Wattys shortlist 2021. One morning the sun rises a few hours early, striking levitating skyscrapers in Soliara ahead of schedule. People in the streets stop to look up at the sky and then down at their watches. Most of them, puzzled but disbelieving...
A very young Liao Cytheria sits in her audience room, perched on her favorite sofa regarding Cristo like a grandmother regards her favorite grandson, an impressive feat for one so youthful.
Glossy hair the color black is pulled back from her glowing face, the skin of her cheeks gleaming over lips that never smile but are painted red as if for fun.
A maid pours Cristo another glass of wine without asking. Red liquid splashes up the sides of the glass and falls still. Likely she has been ordered to keep him very happy, so he thanks her and takes a drink with a rare smile for Cytheria.
He doesn't tell her that he prefers white wine. The sun sparkles on the glass in his hand and the scene is almost pleasant until young Cytheria speaks.
In the blaring and false-confident voice of an adolescent, she rants to Cristo, "What they did was so stupid. My son and daughter never forgave me, and they struck at President Marius immediately after he took power. Stupid. They didn't have Stephen Potestas's patience, his sense of the need to wait, to bide his time until he was stronger."
"To be fair," says Cristo, "The longer Stephen waited, the stronger they became too. To the point where we can't even fight them in this time; we have to go to the past."
Cytheria shakes her head. "Terra and Tian are dead, and Stephen Potestas is still alive to fight back. They didn't make a dent in the regime, their deaths were meaningless and—"
"And you want me to bring them back?" Cristo asks, interrupting. He has already heard this speech many times, from many people.
"From the dead?" Cytheria fires back, and then she laughs, a bitter laugh that hints to her true age. It is coarse, and realistic. "My children have been dead a hundred years."
"Maybe I could change that," says Cristo in spite of himself. He already has enough souls to save.
But Cytheria relieves him immediately. "No," she says, "It is tempting, but I have been thinking about what you said. You need to know how to free me from the clutches of those people. It may have been a long time ago, but my memory seems to be lasting as well as my flesh, and I know who I was and how I felt on that day.
"Nothing you have proposed will stop me from accepting Candra's offer. I resisted her bribes for a very long time. I didn't need money, or even security in Marius's new order, if it was going to be at the expense of everyone else. I was a tough old principled bird and not even Satiri's threats could shake me, but do you know what it is like to be granted eternal life in your old age? I was eighty-seven when I became immortal, and one hundred and seven when ..."
Her eyes glaze over and she looks away as if she's not ready to say it yet and she's resetting. She changes course.
"I was planning my own funeral. It's insulting to call it suicide when nature would never again take its course. I could do nothing but take death into my own hands if I wanted the rest I deserved and my body so craved."
The words come from a golden faced teenage girl, chubby cheeked and blushing to match her red lips and her red cocktail dress. "When Candra Satiri offered to restore my youth ..."
"I know," Cristo says.
"Of course you know," Cytheria snaps. "But maybe I need to say it." She composes herself and goes on. "Candra offered to restore my youth to me, and it was something I had wanted so desperately without even knowing it until that moment. How could I? I didn't even know it was possible! Satiri saved my life, whatever that was worth, but in the end it was at the cost of my children's lives and those of so many others. There was nothing else he could have offered me to make my life worth living.
"You have to stop her from offering it. There is nothing else you can do."
Cytheria's sweet and childish voice does not waver at what she's giving up. A century has taught her that it wasn't worth the price. She doesn't fit in that girlish body. She sits up too straight. She's still and cool and stone-like and calm. Her words have too much command and not enough self-consciousness. She pulls her full black hair into a high austere bun and she doesn't smile, ever.
In Cristo's perfect world, all the kinks have been worked out and the spirit endures like the mind and body, but his perfect world seems far away. Cytheria shifts to get comfortable in the uncomfortable body she's chosen to give up, then becomes completely still again.
"Don't let him offer it to me," she says again. "There is something that you can do to stop it. But I don't think you'll be willing to do it without my permission."
When she pauses, Cristo puts down his drink and avoids her eyes, his blood chilling at what she's about to ask of him. To the wall across the room he says, "You'd be surprised what I'd be willing to do." The words are meant to be reassuring, but they come out as a confession to crimes he hasn't even committed yet, and may never have to, but ones he won't apologize for.
The words encourage young Cytheria. "Take them one of my children," she says with a raspy quality incongruous with her new voice. "I'll never bend to them if they threaten my son or daughter."
She is a principled old bird now, and she was then as well. And who better to tell Cristo how to control Laio Cytheria than Cytheria herself.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Thank you for reading this chapter. Please leave a star on your way past! This story updates often, including every Saturday.
