Shango POV: Day 80

  Current Wealth: 279 gold 31 silver 16 copper

  “Phelia.” I said, at last, looking her in the eye, and not the tits. “What a…”

  I was going to say surprise, the fucking moron that I am. I was in my bedroom, which was also her bedroom. Seeing her there was many things, but it was not surprising.

  “What a lovely dress you have on.” I finished, wincing almost as I said it. Great, genius, mention the lingerie, that’ll surely not give her an opening to do whatever the fuck she wore it to help do.

  She smiled at the praise, flushing that way white people did when they felt the slightest emotion at all, like cartoons.

  “You like it?” She asked. “It was my, uh, mother’s.”

  Her face turned even redder, and I resisted the urge to wince again. I was being seduced with generational lingerie worn by a long-dead MILF, spectacular.

  “What are you doing, Phelia?” I asked at last, realising that turning this into a discussion, a thing of pure questions and answers, was about my best chance of coming out on top. I was a smart guy, but a giant brain only helped you if it had enough blood to work with, and all mine was dangerously close to pumping down the wrong end.

  Phelia’s head seemed perfectly fucking clear, because of course it did, and her eyes narrowed at my question. This, I could tell, was very thin ice I was treading on.

  “Excuse me?” She asked, suddenly sounding at least four times as upper class, five times as British and six times as angry. A combination to send a chill running down every Nigerian vertebrae I had. I pushed through it, though. Unbalancing people was one of the major uses of one’s emotions, Solitaire had taught me that much when we were kids, and I’d always been quite inured against such techniques.

  “I mean what are you trying to do here, or do you expect me to believe that you were just suddenly overcome with womanly passion and had to have ravenous intercourse this very night?”

  By the look on her face, she had expected me to believe that. It was another reminder that Redacle was a different world than mine, and the men inhabiting it were made from levels of misogyny and hornyness that earth had left behind centuries in its past. For the most part.

  Phelia looked at me, then she stared, then she glowered. Finally she folded her arms, irritated, but not enraged.

  I’d learned in our brief time together that she was a woman who tended to understand when she’d been beat, and I let myself draw some satisfaction at having managed such a feat.The quick glance I took at how her gesture left her frankly magnificent breasts bulging almost out of her clothes was purely for celebratory purposes.

  “What’s wrong with you?” She asked, after her silence had lived long enough to start thinking about retirement. “We’ve been married almost a week, sleeping in the same bed for barely less time, and you haven’t so much as touched me. Are you…?”

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  Redaclans had a concept of homosexuality, and some of them even accepted it as normal. I didn’t think we were in one of those progressive regions, though, and Phelia’s line of questioning wasn’t something I’d expect from someone that was. I shook my head.

  “Then why?” She pressed, back to angry now. “Why are you so disinterested in sleeping with me and properly consummating this?”

  I surprised myself by not actually knowing. Was it because she was a bitch? No, not really, she barely was. Was it some distaste for her customs and values? Again, no. Certainly, I found her attractive enough, it was all I could do not to leer at her like some piece of meat. So why?

  “Because this world is a disgusting, evil hellscape that grinds human lives into nothing for no reason at all, and I don’t want to bring another person into it, let alone my own child, until I’ve done something to make a dent in that.”

  It was the truth, but that didn’t mean she’d accept it. If anything it meant the opposite- were humans inclined to value honesty and reality for their own sake, then we’d have had no cause to invent lies.

  Seconds passed, and I braced myself. Waiting for some snarl of anger, some cultural kneejerk, some snapping, ranting retort to remind me that I lived in a world of fucking animals. Nothing came. I frowned, seeing Phelia’s face shift, but only fractionally. Her features creasing to some dull, cold acceptance. Wordlessly, she nodded, and I surprised myself by being the next to speak.

  “Are you…Alright?” I asked, because I really was on a roll, today, when it came to saying the fucking stupidest thing I possibly could. Phelia only sighed.

  “I understand.” She answered me, not meeting my eye, and drew herself down under the covers.

  “Phelia, what’s wrong?” I tried again, but this time no answer came at all. She just remained where she was, still, silent. My first thought was that it was some kind of manipulation, a careful act made to pluck at my heartstrings, but I’d seen this woman lie and danced with her at politics. Something like this didn’t feel like her style at all.

  My second consideration was that I’d stumbled onto something more raw in her memory than I’d guessed, but all the moves that seemed to prompt were either bad, worse or unthinkable.

  In the end, I couldn’t bring myself to even lie down beside her. Just made for the door and let myself out in silence.

  We’d slept in snow, on our first night in Redacle. And the second, and the next few after that. Slept in shitty, leaking inns after that. Slept in carriages, hotels, spare rooms. We’d lived off stale bread, jerky, or nothing at all. Every single fucking moment I’d lived in this world had been a struggle, and it had all been because of people like Phelia Velaharo and her fucking family.

  So why, I found myself wondering, had I seen her eyes twist into the very same expression Solitaire and Beam’s had during the hardest of those times. What in the world had her so desperate at a time like that?

  The thoughts followed me as I made my way through the frigid halls, soft carpets feeling hard, exorbitant decoration casting jagged, ominous shadows across the walls to chase me. I’d roped a woman under my power through some contract, turned an unjust system to my advantage just because it was the fastest path to power. How the hell was I any different than the oligarchs we were aiming to depose?

  I kept walking, and the answer wrapped itself around my heart like a constricting snake made of ice.

  We were different, I knew, because we weren’t just doing it for ourselves. We were actively hurting ourselves, forgoing a good, easy life to try and grasp at long-term power and influence, build ourselves up outside the establishment. We were self-sacrificing, not serving.

  Pausing, my heels ground the carpet, and my throat tightened like a vice. I turned around, heading back for Phelia’s room.

  Self sacrificing. But we were pragmatic, too. If you refused to choose between the lesser and greater evil, then you were committing an act of evil. And my choice was clear. One person meant nothing compared to a world of millions.

  Even a person who called me father.