Gracia’s sister had taken a bath.

Or she’d been bathed; Anita wasn’t sure how they did it here. She wasn’t sure how they did anything here, in terms of governance, except that it was all under Gracia’s control now, and she had somehow chosen to show her sister mercy.

“Captain,” Arcelia purred. She raised a slim hand in greeting, though she refrained from touching the barrier of her prison. “It’s so good to see you. Again. Forgive me, as I don’t have a calendar: is it the second or third time this week?”

Anita didn’t answer. There was no point to it; to speak to a Szayeti royal was to invite manipulation and fanaticism.

(Don’t say that, Ceirran might say, half plea and half order. But Anita was happy to be of Ceiao, and had seen no evidence to dissuade her of her biases, so far.)

“Ah, you’re back to being strong and silent. I understand. But I must thank you for the bath. You did mention it to Gracia, didn’t you?”

Only in passing. Anita locked her hands behind her back, holding her own elbows, and waited.

For what? But Arcelia seemed to know even when Anita herself wasn’t sure. She took a few steps back, sitting down on the thin cot in her cell. “You did. You told Gracia I was doing poorly. I wonder how she responded.”

“You could always ask her.”

Bad move. Arcelia’s smile widened until she looked almost inhuman, like one of Szayet’s deep-sea fish. All teeth, and a focus so absolute that Anita couldn’t help but shiver.

“My beloved twin isn’t speaking to me,” Arcelia said. “Would you like to know why?”

“Not really.”

“Because my God speaks to me. That’s why, Captain. Ah, I see your flinch – did you think you’d hidden it? I know how you feel about our God.”

Anita clenched her teeth together and didn’t respond.

“Alekso Undying wouldn’t forgive you. He’s not the forgiving sort of god. But I can forgive you, of course. Would you like that? Gracia always did.”

What was that even supposed to mean? Anita took a step back. Arcelia smiled her shark-smile and stepped forward. Anita took another step back. She’d known coming here was a mistake even as she made it, but this felt different than the last time. Something close to unrecoverable.

“You’ve guessed, haven’t you?” Arcelia cocked her head, another not-quite-human motion. She was pretending to listen to someone, Anita thought. “You know what Gracia was to me. Or should I say: you know what I was to Gracia.”

Anita had guessed something strange and unhealthy was going on in Arcelia’s head, sure. But. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t shake your head like that, Captain. It’s not complicated or hard to understand. Gracia was mine, and I was hers, until she decided I couldn’t also be Alekso’s.”

It only took a slight movement for her shift to fall down one shoulder, and another movement for the whole thing to pool around her ankles. Anita took in the sight: too-thin legs and arms, poky hip bones and ribs. Sharp eyes, full lips. “I get the feeling I’m not the one you want to be telling this story to.”

Arcelia’s smile widened. “Oh, you do have some mental capabilities under that burly exterior. How…interesting.” She sat down on her cot, spreading her legs. For a moment Anita forgot to breathe. Arcelia was wet, very wet, and she slid a hand down to hold herself open like the motion meant nothing at all.

“Do you know, it was Gracia who touched me first? I can’t claim the thought wouldn’t have occurred to me, but.” Arcelia tipped her head back, long throat and sharp jawline in relief. “Gracia was always pushy like that. A leader. I knew, you know, so early I knew, that she’d be furious Alekso chose me. Spoke to me. Wanted – me.”

Anita thought about licking the hollow of Arcelia’s throat, about pinning her to the cot, about making her shut up. She didn’t move. She didn’t speak. She only watched as Arcelia pressed a finger to her clit, giving a tiny gasp that almost seemed real.

“She pushed me,” Arcelia said. She lifted her free hand to touch her breast, pinching her nipple. A pink flush stole across her skin, and still Anita couldn't tear her eyes away.

“Do you like to think about it?” Arcelia said quietly. “Captain? Do you like to think about Gracia sneaking into my bed, holding my wrists, convincing me to ride her thigh?”

Anita dug her nails into her own thigh and said nothing.

“She didn’t make me, though. If you’d like to think about that, I’m afraid I must disappoint you. She only pushed. Suggested. Goaded me, really. Oh, but now I’m going to have to pay it forward, I’m afraid.”

Anita didn’t get a chance to ask what she meant. Arcelia moved too quickly, closing her legs and pulling her thin blanket over her nudity. She folded her legs together and then said, as sweetly as someone’s girlfriend asking for breakfast in bed, “I want to continue, of course. If you want me to, I’m afraid I have to ask that you demonstrate reciprocal intent.”

“What?”

“Take your clothes off, Anita.”

She looked around impulsively, as if a Szayeti guard might appear from thin air to call her a traitor. But night had long since fallen: the hall was dark and empty. Even if someone were to come along, Anita didn’t answer to Szayet, and Ceirran would never think she’d betrayed him.

“Captain,” Arcelia said, her voice teasing, commanding. Dangerous, Anita’s instincts insisted, and yet she found herself unbuttoning her shirt.

She expected Arcelia to widen her eyes and pretend to swoon, or say something admiring about Anita’s soldierly build. She didn’t expect, could never have dreamed, that Arcelia would say: “Good enough. Now touch your tits for me, Captain.”

It very nearly brought her to her knees. She again obeyed, barely thinking about it, pinching her nipples and gasping at the feel of it.

“Thank you,” Arcelia said, and shrugged her blanket off.

Smooth skin. Peaked nipples. But Anita’s eyes, of course, were drawn again to the apex of Arcelia’s legs. She parted her own lips, pressed her thumb against her clit, and said, “Do you see how tight I am? I should say, how tight we are. Gracia laid me back one night. She asked me to trust her. Do you know what she did then?”

Anita couldn’t guess. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t think. But Arcelia didn’t say anything, didn’t move a single predatory muscle, until Anita said, hoarsely, “No.”

“Should I tell you?”

Again silence, stillness. Anita closed her eyes. Her cunt ached, her nipples begged for touch. She clenched her thighs together and said, hoarsely, “Please.”

“She put her whole hand inside me,” Arcelia said, and began to fuck herself on three fingers.

Her eyes didn’t stray from Anita. She was so wet that her fingers slid right in, and she let Anita listen to her moans and gasps as she began to ride her hand. She said, “Tell me you’re shocked, Captain. Tell me you can’t believe I’d let my twin sister fuck me.”

Anita swallowed hard and made a decision, with the calm and clarity she couldn’t usually find outside a firefight. She stripped naked, discarding even her underwear, and pressed two fingers against her clit. “Why would I be surprised by that?”

Arcelia blinked.

And this was what Anita had been waiting for, the suspense she’d tried to pretend she hadn’t felt. She couldn’t resist an opening, couldn’t decline to secure an obvious victory. She said, “Szayeti are fanatics. You think you hear your God: you’re insane. But it’s clear as day what’s between the two of you. I think I could fuck her and she’d cry out your name.”

Arcelia’s laugh was a wild thing, a cackle that made Anita shudder even as she rubbed herself harder, dipping her fingers into her own wetness, pressing meanly against her opening. She’d just dipped two fingertips inside when Arcelia said, “You don’t know my sister very well at all, Captain. But I’d like to see you fuck her. She rarely let me, you know. But I was always open to her. Always wet.” She moaned, slumping back against the far wall of the prison. Her legs were spread so wide it looked painful, and she glistened around her constantly-moving fingers.

“She’d wake me up,” Arcelia said, “so often, when we were younger. We couldn’t get enough of each other, but Gracia…she liked me to feel it. She liked me to know I was hers. And so she’d wake me up with her mouth on me. She’d bite me until I screamed. I woke up bent over the bed more than a few times, you know; she pulled me to the edge and then fucked me. She liked that, because it meant she could hold me down more easily.”

Fuck, fuck. “Stop talking,” Anita managed to grit out.

“Why should I,” Arcelia snapped. “Look at you, Captain. You’re dripping all over. You’re wild for it. Would you like to hear about the times I made her listen to me? I gagged her once. I fucked her raw; she couldn’t sit without squirming for days. Would you like me to do that to you?”

The answer was no and she’d like it the other way around, but Anita couldn’t answer, couldn’t do anything except touch herself, her pleasure beginning to spiral out of control.

“We sound the same when we come. You can imagine I’m her, if you like.” With an almost mechanistic focus, Arcelia lifted her hips, pressed her fingers still deeper inside, and cried out as she came. Heels digging into the floor, one hand braced against the wall over the long arch of her back, her fingers glistening as she frantically moved them inside herself, grinding down on the palm of her own hand, shaking in sudden jerks and then quiet, small shivers.

Anita felt frozen. Suspended. Then Arcelia recovered enough to lift her head and smile, meeting Anita’s eyes with the sweet directness that must have allowed her to raise an army.

“Come for us now, Captain. Both of us, I’ll carry it for both of us,” Arcelia said, and Anita complied as sweetly as she knew how.