It was a contract. The marriage contract. A list of obligations, of commitments, phrased as a binding oath of sisterhood. A guarantee of her safety – which featured prominently – in exchange for her skills. She was used to selling her skills and parts of herself to survive, but this was on another level entirely. This … This was final in so many

She was one of their only captives: taken from a small and insignificant scavenger the pirates had attacked almost as an afterthought, charring her battered-down ship and breaking her bots with frightening ease, then marching her into this small and suffocating space. Of course they would not expect ransom from such a poor-looking ship.

A gentle pressure under Xích Si’s chin: Rice Fish wasn’t in the physical layer, of course, but the sensation was passed on through the overlays, becoming a perception on Xích Si’s skin, a feeling of oily warmth spreading from Rice Fish’s fingers, just as Rice Fish would feel the cold, shivering touch of Xích Si’s own skin.

The ship on which she was imprisoned, her prison cell only one room in a vast body, the avatar only a fraction of the ship’s full attention – everything else focused on passengers, on moving between the stars, on bots repairing tears on the hull or maintaining recyclers, filtration systems and airlocks. The ship. The pirate ship. ‘My name is The

Xích Si said, ‘What do you want?’ ‘I told you. A partnership. Proof of the Green Scholar’s guilt.’ ‘I know this. And I know you’ll go to the council with that evidence. That’s not what I’m asking. What matters most to you? Avenging the Red Scholar, or safeguarding the alliance?’

It looked human, almost – the eyes were black from end to end, and her lips, slightly parted, revealed teeth that weren’t white or yellowed, but the fractured, sheeny colour of metal in deep spaces. She breathed, or appeared to, but what Xích Si heard wasn’t air inhaled and exhaled, but the distant sound of motors, and a faint, haunting melody on

Ah. Grief. Xích Si said, finally, ‘It’s hard to let go.’ A sigh. ‘Yes. For you, too, isn’t it? Not of the dead, but of the life you had before. The one that ended when you ran into us.’ Out of all the things she hadn’t expected, compassion and pity was high on the list. ‘I don’t …’ she started, and felt Rice Fish’s hands holding hers. Pity.

‘To find your proof.’ ‘Yes.’ Rice Fish’s voice was hard. ‘If Kim Thông is indeed in communication with Censor Trúc and the An O Empire, then I have a problem that goes beyond a political struggle. The whole alliance would be at stake, because Censor Trúc wants to destroy us. But the council would never dismiss the Green Scholar without evidence.’

Part of Rice Fish wasn’t there: part of her was flying through the Jade Stream towards the Citadel; part of her was monitoring bots; and part of her was sitting, stiff and upright and unsmiling, at her wife’s mourning ceremony, listening to overblown songs about the Red Scholar’s exploits that were so out of proportion Huân would have laughed in