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me to save your life, what about your thighs?” She slid off the rock to crouch, haunched, at my feet.
    â€œMy thighs are—my legs are fine, Sri.”
    â€œNow, now,” she said. And leaned forward and closed one hand above each of my knees.
    I had once been a duchess and a crown princess. Away from the Precepture, it had been rare for anyone to touch me at all. And then my life had changed—but not so much that I was accustomed to strangers kneeling between my legs.
    â€œSri,” I said—even as she curled her fingers in. I yelped at the pressure and her fingers shifted and sought.
    My datastore diagrammed my own anatomy for me as Sri found the release point of the vastus medialis muscle and dug in. Pain built under the sustained pressure and then ebbed away, and the tension in the muscle with it. Her strong thumbs then swept up the groove where the tendons attached, finding adhesion points and pushing into each, as if popping steamed edamame from their shells.
    It hurt and it was perfect. The gasp caught in my throat and I heard the sound I was making, of pain and pleasure mixed, the moan I had made in my dreams.
    Sri looked up into my eyes and I found my whole body blushing. Her hands were closed as high on my thighs as they could decently go—higher. Her face was close. “Better?” she said.
    â€œUm,” I said. “Very much so.”
    â€œGood.” She got to her feet and arched the tension out of her back. “We have a long way to go. But I can help you. Even if I have to hurt you to do it.”
    â€œI am not sure thank you is quite the right response to that?”
    â€œUp?”
    She reached down for me. I took her hand and hauled myself to my feet. “For that, thank you.”
    In answer she saluted, Swan Rider style. It looked tossed off, almost like a shrug. But even so . . . “I wish you wouldn’t,” I said. Then mimed the palm-to-shoulder touch, to clarify what I meant. “I’m not Talis.”
    â€œOh, my little AI,” she sighed. “I have to remember my place.” Slow, and looking me dead in the eye, she saluted again—and the meaning of it snapped into focus. The cupped hand at the shoulder was gathering up the datastore. The extended, upturned palm was offering it, holding it out like an apple.
    Sri, like all the Riders, had a datastore. She had the same augmentations I had: a datastore under her collarbone and webbing threaded through her brain, sensors and generators in her fingertips, full-spectrum retinas implanted at the back of her eyes. But none of it was for her benefit.
    It was so Talis could wear her like a coat. With her salute, Sri was offering that. To me.
    Just then my datastore began to pummel me with medical jargon, statistics, diagrams, and videos of human dissection. It poured into my mind, instructing me on the basics of possessing people. And mentioning, too, that the act of possession pushed through the inductive webbing and caused microscarring in the host brain.
    To host an AI for any length of time was a death sentence. And that death was ugly. I was aware of this somewhat keenly, since (on the off chance I made it that far) it was a death that was going to be mine.
    The data was draped over Sri’s face like a veil of black lace. She smiled behind that veil—a wicked little smile—and held out a bundle in both hands.
    Clothes. Heavy canvas dungarees, a button-down shirt, high boots with square heels, and a Swan Rider’s coat: a long dark duster of oiled leather, with the iconic wings appliquéd on the back.
    I had never worn anything but royal gowns and hostage work clothes. To dress as a Swan Rider . . . Piece by piece, these people were stripping my old self away.
    And speaking of stripping. I took the bundle from Sri. She was wrapped in the data veil of her own death, and she clearly had no intention of turning away. Like an animal watching another