I stared at the admiral, my heart pumping with abandon as I tried to keep my eyes from going wide with shock.
He returned the stare with a slight, self-satisfied grin tugging at the corners of his mouth. “I didn’t ask for your opinion.”
I rested my hand over my smarting cheek while blood spilled across my tongue.
Without another word, he turned around and walked out. I watched the empty hatchway for a long time.
I nodded before looking down to the floor.
Once again, Kell lay at my feet.
Dead.
Sitting side by side, Sali and I watched Admiral Mnai enter the conference room. After a brief nod at the Falali Mother, he walked behind a seated Captain Mmirehl to the table’s head. Dropping his bulk into a chair, he put his hands together on the table’s well-polished surface, his knitted fingers stacked like firewood. “Tell us what you know of the resistance.”
The Falali Mother sat at the opposite end of the table. Same place I’d sat the first time I was in this conference room. “There is no resistance,” she said.
“Then who was that agitator harassing my soldiers yesterday?”
“What agitator?”
“You know very well my soldiers were force-ed to tame an agitator at the parade.”
The Falali Mother dropped her jaw and widened her eyes in dumbfounded disbelief. “That was no agitator. That was an old man with a flag.” She looked to Sali and me. “Tell them.”
“She’s right,” I said at the risk of angering the admiral. “He didn’t pose a threat.”
The admiral gave me an icy stare. “He was waving the flag of the resistance.”
“The flag of the Jebyl,” corrected the Falali Mother. “You once wave-ed that same flag when you sought Jebyl support after your coup.”
Captain Mmirehl poked his beak into the conversation. “I debrief-ed my soldiers while you were all having dinner. The old man was a subversive with ties to the Empire.”
“Ties? What ties?”
“He was identify-ed as an ex-dockhand at Selaita’s landing platform. According to his former coworkers, he was very chummy with the foreign pilots. Clearly, he was an Empire sympathizer.”
Admiral Mnai leaned back in his chair and rested his hands on his rounded stomach. “How do you respond to that, Dearest Mother?”
“This just happen-ed yesterday, and you already interview-ed his former coworkers?”
“I did,” said Mmirehl. “One of our soldiers work-ed with him before enlisting in our navy.”
“One? You said coworkers.” She emphasized the plural with a drawn-out Z.
Mmirehl shrugged his shoulders. “One is enough.”
The Falali Mother shook her head, the shells of her headdress rattling against each other. “This is an injustice. The man is dead. Kill-ed for nothing more than expressing pride in his people, and the best you can do is sully his character with ridiculous accusations?”
The admiral’s voice was straight as a knife blade. “He was an enemy of Free Maritinia, and enemies will be dealt with harshly.”
The Falali Mother threw up her hands. “This is pointless.” Looking at me, she said, “Can you please talk some sense into this man?”
I reluctantly opened my mouth to talk, but closed it when I saw Sali inch up in her chair. Her head was bowed, brows shading her eyes. “Father?”
“Yes, child.”
She lifted her gaze and met her father’s eyes. “We promise-ed her you would listen.”
“I have listen-ed,” he said dismissively.
“You haven’t listen-ed at all.”
He leaned forward and grasped the armrests with his meaty hands. “What did you say to me?”
She put some granite in her voice. “I said you haven’t been listening.”
His lips slowly curved into a joyless smile. “Why must you defy me at every turn? You truly are your mother’s daughter.”
“The Jebyl are dissatisfy-ed,” she said. “You need to listen to her.”
The soulless grin stayed frozen on his face, his thoughts unreadable. Sali did her best to mirror his gaze, but her mirror had cracks forming in the corners of her mouth and eyes. I reached for her hand under the table, felt it quiver as I grasped hold to give it a squeeze.
“Fine,” he with a wave of his hand. “I keep my promises. Speak your mind, Dearest Mother.”
The Falali Mother cleared her throat. “The Jebyl support-ed you because you promise-ed them change. Schools and medicines. Freedom and liberty. But they’ve seen none of these changes.”
“They need to be patient.”
“Patience comes in limited supply, Admiral. They celebrate-ed when they broke free of the Empire’s fist, but now they feel like fools. They see the truth that they’ve simply exchange-ed one set of chains for another.”
“I must stop you there, Dearest Mother. They didn’t cast off the chains of the Empire. They didn’t do a damn thing. I was the one who cut them loose.” He pointed a finger at his chest. “Me. I risk-ed my life. My family. You’d think they’d show some appreciation for my sacrifices.”
She gave a slight bow of her head to acknowledge the point. “Yet the problem remains. The Jebyl demand representation in your government. They need advocates who will make sure these travesties of justice don’t continue.”
“You want me to let them into my government?”
“Yes—into the government of a free Maritinia. They need a say in our future. They need a voice. That’s what this unrest is about.”
“The unrest must stop.”
“Exactly. When they gain inclusion in this government, the unrest will cease.”
“No. It will stop when you calm them with your words. Tell them their concerns have been heard. Tell them to be patient.”
“I won’t say anything of the sort until I see you’re willing to make some concessions.”
“By inviting Jebyl spies into the Ministry? I don’t think so.”
“Spies? Are you mad?”
“You think I can’t see what you Jebyl are up to? I know the resistance is conspiring with the Empire to topple me.”
Her forehead creased in bewilderment. “What, pray tell, are you talking about?”
“Don’t deny it. Who do you hate more than the Empire? Us. The Kwuba. You’ll welcome back the Empire with open arms if it means you can take our place as the ruling class.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“Admit it,” he said with flames dancing inside his eyes. “You Jebyl won’t rest until we become your slaves.” The accusation hung in the air like the blade of a guillotine. He slapped the table with an open palm, his voice booming from deep inside his gut. “I won’t allow it.”
The room fell into stunned silence. I pulled my eyes off the admiral and moved them from person to person around the table. Mmirehl’s head was cocked to one side, gears cranking behind his eyes. The Falali Mother’s face was a mixture of puzzlement and disgust. Sali bit her bottom lip and slowly shook her head side to side like a person who couldn’t believe what she had heard but knew the futility of arguing.
Pol was right. My mission was to foment discontent, to create chaos and anarchy. The Empire’s contingent was coming on just a single transport vessel. Fifty soldiers and another fifty administrators was all the Empire could spare for this far-flung world. I had to make sure they didn’t face an organized defense.
And the admiral was falling into right into my hands.
I should’ve been elated. Head-over-heels happy. But that wasn’t what I felt.
Instead, I was disturbed. Disturbed to the core. I was in the presence of true madness. And if I didn’t watch my step, I’d soon be caught in the flood of unrestrained paranoia.
The Falali Mother broke the quiet. “How can you sit there and accuse us of sympathizing with the Empire? It’s the Kwuba who have been doing the Empire’s dirty work for the last two thousand years.”
The admiral sat up straight, causing the shirt of his uniform to pull free from his beltline. “All the more reason the Jebyl want their revenge.”
“But that’s crazy.”
The admiral nodded as if his large head were a boulder teetering on a cliff above us all.
Captain Mmirehl jumped to the admiral’s defense like the toady he was. “Nothing crazy about it. In fact, we found the body of a spy earlier today. The Jebyl resistance wants to destroy our independence. They’ll bring back the Empire and impose their will upon the rest of us.”
“Shame on you both,” she said, stern eyes attempting to stare them down. “I’ll hear no more of this hateful talk.”
Mmirehl clucked his tongue. “And why do you deny the truth? Could it be you yourself are part of—”
“Enough of this,” interrupted the admiral. “Tell me, Dearest Mother, will you make a statement or not?”
“Are you willing to admit Jebyl into your government?”
“No.”
She crossed her arms. “Then I won’t make a statement.”
The admiral stood and pulled his uniform shirt down where it had crept up his belly. “We are done here.”
“Shall I send her back to Selaita?” asked Mmirehl.
“No,” he said with another of his grim smiles, teeth lined up like gravestones. “Lock her up until she changes her mind.”
CHAPTER 15
“Starat a fire and there’sno telling where it might spreadr.”
–JAKOB BRYCE
Sali passed me a drink before setting the bottle on the floor and taking the chair next to mine. I tapped the paper globe over my head, and firefly light slowly seeped toward the edges of the small rooftop patio atop Kell’s house. My house.
I looked to the sky, a vast black canvas spray-painted with a sparse coat of sparkling pinholes of light. I turned my gaze northward, where the pinpricks thickened into a spotted mass. The heart of the Empire. I stared into the thick swath of suns and felt the burdens of duty and home staring back.
For Sire and Empire.
I took a whiff of the unidentified liquid in my glass, my nose wrinkling as the burn of alcohol tingled up my nostrils. I put the glass to my lips and took a long, flavorful draw. I didn’t need my cheek bite getting infected, so I steeled myself against the sting as I swished the alcohol around my mouth.
“You better enjoy it because it’s our last bottle,” Sali said with a bitter edge. She’d been like this since we left the Ministry, her needle-tipped tongue shooting poison darts. A glance at the bottle told me a good portion had already disappeared.
I took another sip. The booze tasted silky and smooth, as good as anything from home. “We can buy more tomorrow.”
“There’s no more to buy. They stopp-ed importing it months ago. Haven’t you seen how few ships drop to the surface now? I’d be surprise-ed if more than one lands each week.”
I stayed silent and took another swig. Fruity undertones put the alcohol in the brandy family, and the satiny finish said it had been aged a good long time.
“You lie-ed to me,” she said with the harshness of cheap bootleg.
I took another look at the bottle on the floor and measured the empty space with my eyes. She had to be three or four drinks in. “Lied about what?”
“You said over and over that independence would bring opportunity. You said it enough, I believe-ed you. But look what’s happen-ed. Kelp exports are down 80 percent. Tea and wine are so expensive that only the richest Kwuba can afford them.”
“It will take time.”
“You should’ve seen what I saw when I went to visit my mother. Kelp farmers don’t know what to do with themselves. Half of them still harvest because it’s what they’ve always done even though most of their harvest rots in place. The other half rot their brains trying to get high off fermenting puffer-fish fumes.”
She downed the rest of her glass and poured another. “You knew the market for kelp would dry up without the Empire, didn’t you?”
Pol was right. And I might as well admit it. “I knew.”
“That makes you a liar. How could you do that to me? How can you call yourself Hero of Maritinia?”
I tried to shrug off the accusation, knowing it was Kell who had told her that particular lie. But I was a liar, too. Everything I’d done since I met her was a lie. “I never called myself that. Others did. I did what I had to do.”
“Is that all you have to say?”
“It’s the truth.”
“You lie-ed to the Falali Mother. You lie-ed to fool her into coming.”
I turned to her. “You think I knew your father planned to lock her up?”
Her eyes shone intensely under the dim light. She leaned in my direction, her hands gripping her armrests tight enough to make the wicker creak. “You tell me.”
I downed the rest of my drink before responding in a sober tone. “I thought he was genuine in wanting to reach out to the Jebyl. I wouldn’t have gone through the ceremony if I’d known it was all for show.”
She stared at me for a few seconds, apparently trying to read my face. Finally, she relaxed into her chair. “He use-ed us.”
“He did.” I reached for the bottle and poured myself a second drink. Putting the bottle down, I startled a crab into scuttling for the roof’s edge. “I was proud of you the way you stood up to him earlier.”
“A lot of good it did. He can be so difficult.”
“Why is he so obsessed with the Jebyl?”
She shook her head slow. “Captain Mmirehl is the real problem. He’s always planting hateful seeds in my father’s mind.”
said Pol.
I slugged my drink down.
I reached for the bottle.
Nothing. The rabbit hole in my mind had iced over. The chill crept toward my heart. Pol was supposed to be my closest ally. My only ally.
“More?” asked Sali.
I threw my drink down my throat and gladly held out my glass.
“Sorry,” she said, as the bottle’s neck wavered over the glass. “I may have had too much.” She spilled a few drops down my wrist but managed to get the rest into my glass.
I sat back in my chair and defiantly kept my eyes on the sky, so Pol couldn’t see me take her hand.
I tried to push him out of my mind. He was overreacting. While I might not have followed every one of his directions down to the minutest detail, the success of the results were speaking for themselves. It was time he started trusting my abilities.
Speakers crackled in the distance, and the skyscreens lit with a live shot of Admiral Mnai’s grim face. He wore a tall green cap on his head, its straight black brim
forming a triangle with his downturned brows. A billowing emerald scarf wrapped his neck and disappeared beneath his uniform jacket.
He stood inside the Ministry’s control center, a sprawl of video screens flanking him on both sides. When he spoke, his voice was firm. Somber.
People of Free Maritinia, I come to you with disturbing news. There are spies among us. He sneered at the camera. Spies.
Thanks to the vigilance of some honorable fishermen, we’ve capture-ed our first spy. A series of interrogations have reveal-ed plots of staggering dimensions. One of the most insidious was a plot to assassinate our revere-ed Falali Mother. Fear not, because this scheme has been foil-ed, but as a precaution, the Falali Mother has chosen to go into hiding.
I bowed my head. The man had no shame.
You see what is happening, don’t you? The Empire seeks to subvert our freedom. They plan to destroy the new world we are building together, and they want to punish us for our defiance.
We cannot let this happen. He dropped a fist into his palm.
We must resist with all of our might. That is why I’ve install-ed a missile-defense system. When the new contingent arrives, we will blast their ship out of the sky and joyously watch its fiery remains fall into the sea.
But spies are another matter. They cannot be defeat-ed through force. They hide among us, posing as friends and family. They pretend to be our brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, wives, husbands, and lovers. But they are not true Maritinians.
They are parasites. They latch onto our skin like lampreys and suck our blood. They are leeches who hide in the crevices, and they must be eradicate-ed.
That is why I’ve order-ed the creation of a new branch of government, the People’s Protection Force. Tomorrow, we begin the process of appointing officers in every city and every village. We seek all able-bodied patriots who want to help their world stay free. And for all other lovers of liberty, I beseech you to report any and all suspicious activities.
The screens blinked out. I looked left and right at the people on the neighboring rooftops. I could see them talking, but I couldn’t make out the words. I looked at Sali but couldn’t see her eyes.
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