Zwarg. Two years ago.
An incoming call on my communicator dragged me out of sleep. After a long walk along the shore, I hadn't made it home until dawn, and by my most generous estimate, I'd gotten maybe three hours. Four if I was being delusional. Who on earth needed me at this hour?
Without opening my eyes I felt around the nightstand, found the device, and hit audio-only.
"This is absolutely outrageous! Madam, how are we supposed to interpret this?! The scandalous footage from last night is already on the federal holochannel, and you, you, have still not returned home!" Lorenzo's voice hit a frequency I was fairly certain only small animals could fully appreciate.
I winced. I'd always suspected Martin had hired a butler specifically engineered to match his own temperament, but this was something else. I cleared my throat.
"Lorenzo. First of all, where I spent last night is none of your business."
"But the damage to your reputation! You left the Palace and simply vanished! I didn't sleep a wink; I was beside myself."
Sure you were. You were worried about your paycheck. Because with that personality, no one else is ever hiring you.
"If you were genuinely that worried, you could have called. I have zero missed calls, Lorenzo. Care to explain that?"
Deeply offended silence. We both knew he'd gone to bed early the moment the lady of the house was confirmed absent, and had apparently caught something on the morning news that sent him into a full spiral.
"But why not the estate? Why do you keep staying in that tiny apartment when you could be living with a sea view?"
Because I love the sea and I go to the beach on purpose. And because I have no energy left for you, the staff, and the constant exhausting performance of keeping my emotions in check.
"Lorenzo, you know perfectly well it's not tiny. It's a two-story penthouse with three bedrooms. I'm very comfortable here. The estate is too large for one person."
"Perhaps I should come into the city then," he began.
I cut him off. "The robots handle the cleaning. There are couriers and drones for food, delivery under fifteen minutes, door to door. Everything is fine. I promise."
"Ah…"
"And I've set up automatic transfers for your salary, the gardener's, and the cook's," I added quickly, before the next wave could build. "Annual bonus included. Household expenses too."
Martin had adored his butler and left me an obscenely large fortune. My conscience wouldn't let me fire an aging Zwargian. And if I was being fair, not everything about my marriage to Gyu-El had been terrible. He had given me gifts. He had tried, in the beginning. He'd simply needed someone who wasn't me.
"Thank you, Madam Celesta." The moment money entered the conversation, the shrill voice dropped several dignified registers. "You are endlessly generous. Might I ask when you plan to visit the estate?"
Standard question. Standard answer, worn smooth from repetition.
"I'm not certain yet. I may stop by this week, but please don't prepare anything specially. I'm not entirely comfortable there, the surroundings remind me of my husband. You understand."
"Of course, Madam Gyu-El. Come whenever you like. The house is always ready. Have a lovely day."
I ended the call and pressed both hands hard over my face. Sleep would have been ideal. Sleep was not happening. I lay there for a moment, staring at the ceiling, thinking about how to spend the day. My fingers itched to grab the remote and pull up the holovision to find out exactly what had sent old Lorenzo into orbit this morning, but I pushed the thought away.
What does it matter, Celesta? Yes, it was a scene. Yes, it was undignified. But you had nothing left to give. Let them choke on their gossip. What can any of these Zwargians actually do to you? Nothing. Even Yudes, clever, calculating Yudes, who tried to trick you into saying yes, walked away empty-handed. You're stronger than all of it.
I jumped out of bed, cranked my favorite dance music to full volume, and smiled to myself, because ladies, of course, listen exclusively to classical. I ran through my morning routine at speed and then stood in front of the wardrobe, completely blank. My hand reached automatically for a dress, because Martin had always emphasized that I should look feminine. Except today I had errands, and pants would be considerably more practical.
My fingers drifted to the other side of the closet and found an expensive wrinkle-resistant fabric: silk blended with synthetic nanofibers. Tapered at the ankle, crisp creases, high waist. Which meant heels. Or at minimum a wedge. My feet ached at the thought. After last night, the absolute last thing I want is to put on heels again.
I stood there for a few more seconds meditating on which option was the lesser evil, when I heard a faint rustling under the rack of blazers. I bent down and found, to my mild surprise, the little robot vacuum stuck. It was blinking its lights pitifully, making small distressed whirring sounds, completely trapped in a fabric snare.
"Oh, how did you get yourself all the way in there, little guy," I murmured, getting down on my hands and knees to fish it out. "Let's see what got tangled in your wheels…"
I yanked a strip of blue fabric free from the robot's belly and stared at it.
Jeans.
It took me a full second to understand how they'd ended up in my wardrobe. And then I remembered. These were one of several pairs I'd bought before my marriage and naively brought with me to my husband's apartment. I'd come home one day to find everything from my suitcases gone, because Martin had thrown it all out with the explanation that ladies don't wear such things. It was very early in our relationship, and since he'd replaced the entire wardrobe with something new, higher quality, and more stylish, I'd forgiven him. It was only later that I'd realized I no longer owned a single pair of normal, comfortable pants. Or shorts. Or anything of the kind.
***
"My condolences on your loss, Lady Gyu-El."
The teenager with the sweet dimples stammered the standard phrase, went a spectacular shade of red, and held out a bunch of herbs, averting his eyes out of politeness. He overcorrected on that last part, because he didn't pull his hand back in time when I reached for the parsley, and for one brief moment our fingers touched.
"Oh no, I'm so sorry for touching you, my lady!" the young Zwargian wailed, grabbing his own horns in despair.
I was in my own kind of despair—I'd had my eye on exactly that bunch of parsley, which was now lying on the marble floor of the covered Mirror Market.
"I'm so sorry, I swear it wasn't on purpose! I didn't ask permission."
I exhaled slowly through my teeth and pictured the ice sculpture. Another one of Zwarg's charming laws: every male, regardless of age, was required to ask permission before making physical contact with a Zwargian woman. I understood where it came from; with a demographic skew this extreme, even an accidental touch could be interpreted as pressure. But in everyday life it was still incredibly annoying.
"Luke, calm down!" I said, more sharply than I intended, cutting off the boy before he actually started pulling his hair out over the offense against my person. I redirected quickly. "Nothing bad happened. You didn't hurt me or offend me. Please put together a fresh bunch of parsley and pack everything up together. The one on the floor is garbage now, so add that to my total too."
"Oh, no no no, this order is on me, my lady! It was entirely my fault."
I let out a slow breath and allowed myself to relax my emotional guard just slightly more than usual. Luke was young. It could take anywhere from a few years to a decade before his horns developed enough to start picking up other people's beta-waves. Every Wednesday morning, I came to the Mirror Market for fresh herbs and natural produce, and I always bought my salad vegetables from this particular fifteen-year-old. Even back when my husband was alive and called my love of cooking a peasant hobby. He genuinely couldn't understand why his wife cooked when there was a professional staff chef, but that one small pleasure I had fought for and kept. And every single time, I had to practically force the money into Luke's hands, since his usual customers were almost exclusively men.
"Luke," I cut off his ongoing distress. "My husband left behind considerable property and several bank accounts. I can afford tomatoes, celery, and a bunch of parsley. And you just had a baby brother, didn't you? Come on, tell me what I owe you."
"Two and a half credits," he mumbled, flustered, quickly assembling a fresh order and punching the data into the payment terminal.
I pressed my personal chip-card to the reader, waited for the familiar confirming beep, and tucked the chip back into my bag. The boy held the herbs out to me, then slapped his own forehead, pulled a container from under the counter, and began carefully packing everything inside.
"You're alone today. Would you like help carrying your things to your flyer?" Luke offered.
"Thank you, I'll manage, it's not far. And I stopped using a bodyguard a little while back, yes."
I didn't mention that I'd kept two full shifts of security guards for a while after becoming a widow (purely out of habit), and had only later realized it was a complete waste of money. Who on Zwarg was going to do anything to me? Martin himself had once admitted he'd kept them mostly for appearances.
"Right, yeah…" the boy murmured. "But I guess you'll need to hire one again now."
"Why?" I said, genuinely puzzled.
"Your new husband probably won't love the idea of you wandering around a market full of men without any protection."
"My what?"
"Well… your husband… I understand it's a hard time; you loved Lord Gyu-El so much, and you're still in mourning and all."
He glanced at my jeans and black tunic. Not that I was making a statement about my widowhood; dark clothing just made me less visible to Zwargians. The last thing I needed was more attention from people like Kristof or Yudes.
"Luke, why exactly do you think I'm getting married again?" I asked, very quietly.
Something lurched in my chest.
"What do you mean, why?" the teenager's eyes went enormous and he stared at me, forgetting all rules of propriety. "They passed a new law this morning. Federal holochannel. If a Zwargian woman is widowed, has no children from her first marriage, and is under a hundred and fifty years old, she's required to remarry within five years of her first husband's death."
…What.
The floor tilted. Blood pounded in my ears. Something detonated in my chest and took all the oxygen with it. Thankfully, Luke was still holding the groceries, otherwise I'd have sent the whole container to the floor. As it was I only swayed, caught the counter with one hand, and stood there. From the outside it probably looked perfectly ordinary. A woman leaning on a surface. It was warm in the market. These things happen.
Breathe in. Out. Summon the ice sculpture. The warrior maiden. The moissanite peaks.
Nothing worked.
The other vendors were far enough away, but a few of the older ones, the ones with better-developed horns, had turned their heads slowly in my direction.
Damn damn damn! Get it together, Celesta. Breathe in. Out. Picture the lifeless peaks. Rock doesn't think. Rock doesn't feel.
"Luke… say that again. Please. When was this law passed?"
"This morning. Federal holochannel," he said, with real sympathy in his voice. "Do you want me to help carry your things to the flyer after all?"
"Yes. And… give me your arm."
I focused on my breathing and quietly cursed one specific horned face from the Planetary Management Apparatus.
May his horns snap clean off. May his tail wither. May he…
"Lady Gyu-El, are you feeling that bad?" Luke's brows went up.
Apparently, I'd grabbed his arm in a death grip. I made a conscious effort to ease my fingers loose. Despite being only fifteen, Luke was already considerably taller than me. Zwargian men ran substantially larger than women: horns, tails, the whole package. No other species in the Federation of United Worlds had quite such dramatic differences between the sexes.
"No no, I'm fine. Let's go, people are starting to stare."
He nodded, took the container in his other hand, and steered us toward the exit.
Thankfully the Mirror Market had earned its name. Between the stalls ran a series of special reflective panels: sophisticated technology with an unfortunate origin story. The market had originally been designed under the name "The Quiet," the architect's vision being to use electronics to generate anti-waves that would absorb excess beta-waves in crowded public spaces. Something had gone wrong in development, and instead of absorbing emotions the panels simply dispersed them. In some ways worse than intended; in other ways, certain Zwargians actually preferred it, as there was no oppressive emotional vacuum pressing on their receptors. Either way, right now those panels were doing me a deeply personal favor.
By the time we stepped outside, my head was spinning badly enough that Luke had to dig through my bag himself, unlock the flyer, and load the groceries into the trunk, visibly mortified by his own audacity the entire time. I couldn't have cared less. He clicked the trunk shut and turned to face me.
"There we go, Lady Gyu-El. I'm… sorry for your loss."
"Right. My loss. I remember," I said, not quite present.
"No, I mean it," the boy said, suddenly fierce. "I'm not stupid. I looked up Lord Gyu-El's death date the second I heard. You only have a few months left before the five-year mark, and…" He wet his lips. "It's not fair. You still love Martin."
I smiled, and it came out sadder than I intended. He was so young despite being half a head taller than me. It wasn't fair that Zwargian women were pressured into marriage at all. The prohibition on contraception. The strict ban on imports. The taboo on termination. Even nature seemed to be pushing back; despite everything the Planetary Management Apparatus tried, the Zwargian population was quietly, steadily shrinking.
Sometimes I tried to imagine what it would have been like if Martin and I had had a child together. My imagination always stalled out at the same blank wall. Even with the Laboratory's staggering compatibility numbers, something quiet inside me had always been certain it was never going to happen.
I reached out and ruffled Luke's hair. He froze completely, eyes wide, utterly stunned, like something divine had descended from the sky and chosen him specifically to ruffle.
"I'll manage, Luke. Don't worry about me."
He pressed his lips together.
"I will worry, Lady Gyu-El. You're a regular. And besides," his chin lifted slightly, "my mom said Lacoste went about this all wrong. That's not how you win someone over."
My hand went still.
"I'm sorry, what did your mother say?"
"Well…" the boy's cheeks went red. "She was watching the broadcast from the Central Municipal Palace, the event last night. Mom said you humiliated Yudes Lacoste in front of everyone and basically implied his horns don't work properly. She says he'll dig in now and never let go, just to prove a point. I still don't really understand what point exactly…"
Luke self-consciously smoothed down the cowlick on top of his head.
"And what if I were to marry someone else?" I said, swallowing against a completely dry throat.
"Mom says members of the Planetary Management Apparatus are very well connected. They don't just have the power to push through a new law overnight, they can also," he dropped his voice, "put pressure on the Planetary Laboratory. They'd make sure you never got to consider any other candidates."
"Thank you, Luke. I understand." I nodded to the boy and punched the destination into the flyer's navigator.
Now I just had to make it back to the penthouse without crashing.