Loving the Sword for Its Sharpness, Loving the Arrow for Its Swiftness

"I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend." ― J.R.R. Tolkien

August 487 I.C., Inside the Iserlohn Corridor

It was a rough few days waiting in orbit around Cahokia to be rescued. The ship was in terrible condition, and that made everything, even sitting still, that much harder and more miserable.

The worst part of the wait came when a small group of Alliance ships was picked up by their long-range sensors, headed towards Cahokia. It really was a small group, and Yang hypothesized to Ansbach that it was a rescue mission for the stranded Rosenritter on the planet. That didn’t reassure the crew any.

Their ship, being as heavily damaged as it was, couldn’t move from its position in orbit. What Ansbach decided to do, the only thing that they could do, was shut down the entire ship before the Alliance group approached. This made the Hercules appear completely dead, a husk in the sky around the planet.

They watched with bated breath as the Alliance ships, some of them looking just as damaged as the Hercules , sent shuttles back and forth to the planet. They were a rescue mission, and they seemed too busy to take any potshots at the dead-looking Imperial ship. They left as quickly as they had come, and Yang breathed a sigh of relief.

“Well,” he said to Ansbach. “The rebels have cleared out, and we’re still here. I guess we really can report that to Braunschweig.” He looked at the grainy, magnified footage of the planet’s surface that their ship’s sensors managed to pick up. “They didn’t even self destruct their base. Probably booby-trapped it, though.”

Ansbach turned his back to him, staring at the display of the empty planet below. “You’ll report that to the duke, then,” Ansbach said. “When Rear Admiral Mittermeyer picks you up, I will remain here with a skeleton crew and take over the rebel base. I’m sure that the rear admiral can loan me enough supplies to do so.”

Yang was startled, to say the least. “Why?” It was a stupid question to ask; he knew the reasons why: it would make their hollow non-victory appear much more real if they left some nominal force on the planet, and it seemed like Ansbach had no desire to make the trip back with him and Mittermeyer. Still, it was not a pleasant task to volunteer for, when compared to the safe ride back to Odin that Mittermeyer represented.

“Just make sure that His Lordship sends a permanent crew as soon as possible,” Ansbach said, and that was the end of the conversation.

Mittermeyer’s fleet arrived three days later, and were greeted with cheers of relief from everyone on board the Hercules. The transfer of people and supplies from ship to ship was done in an orderly and quick fashion, as was Mittermeyer’s usual style. As Yang transferred to Mittermeyer’s flagship, the Westberlin , Yang noticed that she, too, had a scar down her side. She must have been hit during whatever fleet battle Mittermeyer had just won against the Alliance fleet.

Although Yang was greeted with a warm welcome, it was not until they were well en route to Iserlohn when he and Mittermeyer could finally speak privately. Yang met him in his quarters after dinner. His rooms were tasteful, if small for someone of Mittermeyer’s rank.

The Westberlin (and Reuenthal’s sister ship, the Ostberlin ) were both quite old, and had not ever been intended for use as flagships. Reuenthal and Mittermeyer had chosen them of all the ships available because of their twin names, but their use of the ships was always going to be temporary; likely when each of them was promoted again, they would receive a newer flagship.

Yang had never been onboard before, so he looked around before taking a seat. There were no pictures of people, but there was one landscape photograph in a frame, looking down onto a small town surrounded by fields from some high cliff perch. The photographer’s shadow was visible on the ground, which suggested that Mittermeyer had taken the photograph himself.

Yang pointed at it. “Barbarasturm?” he asked.

Mittermeyer was across the room, opening his small liquor cabinet to pour them both drinks. “Yeah,” he said. “I liked to hike that mountain, for the little while I was there. One of the only good things about the place.”

Yang took a seat on one of the couches. Mittermeyer came around to hand him a glass of whiskey, then sat down across from him. Yang sat with his legs tucked underneath him, but Mittermeyer leaned forward, elbows on his knees.

“You’re just itching to yell at me,” Yang said. “So you might as well get it over with.” He raised his glass. “Prosit.”

Mittermeyer frowned, opened his mouth, closed it again, and then finally drank his own whiskey before saying anything. “Your first command in years, and it ends with you losing so badly you need to evacuate the planet and run back to Odin. I thought you were too smart to need me to rescue you,” Mittermeyer said. “What the hell happened?”

“I underestimated the rebel fleet presence on the planet,” Yang said. It was true enough. He was tempted to tack on a sarcastic ‘sir’, in deference to Mittermeyer’s rank, but decided against it. Mittermeyer wasn’t chewing him out as a superior— they weren’t even in the same chain of command— but as a friend.

“Sure,” Mittermeyer said. “I understand that can happen. But even with that— I talked to some of your staff. I’m sorry, Leigh, but nothing about your plan made any sense. It has your name on it, but it looks like it was written by a first year cadet. A cadet Staden would like for playing things straight.” He shook his head. “A formal tank battle, approaching from kilometers away? Unless you’ve changed completely over the past few years…”

Yang shrugged. “I wrote it so that anybody could follow it. I wasn’t intending to go there myself.”

Mittermeyer continued to stare him down.

“What do you want me to tell you?” Yang asked. He was having difficulty withstanding Mittermeyer’s gaze. There was an uncomfortable moment of silence. “Do you want me to say that I should have brought some of the Braunschweig family atomics along? Bombed a mine full of civilian workers from orbit, before they even knew they were under attack?”

“That answers the question, then.” Mittermeyer looked away. “You did want them to see you coming.”

“Yes.” He tipped his whiskey around in his glass. “I wanted them to have a chance to evacuate. I figured they might have ships hiding in system, or if they didn’t, someone would come to rescue them if we hadn’t parked a whole fleet in orbit.” He looked down at his hands. “I had Braunschweig send the most minimal force possible, on purpose. Less damage whoever was leading them could do. I could have asked for more.”

Mittermeyer was silent for a long moment. “I know I’m not really one to talk,” he said, “but this is the kind of thing that’s going to get you killed, Wen-li.”

He smiled at Mittermeyer’s use of his real name. “I hope not.”

“Yeah. Me too.” Mittermeyer scowled. “But I have to worry that some day I’ll get the news that some scheme of yours…” He drank his whiskey, then poured himself another glass. He held out his hand for Yang’s to refill his, and Yang hastily finished his drink and passed his tumbler over. “Are you always going to make me second guess everything I see you do? To wonder if it’s because you’re throwing yourself onto the sacrificial altar—” He tugged at his ear. “Not like— I mean, I’ve been the beneficiary of that. I shouldn’t complain.”

“We’re even now,” Yang said. “So, forget about it.”

Mittermeyer shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

Yang wanted to say that he would have done the same for anyone, would have thrown away his freedom and become Braunschweig’s toy for anybody who asked for his help, but he realized, from the way that Mittermeyer was looking at him, that that would have been the completely wrong thing to say. It would have broken something precious.

“Well,” Yang said, “It’s not a debt that I want you to repay, Wolf.”

It was funny that they hadn’t talked about it much before now. Although they had been in the same place since on plenty of occasions, they rarely had more than a moment or two to speak privately. After all, on Odin, Mittermeyer was often with Evangeline— and since she and Yang got along well, there was no reason that she shouldn’t be there when he and Mittermeyer got together. But there was a whole half of his life that Mittermeyer did not discuss with Eva outside the barest summary, so it left little room for him and Yang to speak freely. The last time they had had a conversation by themselves had probably been the previous autumn, when Yang had asked Mittermeyer’s advice about marrying Magdalena. That had been a strange conversation, too.

But now they were together, and they were headed back to Iserlohn, where Reuenthal was stationed. Yang searched his memory for when the last time the three of them had been more than incidentally alone with each other, or alone with each other without some pressing reason for one of them to leave. It had probably been years. Since the three of them always met on Odin, Yang never having any reason to leave the planet, there was never a moment when Mittermeyer did not have his wife’s home to go back to. Iserlohn— it was difficult to contemplate.

Mittermeyer’s smile at Yang was strange. It wasn’t even really a smile. There was a light caught in his eyes, and he looked at Yang with such an intensity that Yang had to turn his face away, look back in his drink.

“Did I ever thank you properly, at least?” Mittermeyer asked.

“I’m sure you did,” Yang replied. “But don’t worry about it, really.”

“It seems like Braunschweig is bound and determined to put you in situations that will kill you, so I don’t want you to think that I’m not grateful.”

Yang’s lips twisted. “If I die, it certainly won’t be for Braunschweig. So it doesn’t really matter that I’m in his employ.”

Mittermeyer was silent for a second. “I never imagined you would think that kind of reasoning mattered much. Dead is dead.”

“You do know me.”

“Yeah.” There was a long stretch of silence, Mittermeyer clearly struggling to find something to say that didn’t cross the line of Yang’s secrets, or any other. “Ansbach isn’t going to try to kill you, again, is he?”

Yang smiled. His expression was soft but his voice was wry. “You know, of all the people in Braunschweig’s organization, he’s the one I trust the most.”

Mittermeyer laughed at that, lightening the mood significantly. “Nevermind, Wen-li, I don’t understand you at all.”

August 487 I.C., Iserlohn Fortress

It never ceased to be a joy to return to sub-light speeds in the area around Iserlohn, and to watch its glittering soap bubble come into focus. From far away, its perfect, dark roundness against the backdrop of stars made it almost appear like a black hole, too close for comfort. As the ships approached, more and more reflected starlight appeared in the silvery liquid metal shell.

Up close, the ships’ own reflections were visible. Circling the fortress was an odd sensation: even with navigational beacons, the perfection of its exterior gave the odd illusion that the ship was not moving relative to the fortress at all. This illusion persisted until the ripples of ships ahead sinking beneath its surface cracked the mirror, and the spell broke.

Yang found that he was only in Mittermeyer’s way as he tried to get his fleet settled back into Iserlohn for their scheduled maintenance, so, after his flagship docked, Yang exited into the fortress properly to deal with his own straggling staff. It took him and Kircheis several hours to wrestle everything together. At least Yang didn’t have to directly report anything back to Braunschweig right now; he had spent several days putting together a written report that he had forwarded back to Odin as soon as he had gotten on station. It put as positive of a spin on things as he could, and Yang thought that Ansbach was right: Braunschweig would not care about the destroyed ships, especially since Ansbach was sitting inside the abandoned Alliance base.

His duties on Iserlohn concluded before Mittermeyer was done with his post-engagement debrief with the upper Iserlohn fleet staff, and Reuenthal was on duty for the next several hours. Yang thought about getting a beer at one of the bars on the Iserlohn concourse, but decided against it, since regardless of whatever they decided to talk about, he was sure that he would spend the evening with Reuenthal and Mittermeyer getting very, very drunk.

So, instead, Yang diverted to the center of Iserlohn, to the massive garden complex that provided a simulacrum of outdoors, with the overhead dome showing a projected sky instead of bare metal, and a ventilated breeze, and green plants growing everywhere the eye could see. It was one of the best places in the fortress, and Yang wandered through it, waiting for the one other person he knew on Iserlohn to arrive.

Despite the fortress being solely constructed as a weapon of war, Yang always felt strangely at home inside of it. He couldn’t ever put his finger on why. He suspected that part of it was a holdover from his childhood, having been raised on a ship, but he doubted that was all of it.

In a funny way, Iserlohn was like his father’s merchant vessel: clear and utilitarian in its purpose, but inside there were surprising touches of beauty. On his father’s ship, that had been the art that his father collected, the pieces that stirred his heart enough to carry with him. The bridge had contained bronze statues guarding the doors; random hallways had been adorned with paintings hung on the walls.

Iserlohn had its touches, too. Down in the computer control rooms, Yang knew there were giant marble goddesses guarding the fortress’s nerve center. Every door and wall had the fanciful Imperial touch of whorled metal and bronze inlays onto the flat panels of aluminum and steel. And in the center were the gardens: constructed with great care and meant solely for beauty. Topiary in the shapes of leaping animals danced between cobbled pathways; statues provided landmarks for navigation; hedges and trees blocked lines of sight strategically to make it appear that the gardens were endless; ivy carpeted the outer walls; the ceiling was a constantly shifting projection, always the sky of Odin at her most majestic, nothing less. When the overhead sprinklers doused the ground with artificial rain, only the most tempestuous thunderstorm would suffice to flash overhead. At sunrise and set, the colors were so riotous and red-bright that they made the greenery appear grey. At night, the galaxy’s worth of stars above, and a false moon, were bright enough to read by. There were no tepid, cloudy days here.

Like the smooth outer shell of Iserlohn, its perfection could be overwhelming to the senses.

Still, much as Yang’s father could not quite escape the idea of art as an object that one could buy and sell, the beauty of Iserlohn’s gardens existed almost exclusively to stop the soldiers inside the fortress from going completely insane. It worked, though Yang had a dubious view of the sanity it produced, considering that they all continued to live and work as soldiers within the Empire, fighting a pointless war for a crown that did nothing for its people. But since he was one of their number, and he too was strolling through the garden, Yang couldn’t say much about it.

He crossed a tiny footbridge over a flowing stream and leaned on the railing, watching people walk around. That was another thing about the garden— here in this common area, there was none of the usual separation between officers and enlisted men. Spacemen second class brushed shoulders with commodores on the tighter pathways, and there was a common truce, an unwritten rule, that existed in the area to simply ignore each other, rather than stopping to salute. People even ignored Yang, for the most part, which was a relief. He continued his stroll.

Captain Oberstein looked just as dour under Iserlohn’s artificial lighting as he did under the warm sun of Odin, but when Yang turned a corner and found him, he was inordinately pleased to see his sallow face anyway.

“Captain Oberstein!” Yang called to get his attention, and Oberstein walked over. “Good to see you again.”

Oberstein inclined his head. “It is sooner than I would have expected to see you.”

Yang rubbed the back of his head, very sheepishly, and they began walking through the garden side by side. “Yeah. I’m not sure how much you know about what happened.”

“I knew about Rear Admiral Mittermeyer’s orders, and his own engagement in the corridor. It is not difficult to understand the broad picture.”

Yang nodded. “I’m lucky to be alive, I guess.”

“For my part, I’m glad that you remain that way.”

“Thanks.”

“Will Duke Braunschweig dismiss you from your post?”

“No,” Yang said. “Despite everything, I can still tell him that we accomplished our objective.”

“That’s good.”

Yang chuckled. “You’re the only person who thinks it’s a positive that I’m working for the duke.”

“I believe I said that it would be useful for you to be in positions where people recognize your talent.”

“Mmm,” Yang said. “And you think Braunschweig does?”

“He is not a man who would spend resources on a base forward of Iserlohn by himself. Even if he does not appreciate your talent like others might, he is at least giving you some latitude to exercise it.” Oberstein led them further into the center of the park, towards an area that was a thick copse of trees, with a bubbling water fixture nearby. There were plenty of soldiers strolling the park, but none within hearing range, especially with the rushing of water over rocks. “I’m surprised you would not prefer to capture Iserlohn from inside.”

Yang gave him a wry look. “It’s that obvious, is it?”

“No,” Oberstein said. “But I have studied your earlier Iserlohn analysis quite thoroughly. I know your work when I see it.”

“I’m flattered that you paid so close attention,” Yang said. He was uncomfortable with this conversation already, but he couldn’t escape Oberstein’s piercing gaze.

“But you would prefer to take the fortress from the inside, would you not?”

Yang couldn’t help but look around again, double, triple checking that there was no one in earshot. “It would be easier. Cleaner,” Yang agreed. “But I— no. I wouldn’t prefer it.”

“Why not?”

Yang glanced at Oberstein, a friendly smile on his face. “I know you’ve held the fleet commander hostage once,” he said. “But I don’t want to ask you, or anyone else, to do that for Braunschweig’s sake. You’re my friend, and your safety is worth more than that to me.”

“It would not be for Duke Braunschweig’s sake,” Oberstein said. “It would be for the sake of the future, and your sake, since that future depends on you.”

Yang looked away. “You have a lot more faith in me knowing what I’m going to do than I have in myself,” Yang said. “My student— Sub-lieutenant Kircheis— he doesn’t think less of me for not having any kind of design on the throne after the civil war, but I’m sure you do.”

Oberstein was quiet for a second. “It is a credit to you that you do not seek power for your own sake. But I think you need to remember that there are things much greater than—”

“I know,” Yang said. He ran his hand through his hair. “Trust me, I know.”

There was the chirping of birdsong above them. Oberstein said nothing, waiting for Yang to speak again.

“You’re the only person I can really talk to about this,” Yang said. “We see things the same way, or close enough. But you— it seems like you know what to do.”

“Yes,” Oberstein said. It wasn’t a boast, it was a statement of fact, as cool and clear as anything Oberstein ever said. “If I may say something.”

“Please,” Yang said.

“You must already understand that there will be no change here without sacrifices that are made,” Oberstein said. “If you cling to the idea that you cannot use the tools at your disposal because you fear breaking them, you will not be able to accomplish what needs to be done. If you fear leadership because you feel it is not your right to make these choices— sometimes choices of who will live and who will die— then you leave that power in the hands of people who deserve it far less, and who use it to much greater harm.”

Yang nodded and scuffed the ground with his toe. They were approaching a place where a group of soldiers were loitering on the grass, so, before they came within hearing range, they sat down on the nearest park bench.

“Too bad there’s no pigeons,” Yang commented. He craned his head and looked up at the sky. “I hear them, but I don’t see them.”

“The birdsong is fake,” Oberstein said. “I detest this place.”

Yang was startled at this rare admission of personal feelings from Oberstein. “Really? I like it here.”

Oberstein was silent for a moment. “There are no animals here at all.”

“I’m just surprised that you like animals so much,” Yang said. “I spent most of my childhood on a ship, so…” He trailed off. “I guess I’m used to places like this.”

“I appreciate them. Animals have simple lives. They crawl in the dirt, they eat what they know to eat. They fight and mate, but they do not love or hate beyond that. They do not scheme and build societies— or fortresses like this— that will outlive them. When one dies, it is as if it was never there.”

Yang studied Oberstein, who had taken out one of his mechanical eyes and was inspecting it for some flaw.

“And you like that about them?” Yang asked. “I’ve always— well, I don’t know if enjoyed is the right word— found it comforting, at least, that we have a history that separates us from animals.”

“Even a history written in blood?” Oberstein asked.

Yang looked away.

“You understand, then,” Oberstein said. “If you can face it.”

Yang was quiet for a moment. “Will you help me?” he asked. “Find a way through?”

“Yes.” He put his mechanical eye back in. “Whatever you require of me, you will have.”

“Thank you.”

Oberstein eventually had to leave to start his next shift, and Yang spent some more time wandering alone through the Iserlohn gardens, trying to shake off the strange feeling that had settled over him. Although Oberstein hated it, Yang couldn’t bring himself to dislike the eerie unnaturalness that Iserlohn represented. The gardens calmed him, in exactly the way they were designed to do.

But the peace of the garden didn’t stop his thoughts from turning over and over, looking towards the future and then away again, as soon as he touched it with his mental view. Despite knowing that he had to confront what he was going to do about Braunschweig after the civil war, Yang had no desire to imagine himself doing— what? Some kind of coup?

While an image of Yang standing at the head of a line of soldiers storming Neue Sanssouci might have titillated Reuenthal, it only put a shiver down Yang’s spine. And he didn’t really want to think about what Oberstein imagined such a thing would look like. Luckily, Oberstein was a man who kept his fantasies, whatever they might be, well to himself. Until it came time to make plans, Yang would not think about what Oberstein was picturing.

Mainly, what he rolled around in his mind was the question of what to say to Reuenthal and Mittermeyer. If one thing had become clear over the past few days, between speaking to Kircheis and Oberstein, it seemed obvious that Yang should not continue to keep them in the dark. He trusted them more than he trusted anyone else in the universe, and he suspected that either of them would be willing to go with him anywhere he turned. Now that the future was calcifying in Yang’s brain, or at least coming into a bleak focus, it was an insult to their friendship and trust to not tell them his intentions, even as vague as they were.

But the thought terrified him, for reasons that he couldn’t entirely put his finger on. As the end of Reuenthal’s shift approached, and the time grew closer for the three of them to meet, a strange churning took up residence in Yang’s stomach. When he pictured their faces, a jumpy restlessness came over him, and he leapt up from whatever park bench he was sitting on and wandered a quarter mile down the park promenade until he found another one. He couldn’t stay still.

That didn’t stop time from creeping forward to the appointed hour, and Yang eventually made his way to the restaurant where they were supposed to meet. He doubted they would stay there for much longer than just eating a meal, since even the dark corner of the room where Reuenthal and Mittermeyer were already sitting offered no privacy whatsoever.

They looked up at him as he came in the door. He was late again, somehow. Or they were early. It was the way things usually were, but it set him off balance already. If he had been religious, he would have thanked one of the great gods, whichever one controlled seating arrangements in the feast halls of Valhalla— he was sure there had to be one— that Reuenthal and Mittermeyer had chosen to sit at a round table, rather than a booth. He didn’t have to choose which of them to sit next to. They were all in uniform, and he as a captain sitting between the two rear admirals didn’t make him feel any more confident.

“Am I late, or are you early?” Yang asked as he sat down.

“Would you show up to a battlefield when the enemy’s already there and ask that question?” Reuenthal asked, his tone immediately sardonic.

“I see Mittermeyer’s been telling you all about how I need to return to remedial lessons in strategy,” Yang said. “But you don’t have to rub it in.”

“Reuenthal deserves to get his chance to chew you out, too,” Mittermeyer said. “Since I got mine.”

“Let me at least get a beer so I can be sufficiently prepared for the dressing down from my number one,” Yang said. “If that’s what I’m here for.”

Reuenthal’s smile was inscrutable. “Is that what you came for?”

Yang wasn’t sure how to respond to that. His ears heated up, and he picked up the menu and looked at it to avoid looking into Reuenthal’s mismatched eyes. “Strange first questions to ask me when we haven’t seen each other in eight months,” Yang said, trying to keep his voice light.

Reuenthal chuckled.

“Maybe you’ll get an Iserlohn post when Braunschweig dismisses you,” Mittermeyer said. “That would be nice.”

“He’s not going to dismiss me,” Yang said. He scanned the menu. “I did learn some of the right lessons from Staden’s classes.”

“Oh?” Reuenthal asked.

“The final report on the engagement, and the politics of who won and who lost, doesn’t always have to bear much resemblance to what happened.” This came out as a grumble. “Braunschweig will keep me.”

“And Ansbach will let you get away with that?”

“He suggested it,” Yang said. He was rescued from any further questions by the waitress coming over to take their orders, and Yang was very glad to have a beer in his hands moments later. Service here was fast.

“I should be jealous that you’re taking Ansbach’s advice, then,” Reuenthal said, raising his own beer to his lips. “Mittermeyer tells me that you trust him.”

It was never clear how much Reuenthal was joking when he said things like that. Probably less than either of them would like.

“I don’t want to talk about Ansbach,” Yang said. “I trust him to do his job for Braunschweig, which is more than I can say for any of the duke’s relatives. And I can work with that. That’s all.” He was working too hard to justify himself, he could feel the words in his mouth like marbles. He drank his beer quickly. Too fast.

“I see,” Reuenthal said.

Yang looked at Mittermeyer, asking with his eyes to be rescued from this. Mittermeyer’s answer to that request was only a little less cruel. “What do you want to talk about, then? If not your recent misadventure. I suppose I have already filled Reuenthal in on the important details.”

Yang frowned and looked around at the crowded restaurant. “Nothing that’s fit to discuss over dinner.”

“Oh?” Reuenthal said again.

“What do you mean, ‘oh’?” Yang asked. “I have no idea why that surprises you.”

“I had been operating under the impression that the great Hank von Leigh was going to keep his plans close to his chest forever.”

“I—” He stopped and collected himself. “Why would you think that?”

“We spent plenty of time together when I was on Odin, and you never mentioned a single thing.” Reuenthal traced a finger down the side of his beer mug.

“Eight months ago I had even less of an idea of what I was doing than I have now,” Yang said. “And that isn’t even saying much.”

“I don’t believe you,” Reuenthal said. “But I’m gratified you changed your mind.”

“Why don’t you believe me?”

Reuenthal just smiled his weird smile. It was Mittermeyer who answered the question. “At one point, you did say that you couldn’t tell me anything.”

Yang tugged on his hair. He now wished they were sitting in a booth, like they used to at Josef’s bar at the IOA, so that he could curl up on it. This chair was too stiff and exposed. “I’ve had a lot of time to think.”

“That’s a dangerous thing to have,” Mittermeyer said.

“Yeah,” Yang said. “I know.” He drank his beer, finishing his mug before the food had even come. “It’s not that I didn’t trust you.”

Mittermeyer smiled. “I understand.”

“I’m not sure that I do,” Reuenthal said. “You’ll have to enlighten me.”

“Later,” Mittermeyer said, sensing that they were already deep into a dangerous territory with this conversation, especially for a public restaurant. “How about you tell us how life on Odin has been, since we’ve been away from civilization for so long.”

“Civilization?” Yang said. “I’m sure you’ve been having a better time on Iserlohn.”

Reuenthal smirked again.

“Am I wrong?”

“Do you really want to know?” Reuenthal asked.

“Reuenthal—” Mittermeyer said, tone warning. Yang gave him a half-forced smile— he wasn’t going to die from this teasing— and Mittermeyer leaned back in his own seat.

He wished that he had not finished his beer. He picked up the glass anyway to give his hands something to do. “Life on Odin is fine. Boring,” he said. “I’m sure the only thing that you’d find interesting was the duel that Duke Braunschweig had all his staff attend.” He launched into a description of the event, and Mittermeyer and Reuenthal listened. Things progressed more easily from there, since they had reached an agreement that any and all fraught topics would have to wait for privacy.

Yang made no mention of Magdalena, even though she occupied half his free time on Odin. If Yang knew one thing about Reuenthal, it was that he had no desire to listen to Yang talk about his upcoming wedding, or his fiancee. He talked instead about the Mariendorfs: the trouble that Count Mariendorf was having in his role as peacemaker between outlying colonies and the crown, and Hilde’s blossoming friendship with Lady Elizabeth. He talked about palace politics: Braunschweig family gossip, the ongoing tensions with the Littenheim clan, and how Prime Minister Lichtenlade seemed to be taking over more and more power from the ailing Kaiser. All of it skirted just shy of anything that Yang had direct input to.

Unfortunately, being so close to Braunschweig meant that anything Yang could talk about aside from his most personal business— which he was not going to discuss— was directly tied into the Gordian knot of palace power games. And that knot was only going to be cut apart with civil war. Reuenthal and Mittermeyer paid keen attention to everything he said, not just because they were out of the loop of capital news and wanted any scraps of information, but because they wondered if Yang would say anything further about his own intentions for the war. For all Yang wanted to be an outside observer, he wouldn’t be able to pretend that he was much longer.

At least this less personal change in topic, and the arrival of their dinner, gave Yang a chance to, if not relax, prepare for what he was going to say about his own involvement.

The funny thing was, he didn’t think it really mattered much to Reuenthal and Mittermeyer what his plans were. They cared, of course, and would certainly have valuable input. But his motivations, his ultimate goals— they were secondary to the fact those goals and motivations were his . They trusted him, not an abstract ideal. The same was true of many people in his orbit, and it never failed to make him feel deeply uncomfortable. The end of Rudolph’s legacy of tyranny and oppression, a cessation of the unending war that needlessly swallowed up life after life, self-determination and freedom for all the billions of citizens of the Empire— all of these things should have been larger than Yang Wen-li, should have been the motive force for everyone around him. But, with small exceptions, they weren’t.

(Yang thought dolefully of Kircheis’s friend Martin, who couldn’t even be considered Yang’s friend. Martin had his own ideals, as dangerous to his own safety and Kircheis’s as they were, and this made Yang fonder of him than he had any right to be.)

Oberstein could convince him to take action by reassuring Yang that whatever he did was not for his own sake. They shared the understanding that Yang was a vessel through which history might pass. The course of events could become like water pouring through him, possibly even emptying him out of everything that wasn’t necessary to secure a better future— everything that was an obstacle on the water’s path. This was not precisely a comforting view, but it was better than the alternatives.

What was strange was that this reasoning was almost completely orthogonal to why Yang had hesitated to tell Reuenthal and Mittermeyer any of his plans before. Yang could treat his own life like it meant far less than what he could accomplish with it, but when he thought about treating Reuenthal and Mittermeyer, or Kircheis, or Hilde— or even Oberstein— like they were equivalent tools, his blood ran cold. Reuenthal and Mittermeyer were not valuable to him for whatever they could do or accomplish, even in service of the greatest goal. They were valuable to him because— well, even with the strange turning in his stomach that made it hard for him to eat his dinner in the restaurant, glancing at them across the table, it was not difficult for him to look at their faces and understand it was because he loved them. It was not the kind of thing that he would write down or say aloud, but it was undeniably true.

Some of his contemplation must have shown on his face when he looked at Mittermeyer. He put down his napkin and asked, “Are you alright, Leigh?”

“Oh— yes, I’m fine,” Yang said.

Mittermeyer was unconvinced, but Yang smiled wanly at him and finished his remaining pasta.

They ended up leaving the restaurant and heading to Reuenthal’s flagship, the Ostberlin , which was docked in among the rest of the Iserlohn stationed fleet. Unlike Mittermeyer, who was assigned to patrol the corridor with his fleet, Reuenthal only ever left Iserlohn for running drills. He remarked that he found it tedious.

The Ostberlin was also a small ship, and if Yang had been feeling in a less strange mood, he would have given some tidbit about how the young man who had once conned his way aboard this vessel, Reinhard von Müsel, was now working on Phezzan as an attache to the Alliance’s embassy. Reuenthal wouldn’t have appreciated that comment on the best of days, however, so Yang kept silent and merely wondered if he was seeing the same route through the ship as Reinhard had traversed.

Reuenthal let them into his quarters perfunctorily, and discarded his jacket before finding glasses to pour them drinks. His personal decor was less sparse than Mittermeyer’s. Two big palm plants sat on either side of the couch, sitting in plastic pots labeled for transport to the Iserlohn gardens. The landscaping crew must have given extras out to the senior officers to decorate their quarters. As Yang glanced around, he looked through the open door to Reuenthal’s bedroom and he saw the sword he had gifted him many years ago still hanging up above the bed. This made Yang smile as he sat down on the armchair.

Mittermeyer sprawled out on the dark green couch, tossing his own jacket on the armrest and stretching his arms out along the back, following Reuenthal with his eyes as he fixed them drinks. They had continued their conversation from dinner as they walked in— something about training exercises Reuenthal had been running with the stationed fleet— but Yang wasn’t paying much attention.

The beer from dinner had made him a little loose and fuzzy, though not more than that, but he found his attention trapped on watching the way Reuenthal and Mittermeyer moved so familiarly around the space. Their voices were a low and pleasant buzz in his ears, meaning only there in the lifting and dropping of tone. He pulled his feet up onto the seat of the armchair, so that he wasn’t in the way as Reuenthal walked by to hand drinks to them, and he watched as Reuenthal sat casually down inside Mittermeyer’s wingspan. Looking at them was like being a student again, like the intervening near-decade had been a strange dream, and he was back in Reuenthal’s dorm room, a strong feeling— warm, if not light— in his breast.

He realized that as he was contemplating them, they were looking back at him. This realization startled him, but he had nowhere to flee from their gazes. He raised his drink.

“Prosit,” Reuenthal said, and drank.

“Prosit.” Yang hit his teeth on his glass.

Mittermeyer broke the silence punctuated by the clinking of ice. “So, are you going to tell us what secrets you’ve been keeping?”

“I don’t know how to begin,” Yang admitted. He found Reuenthal’s eyes, searched them for what Reuenthal wanted to hear, but he couldn’t interpret what he found there. Reuenthal met his gaze, but Yang was distracted by the way his left hand trailed in the fronds of the palm plant at his side, twirling his fingers around in the leaves. Mittermeyer’s hand was equally distracting on Reuenthal’s shoulder.

“Try the beginning,” Mittermeyer said.

Yang let out a breath, and tilted his head to the ceiling, baring his throat, closing his eyes. Their twin gazes were still on him, and he could feel the tight hum of his voice in his throat, but it was easier to speak this way. “I didn’t ever want to leave the IOA, or get drawn into court politics,” he said. “You know that. If I could have stayed out of it, I would have.”

“There’s no sentence that starts like that and doesn’t end with a ‘but,’” Mittermeyer said.

Yang ignored the interruption. “I don’t want to think about it like it’s an opportunity. It is, though.” He tugged at his hair, his posture strange and bird-like in the armchair.

“An opportunity for what, Wen-li?” Reuenthal asked, his voice dipped low.

Yang opened his eyes again, wide and honest, looking at Reuenthal. “Change, at least.”

He had to turn away from Reuenthal’s stare after a moment, seeking refuge in Mittermeyer’s calmer gaze, but Mittermeyer looked strange, too. There was the old, torn confusion on his face— Yang had seen it many times— his brow furrowed and lips pinched but eyes open wide and thoughtful.

Yang addressed his next comment to that conflict in Mittermeyer’s expression. “The reason I didn’t want to say anything, before, was that I didn’t want to drag you into something you didn’t want to be involved in.” That wasn’t true, but he couldn’t put words to the truer thing.

“Are you talking about treason?” Mittermeyer asked.

Yang rubbed the back of his head. “I don’t know.” He studied Mittermeyer. “The Goldenbaum dynasty is— everything’s rotten, to the core.” Yang shook his head. “If I have an opportunity to make things better, I feel like I have an obligation to take it.”

“No matter what the cost,” Mittermeyer said. His voice was strained.

“No,” Yang said. This was an admission, and a hard one to make. “There’s some prices I wouldn’t pay.”

“Oh?” Reuenthal asked. His idle fingers ripped one of the leaves off the palm plant, the action belying his own tension more than his voice or face.

“You,” Yang said. He made sure to look at Mittermeyer, to make sure he knew he meant both of them. “I wouldn’t do anything that would cost our friendship.” That, too, wasn’t quite it, but it was enough. He looked down into his cup.

“And you believe that there is something you could do to cost that?” Reuenthal asked. He turned his glass, catching the light. “I didn’t know you thought that my word was worth so little.” His tone was light— he wasn’t angry, but he wasn’t joking, either. “I always intended to keep my vow to you.”

It was like they were back in school, Reuenthal professing his loyalty to Yang, in whatever he chose to do. Reaffirming vows of nearly a decade ago.

“No,” Yang said. “I know what your word is worth.” Their eyes met, and Reuenthal nodded.

Mittermeyer had been listening to this exchange, struggling with it, and his eyes flicked between the two of them. “What do you need me to do?” Mittermeyer asked finally.

Yang looked at him. “Mittermeyer—”

“Not because I need to repay a debt,” he said. “Don’t think it’s that.” Although his words rang true, he looked down into his hands rather than at Yang or Reuenthal.

“What is your reason, then?” Reuenthal asked. He tore another frond off the palm tree. There was a collection of the plucked leaves gathering on the side table now.

The tension in Mittermeyer’s body was visible, his arms held so stiffly that his muscles stood out beneath the white linen of his shirtsleeves. “I can’t make the same mistake twice,” he said. “So, whatever you need from me, I’ll do it.”

Yang understood. Mittermeyer had chosen respectability over loyalty to Reuenthal before, and that had cost him dearly.

“Wolf,” Yang said. Mittermeyer looked up at him. “I wouldn’t— even if you didn’t want to be a part— you’re still—” He didn’t have the right words. He stopped and tried again. “It’s not a condition of my friendship. I’d rather give it up than make you feel like you had to do it for my sake.”

Mittermeyer’s smile was pained, but genuine. “You’d just do it on your own.”

That was true, and Yang couldn’t deny it. He looked away. “Yeah. Probably.”

“And I’d rather do it with you,” Mittermeyer said. Now that it was all in the air, he relaxed. He always was calmer once he’d made a decision, though Yang wasn’t sure that calm ever lasted more than a few hours, until he started to regret it.

“So,” Mittermeyer said, strained cheerfulness in his voice, “tell us what you’re planning to do.” He raised his glass and gestured for Yang to speak.

Yang felt like he needed a moment to breathe, so he finished his drink before he said. “I think it’s a mistake to make too many plans too far ahead. But at the very least, we know that Braunschweig and Littenheim are going to fight for the throne.” Lecture mode, though it felt funny to be delivering to his friends, was easier. Still, the next sentence took some work to phrase and admit. “If I want to be in a position to influence what happens after the civil war, Braunschweig has to win.”

He began his explanation of his plan to win the war. It began with breaking down what Yang considered to be the weak points of Littenheim’s coalition, and what would need to be done to actually install Elizabeth on the throne. Then he moved into describing the resources that he had encouraged Braunschweig to gather, and explained his Iserlohn gambit.

By this point, Reuenthal had refilled his glass several times, so he was feeling much looser, and his posture and narrative style reflected it. Without paper, since he didn’t want to risk writing anything down here, Yang was forced to resort to ever more elaborate hand gestures in his explanations, rather than his preference of pointing at scribbled diagrams. Reuenthal and Mittermeyer were well used to his style, though, and followed along. They interjected, asked questions and made suggestions, any time they had one.

As they spoke, Mittermeyer leaned further onto Reuenthal, brushing his hand slowly up and down his back. Reuenthal was idly tying knots in the collection of fronds that he had stripped from his palm tree, fashioning the leaves into a braided rope on his knee. It seemed to be serving the purpose of moderating his drinking, as he would reach for his glass on the side table, and then change course and pick up a leaf instead. Though it didn’t make him less drunk than Yang, it at least only made them equally impaired.

“That’s why Braunschweig took me on in the first place,” Yang said. “I promised to capture Iserlohn for him.”

“Oh,” Mittermeyer said. “I should be flattered to be worth as much as a fortress.”

“You should be flattered, but you’re not?” Reuenthal asked. “I think your worth is quite clear.”

Mittermeyer shook his head, but he was smiling. “I’m just surprised that Braunschweig thinks it’s possible to capture this place. Do you think you can capture Iserlohn?” Mittermeyer asked. He looked around to encompass the fortress, despite the fact that they were on the Ostberlin. His tone was dubious. “You always ignored it in our games.”

“Yes,” Yang said. “It would be easier from the inside, but I think— there’s no such thing as an unsinkable ship.”

“It would be easier from the inside,” Reuenthal intoned. “How fortunate that I am posted here.”

Yang shook his head. “No guarantees you’ll stay here by the time the Kaiser dies. Better to plan ahead.”

He finished his drink and looked sadly down into the empty cup. Reuenthal reached for the bottle and leaned heavily across the coffee table to pour him some more without even asking. Reuenthal steadied Yang’s hand with his own when Yang held out the glass, which made Yang’s stomach flip with something other than alcohol.

Yang was going to have a terrible headache in the morning, but for now he felt pretty good. He probably wasn’t doing the best job at explaining the finer points of his strategy, but the relief of simply talking about it with them was enough that it didn’t matter. Plans were sure to change between then and now, anyway.

“Anyway, that’s why I was on Cahokia… Learned about that place from my spy on Phezzan.” He yawned.

“You have a spy on Phezzan?” Mittermeyer asked. “You have been busy.” He laughed. “I guess I shouldn’t have thought that you needed my help for anything.”

“I do,” Yang said, drunk and very earnest.

Mittermeyer smiled, pleased. During Yang’s explanations, he had scooted even closer to Reuenthal on the couch. Their sides were pressed together, and his hand had moved from Reuenthal’s back to his side, drifting in lazy arcs up and down between his ribs and his hips.

“Who’s your spy?” Reuenthal asked. “How’d you find him? What makes you trust him?”

“He’s a former student of mine…” By the time that Yang had finished his, admittedly rather garbled, explanation of his correspondence with Muller, he had finished his drink. Although he didn’t think he couldn’t deliver any more technical information close to coherently, Reuenthal was still looking at him, asking for more. “I don’t think there’s anything more to tell,” Yang said. “That’s all.”

“You haven’t told us what you want to happen at all,” Reuenthal pointed out. “This has been a lecture from Braunschweig’s most loyal supporter, completely dedicated to helping him put his daughter on the throne.” He tossed his head. “I could have gotten as much from Ansbach.”

Yang frowned. “No, I—”

Reuenthal smiled. It was a predatory smile, like he had cornered Yang. “Then tell me, Wen-li. Who do you want to put on the throne?” His voice was low and rich. He, too, had finished his last drink, and was still fiddling with the palm fronds. He had ripped off so many of them that the nearest branch of the palm was nearly stripped bare. When one of his leaves brushed Mittermeyer’s fingers crawling across his side, Mittermeyer would strain his fingertips towards it, but Reuenthal would pull it out of the way a moment later. His fiddling didn’t require him to look down at what he was doing, so he stared at Yang.

“Elizabeth can have the throne,” Yang said. He couldn’t look away from Reuenthal’s hands, fixated on the motion of him weaving the strands into and out of each other. It gave him somewhere to look other than his eyes, anyway, which were boring into him. “She— she’s smart enough that she won’t be a puppet of her father forever.”

“Oh? Is that a good thing?”

“Braunschweig has fought so hard for power, he’d never willingly give any of it up.” Yang closed his eyes. “I think— Elizabeth could open a parliament. Especially if the nobles who backed her father during the war demand it of the crown. A house of lords could lead somewhere else…” He trailed off into mumbles, and cracked his eyes back open when he was met with only silence.

“It’s a funny dream,” Reuenthal said. “But it won’t come true.”

“It won’t?” Yang asked. “I think there’s a chance—”

“You say Braunschweig would never give up his power. I agree. But Elizabeth won’t either, nor would any other Goldenbaum.” The name was delivered with a surprising amount of venom. “People who did nothing to earn what they have always cling to it the hardest. She would have everything to lose and nothing to gain.”

“There would be something to gain,” Yang said.

“Oh?”

“It would be—” He got the sensation that no argument about ethics would satisfy Reuenthal, and Yang couldn’t blame him. The Goldenbaum dynasty had never once cared about morality in its rule, and the only standard Reuenthal had to judge Elizabeth by was the precedent her forefathers had set. “It would be the only way for her to save the dynasty,” Yang said. “It can’t continue on as it has. Someone will decide the throne can’t remain as it is. If she’s assassinated before she has an heir…”

“And who will that someone be?” Reuenthal asked.

“I don’t know. Someone.”

“And if she refuses to listen to your humble words of advice?” Reuenthal asked.

“I don’t know,” Yang said again.

Reuenthal was cruel, picking at him when he was this drunk. But perhaps that was the point: sober, Yang might have been able to steer the conversation away from this dangerous ground.

“It seems to me,” Reuenthal said, “that there will come a point when you cannot stand idly by and allow the Goldenbaum dynasty to run its course.”

“El Facil,” Mittermeyer said. He had been quiet, leaning on Reuenthal’s side, but he had been listening. He looked at Yang and sighed. “You’d throw all your influence away the first time she did something you couldn’t watch happen. Throw yourself on the sacrificial altar.”

“No,” Reuenthal and Yang said at the same time, though with very different tones. Yang was protesting something that he knew was true. Reuenthal was almost cajoling, playing off Mittermeyer’s words.

“I—” Yang said, then looked at Reuenthal, to let him finish his thought.

“No,” Reuenthal said again. He looked down at his hands, at the palm fronds he had been weaving. He had fastened the ends together, making a circle. He pulled himself out of Mittermeyer’s arm and stood, bearing his circle of palm. He walked behind Yang on the armchair and put his hands on Yang’s shoulders, keeping him still. “You’re a man with the wrong kind of ambition for that, Wen-li.”

Yang was frozen, like a deer in the lights of an oncoming train. Reuenthal’s hands brushed his hair back from his face and put the crown of leaves on his head.

“What do you think, Wolf?” Reuenthal asked.

Mittermeyer’s expression was impossibly strange. Looking at him alone on the couch, Yang wondered if this was what he had looked like, watching him and Reuenthal close together during the evening. Reuenthal’s hands were still in Yang’s hair. Mittermeyer opened his mouth to say something, but no sound came out except for a strangled, “I—”

This broke the spell that Reuenthal’s touch had on Yang, and he took pity on Mittermeyer. He shook his head, dislodging Reuenthal’s hands.

“I have to pee,” he said, and stood. As he turned towards the bathroom, he very pointedly put his hand on Reuenthal’s back and pushed him gently back to the couch and Mittermeyer. “Sit."

Reuenthal chuckled. “As you wish,” he said.

That didn’t make Yang feel any less confused, but he stumbled off toward the head, which happened to be through Reuenthal’s bedroom. His eyes fell again on the sword above the bed as he passed it, and he flinched away and hurried, shutting the door behind him too hard.

He stared at himself in the mirror, gripping the sides of the porcelain sink to keep himself from falling over. The crown of palm fronds was still on his head, his cheeks were flushed, and his forehead was shiny with sweat. Yang touched the crown with his fingertips, accidentally setting it askew; he was always clumsy where Reuenthal was graceful.

Yang couldn’t keep a single thought moving coherently through his head. It was only partly the alcohol. Everything else— everything Reuenthal did and said— was more overwhelming. The only conclusion that he could come to was that it was probably time for him to leave for the night, before someone did something that they would regret, which seemed more and more likely to happen, if Yang let Reuenthal keep talking about ambition, or anything else. That subject was dangerous, but this drunk and with the mood in the room this strange, there were no safe subjects left whatsoever.

He splashed cold water on his face and tried to breathe deeply, steeling himself to leave. He felt melancholy about it, but that was a familiar feeling, one that he could understand. And that was better than whatever the crown on his head made him feel, or Mittermeyer’s flushed face, or Reuenthal’s hands on his temples.

It took him a long minute to stabilize himself physically before he left the bathroom. In the bedroom, he took the circlet of leaves off and dropped it on the bed beneath the sword, looking at it in the dim light for a moment.

When Yang left the bedroom, he saw immediately that his assessment that it was time for him to leave was correct: while he had been in the bathroom, Mittermeyer had divested Reuenthal of his shirt completely, and they were engaged in a passionate kiss on the couch, limbs tangled together such that it was hard to tell where one of them began and the other ended.

Yang watched them for a second, standing in the doorway, feeling warm and bittersweet in the particular way that drunkenness facilitated. After a moment in which neither seemed to notice his presence, he shuffled back towards the door of Reuenthal’s suites to go.

“Where are you going?’ Reuenthal asked before Yang had even made it ten steps to the door.

Yang turned back towards him. He had hoisted himself up on his elbows, and Mittermeyer was sitting back, looking at Yang as well.

“I should go—”

“No,” Reuenthal said. “Stay.”

Yang was frozen. There was a bubbling elation in his chest, one that clarified what he had been feeling all evening. The strangeness of the talk had only been a distraction, a cover. But that was how it had always been, hadn’t it? And now, something he hadn’t even dared to hope for, that he had forbidden himself from thinking about, was being handed to him, without any effort whatsoever. Reuenthal had torn back the veil.

It didn’t feel real. He looked at Mittermeyer, trying to make sure he wasn’t mistaken, or dreaming, or misinterpreting because he was too drunk.

Mittermeyer had never been good at keeping his feelings from his face. His mouth was open in surprise, and his cheeks were already flushed, eyes wide. There was just a moment of the old hesitation, but when Mittermeyer’s eyes met Yang’s, it was like a switch flipped, and the crease in his brow melted away— the same thing clarifying for him, maybe. Wordlessly, he smiled and held out his hand towards Yang.