Page 5 of Fog of War
"My sister didn't tell you much about the battle, did she?" he asked with hesitation. I blinked at him. That little edge of worry was enough to put me in a full-blown panic. I sat up straight, clutching my bag.
"Wait, did you saybattle?"
"Hey, I said it was like a football game, and I stand by my description."
For the first time in my life, I heard a venandi growl, and not on television. My bones vibrated as Leonide swiped at his sister with his talons at full-length, displaying his fangs with a wide, angry snarl. He snapped his teeth at her and she scrambled away while I pressed myself against the side of the transport, the hair standing up on my neck.
"Ouch, okay!" Leopha yelped in surrender. She sighed and leaned her elbows on my seat so that our faces were close to each other. "First off, I didn't lie, and you're safe. I promise."
I blew out a shaky exhale but was still wound as tight as a bowstring. Leopha set her big palm on my shoulder and rubbed her thumb over my sweater to soothe me.
"It's amockbattle," she snapped, obviously directing that at her brother. "Venandi have a, uh, pretty violent history. Clan wars, fights for territory, kidnapping mates. You knew this though, right?"
"I took ISU history in high school." The course had been about the formation of the union, so it didn't go into detail, but I got the gist.
"Did you take xenobiology?"
I nodded.
"Okay, so you know about convergence then, right? Venandi get horny and our bodies shiver out a bunch of infectious genetic code. It changes our partner's visual markers, and that newly changed partner joins the other one's clan."
Right, familiar territory. I nodded again, and this time, my shoulders softened under the weight of Leopha's arm. I smoothed down the wrinkled front of my culottes. "Which used to happen on battlefields during clan wars, right?"
"Right! See? You get it," Leopha said affectionately. "To honor our history, we have a mock clan war every autumn. Four clans chosen at random send three champions each. No one dies..." She chuckled. "But hopefully they leave the battle with a newvirorvira.Not gonna lie, it's pretty hot. Only the four clans and their guests are allowed to attend, because the location is sacred. And Satoris hasn't been in the mix for like..."
"Fifty-seven orbits," Leonide supplied.
I looked up at them both feeling a lot better, even if my face was turning pink. I didn't want to see people die. If that meant I had to watch people having sex instead, so be it. I could squirm in my adventure pants for a weekend. "So the battle i-is an orgy?"
Leopha hauled back and guffawed while Leonide rubbed his spires with embarrassment.
"No, we go in with goals and targets." He huffed. "It's more political than random. Every clan has someone on the battlefield they want to headhunt."
So I wouldn't be watching an orgyorpeople die. Maybe just some light exhibitionism.
I could handle that, right?
"Oh! You know the Atarian clan, right?" Leopha asked.
I rolled my eyes at her, finally able to breathe normally. "Every human knows the Atarian clan." They were the first clan to have a human member, Ambassador Olivia Atarian, way back before integration had even begun. She brokered the deal that brought Earth into the union.
"Well, Baella Atarian, the magistrata of the clan when the ambassador converged with her son, met hervirat the Festival of Souls. It's one of the reasons she became magistrata."
"Woah." Okay,thatwas pretty exciting.
"Yeah," Leopha said, sitting back now that she knew I was at ease again. "Baella nabbed herself a Ferulis. Atarians are high up there, don't get me wrong. But the Ferulis clan has been top tier for centuries. Which means thateveryoneis gonna have their sights set on Aescia. When my brother loses, he's gonna be heartbroken."
Leonide leaned over to me with a cocksure grin. "I'm not going to lose."
"Yeah, right! Look at those puny guns!" Leopha jumped forward and the bickering picked up fresh. I let them go at it, my mind racing over the same thought repeatedly.
This festival wasdefinitelynot study away material.
03
Gabbie
From a bird's eye view, the festival encampment looked like a Renaissance faire village had sprung up in the middle of a field of army tents at the base of a mountain range veined with pink crystal. Four quadrants were laid out in clan colors and bedecked with clan flags that slithered in the daytime breeze like Asian dragons with long, whipping tails twenty feet long. The canvas snapped and writhed, then in the moments of calm throughout the day would gently lay on the ground, showing off trims of wind-beaten feathers, tassels, and grass.
