She couldn’t be angry with him. Blissful peace spread through her limbs. Her arm ceased to throb, and she felt as if she was floating in zero-G. That was good. She was good in zero-G. If only she could move…
“Don’t worry,” Feric signed. “I’ll take care of you, and when the time comes, you’ll be safe to meet your destiny.”
Annika smiled at him and tried to tell him that when the time came, she’d kill him, but the words wouldn’t come. Her eyes drifted shut, and existence became as dark as the blackness of space.
Chapter Nineteen
As the hierophant promised, Judit and Evie saw no one until they reached the bridge. The door to the nerve center of the ship stood open, and guards lined the walls, but their weapons hung by their belts. A lone figure stood at a center console, her back to the door. She was dressed in the same red robes as the other hierophant, but long silver hair cascaded down her back, as bright as Judit’s own.
Judit’s breath caught. A Meridian? But the woman turned, showing skin far lighter that was beginning to line with age. Her smile seemed kind, if sad. She clasped her hands in front of her.
“Welcome, chosen one,” she said.
Judit was struck with a feeling of recognition. She had a flash of sitting with Noal during one of his lessons. History maybe. The tutor had played a litany of prophecies, including Willa’s clear prophecy of the chosen one. The tutor had shown them holos of her, too, stressing that she’d sacrificed her life for her peerless prophecies by traveling past the event horizon of a black hole.
“You can’t be Willa,” Judit said. “She died over forty years ago!” And she’d been in her fifties when she’d made her famous prophecy. This was no ninety-year-old woman!
Willa tilted her head and smiled wider as if she could read Judit’s mind and was amused by it. “The closer you come to a black hole, the more time slows. Within it?” She shrugged. “Time is nothing. I died and was reborn. As for all the things I’ve seen?” She shook her head. “I fear that if I told you, you could not even comprehend, much less believe. And I barely scratched the surface of time.”
“So you knew,” Judit said, stepping forward, “that I was the real chosen one? Did you know about the plan Meridian had in case Nocturna betrayed them? Did you know about the original kidnapping?”
“The things I know would astound you, but those are not the questions you came here to ask.”
Judit hadn’t come to ask questions at all, interesting as this was. “Where is Annika?”
Despite everything that was happening, Willa’s blue eyes seemed kind. “On the path to her fate, as you are, as we all are.”
“Did you have her kidnapped again? Are you behind all the chaos in the galaxy right now?” Anger burned through Judit’s temples, and she resisted the urge to point her pistol at Willa’s chest. “I thought hierophants were supposed to observe the future, not make it.”
“My journey taught me better than that,” Willa said. “It showed me that I have the opportunity to put the galaxy right, to truly unite humanity instead of dividing it.”
“We have to go, Boss,” Evie said over their personal comm. “That Nocturna ship will be here soon.”
“Give Annika back to me,” Judit said.
“Certainly.”
Judit nearly took a step back. She hadn’t expected that. “Well…okay.” She waited half a heartbeat, but no one moved. “Now!”
Willa waved. Judit turned, expecting to see someone bringing Annika inside, but the thrum of a pistol sounded from behind them. Judit ducked and spun, going for her own weapon. Her muscles clenched as the shot landed close to her, and there was only one place it could have gone.
Judit turned in time to see Evie crumple, her face a mask of surprise. A crimson hole tipped a red river down her side, and the look of wonder didn’t leave her face until it slackened.
Judit caught her. “Evie, hold on!” She brought her pistol to bear on the guard who’d fired and pulled the trigger, but he rolled away from the blast.
“Bea!” Judit called. She fired again. “We need—”
Something pushed into her back, and she went rigid, lights exploding in front of her eyes. Her head whipped back, and she lost all thought.
* * *
Annika woke to the smell of charred meat. She breathed deep, trying to determine the source and wondering how many times she was going to wake up after being knocked unconscious. So far, she’d been strangled, hit with a shock stick, and gassed. Did the different circumstances mean there was less chance of brain damage?
At least she was getting plenty of practice taking stock of her surroundings with her eyes closed. Besides the smell, she heard popping and buzzing, maybe a damaged console. Someone was muttering, but they were too far away to hear. Though the meat smell was strong, she could also smell ozone and scorched plastic, damaged electronics. If she was still on the shuttle, it might have come under attack; the burnt smell was probably a person who’d been injured or killed.
Feric? Possibly, but who was muttering? Her mother? Had she been aboard the shuttle, too? Maybe she’d never been in that hall, never been anywhere on the ship, and Annika had been imagining her the entire time.
It nearly made her laugh, and she wondered if the gas was still in her system, making her foggy and light-headed. She flexed her muscles, and nearly cried out as her injured arm came alive with pain. She was lying unrestrained on a hard surface, probably a floor. At least she was lying on her right side so she wasn’t resting on her injury. By the crinkling sound, she was still wearing the pressure suit, but the helmet was gone. That was good; they couldn’t gas her again.
After the slight sound, she paused to see if anyone noticed. A small weight rested on her forearm, maybe someone’s hand. Annika stiffened, ready to move, but the hand gripped her.
“Wait,” a soft voice said in her ear. “Not yet.” It was her mother’s voice, and she didn’t know why it made her hesitate, but the next words stilled her. “They’ll want to kill you, to make a martyr that will draw more people into the fight, but I won’t let them, Anni.”
What the dark did that mean? Emotions she’d thought long dead reared in Annika’s mind. She thought she’d never again feel the safety of a parent’s arms. She was certain she no longer needed it.
“I couldn’t say anything with Feric around,” her mother said. “He’s a true believer, but I joined their cause once I knew you were at the heart of it. I wanted you to be free, so I had to go along this far, but I won’t let them hurt you or Judit, I promise.”
Judit was there, too? Annika risked opening one eye. It looked like the control room of the Eye, but it was in ruins; several consoles had shorted out, and bodies were scattered around the room. She didn’t see Feric, but a few other people in hierophants’ robes gathered near one of the live consoles. Her mother must have been behind her.
“I know you don’t trust me,” her mother said. “The dark knows I’ve given you enough reasons not to, but it was all for the good, I promise. Nocturna was going to kill me, so I had to leave, and this was the only way I could get you back.”
Annika’s heart thudded, and she shut her eyes again. A huge part of her wanted to give herself over to her mother, but the galaxy was full of tricks. Ama was not always wrong.
Someone stepped over her, and her mother knelt into view, bending low. “When I say, come up swinging, but not yet, not until Willa is here. If one of us can get to her, it’ll all be over.”
Willa? The prophet responsible for the prophecy of the chosen one? That was a surprise, but as she thought about it, who else would lead the rebellion of the hierophants than their most famous daughter? Annika opened her eyes again and looked at her mother before blinking once.
“Good girl. Do you have the data chip you took from Prime?”
Annika blinked again.
“I added a few things to it before you woke up in the medbay. I knew you’d find it. When you get loose, broadcast it to everyone within reach
, anyone that will listen. People will find out they’ve been manipulated, that the hierophants commanded the bombings on Nocturna Prime. The hierophants also told House Meridian that Tam Ada-Meridian was giving information to Nocturna spies. Then everyone should start to calm down, at least enough to listen. Then you and Judit can marry, unite your houses, and get everyone to see sense.”
Annika nearly snorted a laugh. At this point, wasn’t peace between Meridian and Nocturna nothing more than a fantasy? Ama would say so.
Her mother leaned close. “Hopefully, it will be easier than you think.”
“Variel?” someone in the room called. “Is your daughter all right?”
“Still sleeping,” Annika’s mother said over her shoulder.
Someone sighed. “I know it will be a great sacrifice, but you have to let her go.”
Annika’s mother managed to make her voice sound calm, even happy, as she said, “If it’s for the good of the cause, I’m at peace with it.”
Annika tried her best not to shudder. A short time later, a door opened, and Annika heard several people enter. She risked a look and nearly twitched in surprise. Two people carried Judit, both of them in hierophant red. Several others surrounded them, and the woman who led them seemed familiar, a face out of the history holos: Willa herself.
Annika waited until they laid Judit down. She was dressed in an evosuit, but like Annika, she wore no helmet. Well, if the atmosphere evaporated from the room, at least their bodies would be protected. All the hierophants began to move to the center of the room. Annika didn’t need the prod of her mother’s toe to know it was time to act.
She was up in a moment, her right side tingling where she’d laid on it, the wound aching in the other arm. She ignored both and the slight fog in her brain and leapt for Willa, her right arm ahead of her, palm flat so she could slam it into the side of Willa’s neck.
The hierophants reacted faster than Annika thought. One launched a kick and caught her in the side. She went with the motion, but it was still enough to send pain arcing through her ribs and making her wounded arm scream all over again.
With a roll, Annika was up in an instant, hands forward to strike at anyone who came near, but the hierophants assumed defense positions of their own, and she knew they were more than they seemed to be.
But she’d worked as a distraction. Her mother eased around behind them, closer to Judit. If she could wake Judit as she’d awoken Annika, the three of them might have a chance.
“We knew what you were going to do before you did it,” Willa said.
“Did you always know you were going over that event horizon?” Annika asked, anything to keep them focused on her.
“I knew it was my destiny,” Willa said. “On the other side, I knew what had to be done. The opportunity to reshape the galaxy as it was meant to be, not divided by houses but united by our very humanity.”
“At the cost of so many lives? You bombed a city!”
Willa spread her hands. “It is only from ashes that we may spring anew.”
It sounded like cryptic nonsense. Annika’s mother bent over Judit, injecting her with something. Annika felt a flutter of fear. Her mother might be poisoning Judit, could be doing anything, but why would she bother to hide?
When Judit’s eyes snapped open, Annika’s mother put a hand over her mouth and whispered in her ear.
“What do you want us for?” Annika asked loudly. “Why us?”
“You know why,” Willa said with a smile. “You’re the chosen ones, born at the right time, groomed to take the actions we knew you would take. There were a few bumps in the road, but with the bits of the future I was able to see, it’s all gone as planned.”
“And how does it end?” Annika asked as her mother helped Judit up. “Have you seen that?”
“No one ever gets to see their entire future, just enough to know what’s right, what’s true.”
Annika nearly rolled her eyes. No one was going to tell her what she could or couldn’t do with her future. Behind Willa, her mother gave a nod. Annika struck at the two guards in front of her while her mother and Judit attacked them from behind. Judit felled one with a giant swing to the back, and her mother wrapped an arm around the neck of another.
Annika launched a fist at one of her foes while angling a kick at the knee of the other. He’d been watching her fist, and the kick struck him hard. He went down, uttering a cry of pain. Annika ducked the counterswing of her original foe and slammed a fist into his stomach. She put one hand on the ground and swept her leg into his, sending him tumbling. She stayed down, kicking his face when it was level with hers. Then she switched position and kicked up at the other man, planting her heel in his chin.
They had all four guards down quickly. The other three hierophants hugged the walls, leaving Willa alone in the middle of the floor.
She watched them with an amused smile.
Annika’s mother stepped up behind Willa and grabbed her arm. “Now this ends. Annika and Judit will unite their houses, and there can be peace without death and destruction.”
Willa kept her smile. Judit stepped around them, heading for Annika, and Annika met her halfway, their hands clasping, though Annika kept her left arm free.
“Are you all right?” they both asked at the same time.
Annika chuckled breathlessly. “I’m a little banged up, but I’ll be okay.”
“Me, too.”
Annika turned back to her mother, wondering what they were supposed to do now. Did she introduce her lover to her mother or wait until later? Was her mother going to kill Willa or arrest her? She’d said that without Willa, the hierophants’ plans would end, but the hierophant guards were subdued. Yet Willa was still smiling.
Annika’s mother arched an eyebrow. “Are you going to tell me you saw this, too, Willa? That all this is going according to plan?”
“Yes,” Willa said.
Annika looked to the cowering hierophants. “So, we should kill them?”
Judit clutched her hand. “We should arrest them. Once the galaxy hears what they’ve done…”
“Right,” Annika said. “We can use their console.” One of the hierophants set a foot in her way, and she backhanded him hard, sending him spinning to the ground. She gave a look to the others, and they moved farther away, their expressions terrified. If they’d seen this future, they weren’t too certain of it.
* * *
Judit tried to process everything that had happened; her emotions were hammering at her to stop, to ask questions, to try to get everyone to explain what was going on. She had Annika by her side, so that was a point in the positive column. But she also had the woman she recognized as Annika’s mother, Variel. She’d awoken Judit and told her that if she attacked the guards, they had a chance to stop the chaos, and since Annika had seemed in the process of doing that, it sounded like the best idea.
So Variel was on their side? And they seemed to have won, but Willa still had a creepy smile, and Judit didn’t know what to make of that. If Willa was responsible for the chaos, that meant she was also responsible for Judit’s father’s death, and she was definitely responsible for Evie’s death. Judit wanted to punch her, but they had her subdued. Judit looked forward to turning her over to the Meridian authorities as soon as she and Annika united the galaxy.
Whatever that meant.
Annika inserted a data chip into one of the consoles, but the controls were locked. She turned to the hierophants. “What’s the code?”
They shrank from her, shaking their heads.
“They don’t know,” Willa said. “Did you think I wouldn’t know you’d try this?”
Annika turned to her with a murderous look, and for once, Judit wanted to support her almost as much as she wanted to see Willa in prison.
“Give her the code,” Variel said, and Judit knew where Annika had gotten that dangerous growl. Annika’s childhood couldn’t have been easy.
Willa folded her hands and said nothing.
/> Variel shook her slightly. “You want to die?”
“If that is my fate, so be it.”
Now Annika stepped close as well, removed her glove, pushed up the sleeve of her suit, and slipped something from her arm, a bone knife. Judit stared at it in horror. The short white sliver was a little bloody where it had slipped through her skin. Judit had to swallow back a wave of bile. She hadn’t believed Noal when he’d told her.
“Does your fate have you whole or in pieces?” Annika asked.
Judit’s stomach turned a little more. “It’s over,” she said. “You want peace? That’s what we want, too, and we can make it happen without so many deaths.”
“There have already been too many,” Annika said. “You bombed Nocturna!”
Judit let out a breath. Well, she knew it hadn’t been Annika.
“Not personally.” Willa’s gaze cut to Variel, who scowled at her.
“I did what I had to do to get my daughter back!”
“You?” Judit asked. How could she trust someone willing to do such a thing, no matter the reason?
Variel glanced at her. “They wanted Meridian and Nocturna at each other’s throats.”
“They framed your father, too, Judit. I’m so sorry,” Annika said.
Judit leaned against the console. It felt like the room was closing in. She couldn’t breathe. She tried to tell herself she couldn’t fall apart now, but the people responsible for killing her father were in this room, and if she wanted, she could end them now. It was clear that Annika and Variel wouldn’t mind.
Willa smiled as if all the deaths in the galaxy wouldn’t affect her. Judit saw flashes of her grandmother in that face. It was probably Annika’s grandmother, too, and all the people in the galaxy who didn’t want to change except to get worse. They’d believed in their own causes for so long, there wasn’t room in their minds for anything else.
And she didn’t want to become them. Judit glanced at the console again. “If we can’t unlock this, we need to find the Damat.” If they had escaped the trap she’d fallen into, they’d have followed her. Everyone but Evie.
House of Fate Page 28