The Guns of Empire (31 page)

“Just a moment.” Cyte sounded weary. “Who is it?”

“Winter,” Winter said.

Silence from inside the tent. Winter gritted her teeth.

“I know you don't want to talk to me,” Winter said, “but please consider that it's coming down in buckets out here.”

“Sorry,” Cyte said. Winter heard cloth shuffling. “Come in.”

Winter had to duck her head to get inside. A single lamp hung in the center of the tent, and it took a few moments for her eyes to adjust. Cyte was sitting on her bedroll, arms crossed over her chest, dark hair wild and disheveled. Her uniform jacket lay on the ground, soaked through and coated with mud.

“I didn't want to surprise you,” Winter said, pulling off her own jacket. “But it was starting to seem like my only option.”

“Sorry,” Cyte said again. She wouldn't meet Winter's eyes. “I've been . . . busy.”

“I'm not
completely
stupid,” Winter said. “You're my staff officer—you're always busy, but I usually don't go days without seeing you.” She pulled off her boots and sat down across from Cyte. “We need to talk.”

“I . . .” Cyte took a deep breath. “I have to apologize for . . . what happened.”

“Why would you need to apologize?” Winter said. “Unless we're remembering events very differently, ‘what happened' is that I asked if you wanted me to kiss you, and you said yes, so I did. Have I got that wrong?”

Cyte had gone very red. She shook her head jerkily.

“Then how is that possibly your fault?”

“I brought the whole subject up,” Cyte said.

“You asked a question, and I answered it. I—”

“Look,” Cyte said, her face pleading. “I would love if we could just . . . forget about it. It was a mistake. It won't happen again.”

Winter forced herself to smile, hiding the extent to which the words pained her. “All right.”

Cyte blinked, off-balance. “Really?”

“I like to think we're friends,” Winter said. “It'd be a poor sort of friend who ignored a request like that. I just wanted to make sure you weren't going to keep hiding from me.”

“Right.” Cyte took a deep breath and ran her hands through her unruly hair. “Right. You're right, of course. That was . . . unprofessional of me.”

“The division needs you, Captain. Especially now.”

“Understood, sir.” Cyte straightened. “You have my apologies.”

“Good.” Winter swallowed. “That's all. I'll expect you back on the job in the morning.”

“Yes, sir.”

Winter nodded slowly and got to her feet, head bent to avoid the tent ceiling. She got back into her still-wet boots and put on her jacket, aware of Cyte's too-intense stare on her back. Part of her was still hoping for something, just a word, but there was only silence. Winter looked over her shoulder, and Cyte turned away, hugging herself tighter.

“Good evening, Captain.”

“Have a good night, sir.”

And then Winter was standing outside the tent, back in the rain. Her stomach felt tight and hot, and her throat was clenched.

Well.
She shook her head.
I suppose that means I need to find someone else to drink with.

—

The scratch on the tent flap tore her from sleep. Winter sat up, groggy, and groped for the low-burning lamp beside her bedroll.

“What is it?” she croaked, voice dry. “Is something wrong?”

“It's me.”

“Cyte?” Winter blinked rapidly. “Come in.”

The tent flap opened, and Cyte took a step inside. Water poured off her, adding to the muddy puddle near the entrance.

“Has something happened?” Winter said. She adjusted the lamp for more light and hung it from the tent pole. Cyte, she could see now, was a mess, eyes red, hair hanging in wet ropes. She wasn't wearing a coat, and the rain had soaked her shirt through.

“Why did you ask me that?” Cyte said.

“What?” Winter shook her head. “I don't know—”

“Why did you ask if I wanted you to kiss me?”

Winter's heart skipped a beat. “I thought we were forgetting about that.”

“Winter—”

“You really want to know?”

Cyte nodded miserably.

Winter took a deep breath. “Because I thought that's what you were trying to work your way around to,” she said. “And because I thought I wouldn't mind kissing you at all.”

“But . . .” Cyte shook her head, hair swinging wildly. “Why did I say yes?”

“
That
I can't answer for. Karis knows I'm not . . .” Winter hesitated. “Not ideal. In several ways.”

“Don't be stupid. You're
Winter Ihernglass
. I've looked up to you ever since the revolution. But I'm not . . . I mean, I don't have . . . that disease. I don't.” Cyte looked down, clenching her fists.

“I didn't know I had it either,” Winter said. “Until you told me. I just knew what I felt.”

“I don't,” Cyte said. “Know what I feel, I mean. I'm . . .” She trailed off, the silence broken only by the roar of the rain outside.

“Do you want to sit down?” Winter said. “Just take off your boots first. It's muddy enough in here.”

Cyte bent over and fumbled with her laces. Winter got up and dug out a spare blanket, setting it down beside the table.

“You're soaked,” she said. “Hanna told me that it's important to stay warm.”

“Right.” Cyte wrapped herself in the thin cloth, and shivered. “Okay. Let's think about this logically.”

“Is that likely to help?” Winter said, sitting down across from her.

“I have no idea. But it's the only way I know how to think about it.” Cyte drew her knees up under the blanket. “You wanted to kiss me.”

“I did.”

“And I told you you could.”

“You did.”

“And you did it.”

“How did it feel?”

“I couldn't breathe,” Cyte said. “And I thought my heart was going to explode.”

“Have you ever kissed anyone before?”

Cyte frowned. “Once. His name was Fetter Blalloc. It was at a Wisdom Day party.”

“How did
that
feel?”

“Wet. And a little icky.”

“So not very similar, then.”

“No.” Cyte looked up. “Only two experiments isn't much data to form a hypothesis, I guess.”

Winter grinned. “Obviously not. Clearly you should go around kissing everyone you meet until you've got enough to form a real conclusion.”

“Clearly,” Cyte said, smiling a little.

There was an awkward silence. Winter had to stop herself from drumming her fingers on the table.
Why do I never know what to say?

“Do you want a drink?” she offered eventually.

“No,” Cyte said, her tone surprisingly steady. “I don't think I do.”

She stood up, letting the blanket puddle on the floor. Winter froze as she walked around the folding table and sat down beside her.

“Cyte?” Winter said. “What are you doing?”

Cyte put her hand on Winter's shoulder, leaning forward, which startled Winter so much she leaned back and fell over. Cyte shuffled forward on hands and knees, one palm on either side of Winter's head, looking down at her. Her hair hung in a thick mass, dripping steadily just beside Winter's cheek.

“Acting logically,” Cyte said.

“This is logical?” Winter's heart slammed in her chest.

“You agreed to forget about this,” Cyte said. “But I came back here. Whatever I
think
that I think, I think that shows what I
actually
think is pretty clear. Right?”

“I have no idea what that means,” Winter said.

“I'm not really sure it makes sense,” Cyte said. “I'm going to kiss you again. Is that all right?”

“If you're sure you want to.”

Cyte lowered her head, gently, and they kissed. It went on longer this time, and Winter let her eyes close. She felt Cyte coming closer, and then something wet and clammy brushed her arm, drawing an involuntary yelp.

Cyte sat up, eyes wide. “What's wrong?”

“Sorry.” Winter sat up as well, breathing hard. “Your shirt. Is very cold and wet.”

“Oh.”

Cyte looked down at herself. Then, in one swift motion, she grabbed her shirt by the hem and pulled it and her undershirt over her head together. When she looked back at Winter, the expression on her face—hope and terror and excitement and vulnerability all at once—made Winter want to crush her in an embrace and never let go.

“Your shirt also looks . . .” Cyte hesitated, cheeks burning. “A little damp.”

“You know,” Winter said, hands fumbling with the buttons, “you may be right about that.”

—

Later, Winter lay on her back on the bedroll, listening in the dark. The rain had stopped falling, and Cyte's breathing was soft and regular. Winter felt as though her bones had turned to jelly, as though you could have poured her into a cauldron like soup.

She had never slept with anyone but Jane, never
touched
anyone but Jane. The two of them had known every inch of each other. When Winter had come back from Khandar and found Jane again, falling into her bed had been like coming home, a return to something long missed but never forgotten. It made it feel
perfect
—no fumbling, no awkwardness, just as though they'd never been apart.

This was different. It reminded Winter of when she and Jane had first begun to experiment, kissing and touching, each breathlessly daring the other to go a little further, stealing time in closets and empty rooms. Except then they'd both been ignorant. This time, after a certain amount of confusion, Winter understood what she was doing, and Cyte had proven to be an attentive student.

“Winter?” Cyte said very quietly. “Are you asleep?”

“Not yet,” Winter said.

“I need to ask you something.”

“Somehow,” Winter said, “I feel like I've been here before.”

“Sorry. It's . . . I don't know. Something I've been thinking about.”

“Go ahead.”

“Are you sure you're all right with this?”

“Cyte—”

“Not with me. With . . . this. It hasn't been that long since Jane . . . left. And I thought—”

“What? That I was forcing myself through it to make you feel better?” Winter ran her fingers through Cyte's hair. “You may be giving yourself too much credit.”

“I just know you were unhappy,” Cyte said. “That's why I started coming here in the first place, remember? And now . . . I'm not sure.”

“I'm all right,” Winter said, a little more forcefully than she meant to. “Jane is . . .” Her throat went tight for a moment. “She's
gone
. I fell in love with her when she was a scared girl in the Prison. After I came home, she'd grown into something else. For a while I managed to fool myself that she would change back. But she won't. And I'm . . . not the same, either.”

Cyte shuffled a little closer, pressing her head against Winter's side.

“I still miss the girl,” Winter said. “I suppose I always will. But that's the past.”

“I think I understand that,” Cyte said. Then, very quietly, “Fuck.”

“What's wrong?”

“It's nice and warm and I'm very comfortable.” She sighed. “But I really need to piss.”

Winter laughed. “At least the rain has stopped.”

Cyte muttered something impolite as she rolled over and began hunting around for her shirt and trousers. Winter lay still, feeling a rush of cold air across her bare skin as the tent flap opened and closed. A moment later it opened again, and Winter sat up and shivered.

“Cyte?” It was hard to see anything with the lamp out. “Is that you?”

“You'd better see this,” Cyte said.

“What's going on?”

“It's snowing.”

—

“Snow,” Janus said.

“Apparently, sir,” Marcus said.

“In May.”

“It
is
Murnsk, sir.”

“Even Murnsk has a summer,” Janus said, looking up at the sky. His face tightened, as though he could subdue the weather by sheer force of will, but the fat flakes continued to drift down regardless. “In the northern wastes, perhaps, or high in the mountains, but here? No.”

“But . . .” Marcus gestured helplessly.

“I'm not denying the reality of it,” Janus said, flashing a smile. “Only the cause. This is not natural.” He held out a hand, and a snowflake landed on his palm, lasting only a moment before it melted. “The Pontifex of the Black must be desperate.”

“You think this is
their
doing?” Marcus lowered his voice. “The Penitents?”

“Can you doubt it? First days of rain, and now snow in spring.”

“But . . . can they really do that?” Marcus shook his head. The Penitent Damned and their demons made him uncomfortable, as though the world he lived in were built on rotten foundations and might collapse at any moment. He'd fought them several times, but he wasn't sure he'd ever truly get used to the idea. “Control the
weather
?”

“You've seen the dead walk, Marcus,” Janus said. “At this point I would think you'd be beyond doubts about their power.”

Marcus shifted. “We're not likely to run into that again, are we?”

“No,” Janus said. “That demon was one of the Thousand Names we captured in Khandar. But the powers of many demons overlap, so I would not be surprised to find a Penitent wielding similar abilities. From now on we should be prepared for anything.”

“What should we do about the snow?”

“What can we do but press on?” Janus said. “We'll reach the Kovria in two more days. Our foraging parties will be able to send supplies by boat, so we should be able to stop and build up our reserves. Then we'll take the last step.” His eyes were on the horizon, gray and distant, as though he were already looking on Elysium's walls. “Nearly there, Marcus. I'm nearly there.”