Paintings were all about the surface, and yet, I understood what he meant. His artwork appeared to be much more than something to decorate the walls. They were a part of him, laid bare on the canvas. Now I wished I could go back and study them again to understand him more.
“But none of that matters,” he said, his handsome face clouding.
“It doesn’t matter that you’re talented?”
“Eonia doesn’t value art.” He studied his hands. “I am, and only will ever be, a messenger.”
I didn’t know what to say. He seemed defeated. Then I remembered his hidden compartment. Was he ashamed of what he’d created? Or was he concerned about being found out as different from other Eonists? Eonia didn’t like different.
“What did you want to be when you were younger?” he asked, looking at his hands.
“A thief.”
He let out a breath through his teeth. “Why do you always lie?”
“I’m not lying.” And I wasn’t. “I’ve tried to be other things. I failed.” Spectacularly.
My parents had never understood why I hated sailing so much. And I had never understood why they loved it. Their shipping business caused much grief and cost so much time and money, but they wouldn’t let it go, even as it was dragging them under. Even when I would return home with a handful of quartiers from a night at the auction house. It was like the boat was a part of my grandfather, which my father refused to let go, as long as it existed.
“Would you try again?” Varin asked, pulling me from my thoughts.
“No.” And I’d had enough of this conversation. “Sometimes we fail because we’re not meant to succeed.”
“Sometimes failure is the beginning of success.”
“Where did you hear that?”
“Queen Corra, during one of her broadcasted speeches.”
I swallowed, unable to stop Corra’s screaming, blistering face from appearing in my mind. “She was a good queen.” I didn’t pay attention to Quadarian politics, but she seemed to be generally liked by her people. At least, they weren’t rebelling against her. Unlike Queen Marguerite. The workers of the Jetée were sick of her meddling, of her trying to erase their existence. Could they have been involved in her death?
“I can’t believe she’s dead,” Varin said. “I can’t believe they’re all dead.” Did the images haunt him as they haunted me? When would they begin to fade?
I shook my head. Neither of us had time to allow the reality to sink in. I hadn’t even considered how this would affect Quadara.
“We won’t fail, Varin. We’ll find out who did this.”
We got off the commuter at the Eonist gateway. At this early hour of the morning, the House of Concord was silent and still. Only a few Quadarian guards stood by, ready to check permits at the quadrant gates.
Soon the House of Concord would fill with people. Would they sense something sizeable had shifted within Quadara?
In the low light, the palace dome appeared to glow like a muted gas lamp. It was the illuminated heart of Quadara; extinguish it, and the entire nation would fade.
“We’re running late,” Varin said with a pointed look at my elaborate Ludist shoes as though they were the reason.
I slipped them off my feet to keep up with him. “Will your boss really kill you for failing to deliver the comm case?”
He focused straight ahead, his strides purposeful. “He won’t kill me, but he’ll fire me, and if I don’t have a job, my death date will be reset.”
“Death date?” He’d mentioned something about that back at the auction house. “What is that exactly?”
“Every Eonist has one. It’s set at your birth date.”
“When you’re born?”
He stopped, and I jolted to a halt beside him. “Eonia is concerned about overpopulation. More than anything else. Over sickness. Over progress.”
“What does that have to do with death?”
He ran a hand through his hair, pushing back a dark lock from his face. “As soon as we’re born, Eonist geneticists run tests to see how healthy we are, determining our susceptibility to certain diseases and conditions. Our results are compared to the children born in the same generation. And from that, our death date is determined.”
“Right,” I said, though I didn’t quite understand how that related to his job.
Talking about his death date had changed his expression—almost as if he felt something. But he started moving again before I could pinpoint what.
“I don’t get it.” I wished he’d slow down. “How exactly can they determine what you’ll die of and when?”
This time when he stopped, I nearly flew into him. His hand settled on my elbow to prevent me from tripping. “No.” His lip curled slightly. “They don’t determine when we’ll die. We’re told when we’ll die. It’s not a predicted fortune, it’s an order. The test determines how long we’ll remain healthy for, and from that, they set our expiry date.”
A gasp lodged in my chest. “They kill you?”
He nodded once, short and sharp, then continued moving again as if we’d never spoken.
I scrambled on the polished marble floor, grasping on to the truth. “They kill you when they think it’s the right time?” My breath came out in bursts, not from exhaustion and lack of sleep but from shock. “How can they do that? How can they determine when it’s the right time? When is it ever the right time?”
“I told you. It’s the way our population is kept under control, to ensure our quadrant’s future. It’s how we flourish.”
I snorted. There was nothing flourishing about the Eonists. Controlled. Perfect, maybe. But suppressed. Smothered. No wonder Varin watched glimpses of another life and painted what he would never see.
I hadn’t witnessed any joy in Eonia during my short overnight stay. Their quadrant was undeniably stunning, and yet they were skimming over the surface of life, never really connecting to their environment, and certainly not to each other.
What was the point of it all? Where was the thrill of anticipation I experienced every evening at Mackiel’s auction house? Where was the drive and desire to know how everything worked and what it was worth? Sure, the Jetée was dark and dirty, but we all felt something. We cared. We lived.
“I thought you agreed not to judge,” he replied.
“When’s your death date?” I asked, unable to help myself.
“I’ll live until I’m thirty.”
I stumbled. “Thirty?”
“It’s shorter than most Eonist lifespans, yes.”
I grabbed his arm and twisted him to see his face, but it was blank, his eyes not meeting mine. He couldn’t speak callously of his own death. No one could.
“No, Varin.” I shook my head. “No. That’s shorter than my quadrant’s average lifespan. That’s shorter than all the quadrants’.”
He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I have a condition. It’s not terminal, but it’s a tax on society. So—”
“They’ll kill you for being a burden?” I spat the words at him. What was wrong with me? I should have been nicer to someone who’d told me he had little over a decade to live. But I was enraged, and his lack of emotion enraged me further. “That’s ridiculous!” I wanted to shake him to make him see the truth. Not what he’d been brainwashed into believing.
“We don’t have time to discuss my death date.”
I laughed cruelly. “Yeah, you do. You have about twelve years. Why not talk about it now?”
“You don’t understand.”
“No, I really don’t. This isn’t normal, Varin.” And his reaction was even less so. “Why don’t you run? Escape Eonia?” He had access to the other quadrants as a messenger—he didn’t have to take his chances with the wall guards.
“Where would I go? What would I do?” Something behind his question made me believe
he’d at least thought about it. “Eonia is everything I am and everything I will be.” But he wanted more; his collection of comm chips and paintings proved that.
“Until they kill you.”
“Come on.” He touched his messenger bag. “I need to find out who’s behind this.”
“The queens are already gone,” I said. “We can’t save them.”
“I know.”
“But you want to help the palace find the assassin. For what purpose? Justice? Revenge?” I spread my hands wide. “Why do you care so much for your queen?”
“Why do you care so little for yours?”
It wasn’t that I hated Queen Marguerite, but she was trying to destroy the Jetée, my home—my old home. “You seem to care more about Queen Corra’s death than you do your own death date. They’re already dead; you are not.”
Varin studied the floor.
“Varin. Varin, look at me.”
He hesitated but eventually lifted his head. I wanted to reach out and touch him, but didn’t. His brow was low, his full lips turned downward. Even his moon-like eyes seemed dimmer.
“Why?” I asked.
“Why what?” His voice was full of exhaustion. Despite his tall frame, he looked insignificant. Sure, we hadn’t slept all night, but there was something else there—years of fatigue. When he spoke about his art, I’d seen glimpses of a boy who wanted more than this life. But without hope, he’d been worn down, any fight left in him eradicated. Taught not to care, taught not to want. While I knew the feeling of being exhausted and infuriated by the hand you’d been dealt, I’d let it fuel me, while Varin had let it burn him down to nothing. But he had dreamed once; he’d had hope once—that had to be inside him. Somewhere.
“Why don’t you care about your own life?” I asked. “Why don’t you fight for yourself?”
“I do.” But there was little fire behind his words.
I shoved him in the chest. “Then prove it!”
“Why?” He turned the word back on me. “Why do you care?”
Good question. “Torians are curious creatures. Why is our favorite word.” But I knew that wasn’t the real reason. I wanted Varin to break free of the cage he’d put himself in, because I couldn’t break free of mine.
“I want to help the palace find the killer, as it’s the right thing to do,” he said finally.
“Right thing to do,” I muttered under my breath. How disappointing . . .
“And,” he said, his expression resolute, “if I help the palace, they might help me.”
“What?” Did he say he wanted to do something for himself? I rubbed inside my ear. “Can you repeat that? I’ve suddenly gone hard of hearing.”
A smile played at his lips. “The palace might help me with my”—he swallowed—“health issues. If we help the palace find the assassin, they might change my standing on the list.”
My chest tightened. “The list?”
“For HIDRA. I’ve never even been high up enough to be assessed.”
I merely nodded, my head feeling disconnected to my body. “Right,” I said numbly. “HIDRA.”
I wanted to ask more about the list and how to advance it, but I couldn’t let him know I was also after HIDRA. For it was the one reward we couldn’t share.
* * *
—
“YOU CAN’T COME in,” Varin said when we reached one of the meeting rooms inside the House of Concord. He pressed his palm against a panel, which pinged and displayed his name, occupation and quadrant on a screen above the door.
“Try to stop me.” I shoved by him before he could block the entrance with his frame.
“For the queens’ sake, Keralie, I mean it. They’ll be expecting me to deliver the comm case alone. They’ll suspect something is wrong.”
I shook my head. “I’m not leaving. You’re already a day late; they know something went awry. And you need my eyes.”
Varin startled. “What?”
“It’s my job to analyze people and understand their weaknesses.”
He shook his head, placing his messenger bag on the long metal table in the middle of the room. “My boss told the buyer there was a mix-up that caused the wrong chips to almost be delivered. I don’t need you here.” Well, that hurt.
“Fine. I won’t interfere, but I’m not leaving either.”
“What are you suggesting?”
“You’re not the resourceful type, are you?” I didn’t wait for his reply. I looked around the room for somewhere to hide.
Aside from the large table and surrounding chairs, the room was rather empty. Shelves lined one wall, stacked with books about interquadrant negotiations and law. Beside the shelves were metal drawers, lining the middle of the wall.
I slid the latch to the side and pushed one drawer up to look inside. A tightness clamped across my chest and throat at the sight of the confined space. My breaths started coming in gasps. I closed my eyes, wishing there was another way. Either I’d get in or I’d leave Varin alone with the mastermind behind the queens’ murders.
I placed one leg inside. I wasn’t going to leave him alone in this—as he was alone in everything else in his life. We were in this together now.
“That’s an incinerator.” The shock was evident in Varin’s voice. “Have you lost your mind?”
“It’s been suggested once or twice.” I squeezed the rest of my body into the tight space. Ash tickled my nose. My chest and stomach constricted; my cheeks flashed hot. I pressed my hands to either side of the incinerator to prove to myself there was plenty of room. Any movement in my periphery was my imagination.
Small breath in.
“It’s used to destroy confidential materials directly after a meeting,” he said, his voice pitching higher.
Small breath out.
When I didn’t reply, he added, “It gets up to more than a thousand degrees in there.”
There’s a way in . . .
“I’ll be fine,” I said, sliding the drawer down—and with it, my way out. “Just don’t turn it on.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Corra
Queen of Eonia
Rule eight: A queen cannot waste time or emotion on love. She is forbidden to marry, for it is a distraction from her duties.
Corra knew her mask was slipping. It wouldn’t take much more than a passing glance to realize she was running on raw emotion—emotion that should have been extinguished through years of schooling. She was tired, a bone-deep tired, and pain and anger were the only things fueling her body into action.
But she didn’t take the time to hide it. She had to find out what happened to Iris. And Stessa was the only lead. Iris had known something about the sixteen-year-old queen. Had Stessa silenced her?
Corra barely registered that there were no guards posted at Stessa’s door, nor her advisor. She didn’t bother knocking, instead flung it open with such force it almost rebounded back toward her.
Stessa let out an ear-piercing shriek. For a moment, this distracted Corra from the fact that Stessa was in the arms of a man. Lyker—her Ludist advisor-in-training. His shirt was off, revealing a complicated pattern inked onto his skin.
“I was—I . . .” Corra couldn’t think what to say. All the words spinning through her mind as she walked the hallways to Stessa’s rooms had vanished. Corra blinked, unable to comprehend the scene in front of her. She knew Ludists were impulsive and passionate, but she’d never considered this.
“The throne diverts love,” Iris had said on her final night. This had to be the secret Iris had uncovered about Stessa. A secret worth killing for.
Stessa pushed Lyker away with such a ferocity that he stumbled. “This isn’t what you think!” she cried to the Eonist queen.
Corra shook her head in disbelief. “Do tell me, then,” she said, finding her words, “what your advisor is do
ing in your bedroom, without a shirt and with his tongue shoved down your throat.”
Before she replied, Stessa made the mistake of looking at Lyker.
“Stessa,” Corra said. “How could you? You know Queenly Law.”
Stessa let out a resigned breath. “Lyker was my boyfriend from home.”
Corra took a step back, remembering the day Lyker had arrived in the palace, and Stessa’s warm embrace, claiming that was how Ludists greeted each other. “You lied to us?”
Lyker quickly buttoned up his shirt. “I’m sorry, Queen Corra. We tried to stay away from each other, but we couldn’t. Young love and all that,” he said with a grin, aiming to lighten the mood.
“Don’t.” Corra held up a hand before addressing Stessa. “You know it’s illegal to be in a relationship, let alone with your advisor. You spend too much time together, time that should be spent focusing on your quadrant, not on this—” She gestured between them. She was angry. And it felt good, the weight of her grief shifting into something purposeful. But still, she had to be careful, and not let the anger show.
“Please, Corra,” Stessa said, her bottom lip quivering. “Please try to understand. Love is powerful. It’s not easy to shut it out once you’ve let it in.”
“How did this happen?” Corra asked. “How did he get here?” The less she looked at Lyker, the better. What was the girl queen planning?
Stessa’s eyes wouldn’t focus on Corra when she replied, “There was an opening for a Ludist advisor. Lyker applied. That’s all.” But the way she’d said it—that’s all—it was as though she was trying to cover up something.
“Demitrus . . . He fell ill, out of the blue,” Corra said, speaking of the previous Ludist advisor. The one Lyker had replaced soon after Stessa had entered the palace. “Queens above! Tell me you weren’t involved!”
“I wasn’t! I mean, I never meant to hurt him,” Stessa replied, pulling at one of the beads entwined in her short hair.
Corra wasn’t sure if she was more shocked by her admission or the fact that she wasn’t trying to hide her wrongdoings. “You poisoned him.”
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