by Ava Jae
Shaw.
My stomach churns. If they decide they want to execute me right here, I won’t be able to fight my way out. There’s too many of them, and I don’t even know how to escape if I tried. There are too many turns, too many identical doors and dingy mirror-like hallways. If they decide the way to respond to this is to kill me, I’ll die here, leagues under the sand, far from home.
Uljen was right. I never should have come here.
Finally, Lira stands. Her fists shake at her sides as she glowers at me. “We’re going to keep you until Rani gets here and decides what to do with you.”
“So that’s it?” I say flatly. “You’ll just let them kill me if they decide that’s what they want to do.”
Lira wipes her nose with the back of her hand. “You killed one of ours, Kora.”
“He had a knife,” I hiss. “He was going to kill me. Was I supposed to let him?”
“He wasn’t going to kill you,” Lira says softly. “Just incapacitate you.”
I shake my head, but there’s little use in arguing. Lira’s already made it clear she’s not a friend of mine.
The man holding me tugs me back. I let him turn me around and lead me to the door, past the glares and stares and dirty looks from redbloods all around me. Never mind that they lured me down here. Never mind that they wanted me here so they could use me as leverage, just as Eros wanted me here so he could use me as backup. And I’m not angry at Eros, I’m not—it was my idea to begin with—but I can’t help but wonder what these redbloods expected when they decided to bring me here. Did they think I’d be demure? Go quietly? Cry when I realized I’d been betrayed? Did they really not expect I would fight for my life?
“Wait.” A woman steps forward, touching her ear. Listening to a comm, I would guess. “It’s Commander Jakande. She …” She frowns and says something in English, then purses her lips, shakes her head, and looks around and asks something I don’t understand. Others are shaking their heads, many touching their ear. I suppose many of them are wearing comms and heard what she just did.
Then the man behind me releases my arm as the woman looks at me, disdain barely concealed in her face. “Commander Jakande says you’re free to go. We’ll show you out.”
58
Eros
Everything hurts. Breathing hurts. Shifting in bed and shoving the blanket—it’s too fucken hot for that shit—off me hurts.
“Oh, thank Kala.” Deimos sighs, squeezing my hand lightly. “How do you feel?”
I peer through bleary eyes and wait for the room to focus. The room is—not really a room, more like a curtained-off closet. Footsteps and murmurs of voices beyond the curtain filter through the air. The hot air. Stifling air. Deimos is at my bedside and—
I squint. “Rani?”
Deimos glances back to where Rani is standing, her arms crossed over her chest. “Glad you’re not dead,” she says flatly.
“Shae, well.” Deimos grimaces and looks at me. “Staying here to see you through is the least she could do after you saved her life for reasons I can’t fathom.”
And he’s right. I did. I saved her. After she called me a mutt, after she beat me, after she kidnapped my nephew, and made my sets as Sira an endless nightmare, and kept Mal and I captive all those sets ago, and the beginning—at the very start—abandoned me for personal gain. For power.
I couldn’t save Day, or Nol, or Esta, or Aren. I couldn’t save the people I cared about most. But I saved Rani.
Stars, I’m so tired. I close my eyes and mutter, “No more killing.”
Deimos kisses my knuckles, calls for Lejdo and asks him to let the feed know I’m stable. I let the room drift away for a bit, holding Deimos’s hand as I give in to exhaustion.
When I wake again, sometime later, Rani and Deimos are still there, and everything doesn’t hurt as bad. I guess they gave me something while I was sleeping. At least I can breathe without wincing.
Deimos helps me sit up and I drink a full bottle of water without pause. Then I look at Rani.
I’m not going to have a relationship with her—I’d accepted that, and honestly, after everything, I don’t want one. I’ll be happiest never having to deal with her again.
But it doesn’t matter that we don’t get along and will never have a relationship. She didn’t deserve to die. And whether I like it or not, she’s the best chance of peace we have.
“I’m tired of fighting,” I say.
Rani bites her lip. “So am I.”
“I’m sorry about Shaw, but I want to keep most of our deal. We have a real chance to work together and I’m happy to introduce a human representative.”
“I don’t want that job,” Rani says, thank the fucken suns.
“What if …” Deimos hesitates. “Let me finish before you react. What if instead of you choosing a representative, Rani, all the humans choose representatives to serve on a human Council that will work in Asheron with Eros. Maybe a larger scale version of what Kora did in Elja to choose Uljen. Humans from every territory could pick someone in a … vote. Then those eight would form the human Council. Chosen directly by the people, shae?”
“I like that idea.” I glance at Rani, and she nods.
“It’s … a good idea.”
“Well of course it is.” Deimos grins. “I thought of it.”
I shove him lightly and he laughs.
“Where am I, by the way?” I ask. “This doesn’t look like the palace infirmary.”
“It isn’t. We’re in Jel-Ta. You needed immediate medical attention—internal bleeding and burns and not to mention the broken ribs … but they’ve taken good care of you here.”
I nod. “That’s fine. Are there any guides around? I need to make a broadcast.”
Deimos arches an eyebrow. “Now? From your hospital bed.”
“Now. I don’t want the set to pass without getting this over with.”
In the end, it’s Fejn who finds an orb guide for me to use. It’s an overexcitable guide that zips around my head at least four times and bounces in the air, chirping while Deimos helps me look—not like I just took a phaser burst to the chest earlier this morning.
Finally, I’m as prepped as I’m going to be, the guide hovers still in front of me, and it broadcasts me to every glass on the planet. Which isn’t at all terrifying to think about.
I take a deep breath, and thank the stars for drugs because it doesn’t hurt. “People of Safara, it’s been … a hard term for all of us. Between famine, disease, attacks, and uncertainty, I know the adjustment period to having a Sira like me hasn’t been easy. But enough is enough.
“I can’t stop territories from seceding and I’m not going to try to force anyone to stay. I’m also not going to stop humans from leaving on the ship we’re preparing for those who want to leave, those who want to try their chances on Earth, galaxies away. But if I’m being honest, I don’t think splitting us up is going to make us stronger as a people, and I don’t think our differences are so impossible to overcome that our society needs to fracture to move forward. I truly believe we can work together and become a united front: Sepharon, humans, and people a mix of the two, like me.”
Deep breath in. Deep breath out.
“I’m going to work with humans to get them equal treatment, and I’ve agreed to work with eight human representatives, one from each territory, to do that—humans around the globe will choose their territory’s representative through a vote. If some Sepharon don’t like that idea …” I shake my head. “Honestly? Too bad. Safara is just as much home to the humans, home to people like me, as it is to the Sepharon. We’ve all lived here for generations, we don’t know any other home, and we’re generations late to getting over that reality and moving on. The only way to move forward peacefully is to accept Safara is home for everyone, and to make it a place where we’re all welcome, regardless of the color of our blood or the markings on our skin.
“This is the way forward I’m taking. Now it’s up to you to decid
e whether or not you’re with me.”
I nod at the guide and it turns off the feed and zips away. And just like that, I’ve done it. I’ve laid out a plan without a Council, without people telling me what’s best, without ignoring what I’ve known all along.
I just hope the way forward doesn’t end up being the way to the end of my rule and my life.
We get back to the palace in Asheron by suns fall after the Jel-Ta medic lectures me about taking it easy and drinking lots of fluid and insisting to Deimos that he make sure I sleep because somehow the medic knew I couldn’t be trusted with that, which Deimos found hilarious.
Inside, out of the heat of the desert night, Tol is waiting for us with a huge grin.
“You look happy,” I say, as if that weren’t obvious.
“I am.” Tol’s grin widens. “Notice anything different, el Sira?”
“Uh …” I glance at Deimos, shivering slightly at the cool air making my skin bumpy. Wait. Cool air?
“Oh!” Deimos says, “The air! Sorry—I know I’m not ken Sira, thank Kala …”
“Does that mean …” I’m almost too nervous to say it. To hope it. “The nanites?” I ask.
“The first batch has been released as a successful cure for the disease in the city, and the second batch is being tested right now in the complex.” Tol extends their arms, gesturing around them. “That’s gone largely well, so once the team addresses a few glitches they’ll begin releasing those to the larger populace. Granted, it’ll take several terms before we reach full coverage again, and there will be issues along the way, but it’s better than their original estimation of a few cycles, sha?”
The relief is like jumping into a cool bath on a hot day. Or maybe that’s just the air coolant. Either way. “That’s amazing news,” I say. “Thank you. Do you know where Mal is?”
Tol’s smile fades slightly and my stomach lurches. If something is wrong with Mal—“I believe he’s waiting for you both in your room. He … wanted to discuss something with you, if I’m not mistaken.”
“Thank you,” I say quickly.
Mal is sprawled out on my bed, and for a mo I think he’s asleep but then he sits up abruptly, hair sticking out at all angles as he groans and says, “Finally. That took fucken forever.”
I smile and sit next to him. “Sorry. There were some … complications we weren’t expecting.”
“Shae, whatever.” Mal waves his hand, then fiddles with his darkening glasses. “It gave me time to practice this conversation and I want you guys to listen before you say naï.”
Deimos sits on Mal’s other side. “So sure we’re going to say naï.”
“Well, I’m sure Uncle Eros is going to want to say naï, but I’m hoping you’ll convince him.”
I grimace. “This sounds promising already.”
“Like I said, listen first.” Mal hops off the bed and faces us, arms pulled behind his back, stick leaning against the bed. He takes a deep breath, then says, “Okay. So I’ve been thinking about this a lot. And I-I know it’s a lot, but I’m sure it’s what I want to do.”
I glance at Deimos. He shrugs. “Um,” I say. “What is it … exactly, that you want to do?”
Mal presses his lips together, then pulls his shoulders back. “I … want to go on the ship with the humans to Earth.”
It takes a mo—two—for those words to sink in. And Mal was right about what my reaction would be, because there’s no fucken way I’m going to let my thirteen-year-old nephew leave the fucken planet. “Naï,” I say.
“Let him finish.” Deimos puts his hand on my knee and looks at Mal. “Go ahead. Explain why you want this.”
Mal nods. “It’s just … I’ve lost everything here. I don’t have my home anymore, I don’t have my family—besides you, Uncle Eros, and you’re great but—but staying here reminds me of … everything. And I think it’s really good what you’re doing and trying to get everyone to have equal rights and everything, but the Sepharon aren’t going to just … stop hating us.” He shrugs. “Being here at the palace has been nice and people are okay to me and everything, but I don’t like being the only human here. And I know that might change and that’s good, but I’ll still always be an outsider here, and it’s still always going to be dangerous for humans to just … live.”
I hate that he’s right. I hate that I can’t fix this and make everyone be more decent overnight. I hate that I can’t protect him from the hate, and the anger, and I hate that I know exactly what he means about never really being fully accepted, not really, not here.
But he’s so young. And this isn’t a reversible decision. He can’t just decide to come back if he doesn’t like it on Earth. And he’ll be alone.
“You realize things won’t be perfect on Earth either, right?” I say. “You’ll probably be discriminated against there too—for being Safara-born. You can’t get away from assholes by switching planets—they’re everywhere.”
“I know,” Mal says. “And I’m not expecting it to be perfect, but … that’s where we came from, you know?”
“And who’s going to take care of you? You’re thirteen, Mal, you need some kinduv adult—”
“You really think I’m going to be the only underage orphan on that ship?” Mal sighs heavily, like he can’t believe he actually has to explain this. “The travel time will be four cycles anyway, so by the time I get there, I’ll be almost eighteen and old enough to take care of myself. And I’ll be treated like a refugee—they’re setting up centers to help us get started. So I’ll be fine. I mean, I practically take care of myself here anyway—the only difference is I won’t have a bodyguard following me around.”
My heart thuds heavily in my chest. Maybe this is my fault. I haven’t been able to pay as much attention to him as I wanted but with everything going to shit—what was I supposed to do?
Shit. Did I do this?
“I know you don’t want to agree,” Mal says. “And I get it but … I’m not going to have another chance like this. I want to go. And if you don’t let me, I seriously won’t forgive you. I won’t be happy here, and I’ll always remember you refused me my only chance to go back to my roots and start fresh somewhere else.”
“Great,” I mumble. “No pressure.”
“I think we should let him go,” Deimos says softly. “He seems to be confident about this decision.”
“I am,” Mal says. “I’ve been thinking about it for a long time. Pretty much since I suggested the ship, really.”
“I just—I thought you liked the techies and the tech stuff. They even said they’d be happy to apprentice you once you’re of age and welcome you to the team—”
“I do. They’re nice, and if I was going to stay, I probably would. And, I dunno, maybe I’ll still go into tech, but I don’t want to do it here. I have too many bad memories here. Safara has never been a home to me.”
I’m not sure if it will hurt him more, in the long run, to let him go or make him stay. But the truth is, I was never supposed to be his dad. I was never equipped to take care of him while also trying to hold the planet together. And even if things finally calm down, Mal’s right—nothing is going to change overnight. And I can’t blame him for not wanting to stick around for the ugly in-between phase.
“Please,” Mal says. “Please let me go.”
And it hurts to say it. It hurts to agree. It hurts to know he’s going to leave and I’m never going to see him again in person. I’ll be able to talk to him via glass, sure, but it’s not the same. And it hurts to acknowledge I’ll have lost literally every one of my family members in just under three full terms.
“You know,” Deimos says quietly. “The fortune speaker did warn you about this.”
I glance at him—I’d totally forgotten about her, but he’s right. You must let them go when the time comes, she’d said. No matter how much you love them, you can’t tie them down.
Holding on to him because I don’t want it to be final, to be real, would be selfish.
So if I’m going to be fair to Mal, if I’m going to let him decide his own destiny and not force him into a system that will make him bitter and angry—then I don’t really have a choice.
I have to let him go.
59
Kora
When I returned to the palace complex alone, and alive, and mostly uninjured two terms ago, after nearly dying underground and killing a man in my own defense, after nearly ruining Eros’s plan for peace with an ill-advised plan of my own, Uljen pulled me into his arms and held me tightly. He closed his eyes and we breathed together, in silence, as I shivered against him and gripped him tightly.
“You were right,” I said after some silence. “I never should have gone. It was a terrible idea.”
Uljen had grimaced. “I don’t care about right or wrong, I’m just so kafran relieved you’re okay.”
I pulled away from him and offered a small smile. “Next time I have a terrible idea like that, talk me out of it.”
He laughed. “I’ll do my best.”
Now I sit in my garden, watching the suns rise as the feed reports on the ship preparing to take off in Asheron as Uljen sleeps in my bedroom behind me. Our first venture off the planet in generations, with an automated system, Sepharon technical and medical crew who will make the trip there and back, and redbloods ready to say good-bye forever.
Eros allowed Mal to use his glass to call me and say farewell. And though I hadn’t seen him in person since the wedding, and our friendship was brief, I’ll certainly still miss him.
I don’t know what this world will look like in a cycle, in five, in ten. Inara vowed not to secede after all shortly after Invino did, and Sekka’l … well. If any territory was going to have to leave, I can’t say I’ll be all that sorry to see them go. I just hope if they decide to leave, it won’t catalyze a fracturing we won’t be able to do undo.
But for now, at least, things have finally cooled. I can focus on building Elja’s economy and infrastructure, as well as strengthening programs for the impoverished to try to narrow the gap between classes. I have forms to fill out and meetings to attend and advisors to listen to and all the menial work of ruling, but for the first time in too long, I’m not afraid. Not for myself, not for Eros—I can breathe, truly freely, for possibly the first time in my life.