Dust

9 what it means to be a princess

So that's what it is to be a princess, Rien thought, watching the perfect unconscious arrogance with which Perceval gave away her name and their goal, as if it were nothing. Or—arrogance was the wrong word, wasn't it? Because arrogance was by its nature unjustified.

And nothing about Perceval was unjustified. Her self-assurance was the product of capability and experience, a warrior's knowledge of her body and her surroundings. She sat cross-legged, her elbows on her knees once she had accepted the mug, and watched Mallory seemingly without curiosity. "What's in the tea?"

"Salicylic acid," Mallory said, "capsaicin, licorice, chamomile, some other things. You had a nasty systemic bacterial infection, and a debilitating virus on top of it."

Still, Perceval sniffed warily. Rien, conscious of her own aches and the thickness in her throat, could not imagine how much worse her friend might feel.

It was so much easier to think of Perceval as her friend than as her sister. Perceval was Exalt—well, Rien was now, too, but she didn't feel Exalt, she didn't have the privilege and entitlement that dripped off Lady Ariane or Perceval or even Oliver. Even her politeness, her air of the obligations of nobility .. . were just that.

The Exalt Rien knew were monsters as much as Lords and Ladies. If Rien was Exalt, would she become a monster, too?

"Drink it," Mallory said. "If I'd wanted you drugged or poisoned, Engineer, I would have done it when you were on the IV."

Perceval's suspicious glance at the crook of her arm was another paradigm shift for Rien. For a moment, Perceval's deportment changed. The abrupt turn of her head was almost a cringe.

A crack in the facade.

Which meant it was a facade, this air of the stern but smiling knight-errant. A character. A role. Or, Rien reassessed—the warm mug in her own hands almost forgotten, as she watched Perceval first swallow dry and then raise her mug to her lips with quiet bravado—not a facade, not exactly. But not the whole story either.

Rien drank her tea and let the silence stretch. Even Mallory sat still, wrists draped over knees, and watched the girls sip bittersweet, spicy fluid.

When Perceval and Rien had drained the dregs and set their cups aside, the necromancer said, "I imagine everybody in Rule will be sick quite soon."

"I beg your pardon?" Perceval's courtesy was perfect once more.

"Your illness." Mallory knelt up to collect the cups, not rising, small breasts moving softly as the necromancer came to hands and knees. Rien shifted on the earth, fingers worrying the neck of the borrowed instrument that now lay on the blanket beside her. She was not accustomed to finding someone with such obvious male attributes attractive. But the eyes and the throat and the breasts were all woman, if the long hands and torso and crotch were all wrong.

Deft hands wiped cups dry and stowed them in a ragged-edged coarse-woven pack, but Mallory's voice never paused. "You are recovering; Rien is sickening. It's an engineered influenza, and you both are fortunate that I happened to have a stock of the appropriate antiviral on hand."

"Convenient," Perceval agreed, and Rien shot her a sideways glance. If she were better acquainted with Perceval, she'd know if those were tones of irony.

Mallory seemed to think so. And by the smile that flickered across plush lips, seemed also unoffended.

Rien wondered if she would ever get used to the Exalt, and the way they cheerfully assumed that everyone around them was neck-deep in conspiracy. Then she wondered if she would ever get used to the way they usually seemed correct in that assumption.

"You think I was meant to be captured?" Perceval could apparently be as blunt as anyone. "That I was a vector?"

"I can't speak for Engine," Mallory said. "Those aren't my politics." On his branch at the edge of the clearing, Gavin made a noise uncannily like one of Head's unimpressed snorts.

Mallory gave him the finger. "Why are you going to your father, Perceval Conn?"

"To stop the war," Rien said, when Perceval did not seem to have a ready answer. She shivered, pushing the guitar farther away so she could draw up her knees and huddle under the blanket. The moments when you knew you were sickening were the worst; you could feel the virus establishing beachheads, enemy camps defined by sniffles and muscle aches and growing nausea. "Engine and Rule fighting, that could kill so many."

"And endanger the walls of the world," Perceval said, and was right. Collateral damage, structural damage, was a bigger fear than direct murder. It had been impressed on Rien all through her childhood how fragile the habitable sphere was, and how much functionality had been lost through accident, negligence, malice, and the simple gnawing of entropy.

Mallory fiddled fingers on folded arms. "You think your father can do something about that?"

"He's Benedick Conn," Perceval said, as if that settled everything. And Rien had to admit, it was a phrase to conjure with.

Mallory made a noise that was open to interpretation. "It's a long way to his anchore, and not through friendly territory. There is no direct communication. We could try radio, but I'm hesitant to speak of such things in uncoded broadcast. And if anyone is seeking you—"

"Yes," Perceval said. "It could lead them here."

Rien edged a little closer to her, twisting her fingers, and as if unconsciously Pinion flicked out to drape across her shoulder. Rien jumped, and would have withdrawn from the touch of the parasite wing—but she remembered in time, and the thought of what it must be like to be Perceval, and have the alien limb sealed to one's own body, kept her still.

"Mallory, you're not actually considering sending Rien and Perceval on errantry when one of them is weak and recovering and the other will be blind with fever inside the day?" The basilisk swung his head side to side. His thick tongue was blue-black; with beak opened, it tasted the air like a snake.

As if to illustrate his point, a wave of sweating dizziness overcame Rien. She laid her forehead against her knees and pulled the borrowed shawl tight over her shoulders. The warmth of the wing was welcome, after all.

"It's true," Mallory said. "Rien will soon be too sick to trayel. And Perceval, you could relapse—"

Rien turned her head so she could face Perceval, who said, "I could go without her. I could leave her in your care."

"And when the fever comes back, and you rot in a ventilation duct? Your resources are exhausted. Your symbionts barely managed to keep you alive, even under my care."

Perceval frowned magnificently.

Mallory sighed and looked at Rien. "Rest here. I'll treat your illness. In a day or two, Gavin will guide you to your father."

"A day or two might make a difference," Perceval said.

"Yes," Mallory answered. "And it also might let you survive to get your message there."

Mallory was right. Within the hour, Rien was curled under blankets moaning, only barely responsive when Perceval unearthed her to drip water on cracked lips from the corner of a soaked rag. She would have bathed Rien's face, but Rien batted at her hands, and so instead she made a pad and sat against a tree with her sister's head cradled in her lap. That, Rien permitted, and it made it easier to keep her hydrated.

Mallory brought the water, steeped with herbs in it, and—for Perceval—porridge and soy milk. The basilisk rested on a branch overhead, perhaps dozing and perhaps keeping watch. While Perceval was waiting for honey to drip off the spiral honey dripper—as it was wont to do— she tilted her head back to watch his feathers fluff and settle. Exactly as if he breathed, which of course he did not.

Cool fingers touched the back of her hand. She looked down, let Mallory relieve her of the dripper. Perceval licked the honey from her nail and then, with only residually sticky fingers, smoothed the hair from Rien's brow. The curls were dank with sweat, but Perceval heeded them not. She shook the salty moisture from her fingers and picked up her spoon.

"You're very devoted to your sister," Mallory said.

Perceval chewed carefully, her mouth abruptly full of saliva. She swallowed; the second spoonful was already on its way when she spoke. "I barely know her," she said, leaving out for now the fact that Rien had tended her, rescued her, cast in her lot with her, and now somehow brought her here. "You're very helpful for a necromancer."

"So you don't trust me? Or you don't believe I'm a ; necromancer?" Mallory had a bowl of porridge, too, and was doctoring it with margarine and almond milk and salt. Among the almond blossoms, Perceval heard the drowsy drone of bees.

Rien, thrashing, arched her shoulder blade into Perceval's knee.

"Ow," Perceval said. "Sweetie—" She stuffed another spoonful into her mouth and set the bowl aside. Hands on Rien's shoulder and forehead seemed to calm her a little. "Should I trust you?"

"Trust no one," Mallory said, stirring idly. The necromancer's eyebrows were very expressive, especially when the rest of the face was pretending blandness. It was a lovely face, oval and far more angelic than Perceval's own. "Unless you have to. And today you had to." "You knew who I was before I told you." "I did. I am after all a necromancer. And they shall know you by your trail of dead, Perceval Conn."

Perceval set her bowl aside, no longer hungry. "My, aren't we prophetic."

"Don't be silly. No one can see the future." Whatever backflips Perceval's stomach was doing, Mallory ate with unperturbed determination. "I am a very good guesser, though." "And?"

"And somebody in Engine has already tried to use you to kill your sister, and your aunt Ariane Conn at Rule, and everyone else therein. And might have in part succeeded."

Mallory reached across Perceval's lap and stroked Rien's sweat cold cheek. This touch, Rien did not flinch away from. Perceval swallowed an acrid pang of jealousy. "Will she be well?"

"I saved you, and you were sicker. It's fortunate you came upon me."

Perceval liked Mallory better when the necromancer wasn't winking. "Or you came upon us. I ask you again, necromancer. Why are you helping us?"

"Because I have no love for Engine," the necromancer said. "Nor Rule either. And less love for their wars."

And then, while Perceval still stared, nibbling her lip in consideration, Mallory leaned forward and pressed pillowy lips to Perceval's own.

Perceval had never been kissed before. Oh, yes, she'd kissed Rien, but that was not such a kiss as this. This was soft, and melting, Mallory's bony and elegant hand pressed to her cheek and a slick tongue lightly flicking her closed mouth. And Perceval had no idea how to react.

She laid a palm against Mallory's chest, to hold her distance, and waited until the necromancer gently, so slowly, leaned back. Mallory's lashes flicked off pearl-white cheeks; Perceval had never lowered hers.

"I'm sorry," Perceval said. "I am fallow, and sworn celibate. I cannot be what you desire."

"Figures," Mallory answered, and leaned back with a sigh so honey-scented breath caressed Perceval's face. "I've been here alone a long time."

In the branches of the tree above, the slumbering basilisk raised its head, crest ruffling. "What am I?" it asked, in injured tones. "Chopped tempeh?"