Empress of a Thousand Skies

by Rhoda Belleza

  Nero. His flowery language, his love of the camera . . . it was designed to make him seem trustworthy, competent, dynamic. A new, worthy leader will rise . . .

  “The night your family died they were not going on vacation, as they had publicly claimed, but you already knew that.”

  Rhee could barely bring herself to nod.

  “They hadn’t made it to their final destination, but they were fleeing to Fontis with one of our escorts. To us, peace was very important.” His voice softened. “To us, we owed him that.”

  And Rhee should have been with them. She should have died on that ship. She felt a wrench of pain in her gut, as if someone were turning a knife there.

  “When did you come here to Erawae?” she asked, still unsure whether Elder Escov could be counted as a friend.

  “Just after your family’s death. It was a dangerous time, and neutral territory had seemed safer. I was wrong, of course . . .”

  Rhee wondered what it must’ve been like to witness the raids here, and watch as his people were rounded up and imprisoned.

  “I admired your father greatly,” he continued. “I met him once, on the day he signed the Urnew Treaty. I met you and your sister too.”

  “I don’t remember.” Without accessing her cube, she couldn’t pinpoint the moment they met. Now the memories from her childhood were faulty—just scraps, like ribbons fluttering on the wind. But she’d practically lived in those memories. She’d replayed that day enough times to know she’d worn a Kalusian formal dress, and waved at a crowd. There’d been confetti that she’d tried to snatch out of the air. That night she’d fallen asleep in Josselyn’s lap, while Joss had fallen asleep on their mother’s shoulder, the remnants of a celebration around them. It was a still image they showed on the holos every year, on the anniversary of her family’s deaths.

  Now she tugged at the memory like a lifeline that would pull her up into that moment, that feeling. And it helped her remember why she’d come all this way.

  “You knew my father, and you admired him. He’s dead now, just as Seotra is. And Nero, the man who’s installed himself as a ruler, will bring war down on all of us. But I’m here now. Help me,” she insisted. “Tell me what Seotra had planned to do.”

  “Help you?” he repeated, as if the idea had never occurred to him. “My people are being rounded up. Taken to some secret prison. Some rumors say they’re being experimented on. Help you when I have to beat back your army every hour of every day?”

  Rhee felt a flare of anger. She hadn’t come all this way just to hit another dead end. “I’m the last remaining princess of the Ta’an dynasty. I’m the only person who can keep the universe from war. If you help me stay alive, if you give me shelter, I will find a way to win the throne back. I can still stop the war. I swear I will keep your people safe.”

  He was silent for a bit. “It isn’t true,” he said.

  “What?” Rhee asked, confused. “That I can take the throne?”

  He looked at her, finally. “No,” he said. “That you’re the last princess.” His eyes were very blue, like chipped ice. “You aren’t. Your sister, Josselyn . . . she’s alive too.”

  TWENTY

  ALYOSHA

  JETH was right. The broadcast tower was unbreachable. A prewar structure made of brick with a narrow staircase winding to the top. Aly could see it through the tiny vertical windows that ran up the tower side. One way in and one way out—with an NX droid standing guard at the base. Pinched speaker grill and narrow infrared eyes, like their faces were designed to look constipated.

  The actual satellite dish, though, that was a different story. It was two hundred meters across—and even though it was built in to a massive sinkhole, it still rose above the ground by another fifty meters, taller than a ten-story building. It was accessible via two service ladders, and these, too, were guarded.

  But the UniForce hadn’t bothered posting guards anywhere else around it, which was either careless or cocky or a little bit of both. Maybe the army didn’t think it could serve any use to anyone. It was a strategic misstep that they hadn’t just blown the thing up. It’s what Aly would’ve done.

  Then again, he felt like making a lot of things explode lately.

  Now Aly, Kara, and Pavel crouched on the north side—the farthest point possible from the tower, hidden by the dish itself.

  “Jeth’s not coming,” Aly said. He looked at Kara. She poked at one of the levers on the machine he’d built in the past couple of hours. He wondered if she thought he was some sort of nerd. Anything he made in the Wray got kicked around or stolen.

  “Shut up already.” She didn’t sound mean, just distracted. Aly knew she was thinking about her mom. He’d asked if Kara was okay earlier, but she’d just pursed her mouth into a straight line and shook her head. “He’s coming. Definitely. If he’d ratted us out they would’ve come for us by now.” Just then, Jethezar came into view, glancing behind him casually. Kara gave Aly a told you so look.

  Jethezar broke into a sprint as soon as the tower was out of view.

  “Nice of you to show,” Aly said when Jeth dropped to a knee beside him.

  “Yeah, sorry I’m late, I was busy trying not to die.” He pulled a shrink-wrapped plastic bag out of his waistband and threw it in front of Aly. “That touched my butt crack. I don’t even feel bad about it.”

  “Gross,” Kara said. Her face opened up into an almost-smile, which made Aly feel stupid amounts of happy—but annoyed him, too, because he hadn’t been the one to make her smile.

  “Holy taejis, we’ve been separated barely long enough for me to steal a supply or two and take a dump,” Jeth said, pointing to the machine. “You built this from all the stuff I pulled out of your pockets?”

  It was just a small platform with a stand and some other things. Aly was still trying to calculate how far back to pull the lever for it to force the spring.

  “Pavel had to give up some pieces too. For the greater good,” Kara said, raising an invisible glass.

  The droid hinged open the front of his inner compartment and showed how half of his attachments were missing. “Worth it,” Pavel said. Aly felt a twinge of pain. Pavel had learned that phrase from Vin.

  Aly picked up the corner of the bag. He made a show of wiping it on the grass while giving Jeth the finger, then ripped it open. Immediately a twist of strings as thin as shoelaces expanded and grew quickly, until it looked like a massive, coiled snake. Compressed synthicone rope, courtesy of the UniForce.

  “Good looking out, Jeth,” Aly said.

  “You can thank me after it works.” Jeth looked up. From here the satellite dish blocked out half the sky. It was a monolith. It’d been built so people could talk across planets, maybe even understand each other. Depressing to think all it’d been used for in the past few years were some DroidVision reruns.

  But today they’d see something worthwhile.

  “It’ll work.” Kara ran her fingers alongside the metal edge. There were flecks of blue polish on her nails, and for some reason, he thought it made her cooler, out of his league. “And he’s right, you know?” she said to Aly. “It’s pretty incredible you built this.”

  Aly shrugged and ducked his head. He made himself busy by looping the rope through Pavel’s claw attachment and setting it on the platform. He could barely spell, couldn’t draw for taejis or hold a tune. But sometimes he thought in blueprints, like he’d get an idea and see everything fitting together, all the little pieces encased, the edges smoothed, the hinges oiled. It embarrassed him, sometimes, how his mind didn’t work like anyone else’s.

  Jeth looked in both directions where the landscape disappeared around the base of the satellite dish. “I gotta get moving now.” They shook hands. Aly was about to drop his hand when Jeth pulled him into a hug. “I’m sorry I doubted you,” he said into his ear, “and about Vin.” Then he patted him hard on
the back. He and Kara nodded at each other as he stood up, adjusted his belt, and went on his way.

  When Jeth was out of sight, Pavel helped Aly position the device according to the wind and the angle. Aly silently counted to three and released the lever; the claw catapulted into space, and the rope streamed behind it, whistling as it cut through the air. He held his breath until the claw cleared the edge and caught on the rim.

  “It worked.” Aly could barely believe it himself. He gave the rope a tug.

  Kara buttoned up her big coat, and after Pavel compacted into a dome, she helped strap the droid to Aly’s back. Then she grabbed hold of the rope. “Mind if I go first?” she said, already grabbing for it.

  “Wait,” he said. He looked up. It was a long climb. “How’s your head?”

  She shrugged. “Broken.”

  “I’m being serious. Are you going to be able to make it? What if—?”

  “I get it, Aly. Chivalry is not dead and all.” She gripped the rope with one hand and mounted it. “My head has lasted me this long. What’s a ten-story rope climb?”

  Aly watched as pieces of the silicone rope slid out at a forty-five-degree angle, spreading halfway down the sole of her foot to grip it. It peeled away like putty when she took her next step. It wouldn’t bear their entire body weight for long, especially not his, but at least their biceps wouldn’t be melting.

  Aly decided he would take her word for it. He grabbed hold of the rope and climbed after her, trying to get used to Pavel’s weight on his back—and it went all right until he felt himself slipping halfway up, the rope thinning out. It was slow to repair, and the texture started to change; it got stickier just as the wind picked up. They sailed a few feet over to the left, both of them clamping down with their feet, knees, elbows, and hands to stay on. The rope continued to stretch as they climbed, and every time he gained a foot he’d fall back down six inches. He was scrambling desperately—the rope gummy, like melted marshmallows coating his palms. He swore he was going to fall.

  When Kara finally reached the top she heaved herself over the edge of the satellite dish and disappeared. Aly launched himself right behind her just as the rope fell away from under his feet. With nothing to anchor it, the claw attachment skittered down the slope toward the concave center of the surface. It was a long way down.

  He landed next to Kara, the two of them on their stomachs holding on to the lip of the structure with both hands. He was shaking as he tried to catch his breath.

  “Are you laughing?” he asked Kara. Her mouth was parted; her expression was somewhere between relief and terror, kind of like the girl on the zeppelin during Nero’s press conference.

  “It’s just—doesn’t it feel like we’re in a giant cereal bowl?” she asked. His arms were outstretched, and he readjusted his grip to look behind him.

  It kind of did look like a big bowl, with Rhesto’s mountains just beyond the brim. He imagined a giant taking it to his lips and sucking up the last of the milk. “You’re nuts, you know that?”

  “You’re not the first person to call me that.”

  Aly rolled onto his side and held on with one hand, the other unstrapping Pavel from his back. He set the droid’s wheels on the surface but kept him attached to the strap, so they were tethered to one another, and he rolled down only a few feet below them.

  “You sure you want to do this?” The claw had finally hit the port that jutted out of the center.

  “You’re asking now?” She looked below them. “Let’s go on three.”

  Her hazel eyes—were they always hazel?—met his and never left as they counted together. “Three,” they said in unison, and Kara flipped on her back and slid down, riding the surface of her massive jacket like it was a magic carpet. Aly flew down right with her. Somehow their hands found each other’s.

  Time moved fast and slow all at once. It didn’t feel like it was stretching out so much as getting bigger, the big rim of the bowl shifting above him and framing the sky in its perfect center. It was an impossible moment of peace. He’d prove his innocence. He would show everyone.

  Suddenly Pavel’s leash whipped out of his hand, and they fell away as the droid stayed stuck on a ridge he and Kara had just barely missed.

  “PAVEL!” Aly called, and tried to flip himself over to slow down. Kara tried, too, but they got tangled up, rushing down like a tide. They tumbled. Everything happened in near silence and small grunts. He’d given up trying to get Pavel back, but now they were coming in fast on the port below, right at the center of the bowl. It had looked far smaller from up top, but now he saw it was a raised cylinder in the middle. At this rate, if they didn’t stop, they’d break their legs, best-case scenario. Worst-case scenario, maybe flip over it and break their necks.

  Aly tore his sleeve open as he dragged his elbow into the surface; it was raw and bloody, and he could feel where the friction heat and metal were burning his skin. Kara’s eyes went wide as she saw the port, and she clawed at the surface. Her hair in his mouth. His hand on her waist. He dug a heel in and could smell the rubber of his sole burning. Their bodies had found each other in the mad scramble, parallel now by the time they’d slowed—his foot just tapping the port. The curve of her hip brushed against him, and even now—filthy and exhausted, skinned to hell, and on the run for his life—Aly felt his face flush.

  He was quick to push himself up to sit, and he looked behind him, up the slope. They were outside of Pavel’s signal jammer, and any second some NX could pop up over the crest to find them.

  Kara sat up and rubbed the heel of her palms against her eyes. He crawled toward her and pulled her into a hug. Her braid had come undone, and her crazy hair made a halo around her face. Or a lion’s mane. “Holy taejis,” she said breathlessly.

  “You good?” he mumbled into her hair. His adrenaline was off the charts. He’d bloodied his knees and elbows, and he was sure that everything would hurt later, but it felt fantastic here—his arms around her, his face in her big mess of tangles.

  “Don’t worry about me, Aly.” She looked up at him. Their faces were an inch apart. Only for a split second, though—Kara blinked and pushed him away. “Now or never.”

  Now or never.

  He exhaled through his nose, then powered up his cube for the first time in weeks. It was lightning running through him, pain and pleasure, striking nerve after nerve. And with his other hand, he touched the metal conductor to transfer his playback. There was a jolt of electricity, and his limbs went numb.

  Aly closed his eyes as he shuffled through recent memories. It was hard to get back into it. His mind felt closed off, rigid. He pictured sticking his hands into the big, dark knot of his memory, up to his elbows, feeling his way around. Then something hooked on—a moment, a feeling. He’d found it.

  “Stream playback.” His own voice sounded distant, but just saying it, dictating what he could and couldn’t do with his cube and his memories—it made him feel like a god. The data transfer felt like his soul was pouring out from the point on his neck and funneling into the hologram that projected up into the sky, out into the worlds. Alongside millions of strangers, he rewatched the moment he found the dead body on the royal escape pod. There he was, slipping on the Nau Fruman’s blood. The robodroid, throwing him one-handed across the room.

  With his memories transferred, Aly fell to his knees and tasted salt in his mouth, felt his face flood with tears. His hand fell away and he doubled over, one hand to support himself while the other one wiped his face.

  “Aly!” Kara said. She kneeled before him and lowered his hand from his face and wrapped her arms around his neck. She squeezed him. He could smell her, feel all the warmth from under her coat. For a long time, there was quiet, except for the sound of Aly’s heavy sobbing.

  There was the rest of it, too, the stuff he couldn’t show them because he’d gone offline. But he’d never forget any of it: stabbing
himself with the syringe full of tauri. Vincent piloting the escape pod.

  “Who are you?” Aly’d asked him.

  “I’m the guy who’s going to save your sorry ass,” Vincent had said. At the time Aly had been pissed, taken for granted that Vin had a mission more important than ten Alys put together. Despite it all, Vin had saved Aly like he said he would. Vin had died to keep his word, because Aly hadn’t been able to save him when the time came.

  “They’re coming, aren’t they?” Aly asked now. His face was wet. He wiped it away and hoped he didn’t have snot coming out of his nose.

  “You did it, Aly.” She’d ignored his question for a reason, and he knew he was right. “Everyone’s gonna know the truth.”

  The guards rappelled down and approached slowly from all sides. Jethezar led the charge.

  “Traitor!” Jeth said, grabbing Aly’s shirt with his sticky fingertips. He was a big guy, and he heaved Aly up to his feet so they were face-to-face. For a split second, Aly saw regret pass over his old friend’s features, just before he spit in Aly’s eye. To a Chram, it was the deepest insult—but it was for show, and Jeth had gone easy on him. Aly’s eye hurt like a choirtoi but at least he still had one. Jeth could’ve blinded him if he’d spit at full velocity.

  Jeth pushed him to the ground and kicked him in the stomach. Kara cried for him to stop. The Tasinn watched in amusement. But Aly knew Jeth was doing what he had to do. They were all doing what they had to do. Aly crumpled up in a ball to protect himself from more kicks. His kidneys and ribs were getting pummeled.

  Jeth pulled him up to sit, rough, and cuffed him. It was the second time today.

  “Sorry,” Jeth whispered, so quietly Aly wasn’t even sure he’d heard it. And then loudly for everyone to hear, like an announcement he’d been dying to make: “Guess where we’re taking you, murderer.”