sunchime | [ sonia vorbarra: the bad end ]

Sonia had always abhorred violence. There had been a time when she was afraid of it, when the thought of taking a life was almost as terrifying as losing one's own. But then Yuri happened, and then the war ended, and Sonia felt the resistance of flesh against blade for the first time at her uncle's dismemberment, and for the first time since the massacre, something filled the hole that grief had burned in her. Sickening and insidious, all the wrong ways to cauterize an open wound, but it was something.

And it wasn't enough. Yuri wasn't enough. He hadn't waged that civil war for two years on his own. There were so many who supported him, who fought to uphold the Mad Emperor's regime, and the thought of them burned in her in place of the grief. Wash had understood in a way that surprised her, didn't fend off her desire for revenge or try to discourage her, because he knew what she knew: that she deserved it. That she was entitled to it, that she had been granted that right by sheer virtue of tragedy. It is so very and disgustingly Barrayaran.

Taking a life for the first time had been harder than she'd thought, and it had left her feeling hollow inside even around the sick satisfaction. But it filled that hole in her again, at least for a little while, but there were so many more collaborators. So many more complicit in the same crime. Sonia and Wash disappeared without warning after that, vanishing into the night, because in that moment, Sonia knew that it still wasn't enough, and that anyone else would only try to get in her way.

She and Wash have flitted from district to district, leaving a silent, scattered trail of Vor corposes in their wake. They hunt together, Sonia a protégé to vengeance, until they can get in close, make sure every politician and officer who supported Yuri in the war understand just what has come for them.

She used to need Wash's guidance, his presence, but she's fallen in love with it a little bit, the act of it, making it into something intimate and personal. There is something inherently intimate about revenge, after all. And so tonight she has ventured out alone, up into the estate of a lesser Lord Vorsmythe, who had served as a member of Yuri's staff. A propaganda man. He's never met Sonia personally, and so he doesn't recognize her on sight until it's too late. Sonia has learned to move quick, to take advantage of that faltering moment. She doesn't make it quick for him, but Lord Vorsmythe is dead on the floor within twenty minutes in the center of his sitting room, a thick pool of blood spread out beneath his head. The room is ornately decorated, velvet-upholstered sitting chairs and expensive statuary -- Sonia, who once delighted in the glitz and glamour, finds it sickening. On the gold-edged glass table is a lady's hair comb, looking strangely out of place -- belonging to a young lover of the late Vorsmythe, perhaps. It's pretty, but simple. Sonia wipes the blade of her vorfemme knife on the underside of her skirts, picks the comb off the table, and disappears back into the foggy night like a shadow. She'll head back to where she and Wash have been staying for now. An almost postcoital exhaustion seems to settle over her every time, after the fact, a semi-sated weariness that begs her into dreamless sleep. She walks in the misty dark, keeping just out of the halos of streetlights, with the air of a woman heading home after some late-night entertainment.

He isn't properly prepared for this sort of encounter. It was an accident that he was at Vorsmythe's to begin with - having been sent over with a few documents for the fellow's signature, nothing more than that - and had found the man drowned in his own blood. He'd called it in, and from there it was easy enough to follow the trail: the mark of a dainty shoe in the wet sandy ground of the path leading out of the man's home, a bent blade of grass, sheer intuition about which way she'd go. She - Because even though there's no proof left at the scene, who else would it be? Who else but her.

When he sees her, there's a painful press in his chest, like his heart is giving out. He half-hopes it does, in that moment. So that he doesn't have to make this choice, doesn't have to think about these consequences...But he stays alive, for all the time it takes to ease his stunner out of its holster. For all the time it takes to pause, and steady his wrist, and aim, and fire.

Paranoia sharpens the senses, and Sonia is vigilant even in her weariness. She hears the light-footed steps on the stone street -- there's a particular way people walk when they follow you, and on a gut instinct she ducks into the shadow of a nearby shop's awning, narrowly dodging the stunner fire. She's drawing her own stunner even as she tries to slink out of sight. Something about the cadence of those footfalls was hauntingly familiar. Sonia doesn't dwell on it, only moves to quickly return fire. She doesn't know who's shooting at her -- she didn't think she'd been followed -- but she can easily identify a stunned ragdoll on the street.

He hisses a short curse under his breath, ducking behind a oak tree to give himself some cover. Rather poor cover, unfortunately: it's a tree that's been recently planted, one that's not quite as broad as he is. His shoulder sticks out from behind. So he squats to make himself a smaller target, twists - fires again in the direction she went. Aiming for the canopy, knowing that the splash of stunner-beam against solid object makes for a wash of numbing energy.

Sonia moves to the side, but the nimbus of the scattered stunner beam hits her right hand and her own stunner clatters to the ground from her numb grip. She hisses a curse in dismay and snatches her stunner up with her good hand, trying to shake the feeling back into the other as she dodges behind a street food stall. She can't afford to be caught up in a fight just now. If this mystery shooter has seen Vorsmythe's body, then the authorities might show up at any moment. She holsters her stunner and closes her left hand over the grip of her nerve disruptor instead.

"I have a nerve disruptor," she calls, her voice just loud enough to carry, but sounding muffled in the misty night. She's loath to use it, because Vor lords killed quietly in the privacy of their own homes are one thing, but bodies in the street -- it's messy and it's risky, and Wash wouldn't be pleased. But it would be a swifter solution to this situation. "I suggest you put down your weapon. I'm a lucky shot."

She almost sounds just like her old self, just slightly out of phase -- that same bright-eyed princess who used to talk about photography and fantasy, now dealing in death just as easily. But there's a deadened edge to it, scar tissue laid over where grief and anger had cut her.

It hurts, hearing that voice. More than seeing her, even. He's seen photos enough, so he's perhaps inured to the sight of her. But the voice...It takes him back, painfully, as potent as a scent, as powerful as a sensation. He squeezes his eyes shut a moment and, ill-advisedly, responds. (He shouldn't; he knows he shouldn't. Foolish. You fool.)

"And leave a body in the street? When you barely have time to get away? I think you're too cautious for that."

Sonia's eyes widen just slightly and she draws in a small, sharp breath -- but she doesn't falter, even as awkward as her left-hand grip on the nerve disruptor is.

"Byerly, is that you?" It's a voice of genial surprise, too familiar in its displaced warmth. Sonia leans against the back of the food cart and breathes out a strange little laugh. "Fancy running into you here. It has been such a long time."

He doesn't respond to that. His throat is too tight. I'm sorry, Princess. I'm sorry you've come to this place. I'm sorry I couldn't prevent it... Prevent the massacre that robbed her of everything. Prevent this corruption, this madness, that's led her here. He should have. It was his duty. But he failed. He wonders - if he steps out, will she use the nerve disruptor on him? Stop his aching heart? He could only pray.

"Princess, why don't we lay down our weapons? Speak peacefully?"

"Lady Vorpatril," she says, her voice suddenly gone cold. Suddenly, she doesn't sound very much like her old self at all. "If you're going to use titles, Byerly, do try to use the right one."

Maybe he never really saw her as Lady Vorpatril. Maybe she'd been Princess Sonia to him for so long that he would always think of her that way. Byerly always had been so much more sentimental than he pretended to be.

"And how do I know you won't just stun me as soon as I come out?" The chill is now just a silver edge to her voice, her tone back to something dissonantly conversational. "You shot first, Byerly. I didn't think you came here to talk."

It had been his intention, truthfully. Have her set down her weapon, stun her. What would one more betrayal be, after everything he'd done to her? After everything he'd failed to do? He presses his eyes shut a moment.

"Then we're at an impasse. Here until the municipal guard finds Vorsmythe's body."

I still have the nerve disruptor, she thinks, but it's no good if Byerly stuns her first, and in truth -- she doesn't really want to kill him. It would be a terrible waste. And she knows that even as fast as she is, if she makes a run for it she'll be in the open, an easy target. She leans against the back of the food stall for a moment, trying to will the numbness in her right hand away. She grips the stunner in her left.

"I want your word."

My word. If he gives his word...If he gives his word. That's something he won't break. He cannot. So then what's his best play, here? He can't give his name's oath and then stun her; that's out. The best thing to do is to continue to wait, to hold out until the guard comes. But...but he can do that just as easily face-to-face with her. Talking to her.

It's been such a very long time, after all.

He hesitates a long moment. Another long moment. And then, finally, he says, "I give it. My word as Vorrutyer."

A ghost of a smile passes over Sonia's face. It brings out old memories, and those memories sting faintly, but they seem to belong to another person, now. But she knows Byerly will keep his word. Barrayaran to the core. She draws in a slow breath, grips the stunner tighter in her left hand, and begins to slowly get to her feet.

"Alright, then. We'll both come out on three."

Like hell she's coming out first, even if she knows Byerly won't shoot her. Wash has taught her better than that.

He closes his eyes. This is foolish. He knows it's foolish. The smart thing to do would be to simply stay under cover. But...

"All right. One - two - three."

He steps out from under cover, peering through the fog for his first real glimpse of her face in...so very long.

It's strange, to have the upper hand on Byerly. Not that they'd ever been in this situation before, but in Sonia's youth Byerly had always had a certain and very deliberate mystique to him, sometimes just out of reach -- here, now, she feels a strange sense of control she's never had before. And she's seen him make mistakes out of sentimentality before. She's counting on it this time.

Sonia steps out from around the food stall, the stunner briefly cloaked in the folds of her dress as it billows in the night wind. She doesn't hesitate -- as soon as she sees Byerly's face, she lifts her left hand and fires. Her aim isn't nearly as good, but she's cranked the power high enough to guard against that margin of error.

It had occurred to him, of course, that she would double-cross him. It'd be the smart move - her only real way out of this situation. But the Sonia he knew was so soft, and so good, and so righteous - even now, her revenge, it's all about righteousness. So she wouldn't. She shouldn't. She couldn't, he'd thought - but it seems he'd been monstrously, foolishly wrong.

He has only a chance to half-jerk back before the stunner beam takes him nearly full in the face and neck. He crumples, consciousness fleeing from him in a burst of terror and despair and remorse. Stupid, By, stupid - beyond stupid...and for what...?

Sonia, even at her height, is not strong enough to carry off a full-grown man back to her and Wash's place without being spotted. Wash isn't thrilled about being commed for the pickup -- this is the opposite of clean, Sonia -- but like before, like always, he fails to say no. He helps her get Byerly's limp form back to their current place, get him secured -- Wash knows far more about tying a secure knot than Sonia does, and they both know Byerly is as slippery as they come, but bound at the wrists and ankles, he isn't going anywhere any time soon. And if Sonia can't stop him, Wash is certainly more than capable.

Perhaps it isn't so strange that she doesn't want to kill Byerly. His betrayal had been retroactive, but still deep and personal -- perhaps it's because of what he had meant to her, what they had meant to each other. She wishes no harm on her family, of course -- how could she? But Byerly...she has questions for Byerly. She's always had questions for him, and his answers, they never quite seemed to satisfy. There was always something kept hidden from her, and one secret has already come to light. She wants to know the rest. She wants to drag out into the light whatever else Byerly might have been hiding from her all these years.

She really does just want to talk.

Sonia is there waiting for him when he comes to in the dim little room lit only by candlelight, so small almost as to be a closet -- it doesn't give much clue as to where in the city they are, or how much time has passed. But Sonia is there, sitting in a chair against the wall, watching Byerly with cat's eyes, sharp and keen.

His head throbs with either a hangover or a post-stun migraine. Amazing, how similar they feel - and both typically the product of bad choices. He swallows, takes a few deep breaths to steady his stomach. Doesn't quite work; he closes his back teeth on bile.

He opens his eyes. Even dim candlelight is searing. He presses his eyes shut, and tries to move his hand to wipe away a prickle of sweat. Comes up short. He pulls; no good; jerks; and then he remembers. The burst of stunner fire. His foolish mistake. She's not your Sonia anymore.

"You didn't kill me after all." He swallows. His mouth is dry. He looks at Sonia through squinting eyes. "I was promised a nerve disruptor, as I recall."

Sonia watches him through curious eyes, unusually quiet until Byerly speaks first. She sincerely hopes he isn't going to be sick in here; she really doesn't want to have to clean it up. She's already scrubbed her hands free of someone else's bodily fluids once today.

She's seen Byerly nervous before, even afraid, but always with her. Is he afraid of her now? She leans forward in her chair, fingers laced together in her lap, and she looks almost girlish again, an echo of her younger self.

"I didn't promise you anything." Sonia had let him make all the promises. They were his to keep. She smiles slightly in the flickering light. It isn't disingenuous; there's even a little warmth to it. But it looks wrong on her, somehow. "I don't want to kill you, Byerly. I want to talk -- without any guns between us."

And really, what's a little rope between old friends?

If there's one advantage of the post-stun migraine, it's that it doesn't leave much room for fear. Fear requires a certain type of concentration, a certain degree of imagination. Certainly, his brain is working to come up with any number of brutal scenarios, torture and death for perceived betrayal, but it can't sustain them. They disappear like vapor on the wind.

Perhaps because they do, in truth, feel like inventions. It's so utterly impossible to imagine Sonia hurting him - really hurting him. Intellectually, he knows she's capable; she's taken lives, after all. But the sweet, innocent girl who'd smiled so warmly, those years ago, who'd laughed so freely even during wartime, who'd spoken so kindly to him...It's difficult to imagine true cruelty from her. And so he cannot fully muster fear.

(Perhaps it's just crowded out by guilt. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry...)

"I'm perfectly happy to talk," he answers, clawing at a bit of light irony. Trying desperately to recover some poise. "Perhaps it might be a bit easier if I were to have a glass of wine, though. It seems I've woken up with the most grotesque hangover. Would you oblige me, my dear?"

Sonia's smile doesn't flicker, though there's something hard just behind her eyes. She tilts her head, her long, dark hair falling over her shoulders.

"You know I can't risk untying you, dear Byerly," Sonia says sweetly. Strangely, she'd actually like to grant his request -- Byerly had never been as much fun sober -- but they have too much to talk about. "And I'd have to fetch Wash besides, and I really would prefer to keep you to myself right now."

Wash hadn't seemed entirely at ease at the thought of leaving Sonia in a room alone with Byerly, not when he knew her grief and her fury so intimately. But he hadn't truly objected. He rarely does, these days. Sonia draws in a breath, lets out a little conversational hum, and leans back in her chair, crossing one leg over the other. She regards Byerly through lidded eyes.

"What were Negri's orders? Capture me alive?" Her eyes crinkle slightly. "Don't tell me Ezar's going soft already."

He almost wants to laugh. This truth is going to sound like a lie to her ears. It would sound like a lie to anyone's ears, honestly. Particularly given how they are right now, her across from him, not an implement of torture or a vial of fast-penta in sight. Does she anticipate that his aching heart will make him want to confess all to her, without so much as a pause for breath? Not a bad guess, with your softness, By.

"I had no orders," he answers. He tries to slump indolently in his seat - hard to do with tied wrists and ankles. "I actually just stumbled across that body you'd left arranged so sweetly in that little manse. I must say, Sonia, you always did have an astonishing eye, but I really don't like the way you've been redecorating people's houses lately. Red everywhere. So tacky."

Ah, and now he's truly fencing. Sonia was wondering how long it would take him to get his feet under him, figuratively speaking. She almost wishes she had fast-penta with her, but she's sure that would ruin the experience, somehow. She doesn't want that unfaltering, babbling honesty that comes with it. She wants to see what Byerly wants to say.

"Red was always one of my best colors," Sonia sniffs, lips pursed. She's reserving judgment on whether or not she believes Byerly for now -- before the massacre, when she was young, she would have believed him almost without hesitation, because she'd trusted him. But he'd kept secrets from her, had not shared her confidence in turn. She doubts she would ever be able to truly trust him again.

"But how serendipitous for you. You couldn't possibly have known what was going to happen. So what brought you to Lord Vorsmythe's, then? Some perfectly mundane business? You were only carrying a stunner." Hers now, by the way. "And just what was your plan? Stun me in the street, drag me back to Ezar? Or was this supposed to be some half-cocked rescue mission? Did you think you were going to save me, Byerly?"

It would have had to have been back to Ezar. But what would have come after? He hadn't let himself think about it before, wrapped up in the focus that came of having a target before him. But - would Ezar truly let Sonia, who had killed so many of his Vor, simply be imprisoned? Maybe. Maybe, yes, like Ezar's own wife, Mad Yuri's sister, who even now babbles nonsense in a high tower, locked away from the world. Maybe. Or maybe it would have been a traitor's death for her. Could he really send her to that?

She is a traitor, Byerly. It's not even a question, now. She's a traitor, and it's what she's earned...

"Save you from what, dear Sonia?" he responds, his tone easy even as his stomach churns. Stunner-migrained compounded by misery, sure. "You seem quite content in the life you've - quite literally - carved out for yourself. Aren't you?"

"You think this is contentment?" Something twists in Sonia, too, but that flicker in her eyes is pain, not anger -- pain that runs so deep it has scarred her over from the inside out. She had never learned to let go of pain. "Do you think I will ever feel content again? Do you think this is entertainment for me?"

It had always been about revenge, about her right, but what she hadn't anticipated was the rush that came with it, a feeling of control like she'd never had in her life. And she'd fallen in love with it a little bit more every time, chasing what she had been robbed of again and again. But that, she'll never admit aloud to Byerly, not to anyone. She must uphold that curtain between herself and her uncle, however thin it grows.

"This is my right." There's something hot in her voice, nearly trembling. She swallows it down, allows herself to relax against the chair again, lets her tone slide into mockery. "Besides, haven't you read the epics, Byerly? The tragic Vor lady on a revenge quest is a tried and true trope."

Edited 2017-11-05 15:57 (UTC)

He doesn't respond to that irony as he normally would, though. Usually, with a joke - especially a sharp-witted, trenchant one like that - he just appreciates it. But this time, he lifts his chin, and lowers his brows, watching her closely.

"So that's your goal, dear Sonia?" he challenges, his voice soft. "To act out all the best stories and dramas? To make your life a tale to be repeated?" He doesn't smile as he says, cruelly, "The Tragedy of Princess Sonia. It'll make a fine holodrama, but it doesn't seem like much of a life."

Sonia actually looks uncharacteristically disgusted at the notion of this life, the one she's had since the massacre, even before that, being turned into holodrama for someone else's entertainment. Her expression goes flat as she leans back in the chair, as if pressing herself against it.

"It isn't a life." Her voice is just as flat, suddenly almost toneless. "But it is a way."

She doesn't elaborate on that, just rises slowly from her chair to stand on two steady feet. Her lip curls slightly. "If I am only ever known as Princess Sonia in Barrayaran history, if my husband and child are relegated to a mere footnote, then I would rather not be remembered as anyone at all. I would rather have died as Lady Vorpatril."

Sonia has never been given to nihilism -- she's resisted it all her life -- but she says it like it's simple fact. She fingers the comb she'd taken from Lord Vorsmythe's sitting from in her pocket. She doesn't think she can make him understand what it is she's doing, or why. He cannot possibly understand. But -- she wants him to. Maybe if he did, that might make up for his betrayal. She had never thought of a lie of omission as a sin before Byerly.

"Were you really trying to stop me, Byerly? What do you think would have followed?" She takes a step closer in the small room, drawing the comb out of her pocket to turn it idly in her hand. "If this isn't a life, then what do you imagine mine should be?"

He doesn't answer that question. It's too difficult to say. What else could there have been for her? What else can there be for her? Even if she gave up the killing now, what would result?

Well, a lot less death, for a start.

So, instead, he leans forward very slightly, eyes fixed on hers. Keep her talking; keep her reflecting on herself. No doubt she's hardly spoken to anyone except for Wash in months, and he's a loyal dog indeed; he doubts anyone has challenged her in ages. "Do you think your husband and child aren't a footnote, now? Do you think anyone remembers them as they actually were? All there is - all they are - They're just the sources of your wrath. Not even real people."

“Stop,” Sonia hisses, almost snarls, that cool blankness evaporating entirely. Her eyes are hot, already prickling with tears as that wrath boils up in her throat. Sonia always had been easy to provoke, and Byerly had known her better than most. He would know which buttons to press, even if he isn’t sure which still remain. She stands over him and her shoulder jerks, her arm tensed, but she closest her hands around the golden comb, feeling the teeth dig into her palm. She had hit Byerly once before, so many years ago, for his betrayal. But it had been only a perceived betrayal -- pure fiction, spun under orders. But this betrayal is very real. No one ordered him to keep any of this to himself.

"Just stop. You knew them, Byerly!" Her voice rises sharply and she draws in a breath. Even in the flickering candlelight, it's easy to see just how far that small remark has pushed her. For all she's changed, she never really stopped being Sonia. Appeal by emotion wins out almost every time, however cruel. "You knew them all. Or were they always just footnotes to you? Historical figures in the abstract? Not real people?" She leans over him, the toe of her shoe scraping against the chair leg. "Is that what made it so easy for you to say nothing?"

He can't quite hold her gaze after that. Not fully. Shame wells up in him, guilt - guilt in truth, for he is guilty of this. Guilty beyond all other sins. He didn't dash her child on the parquet floor himself, but he might as well have done so. And for what?

"It was not easy," he responds softly, staring at a point just beyond her ear. What is the point of this explanation, though? To earn him her forgiveness? That sure as hell won't come. If it did, he supposes his throat would close, and blood would well up, and he'd die rasping, like a man dying of a vicious allergy. His soul could not accept forgiveness. He doesn't even want it. So why the explanation? "I had given my word."

And so what? Your honor as Vor, bought with the blood of that child. Well done. Was it worth it?

Sonia grits her teeth when he evades her gaze, and she tries to capture it again with angry eyes. Look at me. Look me in the eye, you coward.

She had never thought of him so before. She had always thought the best of him, even when he refused to, because he was her friend, and she loved him, and she believed in him. Now all she can see is the fear in him, the guilt, the weakness. It makes her angry, to look at him and be unable to find the friend in him. It hurts.

His word. Sonia stiffens at that, her eyes narrowing. Who could possibly have asked him to stay silent? Not Piotr -- no, if Piotr had known, none of this would have happened. "To whom?" she demands, both hands clenched into fists at her sides.

He hesitates only a heartbeat, maybe two. Ultimately, she deserves this information. It's true. And what had lying to her gotten them, in the end? Her life ruined. A trail of corpses. Nothing better than that. So. The truth, right?

Ultimately, he supposes, he speaks because this target is far beyond her wrath.

"Miles," he answers, still not meeting her eyes. He focuses on the ceiling, instead, studying the whitewash to see if he can tell anything about where he's being held. Not that it would matter worth a damn. "He was worried about the fabric of space-time. You know how it is." Why are you making quips? What's wrong with you?

Sonia looks stricken -- Byerly might as well have hit her, the way she jerks back, all the air rushing from her lungs. Byerly's betrayal had been a bitter pill to swallow, but even as much as Sonia had always believed in him, she knew he was a spy, too -- that it had somehow been in the realm of possibility, however distant. But Miles -- her own blood -- she falters slightly, even as her eyes bore into his throat.

"Miles?" She almost sounds confused, as though she can't quite process the thought. That somehow, the idea that Miles might have betrayed her in this way is beyond her comprehension. "Miles wouldn't -- that's not -- "

Her throat seems to close on her, and she lets the comb drop from her hand as she grips Byerly by the front, just enough to force him to look away from the featureless walls and the heavy curtains, to look at her. The fabric of space-time? That was Miles's chief concern? Hadn't it already been irrevocably altered just by the outsiders' appearance? Hadn't they known, after Vorkosigan Vashnoi, that things in her world were already different? The idea that Miles may as well as condemned them all to death is another weight she almost cannot bear.

"Why?" she demands. "Why would you agree?"

He can answer that question far better than he can answer her confusion. Was it unkind to tell her, then? What if he'd pretended it had only been him? She could vent her rage on him alone, then. The fact that had seemed to him an advantage only moments before - that Miles couldn't be harmed - now seems a terrible cruelty.

I don't know what to do, Sonia. I've never known what to do.

He looks, reluctantly, into her eyes. "Because he agreed to go back if I did. Because he was certain, and very persuasive. You remember how he always was."

"I wouldn't have let him stay," Sonia says, as though that settles it, as though she could have forced him, as though that casts Byerly and Miles both so clearly in the wrong. It would be easier that way. But she remembers her grand-nephew just as well, his tour-de-force of a personality. She'd told him he had to go home, but she knows she couldn't have forced him to do anything he didn't want to do.

But he'd condemned her family -- his family to death in so doing. Sonia lets out a raw, wordless sound of pain and frustration and releases Byerly, and she's the one to look away this time, both hands in her hair. The hurt just makes her angrier.

"You should have broken your word." Her voice comes out ragged and furious as she looks back at Byerly, tears shining in her eyes. She doesn't ask him why he didn't -- she knows why. Honor. The highest of all Barrayaran virtues. She'd believed in it that fiercely once, held it that closely to her heart. She knows Byerly's first loyalty has always been to Barrayar, but it isn't good enough anymore. She's so through with honor. "Once he was gone -- once the occupation was over -- once you knew it was going to happen -- "

Should have, should have, should have. It's far, far too late now. But God, she wants to hurt. Wash had taught her to remain cool and distant in the killing, even through all the hurt and grief, but this pain -- it seems so grotesquely wrong to her that she should suffer it, and no one else. But even after all the corrupt collaborators she's slain, something in her is still reluctant to hit Byerly.

"And then what? You'd have risen up in rebellion against him?" His voice is soft. What's he doing, taunting her? With the knowledge that there was never any way that her child, her husband could have lived? That they needed to die to ensure a better Barrayar? Why didn't I marry you, Sonia? Right there at the beginning. Gone down on one knee and asked you to marry me. Kept you from him, kept you from your child, kept you from history. I'd have been by your side that day - I'd have been the one to die - But it can't be. He had one goddamned chance to change history, and he blew it.

"It would have ended the same way. Your family dead. You with them. And this time, Yuri would have had justice on his side, putting down rebel Vor." He swallows. His hands fidget against his bonds. "It wouldn't have changed anything."

"Wouldn't it?"

Her voice tears from her throat like it hurts to speak. It does. It hurts to breathe. And God, does it ever hurt to look at him. He had been her safe haven, once, her sanctuary away from the war and the grit and the crushing weight of it all. Someone she had turned to for comfort, and for all his claims otherwise, he was good for her. Now...now she doesn't know what he is for her now.

"You could have given us a warning. We could have been ready, and then -- " And then they could have waged war on Yuri for having even tried murdering his own family. Couldn't they? Barrayarans had gone to war over less. She curls her hands into fists to hide the shaking, feeling her nails bite into her palm. "You and Miles told me I had a grandson. How, Byerly? How is that possible?"

"I...don't know." His eyes drop away again - this time not from guilt, not from shame, but from simple confusion. At the end of the day, it seems, his theory of time travel was right, and Miles' wrong. Not the same timeline, but different ones for everyone. And yet this seems like such a radical departure from how things were supposed to be...

"In my history, I believe it was only your husband who was killed. Not your son. Your son lived - longer."

A low, mournful wail escapes Sonia before she can bite it back. She muffles it with both hands to her mouth -- it feels like something is being dragged from her, inexorably and agonizingly, until there will be nothing left. Perhaps in another state, another life, she might find it in herself to be happy for the Sonia who got to keep her son, but that compassion has been burned away with every life she's taken.

"Then your silence bought me nothing." It comes out a spiteful, bitter hiss through the tears. She hurts, but this, too, will scar over. "It bought you nothing. Your honor was wasted, and now I have nothing."

"Do you think I don't know?" He doesn't have any right to be defensive or outraged. It was his cowardice, his rigidity, his fragile sense of honor that brought them to this place. And what value was his honor, truly? The honor of a spy. A liar. A worthless fool to begin with. What was he even defending? It was like throwing away a pearl to save a lumpy little rock. And yet even so, his voice has an edge. Unfair. She deserves to be angry, more than he.

"I know just how wrong I was. I understand. I was a fool."

"You don't understand."

His anger only feeds into hers like wood to the flame -- even in resenting it, she consumes it, and everything else begins to burn away. It is so much easier to be angry than to despair, and Byerly makes himself a convenient target. A righteous target. She rakes her hair away from her face with both hands, her eyes burning down at him as she steps in close again. Her cheeks are still stained with tear tracks, but she isn't crying anymore. Byerly threw her badly off her game, unbalanced her, and even though he's still tied to that chair, she claws at regaining her sense of control. Control is all she has left.

"You know, Byerly, but you can't possibly understand what it's like to lose everything. To lose it to someone like him. If you did, you wouldn't be helping Ezar to try and stop me."

"Ah. There, you're wrong."

He wishes his hands were free so he could rub at his face, rub away the tight hot feeling in his skin. So he could do anything to hide himself, so that he didn't have to sit open and exposed to her. But he can't. He's trapped.

"Even if I did know that grief - I'd still want to save you from this. My loyalty is to you above all others, you see, Sonia."

Part of Sonia revels in seeing Byerly laid so bare, when he's spent his life cloaking himself in layers, even from her. Power and control -- things she'd never had before, never really knew how much she wanted them until she felt utterly helpless. She stares down hard at him.

"Save me from what, Byerly?" She leans in, her hand curling over his shoulder. "Is your first loyalty really to me, or is it to Barrayar?"

[ sonia vorbarra: the bad end ]

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