Shall Machines Divide the Earth, Benjanun Sriduangkaew [large screen ebook reader .TXT] 📗

He tilts his shaven head. “That’s an uncommon desire. Rather humble in parameters. You’re sure of it?”

“I’m sure. It will be unmitigated. Not a hair on her will be harmed and not a solitary neuron altered.”

“Done,” says the overseer. “There’s no second chance, incidentally. You can’t come back to us crying that you’ve changed your mind, unless you win another round.”

The thought of subjecting myself to all this again makes me want to rip out my own lungs. “I don’t reckon I’ll be doing that. Send me details of where Recadat will recover. I’ll want to verify for myself that she’s whole in mind and body.”

“So little trust in us, Detective. Not to worry—the Mandate honors its promises. I’ll send you the details once I have them. It’ll be away from Septet. Once you’ve exited the game you are barred from reentry.”

As if there’s so much to return to on this godforsaken clump of dust. “As you like.”

“Do you intend to free Ayothaya?”

“Possibly.” I did tell Recadat I would. “Is there anything else for me to do? Nondisclosure forms to sign?”

Wonsul smiles—a thin slash in the smoothness of his face, one that now that I’ve looked again resembles porcelain more than it does flesh. “No need, Khun Thannarat. Those marks are borne on your soul. We’ll find you wherever you go. Since your wish ends up being so . . . trivial, I’ve put a stipend in your account. It wouldn’t do to have an auxiliary citizen of ours look poor and tarnish our reputation. Oh, one last thing. If you ever encounter Benzaiten in Autumn again, let xer know that xe owes me an enormous favor, and that one day I will collect.”

I don’t press for detail this time. Theirs is an affair too strange for my sensibilities. “I’ll do that.”

Daji is waiting for me in the Cenotaph’s vestibule. Her fox-self is wrapped around her shoulders and throat, a priceless scarf. The rest of her is attired in swaths of gold, gathered at the throat and waist with dark steel roses and links of matte white. Her fire opal rests on an exposed shoulder, as visible as ever, pride of place.

“Thanks for being patient,” I say as I approach.

“Recadat isn’t going to appreciate this, you realize.” She crosses her arms. “Chun Hyang really did a number on her, but that doesn’t excuse any of what she got up to. She could have killed you.”

In another life, I might have chosen Recadat, that woman like a stiletto, that woman with the tiger’s soul. We’d have returned to Ayothaya together, ready to repel the Hellenes, and eventually we would command a chapter to ourselves in the history books. That would not have attracted me, the hagiography and heroism; Recadat would have been prize enough. A single woman for myself, that’s all I require.

“I have something for you,” I tell Daji. “It’s small. I’d be honored if you could wear it all the same.”

Her stance loosens a little. She cants toward me the way a flower might toward the sun. “Whatever you give me shall become my cherished treasure, Detective.”

I draw from the chain around my neck something that I always keep close. Two rings: sanded platinum, one embedded with a triangular ruby and the other with a sapphire. Red for me and blue for her, but Daji is not Eurydice, and I know precisely which better suits. I hold it out to her. “May I?”

She looks up at me, mouth slightly parted, her eyes wide. “Yes,” she says, her voice hitching.

I slide the platinum band on. It adjusts to the ring finger on her left hand, the ruby glinting in a perfect match to her clothes, as though it’d been cut just for her. “When we’re in a better place, we’ll have a proper ceremony. Red threads around your wrist and mine. The best wines in gorgeous cups passed from my lips to yours, if you want to be traditional. Anything you like.”

“Anywhere you are is ceremony enough. You’re my betrothal. You’re my wedding. You’re my home.” She stretches on her tiptoes and kisses me, deeply and completely; if Wonsul might happen to see, it does not occur to her to care.

I return it. I taste her. I show her that she is what I need, now and forever. We are each other’s world, each other’s orbit: a binary system. All else is irrelevant.

Passion is a form of bondage; I’ve always known that. But I’ve chosen where I want to be, the woman to whom I will bind myself until the end of my days. She makes me weak. She makes me strong. She is the rose that blooms in the garden of my heart.

This time, I’m not letting go.

Other Works by the Author

Machine Mandate

Machine’s Last Testament

Then Will the Sun Rise Alabaster

And Shall Machines Surrender

Now Will Machines Hollow the Beast

Shall Machines Divide the Earth

Her Pitiless Command

Winterglass

Mirrorstrike

Scale-Bright

The Archer Who Shot Down Suns (collection)