“Says it was never about keeping me alive. He tied you down in the palace just to keep you from burning his city to the ground. He’s never wanted to see you in shining armor. We’re all just pieces on his board.”
“Rust off,” she mutters.
“Wen,” I urge, dropping the contempt from my voice. I know she’s been leaning on it, using its solidity as an excuse to dismiss what I’m saying as the words of a vicious prisoner looking for an out—or the ravings of a dumbass stuck in an air duct. Without the reliability of my hatred, she won’t have her guideposts for how to process the next words I hit her with. “Ettian told you about the history of knights in Archon, right?”
“Told me enough. Told me they wore powersuits and fought for justice throughout the empire. Told me one once cleaved a fighter in half with a vibrosword, one once rode a ship through an atmospheric burn, one once…I dunno, wild stuff like that.” I hear a soft smile on her lips, and I wonder whether it’s for the thought of her one day achieving feats like the suited knights or the memory of Ettian telling her their stories.
“And he told you what happened to them all in the end, right?”
I swear her eyes find mine through the grate, even in the darkness. “You mean what your mother did?”
I sneer. Not too long ago, my feelings about the slaughter of the Archon knights would have been more mixed. I remember noticing the way Ettian tensed every time one of our fellow academy cadets made a joke about the “tin can idiots” and deciding I didn’t have to make those jokes too. I submitted essays in tactics classes that made snide references to the overt cruelty of Knightfall and felt a shiver of illicit thrill at the thought of those words falling into my mother’s hands.
But once I got a taste of war firsthand, my perspective began to shift. I imagined myself in the cockpit of that fighter, pinned in equal parts by centrifugal force and fear, just trying to keep a bird in the sky. I imagined the sight of a human figure keeping pace, a vibrosword shuddering in their hand. I imagined the cold inevitability of the moment the knight made their move, the sight of that sword plunging through my cockpit window being the last thing I ever saw. Imperial decree restricted most archival footage of the suited knights, but my own mind was all too happy to reconstruct the terror of them from the stories I’d heard. They were dangerous maniacs, ripping through battlefields without oversight, and the Archon people ruttin’ worshipped them.
Of course they had to die.
“My mother did what she had to,” I tell Wen. “You’ve worked as an operative clearing out resistance from this city. You know that the right person’s death at the right time can do more work than the unnecessary deaths of hundreds.” I pause, savoring how perfectly ripe my next words will be. “I just thought you were smart enough not to become one of those people.”
Wen’s shoulders stiffen. In the safety of the shadows, I allow myself a triumphant grin.
After a long moment, she speaks. “Everything I do could get me killed, and nothing’s killed me yet.” Her voice is firm, but she’s laying on the bravado thick enough that I know I’ve done the work I need to.
“Whatever you say,” I tell her, making sure no part of me sounds convinced by her posturing. “Now, on to the important stuff. Does that vent open from the other side?”
“No,” she replies, shoving herself abruptly to her feet. I manage to clap my hands over my ears just as she unclips her blaster.
When the ringing clears from my hearing and the smoke clears from my lungs, I worm forward, picking my way over the white-hot edges of the hole she’s cleared in the metal grate. “You didn’t even check if I was far enough back,” I whine as I spill onto the ornately tiled floor. I splay flat on my back and lie there for a second to appreciate the chill of the hall’s open air and the fact that my limbs are free to move any direction I so choose.
Wen looms over me, looking ready to snap me in half over her knee. I blow a stray dust bunny up at her, then glance at our surroundings. “Oh wow.” I laugh around a cough. “I have no ruttin’ idea where we are.”
CHAPTER 6
I wait for the repercussions of my escape attempt to catch up to me. It’s almost disappointing when I realize they aren’t coming. I slouch back into the drudgery of my routine—I eat, I sleep, I get a lovely bit of pacing in when the morning sun streams into my quarters just right. I wait for my inescapable doom. After the attempt in the vents, I’m out of ideas for escape plans that won’t make me look like a total buffoon. One way or another, Ettian’s dragging me to the front.
But first things first, he drags me in front of a crowd.
I stand on the dais at the center of the imperial court in what I’ve come to think of as my spot—which probably isn’t healthy at all—two paces behind Ettian and two to the left. He’s dressed in his best, a sleek suit in a deep shade of green, with clean lines that smooth over his lanky frame. The ceremonial crown I first placed on his head at his coronation is perched upon his brow, a spiraling, twisting, ugly thing that I have to physically restrain myself from smacking off his head every time my gaze lands on it. Platinum chains cascade from his shoulders and connect at his elbows. If I were bored enough, I could count every single link of them. Better than listening to Ettian drone on about how much he appreciates the support of everyone in this room.
But I know what that would look like on camera, and so I keep my eyes fixed on the distant wall instead. I swear I can feel the prick of a bevy of lenses—all of them focused on Ettian, of course, but all of them making sure to keep me in the shot. My every move will be documented, the barest flickers of my facial muscles analyzed to attempt to unravel my mental state. This broadcast will make it all the way to the Umber Core.
My parents will see it.
The first time I realized this, I was tempted to do something dramatic. To start twitching my jaw muscles in military code or at the very least flash subtle, rude hand gestures while pretending to scratch an itch. But I quickly realized just how little valuable information I possessed and how pathetic it would make me look to use this as a venue for petty revenge. I wanted to have a little more goddamn pride than that. So I stand rigid and try to project strength. To communicate that I haven’t broken, that I won’t ever break.
And no matter what, no matter how tempting, no matter what he says, I can’t look at Ettian.
Too many people knew us as a couple on the Archon base. That common knowledge mutated to a vicious rumor the second our identities were revealed and Ettian took me captive. I can play into the implications in the privacy of his administration, where only he has to manage the fallout, but here, where I’m visible not only to his people but to mine, I have to tread carefully. Any move of mine in his direction in the public eye will only feed the fire, and I understand with horrifying clarity that if I’m ever going to take my throne, I’ll have to kill off this line of thinking with impunity.
I have to be a statue. I can’t react to any of the words coming out of his mouth—which is one reason I’ve tried my best to tune out what he’s spewing completely—and I’ve trained my body to immediately pick any focal point but him the second I’m brought into a room with a camera.
This room has far too many. Ettian has gathered the rebellion’s senior staff and the fledgling government he’s set up on Rana in a glittering sea of hopeful, upturned faces. Some are new installations, lifted from the ranks. Some are refugees of the prior Archon administration who fled Umber rule and found their way back when Ettian ascended to his throne. The worst of them—the ones I’ve marked for the day I get free and take my crown—are the traitors. The Umber turncoats who helped lay the foundations for my mother’s rule here, then swore fealty to Ettian at the first opportunity. Bottom-feeders, latching themselves to the most powerful thing they see, unable to conceive of how rutted they’ll be when Umber puts the rebellion down for good. I haven’t been in front of this many people since
Ettian’s coronation, although the crowds on that day spilled over the lawn of the palace, the skin drums pounded so fiercely that I feared my teeth might shatter, and most people weren’t nearly as well dressed as they are tonight.
This is a much more restrained affair, with good reason. Ettian’s trying to shore up support and make sure his hold on Rana stays firm when he departs for the front. Most of the people in this room don’t know that he’s planning on leaving the planet, but he has to inspire their confidence so that when he does, it doesn’t look like he’s running away.
He seems to be doing…passably, so far. Though I’ve all but turned his words to radio static, I can’t ignore the sudden upswells of noise in the room every time he says something particularly rousing. Glasses raise, boisterous voices interject from the back, and by the time Ettian finally shuts up, the applause that washes over the crowd is all but universal. I stay rigidly still until the lights on the dais dim and every last one of the camera operators swings their lenses elsewhere.
Then I continue standing, unmoving, because I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do next. I glance to my right, where Wen seems to be working through a similar confusion. Ettian has already stepped forward off the dais, plunging into the welcoming embrace of the crowd and leaving the two of us without assignment. Her eyes catch on mine.
I lift my eyebrows. “Want me to get you a drink?”
Wen doesn’t put nearly as much thought into schooling her expressions as I do—her face drops into a scowl without a moment of hesitation.
And since the cameras are off and everyone’s busy swarming the emperor, I loose a smirk of my own. “That a yes or a no?” I ask, sidling over to her. “I can guarantee your more precious prince is a little too busy to make the same offer.”
Wen’s lips remain rigid, unbent.
I soften, knowing it’ll unbalance her. “Look, if there are two people who belong less at this party, I’d desperately like to meet them.”
“One drink,” Wen says after an extra minute of consideration. Her eyes flick warily to the crowd, and it hits me how rigidly she holds herself—almost as rigidly as I was just a few moments ago. But my performance ends when the cameras go dark. Wen has to keep up her Archon act every waking moment she’s in public.
She’s dressed the part too—almost garishly so. She can’t have done the elegant crown of braids that sweeps her hair up herself—not with the delicate threads of platinum twisting through them. She wears a collar inset with emeralds that winks and glitters in the low light, and her armor tonight is flimsy and lightweight enough that I highly doubt it’ll stop any attempts on her life.
The only part of her she doesn’t bother to cover—has never bothered to cover, to be fair—is her burn. I consider asking her why she doesn’t try to even it out with makeup, but there are far more worthwhile things I could get punched over. “You look nice,” I say instead, and wrestle back my smile as I watch her struggle not to swing.
We step down from the dais, and the crowd that came rushing in to greet Ettian swells ten feet back for us. It seems no one wants to risk damaging the emperor’s most precious asset. Or maybe they’re more worried about his loose-cannon Corinthian taking an arm off. Rumors of Wen’s unpredictable approach to establishing order in the city have given her a reputation that certainly justifies the safe distance people seem to be keeping.
I’m surprised I’m being allowed anywhere near these people, but I’m going to push that luck as far as it goes. These are the rebellion’s officers, the new government’s rising stars, and some of the most wealthy people in the city willing to back Ettian’s war. I want them to be as suspicious of my freedoms as possible. So I set my shoulders back, let an easy smile break over my face, and saunter to the bar at Wen’s side as if she’s my date, not my guard.
Look at the prisoner, they’ll think. So favored by the emperor. So free to do whatever he wants. How can we trust our leadership when it’s in the thrall of our enemies?
The bartender offers us two flutes of the evening’s choice bottle with a surprisingly impassive expression. I take them off his hands and eye him, clinking the glasses together and lifting an eyebrow when they chime like the real, breakable stuff. The bartender eyes me back, then nods unambiguously to my escort. The message is clear: You try anything and my money’s on her handing you your ass before the last shard hits the ground. I scowl and pass one flute off to Wen, who looks at it dubiously. “Probably local,” I remark as I take a sniff. “At the academy cantina, we only drank imported polish thanks to the officers. None of them would dare try Archon swill.”
I take a sip and immediately develop an alternative theory. None of the polish I guzzled in my time as a cadet was anywhere near this strong. Gods of all systems, the Archon people must like getting drunk fast. Makes a bit of sense, I suppose, when you factor in how bland and efficient their food is.
I glance sidelong at Wen to find her downing the dregs of her glass. She eyes me with a challenging tilt of her eyebrow, and I follow suit. It benefits no one but me for both of us to get sloppy tonight.
Unless someone tries to kill me again, but hopefully enough polish will put that out of my mind.
I lean over to Wen’s ear, trying to look as friendly and familiar as I can. “Sure looks like you need more than one drink. Rough week with His Highness?”
“That’s above your clearance level,” she mutters, and for a moment I’m seized by the delightful image of a file in some Archon database that outlines what I’m allowed to know and what I’m not. I imagine it’s not much more descriptive than a picture of my face and the word “NO” stamped in declarative red text.
“Worth a shot.” I take her glass and gesture to the bartender, whom I’ve decided is going to be my new best friend when he tops off both with a generous pour. Apparently he’s interested in seeing what happens when the Archon emperor’s right-hand operative and his old flame turned prisoner get sloshed.
Already a bit of warmth is seeping into my fingertips, the sensation rocketing me back to hazy nights in the academy cantina with condensation slicking my hands and Hanji Iwam muttering encouraging nonsense in my ear as I tried not to let Ettian catch me staring at him. An uncanny twist of longing catches me before I can quash it, aching for the simplicity of the days when I was just a boy with a crush on his roommate and a secret that might tear the galaxy in half—and the former seemed more important than the latter.
The heady rush of it hits my body before my brain can do anything to stop it. And in that moment of confusion, I can’t stop myself from breaking the one rule I’m not supposed to break.
My gaze flicks across the court, homing in on Ettian like he’s magnetized.
And the emperor is looking back.
But before the panic can seep in, a realization hits me. I’m not the only one misstepping here. And maybe I can afford to break the rules if Ettian is too. After all, I’m not getting any more powerless.
Ettian, on the other hand, has an entire empire to lose.
So I let myself tumble headfirst into the horrific thrill, holding the eye contact like it’s a lifeline. I bring my glass to my lips and take a long, slow sip. Ettian mirrors the gulp. My heart quickens to a snare rattle, and I barely manage the control it takes to make my glance away a slow, sly affair, rather than the desperate escape I’m longing for.
It’s even harder to keep myself from checking the sight lines of every single person around me to see if anyone caught my slip. But even a casual survey of my surroundings reveals what might be a sadder truth: No one’s paying attention to me at all. The party guests have given a wide berth and placed their backs to us, worried about the consequences of seeming too interested in me.
There’s only one person who genuinely should be paying attention to me, and I glance to my left to find her regarding me with narrowed eyes over another hefty sip from her glass. “W
hat?” I ask Wen.
She shrugs. “Seem to remember some nonsense about how you weren’t still—”
“A person with eyes?”
Wen fixes me with a stare so embittered that I’m almost tempted to wash it away with another hearty swig of my polish.
“I…You really don’t get it, do you? For rut’s sake, weren’t you a hostage to that Korsa guy?”
Wen now looks like she might dump the dregs of her drink on me. “In a manner of speaking. No cuffs, could come and go as I pleased, as long as I reported in at the right times.”
“Then you know what it’s like when your life’s not your own. You know what it’s like to not be able to trust your own thoughts and feelings because of the way they’ve been manipulated by the man holding your keys. And in the end, what did you do? What did you vow?”
Her fury simmers, but I swear I see the glass warping slightly under her grip.
“You were supposed to burn him to the ground, Wen. You should know by now what I’m supposed to do here too.”
“But you won’t,” she says, far too confidently for my liking. “Not with the way you look at him now. It’s true—I said I’d reduce Dago Korsa to ash. And then I found a world beyond that kernel of hate I’d formed myself around.” She takes a step closer, close enough that I can see the rough geography of her face in perfect detail even in the low light. “I’m still trying to figure out who I am without it. What about you?”
I shouldn’t let the question get its claws in me. For gods’ sakes, I was raised to let this kind of thought roll off my back like water, especially when it’s coming from a Corinthian barely three months removed from the rough streets that raised her. But if I could shatter the layers of contexts that surround me and Ettian, what would I do? If we were two strangers with no titles tied to our names meeting for the first time, what would happen?
I don’t know the shape of the answer to that question, but I know the dryness it leaves in my throat all too well. Wen nods, smirking with a smugness I hate seeing on her. “All that big talk, acting like you know me. Well, I know you too, asshole, and I know you won’t. And you’re gonna prove it.” She downs the rest of her drink, sets her glass on the bar, and pulls out her datapad. After a few seconds of furious typing, she shoves it back in her pocket and grabs me by the elbow.
Oaths of Legacy Page 5