The Rising Gold

by Ava Jae

  Lira grins and Uljen’s scowl deepens.

  “Fine,” Uljen says. “Then I’m sorry Lira is so insufferable.”

  “You’re not cute enough to get away with that,” Lira says. “It’s only adorable when I do it.” She grins and her dimpled smile is undeniably precious.

  Uljen huffs and stands. “Perhaps we should just focus. Kora, I understand this is difficult, but you’re doing really well. The people have responded positively to freeing the servants and offering paid positions in the palace complex, and they seem to be more convinced every set that you’re listening to them and trying to be better.”

  “Which you are,” Lira adds. “So it’s good they can see that.”

  Uljen nods. “The trial isn’t going to be easy for anyone, but that you’re going through with it is a huge show of faith. The people are much happier and are beginning to trust you again. This is all good news.”

  I want to agree with him, I do. I want it to be easy to say that things are getting better, that I’m headed in the right direction. And I know I’m doing better, I know the people are responding in ways I’d only ever dreamed of before.

  But I’m terrified.

  “Whatever happens tomorrow will be for the best,” Uljen says.

  Lira rests her hand on my shoulder and I slip my hand on top of hers as we glance at each other in the mirror. And she doesn’t say it, but she doesn’t have to.

  The doubt is clear on both of our faces.

  20

  Eros

  “This is ridiculous.” Kantos is looking at me as I’m just starting to breathe again in Deimos’s grip with a disgusted curl of his lip. “We have a crisis to address immediately and el Sira is blubbering on the floor like a child.”

  I’m not sure when Kantos got back—I didn’t hear him come in—or how long Deimos and I have been sitting on the floor in the meeting room. My body aches like my soul is bruised. My face is crusty with what I’m pretty sure are dried tears and if my eyes are half as puffy as they feel …

  Well. I’m wrecked.

  And now the fucken head of the guard is taunting me. Because apparently he has time to be doing that since he’s here and not doing his blazing job.

  “Did you find my nephew?” My voice is steady. Hollow. Already tired of this conversation.

  “Naï, but I assigned ten men to the job—ten men who, by the way, could be better served doing something in the square, where we still have Sepharon blood on the streets. And now I return for orders to find this? You’re not a Sira, you’re a child.” He scowls at Deimos. “And if you were a halfway decent advisor you’d never coddle this behavior. Not that I’m surprised, as you clearly were only selected for your …” He gestures to us.

  Everything pares down to glass-like clarity. My blood boils. Deimos stiffens behind me. I stand.

  The military leaders who were in the meeting room earlier are all behind Kantos, glancing at each other with varying degrees of frowns and uncertain looks. I look Kantos in the eye and roll my shoulders back. “Is that what you think? I’m a child who doesn’t deserve your respect, is that it?” I step closer. “And you think Deimos was selected because … what, exactly?”

  The room is deathly quiet. Kantos doesn’t speak, but he doesn’t back down, either. His glare is anything but apologetic.

  “Not that I have to justify myself to any of you, but Deimos was selected because of his experience, and sha, because he was one of the only ones who supported me long before I had a chance.” Still silence. I shake my head. “Lock Asheron down. No one out after dark, all businesses close two segments before the suns set. It’s the hot season and the suns are up for long enough that it shouldn’t be problem. Make it clear this violence won’t be tolerated, find the ones responsible, and make an example of them.”

  Kantos snorts. “And why should I listen to you? Why should any of us listen to you after finding you like this? You’re weak.”

  I smile. “I don’t give a shit what you think of me. I’ve heard every insult under the suns. But this weak, childish half-blood is your Sira. And you’ll follow my orders because if you don’t, you’ll leave here without a title or a job.”

  Kantos glares. “I will never serve a pathe—”

  My fist hits his nose with a satisfying crunch. Kantos stumbles back so hard he rams into the guy behind him before falling to his knees, blood streaming down his face. He looks up at me, wide-eyed, his mouth opening and closing like he can’t believe I just hit him. Even Kosim and Fejn are staring at me open-mouthed—until Kosim turns his head slightly and covers his mouth with his fist, hiding a smirk. His shoulders even shake slightly.

  I grab a fistful of Kantos’s uniform, yank him to his feet, and brush off his shoulders. “I’m not going to tell you again. Go do what I kafran told you.”

  Kantos stares at me. Blood drips over his lips and onto the floor. The rest of the military men are just as stunned, some outright gaping, but still, no one is moving.

  “Am I not speaking Sephari? Should I repeat it in English?” I take a quick step toward Kantos and he stumbles a step back, finally bowing before the others follow suit.

  “I-I apologize, el Sira,” Kantos mutters, wiping his nose with the back of his hand. “I’ll relay your commands to the men immediately.”

  “Good.”

  Kantos and the others leave, dripping a purple mess in their wake as they go. My head is buzzing and my fist aches and I just punched the head of the military in the face.

  And I’m pretty sure it worked.

  “Kafra, Eros.” Deimos laughs and claps his hand on my shoulder. “That was—you shocked even me. And I’m not easy to shock.”

  “He didn’t respect us,” I answer. “Guys like him tend to respond to fighting faster than anything else.”

  “Oh, he responded.” Deimos smirks, but it quickly fades as he glances at me again. “Are you okay?”

  “Naï.” I glance at him. “Are you?”

  “I’m fine, but …” He sighs. “Of course you’re not okay, I apologize, that was a ridiculous question. Let’s look for Mal, shae? I’m sure Kantos will let us know if he needs anything else from you.”

  “Shae.” I swallow the hot lightning zipping around my throat and ramming into my chest. The panic roaring to set me off again, to send me into a spiraling mess on the ground but I can’t, I won’t.

  I can’t keep falling apart like this. Deep breaths, chin up, focus. Mal needs me.

  “Let’s go find him.”

  21

  Kora

  The suns are more than halfway to the horizon when the trial begins.

  The capital house of justice is packed with people. I’d never actually been in the building before—the whole thing was renovated sometime during my father’s reign, back when Vejla had money to spare. It’s all angles and metal and glass—the floor, impossibly, seems to be made of a single smooth sheet of white, shiny stone speckled with red. It’s supposed to be reflective of Elja’s colors, I suppose, but I can’t help but think it looks like specks of red blood are embedded in the stone.

  Six guards escort Uljen, Jarek, and me through the dense crowd and into the large hearing room. Rows of already-occupied benches create an aisle down the center. The room is three stories tall, with two floors of balcony seating along three of the four walls, before the angled glass ceiling pitching into the sky.

  But the worst part: it’s stifling. Without the nanite-powered cooling units, and with the room so packed full of people, the room is an oven. Sweat beads on my forehead and drips down my back as we walk the aisle and I do everything I can to swallow the edges of panic gathering in my throat and jump-starting my heart. I have to look confident. I have to look absolutely sure that whatever happens is Kala’s will.

  And yet, if I’m being entirely honest, if Kala’s will means my brother dying, I don’t want Kala’s will at all.

  I’ve obviously never lived a set in a world where I was alive and he wasn’t. And despite every
thing he’s done to me, everything he’s done to Eros, all the pain and suffering he’s caused others—I don’t want to experience that reality.

  We sit at the front, just before the empty space where Dima will stand before the row of eight judges who will hear his case. I resist the urge to touch my earring. It’s a tell, a nervous crutch. I probably shouldn’t have worn it.

  I don’t even know if Dima plans to defend himself. Would it be better if he didn’t? I suspect it might—it could be a way for him to show remorse, to prove he understands the gravity of what he’s done. But what if that backfires? What if presenting what he did without a defense seals his fate?

  And yet, there isn’t a defense for what he did. Trying to make excuses for his actions would probably only make things worse.

  The hum of chatter quiets for a breath, then explodes. I startle and glance back—

  My brother is here.

  “You seem so … calm.”

  I’d visited Dima last night, smothering the terrifying whisper that it might be the last time I see him, aside from the trial. I’d expected him pacing, sweating, shaking—maybe even drinking. I would’ve understood if he was drinking.

  Instead, he was quiet. Lying on the bed with his head on Jarek’s stomach, his hands clasped over his chest. And he smiled as I entered and patted the bed next to him.

  “I’m scared,” Dima admitted with a weak laugh. “But … that’s okay. I’ve earned the fear, and whatever happens tomorrow, it’ll be Kala’s will.”

  I grimaced. “Everyone keeps saying that.”

  “Do you not believe it?”

  “I do …” I sighed and ran a hand through my hair, let loose after being up all day. My scalp was still sore from having it pulled back so tight. “I just … don’t know that I’ll agree with Kala.”

  Dima smirked. “Unfortunately, whether or not you agree with our deity doesn’t really matter.”

  I glanced at Jarek. For all of Dima’s apparent ease, Jarek seemed—stiff. He was always quiet, but his silence was different this time. He ran his fingers absently through my brother’s hair while burning holes into the ceiling with his intense stare.

  It was possible Jarek was just as unsettled as I was.

  “I’m sorry for putting you both through this,” Dima said. “Although, if I’m being transparent, Kora, I’m somewhat surprised you’re not … more at ease with this.”

  I arched an eyebrow at him. “Did you expect me to be happy about your probable suffering?”

  Dima lifted a shoulder. “I expected you not to be bothered by it, at the very least, especially given what I did to you and Eros. And …” He hesitated, but then nodded, as if he’d decided something. “I probably shouldn’t be telling you this, but I … I hired someone to kill you. The redblood attacker that night, that Eros defended you from—”

  “I know.”

  Dima’s eyes widened. “You—what? How?”

  I sighed and dug my fingers into the silky sheets of his bed. “Eros met the redbloods you hired. They said you offered them credits and technology in exchange.”

  Dima winced, like I hit him, which was ridiculous because he was the one who paid people to kill me. If anyone should have been acting wounded, it was me.

  “I … sha, that’s true.”

  I purse my lips. I wasn’t expecting him to deny it, and even if he had, I’d known the truth—after all, Eros had no reason to lie to me about it, and that assassin didn’t hire himself. Not that I doubt he needed much motivation to hate me, given he was a redblood and I was Sepharon.

  “Well. There you have it,” I said with a sigh. “I’ve known.”

  “Did … Eros tell you father did as well?”

  My heart stumbled. “Father?” The word squeaked out of my mouth. The room blurred. Father—father tried to kill me, too?

  “The … explosion at your coronation. I-I can’t say for sure—he didn’t outright tell me—but the night before, he’d given me the impression that I would … be Avra very soon.” Dima grimaced. “I’m so sorry, Kora.”

  My own father. I’d known he had never wanted me to be Avra, known, even, that he’d attempted to sabotage my reign before it even began. But to try to kill me? To almost succeed? To kill so many in the process of—of targeting your own child?

  “Oh, Kora.” Dima pulled me into his arms and the embrace was so natural yet so foreign. We hadn’t hugged like that in—I couldn’t even say how long.

  It could have been the last time we would.

  I closed my eyes tightly, pressed my tear-streaked face into his shoulder, and took a long, shaky breath.

  “Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything,” Dima said so softly I almost didn’t hear him. “Maybe I should have taken that secret to the sand and winds.”

  “Naï.” My voice croaked as I sat up and wiped my face, forcing calm into my lungs. “I’d rather know the truth, even when it hurts. Thank you, Dima.”

  My brother shook his head, his frown deep. “I truly don’t understand why you’ve been so civil to me.”

  “Because at the end of the set, Dima, you’re my brother.” I shook my head. “Obviously I wish we weren’t here, and you hadn’t tried to kill me and frame me, and you hadn’t tortured Eros, and you hadn’t put those boys to death or thrown those innocents in prison. But the terrible things you did doesn’t erase that I care for you and always will.”

  Dima frowned. “And if I hadn’t apologized? If I hadn’t shown remorse?”

  I lifted a shoulder. “Then you’d likely be in the cells, and whatever happens tomorrow would have been slightly easier to watch.” I glanced at him. “But I also would have been convinced you hated me, and that’s a pain I don’t relish reliving.”

  “I don’t hate you.” Dima paused. “I never did. Even when I—when I wanted you … out of the way. I was twisted by jealousy and I thought life would be better without you, but I didn’t hate you.”

  “I’m not sure that’s much comfort given what you did anyway, but I suppose I appreciate the attempt.”

  Dima’s smile looked like a grimace. “Well. Thank you for visiting me tonight.” He bit his lip and took a shaky breath. “I hope … I hope the trial isn’t the last time we see each other. But if it is, I want you to know how sorry I am for everything, and how much I wish I could take it back—all of it.”

  “But you can’t,” I whispered.

  Dima stared up at the ceiling. “Naï,” he answered softly. “I can’t.”

  “Your crimes are extensive.”

  My brother stands before the panel of eight, shoulders pulled back, hands cuffed in front of him. It occurs to me, watching silently from my bench, that my brother has grown. Which I knew, obviously, but I hadn’t noticed before how his jawline mirrors father’s, or the way his hair curls just slightly at the edges just like his.

  Standing up there in front of everyone, Dima doesn’t look like a boy. He looks like a man.

  “They are, sha,” Dima agrees.

  “And do you have any defense?” a woman sitting in the center of the panel asks.

  Dima pulls his bottom lip into his mouth for a moment. Beside me, Jarek taps his finger on his thigh, taking careful, steadying breaths. I imagine he feels just as ill as I do right now.

  “Naï,” my brother says. “There’s no defense for what I did. I was power-hungry and lusting for a position that was never meant for me. I made terrible decisions, decisions that hurt and even killed people, in my quest for power. I can’t take that back, and I deserve to be tried and punished for those crimes.”

  The room is deathly silent. I’d expected some murmurs, whispers, something, but if I closed my eyes I could almost imagine I was alone in the room for the lack of sound. The panel confer quietly among themselves before the woman in the center nods and turns to Dima again.

  “Any one of your crimes—framing your sister to take her position, lying to the former Sira, inciting wide-scale violence with your treachery, killing and imprisoning innoce
nts—any one of those alone would warrant very serious consequences.”

  “I understand,” Dima says softly.

  “And you understand some of those crimes alone warrant consideration of execution?”

  The bulge in Dima’s throat bobs. My chest hurts. I force myself to keep breathing—deep breath in, deep breath out. “I understand,” Dima says.

  The woman leans forward, clasping her hands in front of her. “So tell us, Dima. Why should we keep you alive, given the enormity of your crimes? Why should you be permitted to continue with your life when you’ve stolen the lives of so many?”

  Oh, Kala. I can’t breathe. The room is stifling and they’re seriously considering sentencing my brother to death and I can’t breathe.

  Dima’s voice shakes, but even so, he keeps his head high as he speaks. “Truly, I don’t have an answer. I’m not any more deserving of life than those that I—I killed, directly or indirectly. I’ll live with the guilt and weight of their deaths on my shoulders for the rest of my life, however long or short that may be. All I can promise is if the panel decides to let me live, I’ll pay penance for the rest of my sets. I can’t erase what I’ve done, nor will I ever forget it.”

  The woman nods and turns back to the rest of the panel. Their whispers are impossible to decipher, even through the thick silence stoppering my throat like a mouthful of sand.

  Please, I pray. Please don’t let them kill him. I don’t care if he deserves it. I can’t watch them kill him. Please. Please please please—

  The woman turns back to Dima. “The panel has come to a decision. Dima Kuru Orolen d’Elja, the seriousness of your crimes is too much to ignore. While this panel acknowledges and appreciates your apparent remorse, there’s only one sentence we feel is appropriate to atone for your actions.”

  Dima’s voice cracks when he says, “I understand.”

  I’m going to be sick.

  Don’t do this. Please don’t do this.

  “This panel has determined you will be executed in two sets time, by beheading in the main square.”