“Nero?” Kara said under her breath.
“Where’d they send the squatters, Jeth?” Aly tried again for intel. It was worth a shot, since it looked like Jeth was feeling chatty.
Jeth stared at him. He never blinked—he didn’t have eyelids—and he had a pretty serious evil eye when he put his mind to it. “Houl,” he said finally. “There’s an internment center there for political agitators. Fontisian agents, that sort of thing.” Aly had to keep himself from rolling his eyes. “Brand-spanking-new and totally inescapable. You’ll know all about it soon enough, you idiot choirtoi. Walking right into a UniForce base. What the hell are you even doing here? In case you hadn’t noticed, you’re wanted for murder.” He yanked open the top button of his uniform and committed the worst of dress code violations as far as their Drill Sergeant Vedcu was concerned. If he were there he would’ve gone crazy, made them all drop down and give him fifty.
“I didn’t murder anybody,” Aly said, losing patience. He struggled against his cuffs, though he knew it would do no good. “Let us go, Jeth. You know they lied! This is the biggest pile of taejis.”
“Of course it’s a lie, Aly. But you know what? You show up to an agitator safe house—”
“They’re not agitators,” Kara interjected. “They’re scientists. They were running for their lives, and you sniffed them out like dogs. Sent them gods know where for whatever experiments—”
“Hey, talk all the taejis you want. I got the UniForce shoving Tasinn up where the sun don’t shine!”
“Shut up, Jeth,” Aly snapped.
“Look at you, so ready to jump to her defense.” Jeth spit in disgust, a wad of saliva denting the plaster of the wall. Aly and Vin had always been jealous that Chrams could do that. “What about us? Your unit, your brothers? You know what we went through once you disappeared? They wanted to make damn sure no one else was working with you.” Aly tried to interrupt, but Jeth held a finger up as he kept talking. “Bullseye, Einstein, Shrank,” he said, listing call signs of all the pilots they came up with. “They’re gone. Disappeared.”
“What?” Aly felt like Jeth had lasered him straight in the stomach. “Why? I haven’t even—I mean, I haven’t talked to any of them for years.”
“Yeah, well, tough tits for everyone. I only got sent out here as an errand boy. Rhesto’s close enough to Fontis to refuel an armada, if it came to that. But we wound up stumbling on a bunch of squatters. It’s just shitty coincidence I’m here.”
So now Aly understood why Jethezar was still stuck on Rhesto. It was punishment, for being even vaguely associated with him. “Everyone else got sent to Zubil, Yarazu, Hapecha . . .” He listed Fontisian territories. “I’m sitting on the sidelines up on this rock while the rest of the unit gets their balls handed to them.”
“They’ve already deployed?” Aly looked from Jeth to Kara.
“We’re at war,” she deadpanned. And he’d known that, hadn’t he? He’d seen announcements on the holos, martial law, armadas moving across space, Tasinn on even the farthest neutral rocks. But Kara’s mom being taken, guys he knew being deployed—it felt more real than anything else had in the past few days. It wasn’t just his life. It was everyone’s.
“Right, exactly what she said.” Jeth patted down the front pocket of his gear and pulled a face when he realized his tobacco was gone. “Swear to the ancestors, Aly, you have the worst timing.” He paced some more.
“Let us go, Jeth. What are you going to do? Turn us in?” In the silence, Aly felt his eyes sting. “Man. All those nights we shot the taejis? All those times on leave with your family? We came up together. We came up with Vincent . . .”
Aly closed his eyes as he trailed off, remembering that Vincent was dead because of him, because of what he’d done.
“Hey,” Jeth said, forcing Aly to look up. He took the cap off his funny-shaped head that narrowed toward the back like a wing. He scratched his head as he paced some more. Then he stopped suddenly, pulled out a thin metal baton, and reversed the charge on Aly’s cuffs so they fell away. “Don’t make me regret this,” he said.
“Now that that’s settled”—Kara rubbed her wrists after Jeth freed her as well—“let’s talk about how to get to the broadcast tower.”
“Kara, no.” Aly stared at her. “We need to get the hell out of here.”
“What he said,” Jeth said wryly, sounding more like the boy Aly knew.
“We didn’t come all this way to have nothing to show for it. You’re innocent!” Kara said so forcefully that Aly flinched. He hadn’t heard anyone say it yet—that he was innocent. “And Nero has my mom. When everyone across eight galaxies finds out he’s a liar and a fraud, they’ll be foaming at the mouth to take him down. And when Nero goes down, then I get my mom back.”
NINETEEN
RHIANNON
ERAWAE. She’d come here seeking Dahlen’s order, though she had no idea what she’d do once she arrived. It was only a domed city, a little terraformed pocket that took up a quarter of the asteroid deep in the Bazorl Quadrant. And it was neutral territory, in theory.
In theory. Not in actual practice. Upon arriving, Rhee had seen the burnt remnants of the Fontisian embassy. The Kalusians had invaded, yet another sign of the utter disregard of the Urnew Treaty—and Nero’s growing influence. Any remaining Fontisians were being rooted out and rounded up in all the corners of the city. She’d been quick to shed her tunic for a more appropriate scarf to cover her face—though the vermillion mark was still bright as ever, a disguise that had gotten her this far.
From the locals she’d learned that most of the Fontisians who hadn’t managed to flee in time had been captured. Though it was easy enough to find sympathizers, and soon she’d learned that not all of them had scattered to the wind.
There was a monastery impossibly high in the mountains—the Order of the Light, it was whispered—that served as a sanctuary to any Fontisians who hadn’t been caught and deported back to Fontis. But the future of the monastery was uncertain. The borders and ports were closely monitored, and transport off Erawae would not be arriving soon: Martial law prohibited enemy ships to dock.
Rhee was certain the monastery was where she would have to go. She felt it in her gut. She was no longer misguided by memories venerated as half-truths, but driven by something else—a need to regroup, regain her throne, and take her true revenge on the man who had killed her family.
Of course, she might be traveling toward her own death too.
She had heard that the hillside of switchbacks and hidden stairs that led to the temple was full of hidden archers, and Kalusian forces trying to climb it had been pushed back from every angle. Even though the temple itself was rumored to be impenetrable, anyone seeking the temple was said to have no care for his or her life.
After passing through the business district, Rhee rode along the canal on the sidecar of a simple madùcycle until the rows of modular architecture faded away and the structures became simpler, sparser. Their tires kicked up white moondust on unpaved roads, and it reminded her of Nau Fruma, and of Julian. Dust in his hair. The way he licked his lips before he spoke. How he’d almost kissed her, how he would’ve if she’d just looked up that day in the dojo.
She looked up now at the surface of the dome. It was too large for climate control to be consistent throughout, and as she headed toward the city’s southern quadrant, it began to feel like monsoon season. Hot and wet, a fickle condensation that clung to the air like an indecisive rain.
Her guide was a droid, since no Kalusian who’d settled in the domed city was willing to take her. Its shiny exterior reflected her own image back at her as it pointed up to the mountain they approached. Huts were hemmed into the soil around the monastery, which was snug against the steep slopes as if it had grown out of the ground. The mountain itself made the shape of a tusked animal, reared up on its hind legs.
“This is wh
ere I leave you,” the droid said, stopping at the base of the mountain. Just beyond it she could see the transparent barrier where the dome enclosing them ended and the bleak, exposed surface of Erawae began.
It let her off, then pivoted the madùcycle and drove away. The low whizz of its engine grew fainter, until it was just silence. A makeshift staircase had been carved into white moonrock, switchbacking up toward the crest. As landscapes went, she couldn’t think of one more unfriendly or unwelcoming.
She pushed those thoughts aside as she scrambled up the mountain. The wet, white chalk crumbled below her feet, and wood cracked with every step. Everything could collapse under her—not just these stairs, but the entire known history of her family. She was the very last Ta’an, here on a bleak and forbidding planet, climbing toward a monastery for an order that might very well want her dead.
But it cleared her mind to focus on the landscape, where to put her foot next as she made her way toward the monastery. The blunt ends of her dark hair were plastered to her face with sweat. Rhee never thought she’d miss her neat braid, with all her thick hair tucked away, until now. It began to rain lightly—a condensation off the surface of the dome—but even this offered no relief from the heat. Glancing warily at the empty mountain plains to either side, Rhee knew someone was watching her. Like an electrical hum to the air, an energy generated by someone else’s gaze.
When she’d nearly reached the top and the door was in sight, she was startled to hear a creaking, like a tree falling, as the massive door opened—imported bark, as there wasn’t any true wood on this asteroid with the same deep color. She wondered if it was from the Dena forest on Fontis, made of the same wood as Dahlen’s ship.
“We don’t usually accept unannounced visitors.” A man had appeared in the doorway. He looked to be at least eighty, but he was still fit even if a bit hunched—she wondered if it was the gravity or merely old age that curled his shoulders in just slightly. The tattoos along his neck were blurry, soft shapes that barely resembled the severe angles of Dahlen’s markings. He wore a sash across his waist, which marked him as an Elder.
Rhee was struggling to breathe. What a climb. “You couldn’t have put a sign at the bottom that said so?”
The man made a noise—somewhere between a laugh and a snort—and with the slightest motion of his hands, six archers materialized around her. Rhee grabbed for her knife, but it was useless. They’d formed a semicircle around her, and she was outnumbered seven to one. Her instinct had been right all along—there were people watching her. From the roofs of the squat houses, in the bushes half-hidden, and on the steps below her. The monks of the Fontisian Order of the Light had been taking aim this whole time, and they were prepared to murder her if an order was given. She knew from her time with Dahlen that for members of the order, violence was an accepted part of life. They would not think twice before firing.
The man’s eyes flickered, but he only stood there, his expression seemingly bored. “Who are you to climb our mountain?” he prodded.
Pulling her scarf off, Rhee hoped she’d be recognized before the arrows were loosed. She did her best to stand tall as the rain fell on her face.
“Rhiannon Ta’an,” she said softly. Then forced herself to repeat it louder, and added: “Last princess of the Ta’an dynasty.”
The archers murmured among themselves as she bowed her head, and she felt their recognition as they saw past the crimson mark that took up half her face. Even if she was considered an enemy, the empress to a hostile planet, the last of her slain kin, she wished to appear dignified. There was relief in not hiding. Her time spent slouched in shadow, hidden off to the side, hated for the disfiguring mark on her cheek—it had all taken its toll.
Only the Elder didn’t react, although he motioned for the archers to lower their weapons.
“The boy isn’t with you,” he said.
With a start, Rhee realized the Elder meant Dahlen. “He’s been detained,” she lied smoothly, even as her mind desperately tried to untangle all the connections—had this man sent Dahlen to save her on the Eliedio? Did that mean he was on her side?
“You’re either very brave or very foolish, to show up like this.” It wasn’t exactly reassuring, but when he motioned her to follow him inside the monastery, she did.
Rhee walked through the threshold, glancing back briefly to see the archers follow her in a single-file line. The monastery was dimly lit with candles; there were rounded pillars bolstering a ceiling lost to darkness.
The old man introduced himself as Elder Escov as they made their way inside. He wore the robes of a monk, but moved like a soldier, each step carefully placed and each movement perfectly contained. It occurred to her that he was old enough to have fought in the Great War.
He stopped to bow in front of an altar to Vodhan, and Rhee did the same, keenly aware that the six archers who’d followed her in were now joined by six more inside. The dozen of them were evenly distributed against all four walls. The sound of the rain was loud, angry, and the tiles near the open doors and windows were beaded with water. It was slowly seeping in from the outside world, as if it were beating its fists in anger.
The Elder finished his prayer and motioned for them to continue on into a courtyard, where fifty or sixty boys as young as eight and as old as Dahlen were doing two-three punch combination drills in perfect sync. They were soaked.
The Elder stopped to watch the boys train, his eyes scanning the lines in the same critical way Veyron would watch her and Julian spar. She wanted that again. Not just the challenge but the breathless focus. She’d never danced with a boy, but she knew—punching and kicking, weaving in and out—that it was a kind of dance. And most of all she missed Julian’s touch. Even to bring up her knee and block one of his kicks. That jolt. The pressure.
Now, in the courtyard, there was a girl, her blonde hair worn in a tight braid, who executed a perfect flip throw—rolling backward onto the wet ground as she gripped her opponent. She catapulted him up and over, then stood and reset, wiping water from her eyes. Rhee raised herself onto the balls of her feet, feeling her calves flex, aching to spar now.
“I didn’t think you’d survive this long, given how young you are and how many people want you dead,” the Elder said. His feet were evenly planted and his hands were flexed open—all muscle memory, Rhee assumed, from when he himself was a soldier and had to be combat-ready at a split second’s notice.
“You and everyone else,” she said, already feeling defensive. Her youth was a deficit she’d have to make up for with cunning and strategy if she were to take back her throne.
The procession passed inside a vaulted chamber, this one elegantly tiled. The temple must be hewed directly into the center of the mountain. At last, the Elder gestured for her to sit. With the rustle of a snake in the grass, the archers fanned out around them. The hairs on the back of Rhee’s neck lifted, but she knew she had to ask the Elder about Seotra. She hadn’t come this far to be killed before she knew the truth about her family.
“Did you know Andrés Seotra?” she asked.
“Did I?” the Elder asked, and Rhee silently cursed: She’d given herself away. “Does that mean Seotra is . . . ?”
“Dead,” she confirmed. She wanted some sort of reaction. A flinch. A smile, even. Yet the Elder gave her nothing.
After a long minute of silence, he asked, abruptly, “Do you know how many souls perished in the Great War?”
Rhee couldn’t see what the Great War had to do anything, but she could tell the Elder expected an answer. “Estimates are at a hundred million,” she said impatiently.
“Closer to three hundred million, but I’m not surprised that’s what your history books tell you. They would hardly mention the faults of your planet . . .”
Rhee swallowed her frustration. “I’ve not come for a lecture on sins I didn’t commit.”
“And I haven’t in
vited you inside my home to give one,” he said, seemingly matching her own impatience. “Your father ended that war. He and Seotra both, in a way. It was Seotra himself who called off his unit after I’d refused to surrender. He told me Fontis was destined to lose the war. And I told him that we would take one hundred thousand more Kalusian lives before that happened.” Elder Escov looked down at his palms, as if seeing an old story written on them. “I was a prisoner of war for a time, but then the Urnew Treaty was drafted and I was released. Seotra and I became . . .” He trailed off, searching for the right word.
“Friends?” Rhee asked.
“No,” he said firmly, but there was some warmth in the man’s blue eyes. “Not friends. Allies, perhaps.” Rhee wondered if Dahlen knew of their history. Surely Dahlen wouldn’t have killed Seotra if he’d known the truth. “I met your father because of him—not a bad man by any standard. There was nothing he wouldn’t sacrifice for peace. I was to receive him on Fontis the day your family crashed in the rings of Rylier.”
“We were going to see you?” she asked. She knew they were going to Fontis, but not to visit an Elder of the order.
“Surprised?” he asked mildly. “Surprised your father was keeping the company of terrorist fanatics?”
“I don’t think that,” she said quickly. She’d first said it out of fear—the archers still hovered nearby, after all—but then realized that she meant it. She thought of Dahlen and how she was scared of him, but she admired him too. He was smart, calculating, cunning. She wondered about his coldness, and what atrocities he’d witnessed to make him that way.
“What is it you’ve lost?” she had asked Dahlen.
“Everything,” he’d answered. And Rhee knew he’d spoken of his family.
Now she looked up to meet the Elder’s eye. “Your father confided in Seotra that he sensed danger,” he said. “Some of the people were angry about the terms of the Urnew Treaty. For some, peace was inconceivable because of the hatred they’d been taught to feel. And for others, peace was merely an inconvenience—it prevented them from mining freely on Wraeta, and profiting from a war.”
Empress of a Thousand Skies Page 20