Blood Crown

by Ali Cross

  He laughs anyway, the sound jarring and jerking along with the electricity that still slams into him. It won’t last long—I can already feel the gun’s power fading. Soon there will be no more juice and I will have to face Galen hand-to-hand.

  The thought is intoxicating and I throw the gun to the ground.

  A moment later I jump into the air, bringing a kick down on Galen at the curve of his neck.

  He grabs my ankle and wrenches my leg around, forcing me to the ground, face first. I tense, ready to turn on him the second he lands on me—but nothing happens.

  I whip around, bringing my fists up—but Galen is gone.

  Seconds only, not enough time to run for the bridge, the transport or any conventional means of escape.

  I access my com and hail my ship. “Kevin! Where did he go?”

  But my com is dead and there is no response.

  Blazes. My mind is awash with the implications of what just transpired. Galen was here, and then he was not. What other tech have they developed that we are not aware of?

  I rush to the console and try to open a com to the rebel ship, but it is out of range. Another scan tells me there are no other ships nearby. How can this be? What is going on here? I access the ship’s data and discover there are only a handful of people onboard and none of them andies or Servants.

  I slump back in the chair momentarily stymied over what I should do, when a light pulses above the in-ship transport. I lurch to my feet, ready to fight, when a girl with hate in her eyes steps into the room.

  Minn and Dillon step into the transport with me. “Are you sure it’s safe?” asks Minn as the wall closes around us.

  I place my hands on the wall and focus my gaze inward, seeking the ship, but the ship is crying, screaming. The Mind ship is under attack from two smaller unidentified vessels. We are not directly in the line of fire, but still receiving collateral damage.

  I am overwhelmed by the options and consequences laid before my mind: erect shields—shields that haven’t been tested in nine years; retaliate and risk drawing direct fire. Or flee.

  With my mind connected with the ship, I can see where the people are—all on the support level, all but one. There are no andies, no Elites. The person on the Com is a human.

  “Your hands!” Minn exclaims. I open my eyes and see what she sees—streams of white light slipping beneath the skin on my hands, into the wall and back again.

  My gut reaction is to run, to hide. The ship responds to my need and I step back, releasing the dialog between myself and the ship and say nothing.

  The transport doors dematerialize, revealing the ship’s command center. And the stranger, his back to me.

  “Who are you?”

  “Vhat half yoo done?” He whirls toward me and shouts, “Vhair ze hell iss eweevohn?”

  For a moment I’m paralyzed by the same out of body experience that’s kept me from being myself the last couple hours, this feeling that everything has changed—I have changed. His accent—Russian my mind supplies, just like it had before with the other memories I never knew I had—where have I heard it before? Then my besieged brain finally processes what he said and rage roars through me. It’s him who has no place on this ship. I march forward, reaching for the controls.

  He tries to shoulder me out of the way, but it’s the wrong thing to do at the wrong time. “Back off!” I whip my left arm out, catching him across the chest and sending him flying across the room. Dillon rushes in, pointing his baton at the stranger’s heart.

  “One move and I’ll blast you. Direct to the heart an’ it’ll kill ya in a second. I know. I’ve seen it done.”

  I turn away and concentrate on the controls at my fingertips. The ship tells me what to do. The messages appear in my brain, and I know exactly what they mean. As if I’ve always known. We have taken flight, but without direction. The ship demands I provide a destination, but . . . my hands, my mind, hesitate.

  “What are you doing? No! You can’t do that!” the man shouts in his strange accent.

  Finally, I tell the ship to move away, to take us far from the other ships, from everyone else.

  “We’re here protecting you—we need to bring the Capital back, not send it further away! Where’s your Servant? Ask him!”

  I whirl on him, storming across the distance that separates us. He’s standing, his back pressed to the wall. Dillon keeps a threatening posture but the stranger seems unconcerned.

  His features are fine and well-pronounced—like an andie, but not. He’s definitely human—or at least, mostly. I can feel the whisper of power, feel the way the ship connects with him as though he belongs. A familiarity I feel within myself.

  “My Servant is dead. My parents are dead.” I wait to see what he will say, and he doesn’t disappoint.

  “You should have called for reinforcements. Why are you all alone out here? The Capital should never be without its guards!”

  “I don’t know anything about reinforcements.” And while “Capital” sounds familiar and there’s a hint of it in my mind, as if I’d know what it is if I had time to recall the information, I say, “And I have no idea what you’re talking about. We’ve been alone since my parents, and my Servant, were killed nine years ago. Your reinforcements didn’t stop any of this happening then—what good will they do us now?”

  “You can’t just run away!”

  “I am not running away. I am saving my people.” I turn my back on him.

  “If you’re all alone here, if you’ve been without your parents and your Servant for that long . . .”

  I spin back. “What? You think I can’t take care of them?”

  His eyes flick to my shift, to its dirty gray shapelessness. He wears a black uniform without any insignia. His hat has fallen to the ground and he leaves it there. “It’s been years since you’ve received your Gifts. You’ve not had any of the training. You don’t know what you’re doing.”

  I hate that he seems to know more about me than I know about myself, and his confidence in my inability is so infuriating that I feel determined to prove him wrong. “I know exactly what I’m doing.” I return to the console.

  “We must go back!”

  “And what? Allow ourselves to get blown to bits while you shoot insults at me?”

  “No! We would protect you, bring you back into the Alliance.”

  I shake my head, every word from his mouth fueling my fury.

  “Serantha.” I still, but don’t look back.

  “How do you know my name?”

  “Everyone knows the name off the Daughter of the West.”

  “The what?” I turn slightly, trying to see him without actually looking at him. A million thoughts and feelings rush through my mind. I hate this man, hate his superiority. Hate that I want nothing more than to curl up in a corner with him and learn everything he knows—everything he knows about me.

  He sighs and rakes his fingers through his dark hair, making it stand on end. It softens him making him seem less severe, more like someone who could be a friend. “I just . . . I just know, okay?” When he repeats himself, his strange accent seems less pronounced, like he is making an effort to sound normal, like me and Minn and Dillon.

  “I grew up in the . . . one of the ship-states. We all know who our king and queen are. We did not . . .” He sighs again and this time his shoulders slump before he continues. I can sense his words aren’t entirely true, but none of it makes sense so I don’t call him on it. Then his next words cut like a knife. “I didn’t know you had survived. I didn’t know you had been left all alone. I’m so sorry, Serantha.”

  I watch him out of the corner of my eye for a moment more, before nodding and looking away. Instead of answering, I watch the stars fly past in silence.

  Eventually, I bring the ship to a stop. The ship tells me we are alone in this part of space. It is charted, but there are no ship-states anywhere near. There are no outposts, no colonies, no trade ships.

  We are alone without
any food.

  I sit in one of the chairs in front of the console, my back straight, my shoulders square. I have made the effort to look as though I know what I am doing, but in truth I know absolutely nothing. Well, nothing except the people downstairs will die because of me. I don’t know where the guards went, but at this point I’m thinking the staff would have been better off if I’d given in to Galen’s demands. That I denied them sustenance because I wasn’t willing to let myself become Galen’s play thing feels like a burden too great to bear. I wish now that Minn and Dillon hadn’t stopped Mal from killing me. He’d had the right idea all along.

  “My lady?” Dillon asks softly. “Is there anything I can do for you?” I swivel the chair around and manage a smile.

  “No, Dillon. Thank you for everything.” I know what I need to do, but I’ve been wrestling with myself the last twenty minutes. “Could you please take Minn down to the others, and let them know we are out of danger?” I refuse to meet the stranger’s eyes, though his frustration is palpable. I only hope that Dillon and Minn don’t really understand just how dire our situation is.

  To prove my hope, Minn’s face breaks out in a wide smile. “We are safe?”

  I pull my lips further upward and nod my head, hoping my lie might one day be forgiven.

  “But what about ’im?” Dillon gestures with the bolt gun toward the stranger sitting slouched against the door.

  “It’s okay. He won’t hurt me.” And of course they believe me because I’m Sera. The girl who can handle the guards. The girl with a strength beyond what is natural.

  For a long time after they leave I sit there, staring out the window at the vast expanse of space. The man doesn’t move, doesn’t speak. Finally I can’t stand it any longer. “Tell me what to do.” Except, he doesn’t answer.

  I spin the chair around until I’m facing him. “Please.”

  I expect him to smile, like the guards always did when they knew they had something I needed. They liked to make me beg for things. Is that what this person wants of me, too? Am I willing to beg him?

  And I realize, for my people—for Minn and Sher and Tam. For Dillon and all the others who stood for me—for them I will beg.

  I stand up stiffly and take a few steps toward him. I drop to my knees and place my forehead on the floor. “Please,” I say again.

  “No.” The word falls like a hammer, his voice cold and detached. I’m so startled, so shocked by his outright refusal that I look up. It isn’t fierce denial I see in his eyes, but something else—something I can’t quite identify. He gets to his feet and reaches down his hand.

  “Please, Princess. Stand.”

  I look at his hand. I’ve never seen such a clean hand. There are no scars, no burns. His skin is fair and unblemished, his fingers long, his nails neat and clean. I don’t want to put my hand in his, but I do. A strange expression lights up his face moments before he jerks away.

  My skin burns where we touched—aches for him once we part. For a moment I felt . . . connected. Like he was familiar somehow. It felt right that my hand be in his. But my hand must have repulsed him to make him drop it like he did. He must think so little of me, think I am far beneath him.

  But he is just a soldier—if I am the princess, doesn’t that make him beneath me? I try to don a look of entitled aristocracy, like I imagine a queen might possess, but when his sky-blue eyes meet mine they darken so suddenly it feels like a wall materializes between us. No matter that he just called me his princess, he still has no respect for me.

  “You say you know more than I do and I don’t deny it. I’ve only just learned who I am. I’ve been living this long time in the kitchen—” His face blanches and he swallows hard. I think I must disgust him, but I press on, deciding I don’t need to explain myself to him. “I haven’t received the necessary training, but I am still the leader of this ship. I command you to tell me what to do.”

  The man laughs. “From begging to commanding?” His words stutter, forced out between barks of laughter. “You command me. Oh, that’s rich.”

  “You said it yourself—as a citizen, a soldier of the West, I am your princess. Since the death of my mother, I suppose that makes me your queen. Does not that mean I have the right to command you?”

  I watch him fight to regain control. “The West. Right.” He smoothes his hand over his face as if trying to erase the mirth from his eyes. When he has finally managed to restrain himself, he looks up, then quickly away.

  “Of course, my Lady. I will do all that I can to help you.” He sweeps his arm to the side and bows low. I’m positive he is mocking me, but I have no idea what to do or say to make it better, and so I say nothing.

  “What can I do for you?” His face is stern and serious, and no matter what he might think of me, or how badly I have humiliated myself, I do respect that he is willing to help—for the sake of the people onboard.

  “It seems we are far from any source of supplies and we need to eat. Take us to a safe place where we can replenish our supplies.”

  He regards me for a moment and thankfully refrains from pointing out that we are in this predicament because I ran away from his war ship. When he speaks, he does so slowly, occasionally slipping into his accent, then erasing it again.

  “You may not realize this, but the Mind have declared war upon the Alliance. Both the East and West are embattled. To find supplies, we will have to reenter civilized space. In civilized space, the Mind and their operatives are everywhere. Now that they have discovered you are alive, they will stop at nothing to destroy you.”

  We must go back, no matter the cost. Perhaps to a location on the outskirts of civilization, a place less likely to have spies. Instead I say, “Why?”

  His face softens and he steps nearer, uncomfortably close. I feel that pull again, the electrical spark between us that makes me want to fall into his arms, that makes me believe it would be the most natural, most right thing to do. “Because of the prophecy.” The breath his words ride on wisps over my cheek.

  “I don’t know of any prophecy.”

  His eyes search mine, looking deep, but I have no idea what he hopes to find. And I don’t know if I want him to find it, whatever it is. I shake my head.

  His fingers twitch and for a moment, just a moment, I think he’s going to take my hand in his. He leans forward. “The Blood Crown is the genetic eventuality that the children of the East and the West will unite, bringing an alliance of both people and blood. Together they will create a perfect race, a union of the best in humanity and in technology. Together they will be strong enough to begin life anew, so that humanity may go on.”

  As he speaks he moves nearer and nearer until now his lips are so close to mine I can feel their heat. Inexplicably, I want him to kiss me.

  His expression suddenly darkens and he twitches his head, as if to clear it of some spell, and steps back. “So they say, anyway.”

  Tension rattles over the network like a deepening frost, making me feel stiff and hopeless. Moments after we are alerted to imminent action, and the shield is erected, my awareness of Serantha slips away.

  This time when I see her, I know instantly who she is. I don’t know how I missed it before. All I can think is, my lust for Galen’s death overwhelmed me—because now her presence has my whole body humming like a plucked string.

  Serantha.

  The last time I saw her she was ten years old—not long before the Mind mutinied and murdered her.

  Or rather, since we thought her murdered.

  We’d pledged ourselves to one another then. And I hadn’t played with her. I remember wanting to. I wanted to run with her to the Servants’ quarters and pretend to be our parents inspecting the guards. I wanted to play hide-and- seek with the ship—one of our favorite games. But I was twelve. It was time to put away childish things and be a man. Our betrothal was made official and my father had presented me with a real, full-size sword.

  I remember the way her eyes registered the change in
me and the disappointment it left there but I felt powerless to stop it, to tell her that inside, I was still the same Nicolai; just a boy who wanted to play with his best—his only—friend.

  Now, my symbiants reach out to her, but I can tell she is not reading me—doesn’t even seem to recognize that our symbiants are compatible, were in fact created to be compatible.

  “What’s your name?” she demands.

  The idea that she doesn’t know me, doesn’t even recognize me as her betrothed, makes me do a thoughtless thing.

  “Uh, Nic,” I answer.

  There’s so much more to who I am and I should tell her. Here is Serantha, my betrothed. Together we might fulfill a prophecy that would unlock the evolutionary potential in human DNA. We could be the key to ensuring the human race lives on.

  I should be shouting for joy. I should grab her into my arms and make her mine and announce her survival and our marriage for all to hear.

  Instead, I say nothing.

  “Can you navigate the ship?” she asks.

  “Of course.” Everything she says surprises me. Even her appearance surprises me. She has threadbare slippers on her feet and only wears a limp, gray shift that looks ancient. But it reveals her long legs—legs I remember used to pump high as she flew past me in every single race I ever had with her. Her arms are bare. Her hair is caught up in a messy knot at her neck, but I can still remember the way it shone as it lay down her back.

  Now she flicks her eyes to me in an arrogant way that makes me feel like support rather than her betrothed. Her equal.

  “Then get us where we need to go. I have to see to my people.”

  I nod and move toward the console. “Your people,” I say with exasperation. She remembers they are her subjects, but she doesn’t remember me.

  “That’s right. They are my people.”

  I feel my face morph into an expression of sadness and regret. She would have made a most excellent queen. I can see now that ruling by her side would have been as glorious as I had ever dreamed it would be. But I think now it might be too late. We have both drifted so far from who we were meant to be that I’m not sure there could ever be a way back for us.