Dark of the West (Glass Alliance)

by Joanna Hathaway

  Maybe I’ve tricked myself yet again.

  “Is Elinga missing her dragon?”

  I spin round.

  Athan stands there, cautious, dressed in his uniform and wearing a dark-purple mask with black trim. A stark figure in the midst of the florid ballroom sea.

  “You came.” It’s the only thing that finds its way out of my stunned delight.

  “I said I would.”

  “Your mask is perfect!” And it is. Slightly angular at the sides, so very dragon-like.

  He glances round the room, nervous, and I don’t blame him for feeling out of place. His plain uniform stands out in a tapestry of rich fabrics. The courtly faces watch us, curious, but I take his arm slyly and lead him for the marble floor gleaming in chandelier light. “Dance with me, Lieutenant.”

  “I was hoping you’d forget to ask.”

  “Certainly not, and it’s my birthday.”

  He smiles hesitantly. “I suppose I can’t say no to a unicorn. But, please, let’s be terrible in a corner where we won’t hurt anyone else.” He’s leading me now, by the arm.

  “Say unicorn.”

  He looks over his shoulder. “Unicorn?”

  “It sounds lovely with your accent.”

  “Unicorn.”

  “Again.”

  He turns and brings me closer, stopping us in a lonely corner. “Unicorn, unicorn, unicorn,” he whispers softly, turning the silly request into something that trips up my breath.

  Heart pounding in my palms, I place my arms round him. I catch the scent of soap, but also lingering smoke from the runway. Perhaps it’s saturated into his very skin. Together, we dance in our little corner, and though the slow waltz is easy to keep pace with, I have to remind him again what to do. He’s distracted and still nervous. To think he can perform those fabulous breathtaking stunts in the air but be so perfectly helpless with his feet on the ground.

  “I think I’m starting to get the hang of this,” he says, bumping into me again.

  “I hope you haven’t been practicing.”

  “With who?” His grin appears for a moment. “Cyar?”

  “I don’t know,” I say. “Those pretty girls in Thurn.”

  He pulls me even closer. “Are they?”

  The sudden nearness of his lips distracts me momentarily. He makes me want so much more, and I’m desperate to learn what kind of kiss he’d give me. But not here. Not in front of all these people. I step back to give us space. “What’s the first thing you’ll do when you’re home?” I ask instead, as if he hasn’t just set me breathless.

  He thinks. “Be alone for a while. Everywhere I go, I’m always with someone else. Morning, afternoon, night. It’s tiring.”

  “And then?”

  He glances over my shoulder. “And then I’d like to fly for an afternoon. No one after me. No targets. Just for the joy of it, not any other reason.”

  “And once you’re back on the ground?”

  “Then I’ll probably sit there, realizing how much I’d rather be with you.” His gaze is serious.

  He recaptures the polite distance I’ve put between us, and I’m sure my cheeks are glowing pink. I feel the many eyes on us—hundreds of them, bejeweled, tipsy with wine, laughing through the night. We must look very strange and romantic, the princess and her handsome, common pilot. But once upon a time, many of them saw my father do the same. They watched him love a woman who didn’t belong, watched him give his crown to her, and a sense of rightness moves through me, all the way to my fingertips draped across the back of Athan’s neck. His skin is warm, his uniform rough, and his lips are close enough to my face I can feel his breath there. I rouse courage for the words I want to say.

  But first.

  “Tell me again there will be no war.”

  “No war,” he says, glancing over my shoulder for the hundredth time. He really doesn’t need to worry so much. We dance a moment in silence, before he pushes me back gently from him. “No, I’m not going to lie about this.” There’s a new heaviness in his voice, but his hand briefly brushes the skin along my neck, delicious fire. “In truth, I don’t know how the League will rule. I’d rather plan for the worst.”

  I stop waltzing. “You’re the one who said you didn’t like reality, that you preferred to dream. Do we need to flip a coin for this now?”

  “Ali, that was—”

  “And yet here you are. You made it to my masquerade, didn’t you? The League won’t rule against a sovereign kingdom. You know this. They won’t. So tell me what it is you’re truly afraid of.”

  He doesn’t speak for a long moment. Then he says, very quietly, “Sometimes I’m afraid that no one—not a single person—will notice that I don’t belong here.”

  In this place, alone together in the corner of the dance floor, surrounded by too much unknown, too much unspoken, I know what he means.

  “Here” is this uniform, this ugly thing that sends him to battle.

  “Here” is a world where the League might surprise us all and announce war.

  “Here” is anything that goes against his desperately gentle nature.

  I bring myself closer yet, looking into his face, fervent, at the light freckles and sun-dusted skin pulsing with life, into his grey eyes that seem as weary and layered as the sea. I can’t imagine him harmed. “You can be expected to do and be many things, Athan, but know this—you don’t always have to be brave.”

  He looks like he wants to kiss me.

  I know he does, then his gaze is torn away again.

  “Look at me,” I insist, and he does. “This is important. I’ve known you hardly more than a summer and yet it feels like it might as well be a thousand days. I feel like I know all of you, and I want us to have a chance. I don’t care how long it takes. I’ll escape and meet you somewhere. Anywhere. I’d wait a thousand days for you if you promised you felt the same. A thousand days, don’t you believe me? You simply have to stay alive. Promise me that.”

  He looks down at me, not smiling. Oh, I wish he’d smile at a moment like this! I’m trembling to have admitted all of it. I know I sound childish and desperate and willing, but it’s true as the sun, starting here and ending there, certain to follow the same path.

  He slips the mask off his face, resting it above his forehead. “I have to tell you something.”

  “Tell me.”

  “It isn’t easy to say.”

  “It’s all right.”

  His eyes dart beyond me, arms tensing round my waist, distracted again.

  “Tell me what?” I ask, confused.

  I’m about to turn and see what he’s staring at, the thing that’s apparently more enthralling than me, when he grips me by the shoulders and holds my gaze fiercely with his own. “That I’ve missed you more than anything,” he says in a breath. And then his lips are on mine, sudden and warm and overwhelming, like a dream, like everything I’ve imagined. But it’s all so wrong and unexpected that I push him off me.

  My face is aflame behind my mask.

  “What are you doing?” I whisper, mortified.

  He appears briefly hurt, and then a blistering crack shatters the moment. I wince with the sharpness of it, my hands gripping him, still pushing him away. Then another crack, and another.

  The room splinters to chaos.

  Screams and shattering. Limbs falling, scrambling. A table overturned.

  I’m still frozen, but Athan grabs me, yanking me from our lonely corner of the floor, dodging panicked faces. The mask covers my peripheral vision, and I tear it off in time to see a guard fall with red seeping from his chest. He stumbles right into me on his way down, eyes strange and distended. I turn and see others crumpling. Scarlet stains on satin and silk. But Athan drags me between the narrow side doors, and the harsh thrum of bullets fades to bursts behind us. Awful screams.

  We hurtle down the stairs, recognition clawing through my terror. It’s the same way I took him weeks ago on our tour. I want to grab at something, beg him to go bac
k, but he’s sprinting us through the maze of halls, then pushing the library door open.

  My father’s library.

  He has me by the wrist and it hurts. “Stop, stop,” I say more as a gasp. “Reni!”

  He ignores me and shuts us inside, pulling me before the wide windows. Outside, propellers are already growling into the night sky, the glass trembling as they pass above the palace. It’s far too many aeroplanes at once.

  What the stars is happening!

  Athan points his sidearm at the window. “Can I?”

  I look at him, wide-eyed. “Yes?”

  He fires, glass imploding, and the sudden sound forces a cry into my throat. But it doesn’t get out. There’s a desert inside me, sucking away my voice.

  Before us, a few feet down, is the dark lawn and the gardens beyond. He gestures for me to jump, and there’s no other choice but to do it. My gown tangles round my legs. Muddy earth soaks my knees, and the scalloped lacing turns brown. I stand quickly and trip, but Athan’s hand grabs me again, helping me up.

  We run for the dark edge of the forest, keeping to the shadowy gardens. The hangar to our left is lit by floodlights and shouts, and a plane flashes close overhead, black swords glinting from the bottom.

  Safire.

  Once in the woods and hidden by leafy darkness, breathing hard, Athan says, “We’re safe here for now.” He kneels beside me on the cold, wet ground.

  I nod numbly, smelling the sweet pine, the smoky trail of aeroplanes, and stare at my ruined gown. A gaping tear mars the delicate fabric where I tripped. Blood is speckled on the bodice from the wounded guard.

  Stars, I’m going to be sick.

  I feel gentle hands on the sides of my face. “I’m taking you away from here, Ali. You’ll be safe, I promise.” When I don’t respond, he says, “Cyar’s coming. He’s going to help.”

  I peer up at him, confused. “How does Cyar know where to find us?”

  Athan doesn’t answer. His face is pale and tense in the flickering illumination of the distant spotlights.

  “What’s happening?” I demand, trembling, finding something sharp to grasp. Something like anger. “What do you know?”

  He leans back against the tree opposite me. The mask still rests on his forehead at an awkward angle. “The protesters aren’t happy to have us here, you know that.”

  “And you thought they’d attack my damn masquerade because of it?”

  “I didn’t know anything! God, what do you think?” He sounds as panicked and frustrated as me. “I just had a fear inside me, and I’ve learned to listen to that fear. It’s often right.”

  I lean forward and snatch the mask off his forehead. It looks all wrong.

  Tense moments go by, the sky filled with engines, staccato sounds erupting from the distant palace. But then a shadowed figure approaches the woods cautiously, and Athan readies his pistol.

  “First into the fray, Charm?” the familiar voice calls.

  It’s Cyar, looking shaken when he nears, but relief softens his face at the sight of us. Athan also looks relieved. He jumps up and they begin to speak in Savien, but I stand and clear my throat behind them.

  “Please,” I say, arms wrapped round myself. “Whatever it is, I want to hear.”

  Cyar glances at me warily, and I raise my chin higher. He relents. “It’s the protesters,” he says. “They came disguised as guards. We’ve captured them, and our General has secured the palace, but there are rioters still marching up from the city. They’re armed, demanding the Queen be arrested.”

  Coldness seizes me, indignant. “This isn’t her fault!” I say. “She has nothing to do with this. They’re angry at you. They’ve been in the square all day!”

  Cyar hesitates. “This … this is larger than Hathene, Princess. There are three other cities in revolt.”

  “Then what are they saying?” My panic builds with the growing discomfort on Cyar’s face. “If it’s not about you, then what is it about?”

  “They’re saying … she murdered your father.”

  My body turns to ice. My heart, my blood, my bones. Everything. They know—the kingdom knows the truth. They know my father was murdered. But how? And how could they ever blame her?

  “Where’s my brother?” I ask frantically.

  “He disappeared. And they’re searching for you now.” Cyar looks at me, helpless. “The General wants to put you with your mother, for the time being.”

  “He wants to arrest me, too?” My voice nearly breaks on that, stunned.

  Athan remains silent, fist tightening on his gun.

  “Our General doesn’t wish to arrest anyone,” Cyar says quickly. “It’s only for your own protection until the protesters are dealt with. It’s much too—”

  “No, we have to get to the hangar,” Athan interrupts.

  “The hangar?” both Cyar and I repeat.

  Athan looks at me. “I told you. I’m taking you away from here.”

  “You can’t steal a damn aeroplane!” I say.

  But he’s already striding for the tree line, off to plot this mad strategy. Cyar turns to me once he’s disappeared. We stand together awkwardly, my dress torn and bloodied, my arms still clutched to my chest.

  He removes his Safire jacket and hands it to me. “You look cold, Princess.” That’s what he says, which is truer than he can know, but I also see what he means, gentle beneath the surface. He’s aware of my trembling horror. I put it on gratefully, savouring the sudden warmth, covering up the splotches of brutal red. The blood of my people.

  Then he holds his pistol out. “And put this in the pocket.”

  I stare at the weapon. “No, I can’t—”

  “You need it more than me tonight. But don’t let him see. He won’t let me leave here without it.”

  I know he means Athan, and I’m about to protest, but my mad dragon-boy is already back, and I hide the gun quickly.

  Athan looks me up and down, now wrapped in Safire uniform.

  “Tonight’s not the night to be running around in a dress,” Cyar says to him simply.

  Athan nods, and I see a bit of embarrassment in his gaze. Perhaps he knows that he should have thought of this. That he should have been the noble one to give me his coat. But there’s no time to worry about being a gentleman.

  “Cyar’s going to make our diversion,” Athan says to me, “and I’ll borrow one of the Safire planes.”

  “Borrow?” I ask.

  “Commandeer.” He shrugs.

  Stars, they’re going to get themselves both court-martialed—or worse!

  But he takes my hand, earnest. “We have to run, all right?”

  There’s urgency in his touch, and I see the loyalty in his gaze, feel the strange sense of having everything I want right in front of me … and yet nothing at all. And then I see the orange glow south of us, rising higher. A devilish horizon of blood red. The hazy air.

  It isn’t the fuel of aeroplanes I smell.

  The Safire boys see my fresh horror, and they turn.

  Flames dance in the distance, beyond the front gates of the palace. Thick, dusty smoke blots out the stars, billowing south, and shapes of aeroplanes pass between the dark plumes.

  The forest is on fire.

  The rioters have done this, or perhaps one of the metal machines in the sky. I don’t know anymore, but my world is burning.

  “Good God,” Cyar says.

  “Get to the hangar,” Athan orders, grabbing my hand.

  I’m not sure if it’s the Safire uniform I’m wearing or the pistol hidden in my pocket, but suddenly, with absolutely certainty, I know what I have to do.

  “No,” I say, pulling from Athan. “I’m not leaving my mother behind.”

  He stares at me. “Ali, there’s no way we can get to her. Not without you being found and locked up as well. Look around you! There’s an entire militia demanding your neck!”

  “I have a way.” I sound more confident than I feel. “Because I know it’s a lie.”
>
  “What’s a lie?”

  “The damn murder, Athan!” I could hit him for looking so perplexed right now. “My mother didn’t do it! She must speak to them. They’ll listen. I know they will. They adore my mother, I swear it! If they heard the truth, they could never blame her.”

  Athan tilts his head. His face is fire and shadows. “The truth?”

  I don’t have time to explain. Not now. But we have an answer, the secret rumour about our royal line, the reason he was truly murdered. My mother didn’t want to share it with the world, but now she’ll have to find a way to redeem herself. A half version of it, perhaps. There’s no other choice.

  I grab Athan’s arm. “Take me to your General.”

  His eyes widen. “What?”

  “Please! I need him, and I believe he’ll listen to me. I know that sounds mad, but we have an understanding. He won’t arrest me.”

  “You are mad,” Athan says. “You don’t know what fear makes people do. They don’t listen.”

  “Oh, he’ll listen, Lieutenant. He has to, because I have leverage.” I raise my chin, finally feeling some power in this. “Photographs of his son’s war crime.”

  Another Safire fighter snarls above us, and Cyar raises his hands, stepping back. “Maybe commandeering the plane was the better idea.”

  But Athan says nothing. He simply stares at me for a long moment, the feeling of an eternity passing between us, the brilliant little wheels turning in his head. Like he’s trying to run through every possible outcome of this gamble. I don’t blame him. But I’m going back for my mother, with or without him, and I think he knows this, too.

  He waves to Cyar. “All right, you’re scaring first. But I guess we’re doing it inside the palace now.”

  Cyar sighs. “Copy that, Lieutenant.”

  “Is this pilot talk for ‘yes’?” I ask.

  Athan’s hand is already clutching my own again, the only answer I need. The fever dream of this strange night retreats in the wake of renewed conviction. Whatever he’s concerned about, it’s not large enough to kill his determination to help me, and he’s quickly leading me at a run towards the monstrous, glittering shape of home now wrapped in a fog of smoke.

  We drop down behind the garden hedges. Faint dark figures loom in the haze, patrolling the grounds, guns raised. Safire uniforms. Cyar makes his move, approaching them with a Savien greeting. They lower their weapons in acknowledgment. One pats his shoulder, asking a question. Cyar points in the opposite direction, towards the stables, urging them to follow, and then they’re gone.