.

"What it means to be Nethress." Dorsin leaned over Oralie. She slid down to the couch and pulled him by the shoulder on top of her. He could barely speak for their kisses. "The General Principles...duty..."

"Speaking of...doing your duty..."

They'd been trying for another child for a full year. The doctors said there was nothing wrong with Oralie's womb, but she was worried that the cancer and the treatment before she had Bonded the Symbiont had irreparably damaged her.

"Some duties...are pleasure," Dorsin admitted, then gulped when Oralie grabbed his rear and squeezed tightly. Even through the pants, he could feel her nails--

The door slammed open. "I cannot believe you--" Senrii shouted.

Dorsin scrambled off of his wife, and Senrii stopped abruptly. She stood a meter inside the doorway, backed by Piotr. The guards beyond the door stared away down the hall, their body language so tight that it was obvious that they'd seen.

"Don't look so abashed, Senrii," Oralie said, her voice as cool as if Senrii had walked in on a genteel xocolatl party. "Were you under the impression that a flying Chimera dumped you down our chimney as a baby?"

Dorsin ought to have risen to greet his daughter, but he didn't dare. He didn't dare even angle his legs toward her as he sat. His control over the Symbiont wasn't nearly good enough to force his body to go instantly from great oak to tiny acorn.

Senrii shook her head. "Whatever. Glad you two are getting along so well. Now, dad, there's somebody else you've got to start getting along with, too."

Dorsin growled and closed his eyes. He didn't need to be reminded of his time getting along with Rosabella. Every time she reappeared in his life, it turned everything upside down, not just in his heart but in his whole Gens--

"Eztli, dad," Senrii said, turning her head to the side and looking at him out of the corner of her eye as if he was stupid. "Get over your stupid paranoia and at least let her be."

Eztli. Not Rosabella. "Our worst enemy?"

Senrii rolled her eyes as hard as a pubescent daughter of a bourgeois bloodline might. Very hard, indeed.

"Be careful. They might loosen and fall out," Oralie chided.

Senrii stalked over to the xocolatl table and slammed a thumbnail-sized piece of quartz down on it.

Dorsin crossed his legs, trying for and probably failing at casualness. Then he studied the piece of quartz more closely. "Data. The Takahashi digitization?"

"Recordings, dad. From the Palace of Governance." Senrii gestured around them. "The Libraratory, too. Also the Palace of Inquiry."

"So?"

"Eztli didn't know a thing about the genophage research. Bile, dad, she actually killed Ilhicamina. Did you know that?"

Dorsin had worked that out, as a matter of fact.

"Seriously. She found out about the genophage three days before we attacked. She didn't have a clue what Ilhicamina was doing. And when it was obvious she had to pick a side, she picked..." Senrii paused. "She picked ours."

"I am not discussing this with you now, Senrii," Dorsin said. "Piotr, please escort the Ductrix back to her bed."

"I'm not finished," Senrii growled. "You should have told me, Dad."

Dorsin rubbed his eyes in disbelief. "Told you what? Speak plainly, Senrii."

Senrii didn't answer immediately. She looked at Piotr as if seeking permission. The Tutela seemed...

Uncomfortable. Was that possible for him?

Still, he nodded, and that seemed to give Senrii courage. "We found the data by running a search on the digital records for the word 'genophage' last year. Plenty of aural records, you know?"

"I do not have the stomach for guessing games, Senrii. Get her out of here, Piotr."

Looking miserable, the big Tutela took Senrii by the arm and pulled her gently toward the door. She stepped backward unwillingly, but at least she did step backward--

"'You are immune to the genophage, Dorsin. You are not of my blood!'" Senrii shouted as Piotr towed her past the guards.

Suddenly the room was silent enough to hear a seed germinate. Piotr, Senrii, even the guards in the hallway were motionless.

"Sound familiar, dad? Granddad's words. You should have told me. You should have told me we're not Orti Nethress."

"Shut the door," Dorsin roared. One of the guards leapt forward and did as he commanded. "Blood, bones, and bile," Dorsin cursed, falling back against the couch cushions.

She'd screamed it in front of everybody.

Oralie looked horrified. Dorsin couldn't handle the horror on her face. He turned away.

"I'm Princeps of a family line I don't even share by blood," he groaned. "I'm sorry, Oralie. I should have told you--"

Her warm hands cupping his face were a surprise, and his eyes blinked open. Oralie knelt on the couch beside him, her eyes watery.

All this time, she had thought that she was marrying into a good bloodline, when in reality--

"Dorsin," she said, her voice quivering. Her brow furrowed; her teeth clenched, and she spoke with tears and voice not of disappointment or betrayal but of furious loyalty. "You are the best of Gens Nethress."

Dorsin let out a breath that he had been holding for a year and let his wife comfort him.

Perhaps one of these decades he might even let her convince him.