Oaths of Legacy

by Emily Skrutskie

  “I won’t let—” I start, but all that does is yank an explosive laugh out of her.

  “You can’t do anything! We’re…This isn’t sustainable. You were right. We need to get ready to grab what we can and run.”

  “I…” But I can’t muster a response in the wake of the horror that overtakes me as I feel how viscerally my body reacts to Wen’s words. This is what I’ve wanted all along. What I’ve been working toward for months. I set up all of the pieces, whittling away the support struts that kept Wen feeling bound to Archon’s fate. All it took was one bullet to send the whole thing crashing down at last.

  But I haven’t been paying enough attention to my own footing. Haven’t had a chance to truly breathe since I catapulted myself off that stage. Haven’t fully come to grips with why I shot off into the crowd like boltfire and instead of trying to disappear, to run like hell, to get free of the imprisonment I’ve been scheming to escape since the day the cuffs closed around my wrists, I ran straight for Ettian’s would-be assassin and tried to beat her until her face was concave.

  Now Ettian emp-Archon is clinging to life by a few threads, and rut it all—I can’t run from that. But if I can’t get the panic sparking in Wen’s eyes under control, I might not have a choice in the matter. “Listen,” I start, trying to keep my reeling head far, far away from my tone.

  Her gaze is darting wildly about, and I reach up to cup her face, meaning to get her to focus on me. She swats my hand viciously away before I can make contact with her burn, and I yelp, cradling my fracture against my chest and squeezing to try to tamp down the pain. Paradoxically, it works. For a moment, she’s distracted enough by the immediacy of my reaction that her breathing starts to slow. “Wen,” I try again. “He needs us. We can’t leave him.”

  “When has that ever mattered to you?” she mutters.

  I hold up my still-smarting hand, look her in the eye, and wait for her to realize what a stupid question that was.

  “That doesn’t prove anything!” she snaps, the panic starting to overwhelm her again. “One dumbass move doesn’t counter your entire upbringing. It’s not even the first time you tried to beat someone’s face in.”

  “Last time was because I was fighting for my life,” I reply evenly. “This time was…”

  “Was because you were fighting for your life,” Wen argues. “Because if Ettian goes, both of us go with him. Which is why we need to get ready to run now. Even if he pulls through—” Her voice cracks, and her lips purse as if she’s trying to bite back the sudden swell of emotions at the thought of the alternative. “Even then, he’s out of commission. He’s lost his seat at the table, which means the steerage of the Archon rebellion will go to General Iral. And Iral will rusting kill you.”

  “What if we could hold him off?” I blurt. The idea’s half-baked, but it’s all I have to cling to. “Ettian’s not out if we’re still here to fight for him.”

  “We?” Wen asks, with justifiable suspicion.

  “I punched Hanji’s face in,” I remind her forcefully. “Obviously we’re going to have to be a little more subtle than the last time we worked together, but you have your seat on the bridge. You could represent Ettian’s interests—get him to endorse you as his official mouthpiece.”

  “Because that’s going to go over well. The Corinthian street rat spouting Ettian emp-Archon’s orders.”

  I scoff. “The Archon lieutenant, first of all, and it’s going to be more elaborate than that. Wen, come on. Why don’t you want this to work? Why are you so eager to run?”

  She takes a step back, running one hand over the tangles of her braid. A soft laugh bubbles out of her that can’t possibly be voluntary. “Because I’ve been here before. Because I didn’t run the first time. In Isla, when a boss falls, there’s a reckoning and a purge of their people, and the smart thing to do—the thing I couldn’t do when I lost my mother—is get clear of it. Why are you so eager to wait it out and see what happens?”

  I sigh, slumping back against the wall and burying my face in my hands. I can’t exactly tell her, Because the Imperial Fleet is probably on its way. Because I don’t want Ettian to die. Because I thought I could abandon him easily to the fate he’s earned, and turns out I can’t even let someone get away with shooting him.

  There’s a sudden commotion in the hall outside—or at least as much of a commotion as a well-run hospital is capable of producing. Murmurs echo down the halls, feet following in their wake, all of it moving toward the emperor’s room.

  Wen’s eyes meet mine, reflecting the same combination of terror and hope that I know I must be wearing. We’re out the door in an instant, racing side by side. My broken finger throbs with every step, but I push past the pain, skidding into the observation room a half a second behind Wen.

  There’s too much bustle going on to parse. Too many people shouting into comm lines, too many bodies blocking my view of the observation window. It’s not until Wen turns around, tears welling in her brilliant brown eyes, that I fully grasp what’s happening.

  “We’re in business,” Wen says, cuffing me on the shoulder. “The emperor is awake.”

  * * *

  —

  It takes more than an hour for Ettian to get his bearings and, I’m assuming, less than ten seconds after that for him to do something extremely stupid.

  “He’s asking for you,” an aide at the door says. Wen and I both perk up, and she starts to rise from her chair.

  “No,” the aide says, shockingly dismissive of the Flame Knight’s capricious reputation. “You,” she clarifies, pointing to me.

  Wen and I exchange a glance. “Let him have what he wants,” she mutters after a second, slumping back down in her chair. “He’s gut-shot and drugged—we shouldn’t be trying to rile him.”

  Right, I think, trepidation creeping up my throat as I follow the aide through the door. Because if there’s anyone notorious for not riling him, it’s me.

  I feel the change in the air as I step into the room, its cool dryness washing over me, the electric hum of the life-support machines settling into my bones. Ettian emp-Archon lies at the center of their tangled tubes and wires like an effigy on an altar. His face is still ashen, but there’s a spark in his eyes that only gets brighter when they lock on mine. He tries to lift himself, but only makes it about a centimeter up off the pillows before he collapses back down against them.

  The sight of it makes me want to storm out of this room, find wherever they locked up Hanji, and punch her some more. “I—”

  “I know,” Ettian mutters weakly as the door closes behind the aide, leaving us alone in the room—or at least as alone as we can be when every inch of this place, right down to the emperor’s heartbeat, is monitored. “Shouldn’t have been you first. Spare me the tirade.”

  “I thought you liked my tirades.” That gets me the barest smile I’ve ever seen him raise, but it feels like a victory rudiment starts up in my heart at the sight. “I get that you’re drugged and confused, but gods—have some decorum. Try for a little subtlety.”

  “Heard what you did to Hanji,” Ettian replies. “That doesn’t exactly sound subtle either.”

  “No.” I sigh. “Guess it wasn’t.”

  And suddenly it sinks in with a totality so unfair that I nearly scream. He almost died. He got shot through the gut. He was bleeding out. And now here lies Ettian emp-Archon, held together with tubes and stitches and glue, dragging me into rooms that I have no business being in. Weak from surgeries, from the cocktail of medications keeping him from writhing in agony, but trying his damnedest to smile at my stupid jokes. He’s the emperor of the reclaimed Archon territories, one of the most powerful men in the galaxy, my sworn enemy and jailer and the black hole my worst thoughts orbit.

  And he’s…

  He’s…

  Before I know it, I’ve sunken hard into the chair at
his bedside, burying my head in my hands. The faint, omnipresent beeping that’s soundtracked the room grows more insistent as Ettian tries to reach over to me. I catch his hand before it finds my cheeks and the wetness starting to trail down them. His eyes have slipped closed. He doesn’t know—but then again, he knows me well enough that he probably does. My hands falter as he takes them both, running his fingers over the splint on my broken finger with more gentleness than I could ever deserve. His fingers twist, trying to find their way into the spaces between mine, but I pull back out of his grip with a soft hiss.

  “Gal,” he whispers. “I’m so sorry.”

  “No apologies,” I reply, as easy as breathing.

  And that’s just the thing. The thing I’ve been grappling with for months slotting into place, the thing that’s felt like it couldn’t possibly work suddenly clicking in an instant. We’ve always traded those words without a thought—I don’t even remember when we started saying them or why. To me, it’s always been a smug little reminder. You don’t need to apologize to me, on the surface, but deeper than that, I already know who you are, and I’m not gonna hold it against you.

  That last part’s been in contention for a while now, but as the words settle over us, bringing a faint shine to Ettian’s already bleary eyes, I’m starting to realize that I’m coming around on the issue. I can’t begrudge Ettian for being Ettian, even when that means he’s also Ettian emp-Archon. As long as he’s alive. As long as he’s safe.

  My eyes drop to the mess of equipment doing its damnedest to keep him alive. “What is all this shit?” I ask, squinting at the fluid dribbling out of one tube and deciding in that same instant that I’m probably better off not knowing. “I mean, is this…permanent?”

  Ettian shakes his head slightly. “I’ve been warned not to get too optimistic, but most of the machinery is there to hold me over until they can do the actual repairs. Which is a terrifying ruttin’ thing to say about my internal organs, but…yeah.”

  I see the time it will take sprawled out in front of me, overwritten by the war’s inevitable progress. Ellit has fallen, but now that Archon has made another gain, Umber will be shoring up to keep the system under their control. Berr sys-Tosa’s forces are still holing up on Imre and around the gas giant Dasun. Both of those worlds are currently far-flung in their orbits on the other side of the sun. Meanwhile, word of Ellit’s fall must have made it back to the Umber Core, and I’m certain the Imperial Fleet is already mobilizing. To press their advantage before reinforcements arrive, Archon will have to strike again hard and fast.

  It’s the worst possible time for the emperor to be out of commission.

  Ettian’s mouth has settled into a grim line, no doubt because he’s thinking the same thing. “They’re still formulating an estimate for how long it will take,” he says, his eyes slipping to the readouts from the instrumentation at his bedside. I watch him watch himself living. Watch him weigh his health against his goals. Watch the weight of his determination knit his brow and hitch his heartbeat a tick faster.

  “Wen and I were talking about what happens next,” I tell him, low and urgent. It’s probably not quiet enough to slip past the room’s monitors, but at this point I don’t really give a rut. “Just because you’re bedbound doesn’t mean this empire stops taking your orders. Wen can sit in for you. Enforce for you. I’ll advise her. She’ll keep me honest to your wishes, and I’ll make sure she learns the ropes of governing.”

  Ettian eyes me warily. “You’ve changed your tune a little, haven’t you?”

  “Anything to keep my neck out of Iral’s hands.” I shrug.

  “Hmm,” he mutters, sinking deeper into his pillows.

  There’s a part of me that wants to argue, but the smarter part of me realizes his energy is waning. Before he goes completely, I tap him on the back of the hand, and his eyes twitch open. “Want me to get her?”

  He gives the slightest nod, and I can’t help the little thrill I get from understanding him so completely.

  My hand’s barely brushed the knob when the door wrenches open to reveal Wen Iffan wearing a smile so soft and weak that even with the obvious, unmistakable burn scar, I have a hard time believing it’s her. I step out of her way, biting back a quippy remark about how eager she must be to see me. She’s been through the same hell as me today, and she hasn’t had the balm of the last five minutes to relieve it.

  Wen crosses the room silently, dropping into the same chair I’ve just been sitting in. I expect her eyes to catch on the medical equipment that wreaths Ettian’s midsection. It seems like the kind of puzzle her mechanical mind would instinctively start trying to untangle. But instead Wen only has eyes for Ettian’s. Her lips keep working like she’s trying to say something but the words just don’t come.

  All at once I remember the moment after the bullet struck. The moment I should have run and instead flew to Ettian’s defense. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I wasn’t the only one whose true feelings were exposed in the heart of those panicked seconds. Wen should have been charging into the square to help clear the civilians, putting the safety of the citizens over the emperor’s life like a true Archon soldier. Or throwing herself into action to get the incoming Ellit governors to safety before another bullet could find them. Or grabbing me before I made it off the stage and Archon lost its best shield in the chaos of the crowd.

  Instead she caught and cradled Ettian, soaking her hands in his blood. I heard whispers as I was being dragged back to a safe zone and he was being medevacked away—rumors that she’d had to be pried from the emperor’s side by General Iral himself.

  Wen was supposed to be proving to Esperza that she valued more than just the emperor. Instead she all but screamed that his life was the only thing that mattered to her.

  From the way she’s looking at him now, I’m not sure she regrets it. She’s aware of what she’s done. If she were interested in repairing the damage to her reputation, she’d be off doing that. Instead she’s here, like me. We’ve both said, “Rut it,” and planted our flags squarely on Ettian. It’s a declaration of war against Iral—and I can’t think of any better battle to fight. With me and Wen on the emperor’s side, Ettian still stands a chance of keeping control of his empire, and I still stand a chance of keeping my head attached to my shoulders.

  So, win-win.

  I hesitate as the silence draws long in the room. I don’t want to break up the moment, but I can feel a prickle of jealousy digging into my sides at the sight of Ettian and Wen so comfortably sharing space. She spares the observation window no anxious glances. Wen doesn’t care who might see her like this. She belongs at his side.

  I never could.

  With a sigh so soft neither of them could possibly hear it, I turn my back and slip through the door.

  CHAPTER 19

  The week after we transition our operation back aboard the Torrent is long and boring, but it’s made abruptly less so by Wen skidding through the door of our quarters one afternoon to declare that I have a date.

  She escorts me to one of the lower levels of the command core, and I get my first look at what my life on this ship could have been—and what it will be, if Iral manages to overrule Ettian. This is the famous brig Deidra con-Silon was so keen on tossing my ass in, a cold, sterile place overseen by people I’m assuming are the coldest, sterilest soldiers aboard this dreadnought. We’re led past a bank of sparse cells with clear fronts that seem more fitting for animal enclosures at a zoo. About half of them are occupied, populated with people I’m guessing are higher-level political prisoners. I try not to meet eyes as I pass them, but the ones I accidentally clock all wear the same expression of shock that slides easily into anger when they realize I’m walking free around the ship.

  The brig guards lead us to an interrogation room that, at first glance, has a similar layout to Ettian’s hospital setup—though I’m sure this observation wi
ndow isn’t a two-way street. Through it, I can see Hanji Iwam already installed at an interrogation table. She’s got the nerve to sit with her heels kicked up, her arms folded, her head tipped back at a downright rakish angle.

  I look at her and I think of summer afternoons, sprawled on the edge of the tarmac by Runway Three, passing a bottle of polish back and forth and sketching a scoreboard in the dirt to empirically rank our fellow cadets’ asses. I think of late nights in the tower, a group of us playing a card game on the floor while Hanji lounged like an empress over all of us, her feet kicked up just like they are now and her hands swatting us away every time we tried to change the playlist to something that wasn’t thirty years old. She was always smiling, always quick to jump in on a joke or a prank.

  Apparently she’s requested to speak with me—she’s told her guards that they’ll get full cooperation if I’m her interrogator. The idea would have been laughable just a week ago, but my splinted finger is making a pretty solid argument against dismissing the notion entirely, and with Wen keeping an eye on me, I guess the situation is palatable enough to allow. After a nod from one of the guards, I move to the interrogation-room door.

  As I step into the room, I feel Wen’s hand take root in the back of my shirt. The Flame Knight knows what happened the last time I got close to Hanji. She’s right to worry about it happening again.

  “Your Highness,” Ettian’s would-be-assassin says, still staring at the ceiling.

  “Hanji.”

  At the sound of her name, she tilts her chin down, and I can’t help the sudden, sharp inhale that fills my lungs. Her face is a marbled mess of bruising, both eyes swollen so much that I barely recognize her. My hands tighten into fists, sending a spark of pain along my fracture and a sympathetic ache kneading its way into my knuckles. “And the Flame Knight—I’m honored,” she continues. “From the rumors that float our way on Imre, you’re just as much the usurper’s pet as dear Gal here.”