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Ri’kara stared up at the ceiling of the small room, watching the flutter of light dance across it as the curtains swayed in the breeze of the cracked open window. Outside the door, she heard the excitable clamouring of the younglings in Inzar's care, and Inzar’s tired voice answering as they thundered past.
Doors shifted open and closed, but she didn’t bother to move, just watching, listening, her chest heavy, as though a weight were pressed against it.
The day before, crying into Inzar’s shoulder, she hadn’t been able to say much; in her distressed state there was no way that she could have crafted a facsimile of what she had been crying about to avoid revealing all her lies. Now, with the morning light spilling in, she realised that she didn’t want to bend the truth around everything. Why should she protect someone who didn’t care about her feelings enough to speak with her beforehand?
Someone had to know, and who better than her brother?
The sounds of the younglings faded, muffled by the walls of the house as they played outside. Large, careful footsteps came up to her door, and there were a few moments in which he was most likely hesitating before his soft knock.
“Riri?”
“… You can come in.” It was difficult to even speak, let alone pull herself into a sitting position as she rested herself up against her pillows.
Inzar ducked through the door as it opened, letting it close behind him. His eyes, full of concern, looked into hers.
“Did you sleep at all?”
“A bit.” She crossed her legs, letting him sit on the end of the bed.
“What happened? You were so cut up last night that I didn’t want to push, but…”
Dread squirmed in her abdomen. After so long keeping it under wraps, every fibre of her being was trying to fight against this newfound resolve. She frowned, looking down at the twin decorations on her cord, the two scratches on hers, the glint of the cut gem on his.
“I need to tell you something.”
“Alright.”
“But… Look, I hate to have to ask this of you, but it has to be kept a secret, even from them.”
The hulking Tal’darim looked immediately troubled, his usually cheery expression dropping into something that she imagined was more like how he used to look on Slayn.
“You know I’d do anything for you.”
She nodded. “And… You have to promise not to get mad.”
“As if I could ever be.” He placed a hand on her knee. “Riri whatever it is, I’m here.”
“You remember… You remember a few weeks ago when I told you that the ambassador was dead? That he had gone to Rak’Shir with the Highlord and they’d both been killed?”
“I do. I’m sorry, I know he was your friend.”
“I’d met the new Highlord, we were getting settled in and then I… I found out yesterday that he’d survived.”
Inzar narrowed his eyes, looking her up and down. “Val’ka survived? How? That doesn’t sound possible.”
“I’d been fighting for so long to get Rak’Shir completely abolished. The Highlord only ever had it whittled down to him and the five ascendants. He wouldn’t take any other negotiations, and I knew that it would end with both him and Val’ka dying; they both thought I was worrying for nothing, but I was right.
Even though he knew how much it hurt me; he’s my friend, after all, he didn’t tell me that he’d managed to get a deal with the new Highlord, that for months before this Rak’Shir he had been planning to fake his death and get back to Aiur. I was summoned by the Hierarch and there he was. He thought… He really thought that it was better than giving me false hope…”
She closed her eyes, trying to stop the wave of tears, trying to stop her hearts beating faster as that dread welled with the rush of sadness.
“He visited me before he had to go and die. He gave me back my clasp and hid a confession in it—”
“You love each other?” Inzar asked softly.
“So much that hurts. I’ve had to bury it for so long, pretend for so long. I’ve had to act like it wasn’t killing me inside that I’d never see him again for weeks and he just let me. I could have held it together better if I had known that there was a chance…”
He pulled her into his arms, let her get comfortable in his lap as she choked back a sob.
“I was so happy to see him alive. We can… We can be with each other now; it’s safe, he’s dead in the eyes of the Slayn Tal’darim, but it’s all ruined because he betrayed me. He let me think he was dead, and for what? It’s like he thought I would just fall into his arms… And I said such horrible things to him when we met again…”
“You’re right to be mad, though, Riri.” His arms squeezed her comfortingly. “Don’t feel bad about yelling at him because he went through all that; he brought it on himself, you know?”
“I know…”
“Was that the secret? That you love him? I can’t see that it’s too much to tell anyone, Riri. You said that you could maybe be together if you decide to forgive him—”
She shook her head a little. “No, I… I still haven’t been entirely truthful with you.” Her hands shook as she looked at them, examined the scarring. It was easier than looking at his face. “And this is where you might get mad with me.”
“If you were asked to lie, it’s ok, you know? I won’t get mad at that; you have an important job.”
He was being too nice like always. Shame and guilt swirled in, and she pressed the heel of her hand to her forehead.
“The truth is that Val’ka never existed.”
“… What do you mean?”
There was a change in his tone, a caution that had crept in just enough that she noticed. Pulling back slightly from his embrace, she looked up at his eyes, forced herself to keep that eye contact so that he knew she was being genuine.
“Val’ka is… A cover up. The ambassador, the fifth Ascendant… whatever. They were both a dummy role made for the Highlord for his stays on Aiur so that he wouldn’t be pursued by the Aiur Tal’darim or Slayn Tal’darim that came here with hopes of assassinating him. He didn’t wear his armour, and I was his voice so that he would not be recognised.”
Inzar’s eyes flickered between hers; if he was shocked, he didn’t show it, his expression instead completely neutral, almost uncannily so as he stayed silent for several long, agonising moments, and then his whole body slumped, his head nodding like he had finally pieced everything together in his mind.
“So that is his? It’s… Alarak’s?”
“Yes, it is.”
More shame washed over her at the admission, at the sound of his name… The burning need to try and explain, to try and make it somehow better, ripped through her chest as she stuttered.
“A-at the time, it was a promise to tell you all about Ialdir. I told him about the tradition maybe a few years earlier and he remembered it. In exchange he was supposed to have not interfered, but he found a loophole.”
“I’m glad he did.”
“I think by that time we already knew that it was more than just that pact.”
Reaching for her aide’s uniform, she pulled out the note that she had kept with her the whole time, in the pocket right next to where she kept her knife. It was already showing signs of wear in the creases that she had folded into it with how many times she had taken it out to read again.
“If you don’t believe me.”
Inzar took it gently, running his eyes over the chicken scrawl that she knew from memory at that point, and his face softened into a sad smile.
“I did believe you anyway, but seeing it for myself…” He shook his head. “I always said I hoped that you would give yours to someone that you cared for. That’s what I wanted you to promise with mine.”
“I fulfilled that promise, but… Well, now I don’t know. I’m so angry at him for it; I wonder if that note is even the truth anymore if he was so willing to hide the truth from me.”
“I think it is true…” He cut himself off with a chuckle. “Even saying it is weird. He is- was -Highlord; I doubt that any of this feeling stuff came naturally, and I bet all the minerals I own that bargaining an escape from Rak’Shir went against everything we’d ever had drilled into our heads. I couldn’t even begin to think of everything I’d need to make it go my way without knowing everything could go wrong.”
She took the back from him, carefully folding it to put away. “There was something in his eyes that morning. I’d never seen him so… I think he was scared. Not that it excuses this, but—”
“I understand.” The huge Tal’darim held her face in one hand, smiling softly at her. “You can be mad, Riri. You don’t even have to be with him if you don’t wanna. It’s a grand gesture and I’m sure he did think that you would just fall into his arms, but it was still a betrayal.”
“He told me everything… I don’t know why he didn’t tell me this.”
“I’d wager it was fear like you said.”
“Yeah…”
Trying to sympathise with Alarak didn’t particularly help the anger that writhed around in her chest even then. She didn’t know if it would ever be fully doused or if she was just meant to go around like that forever. He should have told her. The Hierarch should have told her. It drove her crazy that she had no idea why they had both left her out of something so important.
“I just keep thinking about how unfair it is. How could he possibly give me something like that and then do this?”
“What are you gonna do right now? How about we focus on that?”
“I’ll spend time with you all for a while, think about it more. He’s… Going off to a different planet to go into hiding after surgery, but—”
“Surgery?”
“He cut off his cords; he’s getting prosthetics fitted.”
“Wow. He was serious.”
She nodded, her eyes welling up again with tears suddenly. “I just want to spend time with all of you. I won’t see him again, not until I’m sure I want to, because I think if I went with him now I’d just be miserable… I wished for a time when maybe we could be together and of course it’s ruined before I’d even had a chance to know what it might be like. I shouldn’t have ever thought that maybe I could be happy—”
“Hey, hey, don’t talk like that.” Inzar held her close again, rocked her back and forth as she started to sob. “You have us no matter what, you know?”
“I just feel so hopeless.”
“I understand.” He kept rocking, warm hand rubbing her back in circles. “You can stay here for a day or two, recover a bit. I can call your guard for you and tell her what’s up.”
“If you’re sure, but Verinis doesn’t know about any of this; they think that Val’ka’s dead, so… Maybe just tell them that I’m helping you with the kids.”
“Yeah.” He sighed a little. “I didn’t realise how much you’ve had to keep under wraps all these decades.”
“I always felt so bad for lying to everyone, but… The risk was too great; we each had to keep up the façade. Besides, if Ilira realised who Val’ka really was, she’d have been so furious with me.”
“She’d have killed him for sure. By the void, I have half a mind to march up to the place myself and give him a talking to.”
The idea of Inzar marching into the capitol building almost made her laugh a little through her tears. She clung to him tightly.
“It’s ok. I already did that.”
“The offer’s there.” He chuckled. “Xin and Ni’och are watching the little ones, but I should probably go outside and make sure they’re not trying to play Rak’Shir in the hole they dug again.”
She nodded, allowing him to pull away and stand up. As he stretched, he placed his hands against the ceiling and made a sound like a cat.
“You can come out when you’re ready, ok, Riri? I’m really happy that you could confide in me.”
“… Thank you for listening. I don’t know why I thought you’d be mad.”
“It’s a lot. I won’t be sad you thought it, especially with how long I bet it’s been eating at you.”
With a soft, brotherly smile, Inzar ducked back through the door and left her to her own devices.
Ri’kara looked down at the two decorations again, watched the light glint off the gem and the metal. For a moment, she wondered about taking Alarak’s off, the idea chafing against the memory of how sincerely he spoke his last words to her before he left.
“My life is yours.”
She sighed, brushing her fingers across the both of them. Maybe there was a good explanation. Maybe he was just acting rashly in the face of death. Either way, it wouldn’t do to dwell on it; she needed to process the hurt first.
“Or at least try…”
Carefully, she pulled herself out of bed and pulled on the first layer of her uniform, not bothering with the rest of it; the room was already warming up to an uncomfortable degree from the tiny sliver of sun that was streaming in. She didn’t bother with the other rings or decorations that she would usually put on her cords either, leaving them resting on the nightstand as she pattered out into the garden to join the younglings.