Within Ash and Stardust

by Chani Lynn Feener

  “Everything’s always so glittery,” she murmured, thinking about the snow they’d just left behind and how it shared a similar property. She’d meant the words for herself, but being as close as he was, Trystan caught them.

  “We lay our streets with white marble instead.” There was a hint of wistfulness in his voice. “And it sparkles silver. It’s also less dangerous. It’s hard to see puddles when the ground is black.”

  “Or ice.”

  “Yes, well…” She felt him shrug, his arm brushing up against hers with the movement. “Their cold season is very short. Less than three weeks, actually. They do get a lot of rain, but with temperatures as high as they usually are, it’s not often they have to fret over the streets freezing.”

  She wished she could see the rest of it. There were beeps and blasts of air, metal clinking against metal. When they passed beneath a particular building, she could see green neon lights reflected in the surface of the marble at her feet. They moved on before she could make out whether it was an image or words.

  As interesting as the sounds were, the smells were even more so. There were so many of them, some coming quickly and leaving just as fast as they passed by, others lingering even once they’d turned down several streets—she assumed they were streets; all she knew for certain was they kept going without stopping once.

  At one point there was a coppery, buttery smell in the air, and she actually tipped her nose up a bit to try to catch a better sense of it.

  At her side, Trystan chuckled. His hand slid down from her elbow, the tips of his fingers trailing against her skin in the process.

  Because Vakar was a lot warmer than Kint had been, their new clothes were short sleeved. The hooded jacket she wore covered the mark on the inside curve of her elbow, but it stopped halfway down her forearm.

  When his hand finally reached hers, he pressed their palms together, weaving their fingers together.

  “Shakalla,” he said, and she frowned.

  “What?”

  “It’s what you’re smelling. Shakalla.”

  For a second Delaney debated whether she should pull away, but in the end, she decided against it. She couldn’t see where she was going and he was leading the way. It made sense to hold hands.

  “Is that a food?” she asked to distract herself, tilting her head when he chuckled a second time.

  “An animal, actually. And not one enjoyed during consumption.”

  That was … gross. She’d been intrigued by the smell of someone’s pet?

  “I believe we are here.” Trystan tightened his hold on her hand briefly as they came to a slight stop. The marble reflected an awning covered in bright white twinkle lights, and the side of a building with many windows.

  The reason behind Trystan’s hesitation became apparent when the sound of a door opening was followed by another hand reaching for Delaney’s free one. As soon as it did, the Zane let her go.

  “Come on,” Ruckus’s smooth voice said as he led her beneath the awning and into a stuffy room ripe with the smell of sharp chemicals. He didn’t stop at the front, instead winding his way through rows of chairs with metal bases.

  Delaney caught sight of a few feet, and on the ground a scattering of hair in various shades. She blinked, a bit surprised by how much the place resembled a hair salon back on Earth. She’d known he was planning on taking her somewhere they dyed hair, but after mentioning that it wasn’t a thing his people generally did, she’d pictured something less … well, normal.

  They made their way to the back and then to the left, where the corridor narrowed so that they had to move in single file. At the end, Ruckus opened a door, and they entered a brightly lit room.

  “Wait here.” He let go of her hand and stepped away, the sound of his footsteps receding far enough that she would have gotten nervous if not for the sense that Trystan was hovering close by.

  “He’s speaking to someone,” Trystan whispered as he leaned down. “A woman.”

  She did not like the tone of his voice, the way his words had lifted. If she’d been able, she would have glared at him, knowing full well he was just trying to cause trouble.

  They needed to have a talk, a real one. She no longer had to pretend she was betrothed to him; in fact, for the first time since she’d stepped foot on Xenith soil, she didn’t have to pretend to be anything. Hide, yes. Sneak around, of course. But pretend to be someone else? To want something else?

  It was as liberating as it was terrifying, knowing that from here on out everything she said or did was completely up to her. If she went along with one of their schemes, it was because she wanted to. It put her and Trystan on a level playing field, another new situation for them.

  “He’s returning,” Trystan said then, abruptly cutting into her thoughts. It was obvious he was addressing Ruckus when he added more tersely, “Well?”

  “She’s going to let us use the room,” Ruckus explained. He reached out and eased Delaney to the side, allowing a smaller body to pass and exit the space. “Nala doesn’t know how long she can keep her employees distracted, though. We’ll have to make this quick.”

  “And Nala is trustworthy?” Trystan asked, not sounding convinced. “You’re positive?”

  “I’m staking our lives on it, aren’t I?” he snapped. “Just guard the door, Zane.”

  For a tense moment no one moved, but then Trystan’s hand touched the small of Delaney’s back. “You’ll call me if you need anything?”

  Suddenly she was sort of glad for the hood. She didn’t have to see Ruckus’s expression in that moment.

  “I mean it, Delaney,” Trystan continued privately, through their fittings. “Leaving you alone makes me uneasy.”

  “I’ll be fine with Ruckus,” she told him aloud, hoping he’d get the point. “But, yeah, if something goes wrong, you’ll know. We’re in this together, right?”

  “Of course, Lissa.” His voice firmed. “I’ll be just outside the door.”

  “Perfect,” Ruckus said.

  As soon as the sound of the lock clicking into place reached Delaney’s ears, she tossed the hood off her head, taking a deep breath of fresh air. That thing was stifling. She blinked, allowing her eyes to adjust to the bright white lights that were set in the corners of the room and aimed toward the center, then paused when she got a good look around.

  It wasn’t exactly what she’d been expecting, not that she’d had a clear picture in her mind of what a back room in a business on Xenith would look like. But this … This wasn’t it. The ground was the only dingy thing about it, the stone faded and a dull gray. The rest of the room was all flash and smooth lines. The walls and ceiling were polished jade, as was the single counter that sat in the right corner. It had a sink with a mirror over it, and a metal chair, like at any salon on Earth.

  The rest of the room was lined in gold shelves stuffed with different products Delaney couldn’t place or pronounce. She assumed they were shampoo and the like. When Ruckus had said he knew someone who could provide them with cover while they altered her appearance, she’d figured he’d meant a military friend, or something like that.

  Given Trystan’s reaction, whoever Nala was, she was not from the Vakar army.

  She glanced up at Ruckus, then immediately reached out and gripped his hand comfortingly. He looked wrecked. His dark brown hair was mussed, and there were purplish-blue blotches beneath his eyes. There was also a weariness there she hadn’t seen in a long time, not even when he’d been locked up in the Inkwell dungeon. The events of the past few days were taking a serious toll on him.

  “Military personnel don’t tend to visit this part of the city, hence the clothing,” he explained softly, before she could point out his appearance. “I met Nala when we were children. We grew up in the same sector. Only a few people knew I even came here to get my hair cut, so I don’t think the place will be monitored. We should be safe. As safe as we can be, anyway.”

  “Tilda will listen to reason,” Delaney assured him
, squeezing his hand.

  “You don’t know that.” He shook his head. “You don’t know her like I do, sweetheart. There’s a reason she’s a regent on this planet, and it isn’t because she’s made of sunshine and rainbows.”

  The corner of Delaney’s mouth quirked up at that. Mariana was always using that phrase; he must have picked it up from her. Somehow that was both saddening and reaffirming, because it meant that the life they’d had back on Earth really was worth doing everything to return to. Even taking out the Rex to ensure they were returning to something they could keep.

  “The Basilissa was born into the role,” he continued, even as he led them over toward the station in the corner and eased her into the chair. “When she married Magnus, it was a political merger, but he took her last name and the two of them eventually developed a love between them. Losing him couldn’t have been easy for her.”

  “And now her daughter’s dead, too.” She didn’t even want to try imagining what that might feel like.

  “And”—he moved between her and the closest shelf—“we have no idea how she’s going to react to that news when she first hears it. This is dangerous, for everyone involved. If she goes on a rampage without hearing us out, and ends up killing Trystan, we’ve got a war. If she blames you, tries to hurt you, and either the Zane or I kill her, we’ve got a war. We have to be delicate here, Delaney. Choose our words carefully.”

  She sighed and slumped back in her seat, watching his reflection in the mirror as he shifted through the bottles, clearly looking for something specific. “You’re asking if I know what I’m going to say to her yet.”

  The bottles and jars were all different shapes and sizes. Some were made of glass; others appeared to be plastic. The colors on the outside also varied, though they were mostly warm tones, like yellow, red, and orange. Delaney also spotted a few pink ones, but she couldn’t read any of the labels.

  Ruckus found what he was looking for, snatched the light-orange bottle from the shelf, and came back over to her. At some point, he’d picked up a pair of plastic gloves as well, and he set the bottle on the counter in front of her and tugged them on while he met her gaze in the mirror.

  “Do you?” he asked it casually enough, but given his speech, and the way his mouth thinned out in preparation for bad news, she understood how concerned he really was.

  She couldn’t blame him.

  “I’ll come up with something. I always do.”

  He paused while untwisting the cap on the bottle. “You sound like the Zane.”

  “Do not.” She so did.

  “You know nothing’s changed for him, right?” Ruckus grabbed a sheet of plastic off the counter and unfolded it over her shoulders. Gently, he lifted her hair and spread it out across the back of the plastic. Then he reached for the now open bottle and squeezed a glob of inky goo into his right palm. “Tip your head back.”

  She stared up at the ceiling, saw him rub his hands together over her before he moved to bunch the ends of her hair between his palms.

  “He thinks this is going to end the same way he always has,” he continued when she didn’t say anything. “The only thing that’s different is now he wants to help us stop his father. After that, he’ll become Rex, and he intends for you to become his Regina.”

  “Ruckus…” Did they really have to talk about this? They’d yet to do anything in regard to stopping the Rex. For all they knew, they wouldn’t reach that end for another month—or six, not that she wanted to think about that possibility—which meant they had time before they actually had to worry about what Trystan thought was going to happen.

  “I saw the way you two worked together,” he said. “You cleared that ship like you’ve been a team for a long time.”

  “You know we had to do the compatibility test.” She and the Zane had literally had to work as a team against a group of enemy forces as they made their way through a maze, all to prove to their coordinator that they’d make a good couple.

  Reminding Ruckus that she’d undergone a series of steps in preparation to marry someone else probably wasn’t the best idea.

  “Say we stop his father,” he said, running his hands through her hair all the while, “and he becomes Rex, Tilda remains the Basilissa, they agree to keep Earth out of Xenith affairs from now on.… Where does that leave us, Delaney? If the two of them decide they still want you to rule, what can we do to stop them from making that happen? Even if I’m reinstated and no longer considered a traitor, I’m only an Ander.”

  He was the youngest Ander in all of their history, she wanted to point out, but he didn’t give her the chance.

  “I don’t have the power or the authority to stand up to regents. They won’t listen to me, especially the Zane, and if anything, what just happened to Olena will give me less credibility in the Basilissa’s eyes, not more. If Trystan decides he wants to keep you, that he wants you here, on this planet, and Tilda agrees, there won’t be anything I can do.”

  “That’s not true,” she said, feeling a lot like she was in that hood again, unable to tip her head back and see the way he was holding her hair. Maybe he’d done it on purpose, brought this all up now because she couldn’t meet his gaze. “If it comes to that, you’ll find a way to get us out. I know you will.”

  “How can you?” he said, his voice rising an octave. He pulled back and spun away.

  She straightened in her chair and swiveled so she could watch him over her shoulder. He was pacing, clenching and unclenching his gloved fists.

  “How can you have so much faith in me when I’ve done nothing to prove it should be there?” he demanded. “I’m the one who took you from your home the first time, do you remember? I brought you onto my ship, and I’m the one who made you pretend to be Olena.”

  “The Basileus and the Basilissa are the ones who made me keep pretending,” she said.

  “But it was my idea!” He took a step toward her, thought better, and spun away again. “Damn it, Delaney, it was my idea! And even if it hadn’t been, they ordered you to stay, and what did I do to stop them? To help you get off the planet even when you begged me to let you go? Nothing. I did nothing.”

  “You couldn’t.” He hadn’t had a choice; neither of them had.

  “That’s my point!” He flung a hand out. “I was powerless to do anything to protect you then, and when Trystan came and took you that second time—” He had to stop, catch his breath. Then he said, a bit quieter, “When he took you the second time, that was my fault, too.

  “I made you do the Uprising,” he continued, and because he was still turned away, he missed her flinch. “Even knowing our laws, our traditions, I let you go out there, say the oath, take the mark.… I basically handed you to him on a golden platter.”

  Her eyes snapped open. “I’m not a thing you can give away, Ruckus.”

  Seeming to see his mistake, he shook his head. “That’s not what I meant. I’m sorry. It’s just … you should be angry with me. You have every right to be. To hate me, even. I might not have meant it, but I helped them trap you. I’m the reason you’re here and not on Earth, where you should be. The reason you have to hide … again.”

  He motioned angrily toward a small handheld mirror on the counter before her.

  She picked it up, finally taking a look at what he’d been doing with the goo from the bottle.

  It wasn’t finished, but he’d been in the process of dying her red hair a dark brown, similar to his own. The bottom half was already done, though the strands were shiny and slick, still covered in the gooey black substance. A portion toward the top had dried, showing her the color it would be at the end, once he’d finished her roots.

  Delaney looked into her own eyes, her very green, very single-toned eyes, and any frustration she’d been feeling moments prior drained away.

  They were both on edge, both scared and feeling guilty. One of their friends was dead, the other kidnapped, and the only guaranteed ally they currently had was the Zane, who, only da
ys ago, was Ruckus’s number-one enemy.

  “I’m angry,” she admitted, forcing herself to lift her gaze to his. He flinched, but she continued. “I am. I’m pissed that this happened to me, and yeah, I’m upset that you let me go through with that ceremony without explaining what it really meant in the long run.

  “But…” She stood and then turned so they weren’t looking at each other through a mirror, so he could see the truth on her face. “I don’t hold you accountable, Ruckus. I don’t blame you, and I definitely don’t think it’s your fault I’m here. Like you said, you’re an Ander, and you were just doing your job.”

  “My job,” he protested, “ensured you ended up on this planet a second time.”

  “No.” She shook her head and stepped toward him, frowning when he immediately retreated. “You were supposed to keep me alive, and you did that. You were supposed to help avert a war. And you did that. Anything that came after, Olena screwing up, Trystan figuring it out, the Rex taking over … you had nothing to do with any of it. It’s on them, Ruckus. Anything that isn’t here”—she waved a finger between his chest and hers—“is on someone else.”

  He angled his head. “What does that even mean?”

  “It means I was there, too, remember? I know you only did what you thought you had to. We didn’t really have any other options.”

  “But…” He searched her face. “You’re angry?”

  “Yes.” She was. That couldn’t be helped right now.

  Because he hadn’t been up-front with her. Maybe if he had, nothing would have changed. Probably wouldn’t have, in fact. At the time, getting Uprisen was her best bet at avoiding more assassination attempts. It hadn’t worked, but that wasn’t his fault, either.

  “Is that something we’re going to talk about?” he asked when she didn’t elaborate.

  “You couldn’t have known how it was all going to go,” she said again. “From now on, promise you won’t leave anything out, no matter how unimportant or obsolete you think it could be. I need one hundred percent honesty, Ruckus, at all times. Always.”