by Aileen Erin
He messaged back that he was securing the estate, getting answers, and would be there as soon as he had news.
Then I messaged Fynea to bring me my tablet and order me some food. I didn’t have an appetite, but I didn’t remember when I’d eaten last. When Fynea came with both, she offered to stay, too, but I didn’t want company. I just wanted to be with Amihanna.
I spent the next two hours fielding different questions Fynea sent to me from news sources, catching up on Rysden’s intel from his post-bombing meetings—both with our councils and the media—and watching Amihanna through the glass.
It’d been a little more than a month since she woke up from seven days in the pod, and now she was back inside. I’d asked for six months of her time, but I was terrified what would happen to her if this was how we were trending.
I’d done the worst possible thing to her today by putting her in the bunker, but she’d forgiven me. And yet, here I was again. Sitting next to her while she healed. I couldn’t help but think that I should send her away. If I was a better person, I would do it, but the only thing that was keeping me from getting in the pod with her was the fear that I’d somehow mess up her hand.
So, instead, I rested my forehead against the glass and prayed that she would be okay. That she would stay. That she would somehow feel like I was worth all of this and marry me.
It took all the time for Solan to finally show, and when he did, he brought Rysden with him. From the looks on their faces, they had news, and I wasn’t going to like it.
“What’s happened?”
Solan cleared his throat. “We have bad news.”
Goddess. Like I couldn’t tell that from the looks on their faces or the way he’d come with backup in case I totally lost control? “Just say it.”
“Seri is dead.”
I tilted my head to look at Amihanna. I wasn’t sure what having killed someone like this would do to her mental state. “Amihanna hit her too hard? There were complications?”
“No. Seri self-terminated before we could begin questioning.”
I dropped the tablet on my lap. “Oh Goddess take it all.” This was better than some ways, but also worse. I covered my face with my hands as I thought about what a mess this was from start to finish. I should have seen who Seri was from the beginning, and now we’d somehow let her commit suicide when she was in our custody. “How?”
“It seems one of the guards didn’t take her seriously enough. He was taken by surprise and unarmed and—”
“Did he live?”
“No. She killed him when she took his weapon.”
“This keeps getting worse. Who was it?”
“Tenuwa.”
This was bad. Really bad. “How could I not have seen this in her?”
“If it makes you feel any better, I didn’t see it either,” Rysden said. “I didn’t spend nearly as much time with her as you did, but I shared more meals and conversations than I can count. And she tried to kill my daughter. In my house. Twice. We need to—” Rysden stopped suddenly. He looked at the nurse.
Mae’ani had been at this job long enough to understand what Rysden needed. Privacy.
“Fine.” She looked at me. “I’ve set her bones already. The pod is healing the breaks and tendons now, so I can go. But if you’re staying to talk, you can bring more chairs to the pod. And keep your voices down or move to the seating area.” Mae’ani picked up her tablet. “I’ll keep an eye on her from outside the door. If you wake her up, I don’t care who you are, you will answer to me. My patient needs rest so that she can have full use of her hand.”
“Thank you for the care to my daughter and the privacy, Mae’ani,” Rysden said. “We appreciate all you do for us.”
“Just don’t wake her up.” Mae’ani didn’t sound annoyed exactly, but she knew that Rysden and I could get loud when we discussed politics.
Rysden nodded.
I grabbed Mae’ani’s hand as she walked by.
“Yes, Your Highness?”
“Thank you. She’s everything to me.”
She patted my hand. “She’ll be fine. I swear it.”
As soon as the door slid closed, I looked at Solan. “Who let the first bomb in? Who on your team checked in Seri today? Are they the same people?”
“Not the same people. That was two separate shifts. I’ve narrowed it down to three—all of whom have been escorted off the estate and taken into custody. We’ll do questioning off-site from now on. We can’t risk leaving anyone within reach of Amihanna.”
“Agreed.” That was something at least. “But only three? It seems like a breach this big would need more people involved.”
“I don’t think so, but I’m going to speak to every person on the estate’s staff individually. I have a core group that I trust with all of our lives, everyone else is on probation with restricted access until cleared. I have Fynea going through the video feeds, since I know you’d trust her above anyone to notice anything even slightly off in protocol. We know who are friends among the staff with the three we know are involved, but we’re checking into anyone who ever spoke to Seri over the years. That will take some time.”
“That will take a lot of time we don’t have. Not if things are escalating.” I turned to Rysden. “We’ve had two attacks. We can’t have a third. So, what do you suggest?”
“We need to gain control of the media. That’s half our problem. The voices of the extremists are too prominent, and as for the rest of the Aunare, they don’t know what they can’t see. She needs to get out of this estate with you. If you present a united front, then I don’t think we’ll continue to have the issues that we are.”
That made sense, but I wasn’t sure she’d want to go with me tomorrow. “I have—”
“The meeting with your father in the morning, along with the heads of states. I’m aware of your schedule, and I’m also aware that my daughter will refuse. It’ll be up to you to convince her to go with you. If you’re going to rule together, you need to start now.”
He had a point, and it went along with Amihanna wanting to know more about what was going on. But if she showed even the slightest hesitation in front of my father or any of the Aunare leaders, then I wasn’t sure we’d recover from it. “Do you think—”
Mae’ani ran into the room, and I turned to see Amihanna squirming a bit in the pod.
I stood from my chair. “What’s wrong? What’s happening?” Why hadn’t I noticed anything was wrong? I looked at her, and I felt it then. I’d grown so used to it that it hadn’t registered yet.
“I’m not sure. Her brain pattern still shows she’s sleeping, but I believe she’s having a nightmare.”
She started screaming and sat up, slamming into the roof of the pod. “Open. Open!”
Solan and Rysden stared at Amihanna with shock, but this was something I’d seen every night.
I stood behind Mae’ani as she tried to talk Amihanna down. “Open it.”
“No. If I stop it at this stage—” She nearly growled. “Calm down, please. You’re just having a nightmare. Your blood pressure is too high.” Mae’ani stood over the pod. Her voice was struggling to stay calm over Amihanna’s screams. “I can’t let you out yet. Your hand’s not fully healed. You’re in the middle of—”
“I don’t give a shit about my hand. Open the pod. Open. Openopenopenopen!” Amihanna slammed both hands on the glass and tears were filling up her eyes. She saw me standing behind Mae’ani.
“Lorne. Please. I can’t be trapped again. Help me—”
She didn’t need to beg. I shoved Mae’ani aside—not caring what she was saying about why I couldn’t do that—and released the lock.
The glass slid open and I caught Amihanna as she threw herself out of the pod.
“Amihanna. You’re fine.” I pushed her hair from her face and noticed that her skin was coated in cold sweat. “You’re safe. You’re fine. Breathe with me.”
Her breaths were too shallow and her eyes were wide. I wasn
’t sure she’d noticed that she was crying because she made no move to swipe at the tears racing down her cheeks.
“No. No, I don’t think I am.” She jerked in my arms and slapped a hand over her mouth.
I rose with her still in my arms and ran to the bathroom. I set her on the floor in front of the toilet just in time. I squatted behind her and gathered her hair away from her face. “You’re fine. You’re safe.” I separated her hair into segments and braided it quickly. I grabbed a tie from my pocket and then rose. I opened drawers until I found one with washcloths and ran it under warm water. I didn’t have any of the calming scent I usually used for her here, but this was better than nothing.
A throat cleared in the doorway, and I turned to see Rysden and Solan watching us.
“Is this what happens every night? Is it always this bad?” Rysden asked.
This bad? Goddess. This was so pathetically normal. “I told you she had nightmares.”
“I didn’t…” He watched his daughter throw up again. “This is why she’s still losing weight.”
“Yes.” The man was an idiot about his own family.
“I should’ve told her mother.”
He was finally seeing how wrong it was to keep this from Elizabeth. “Yes. You really should’ve.”
Amihanna moaned and I spun to her, handing her the washcloth.
She wiped her face and then looked up at me with her beautiful brown eyes filled with sadness and I would do anything to take that beaten look from her face. From her heart.
I looked over my shoulder at her father. “Still think she’s ready? Still think you need to push her?”
“And what would you have me do? I’m barely holding off SpaceTech. Civil war is brewing. The Aunare people will lose if we don’t take a stand now. We’ve waited too long already. We need you and—”
“Then I will fight. Alone.”
“We’ve played out the simulations a million ways through the years. We all lose if you don’t have her. She is the key. She is our hope. Maybe you don’t want to believe the High Priestess, but you have to at least trust all the simulations. We can’t win without her.”
“And if pushing her breaks what little of her is left?”
“She’s a di Aetes. We don’t break. We don’t quit. Not ever!”
Goddess. He was as stubborn as Amihanna. I hoped he was right.
Amihanna stood and I moved to hold her. This time, she let me.
“Stop arguing about me like I’m not here.”
“I’ll do better. How about no more arguing in my rooms at all?” Mae’ani pushed past Rysden. “How’s your hand?”
Amihanna held it out and wiggled her fingers. “Not painful, but a little sore. I’m sure it’ll be fine in a day or two.”
“Come back in the pod. I’ll finish the healing.”
“I was stuck in an Earther cryo chamber for two weeks on the way to Abaddon. I can’t get back in there.”
“If we don’t heal your hand, then you can’t go to the gym. You can’t exercise. You can’t fight.” Mae’ani flipped her tablet around and swiped back a few scans. “When you entered the pod, this is what it looked like. You broke your hand here, here, here, here, and here.” She swiped forward to right before Amihanna got out of the pod. “Now, it’s like this. Better, but if you even bump your hand against your bed too hard, it’ll rebreak. Another twenty to thirty minutes will heal it so that you can do anything. It’s not that long in the grand scheme. Just thirty minutes. You can do anything for thirty minutes, can’t you?”
Amihanna was quiet for a second, and I could feel the fight inside of her. She knew she needed to be able to fight, but no matter how much I wanted her to get back in that pod, I wasn’t about to force her.
“You’ve survived much worse than a healing pod.” Mae’ani was using her soft, soothing nurse’s voice again. “I watched it. I know you can do this, and with two attacks in one day, you can’t be left with one bad hand. Not if you need to fight anytime soon.”
Amihanna blew out a breath and stared at the ceiling. “Could everyone leave? Please.”
“Even me?” I asked.
“No!” She cleared her throat. “No. Please stay. I need—”
“You don’t have to say anything else.”
“Thank you.” She blew out a shaky breath. “Everyone else get the hell out.” She moved past us to the main healing room.
I looked at Rysden. “We will finish this conversation later.”
Rysden didn’t say another word. He left, and I found myself breathing a little easier now that he was gone.
Solan stopped in front of me. “I’ll keep you updated on your tablet.”
“Thank you, Solan.” I gave him a nod and he left.
Amihanna was pacing back and forth, back and forth, in the healing room.
“Mae’ani, do you have some ksmina extract?”
She looked at me. “Of course. I could add some fanmal wood and yzmia, too.”
All scents used to heal and calm nerves. “Yes. That would be lovely. Thank you.”
Mae’ani opened a few cabinets and started getting the scents combined. I walked over to the wall, and pressed my hand on it. She’d found the fountains calming on my ship, and maybe that would help here, too. Some people found them helpful, and others hated them. It all depended on personal frequencies.
I’d have to see about getting one installed our room. I hadn’t thought about it because they were usually only in healing rooms, but it wasn’t totally unusual to have one placed in a bedroom. I’d email Plarsha to see about coordinating the install. If it helped even a little bit, that would be worth it to me.
The door opened, activating the tiny fountain—a little spiral of rocks. The water flowed around and down it, making the prettiest babbling brook noise. The soft sound shifted the whole feeling of the room.
Slowly Amihanna stopped pacing and went to sit in the chair I’d been using.
“Are you okay?”
Her face was too pale and she lifted her arms, placing her hands on her head.
The jumpsuit left the sides of her ribcage bare, and I could count each rib. She needed to eat more. A lot more. And we needed to stop these nightmares.
She looked over at me with a frown. “I’m assuming you want the truth.”
“Yes, please.” I never wanted a lie when the truth was an option.
“No. I don’t think I’m okay, and I’m starting to wonder if I ever will be.” She closed her eyes, and my heart ached.
I wanted her to be okay, but I was doing everything I could to help her and nothing was working.
“I wish—I really, really wish—that I could just make the nightmares stop. That’s the biggest obstacle I’ve got right now.” She laughed, but it wasn’t humor in her voice. It was frustration. “Which is insane because someone tried to blow me up today. Twice.”
She got up and started to pace again. I watched from my spot by the fountain.
“But I need sleep. I need it-need it. I can’t think right and my emotions are all over the place and it doesn’t matter how much I work out or don’t or eat or don’t, the nightmares still haunt me. They don’t give me a break. I need a break. I’m so, so tired.”
She looked at me then, and I could feel the weight of her exhaustion as if it were my own. Her shoulders hunched and under her eyes were dark shadows that seemed to get worse every day.
I wanted to take away everything that was haunting her, but she had to let go of the past and start working for today. I was so afraid of saying the wrong thing and unintentionally making it harder for her.
Amihanna’s feet dragged against the floor as she moved to sit in the chair again. She leaned back and looked up at me. “You must be tired, too.”
Mae’ani looked at me, and then back at her tablet. I knew she was listening, but if Amihanna felt okay talking in front of her, then I wouldn’t stop the conversation.
“I am, but not like you. I sleep.”
“Y
eah, but you come in and help me every night that—”
Mae’ani dropped something, and we both turned to see her blushing. “I apologize, Your Highness. Don’t mind me.”
I grabbed the chair Rysden had been using and pulled it in front of Amihanna. I leaned forward and whispered. “You have to lean on me more. We have to start working together, and that’s not all your fault. I was the one who put you in the bunker today.”
She leaned forward, so close that our foreheads were nearly touching.
“I missed you so much while you were gone.” I reached out to touch her knee. “I’m just thankful that you’re finally home.”
“I think you might be the only one glad of that.” She didn’t move closer to me, but she didn’t push my hand away either. “Why did you miss me so much? I was just a little kid.”
“Yeah, but you were also my best friend.”
She gave me a long stare, and I wasn’t sure what was going through her mind, but I wanted to know. I really, really wanted to know, but I was too scared to ask.
“I don’t believe some little kid was your best friend.”
I grinned at her. That I could try to explain.
“You were my best friend.” I let go of her leg and sat back in my chair. “You and Declan. But I had the most fun with you. You were strong, fast, and so smart. And with your sense of humor and timing? You would crack us up.”
A memory of her doing an impression of Declan’s father came to mind. It was after one really long dinner. He’d ranted about something to do with the food and yelled at a server. She noticed how embarrassed Declan was and reenacted the scene. My sides hurt all night from laughing that hard.
The happy memory made me grin, but then I remembered something else that might ease her mind. “You’ve always had nightmares. Things were tense and you were too smart not to see the signs of hatred and war brewing all around you. It was a lot for someone so young. You had a little bed set up in my room. We put it in there when you were three, and I was fourteen.”
“Didn’t that seem weird? Having a little kid chase you around all the time? Sleeping in your room?”
“Not at all. You were like my little sister, but not. There were times when you couldn’t come with me and Declan somewhere, but when I could, I took you with me. Being close to each other made both of us sleep better. It’s something about our frequencies, and any time you started to have a bad dream, I woke up just a bit. I’d say ‘Sleep tight, Ami. All’s well.’ and you’d roll over and fall back asleep.”