Django Wexler - The Shadow Throne

Winter stepped up and touched her on the arm. Jane looked over her shoulder, then spun around, grinning madly.

“Winter! When did you finally turn up?”

“Just now,” Winter said. As the other girls began to turn to look at them, she grabbed Jane’s hand. “Come with me.”

There is a law of nature-one that Winter had previously been unaware of, but now instinctively sensed-that says that the more comfortable one is, lying beside one’s lover with limbs entwined under a sweaty sheet, the more certain it is that one will eventually need to use the toilet. Winter held off as long as she could, but eventually she was forced to roll out of the big bed and pad across the chilly floor, navigating by moonlight.

When she returned, Jane had kicked off the sheet and lay on her back, hands crossed behind her head. She was gloriously naked, dappled in silver and shadow by the moonlight, and Winter stopped for a moment at the foot of the bed to stare at her in wonder.

Jane tilted her head. “Is something wrong?”

Winter clambered up on the foot of the bed and crawled up beside Jane, pressing up against her. Jane put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her in for a kiss, and Winter closed her eyes. After a moment, though, Jane pulled back.

“Something is wrong,” Jane said. “Winter, please. What’s going on?”

The knot in Winter’s chest, so recently dissolved, tied itself tighter than ever. She swallowed hard. “Obviously you heard. . what happened in the Triumph, this morning?”

“Of course I heard,” Jane said. “Nobody talks about anything else. Vhalnich called for volunteers, and then the Colonials marched in-”

She stopped. Winter squeezed her eyes shut, as though expecting a blow.

“You’re going back, aren’t you?” Jane said.

Winter nodded, her face pressed up against Jane’s shoulder. Tears were stinging her eyes.

“You don’t have to,” Jane said, after a moment. “You know that, whatever Vhalnich says. You can stay here with me.”

“There’s more to it than that.” Winter wanted, for a moment, to tell Jane about the Infernivore and everything that had happened in Khandar, but she quashed the impulse. She’d only think I’m crazy. “I have friends there. More than friends. The men in my company. . I have a responsibility.” Winter opened her eyes. “You ought to understand that.”

There was a long silence.

“I do,” Jane said. “At least, I think I do. But. . what happens afterward? If we win. Will you come back here?”

“I don’t know.”

“You have to come back.” Jane sat up, looking down at Winter. She sounded almost panicked. “Winter, please. You have to. I lost you once, and by all the fucking saints I’m never doing it again. Please. Promise me.”

“I don’t know .” Winter fought the urge to curl into a ball. “I don’t know what’s going to happen. Hell, I could be killed, or-”

“Don’t talk like that. Please. If something happened to you, I don’t. . I don’t think I could stand it. I don’t know what I’d do.”

“I’m sorry.” Winter didn’t know what else to say.

“You’re always apologizing to me.” Jane tried to smile, but even by moonlight Winter could tell it was paper-thin. “Have you ever thought that you should stop doing things that you need to apologize for, instead?”

“I don’t. .” Winter shook her head. “I don’t have a choice.”

“Of course you have a fucking choice! Everyone has a choice. You can stay here, and when Vhalnich comes looking for you we’ll shove a musket up his arse and send him running. If anyone tries to take you, I’d-”

“You know it isn’t like that. I have a responsibility to-”

“But not to me?”

“Jane.” The tears were leaking out now, in spite of Winter’s best efforts to stop them. “Don’t do this. Please.”

Jane rolled out of bed with a growl. Winter could hear her stalking through the room, floorboards creaking underfoot. There was a splash of water in the basin, and then the sound of shattering crockery.

Winter rolled over, facedown, burying her tears in the pillow. The bed underneath her was warm from Jane’s body.

Time passed, imperceptibly. Winter stayed with her face pressed against the tear-soaked pillow. She must have dozed, because she didn’t hear the floorboards announce Jane’s return, only felt the delicate touch of a finger at the small of her back, tracing a shivery trail up her spine.

“Don’t say anything,” Jane said. Winter felt the bed creak as she sat down beside her. “It’s my turn to apologize.”

“I didn’t mean for it to work out like this,” Winter tried to say.

“I didn’t catch a word of that,” Jane said. “You’re talking into the pillow.”

Winter rolled over. “I didn’t-”

She didn’t get to say it this time, either, because of something Jane did with her fingers. She gave a little yelp instead, and Jane laughed.

“It’s all right. I’ve worked it out.” Her smile turned wicked. “But I hope you weren’t planning on getting any sleep.”

In fact, Winter slept better than she had any right to. The sun was well up by the time she opened her eyes and stretched, savoring the pleasant ache in her body and the unaccustomed sensation of the bedsheets against bare skin. The bed was empty except for her. She could hear a distant clatter and clamor of voices that was presumably the girls fixing breakfast. Jane would be down there, presiding.

If we win. .

Winter shook her head. She just didn’t know . Janus had said the Black Priests would come after her, for bearing a demon. But if Orlanko’s beaten, they won’t have any allies in the city. Would Janus still need me?

She sat up, got out of bed, and found a fresh basin of water waiting on the table to replace the one Jane had smashed the night before. Her clothes were there, too, in a rumpled pile. She splashed some water on her face in an effort to bring herself a bit more fully out of sleep, and dressed in yesterday’s creased, sweaty outfit, wrinkling her nose a bit before doing up the buttons.

How quickly we forget. In Khandar she’d worn the same uniform and even the same underclothes for days at a time, and counted herself lucky if she had enough water to drink, let alone wash with. Too much city living is making me soft. She ran her hands through her hair, shook her head, and went down to see if there was anything left of breakfast.

On the way she saw a couple of girls, idling unconvincingly in the corridors, who hurried ahead of her and out of sight as she approached. Other than that, the corridors were empty, and Winter frowned as she came closer to the dining room. Is that a drum ? What the hell’s going on?

She opened the door to find that the tables-and all the debris of the previous evening-had been pushed to the edges of the hall, leaving a broad clear space in the center. In that space, lined up in nearly even ranks, were Jane’s girls. There were about two hundred of them, Winter guessed, in a ten-deep formation, with one young woman on the end holding a child’s drum. When she caught sight of Winter, she beat a simple pattern, and every one of the girls straightened up and saluted . They had obviously been practicing this, and while they didn’t quite have the parade-ground snap, Winter had to admit they did a better job than most of the Patriot Guard.

Jane stood by one side of this formation, grinning in a way that Winter didn’t like at all.

“Good, aren’t they?” she said, catching Winter’s slack-jawed expression. “I thought we should get in a little practice before heading down to the Triumph.”