The Stargazer's War - Chapter 3.13

Chapter 3.13: Petition

“Xavier challenged Li Bo today.  Broke his arm in three places.”

“That’s the last one, isn’t it?” I asked.  “Finally done?”

“Finally done,” Micaiah confirmed with a ragged breath.  “Threads, it's been a long month.”

It hadn’t felt like that to me.  From my perspective, the third month since we’d arrived at the Right Eye had practically flown by, but I wasn’t about to say as much to Micaiah, not when she’d been stuck dealing with sect politics while I’d been safely enjoying my career as a somewhat overqualified vac welder.

We sat together on the couch in Lucy’s living room, the fire crackling before us.  My right arm wrapped around Micaiah’s shoulders.  My left clutched a glass of cabernet.  Over the years we’d spent together, I’d come to truly appreciate Lucy’s cellar.  I’d never been much of a wine drinker before my life turned insane, but the stuff Lucy kept was practically a different beverage entirely to swill most mortal restaurants served.  Threads, there was a real chance we were drinking the best bottle of wine in the system.  I hadn’t seen any vineyards on Ilirian, and space-grown crops never reached quite the same standard.

Ariel lay curled up and slumbering on the next cushion over, completing our tableau of luxurious comfort to match that of our local overlords.

“I still can’t believe he actually did it,” Micaiah continued.  “It feels dirty.  For someone who talks so much about honor, it didn’t take much convincing to turn into Myra’s hatchet man.”

“I wouldn’t call him a hatchet man,” I defended.  “Clearly that’s a great axe.”

She didn’t laugh.  Can’t win ‘em all.

“Seriously, though, it’s probably at most a net neutral,” I said.  “The whole point is to keep them out of the power struggle at House Urlitch, right?  I know for a fact the people fighting there aren’t just aiming to disable.”

The latest death toll we’d heard from the ongoing conflict was eighteen, and still it raged on.  Xavier and Darla’s efforts had neutered Cassie’s platform to more than push her out of true contention, but once Myra had made her move, it’d forced Darla to stop pushing her advantage to defend herself, leaving Cassie a chance to rebuild and play at queenmaker while she looked for an opportunity to catch her sisters exposed.

“That’s the worst part!  I can’t even be mad at him, because there’s a real chance he’s saving these peoples’ lives by sending them into months-long recovery.  It’s just… dirty.  I guess I already said that.”  

“What does your refugee think about it?”

“He’s not a refugee,” Micaiah snapped, clearly irritated with her newest suite mate.  “Something’s deeply wrong with him, Cal.  He wants nothing more than to go back to teaching those two demon children who were actively trying to get him severely injured the first time we met.  If he were afraid of fighting, he wouldn’t want that.  Nolan’s more of a refugee from having to work the gardens than from this conflict.”

I sighed.  “Thirty years of sect propaganda will do that, I suppose.  ‘Any edge,’ as Charlotte says.  You’d have to convince him he won’t become the strongest cultivator the sect has ever seen by acting the doormat for a pair of spoiled brats, but that’s never going to happen because they are a path to power and his cultivator ego insists that as long as he has the resources his unparalleled talent will shine through and he’ll advance all the way to black hole.”

Micaiah raised an eyebrow at me.  “You’ve met him, what, twice?  You can’t possibly have that detailed a read on him.”

I took a sip of my wine before answering.  “I don’t need to.  His actions speak loudly enough.  Sect cultivators are mostly the same.  Lucy once told me that every cultivator thinks it’s gonna be them, that they’re the once in a generation talent that climbs all the way to the peak of power.  They’re all wrong, of course, and I’d hate to see the fallout of one of them realizing they’re wrong, but that’s the long and short of it.  From Nolan’s point of view, any sacrifice is worth making if it advances his Way, because eventually he’ll be strong enough to take whatever he wants.”

“That’s demented.  Being willing to experience suffering just because you might one day be able to inflict said suffering on others can’t possibly be a healthy philosophy for a society to perpetuate.”

“Does this look like a healthy society to you?”

Micaiah downed the rest of her glass in a single gulp.  “I liked it better when we were staying uninvolved.”

“Believe me, that isn’t always possible,” I said, thinking back to my own feud with then-Elder Lopez and Instructor Bao Long.  Neither of them had given me much of a choice.  “You should trust Xavier.  He knows what he’s doing.”  He knew a hell of a lot more than that, but I couldn’t tell Micaiah that.  It wasn’t my secret to share.

“Xavier does what Charlotte tells him to,” Micaiah countered.  “That’s what I’m worried about.”

Micaiah and Charlotte hadn’t gotten along on the best of days, and three months without any of us actually laying eyes on her certainly didn’t help matters.  I was worried too.  We’d all noticed how abruptly Charlotte’s story had changed from ‘don’t get involved’ to ‘do as Myra asks.’  Over comms she insisted all was well, but always with a strain in her voice that concerned me deeply.

Whatever was going on behind the walls of the Velereau estate, I didn’t like it.

Xavier, at least, had a plan to find out.

“Now that he’s done playing mercenary, is he going to push for bronze?” I asked.

“His next focus hour is in three days,” Micaiah confirmed.

As it turned out, most cultivators preferred to undergo the risks of advancing in a safe environment flush with qi and ready access to medical aid rather than in an underground ruin infested with nanites or alone in the vacuum of space.  Who’d have thought?  “I guess we have a karaoke night to schedule.  It’ll be weird doing one without Charlotte.”

“Mhmm,” Micaiah responded, apparently only half listening.  Having finished her wine and deposited the glass on the coffee table, her right hand was suddenly free to roam, and roam it did.

I took that as my cue to throw back the rest of my cab and return the favor.  Soon enough I’d forgotten all about sect politics in favor of more immediate, far more pleasant matters.  We may have stopped talking, but if actions speak louder than words, then really our conversation had just continued at—both literally and figuratively—a greater volume.

The rest of the world could damn well wait until tomorrow.

——

Xavier inhaled deeply and held it, feeling the veins of qi-enriched silver that spread through and reinforced his body.  The Arcadian Gardener hadn’t mentioned any such effect of the skorunti sap he’d used as his crucible, but in the handful of visions he’d devoted to his iron advancement, altering his silverskin technique to introduce the metal to the process had always led to the best results.  His entire Way was built around silver—the chief export of his homeworld—after all.  It’d certainly be the first Thread he touched upon, but that was many years away.

He had more immediate battles.

He exhaled slowly, feeling the hot water wash away the last of the blood and sweat that’d stained his skin.  He debated risking another peek at the hours to come, but his more rational side won over.  The act of peering into the future changed it, and anyone or anything with enough thread sensitivity could detect those changes.  Xavier had yet to see a timeline in which he looked ahead more than twice in a day and wasn’t immediately set upon by kidnappers or assassins.

He had a bit more leeway if the gardener could be believed about the wanderers standing still and the machine at Duras Tal going silent, but with that much divinatory power pointed at Cal, the last thing Xavier could afford was to draw attention to their particular corner of the galaxy.  He’d seen one great power or another descend to wipe them all out enough times to build a healthy risk aversion.

Xavier tapped the button to cease the flow of water and stepped out of the shower to towel himself off.  He’d already spent a dozen foretellings on the coming hours, already seen enough permutations of the same series of events to have a good feel for what would work and what wouldn’t.  That didn’t help his nerves.  He might’ve seen more successes than failures, but the future was, by its nature, fickle.  Unlikely events occurred all the time, and while the predictions he’d devoted to this had taken him the better part of a fortnight, twelve data points did not a conclusive sample size make.

He stepped across the locker room to don the fresh uniform he’d left for himself, stowing the clothes he’d worn on his way to the focus rooms to be collected later.  His plan played better if he went directly from his iron advancement rather than stopping at home first, so Xavier took the inconvenience in stride.  He wanted this to be perfect.  It had to be perfect.

A message from Cal popped up on his holopad as he departed the focus rooms.

Caliban: What’s the word?  Karaoke tonight?

Xavier: Karaoke tonight.

Caliban: Threads yes, let’s go!  Congratulations!  You really earned this.

Xavier smiled at Cal’s excitement.  He knew of few cultivators who would so celebrate a weaker peer catching up to them.

Xavier: Don’t congratulate me yet.  The hard part is yet to come.

Caliban: You’ve got this, buddy.  After everything you’ve done?  After making iron?  No way he says no.

Xavier: Your faith tempers my resolve.  Thank you.

Caliban: Knock ‘em dead.

Xavier had no intention of knocking anybody dead, and felt certain that however sideways things went it wouldn’t come to that.  He dismissed it as one of Cal’s mortal sayings as he closed his holopad and stepped into the elevator.

It whisked him directly to his destination, a mere handful of floors above the focus rooms.  The doors opened to reveal a reception area, complete with couches to wait on and a table of refreshments.  The only immediate difference from any of the fancier offices back home was that instead of a mortal receptionist, a bronze cultivator with a spear on his back manned the desk.

“Welcome, senior.”  The guard saluted him.  “Please state your name and your business.”

“Xavier Honchel.  I need to speak with Jean Jack.”

The guard faltered.  “Grand Elder Velereau is an extremely busy man.  I can help you submit a petition request, but it’s unlikely to—”

“He’ll see me,” Xavier interrupted as gently as he could.  “He owes me that much.”

This part was tricky.  He’d failed to so much as get in the door a handful of times in his visions, but framing Jean Jack as owing him a debt for the honor duels Myra had asked of him usually worked.

He waited patiently for about fifteen minutes while the guard tapped away at his holopad, his brow visibly furrowing as he disbelieved whatever it was he was reading.  Finally he spoke.  “It appears the Grand Elder has a few minutes to spare.”  A door behind and to the left of the desk slid open.  A copper cultivator stepped through it.  “Linda will show you the way.”

Xavier thanked the man and followed his new guide through the halls of the Velereau estate, his heart rate quickening as his nerves mounted.  He reassured himself that he would be fine, that his plan would work out.  It worked to keep the dread from his face, but did little to quash the growing trepidation in his spirit.

The woman—Linda, apparently—stopped in front of a metal door like any other, though Xavier’s spiritual sense caught several security enchantments on it that the rest of the estate had thus far lacked.  At some invisible cue, it slid open.

Xavier stepped into the largest and most beautiful personal office he’d ever seen.  Shelves of real wood lined the walls to his left and right, each bearing all manner of natural treasures, trophies, and even a number of paper books.  The entire back wall consisted of a single pane of tinted glass, behind which the Right Eye burned bright, casting the desk and the man behind it in near silhouette.

He didn’t stop.  He didn’t gape wide-eyed at the mezzanine balcony that ringed the space to provide access to the higher shelves.  He didn’t so much as flinch at finding himself looking directly at the dwarf star.  He’d seen it all before.

Xavier saluted.  He cycled his heart meridian for courage and his brain meridian for clarity of thought.  Then he spoke.  “Grand Elder Velereau, thank you for taking this meeting.”

“You’ve certainly earned my attention, boy, running around taking out Urlitch courtiers.  It seems Myra is due a reminder that my assets aren’t hers to command.”

Xavier didn’t protest being called one of Jean Jack’s assets, much as Charlotte would’ve rebelled against the idea.  “I’d hoped to prove my worth, sir, both in my efforts to serve the interest of House Velereau and in my prowess as a warrior and a cultivator.”

Jean Jack tilted his head, though the exact contents of his face remained obscured in shadow.  “Do you expect me to congratulate you on your advancement?  I’m sure reaching iron is quite the feat in whatever hole you crawled out of, but here you’re one of many.”

“Your own daughter is among those many, sir.  She’s a force to be reckoned with, and I consider it a point of significant pride that I’ve kept pace with her.”

“Is that what this is about?  I’ve heard of your travels together.  She credits you with garnering enough of the outsystemer’s favor to earn you both the soulship’s patronage.  If you expect me to reward you for something you’ve clearly benefitted from extensively, you’re sorely mistaken.”

“Not at all, sir.  I simply wished to express the similarities in our Ways and paces at which we walk them.”

Xavier couldn’t see it, but he could feel Jean Jack’s eyes narrowing.  “And why, pray tell, would you wish to do that?”

Xavier’s heart pounded.  The moment of truth had arrived, and for all it seemed he’d navigated the conversation according to plan, uncertainty, the only true constant in his or anyone’s lives, reigned supreme.  Well past committed, Xavier steeled himself for the worst, dared stoke the flames of hope for the best, puffed out his chest, and spoke the words.

“I, Xavier Honchel, future champion of the Dragon’s Right Eye, hereby petition you for your daughter’s hand in marriage.”

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