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B'Etor's first taste of true power comes at the age of ten. Duras raids Lursa’s room—takes games and clothing and hair pins and strews them about the house, taunts and forces her to spend the day picking her belongings out of vases and from underneath fur rugs. B'Etor finds her like that, her only sister, on her knees and pouring hot, vicious tears down her cheeks and B'Etor decides that it does not matter that Duras is heir, would not matter if he were the Chancellor himself—she will make him pay.
He stands by them in the hall, and that is his first mistake—boasting of a victory before the enemy is defeated. B’Etor lunges, kicks him behind the knees and takes his hair in her fist and screams. Lursa is cheering, and B’Etor pulls at her brother’s arm until the limb takes on a shape wholly unnatural and wildly satisfying.
A resounding snap fills the room and Duras howls from the pain, eyes wet and shut tight. Their mother finds them like that, watching as B’Etor stands from the carnage and forces them to explain themselves. Her mother scolds her and pulls at her ear but B’Etor puffs her chest out and says what she hears her father say when he doesn’t want to elaborate: it was a matter of honor.
Her mother seems to take that at face value. Drags Duras out of the room with a lecture on her tongue. B’Etor broke the right arm, so their mother takes him by the left with hurried steps.
“He will not do it again,” B’Etor says. She smiles wide and feels the joy, the justice, pull at her cheeks and reach up to her eyes and crinkle them. She’d done it without a weapon, too—strength of her own hands.
Lursa stands at her side as they watch Duras’ back disappear behind the double doors.
“He will,” Lursa says. “But next time he will think before he tries.”
Schooling makes her head ache. They chant story and song about the teachings of Kahless, recount the tale of the Empire’s search and conquest of such and such people, of the bravery of the men that fought to take them.
B’Etor sits at her father’s feet and tells him what she had taken from her lessons of the day—the founding of Boreth, of the pitch black walls and the smell of fire in the air, the hand of Kahless pointing to the sky and declaring his return.
“That,” her father says. “Or a group of kuve took to the skies and decided they did not want to be bothered.”
B’Etor blinks at him. The Dahar Master himself had said—
“You cannot believe everything you are told, girl,” he says after her silence. Frowns deep and furrows his brow, as if she has said the stupidest thing imaginable. As if he did not send her to school to hear these things from the learned. She does not tell him that she had sat with her hands in her lap and moved to the front of the class to hear the story better, that she had leaned forward and asked questions. That she had been eager to hear more.
“That will be your lesson for the day. We are strong, but not because one man came and gave us law—we are strong because we choose to be.”
She thinks of the crack in her brother’s arm, mended but callused around where she had snapped it. She thinks she understands.
“We also learned of the taking of the Seltan system,” B’Etor says cautiously.
“Ha! Now there is something worth learning,” her father says. “What did your teacher say?”
They ask her to visit the House of MaQ. Their lands are west of the Great Hall and touch the edge of the biggest river in the capital. A river that feeds into their own, slakes the thirst of the animals of House Duras and the men alike. It would not do to keep them at a distance.
“The eldest son of their line will meet you,” they tell her. “You will convince him that we ally ourselves with them.”
B’Etor knows the House of Duras has no intention to do so. Has heard her father hiss at the mention of their name, spit when they sat in the halls of the Council together. She does not care, truly.
“Make them friendly,” they tell her. “Whatever it will take.”
That’s fine. She can do that. Smile, look pretty, lie—she can do that with the best of them. She’s capable. Honorable, really, willing to do what is required of her and more.
The son of MaQ is broad-shouldered and visibly flustered by the sight of her. Simple, she thinks. B'Etor brushes her knuckles under his chin and laughs at a joke that merits anything but. Lets his hands linger and cocks her head and purrs low in her chest when she catches his eyes on her mouth as if she cannot help it. Too simple.
She returns to the house with good news and the memory of the man’s mouth to hers and receives praise for it. Dependable B’Etor.
“Are we not fortunate,” her cousin says, “a family with military prowess and beautiful women.”
A hand slaps down onto her shoulder and shakes her frame, mirth in the gesture.
The talk in the room is all of her—what she has done for her House, what they have gained by her hand, what will become of it. Light talk that runs through to her spine and here, she discovers, is another form of power—visceral, sweet to the tongue.
“Whatever it will take,” she says graciously.