Only I know what that truly takes.
2
ATHAN DAKAR
Savient
It’s been over two months since the Royal League ruled against our war in Resya, but the sunset wharf before me tells a different story. Standing on the walls of an old citadel, I count three torpedo boats floating in the murky water far below, mounted anti-aircraft guns gleaming on the forward and aft decks. Earlier this week, they only had a single turret. Now they’ve multiplied to four, and everything’s encased in armour. On a nearby carrier, hidden beneath netting, twenty fighter planes sleep, camouflaged wings and flanks painted forest green.
The quiet conspiracy of our war machine rousing to life.
Trying to ignore that unpleasant reality, I focus above the deceitful harbour, on the multicoloured sky still honest and raw and mesmerizing. Tiny pricks of light appear, the first stars, and I challenge myself to find at least ten while they’re still pale and barely detectable. Soon enough they’ll be enemy planes. Barreling out of the dusk light, guns ablaze. The faster I can train myself to spot danger in the sky, the better pilot I’ll be.
Also, it’s a nice excuse to stargaze.
“How’s that letter coming along?” Cyar enquires, leaning on the bulwark beside me. “Your page still looks mostly blank.”
We’ve been hiding out here for over an hour, me with a fresh sheet of paper in hand. Usually Father relies on speeches and toasts and contracts for his wars, businessmen made to feel important and essential. But since no one in the North can know we’re about to invade a sovereign kingdom, he’s been forced to employ a different tactic. Instead of a proper war rally, he’s let my brother Arrin host another kind of spectacle—a reckless party that outshines any arms deals being signed backstage.
It’s turned, more or less, into a drunken cabaret show.
I squint up at the sky. “Six…”
“Stop avoiding this, Athan. You said you’d do it before I took leave, and now I’m back, and there’s still nothing.”
“Just let me get to ten.”
“If you don’t write something, I will.”
“Seven … Eig—”
Too late. Cyar whips out his own notebook and begins penning something for me.
“I swear,” I say, “if it’s about snakes or sunflowers I’ll—”
“No, that’s my thing. Get your own.”
He scribbles away, then passes it over and looks at me with a very Cyar look—a bit earnest, a bit smirking. His thick black hair’s all mussed from the sea wind, which means mine probably looks even worse.
I glance down.
The letter’s two lines long and barely legible.
Ali,
Your eyes are lovely and beautiful as night.
My name is Athan Dakar.
“Wow,” I say. “You definitely got my handwriting.”
“I’ve been copying notes off you since we were eleven. Besides, you write like a blindfolded drunk.”
“No, this is simply drunk.” I gesture at his scribbles. “To get blindfolded drunk takes a special talent in penmanship, one which I’ve been perfecting for years.”
I try to grin, to make all of this funny, but it’s not. Cyar knows it. We can hide out here forever, but I’m still the unwelcome traitor in my own family, the one who lost us an entire coup meant to ruin my father’s oldest enemy—and the girl I love is quite firmly on the other side.
If she knew the truth, she’d hate me forever.
Cyar yanks the page back. “Eighteen years spent making sure no one can understand you, and now you can’t even tell her who you really are. There’s a lesson here, I think.”
An amused snort startles us both. We turn and find my sister Leannya spying from the citadel doorway behind us, uniformed in Safire grey, blonde hair pinned back. It’s still strange to see her like this. Like when she was a kid and would wear Arrin’s officer cap for fun. “He has a girlfriend, then?” she asks Cyar slyly.
I jump down from the chilly bulwark. “No point,” I announce to them both, before she can pry something out of him. “We’re going to war and I’ll probably die, and besides”—I glance at Cyar—“I can’t put anything in writing right now. Censorship. Loose lips. All that. Let’s get back inside where it’s warm.”
Leannya frowns at me. “I came out to hide with you.”
“Not possible.” I link arms with her. “If there were three sisters, you might be able to disappear, but unfortunately, you’re the only one. And also—wait.” I stop and glance up at the brilliant sky one more time. It’s getting darker now. The stars brighter. “Nine … Ten! That was too easy, but I’ll count them.”
“You’re my strangest brother,” Leannya says seriously.
I smile—I’ve perfected it by now, anything to undo my traitor status—and steer her back inside the square door of the old fortress, Cyar following. The hallway is stone-damp, music echoing ahead, and when we push through the wide doors of the armoury-turned-banquet room, we’re greeted by the wild herd of Arrin’s officer corps. The smoky air is charged with brandy, liqueur, and the smooth brass of a raucous band. A rather scantily clad girl from Rahmet warbles away on a small stage, her words slurred as she grips her metal microphone like it’s the throttle in a dogfight. A wine-filled smile radiates across her brown skin. Arrin’s cap dangles sideways on her head.
Somehow, his cap always ends up on someone else.
Father’s maintained a solitary corner of decency in the back, seated with Admiral Malek, Colonel Evertal, and other older, more dignified leadership. Most of them are wearing their “youth will be youth” expression, but Commander Vent, a new addition, sits beside Father, clearly unimpressed. He’ll be leading one of the army groups in Resya, in support of Arrin, and he’s decidedly not one of my brother’s biggest fans.
This party isn’t helping.
“Who the hell thought this was a good idea?” I ask Leannya.
She shrugs. “Not me, but at least the reports in the papers will be fabulous. ‘Savient’s favourite son, hero of Karkev, lights up Brisal!’ Who’s going to notice that?”
She nods to where a gallantly smiling Evertal—a woman who only smiles during times of great political necessity—escorts a business-suited man out of the room, to quieter places where war contracts can happen. This is how it works. Father buying bullets for his secret war while Arrin’s star burns bright and furious as distraction.
And so far, the charade’s working. Both here and abroad. Our local papers have turned the King of Resya into a cartoonish caricature of every terrible thing Savient despises. A spoiled royal who feasts while his people suffer, feeding selfishly off Southern unrest. It’s the same argument that garnered popular support for our last war in neighbouring Karkev.
Of course, no one knows the King of Resya isn’t the only one feeding off Southern unrest.
My father’s cornered that market already.
“Hey little darling, you’re back!” a young captain crows, staggering by and reaching for Leannya with a stupid smile.
I’m about to push him off—she’s only just fifteen—when she extends a firm hand to him. “Congratulations on your glorious demotion, Lieutenant.”
He gawps at her hand, then at her face, unsure if she’s joking. Then he wobbles off.
I nod. “Not bad.”
“I’m getting practice with these bootlickers. Now, time for me to continue impressing the navy. Kalt said he’d help me, but God knows where he is. Good luck, Athan,” she adds with an ambivalent salute in my direction. “Glad you don’t have a girlfriend.”
I give a questioning look. That’s rather ominous, and I’m tempted to follow her, but then I realize Father’s up from his table and striding towards me, an unfamiliar uniformed man at his side. There’s a smile on Father’s face.
A smile?
At me?
New plan. I need to get the hell out of here. I need to run right now and—
“Athan, I’ve been looking e
verywhere for you,” Father calls, which is definitely a lie. “You haven’t met Colonel Illiany, have you?”
I’ve spent three quarters of this thing hiding outside, and he knows it. But better play along. Father’s tolerance of me since Etania is dangerously thin.
Cyar makes a stealthy escape, and I force the fake smile I’ve become excellent at. “Good evening, Colonel.”
The well-built man has white hair and a sallow face, but his eyes hold a perceptive glint. “Your father speaks very highly of you, Lieutenant. Graduating with top score from the Air Academy, and two planes already shot down in Thurn. Your brother must be grateful to have you in the sky for his campaign.”
“Thank you,” I say, though he’d have to ask Arrin that.
“Colonel Illiany is our new governor in Karkev,” Father explains, gaze stressing the gravity of this to me. “He was an essential benefactor in our victory there.”
I think it’s safe to assume “benefactor” means willing supplier of weapons, paired with a nice dose of betrayal to his own corrupt nation—the one we voluntarily settled with tanks and planes last spring. If Illiany’s here now, praised by Father, then who knows what he gave up for the honour. Family and comrades. Blood loyalty. He’s a turncoat, but at least he was a turncoat for us.
He and I might have that in common.
Father waves at a nearby table where a blonde girl sits alone. “Athan, please make Illiany’s daughter, Katalin, feel more welcome.”
I nod obediently. Anything to show Father that I’m cured of my rebellion. Anything to get my cards back. It’s the only way to protect Ali, Cyar … everyone. Even myself.
Determined to get this over with, I head for the Colonel’s daughter. Her hair is as fair as snow, with skin to match, and black gloves cover her hands, clenching a wine glass. I should be good at this, after Etania, after Ali …
No, not now. Can’t go there.
But I wish.
I struggle to hold my smile. “May I sit down?”
“Do Safire ask?” she replies, her cold Savien words heavily accented.
I’m not sure if that’s permission or sarcasm, and now what? Do I make napkin animals again? I know how to make Ali smile at me—not this stranger. And truthfully, Ali’s joy is the only one that matters. She could be the last girl in the world to ever smile at me and I’d be perfectly happy to the grave.
I take a seat anyway. “Is this your first time in Savient?”
“Yes.”
“Do you … like it?”
“I like Karkev.”
“I’ve never been,” I say, hoping she’ll realize I had nothing to do with my father’s three-year campaign in her homeland.
I’m guilty by association only.
She glares, but there’s a nervous flit to her gaze, flickering around this stuffy room of perpetually violated personal space.
“It doesn’t seem like you want to be here,” I suggest, trying for honesty. Or maybe an escape. I’ll take anything I can get. “We could go outside, count stars—”
“No, I must be in this place. I have no decision.”
I’ll assume she means no choice.
“I know what that’s like,” I admit. “Why are you here, then?”
“Marriage.”
She watches Arrin with unhidden disgust. He’s reappeared to take the spotlight, his sandy hair plastered to his forehead, the singing girl latched on to him now, both laughing in drunken abandon on the stage. Everyone cheers. If only Arrin could actually dance. None of us Dakar brothers excel in that department.
“Who’s getting married?” I ask, distracted by the rising shouts.
“Me,” she replies, like it’s a death sentence.
Suddenly, the picture comes into a bit more focus. Her scowl at Arrin, the reward Father certainly feels he owes Colonel Illiany who helped us win the rich oil fields of Karkev. No. He wouldn’t. Father’s not like that. He doesn’t believe in those kinds of things … But maybe? If he really owed Illiany enough? I remember what Kalt told me about the unification with Rahmet years ago. This wouldn’t be the first time Arrin was offered as reward to someone’s daughter.
Why not?
He’s a twenty-five-year-old military genius with an entire nation to inherit.
And a terrible dancer.
Katalin looks fairly ill. I’m beginning to think she might have a fate worse than mine. “Are you all right?”
“I hate your brother,” she says to the table.
She’d better learn to keep that opinion quiet—like me.
“Listen, Lieutenant.” She looks up. “I forgot your name.”
“Athan.”
“Yes, Athan. Have you seen a field with mine?”
“You mean a minefield?”
“Yes, but after? After the boom?”
I shake my head, unsure where this is going.
“Be happy then. Pray you never.” Her blue eyes fix on me. “I heard you like mountains, and Karkev has beautiful mountains. Please do not make me stay here.”
There’s a painful memory in her plea. Her fair hair, her desperation. She reminds me of Mother.
She reminds me of me.
“You’re marrying my brother?” I ask bluntly.
She narrows her eyes. “No.”
“Oh.” I offer a tentative smile. “That’s good.”
“You.”
“Me?”
“Not him. You.”
What the hell?
“You’re marrying me?”
“Sorry to be the bad news,” she whispers viciously, glaring again.
We face each other, me horrified, her defensive. “This … can’t be right,” I say, stumbling. “No one told me.”
She laughs bitterly. “I have learned today, too.”
“Excuse me.”
And I leave her. Don’t care. This doesn’t make any damn sense, not at all. Father doesn’t do this. Arranged marriages are what old-fashioned kings do. Not us. Fury drives me back across the room, through the drunk crowd, straight for Father, but Kalt’s lanky frame nearly collides into mine, heading me right off.
“Don’t,” he orders. “You’ll sign your own execution warrant.”
My middle brother is entirely sober, of course, every piece of his brown hair carefully gelled. Not a button out of place.
“You knew about this?” I demand.
“No. Well, a bit.” He pushes me into the nearest corner, out of earshot, not that there’s much point. There are only about seven other people in this room who can still count to ten properly—and they’re all sitting at Father’s table. “I’m sorry. This should be me. But … for obvious reasons, it’s not.”
“No, this should be Arrin. But he’s too much of an ass to make it work.”
An unexpected arm seizes me, wrapping roughly around my shoulders. “I’m not an ass,” Arrin intervenes, joining our little huddle, all sweat and liquor. “Though you need to look on the bright side here, Athan”—he glances at Katalin, who’s still staring at the table—“like those extraordinary breasts.”
I imagine putting my fist into his nose. He’s drunk enough, I stand a chance.
Across the room, Leannya’s buttering up some naval officers, Admiral Malek as well, but she catches my eye between her nods. Her expression is pure innocence, and I know, then, who fed Katalin Illiany my secrets. Who said I liked mountains.
I glare at my brothers. “Why didn’t anyone tell me about this?”
They’re silent, and I realize I’m on probation with everyone—not just Father—since Etania. Kept away from plots in case I end up sabotaging them. I think I’m even more annoyed about that, since it’s not like I didn’t also save Arrin from being exposed before the Royal League as a war criminal. I made the photographs of his supposed crime disappear. I defended all of us. I’ve said it enough to Father, I believe it entirely.
No one else seems to.
“Listen,” Arrin says with astonishing diplomacy, given his current state, “yo
u’re only ever going to see her on leave. Just let Father give his thanks to Illiany and pray it comes to nothing in a year. Maybe you’ll even be dead then.” He grins.
Kalt nods. “Arrin’s right. Not about the dying part, but don’t ruin this one. Illiany won us nearly half of Karkev.”
“No, that was me,” Arrin corrects. “Illiany did maybe a corner.”
I turn my back on my oldest brother. I’m seeing red. It’s no surprise that Illiany wouldn’t want his daughter anywhere near Arrin. Arrin’s turned his exceptional immorality into a saving grace. I beg Kalt instead, the one who might listen. The one who should be next in line for this duty. “Couldn’t you just pretend to like women?” I ask hopefully. “Until it comes to nothing?”
Kalt stares at me, affronted. “No. And it’s not like you have anyone.”
“I’m not so certain about that,” Arrin replies with a dark smile, and Kalt raises a brow. Arrin waves at the door. “To the city! Let’s get drunk.”
“Aren’t you now?” Kalt points out.
“Not enough.”
And with that, Arrin’s marching off, apparently abandoning his own party.
I cross my arms, refusing to obey, and Kalt’s expression mirrors mine. Laughter erupts from a nearby table of my fellow flyboys—all slammed except for Captain Garrick Carr, who sits with an untouched drink in front of him and a mute acceptance for whatever his first officer Ollie Helsun’s doing near the stage. I just want my stars again. Far, far from here.
But Kalt sighs and puts on his cap. “No, let’s go. He might try to throw himself off the damn pier.”
Well, it wouldn’t be the first time.
* * *
I don’t know why I follow. Maybe I’m tired of being on the outside, hiding on walls and waiting for fate to find me. Or maybe I like seeing Arrin at his worst, because then I somehow feel better about myself. Neither reason feels very noble, but I follow him anyway from one drinking hole to the next, collecting samples of whatever’s most expensive, and we end up on some remote stretch of the wharf. All three of us, so knocked through a bottle we can’t even walk straight. There’s a moment where I think this might be a bad idea, that if Father finds out—which he will—we’ll all be executed at dawn.
Storm from the East Page 2