Oaths of Legacy

by Emily Skrutskie

I catch his gaze and hold it for just a second too long. Let him sit in just how much he’s confessed out loud with those words alone. “Yeah, like I said, real good thing these rooms aren’t bugged,” I mutter.

  His lips falter into a frown. Were you expecting anything else for your goodwill? I wonder. He has to realize how utterly stupid it is to express his wishes for my well-being out loud on this ship. After a long beat where he seems to be chewing on a retort, Ettian turns on a heel and leaves without another word.

  The moment the door hisses closed, the tension in my chest unspools. I tip my head back against the sofa, staring at the smooth metal of the ceiling overhead. I try to visualize the dreadnought beyond it—the layers and layers of the command core wrapped around me, the miles of darkness, the impenetrable outer hull. The Archon fleet outside it, and the war that awaits. The high of running circles around Ettian can’t offset the bitter truth.

  The hole I’ve dug myself in just keeps getting deeper and deeper.

  CHAPTER 11

  When Esperza offered to train Wen, I assumed it would be a sparing thing. There’s a war going on, after all, and she’s supposed to be commodore of the entire Archon dreadnought fleet. Worse, Wen’s stuck with me, and there are only so many security loopholes the commodore can slip through to accommodate the both of us. I thought Wen’s education would be fed on Esperza’s table scraps.

  Instead she’s feasting.

  Every day she yanks me out of bed well before the morning round of drums sounds through the command core and drags me down to the nearest gym. I doze on a weight bench close enough to her that she can keep an eye on me until she’s finished, then follow her dutifully back to the room to shower and change for the day. In any other situation I’d be complaining my ass off the entire time, but I’m committed to winning her back, and that means I’m committed to making sure her mornings go as smoothly as possible.

  I dress in Archon fatigues, leaving my cuffs in the drawers. Back on Rana, I wore the platinum to stand out and rub my imprisonment in Ettian’s face, but here aboard the Torrent, I need to blend in to the best of my ability. I’ve even started carrying myself like a soldier, keeping my back straight and my strides measured as I trail Wen from our quarters to Esperza’s offices.

  The commodore is always there before us, no matter how early we come. I suspect the steaming mug her aide keeps constantly warm and filled on her desk—but after my last brush with Archon roasts, I don’t envy it at all. Esperza’s come a long way since her days of raiding ships, loath as I am to admit it. She’s got a surprisingly functional staff under her, managing the requests for her attention that seem to crop up faster than weeds.

  On the first few days of Wen’s apprenticeship, the commodore had one of her secretaries brief her on the scope of the war. Wen’s spent practically all of it on Rana with her focus on the city, so she’s just as unaware as I am of the front’s layout.

  I’m handed a pair of noise-canceling headphones and told to turn my back and stare at the wall when it’s presented to her. I nearly laugh out loud at the suggestion, but the secretary fixes me with a look so sour that it’s almost preferable to clamp the headphones on and turn away. I make a show of fussing with the way they rest on my unruly hair, knowing full well I’ll be written off as a vain little princeling.

  Which is all I need, because it disguises the moment I tuck a thick twist of my curls into one of the cups, lifting it just enough to break the seal and let me hear what the room is saying.

  At present, the Archon rebellion is fighting to regain control of the Tosa System, the former heart of the conquered empire. The system is comprised of three habitable rocky worlds, an asteroid belt that’s been strip-mined since the conquest, and a gas giant standing sentinel in the farthest orbit with a few occupied moons scattered around it. Rana is the outermost rocky world, the former capital of the former empire, and the only planet the rebellion currently holds.

  The next closest world is Ellit, both by orbital circumference and by the planet’s current position relative to the capital. The innermost world, Imre, is currently on the other side of the star, and it’s there that Berr sys-Tosa, the Umber-appointed system governor, has rallied his forces and built up a stronghold for himself. The gas giant, Dasun, is even farther, its long orbit currently wheeling it around on the opposite side of the system.

  Ellit is our current target, from the sound of this briefing. The planetary governor has shored up its defenses with what I’m assuming is a six-point standard dreadnought blockade that will prove difficult to break. The Archon fleet sits at a safe distance, ready to make a superluminal skip over at a moment’s notice. At present, it seems like General Iral and his leadership are debating the best way to break the blockade without taking a toll on the planet’s population, most of whom are former Archon citizens they’re counting on to welcome their liberation. Dreadnought-to-dreadnought combat that close to a planet is all but impossible to execute humanely. One stray shot from an inbound Archon ship could wipe a city off the map, a fact the Umber forces are relying upon to keep the Archon fleet at bay.

  I sneak a glance over my shoulder to watch Wen trying to ingest this information and can’t help but feel a little bad for her. She was orphaned at eight, worked as a runner for the mob, and eventually found her way into a placement at a chop shop. I’m pretty sure she can read, but I don’t think she can read fast enough to keep up with everything Esperza’s staff is trying to pack into her brain. She’ll nod along to what’s said, but her eyes seem stuck on the diagram in front of her, rather than parsing through the words next to it.

  It doesn’t affect her enthusiasm, much as I wish it were otherwise. By the third week, I strongly consider stuffing a pillow over my head and groaning, How can you possibly enjoy this? when she fetches me for her morning gym trip. Maybe watching me suffer is fueling her.

  I’m trying not to suffer though. Even though it’s exhausting to go through these motions every day and painful to keep myself constantly alert and aware around the soldiers, I recognize the wealth of opportunity I’ve been given. I’m at the heart of Archon operations, and even if they’re being wary about what information I have access to, I’m in the commodore’s office with shocking regularity. I’m learning the layout of the Torrent’s core a little better every day. As long as I never seem too interested in the happenings around me, I’m able to absorb a remarkable amount of it.

  I also have to make sure I never let myself think too hard about how difficult it’s gonna be to get out of here, or else the panic starts to creep back in. When Esperza drags Wen out of the core for a tour of the Torrent’s outer decks, I nearly lose all hope staring into the black pit of the dreadnought’s hollow interior on the shuttle ride over. No rescue could possibly come for me as long as I’m aboard, and I’m not naïve enough to believe I can extract myself from this hellhole either.

  It’s agony to walk past the rows of launch tubes, to see the Vipers and other light fighters staged along the deck. Back in my academy days, I never would have imagined a situation where I longed to be at the helm of a ship, but now I find myself taunted by the grim, bitter knowledge that even if I got myself into one of those ships, I’m not skilled enough to pull off the kind of escape run it would take to get me free of the Torrent’s clutches.

  The only way I’m getting off this ship is if Ettian says so.

  The emperor’s been keeping his distance as promised. I know he must still be aboard—no one would let him get too far away from his human shield, and I’m not sure he’d dare leave me and Wen completely alone here. But I haven’t even seen him in passing for weeks.

  I don’t miss him. But I feel his absence. It’s the longest we’ve been apart in nearly three years, and even though I don’t want it to affect me, the lack of his presence is…grating. I keep catching myself glancing sidelong as if hoping to catch his eye and finding nothing but empty space beside me.
Marking funny little things I observe to tell him later and then realizing I’m not supposed to be talking to him at all.

  Sometimes it even feels too quiet in the middle of the night. Those are the times I hate myself the most.

  Maybe I was handling it better when I saw him almost every day, when the sight of the crown on his head and the impulse to slap it off could remind me that he’s my sworn enemy, that he’s fighting to destroy my legacy, that he betrayed me so thoroughly that I still haven’t gotten used to the shape of the hole it ripped in my chest. Now he’s just a whisper between soldiers that quiets when they notice I’m listening, a slot in the commodore’s schedule that I’m never present for.

  And the emperor of a goddamn uprising, but I don’t think I’ll ever forget that.

  “Have you ever been on a dreadnought flight deck before?” Wen asks, startling me from my teeth-grinding. She’s staring at the grand machinery around us with a bit too much of that touristy wonder that makes the other soldiers crack cruel smiles behind her back. On the one hand, I feel like I ought to warn her about how she looks.

  But on the other, that’s directly aiding Archon. Even if I’m aiding the only person in my life who still talks to me like I’m a human being. Everything that alienates her from the military rank she’s finally managed to achieve is a kernel of hope for me, as long as I’m not the one doing the alienating.

  Because I may not be able to fly the escape run that would clear me from the Torrent, but Wen sure as hell can.

  Unfortunately I think she’s a little too enamored with the ship to ever leave it. Every time Esperza’s tours introduce us to some new feature of the dreadnought that Wen’s never encountered, she gets this goofy grin that reminds me she used to work as a mechanic long before she got swept up in this Archon nonsense. She’s endlessly fascinated by the engineering that makes these ships possible, and within days of starting under Esperza, she’d already charmed her way into a copy of the Torrent’s schematics that I catch her studying on her datapad at odd hours.

  “They brought us up for a tour of one while I was at the academy,” I tell her with a nervous glance at Esperza’s back. The commodore doesn’t seem to mind the slips of conversation that pass between me and her new lieutenant, but I worry all the same that she’s going to whirl around one day and snap at me to get away from her. Once I’m certain today isn’t the day, I continue. “We weren’t cleared for the command core, of course, but we got to see the flight decks, the batteries, and a good portion of the engine subsystems.”

  “That’s my next goal,” Wen says, nodding vaguely in the direction of the dreadnought’s engines. I’m surprised she’s certain enough to point to them without hesitation—I’m still not used to this place, and the disorienting ride out here from the core did nothing to help with that. “I want to see the reactors for myself.”

  I bite my tongue to keep from pointing out that most people with a good head on their shoulders would rather go a lifetime without getting close to an active reactor like the ones that power dreadnoughts. “I’m sure your new boss could arrange a tour sometime,” I mutter. I need her on my side, I need her on my side, I need her on my side, I remind myself.

  Before I lose my ironclad grip on my tongue, said boss waves her over. Esperza’s just greeted this deck’s commander, and expects her new lieutenant to log the report.

  I brace myself for the inevitable disaster as Wen pulls out her datapad and starts recording both an audio log of the conversation and her own scrawled handwritten notes. I once asked her why she doesn’t try other forms of input, but she claims that her handwriting is the fastest.

  It’s also indecipherable. I’ve seen the tight-lipped smiles of Esperza’s aides as Wen hands off her notes to them and the dead-eyed look they get when they realize they’re going to have to listen to the entire recording to decipher what she’s trying to communicate.

  My mental litany shifts. She’s the enemy, I can’t help her. She’s the enemy, I can’t help her. But I feel like the longer I watch her flounder, the more inevitable it’ll be that she realizes I could be more than dead weight. I’ve snuck looks over her shoulder at what she’s writing down. And really, she doesn’t need a tutor for her penmanship—she just needs someone who can teach her what to listen for, what’s relevant enough to log and what’s chaff. It’s every skill I learned at the academy put into practice. It’s the stuff I was supposed to apply toward being a good emperor.

  But she’s the enemy.

  I can’t help her.

  But if I were to help her—

  The thought plagues me through cycles and cycles of the same routine. The incomplete equation rattles at the back of my brain. Wen could save me from the Torrent’s maw. Wen needs my help if she hopes to keep pace with Esperza’s training. If I want my ticket out of here, I need to sway her to my side—I need to get her to value me more than Ettian. And I have something she’d value.

  I just need to figure out how to make her ask for it.

  During the first portion of my captivity, one of the few mercies was the relief that I didn’t have to exercise. Now I can’t help but feel left out—and inadequate among the ranks of jacked soldiers that surround me on a daily basis. So one morning I startle Wen by slouching off the gym wall and stepping up onto the next treadmill over. She’s running at a furious enough rate that she doesn’t have the breath to question what I’m doing, so I take that lead and run with it, quite literally.

  When she finally spins back down to a walk, I match my speed to hers. Before she can get a breath in to challenge me, I announce, “I think you could get a lot more out of your gym time with a partner.”

  Her brows furrow quizzically, and rather than dignify me with a response, she grabs a towel and buries her half-burnt face in it. When she surfaces, she stares directly at the mirror ahead of us, as if she’s trying to find the right reaction in her own sweaty, winded reflection. “I…have never had a gym buddy before,” she finally says with what I’d agree is the appropriate amount of caution.

  “I need something to do around here,” I continue. “I was never a morning-drill enthusiast at the academy, but it’s downright tedious to have to be up at this hour and not have anything to show for it. But I need supervision, or so I’m told, which means if I want to exercise, I’ll have to buddy up with you. Seems to me like it could be mutually beneficial anyway.” I let just a hint of cruelty into my smile. “And I get the feeling you’re not getting similar offers from the other Archon soldiers.”

  Wen gives me a look that clearly reads as, Asshole, you know that I haven’t.

  “Can I—no, never mind, I don’t need permission. Personal question: why do you want to be in the Archon military?”

  “Why, you thinking of enlisting?” She snorts.

  “Look, you dragged me to the gym so much that you got me to actually want to exercise. Not too far of a stretch for me to want to know why we’re doing this.”

  Wen’s in the perfect state: frazzled, post-workout, and already worn to the bone by all the days before this one. She smooths down some of the hairs that have escaped her plait, making a careful study of her reflection and sparing me from any attention whatsoever.

  I slip into the opening of her hesitation. “Every day we’re surrounded by people caught up in something that seems to me like a grand delusion. And for most of them, it can be explained away by patriotism, but you—you. The War of Expansion doesn’t matter to you. It never has. So what is it that makes you look at a ship like this and think, Yeah, I wanna be a part of that machine? What makes you wake up every morning and decide you’re going to bust your ass for a lost cause?”

  That gets me teeth. Wen’s lip curls, her eyes narrowing. “The restoration of this empire isn’t a lost cause. In case you haven’t noticed, Archon’s been doing nothing but making gains since this campaign started.”

  I flap a hand
, my strides still long and nonchalant. “You can keep telling yourself that until the Imperial Fleet shows up, but I still don’t get why you have decided that playing soldier’s the most valuable use of your time right now.”

  “Why do you need to know?” Wen fires back. She ticks her speed up, setting into a brisker walk, as if she’s got something to prove.

  “Because Esperza’s going to ask eventually, and I don’t want to be in the blast radius of the secondhand embarrassment when you don’t have a good answer. Or maybe because it’s kicking your ass, and I don’t get why it’s worth all this,” I snap.

  “It’s not kicking my ass,” Wen mutters venomously, but I know I’ve got my claws in her by the sullen silence she lets tag onto the heels of that lie.

  “You don’t even know half of the codes Ettian and I had drilled into us by the end of our first semester at the academy. You couldn’t fly in a thirty-ship formation, much less direct it on the battlefield. And you’re not learning fast enough to be of any use to Ettian, which—yeah, that’s it, isn’t it?” I leer as she fixes her furious stare downward. “That’s why you’ve thrown yourself into this, and now that it’s not coming naturally, you’re having second thoughts.”

  “Rust off, jackass,” she spits. “Not all of us are born princes and chained to a bloodright until we die. I want to be more than Ettian’s rogue knight. More than what the rest of the administration seems to think I’m capable of. I’ve spent so long being small. Being nothing. Being an afterthought. I want to be the biggest thing in the galaxy, if I can manage it. You’re telling me you don’t ever wonder if there’s more that you can be?”

  Disdain verging on boiling insult courses through my veins. “There is, quite literally, nothing in the galaxy more than I am already,” I retort. “I was born with the blood that rules the stars, and when Umber razes this system and takes me home, I’ll rule the largest empire history has ever seen.”