“Would you like for there to be more women? More children?”
Sithren shoots me a warning look.
“No more children,” Tethys says. “It’s awfully sad when they go into the ground.”
Something inside me breaks for this girl. She understands what has happened, even if she can’t bring herself to bear to think it happened to her mother.
“It is sad,” Sithren agrees. “And that is why we have so many guards, isn’t it, Tethys? And why we rarely have guests? And why I have a second home where we have other ladies living?”
He has gone to great lengths to hide his pain. Sounds like he has an entire sham harem elsewhere designed entirely to fool those around him.
“Yes,” she agrees. “But the guards aren’t as much fun.”
“That’s because they’re working.”
“But I don’t have anybody to talk to. Some of them do, but then they get in trouble,” she sighs. “I’m all alone even though I’m surrounded.”
She’s an eloquent little thing. I can see a lot of Sithren in her. She’s stoic, but also very full of feeling. Most of all, they’re both incredibly lonely.
“You two talk to each other now,” Tethys suggests.
Sithren and I eye each other warily. What can be said in front of her? Practically nothing. I don’t need to destroy the man in front of his daughter.
“Tell each other your favorite things,” Tethys suggests.
She's playing families with us, and it’s not a good idea.
“Tethys, your father and I aren’t like your mother and he were. We're not… We’re different. I’m going to be leaving soon.”
“You are not,” he growls.
“But I am,” I say. “You see, Tethys, your father thinks that I’m going to stay because of something bad I did once, but the truth is, I was only doing what I had to.”
“What did you do that was so bad?”
“I hid and pretended to be something I wasn’t.”
“I hide sometimes. Is that bad?”
“Yes,” Sithren growls. “The entire guard has to look for you when you do that.”
“Is there a guard looking for you?” Tethys’ question to me is unexpectedly poignant.
“I don’t think so,” I admit, trying not to meet Sithren’s eye and see his triumphant smirk. “I’m too old to have a guard now, so when I leave, I will find my own little corner of a world somewhere.”
“I don’t want to you to go. You’re the only lady that has been here since everything happened. I think you should stay.” She looks at Sithren. “Make her stay.”
“Don’t worry,” Sithren says. “I intend to. Why don’t you go to the kitchen and ask cook for dessert.”
“I’m not going to lie to your kid,” I hiss. “I will escape you, Sithren. Nothing I’ve seen or experienced here changes the fact that you fucking abducted me from my life and punished me in front of everybody in the city. You had ill-intentions from the beginning. I’m sorry someone killed your family, but that doesn’t obligate me to become another one of your captives waiting to be knocked off by the next mad poisoner.”
“My wives were not captives. They all chose me. Each and every one of them was glad to be mine. You have seen their quarters. How they were treated. You’ve met Tethys. Does she seem like the product of abuse? No. I had a happy, large family. Until I didn’t.” He takes a breath and shakes his scaled finger at me. “All this time spent spying, and you still have absolutely no understanding of our culture. I will not waste my breath trying to explain to you how women of my world have their worth measured in their ability to mate with a high-ranking male…”
“Because it would still be sexist and regressive.”
“Oh yes, so much better to be in the Authority and have to beg to be allowed to procreate at all. What was it, Vial 22-B? That was going to be your child’s father? And you were satisfied with that because you had to be, because they controlled your destiny and your fertility with a more tyrannical bent than anybody on my world.”
“If you want to prove how enlightened you are, let me go.”
“What if I were to do that,” he replies. “And you were to leave, bearing my child? Not because you even wanted to leave, but because you think you have to, because your wicked, immoral Authority has led you to believe that being possessed by a man, looked after by a man is somehow tyrannical, even though you have willingly spread your thighs for me time after time, and taken my seed deep in your greedy little cunt.”
“It is my right to go. It is any animal’s right to try to escape a captor.”
“Is that what you are? An animal? A beast in heat wanting to be bred and then fly away to spawn on her own? Just a thing to be fucked?”