The Rising Gold

by Ava Jae

  I just nod.

  “Look …” Deimos sighs and gently pushes me off and rolls on his side so he’s facing me. “Let’s take the rest of the set off, shae? You desperately need to relax and de-stress before you have a breakdown. Maybe try to get some extra sleep. I know the nights haven’t been the easiest for you.”

  My face burns again, but this time not because of our closeness. I look away. “It’s not a big deal.”

  “You wake up screaming, Eros.” Deimos hesitates. “You know you can talk to me about it, right? Or anything. If you need someone to talk to, or want to vent, or—or whatever you need. I’ll never judge you.”

  I sit up and sigh. “I don’t really want to talk about it. Or think about it. Bad enough that it already takes up my nights—I don’t need it invading my sets, too.”

  “Okay.” Deimos pauses. “But if you change your mind …”

  “I know, I—thank you.” I run my thumb over Aren’s bracelet—it’s getting kinduv worn and soft from my constant rubbing. What would Nol think of me being here? Or Esta? Or Day?

  Maybe not Day. I don’t think Day would’ve liked me being here.

  But what do people back at camp think? Gray wanted to use me, but I can’t even begin to say what everyone else would have wanted. I don’t even know what the Sepharon people want from me, beyond getting everything back to normal.

  “How am I supposed to know what everyone wants?” The question is out of my mouth before I’ve fully processed it.

  Deimos blinks. “I’m sorry, you’ve lost me. What are we talking about?”

  “It’s just—I’m everyone’s ruler, right? And I’ve got all sorts of advisors to help me make the best decisions and that’s fine, but how do I know what the people want?”

  Deimos looks genuinely thrown by the question. “The people … want what’s best for Safara.”

  “I don’t know about that. I think a lot of people want what’s best for themselves, or for people they care about.” I pause. “I want to establish a way for people to be able to make their wishes known. Human and Sepharon alike. Maybe … somehow through the glass or something. So the people feel heard, you know?”

  “Hmm. That’s a good idea. I’ll talk to Tol about it—they’ll probably be able to get a team to put something together relatively quickly.”

  A knock at the door interrupts us. I get up and the door slides open as I near it. My four always-there guards are there with a woman I don’t recognize, wearing a super-long uniform I haven’t seen before. It’s like a black cape that swirls around her body and reaches all the way down to her ankles.

  “Apologies for interrupting, el Sira,” Kosim, my personal bodyguard, says. “Medic Zarana is requesting an audience with you. She says it’s urgent.”

  The woman—Zarana, I guess—nods and bows. “I assure you I would have sent a message through Deimos if it wasn’t absolutely essential I spoke to you immediately.”

  Deimos comes to my side and frowns. “Sounds serious. What’s wrong?”

  Zarana hesitates. “It’d be better if I showed you both. If it’s not too much trouble, I’d like to show you what I’m seeing in the infirmary.”

  I nod, keeping my face steady even as my stomach twists into knots. Whatever this is, it’s sounding worse by the mo. “Lead the way.”

  I didn’t really appreciate how huge—and organized—the medical center is the first time I was here. Granted, the first time I was here it was the dead pre-rising hours of the morning and I was badly concussed and everything hurt. Deimos had to help me walk over and all I could focus on was trying not to choke on the blood pouring out of my nose and down my throat and not passing out from the agony pulsing through me.

  This time around, my body still aches from that attack—and from the fight afterward—but it’s dull, easy-to-ignore background noise.

  To call it a room isn’t really accurate—the medical center has its own separate building in the palace complex and this “room” takes up a third of the second floor. Unlike the rest of the complex, the room is more ground-toned—white, silver, blue, and gray are the main colors. Most unusually, the floor isn’t stone, but thick strips of gray—wood, I guess? It’s just as smooth as stone, but not as hard under my feet. I kinduv like it.

  We follow Zarana down a long, main aisle, passing—rooms, I guess, but the rooms don’t have walls, just curtains. Back in Elja, the infirmary had nanite screens to separate one room from another with blurry, partially transparent “walls,” and I’m guessing that was the case here, too, but they probably have to make do with curtains until the nanites are back up and running.

  When we reach the end of the aisle, Zarana takes us down a side corridor, past actual rooms with actual walls and doors. They’re all labeled, but we’re walking too fast for me to try to remember enough letters to read anything.

  Finally, we reach a door with two guards at the end of the hall. I glance at Deimos. It’s weird that there are guards here, right? What is there to guard in a hospital? And are they keeping us out, or keeping someone in?

  Zarana presses her palm against the door, and it whooshes aside. The guards barely look at us as we enter a tiny room, big enough for maybe five or six people, tops. There are shelves and sinks and a glass door with another small room behind it.

  “You’ll need to decontaminate,” Zarana says. “Both as you enter and when you leave. After the decontamination, I’ll give you gloves and filter masks in the final prep room.”

  I raise my eyebrows. “Why do we need to decontaminate and use gloves and filter masks?”

  Deimos eyes her warily. “I’d also like that question answered.”

  “Right, of course, I apologize.” She sighs and tucks a strand of black hair behind her ear. “It’s all a precaution. You won’t actually be in contact with any of the patients I’m going to show you—nor will you be in the same room as any of them—but we’re entering a quarantine zone and—”

  “Quarantine?” Deimos’s jaw slackens. “You mean for illness?”

  Zarana purses her lips. “Unfortunately, sha.”

  I glance at Deimos. “I thought the Sepharon didn’t get sick.”

  “We didn’t,” Zarana says, “but not because we aren’t capable of getting sick—because we eradicated all illnesses through nanite technology, everything from minor, inconvenient viruses to deadly strains. But now without the nanites, it seems …” She frowns. “Well, as I said earlier, I think it’d be best for me to show you.”

  My stomach churns. I’ve seen illness kill people back at camp—strains that spiked fevers, made them bleed out, or had them emptying their stomachs until they dehydrated or starved. Whenever anyone at camp got sick, we put them in quarantine, too—granted, with less technology and more avoidance than anything else. Even minor illnesses meant no contact with people outside of the family until you got better—more because it was too easy to spread disease, have it mutate, and permanently fuck up a small population than anything else.

  But I can’t imagine the Sepharon would go through the trouble of quarantining someone this thoroughly unless it was something serious.

  The room behind the glass door is the decontamination room, not completely unlike the decontamination I went through when I first entered the Eljan palace complex. The room fills with some kinduv blue smoke that smells—like really clean air, I guess. It’s not bad.

  That’s followed up by a purple smoke that smells ridiculously sweet but kinduv makes my eyes water and skin tingle. Then the glass door ahead of me opens and I enter the last prep room where Zarana, Kosim, Fejn, and Deimos are already waiting.

  “Good.” Zarana hands me what looks like a stiff-fabric shell, about the size of my hand. It’s made of the same hard, woven stuff their water bottles are made of, but this is black with blue edging. Zarana points to a bump at the top. “Put this part on your nose and the rest over your mouth. It’ll seal to your face and provide air filtering.”

  Deimos presses his on, waits
a mo, then lowers his hand. I can’t see his mouth, but I don’t need to to spot the smile crinkling around his eyes. “How do I look? Fashionable, shae?” I’d expected his voice to be muffled under the shell-like mask, but it sounds the same. Must have some built-in mic thing. Or maybe the fabric somehow doesn’t mess with sound? I’m not sure.

  Zarana puts hers on with one hand as she hands Kosim and Fejn theirs. I carefully slot the bump over my nose and push the rest over the lower half of my face. It curves over the bridge of my nose, around my mouth, and partway over my chin. I press gently and the edges touching my face go cold for a mo until it goes back to a normal temp and I let go. It stays, stuck on my face like a sticker plant.

  Weird.

  “Kinduv smells strange,” I say. “Like that blue smoke.”

  “It’s the sanitation,” Zarana says. “You’ll become accustomed to it.” She pulls open a drawer and inside is a thick, shiny, white-ish liquid. She dips her hands in to partway up her forearms then pulls them back out. The liquid slides seamlessly off her hands, leaving behind a thin white layer that dries almost immediately.

  “Gloves,” she says to me. “They peel off easily, so don’t worry, but again, precaution.”

  After we’ve all got the weird gloves and mask, Zarana takes us through one more door into another hall with glass walls looking into individual rooms. I’m not sure how many rooms there are—the hall goes on for a while—but at the very end is a room with a woman and teen boy, maybe a cycle or two older than Mal. It’s kinduv hard to say because he’s sitting in the corner, knees pulled up to his chest, face in his knees.

  The woman is pacing back and forth across the room, talking to—the kid, I guess, since no one else is in the room and the walls are soundproof, not that he seems to be listening. Her lips are cracked and the veins in her neck are dark and bulging.

  “So what exactly are they ill with?” Deimos asks.

  “That’s the problem—we have no idea. We’ve gone through a full archive of all of our known diseases, even the really old historical ones, and nothing matches their symptoms.”

  I frown and step toward the glass. The woman doesn’t seem to have noticed us—she’s still pacing and talking and throwing her hands in the air while the kid just sits perfectly still. “Symptoms like what?”

  “Fever, the bulging, dark veins, delusions, queasiness, and their eyes seem to be … darkening.”

  “Darkening?” Deimos frowns and peers into the room.

  “They’re getting a gray tinge, even the white part. But what concerns me is how quickly the symptoms are taking hold. She and her son are merchants in the complex. When she came in with her son this morning, they just had fevers and felt ill. The protruding veins, darkening eyes, and delusions started not a segment later. And the medications I’ve given them aren’t doing anything for the fever.”

  I frown and glance at Zarana. “Do you think it’s fatal?”

  “If I can’t get their fevers down, it will be.”

  My stomach sinks. “Great.”

  “Do we know if anyone else is ill?” Deimos asks. “If they’re complex merchants, that means they’re exposed to loads of people in the palace marketplace—and likely outside of the complex, too, as they come in and out all the time.”

  Zarana sighs. “Sha, well, that’s just it. These two were my first with the symptoms, but in the four segments they’ve been here, eleven more have come in with similar symptoms. They’re still being processed and examined as we speak, but they’ll be brought here, too.”

  Thirteen sick people in half a day. On a planet where the Sepharon haven’t had illnesses in generations. On my first fucking set as Sira. Great.

  “Keep us updated,” I say.

  Deimos nods. “A report at the end of the set would be helpful.”

  “Of course.” Zarana hesitates. “If I may, I’d like to suggest you don’t leave the palace today. And keep those masks with you—just in case. I’ll have them distributed for the rest of the palace staff, and you can take an extra for your nephew. But if this strain is in the complex marketplace, you may want to consider decontaminating the full complex and staying indoors until we can locate the source of the outbreak—if this is an outbreak.”

  “Is this an outbreak?” Deimos asks.

  Zarana bites her lip. “I don’t want to start a panic. But I wouldn’t have called you so urgently if I wasn’t greatly concerned.”

  “We need to find Mal,” I say to Deimos. “I don’t want him wandering around if there’s a chance he might get sick.”

  “I can call Varo and have him return Mal to his room, if you’d like, el Sira,” Kosim says.

  “Thank you.” I glance back at the room and my heart jolts. The kid who was across the room is just on the other side of the glass now, staring at us.

  And his eyes, end to end, are a solid sheet of shiny gray.

  7

  Kora

  “Have you heard the news?”

  Uljen strides quickly into the dining hall as I sip my morning tea. It’s been two sets since Eros’s coronation, and to say there’s been a lot going on is an understatement, so I’m not entirely sure which news he’s referring to.

  “Which news?” I ask. “The part about the Sira not changing his mind about wanting Dima dead? Or the part about Sekka’l and Invino refusing to answer why they didn’t attend his coronation? Or maybe the part about Eljans wanting a date for Dima’s trial and my not having an answer for them yet isn’t going to be acceptable for much longer?”

  “All of that.” Uljen kneels across from me but doesn’t reach for food. “And none of that.” He slides his glass across the table. On it is a report about—

  I choke on my tea. “Disease?”

  Uljen nods. “Sixty-two reported ill on the first set, most outside the complex, but a few were merchants on the palace grounds. The palace complex physicians have stopped accepting patients from outside the complex, they shut down the marketplace until further notice while they decontaminate the complex, and the central Asheron hospitals are all setting up strict quarantines.”

  “Kala alejha,” I whisper. “Sixty-two in a single set. This is serious.”

  Uljen nods. “The symptoms seems to take hold very quickly, too. People feeling slightly ill in the morning were inconsolably sick by the end of the set. Some of the patients even became violent.”

  “But it’s isolated to Asheron?” I ask.

  Uljen nods. “For now, sha. I imagine it won’t be long before it spreads to greater Ona if they don’t do something more than quarantines.”

  “Good.” I sigh and brush hair out of my face. “I hope Eros, Deimos, and Mal don’t get sick.”

  “As far as I know, the Sirae family and Deimos aren’t affected.”

  I nod and glance at my deep blue, clear tea. I was already a little queasy over the conversation I’m going to have to have with Dima and Jarek. Now with this news it’ll be a miracle if I manage to eat anything at all.

  “Preventative steps.” I look up at Uljen. “We should talk to the medics about distributing some sort of immune-system booster, or something of the sort, to fortify our people against it. Just in case.”

  “That’s a good idea.” Uljen drums his fingers on the table. “We may want to consider shutting down our borders from Onans, as well, until the disease is managed. Or at least from Asheron citizens.”

  I frown. “We do a lot of trade with Ona.”

  “Sha, that’s my concern.”

  I shake my head. “I’m not sure we have the resources to do that. We’re getting about a quarter of our emergency food supplies to cover the famine from Ona. I don’t think Daïvi and Kel’al could make up the loss if we stopped accepting from Ona.”

  “But if the food is contaminated …”

  My stomach twists and chest tightens. Contaminated food is a concern to be sure, but on the other hand … “The food doesn’t come from Asheron—it’s largely from the Northern part of the territory, i
n the farming region. As long as the disease remains localized in Asheron, I don’t want to cut Eljans off from their food supply just yet.”

  “Fine.” Uljen sighs. “But if it spreads outside of the city—”

  “Then we’ll discuss this topic again. But the first priority is talking to the medics about immune-system boosters.”

  “I agree.”

  I nod and try to sip my tea. The sweet, fruity taste is—too sweet on my stomach. Too substantial. Which doesn’t bode well for the rest of my meal given it’s just hot, flavored water.

  Uljen hesitates. “You seem distracted.”

  “I have to talk to Dima and Jarek. About …” I glance at him.

  He must catch my meaning because he grimaces and nods. “Not an easy conversation, I imagine.”

  “Naï,” I mutter. “I don’t imagine it will be.”

  “Kora, or’jiva.” Dima smiles as he steps further into the room, out of the doorway—he’s not permitted to leave his room. “Come in, please. It’s good to see you.”

  I force a thin smile as I step past my brother and into his bedroom. Jarek nods at me from his spot on the floor, huddled on the far side of a projected circle with a line horizontally across the center and small, evenly spaced circles mirrored on both halves of the larger boundary circle. Individually decorated glass marbles are scattered across the board—they’re playing Si-So. My smile warms. I used to play Si-So with Dima all the time when we were children.

  “Would you like to join us?” Dima asks, sitting across from Jarek. “We’ve only just started, so it’s not a problem to start a new game.”

  Jarek snorts. “You’re only saying that because you’re already losing.”

  “I am not!” Dima laughs. “It’s only been one round!”

  “Exactly.”

  I smirk and sit to the side of the board, between them. “It’s fine. I won’t bother you long anyway.”