by Ava Jae
“I think we should wait and see how the situation develops before we respond.”
A frantic rap at the door startles us both. My heart is thrumming in my throat. Either someone is here to brief us on the broadcast, or they’ve “discovered” Dima’s empty cell.
I want it to be the former—I’m not sure I’m ready for the vital deception I need to go along with, I need to perpetuate, to save my brother’s life and protect my own. But I knew all along the only way to get Dima to safety was to tell an enormous lie again and again and pray that enough people believe it to overlook it.
“Sha,” I say, and I’m proud of how steady my voice is.
Two guards enter, wide-eyed and breathless. I’m assuming these aren’t the two who helped Dima escape, or else they’re exceptionally good actors. They bow low. “El Avra,” the shorter of the two says. “I-I’m afraid I have terrible news.”
I purse my lips. They’re definitely here about Dima. “Aside from the rebel broadcast we just watched?”
He winces. “Sha, unfortunately so.”
I cross my arms over my chest and summon my sternest face. I can pretend to be irritated and surprised when they tell me what I already know. I can act like I have no idea what’s happening. “Go on, then.”
“It’s—it’s Dima, el Avra. I-I’m afraid he’s … he appears to have escaped.”
I let the moment wash over us. Stare at the guards, already grimacing with the weight of what they imagine my reaction will be. “Excuse me? What do you mean it appears he’s escaped?”
“He’s not in his cell,” the taller of the two finally volunteers. “We’re searching the grounds as we speak, but we wanted to inform you—”
“How could this have happened?” I cut in. “He hasn’t been there for all of a set and you’ve already lost track of him? He was locked in a cell, for Kala’s sake!”
They wince. I’m a terrible ruler for berating them when this is entirely my fault.
“Unbelievable,” I say before either of them can answer. “Find him. Now.”
They bow and quickly leave the room, leaving Uljen and me in silence. My heart drums steadily in my ears and my stomach twists so tightly it’ll be a miracle if I’m not sick by sunrise, but I’ve done it.
I think I was convincing. I’m relatively sure I convinced those two guards, at least. Maybe this won’t be so difficult after all.
Kala, I hope Jarek and Dima have had enough time to get out of Vejla.
“Incredible,” Uljen says flatly.
“It truly is unbelievable. I know we don’t have prisoners often, but to lose him so quickly …”
Uljen crosses his arms over his chest and narrows his eyes. “Sha. Unbelievable is exactly the word I would use. Entirely unbelievable, in fact.”
Oh no. A burst of cold washes over me as Uljen shakes his head with that disappointed scowl. He hasn’t said it, not yet, but he doesn’t have to.
He knows. Somehow, he knows.
“You’ve just made possibly the biggest mistake of your life,” Uljen says. “You realize that, don’t you?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I say stiffly. “Surely you don’t think I have anything to do with this?”
Uljen scoffs. “What could possibly make me think that? It’s not like you were against this trial from the beginning, it’s not like you wanted to protect your brother for unfathomable reasons, especially given everything he did to you and to your friend—even ignoring the whole inciting genocide and murdering innocents bit.”
“I did my duty. I let the trial play out and I didn’t interfere—”
“You can’t seriously expect me to believe you had nothing to do with this.”
“I do!” I burst out, glaring at him. “Because it’s the truth. I had nothing to do with this.”
I’d expected lying to be difficult. I’d expected the words to taste different, to feel different as I spoke them into the air. I’d expected an ever-present sense of wrongness to slow the lies on my tongue so I had to fight to get them out.
But I was so wrong. Lies slide off my tongue, slippery and sweet like ljuma syrup. It’s a little frightening how easy they are to tell, how simple it is to speak them like I believe them.
But even as I speak them, I wish I could yank them out of the air and swallow them back again. Because the hurt on Uljen’s face is a physical ache in my chest, and it’s a pointless hurt—he doesn’t believe me anyway. Even before he speaks, there’s no doubt in my mind he doesn’t believe me for a breath.
Uljen takes a step away from me—and his face, it’s the same expression Eros had when I I turned away from him after our kiss.
Betrayal.
“I had many worries about working with you before I accepted this position. But I never thought you were indecent enough to look me in the eye and lie to my face.” He shakes his head and walks toward the door. “It appears I was wrong.”
And then he’s gone and I’ve ruined everything.
Again.
26
Eros
Trying to process Rani’s message on no sleep—when I was already stressed as fuck from Mal missing, and the plague, and getting attacked and possibly infected, and the still out-of-commission nanites, and trying to be ruler of a fucken planet that doesn’t even like me very much—is like …
I don’t even know. My skull is throbbing and trying to think through the endless hammering behind my eyes and the fog that wants to pull me under and drown me in blood-soaked memories is next to impossible.
“I think it’s time we consider Mal’s disappearance is less innocent than I’d originally hoped,” Deimos says.
We’re sitting almost next to each other, backs against the glass keeping us apart. Keeping Deimos safe. From me.
“You think?” My voice comes out colder than I mean. I’m just so tired. So sick over what could be happening to Mal.
Deimos sighs. “The good news is Asheron is locked down because of the disease, so it’s highly unlikely whoever took him was able to leave the city with him.”
I lean my temple against the cool glass, turning toward him. “Deimos.”
He glances at me. “Eros.”
“Just say it.”
Deimos opens his mouth and then closes it, probably considering a joke then thinking better of it, if I know him—and I think I do. Instead, softly, he says, “Say what, mana Sira?”
Mana Sira. The formal way of saying “my ruler” is with el. Mana is the informal version of “my,” like what you’d say to a sibling, or loved one. Combined with Sira it feels … closer. Like he’s calling me his, but not in the way where I’m everyone’s Sira—it’s more possessive.
Deimos is literally the only one who could get away with calling me his like that.
And I wish I could focus on that, I wish I could slip right through this glass and show him I know how much that means, but I can’t, because Kosim and I might be sick, and worse—worse—Mal is missing.
“Say the Remnant has my nephew.”
We’re both quiet for too long. Then Deimos sighs. “It’s … a very real possibility I’ve been considering as well, sha.”
“I’ll fucken kill them if they hurt him.”
“Eros—”
“I will.”
Deimos grimaces. “I know. But let’s find him first, shae? I know how to track people down. Whoever has him won’t for much longer.” He stands. “I’m going to find Zarana about discharging you. It’s been long enough that we would’ve noticed symptoms by now and you seem fine to me.”
“Thank you.” I turn to the glass wall separating my room from Kosim’s. He’s lying on his bed, arms crossed behind his head, staring up at the ceiling as he’s been doing for most of the night. “I bet you’re getting tired of being in here, too,” I say.
Kosim looks over and my stomach plummets.
The whites of his eyes are gray.
“El Sira,” he says softly, “I’m so sorry.”
&
nbsp; 27
Eros
Zarana clears me as disease-free but Kosim definitely isn’t. And it’s shitty, because this is my fault. He got sick because he was defending me, and he only had to defend me because I got distracted and thought that kid might be Mal and—
It’s not fair to blame myself, I know that, I do, because it’s not like I could have known that kid was sick. But I’d do anything to take back that moment so Kosim doesn’t have to endure this.
We still don’t have a cure. And if he dies, it’ll be on me.
“I don’t get it,” I tell Zarana after she releases me from quarantine and gives me yet another immune booster. “The kid bit me and I’m fine, but he spits in Kosim’s face and Kosim gets sick? How does that make sense?”
Zarana lifts a shoulder. “You have a different immune system than Kosim does. Evidently your body was better prepared to fight it off than his was.”
“Do you think it’s because …” Deimos hesitates and glances at me. “We haven’t heard of any humans getting sick, right?”
I frown. I hadn’t thought of that—but he’s right: so far all the patients I’ve heard of were Sepharon. But I figured it was mostly because there are more Sepharon in the city than humans, and because humans probably wouldn’t turn themselves in to a Sepharon hospital. But still … especially since we know now the Remnant is behind this whole mess, I guess it might make sense that it wouldn’t affect humans.
“There haven’t been any reported, though that doesn’t mean there aren’t any.” Zarana pauses. “Still, I’d like to take a sample of your blood, if it’s okay, el Sira.”
“Fine by me.”
After that’s done, I visit Kosim one more time. “We’re going to get you better,” I say with enough conviction, I hope, to convince us both. “You’ll be back on the job in no time.”
Kosim grimaces, nods, then looks over my shoulder to Fejn, standing beside Deimos a step behind me. “If I become rabid,” he says softly, “please.”
Fejn presses his lips into a thin line. Runs his thumb over the beard on his chin. But then he says, “I will,” and I hate that he has to make that kinduv promise at all.
The long, floating glass table in the meeting room I usually talk to my advisors in is an enormous, interactive map of Asheron. Projected buildings are propped up on the surface, like a miniature version of the city is floating in front of us, with every building and street labeled, not that I can read it, but Deimos can and that’s what matters. I run my finger through a short, square-ish building and crouch to peer into the building. I can’t see faces, but it almost looks like—
“Are those people in there?” I glance at Deimos. “Is this live?”
Deimos nods. “It’s all based off the guide feed running in the city. Guides don’t usually go into buildings unless we manually order them too, and there are projections to fill in the gaps, as they can’t be in all places at all times, but it’s generally relatively accurate.”
I stand. “So … can they find people?”
“Sometimes. They can look and they’ve been known to identify people, but there are absolutely ways to hide from them. Which is usually about when bounty hunters are called in.” Deimos smiles, just barely, as he looks at me. He wants me to say it.
“Like you,” I say.
His smile widens. “Like me. When I was in the business anyway. I left officially when I began advising you—and my departure was a great loss to the bounty hunting community, I’ll have you know—”
I snort.
“But the important part of all this is you’re fortunate enough to know me.”
I don’t know how he does it—I don’t know how he gets me to a crack a smile or even laugh when I’m feeling at my worst, but he does. I laugh. “Shae, that’s definitely the most important part of all of this.”
“It is, because before I retired I was one of the most highly paid hunters and not just because I’m easily the most attractive of the bunch.”
“Why would you being attractive make you a more highly paid bounty hunter?”
Deimos scoffs as if the answer is obvious, then waves his hand and gestures to the map again. “Anyway, I have some ideas about how to find Mal.” He makes a motion like pinching the edges of the map and pulls, dragging the map over until the projection of the palace complex sits in front of us. “So we’re here.” He taps a building and a red spot appears inside, where we are, I guess. “And as I’m sure you can imagine, the guide footage is much more complete within the complex than it is in the streets. There are places the guides don’t go, of course, like the bedrooms and washrooms for obvious reasons, but by and large there is always a recording of what goes on. Very well-protected footage, by the way, this is difficult to access even if you work here.”
“Okay. So you’re thinking … there might be footage of Mal?”
“Well there’s certainly footage of Mal—the question is when we lost footage of him. So let’s see how far back we have to go. His bedroom is … here, shae?” He’s moved the map again and somehow wiped off the roofs of buildings so we can see inside. The hallway he’s gesturing to is right outside of Mal’s bedroom.
“Shae,” I say. “That’s it.”
Deimos nods. “As I said, we can’t see into bedrooms, however …” He places his thumb and forefinger at the edge of the map, then slowly rotates them left, like turning a dial. People quickly move through the hallway, but backward, speeding through time as we fly through hours of footage.
“There.” I point as Mal exits his room, stick in hand and his other hand trailing the wall before he steps more confidently away from the wall.
“Good, so this was”—he glances at something written along the border of the map—“Okona 47, so two nights back.”
“Where is he going in the middle of the night?” I frown at the footage. “What time is this?”
“22:14,” Deimos reads off. “After we’d said good night and Varo had gone to bed.”
Mal walks out of the main building then heads toward the lab. At least, that’s where I’m guessing he was going since Varo had mentioned Mal was spending a lot of time with the techies, but I can’t say for sure because he doesn’t actually get there. Because instead, a kid runs up to him and the two stop to talk.
I lean forward. “Can we get closer? Who is that kid?”
Deimos presses both of his hands flat against the map’s border and slides them apart. The map zooms forward until we can clearly see Mal and this kid—human, probably around his age, pale skin and dark hair. The two are smiling and chatting and we don’t have audio, so I don’t know what they were saying, but Mal is laughing and they seem familiar. I guess Mal made a friend?
I should have known that. I should have checked in with him more. I figured he was handling himself fine, that he didn’t need me hovering over him and it was easier to think that—one less thing to worry about—but I—
I close my eyes. Take a deep breath. Open again.
I can’t change the past. And I can’t keep focusing on it, not if I want to be a good ruler, not if I want to save my nephew. Forward. I have to respond to now.
Mal and that kid turn around and walk right out of the complex. Right past two guards who barely look up at them as they leave.
“I want their names.” I point to the guards as the footage glides past them. “They can’t let people come and go without acknowledgment like that. Security aside, there’s a fucken plague and they didn’t even check to make sure Mal and that kid have masks—which they don’t—”
“I’ll find out,” Deimos says, gaze glued to the moving map. “They won’t have jobs when I’m through talking to Kantos.”
The boys walk deep into the city, past empty streets and closed shops. Everything is lit and there are guards posted—all in masks, all standing sentry—but if they notice one of the human boys walking past them is the Sira’s fucken nephew, they don’t show it.
And then the kid turns into an alley betwee
n two tall buildings and I want to strangle Mal for following. For not thinking hey, this is kinduv dangerous maybe I should fucken not. For not hesitating, not even a mo, while this kid walks him to an area where there aren’t guards, where no one can help him, and it’s too late by the time Mal stops and realizes how badly he fucked up.
Four men step out of the shadows, two in front, two behind. And none of them pay attention to the kid—they go right for Mal.
I’m going to be sick. It’s already happened—I know, I know—but watching this while I can’t do anything, while I wasn’t there to help him, while he was alone, and terrified, and I should have been there, I should have protected him.
To his credit, Mal fights.
When one of the men grab him from behind, he bucks his head back right into the guy’s nose. Blood spurts, the guy drops him, one of the men in front lunges forward just as Mal swings his stick between his legs. That blazing hurt just to watch—good—but in the end, there’s too many of them. They’re four fully grown men and one skinny, partially-blind thirteen-year-old. And as three wrestle Mal into submission, as the human kid who lured him out there watches silently, to the side, hand over his own mouth like trying not to make a sound—
The leader, who hasn’t fought, who’s watched this whole time, hands in pockets, almost bored, steps into the light.
And I swear to the blazing suns I’m going to kill Shaw when I find him.
28
Eros
The footage stops being useful after the four men and Mal disappear into a small building in an offshoot of the alley. Deimos speeds through the rest of the footage until we’re caught up to live and no one goes in or out between there, so they’re either still in there or that building is a front for a tunnel system.
I’m assuming tunnels. But either way, we know where we’re going next.
Kantos creates a rescue team—twelve people including himself and Varo, who insisted on being part of the team because it was his job to protect Mal.
“I’m going with you,” I say, and no one argues with me because they can’t.