Istanza

And why had Silra gone off in the middle of the night once more, only a day before they were due to leave, without any word to her about it?

Such thoughts circled in Leeann's head like vultures over the dying body of her self-control, wearing her down, tiring her still further. Her head ached, her eyes stung, her heart thundered in her chest.

A cool wave of air blew over the bed sometime later, a welcome distraction from the continuing confusion in Leeann's head. She shifted, at once elated at Silra's return and yet tense in her chest that she would have to confront her about it.

She felt the subtlest movement on the bed, felt the silk shift as Silra laid down and covered herself. Leeann took a breath.

"Where have you been?" She said flatly, in tones closer to statement than question.

Silra was quiet. "Please don't ask me." She whispered after a time.

"I am asking you." Leeann continued.

"Don't. Let me go to sleep. I'm sorry, but I can't talk to you tonight. I need to think about things before I can talk to you."

"You need to think? I don't understand."

"I said I need to think about things for a while. This is all too much, there's too much that I have to think about, it's smothering me."

"Silra, please? Can't you see why that hurts?"

"This is too intense for me, Leeann, and I can't handle intense. You're just frustrated because you've got another day before you can leave. Now please give me some time, I have to sleep before I can think."

Words appeared in Leeann's throat but disappeared before she could speak them. Her instincts, once dead and buried but suddenly very much alive, screamed in her head. They weren't telling her about the escape, or about where Silra had been; they were reminding her of the end of almost every other relationship she had ever had, the moment of heartbreak that signalled the end of all the love she had made.

That didn't make sense. Silra wanted her, Silra loved her... Silra had made plans to escape with her. Silra had said – had promised – to help her get over her psychological issues, her violent need to dominate and hurt. Silra must want her – Silra couldn't possibly... No, it was a pointless train of thought.

But it was one that her mind involuntarily followed nonetheless, and it ended with Silra cutting their bond in two like a ribbon, severing them forever, casting her loose into the big, empty galaxy to go on alone.

Such thoughts were still buzzing in her head when the sun rose. Leeann dragged herself out of bed, left Silra where she lay – awake or asleep, she wasn't sure – showered, and left. She wasn't sure there was anything else to say until they were ready to leave. Silra hadn't said anything about their plans, so presumably they were still on. She would just have to wait and see, try to put the worry behind her for another day.

Her Koda were unruly when she arrived in the dungeon, and she had to keep them in line. Her fingers itched at her short cane, and before she could stop herself she had lost control, beating one girl until her thighs were blue with bruises and she could no longer walk, good only to lie in the dungeon gutter, moaning illegibly and shivering, bloodshot eyes pouring tears across her face and onto the stone floor.

Leeann could only look on in open-mouthed shock as the strength went suddenly from her beating arm, the urgent buzzing just as quickly from between her legs. She had her left hand there, in her shorts. She withdrew it, felt nothing but the slickness of her own heat on her fingers, now stone cold as it dragged across her curls and belly. She had done it again. Silra had abandoned her for one night, and she had done it all over again. Without Silra she had no strength.

* * *

It was late when Leeann finally returned to her room. She had spent most of the day trying to avoid thinking about Silra, and trying to forget about her relapse in the dungeon and the Koda who had spent the day hobbling around awkwardly on bruised legs. Naturally she had been the slowest worker of the day, and had faced Leeann's cane once more, although Leeann had been too tired and too sickened by her behaviour to even put on a good act for the sake of the Sect. She added a few fresh bruises next to those that she had put on the Koda's legs and buttocks during her morning rage, but they would not have satisfied Julian or any of the other Istanza, if they decided to check up on her.

Not that it mattered. Tonight they would leave, if all went to plan. Tonight she would start the first leg of her long journey to freedom. It would be best to get back as early as possible, to get some hours of rest before they left the cell in the black of night, but her legs took her elsewhere, on a detour that led up to one of the towers that was high enough to see over the Outer Court and down the mountains to the lights of the city. They shimmered in the winter air, distant and vague. In just a few hours she would be among them, amongst noise and laughter and voices and the smell of fast food and exhaust fumes.

She did not want to face Silra. She knew that was the reason for delaying her return to the room. Silra's behaviour in the early hours of the morning was so out of character, and made so little sense. They were in love with one another, they wanted and needed one another. They were there for one another, and yet Silra had turned away from her, for apparently no reason. Silra had taken a call on a portable phone that she had kept hidden from her, she had left the room in the dark hours for reasons that Leeann had not been party to. What was going on?

Finally Leeann found the courage to return to her room, heart in her throat and hands only a step from shaking. She pushed open the door, scanned the room. Silra was not there.

She paced into the room, let the door swing closed behind her. She glanced left and right, into the shower, under the silk, behind the door, but Silra was not in the room. It was forbidden for Silra to leave the room unaccompanied, and although it was dark outside it was still a little early for such an excursion to be safe. The palace was not yet asleep, there could still be priests and other Sect members in the corridors.

Leeann sat on the bed, let out a rapid breath as her tense shoulders dropped. The breath was followed by another, which became a sob, and another still. Her head fell heavily into her hands as more sobs came, followed by tears collecting on her lashes and running down her nose. She screwed her eyes tightly shut against them but they squeezed past; her lips pursed and her face creased uncomfortably as she tried to hold back the tears, but to no avail. She became racked with violent sobs as she let go, let the tears pour down her face, let her anger and confusion and heartache run from her eyes.

She cried until her eyes ran dry, until the sobs from her belly ceased, until she was drained and spent, eyes stinging, face itchy and damp, breath heavy in her throat. Only then did she stand, wash her face in the shower, drink a glass of water, and slip into the empty bed.

Her spinning thoughts had stopped, for a time. She was so tired that she felt she could sleep indefinitely, shut her eyes and never wake up, if only she could shut her eyes before the pain inevitably returned. She emptied her mind of thoughts that might dredge up the hurt once again – stopped thinking about where or why Silra might have gone; stopped thinking about how she was supposed to get out of the palace without Silra's help and what time she was supposed to meet their contact; stopped thinking about how she was going to survive in the galaxy without Silra's support to calm her violent need. Mercifully her head stayed empty for a few moments, and in those few moments she fell asleep.

She dreamed. She dreamed of Silra. She dreamed that Silra was sat on the bed, looking at her, smiling, but an empty smile, as if she was putting it on for the sake of it. Her smile had always been so deep and so natural, as if she was smiling because she was pleased to behold Leeann in her eyes, but this smile was blank: it could have been painted on. Her eyes spent much of their time downturned. Gone was the confident eye-contact that Silra always made when she was speaking.

"I'm sorry," She said, her voice as empty as her smile, "But it's not what I want."

Leeann tried to reply, tried to ask her what she was talking about, tried to ask her to explain, but the words would not come. She could not speak, nor move.

"I said wake up." Silra continued, her voice suddenly louder, more direct. "Leeann, wake up."

Leeann sat up with a jump, hyperventilated in the darkness for a brief moment before she caught hold of herself and eased herself back onto the pillow. "Silra?" She said weakly to the darkness. "Is that you?"

"Come on." Silra's urgent voice replied. "Time to go. Get these clothes on, quickly."

Leeann dragged herself out of bed, tried to wipe the sweat from her chest and back, noticed that she had fallen asleep with her leather clothes on. It took barely a moment to cast them aside, slip into the civilian clothes dragged from under the bed, pick up the computer and the torch and head out of the door behind Silra's shadowy sway.

"Where did you go?" Leeann whispered as she hurried to keep up. "I was worried about you. You just disappeared, no note, no explanation." She was going to sweetly add 'I missed you,' but her instincts pulled her up short, telling her that Silra wouldn't appreciate sweetness, that the time for romantic talk was over.

"I had something important to do." Silra replied coldly.

"Are you going to tell me what's going on?"

"We're getting out of here tonight."

"I mean what's going on with you? What's going on with us?"

Silra said nothing, just kept up her quick, silent march through the palace corridors. They were almost out of the upper palace when a noise from a joining corridor attracted Leeann's attention.

Silra stopped short, held up a hand in the darkness to signal Leeann to wait. She leant around the side corridor, scanned it, leant back.

"What was that?" Leeann whispered.

"It was nothing. Come on."

Silra moved onwards, but a hoarse sound came from the joining corridor once again. "Leeann." It said harshly, breathily, painfully. "Leeann, please help me... That Koda... Will kill us."

Against her screaming instincts to keep quiet and unseen, Leeann turned on her torch, shone its almost dead beam down the joining passage. Something lay in the middle of it, something white-skinned and black-clad and blonde-haired. She stepped cautiously closer, shone the torch around.

"Leeann, please help me." The body croaked again. It was Danielle.

Both her wrists had been slashed. They lay in front of her as if she had dragged herself painstakingly along the stone floor; twin trails of blood flowed back the way she had come, either side of a clear path in the dust where her torso had slid across the dirty stone.

"Danielle?" Leeann whispered, crouching down next to her rival. Her face was pale, her eyes glazed and lifeless. "Who did this to you?"

"Her..." Danielle hissed, a bloody hand clenching slowly to point at the end of the corridor. Leeann turned the torch towards Silra, who stood among the shadows, arms crossed, staring. In the orange beam a knife glistened in her hand.

"Silra? Why? Danielle, what happened?" Leeann asked, shock turning her whispers louder, but Danielle did not reply. Her clenched fist slackened along with her shoulders, the breath fell silent from her throat. Her eyes rolled, unfocused. Leeann watched, fixated, as the last light from the torch gave out completely.

"Leeann." Silra said firmly. "I have to leave right now. Come with me, or die here."

Leeann stood on numb legs, paced through the cold and dark air to where Silra stood. She said nothing as they made their way to the gardens, wordlessly followed Silra's lead through a small unguarded door into the Outer Court, went through a series of passageways that smelt of beer and working men – she'd forgotten that men at work had a smell all of their own – and out of the palace.

She was free.

"We walk this way." Silra ordered, and Leeann followed. They headed a short way down a narrow path that led onto a paved road, followed it until they reached a clearing. "And you're free." Silra said finally. "The car will be here shortly. It'll take you to the city, but I won't be coming. We have to go our separate ways."

"What? I don't understand."

"I don't ask you to understand, but I can't handle a relationship right now. My work is too demanding, it would never work."

"But... But Silra, I love you. I need you! Don't you see? You promised me you would be there to help me beat this problem I have. You promised you would help me expose the Sect!"

"And I have done. You're free. I've worked with Etienne before, he's a trustworthy fixer, and he's got you a fast ship to a safe place. You can start again. You can expose the Sect, you can have them all arrested, you can have the slaves freed."

"But... You can help free them!"

"I didn't come here to free slaves. I've got a job to do."

"You can help me! I can't do this alone, Silra, I need you... Only this morning I beat up another girl, I didn't want to do it but it just happened before I could stop myself..."

"Leeann, my job takes me all over the galaxy, and I can't leave that behind to come and live with you, I..."

"Then take me with you! Please don't make me do this alone!"

"I can't. I..."

"Why not?"

Silra looked her straight in the eye. "Because I don't want to." She said.

Leeann couldn't maintain contact with that cold stare. She had to look away, at the tops of the evergreen trees, swaying in the winter breeze. She realised how cold she was, shivered, pulled her coat tighter around her neck. Only a week ago she would have expected Silra to hold her, embrace her, warm her from her body. No more could she expect that.

She felt her stomach tighten painfully, wondered for a moment if she was going to be sick. "You had this planned all along, didn't you?" She whispered, her voice flat despite the quaking in her chest and the bubbling in her belly, pieces of a puzzle suddenly clicking into place in her head. "I wondered when I first saw you: how does such a proud, confident girl find herself taken against her will by the Sect of Bane? You weren't taken against your will, were you? You got yourself taken deliberately, so you could get to Danielle."

"Listen to me, Leeann." Silra said firmly. "I get paid a lot of money to do hits that others can't or won't do. Six years ago your friend Danielle was responsible for the murder of the daughter of a space station magnate. It took him five years and a whole lot of money thrown around in underworld bulletin boards to track her down, to discover that she was hiding with the Sect, hiding from the authorities, just like you. He paid me to kill her in the same way she killed Corrine Stanhunt."

"So what about me?" Leeann replied. "What about us? You used me to get to her, didn't you?"

"Leeann, please, it wasn't like that at all." Silra said, honesty showing in her eyes as little glistening droplets of water. "I did what I had to do to get out of punishment, to get somewhere safe to stay inside the palace, but everything I said to you was true. I do like being ritually punished. It gives me a sexual thrill like nothing else, and I did enjoy being punished by you. You know I did. But I can't handle a relationship right now."

Leeann blinked as tears filled her eyes. "You never really loved me, did you?"

Silra's eyes softened, her hands reached out to touch Leeann's cheeks, cradled her head delicately. Leeann wanted to fall into her delightful touch as much as she wanted to recoil from it; instead she just stood there, clenched her eyes against the tears and to get Silra's pained look from her mind. "Leeann, don't say that! Please don't say that! Of course I did! I just can't handle a relationship at the moment, is all. I'm a free spirit, I'm an assassin. I have to go my own places and do my own things and I can't do that with someone alongside me. It's always been this way for me, and I really do care about you, but this was never meant to last forever. I'll come with you to the city, if you want, but I can't go with you on the ship. I have my own ship waiting for me."

Leeann turned away as tears fell down her cheeks, began to walk down the road, stopped a few paces away. "You've broken my heart." She said, to the air as much as to Silra. "I really loved you. I really thought you could help me beat this. Now I'm going to end up back in the Sect once again, and I'm never going to beat it."

"I'm sorry." Silra called to her. "I really do care about you, but I've got my own problems I need to fix before I can get attached. I know what it's like to be Istanza."

"You don't even know what Istanza means!" Leeann shouted angrily, spitting tears from her lips, still unable to turn and face Silra.

"Hardly anybody knows what Istanza really means, and I'll bet you don't." Silra stated, her tone suddenly like iron.

"Do you?"

"It's derived from a long-forgotten language." Silra explained. "A language whose origins are lost in the depths of time. None are left who speak the language in its entirety, but there are a select few who understand the handful of words that are still used. It means 'damaged.' We're both damaged. Your car is here. The galaxy awaits, Istanza."

Leeann turned to look at Silra one last time, saw her hard face, wiped now of all emotion. She wanted to say something, something poignant and poetic, something that would justify all the hurt and anger and heartbreak that she felt bubbling up inside her, but no words would come. Silra held her stare for a few moments, and then spoke.

"I'm sorry I hurt you."