Opalina Outpost

Chapter 26: Waiting

Ravi sat with his knees pulled in like a shield, staring at nothing. The grass underneath him was a little damp from the end of the morning, the air cooler than the Fennec region furnace he'd grown used to. The discomfort was not enough to get him to move.

Blindsided. Again. And this time was somehow even less fair than the first. This wasn't the result of a bad coincidence. Lio could've told him the truth. Ravi wasn't entirely sure what it meant that Lio had concealed it from him for so long.

The crew muttered around him, a few dropping down to sit in a loose circle. He heard Lio's approach, even muffled by the grass, because everyone around him got so quiet they might've stopped breathing. He didn't look up.

Jossen spoke first. "Lio, you know Suzerain Aureli?"

A heavy silence, and then Lio's voice, smaller and more timid than he'd ever heard it. "She's my mother."

Ravi blinked, like he was realizing it for the first time all over again. When the Suzerain had reached them, he'd almost protested that she'd made a mistake. She was hugging the wrong Alior; that one was his. And then it landed, and he'd turned to ice for what felt like years. He was still thawing.

"Your mother," growled Aziri, "is Suzerain Aureli." He got louder with every word. "And you made us fly a fucking lightship across the territory and risk getting brigged instead of just calling your mother—"

"No!" Lio's voice was shrill. "I promise, I considered—That wouldn't have worked, Aziri. She won't do that kind of favor for anyone in our family. She can't, the Commissioners would—look, we needed to prove ourselves!"

Ravi twitched. Lio might be trying to convince himself this was for the crew, but really it was for him. He wanted to prove himself to all the Mastali experts who'd laughed at him. And maybe to his family, because fuck if they didn't turn out to be fairly accomplished.

"Why didn't you tell us?" Rosareen asked the question Ravi was waiting for.

"I...I'm sorry. I should have. I thought I would, eventually. I just...my whole life, everyone who was around me was only there to get to my mother. To gain access, or to curry favor, or to brag. None of them really liked me, they just... I wanted people who would take me or leave me because of me. Without my family or the credits or the connections. You're the only real friends I've ever had." Lio ran out of air and drew a sharp, audible breath to keep going. "I know I should've said sooner. But I was afraid it might change everything, and I couldn't bear to lose you all any earlier than I had to."

The grass crunched as Lio shifted his weight back and forth. "My mother was elected when I was a child. I've spent almost my whole life being the Suzerain's son. My father runs the top Enlightenment lab in our Territory. My sister controls a shipping empire. My brother is the lead Engagement branch advisor to the All-Territories Council. But I'm...not anything. I wanted, for a little while, to just be Lio. Not in anybody else's spotlight, not in anybody else's shadow."

"You should've told us before the lightship, Lio," Yorune said sternly. "There were different risks for us than for the son of the Suzerain."

Lio had the guts to sniffled. "You're right. I didn't think about—I didn't think. Yorune, everyone, I'm sorry."

Another long silence. No one was saying what needed to be said. Every single one of Lio's reasons for his dishonesty were entirely about him. All of his justifications boiled down to the same things that had always driven him. On some level, Ravi understood why Lio had stayed silent for so long. Because of course it changed everything. The truth severed the already thin-stretched threads that tied his future to Lio's.