Free her instruments 03 - laisrathera by m c a hogarth Page A

to explain.”
    “Explain…?” She looked up, cup in hand, then laughed, a low sound. “Ah. Which part?”
    “Two?” he prompted.
    “You and your equerry, of course.” At his blank expression, she said, “The Harat-Shar, yes?”
    “My equerry!” The notion struck him as ludicrous, and yet there was a tender humor in it: Sascha, who would not mount a horse for fear of it biting him, as an equerry! Him even needing an equerry, when their world did everything possible to minimize wars. His carrying a title as old as Settlement, and dusty from disuse. “Sascha?”
    She smiled, all silvered words. “Try you to leave without him, see what happens.”
    “Someone must carekeep the Earthrise .”
    “Fleet can carekeep the Earthrise ,” Liolesa replied. “And Fleet is a safer place for Theresa’s investment than a system threatened by an unknown number of pirates. There is not a weapon on that vessel, is there?”
    He thought of the single laser designed to deal with debris and said, “No… no, that there is not.”
    “There you are, then.” She studied him, then nodded. “Go you with your man, and see to our world. I will come with the cavalry, and we will put paid to this nonsense and see to the real work.”
    “You sound so certain of success,” he said.
    “And so I must be. What choice do we have?” She set the cup down. “It is this or oblivion. Worse than death: slavery and dispersion until we die out. No, Hiran. We must succeed. There is no other option.”
    “Then I shall do my best to abet you. Only, I pray you, cousin… have some useful notion of where we are to go after this to prevent a similar happenstance.”
    She laughed then, full and rich. “Oh, never fear that. I have a plenitude of plans and always have, and if this is not quite the way I’d envisioned launching them, well… I was never so arrogant to think that war might not have been the ultimate catalyst in the end.” She offered him her bare hands and he took them, resting his thumbs on her palm. Her fingers were warmer than his; she’d always been thus, like a fire strove at her edges. Liolesa, the woman who was not content to be solely a seal-bearer for a world and its people, but who insisted on being her own sword as well… to the point of taking it for a personal emblem. He smiled, fond of her and exasperated both, and turned her hands so he could kiss their backs.
    “I am your faithful liegeman.”
    “And much beloved, at that. Pack, Hiran. At last we are in motion again.”
    “Yes,” he said, vehement. “Yes.”

CHAPTER 6
    “I am not convinced of the wisdom of allowing this stranger access to our counsel,” Belinor said once they’d all been seated around Taylor’s data tablet. He glanced at Val. “Even if he has offered us no further harm, he is an unknown. We hardly know his motivations.”
    “If it makes you feel better,” Val said, “I could step outside. Except that I could still learn everything you’re saying if I wanted to listen. I could even use your ears and you’d never know.”
    “You’re not helping,” Reese told him dryly.
    “I thought being honest about my capabilities would make it clear that I am being forthcoming.”
    Irine coughed into a fist as Belinor turned a scathing look on the other Eldritch.
    Val grinned and inclined his head, pressing his hand to his heart. “I apologize, Acolyte—”
    “That’s better than ‘boy,’ at least,” Taylor muttered as she flicked through the tablet’s comm channels.
    “—and if there is some way I might convince you I am here in good faith, only tell me.”
    “Fine,” Belinor said, eyeing him. “Will you swear to it?”
    “On anything you like,” Val answered magnanimously.
    “On Elsabet’s sacrifice,” Belinor said with zeal, leaning forward. “Swear it.”
    Val froze in place. Seeing it made Reese realize that he tended to move more than the Eldritch she knew; she’d seen Hirianthial do this stillness, but it was less