by Aileen Erin
I’d been planning on eating after teaching, but the day had gotten away from me. I glanced at my wrist unit. I’d been up before the suns, and now it was well past midday.
Okay. Maybe Roan had a point. I had to take better care of myself. I should definitely eat.
Except the room was too quiet. It made me feel like something was wrong. Like something was waiting for me and I should be preparing for an attack, not eating.
I was alone, and I hadn’t been alone in a while. I never had quiet anymore, and when I did get small breaks like this, I didn’t know what to do with them. I knew I should enjoy this break, but instead, the quiet made me feel like I was bracing for a storm.
My days were spent bouncing from one thing to the next on my schedule. Usually I had a few guards and Roan with me. Or a few guards and Lorne, plus his guards. Or a few guards and whoever I needed to meet with. I knew the guards were outside, and I didn’t have to be alone. Except calling them in felt like cheating. I should enjoy being by myself—even in the quiet—without my mind racing about all the things that could be going wrong.
I stifled the urge to double-check my go-bag because I didn’t need to run. I didn’t need to hide. I just needed food.
I crossed the room and sat down, grabbing the greenish-gray smoothie first. I checked my tablet, searching for any news from my old Crew on Earth, but there was nothing. Not even a single response on the off-the-grid sites. That sliver of worry slipped into my head, and I set down the smoothie without taking a sip.
Declan and Ahiga hadn’t sent word in weeks either. I wanted to believe that no news was a good thing, but there were days when I couldn’t fool myself. Someone should’ve answered me by now.
My tablet and wrist unit dinged at the same time, but it was just Roan. Fynea is asking to speak with you. Okay to send her to your suite?
Yep. Send her over. I actually would love to get her thoughts on how I did today at the meeting.
When I first got to Sel’Ani, I knew Fynea only as Lorne’s best friend and assistant. I knew that she’d been part of the royal guard, but had left due to an injury. I didn’t know much more than that.
But over the last few weeks, she’d been helping me with all kinds of things, and I’d even convinced her to join me for training a few times.
Okay. She’s on her way.
As I waited for Fynea, I kept thinking about something my father said.
What was my mission?
Did all Aunare have a mission in life? Or was this something for kings and queens? Or was this something that my father liked to do? He said he’d trained me. He was the one who taught me the di Aetes motto. Maybe this mission thing was something related to that.
How was I supposed to know?
The idea of eating suddenly held no appeal, but I grabbed one of the stuffed breads and took a bite anyway. It seemed like my life these days was about stifling instincts and urges and doing what made me uncomfortable.
Which is what my father wanted. Me doing what was uncomfortable. Because apparently I would grow more.
But grow into what exactly?
I’d made the tiniest dent in the food by the time the soft chime sounded, signaling that someone was at the door.
I glanced at my wrist unit just to make sure and saw Fynea waiting.
I tapped the button and the doors smoothly swooshed open.
“Hello?” Fynea said.
“I’m eating in the living room.”
A second later, she walked through the door and sat gracefully at the table across from me. Her asymmetrical bobbed blonde hair was tucked back behind her delicately pointed ears, and I wondered if there was anything that Fynea did that wasn’t graceful. She placed her ever-present tablet on the table, and then relaxed back against the chair.
She took in the spread of food. “Wow. You must be hungry today.”
“You know Plarsha.” I shrugged and stared at the food as if it were a pest that needed killing.
“Everything okay? It doesn’t look like you’ve eaten much of this.” She waved a hand over the food.
She was right. “My appetite is…” I made a face, hoping she’d get the picture. “Nerves and too much running around. Both Roan and Plarsha are on my case about eating again. Which is why there’s so much food here.”
Fynea studied me for a second. “You seem fine to me.”
“Thank you.” At least someone was taking my side.
“But you could probably stand to eat a bit more. I’ve never seen someone so dedicated to training, and I used to be a royal guard.”
Maybe that was true, but I felt the most at home and safe in that gym. “I love it.” But now I was questioning everything.
“I can tell, and I understand. I did, too.” She reached for a bit of yellow fruit. “May I?”
“Please.” I pushed the fruit plate closer to her. “I honestly can’t eat all of this, and I can’t stand to see food wasted.” Not after so many years of battling against hunger. Now I had all the food I could want, and my nerves seemed to sour everything I tried to eat.
She bit into the fruit and waited to speak until I’d eaten another bite. “So, I came by to congratulate you.”
“On what?”
“On firing the High Council. It was—” Fynea started laughing, and it wasn’t a wow-this-is-so-funny laugh, it was a loud, evil, cackling laugh. “It was amazing. Truly divine. That release you sent out?” She leaned forward and lowered her voice. “How long did it take you to come up with that?”
Wait? She really thought I did a good job? “A couple weeks. Maybe three? I’d been waiting for a while to figure out what to do, but…” I took a breath. Fynea’s approval was a big indicator that I’d done something right. Maybe I was going to be a good High Queen after all. “So, I did okay?” I needed that confirmation from her. This was my first big play as a leader, and I really hoped I got it right.
“Better than okay. The council had to go, and there was no need for them anyway. The only one that I regret losing is Yneia ni Shanam.”
I knew it, and I agreed. “I didn’t see a way around it. I couldn’t fire everyone else and leave her.”
Fynea was quiet for a moment. “Maybe reach out to her. Smooth things over somehow? If we can place her back in a similar position, then we might not lose any ground. Reach out to your friend Audrey. She’s become pretty essential in the lucole research group, and she might be able to help.”
Asking Audrey about Yneia was actually a great idea. “I’m really glad Audrey found a place here. She reconnected with her family, and now her Earther medical science background is really helping us research what SpaceTech is capable of doing with lucole. And she’s with Tyler, and they seem happy, too. It’s… it’s really good. She deserves to be happy.”
Fynea grinned at me and I knew she was about to change the subject to something much more gossipy. “She’s not the only one who deserves to be happy.”
“What?” I asked her, but I was kind of scared to know what she was thinking.
“I heard you and Lorne had some sparks in the gym today.”
I felt my cheeks heat and my skin give off a slight glow when I knew for a fact I had nothing to be embarrassed about. “How did you just make that sound so dirty? We were talking. My father was there. Roan was there. Our guards were there.” Literally nothing happened.
“I don’t know. It always gets a little sizzling when the two of you argue.”
I stuck my tongue out at her. “Can you stop? This is so weird.”
“Apologies. I just love making you squirm. It’s so much more fun when you turn all pink and glowy. Lorne is no fun anymore. He just glares at me when I try it with him.”
I rolled my eyes. “Shut up, Fynea.”
“Well, you’ll be happy to know that I’m meddling again.”
I groaned. “What now?”
“I’ve messaged with Roan about coordinating more time for the two of you to be alone. You need a window every day, and no
t just when you both fall into bed exhausted.”
That sounded amazing, but I didn’t understand why she’d care. “Does Lorne have time for that?”
“We need our leaders to be a team, and it’s taken me a bit to sort out that I might be a little at fault here. I’ve continued on with Lorne’s schedule like nothing has changed, and it has. I’ve never had to make time for anyone in his life before, and I guess I assumed that you’d just magically connect and be on the same page. To be fair, none of us have been around a true shalshasa pair. I’m pretty sure I’m not alone in thinking that you two would just…” She snapped her fingers. “And then you’d be completely in sync. It was naive of us. Of me.”
It was. “I wish it were that easy.”
“Me, too. For all our sakes.” She sighed. “But even if it feels like you know him, you don’t. You’ve only just met Lorne. You need time to be a couple, and that’s hard when war is starting and both of your schedules are jammed to the hilt. I’m going to do my best to make sure you get as much time to be a couple as I can. You need an advocate for your joint leadership, and you haven’t had that yet. You do now.”
“That’s…” I wasn’t sure what to say. I hadn’t even realized that I could’ve asked for more time with him. “Thank you.”
“My pleasure.”
“Thank you,” I said again.
I hadn’t realized how out of sync Lorne and I had gotten, and I hated it. I should’ve known that Lorne wanted to get rid of the High Council. He should’ve known that I wanted to get rid of them. And yet, neither of us knew what the other was thinking.
It was obvious why. We hadn’t had time to talk. Fynea was right. We needed time together. “It’s hard to ask for more time with him when I know he’s busy and everything seems so life and death but… I need Lorne. I need time with him. Or else, none of this life matters.”
“Nothing has been easy for you, my sweet.” She tilted her head as she looked at me. “Nothing. Not ever. You’ve had a rough go. Haven’t you?”
It was as if with that one question—loaded down with the sympathy and heartbreak in her tone—all the hard things came rushing at me, and with them, all the fear and exhaustion and physical pain and impossible things that I’d gone through came seeping in.
My eyes started to burn with unshed tears, and I bit my lip hard to keep the wave of emotion from swallowing me whole.
I looked at the floor, letting it go blurry for a second, before glancing back at her. “It’s been really hard,” I said when I knew I wouldn’t start sobbing. “Every step has been really hard, but getting to this, here, with Lorne? That’s worth going through all the hard parts.”
She reached forward, gripping my wrist in her hand. “I will help you in any way that I can. Not just because you’re tied to my best friend, but because I admire you and everything that you’ve done. You will do great things for us, for the Aunare. I meant what I said weeks ago and again today. I truly believe in you as our High Queen. You are the future of the Aunare.”
I dropped my chin because I wasn’t sure I deserved that belief.
She squeezed my wrist tighter. “You have earned this place beside Lorne. You will be the greatest High Queen the Aunare have ever seen, and I am not alone in being thankful for it. I’m sorry that this job will be another hard thing for you, but it is my firm belief that you will excel in it.”
I heard my father’s voice in my head again. What was my mission? But I wasn’t sure what it would be or what kind of High Queen I’d become. “My father said something that I just don’t have an answer for.”
“What did Rysden do now?”
I smiled at her chiding tone, but then it faded and the question remained. “He said that I wasn’t thinking big enough because I think—and Lorne agrees—that we’re going to end this war on Earth. That I limit myself by staying in the gym. That I’m not thinking big enough. He asked me what my mission was, and I had no idea how to answer him.”
Fynea sighed. “I’m sorry. First off, understand that Rysden is under a lot of pressure right now. Lorne left the gym to take a call that now includes the rest of the Aunare kings and queens. They’re all asking for extra military presence now, which means we’re going to be spread thin. Without our allies help—and without their agreement to stay out of this fight—it’s going to get hard very quickly. Our colonies are too widespread for us to protect everyone at once, as well as go after SpaceTech offensively. Add in our allies, and we’re in for quite a fight.”
If that were true, then it seemed like all the better that we head to Earth. No wonder Lorne and I were on the same page.
“He is right to have you look at what you want for your rule and your life, but that’s something only you can answer. It might even take a bit of time to sort out.” She smiled. “There’s no rush on that. You’re just getting started, and you’re not even officially the High Queen yet. Right now, we have a lot of chaos and a lot of decisions to make, but today is a good day. Today you made a big decision. You fired the High Council in the most epic fashion. If I had even the tiniest doubt about you as our High Queen, it’s decimated now. So, your mission will come. You can’t rush that. Keep doing what you’re doing and you’ll get there. I’ve no doubt you will know it when the Goddess wills it in you.”
I wished I felt as confident in my abilities as Fynea was.
The chime sounded that someone was at my door.
“Were you expecting someone?”
I shook my head. “No. Roan eventually, but he wouldn’t ring the doorbell during the day. He always just comes in.” I glanced at my wrist unit, and was surprised at who was there. “Huh.”
“Who is it?”
“Captain ni Eneko. Roan’s with him, too, and it looks like Eshrin wants to join them, too.” Eshrin was supposed to be on break, and Ginu was taking lead. If he was here, then something was going on.
“Please let me stay. If something’s happening, I want in. I cannot stand waiting outside Lorne’s office for him to finish with his call for another minute.”
Fynea wanted in? Of course. I was always happy to have her on my side. “Stay.”
She grinned. “Perfection.”
It was weird to have so many friends. I’d gone from hiding and only ever really being myself with Roan and my mother, to this. All of me, all the time, in full view of everyone.
Being so in the center was a little lonely, but not when I had friends. Roan always, but now Audrey, Tyler, Eshrin, Fynea, and Lorne. Always Lorne.
I tapped to open the door to the suite, and I still didn’t have an answer to my father’s question about my mission, but I didn’t care anymore.
Something was happening—I could tell at least that much—and I was ready for whatever came.
Because if there was one thing my life had taught me, it was how to deal with a crisis.
Chapter Nine
AMIHANNA
The door to the suite whooshed open. “We’re in the living room.” I called out to Roan, Eshrin, and Captain ni Eneko.
I stood and stepped toward them as they entered the room. “What’s happened?” I couldn’t read ni Eneko, but Roan was different. His hair had gotten significantly more poofy since I’d last seen him. Which meant that he was upset about something, but he didn’t seem worried. He had this smirk on his face like he was excited. It was conflicting and confusing.
Captain ni Eneko pressed his fist to his heart and bowed his head, and then straightened. “I think I have something, and I wanted to show you immediately.”
I glanced back at Fynea who looked pretty pleased with herself.
She crossed her arms as she reclined. “It’s almost like I planned this.”
“You love drama,” I said.
“I know. I should work on that, but I just can’t bring myself to care.” She rose, gracefully. “Please tell me that you have something we can use against SpaceTech.”
Captain ni Eneko started to speak a few times, and then stopped and too
k a breath. “I don’t know,” he said finally. “Honestly. I just have a few… inconsistencies.”
I stepped toward him. “Like the things I’ve trained you to look for?”
He was quiet for a second and then started to nod, but stopped. The man was nervous, but why?
“Just tell me. If it’s something, then we’ll figure it out. No one wants another attack on Ta’shena, and you’ve a lot of city to watch over. And if it’s nothing, then I’ll be thankful you’re being so careful. I promise you I won’t be angry.”
“Thank you.” He let out a breath. “It’s just that I’m not sure exactly. It could be something or maybe I’m imagining things. I feel a little silly coming to you when I’m so uncertain about what I have here, but I’ve been a Captain for long enough to know when something isn’t quite right. Even when I’m not sure that I’m identifying the right things. But I did show Roan and…” He motioned with his tablet to the vidscreen. “May I show you?”
“Of course.” I waved him forward. “Please. Play me whatever you’ve found that has you worried.”
“I don’t know if I’m worried exactly. I’m just being overly cautious at this point. Possibly paranoid as well.” He walked to the vidscreen in the living room and tapped some commands into his tablet, syncing it with my vidscreen.
A second later, the vidscreen lit and a side view of Ra’mi market filled it, showing all the levels and a sea of people moving among them.
Eshrin moved closer to us as we all crowded around the vidscreen.
That market was one of my favorite places, and not just because Lorne had taken me there on our first date. Every time I went back there I found something I just had to buy or eat or wear. Last time I went, I’d found the coolest knife. The blade was laser honed every time it retracted, which meant that it stayed sharp. It was no bigger than my thumb and I liked to keep it tucked in a pocket or shoe or wherever my outfit allowed. It was my favorite accessory.