I raise my eyebrows. "Does my father know of your insubordinate attitude towards him?"
The general chuckles. "I'm known for coming up with creative solutions to dangerous problems. That's why I was sent to retrieve you. And I'm old. Experienced, but not essential anymore. An acceptable loss."
"How ironic," I say. "That's why I was sent on this diplomatic mission in the first place. Not my father, or my brother Emret—me. An acceptable loss."
He nods. "We understand each other, then."
"Yes." When I nod back, an alliance is cemented between us.
After I finish my snack and drink, the air hostess escorts me to a small prep room on the transport, where a medic checks me over briefly before I shower and dress in a crisp sky-blue suit. Not my style at all, but it's the only outfit available, so I grit my teeth and put it on.
Once I'm dressed, a perky blond woman introduces herself as one of Dern's top stylists. Sitting in a chair at the dressing table, I let her wrestle with my sun-scorched hair and dry skin until she is satisfied with the outcome.
"There," she says, sighing as if she just finished a hard day's labor. "Take a look at yourself." She turns me to the mirror.
The girl I was in Emsalis—desert wanderer, fierce fighter, survivor—she's been smoothed away, buried under layers of creamy brown makeup. In her zeal to make me perfect, the stylist nearly concealed my signature facial tattoo, the thorny vine climbing my right temple, punctuated by red birthmarks that look like roses. She tamed my curly dark hair, too; it's a sheet of shimmering waves now.
I've been polished and prepared. To the eyes of Ceanna's people, I'm no different than the Zilara who left for her goodwill tour two weeks ago.
Shifting my newly glossy hair, I touch the nano-patch covering the wound in my head.
"Do you like the look?" asks the stylist, her enthusiastic smile wavering.
I don't. "You've worked a miracle," I say. "I look so—presentable."
She beams. "You should return to your seat, Miss Remay. We'll be landing soon."
General Binney doesn't comment when I reclaim my seat, but his blue eyes twinkle. The air hostess announces our descent; we buckle ourselves in; and as the transport pivots and streaks straight toward the earth, I close my eyes and I convince myself that everything will be all right.
Within minutes, we've landed in Ceanna. I unbuckle my straps with shaking fingers. Be calm, Zilara. Smooth, regal, untouchable. Nothing can hurt you, no one has to know what you're feeling. I glaze my face with a smile as I walk past the hostess, through the door of the air transport, and down the chute to the transport center.
General Binney's hand cups my elbow, while his soldiers cluster around me.
A deep breath. There will be vids and voices, flashing and clamoring.
I refresh my smile and step out of the chute, back into my world.
2
"Miss Zilara!"
"Miss Remay!"
"How does it feel to be home?"
"What's the worst thing that happened to you during your time as a hostage?"
"What can you tell us about the Fray?"
"What's it like in Emsalis?"
The questions pelt me like rocks. I force my head to stay up, neck straight, shoulders back, smile in place. My path, defined by velvet ropes on either side, ends at my father's feet.
My gaze moves up, from his gleaming black shoes and neatly pressed suit to his handsome, lined face. He's smiling.
My father's eyes are a strange blend of brown and green. When he's being kind, the brown in them is warmly pleasant, and the green flecks add charm. Anger him, and the green color predominates, giving his eyes a poisonous cast.
Right now, he's all delight and warmth.
"Zilara!" He opens his arms, but my mother darts around him, shoving aside bodyguards twice her size. She looks thinner than ever, her eyes wide above sunken cheeks. I'm trapped in the cage of her bony arms, her lipstick marring the stylist's makeup job. When she releases me, I lift my hand to wipe the blood-red marks away. She clutches my shoulders.
"Did they hurt you?" she says.
The idiocy of the question enrages me, and I smile icily. "Yes."
"Sharlene." My father's warning tone—the one he uses in public—is soft and venomous, caressing enough not to alarm anyone but those who know its meaning. My mother shrinks back to her place, a step behind him. All she has to do is stand there and smile. Some days, even that is too much for her.
"Come here, Zilara!" My father's arms envelop me, and I smell the rich amber tones of the cologne he wears, and the crisp, freshly laundered aroma of his suit.
Vid lenses and holo-screens surround us, and tiny drones hover like mechanical gnats to get the best view. The drones aren't allowed within a specific radius of my father, and when one sidles too close, a bodyguard reaches up and crushes it in his hand, raining circuits and bits of metal onto the carpet of the transport center. From somewhere in the crowd, the drone's owner yells a protest. That single miscalculation probably cost him a few months' earnings.
As I glance toward the drone's owner, I notice someone else in the smiling surge of strangers. A tall, slim figure in a white suit that matches his shock of snowy hair.
Gareth.
His amber eyes gleam at me. In the mass of eager mouths and anxious faces, every one desperate for a look or a line from me, his gaze is by far the most predatory. He doesn't smile, but he inclines his head to me and touches two fingers to his lips in a modified salute. My heart jerks, because that was our private signal when we were together.
How dare he use it now?
"Come, Zilara," says my father.
General Binney's hand is no longer at my elbow—instead my father's hand is at my back, and his bodyguards surge around us as we walk through the transport center. Across the vast hall, beyond the dark pebbly crowd of heads and the blue lights of the vid lenses, massive windows stretch far and high above us. They sky beyond them is black, streaked with gray rain. It feels like ages since I saw rain. Water from the sky—an underappreciated miracle.
We step through glass doors and pass quickly under the overhang into a waiting hoverpod. Sleek, elegant, and enormous, this is my father's personal ride, one of a fleet of ten identical pods. My parents and I sit on the circular bench in the center, and the guards file into seats around the edges of the pod. At my father's imperceptible signal via his skull-port, a translucent, sound-proof shield slides around our seating area, creating a cylinder of silence with just him, me, and my mother inside.
My father doesn't speak. I don't know what I expected from him, but this stiff silence certainly wasn't it.
My mother touches me every few minutes, her trembling hands fiddling with my hair, my fingers, the hem of my suit jacket. She's worse since I left.
"Mom, you're shaking. Have you eaten today?"
She averts her eyes.
"Dad, where's Ella?" Ella is my mother's personal attendant, the one who ensures that she gets her nutrition and takes her medication. She oversees my mother's style team and preps her for public events. Usually, she'd be riding with the bodyguards.
"We had to let Ella go," says my father. "And I haven't had the time to find a replacement."
"What? Why?"
"We had a disagreement." He says it with finality, as if that's the end of the topic.
Oh no it isn't. I open my mouth to protest, but my mother interrupts. "We should be talking about you. How are you? What happened to you?"
Briefly, succinctly, I tell them the main events of my time in Emsalis—leaving out most of the details about Rak and the others, glossing over our battles with the Vilor.
"I'll tell you more later." I meet my father's eyes, green in the artificial golden light of the pod. "I assume there will be an official briefing?"
"The briefing will take place tomorrow, after your physical and mental exams," he says. "If you're well enough, that is. You look a bit thin."
"Everyone is a bit thi
n in Emsalis," I say. "And I was trapped there much longer than I expected."
"Oh, honey." My mother dissolves into tears.
"Sharlene, please," my father says. "Zilara, I explained this to you. Your capture sparked international tensions. The rebels took you to an area we couldn't enter easily, not without risking all-out war."
It makes sense. "But why did you send me in, when you knew how volatile the situation in the North really was?"
"I was assured you would be safe. You were to remain in the South, on a pre-assigned route. Had your team handled the incident in the chute correctly, you would have completed the tour without any issues, and we would have the footage we need."
"Footage of a peaceful Emsalis, to trick the world into thinking our presence there is effective," I say.
"It is effective."
"How can you say that? After what I've seen, I—"
"Are you the leader of this country?" he interrupts. "Are you involved in all the strategy sessions and council meetings? Do you receive the reports on all our international holdings?"
"Holdings? Since when is Emsalis one of our holdings? They're an independent nation, one that deserves self-rule."
Anger flickers in his eyes. "Perhaps the rebels have a grip on your mind after all."
Be careful. I draw a deep breath. "Not at all. I'm only tired, and worried. I'm concerned for you, Dad. How are you doing with all this pressure?"
Other than Ceanna, his favorite topic of conversation is himself. He launches into a detailed account of the countries whose leaders have challenged him, how he appeased them, and how he is working to cement the support of the other allied nations. These political machinations bore me beyond words, but to him, they're the most exciting, high-stakes game ever played. My brother Emret shares his love of politics. Emret—where is he? Why wasn't he there to greet me?
"Dad, where's Emret?" I ask.
"Leaders' summit in Muirtelek," he says. "Since I had to deal with your retrieval, he went in my place."
"How terrible that you had to miss it," I say.
His eyes flash. "I didn't miss that attitude of yours, that's for certain."
My face heats, and energy pulses through my body, burning to be released. But I can't use my ability, not here. Deep, slow breaths. Unclench the fingers. Relax.
To distract myself, I look out the windows of the pod. We're nearly home.
At the eastern edge of Caliston, Ceanna's capital city, lies the Reigning Collective complex, where the Magnate lives and leads. The central building contains our home, a gleaming white structure of arches and high windows and terraces and walls and gates. Beyond the borders of its grounds, more buildings rise from the earth—the skyscraping Ceannan Commerce Array, the low-lying military headquarters with its layers of underground bunkers, the science and research compound, the judicial center, and the sprawling legislative building, with its countless meeting rooms and conference halls. There's even a school, for the offspring of the hordes of government employees.
Walls, shields, mounted guns, monitor drones, attack drones, cameras, manned guard towers—every conceivable form of defense meshes into an impenetrable barrier around the entire Reigning Complex. It's a city within a city, the throbbing heart of Ceanna.
Pain pulses in my fingers, and I realize that I'm digging my ragged nails deep into the plush cushions of the hoverpod's seat. I loosen my grip, hoping no one noticed. My father is scrolling through a newsfeed on his holo-screen, and my mother is apparently deep inside a song that no one else can hear—she's swaying in her spot, eyes closed. Most music is played via skull-port now, pumped straight into the listener's head. If my skull-port were intact, I could sync with my mother's and share the song that has taken her away.
The hoverpod halts, and my father retracts the sound barrier around our seats. "I have a meeting to get to," he says. "Rest, get comfortable, recover. Your medicals are tomorrow morning, psychological evaluation in the afternoon. Then we'll do the briefing in the evening. And there's a press conference the day after tomorrow, followed by a dinner with the council and their families. You're expected at both events."
I'm expected to be strong. To smile. To spew polished words to the newsfeed runners so they can regurgitate them repeatedly to their readers.
"I'll be happy to attend," I say, my smile restricted to my mouth. "But when do I go back to University?"
"You're taking the session off," says my father. "You'll return next session."
"What am I supposed to do for twelve weeks?"
"Whatever you like. It was better to write off the session than have you return and fail every class. Unacceptable." He rises, leading the way out of the pod.
"But I can go visit my friends at Uni?"
He turns, frowning. "You're not a prisoner, Zilara. You have your own hoverpod—you may go where you please. As long as your bodyguards accompany you." He points ahead, at the walkway leading to our front door. Standing on either side of the path are Tram and Ridley.
I've known Tram and Ridley almost as long as I knew Vern. They're both several years older than me, part of my rotating security detail since I was in mid-levels.
Ridley was the one who gave me supplies from her own bag when I got my first monthly cycle in the middle of equations class. I was young for it, and even though I knew what was happening, the sight of the blood scared me. She helped me while Tram waited stolidly outside the girls' bathroom. When we came out, he nodded to me and said, "Congratulations" with perfect sincerity—and I suddenly felt more proud than embarrassed.
Somehow I expected them to look different. I'm not sure why—maybe because I feel like a different person myself. But Ridley still has the same smooth night-dark skin and soft features, the same halo of tight black curls, the same calm gaze and toned arms. And Tram is still short but massively broad, huge biceps threatening to burst the sleeves of his crisp white shirt. He's trimmed his hair down to reddish fuzz, but his stern gray eyes and upturned nose are comfortingly familiar.
"Miss Remay." Ridley manages to imbue the title with extra warmth, her eyes shining at me. "You don't know how glad we are to see you well."
I can't help it—I step forward and hug her, and then I hug Tram, too. And then I remember Vern, and my eyes fill with tears. It could have been these two, in the chute from the air transport. They could have been the ones blown to pieces, or captured and killed, or drugged and helpless. Instead it was a team of hand-picked security experts, assembled by Vern and trained for every eventuality they might encounter in Emsalis—everything except a bomb in the transport chute.
"We're your day guard," explains Tram. "You'll have a pair of night guards as well."
Instead of the usual solo guard, with two for special events, I'm to have two bodyguards with me at all times? What an honor.
As I walk through the front doors, the house system tries to sync with my skull-port, and then it beeps erratically and says, "Welcome, guest. We are delighted to have you."
I choke on a laugh, because this house has known me since I was a baby. It stores all my preferences, plays my favorite music anytime I'm home, projects my favorite images onto the walls when I enter a room—it knows the jokes that make me laugh on a bad day. But take out the skull-port, and I'm nothing to it anymore, just "guest."
"Facial recognition mode," says my father, and after a second the house says, "Welcome home, Zilara." But it doesn't play me a song, because my father's profile has precedence, and he doesn't like music. He says it does nothing for him.
Does Rak like music?
The house's blank white walls evolve into landscape images and shifting geometric patterns as we walk through the spacious rooms. The first floor, appointed by Ceanna's premier decorator, features oceanic, restful hues and crisply angled furniture. Upstairs is a shade more personal, with warmer colors and more pillows and rugs.
"May I go up to my room?" I ask.
"Of course." My father turns back toward the front door. "As I sai
d, I have to go. And your mother is planning to rest, yes?"
She nods. "Yes."
"So I'll see you both later."
He's gone, and my mother is sneaking away to the kitchen to gorge on something unhealthy and then twist herself up with guilt. I want to help her, but my muscles are turning liquid with weariness and my head is in a fog. Slowly I climb the sweeping staircase, Tram and Ridley following. So many stairs. Why so many?
When I reach the top, I trudge along the hall, past the guest rooms, all the way down to the end. My door is the only one painted a different color—bright red, at my insistence. I gesture to the cushioned bench outside. "Is this all right for you two?" I ask my guards.
Ridley nods. "We'll be right here if you need us."
I open the door, step through, and close it behind me.
For an instant I relish the soft darkness. But then the lights flicker on automatically, thanks to the house sensors.
Color. Rich and riotous, overflowing the bed and the sofa, springing from every pillow and vase and rug. I've filled my room with mementos from each of the countries I've toured. Fine fabrics, glittering ornaments, hand-painted vases, glass mosaics. Seashells on strings, colored sand in jars.
I have no treasures from Emsalis, except for the three human-shaped ones arriving sometime later today.
Beside the bed, on the table, sits the enameled case containing most of my skull-port attachments and data plugs. I left them in my room at Uni—but my father must have had all my things brought here.
My eyes flick to a decorative knife in a case on one of the shelves. I bought it because it was pretty. Now I have an irrational need to hold it, to feel its weight and to practice a few swings, in case I need to protect myself.
Not here. I don't need weapons here.
But I go to the case anyway, and I take out the knife and slip it under my pillow. Then I say, "Open the closet," and a section of the bedroom wall slides aside, revealing racks and shelves and drawers of clothing. As I reach toward the first rack, a wave of nausea washes over me, because into my mind flashes the image of Safi's tiny, dingy room back in Ankerja, and her rusted rack of clothes—maybe four shirts and a pair of shorts.
Princess of Lies and Legends (The Evolved Book 2) Page 2