Across a Star-Swept Sea fdsts-2

by Diana Peterfreund

  “Awake?” came Vania’s voice from above. “I know how you feel. I’m too excited to sleep myself.”

  Persis opened her eyes—painfully—to see the captain standing above her. She was lying on the lawn near what appeared to be military barracks. A few lights shone in the windows, but most were black. Palm trees waved softly around the perimeter and she could hear the sound of distant waves. The sky was still dark, but far away in the east, there was a hint of violet tingeing the horizon.

  “I’ve been trying to figure out what to do,” Vania said now, crouching beside Persis’s head. Her tone was conversational. She gestured off to Persis’s left, and as Persis craned her head—painfully—she could see a fuzzy outlined lump of cloth. Was it Andrine?

  Vania’s words confirmed it. “I think I’m going to Reduce your friend first, so you can see what happens to her before it’s your turn, but there’s no point in that until she wakes up, right?”

  “Certainly,” Persis muttered.

  “Of course, she’s been asleep so long . . .” Vania sucked air through her teeth. “Maybe if her head wound’s bad enough, we won’t have to use the drug to Reduce her at all, right?”

  “One can hope,” Persis ground out. Whatever she could do to delay Vania and her gleeful revenge would be best for Andrine’s brain—and her own.

  “The problem,” Vania went on, standing up and brushing her hands free of imaginary dust, “is that I’m getting really impatient. I’m torn. On the one hand, how great would it be to Reduce you in Halahou prison for all the people of Galatea to see? On the other hand, the longer I delay, the more chance there is that your little princess is going to swoop in here and rescue you.” She nudged Persis with her foot, but it felt more like a barrage of razors against her skin. “Am I right again?”

  “You’re very smart,” Persis said through gritted teeth.

  “Coming from a mastermind like the Wild Poppy, that’s quite a compliment.” She leaned over and looked at Persis. “I just . . . I’m having a really difficult time believing this is all real, you know? I thought I had you pegged. Such a great cover, Lady Blake. I have to give you that. I’m so impressed.”

  Persis remained silent.

  “What, no thank you? Don’t aristos learn any manners where you’re from?” Vania nudged her again. Persis bit back a scream.

  “Where I’m from,” Persis managed to get out in a relatively calm voice, “we’re taught it’s bad manners to kick people when they’re down.”

  “Ah.” Vania resumed pacing for a moment, then hopped back to Persis’s side. “I really am impressed by all you accomplished. Honestly. And even younger than me. I’d love to pick your brain—I mean, while you still have one.”

  The sound of lifter fans shifting gravel interrupted Vania’s victory speech. “Reinforcements, perhaps?” she asked no one in particular. Persis could see nothing from her position, but it sounded like some sort of skimmer had pulled up to the barracks. With any luck, it would be someone telling Vania that Albian nationals were off limits for Reduction, even if they were in the League of the Wild Poppy. With a huge amount of luck, it would be the Albian military itself, granted the full weight of Isla’s blessing.

  Vania went off to investigate and Persis tried to ignore the pain in her body and take in her surroundings. The outpost appeared to be located on the shore, and from the sound of the waves, they were near some sort of bluff, which probably meant they were still on Galatea’s northern shore, possibly still close to Fisherman’s Rest, where she and Andrine had been captured. Good. Should Isla wish to attack, she had easy access from the sea.

  Persis sincerely hoped Isla wished to attack.

  Though every movement was utter agony, she pushed herself into a kneeling position and inched over to Andrine. The cut on her friend’s head was bloody but not deep. And there was little bruising or swelling to indicate that she suffered a serious concussion. Perhaps their bloated disguises, faded now from what Persis could see of Andrine’s face and figure, had actually helped protect them when the skimmer had crashed. Perhaps Vania had been lying, and Andrine wasn’t actually injured that badly. Maybe she had been drugged unconscious, just as Persis had.

  What was she thinking? Of course Vania was lying. Persis wondered if Vania even had the visitors at all. Maybe this had all been a trap for the Wild Poppy. Maybe Justen was in on the plan with Vania, and she’d stupidly, stupidly trusted him . . . and why?

  Why did she so badly want to believe everything he said? Because he was a Helo? Because he was handsome? Because he took care of her mother and laughed at her sea mink and stole her breath whenever he kissed her—even though they were supposedly faking it all?

  She might be the cleverest girl in Albion, but it turned out she had a huge blind spot when it came to good-looking revolutionary medics with famous names. And if he’d been lying to get the Poppy to trust his information back at the luau, maybe he was lying about his discovery regarding the Helo Cure as well. Even now, tied up and maybe only minutes away from being Reduced, Persis had been berating herself for not forcing Tero to track down a few doses of the cure before she and Andrine left. She’d been so concerned about getting the visitors back before anything happened to them. But maybe it was a waste of her energy, to regret rushing off before she protect herself with the cure.

  Maybe his confession was a lie, too, like everything else Justen had ever done.

  “You certainly look like you’re feeling better, Lady Blake,” came Vania’s voice from behind her. She turned to see Vania returning with three others: two guards who carried a bundle between them and a third, shorter one. Persis blinked through the darkness, and her heart lit up. Remy.

  But the younger girl wasn’t looking at her at all. Her entire focus was on the bundle the guards were carrying, her face awash with fear.

  “Look, I brought you something,” Vania said as the guards placed the bundle nearby. “Your boyfriend.”

  Persis stared down at the unconscious body a meter away. Was it Justen? From this angle, she could hardly make out his features, and his sideburns seemed flaked with a lighter color. She looked down at his hands—the large, caring medic’s hands that had held her so carefully in the star cove, that had held her when they danced near the fire at court, that had mopped her brow when she’d had genetemps sickness and helped her mother during her spell tonight. Yes, it was Justen.

  What was he doing here? Unconscious?

  “Careful!” she heard Remy cry to the guards, sounding more like a little girl than she ever had on the floor of Isla’s throne room. “He’s sick. Ask her what she did to him.”

  Vania looked questioningly at Persis. What new trick was this?

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Persis replied truthfully. “I left Justen safe and sound in Albion.” And he should still be there.

  “Lies,” Vania said, and wagged her finger at Persis. “All lies. I’ll tell you what you did to him, you aristo scum. You turned him against his family, against his work, and against the revolution. The Justen that Remy and I know would never have gone anywhere with someone like you. He never would have left us here, abandoning everything he believed.”

  Persis narrowed her eyes, more confused than ever. What kind of information did Vania hope to get from her now? If she knew Justen was one of her spies, why was she accusing him of treason against the revolution? As the sky in the east grew ever lighter, she took another look at Justen’s unconscious form. Galatean military uniform, slightly longer sideburns than she remembered him having, and that flaky light color in his hair. She recognized it now. It was the same temporary hair dye she used when she was in disguise.

  Had Justen been sneaking around Galatea in disguise? Impossible notions began boiling up in her mind. She’d left him at the court, tending her mother. There was no way he’d come here, unless . . .

  Unless he was telling her the truth back at the luau. Unless he’d come to help. If Justen hadn’t been lying to her, it c
hanged everything. Everything. Maybe Isla’s forces were in Galatea, even now. Maybe that’s what Remy had come to tell her.

  But why like this? Why not simply overtake Vania and her crew of guards? She looked to Remy, but the girl’s expression was harsh and closed, as it had been the day they’d fought near the skimmer, as it had been the moment she’d woken up in Isla’s court. Something had gone terribly wrong.

  “The Justen I know,” Persis said, directing her response to Remy, “wanted to help people. He knew that the revolution was never meant to torture anyone.” There was not a glimmer of recognition in the girl’s eyes. Whose side was she on? Had Vania won the girl back to the revolution? If so, it must have happened recently, since Vania seemed to have been sincerely surprised to discover the Wild Poppy’s true identity.

  “Helping people? Was that what he was doing partying with a princess in Albion?” Vania asked snidely. “How exactly does that help anyone?”

  “Everything she says is a lie,” Remy said now, her voice as cold as Vania’s had ever been. “She sits here and lectures us on the true meaning of revolution, and she’s as bad an aristo as any of them.”

  Vania put her hand on Remy’s shoulder. “Don’t worry,” she said. “We know how to take care of aristos around here.”

  Thirty-three

  JUSTEN WAS NEVER, EVER, ever taking genetemps again. This was worse than three days sitting in the sun and drinking nothing but kiwine. He felt split at the seams somehow, as if the code breakdown had left his body in the wrong position and slightly out of place. How anyone found this fun was beyond his reckoning. How Persis could tolerate it regularly was inconceivable.

  Slowly, the universe came back to him, and he blinked and groaned.

  “Oh!” cried a voice that sounded something like his sister’s. “He’s waking up.”

  His eyes began to focus, but the second he tried to move, he was overcome by waves of nausea. He rolled onto his stomach and tried to swallow, but his tongue was dry and coated with some sort of powder. He spat into the grass, a pale mark against the dark ground.

  Grass. Ground. He was outside? The last thing he remembered was entering the royal lab in Halahou. He blinked again and attempted sitting. This time, it worked.

  He was, in fact, on the ground. The sky was lightening all around, the soft silver blue you saw right before dawn. In front of him stood Vania and Remy along with a few guards, and . . . to his right knelt Persis Blake, tied hand and foot with nanoropes. She was wearing a dark, voluminous robe, and her yellow and white hair was tangled all over her face and neck, but her keen, amber eyes were as bright as ever. She stared at him, her expression pointed, as if there were a million or two things she’d like to say.

  He knew the feeling.

  “Justen!” Remy threw herself to the ground next to him and hugged him. “You’re all right. I was so scared when I saw you in the lab—I thought maybe she’d hurt you.”

  “What?” he croaked. “Vania?”

  “Yes?” Vania answered sweetly.

  “Vania’s the only one who’d hurt me—”

  “See what I mean?” Vania rolled her eyes. “Totally brainwashed. I mean, look at him, Remy. Would the Justen you know ever willingly take genetemps?”

  Remy shook her head vehemently.

  Justen closed his eyes in despair. “Remy, I know it looks odd, but I—”

  “Enough of your lies!” Vania snapped. “I think we’re both a little sick of hearing them at this point.” From his place on the ground, Justen could see Vania’s oblet ping in her pocket. “Oh, now what?” she said, annoyed, and pulled it out.

  “You took genetemps for me?” Persis whispered at him, her voice filled with awe. “You?”

  “Yes,” he grumbled in reply. “And look at the good it did us, Poppy.”

  “Still,” she said as she shrugged her bound arms, “I’m impressed. It’s the most romantic thing anyone has ever done for me.”

  Tied up and still making flirty jokes. Apparently the Wild Poppy was not entirely different from the Persis Blake he knew.

  “If we get out of this alive,” he said, “we’re going to have a long conversation.”

  “Oh, yes. I look forward to hearing all about your first genetemping trip.”

  “That’s not what I mean.”

  Persis turned his way, all amusement vanished from her features. Her gaze was dark and piercing, and her words were even more so. “Neither do I, Justen. And let’s not assume that, even when we do get out of this alive, either of us will retain the power of speech.”

  Justen felt woozy again as his brain sought to reconcile the girl he knew with the spy tied up beside him. Was this what had been lurking beneath Persis’s spoiled aristo persona all along?

  He had no idea where he was anymore. Not Halahou. On a lawn outside some nondescript military installation somewhere. He could hear the sound of waves. They seemed to be coming from beyond the bluff that stood about twenty meters in front of them.

  He looked at Vania reading her message on her oblet. Though he couldn’t make it out from this angle, whatever the display said made her face contort with rage.

  “Listen, Remy—” he began, but Vania began to shout at her oblet.

  “I don’t think so,” she snapped. “Not after everything I’ve been through.”

  At his side, Persis craned her neck to see, but Justen doubted she got anything.

  “All right, enough!” Vania cried. “I caught the Wild Poppy. I did it all by myself. And I don’t care what General Gawnt or even my father has to say about it.” She held her hand out toward the other two guards. “Pinks, please.”

  Everything grew cold. “Vania, no—” Justen began.

  “Shut up!” she screamed without moving. “You, Justen Helo, are in no position to say anything right now. You’ll be lucky if you get out of this without being Reduced yourself, at this rate.”

  “But he’s right, Citizen Aldred,” said Persis in a voice Justen wasn’t sure he’d ever heard before. Or maybe he had. This was her voice in the baths at the sanitarium, her voice in the safe darkness of the star cove, her voice the night she tried to talk her mother out of madness. This was the real Persis Blake. The Wild Poppy. “You’re making a terrible mistake. That ping you just got—from one of your superiors, I’m guessing. And I bet I can guess what it says, too. My princess has made a bargain with your father. We are to be released unharmed.”

  “Too late!” Vania shook her hand, though the guards seemed to hesitate. “It’s too late. Message didn’t get here in time. Oh well.” She turned toward the guards. “Pinks! Now!” she roared.

  Remy flinched, as did Vania’s underlings. “Vania,” said Remy, standing and backing up until she stood right near the guards, “let’s not start a war. You’ll still win. Now that she’s been revealed, the Wild Poppy will never be able to come back to Galatea.”

  “Oh, I still win,” Vania insisted. “I always win. But I will see the Wild Poppy Reduced anyway. I will watch her grovel in the muck before she goes back home. I promise you.”

  “Vania,” said Justen, rising on unsteady feet. “Stop.”

  “No, you stop!” She pulled her gun out of her holster and pointed it at him. “Take another step and I’ll hit you with more than a toxin pricker. You’re just digging yourself in deeper.” She glanced behind her. “And you, too, Remy. And,” she said, raising her voice, “any soldier under my command who does not follow my direct orders. Now, a pink, please.”

  Remy sighed and turned toward a guard, who offered up his tin of pills. With a grim face, Remy took it then handed it off to Vania. “I still think you’re making a mistake,” she said. “We’re going to get into trouble, and it’s not like it’ll even last long.”

  “No, Remy—” Justen cried. She didn’t know about the effect the pills had on regs. “No, Vania. Don’t. You have no idea what you’re doing.”

  Persis wasn’t an aristo. Not totally. Her brain might work like a reg’s. Like her
mother’s. Just as she could develop DAR, she could be permanently damaged by the Reduction drug.

  She could lose her beautiful, extraordinary mind. Forever.

  Vania stalked over to Persis, eyes on the prize, shaking a handful of pills into her hand as she went. “Oh yes I do, Justen. I saw your research. I know exactly what I’m doing.”

  And with that, she grabbed Persis’s face and crammed the pills down her throat.

  PERSIS SLAMMED TO THE ground and was still. Nothing moved in the gray dawn light—not the breeze, not the birds—even the waves seemed to go silent. Or maybe that was just the blood roaring in Justen’s ears.

  Persis. No, no, no.

  Heedless of Vania and her gun, Justen rushed to Persis’s side. He started to roll her over, then stopped as she began to twitch uncontrollably, shaking and shuddering as foam seeped from her mouth. He held her gently on her side so she didn’t choke, tightened his arms around her until she grew quiet again.

  No, not Persis. Not Persis.

  Vania sighed, rolling her shoulders with relief. “There, that’s done.”

  Remy stood silent, watching them. Tears rolled out of her eyes and over her cheeks, ignored. The guards behind her waited.

  Justen wanted to attack Vania, to beat her senseless, but what was the point? She’d only prick him with one of her toxin stingers or shoot him or even Reduce him. And wasn’t that what he deserved?

  “You just started a war, Vania,” he said instead. “Princess Isla will not stand for what you’ve done to her friend.”

  Vania snorted. “The princess doesn’t scare me. She can’t get anything done in her country—what makes you think she’s going to be able to get something done in ours?”

  “You were ordered to release her,” Justen set Persis gently on the ground and stood, pointing an accusing finger at his former friend. “And you dosed her anyway. We’re all witnesses. What do you plan to do to silence us?”

  But she just shrugged. “I really don’t care if anyone finds out when I dosed her or how or why. Talk all you want. True Galateans will be on my side. The Wild Poppy deserves what she gets, same as the queen did.” She peered past Justen. “Ooh, look, she’s waking up.”