Last of Her Name

by Jessica Khoury

  While he pours the wine, I look down at the Triangulum pieces, thinking of the millions of Prisms in use across the Belt. If this is true, then the Leonovs had power beyond anything I’ve imagined. They controlled every aspect of the Jewels.

  Zhar thought the Prismata was the superweapon—but it’s been me all along.

  But with the Leonovs’ power came their curse. I think of Dr. Luka, peering into my eyes. What is your demon? I press my fingers to my temples, my skin clammy.

  “I don’t understand,” I say. “If they had so much influence over Prism energy, how did you even have a hope of revolting against them?”

  He nods, picking up a second glass to pour into. “We built ships that ran purely on solar power. They were slow and mostly useless—but they were beyond the Leonovs’ control. We used ancient gunpowder weapons; we didn’t rely on a single piece of Prism tech. And we knew we only had one shot at it, because the element of surprise was our only advantage. We couldn’t have sustained a full-scale war against their superior weapons and ships, so we had to take the Autumn Palace in the course of an hour, or all hope would be lost. But we did it.”

  With a sigh, he replaces the bottle of wine. “Humanity was never meant to be ruled by gods, and that is what the Leonovs had made of themselves. Pyotr would do anything to keep the code from falling into enemy hands, and so he killed himself and his family, and the poison he used corrupted their DNA. They even flooded the ventilation system with a toxic agent that scoured any traces of their DNA from the palace. The Firebird had slipped from our grasp, and with it, our last chance at true freedom.” He smiles. “Until, of course, we realized Anya Leonova still lived.”

  “You think I can control Prismic energy?” I shake my head. “I swear, I’ve never felt anything close to what you’re describing.”

  He returns to the sofa, carrying the two glasses of wine. “I believe Pyotr deactivated the code before he had you smuggled away. The Firebird is dormant inside you, waiting to be awoken. All we have to do is figure out how to turn it on.”

  “And then you can wipe out your enemies, just like the Leonovs did. You’ll be no different than they were. You’re worse.”

  His eyes settle on me, and something slinks across them—something dark, something dangerous. Almost as if there are another pair of eyes hidden inside his, and now they’ve awoken and fixed on me. I freeze under them, swallowing my voice. He craves to be the hero, Zhar had said. Calling him a villain is like digging a knife under his armor, I realize, probing the sensitive skin underneath.

  “I have no such ambition,” he says quietly. “I seek to protect humanity, and if that requires sacrifice, then so be it.”

  He hands me a glass, and I take it automatically, still tasting the metallic fear those hidden eyes inflicted.

  Then I taste the wine, and choke.

  I’d recognize my father’s vintage anywhere. The liquid in the glass tastes like Amethyne, like violet sunlight and dark soil and the warm wood of the slinke trees.

  It tastes like home.

  I look up at Volkov, hatred pulsing through me.

  “It truly is an excellent wine,” he says, studying his own glass. “A pity this was the last bottle.”

  My hand shakes as I set the glass down.

  “Now,” he says, “I’ll have you shown to your room. You will be treated with utmost respect during your time with us, Anya, rest assured. Despite everything behind us, I hope you will come to see me as a friend.”

  I stare at him, wondering if he actually believes his own lies.

  The door opens and a girl walks in, coming to attention before Volkov. “Sir?”

  “Ah, Anya. Meet your new bodyguard.”

  I stare in shock.

  The girl is dressed in vityaze red, but instead of armor, she wears a caped gown that splits at either hip, over tight leggings. Her black hair is gathered into many small braids that are twisted into a bun atop her head. But most arresting is her face—a face I’ve seen before, on seven other girls and one boy. All with the same full lips, dark eyes, and high cheekbones.

  “Natalya Ayedi,” I breathe, before I can stop myself. It’s not a question, because there isn’t a doubt in my mind that this girl is Riyan’s long-lost sister. She was here, all along, just like he’d feared—a prisoner of the Committee. Now I know how they broke through the Diamin Wall. “What are you doing here?”

  But her eyes don’t even flicker. It’s as if she didn’t hear me.

  Volkov smiles, giving me a surprised look. “Don’t tell me you know each other?”

  “I … I know her family. What’s wrong with her?”

  Natalya is staring straight ahead, her eyes empty, her expression bland. Only when Volkov speaks does she blink, her chin turning slightly as if she is awaiting orders.

  “Natalya feels fine,” Volkov says. “Don’t you, my dear?”

  She nods once, robotically.

  “Natalya is the jewel of my military,” he tells me. “I assure you, you will find no better protection in the galaxy.”

  “I don’t want her as my bodyguard!” I protest. “She should be sent back to her family! I—I want that to be one of my conditions!”

  “Very well,” Volkov says. “Natalya, do you wish to return to your family?”

  She tilts her head, her eyes meeting his and narrowing with confusion. “Family?”

  The direktor shrugs, giving me a helpless look. But there’s a glint in his eye—he knows he’s mocking me, mocking us.

  Then it hits me.

  Natalya is brainjacked.

  I heard of it from Pol. The Committee uses chips to override a person’s brain, reducing them to automatons who respond only to certain individuals. The technology is supposed to be illegal, and the Committee has always denied their use of it. But I’m staring at the proof, and she’s staring right back.

  Riyan had feared they were experimenting on his sister, stealing her genetic code.

  The truth is so much worse.

  Speechless with horror, I draw back, but Volkov catches my wrist. Our gazes lock over the Triangulum board, the game long abandoned.

  “Understand this, Anya Leonova: I will find a way to awaken the Firebird. Whatever it takes.”

  When he pulls back, he leaves a single game piece lying on my palm—an alexandrite empress, her hollow eyes staring beneath a scarlet crown.

  Alexandrine shimmers like a drop of blood against the cosmos. As we approach, I begin to make out the coastlines and continents, emerald green set in scarlet seas. The chemical that makes Alexandrine’s water look like blood is harmless, but I still find it hard to swallow.

  I’ve been given free roam of the astronika, and I stand in the bridge to get the best view of the planet. The heart of the galaxy, Alexandrine is massive, the largest of the Jewel planets. Not only is it the capital of the Belt, it’s also the center of technology, trade, and learning. As the saying goes back home, if you’re going to be somebody, Alexandrine is where you start.

  It was here the Leonovs rose from obscure scientists to powerful rulers. It was from here that, nearly eight hundred years ago, their first Prism-powered ships blasted off in search of the scattered tribes of humanity.

  Natalya stands below, staring with that unnervingly hollow look of hers. When I’ve tried to talk to her, in the rare moments we find ourselves alone together, she doesn’t speak. She seems robotic, like a ship running on auto—all minimum function and no personality. I can’t see her without feeling a wrench of horror. What would Riyan think, to know the truth about his sister? Will he ever get the chance to hear it? By now, he’ll be trapped in the Rumihan sand mines, sentenced by his own father to a fate almost as cruel as his sister’s. And I’m powerless to help either of them.

  “The palace is night-side currently,” says Volkov. “We’re an hour away.”

  I hadn’t heard him approach, and I tense automatically. For the past weeks of travel, he has paid close attention to me. He gave me a tour of the ast
ronika, showing off its glamorous cabins, its theater, pools, gymnasiums. The only place I could escape him was in my luxurious stateroom, or in the geeball court, where I’d float in zero gravity and kick the ball with all my strength, trying to release tension. I’d only finally emerge when I was dripping with sweat and my muscles ached. But even then, Natalya was there, watching with her hollow eyes.

  For the past two weeks, I’ve realized the prudence of playing along, pretending to be swayed by Volkov’s gestures. When he offers me a drink, I take it and say thanks. When he invites me to the theater to watch a movie, I go and I compliment him on his choice. When he suggests a game of Triangulum, I play and struggle to keep up. He wins every time.

  Whatever I have to do to keep Clio safe, I will do it.

  And I’m almost there. After nearly three months of endless running and bouncing from one system to the next, I’m so close to Clio I can almost feel her presence, like she’s standing just around the corner.

  We skim along the curvature of Alexandrine’s atmo, through a nearspace cluttered with ships and stations. The planet’s population has overspilled its boundaries, and these suburbs sprawl all the way to Alexandrine’s white moon. Clusters of stations link together, creating zero-gravity versions of neighborhood blocks, microworlds caught in an orbital dance. Their lights flash as we drift past, neon exclamations advertising ship dealers, casinos, shopping malls, spas. The busyness of Alexandrine’s orbit is dizzying; there are probably ten times as many people up here than there are on the whole of Amethyne. I watch it all slip by with a feeling of disconnection; I am a fish in a bowl, unable to touch the world just outside my glass walls.

  A path is cleared for us. Lighter ships scurry away, tiny orbital transports that buzz about the astronika’s exterior like flies around a mantibu. Several security escort ships flit ahead, bullying aside any vessels slow to make way.

  Finally, a golden moon appears around the brow of the planet. Only it’s not a moon, I realize, but the Autumn Palace. At this distance, with Alexandrine curving between us still, the hive of buildings looks like a solid object. The nearer we get, the more they separate, and twenty minutes out, the place looks like a molecule hovering in the air. The Rezidencia is unmistakable, a rotating white orb at the center of the compound, larger than all the other buildings. The shield rings spin around them all like a gyroscope, generating an impenetrable, unseen wall. Though it isn’t totally impregnable, I remember. Sixteen years ago, Volkov got through with his rebels, in their solar-powered attack ships.

  It all feels familiar after my explorations of Zhar’s holomap. I recognize each building and its function—trade, travel, tech, military. Lots of military. After the chaos and noise of the orbital suburbs, the palace is stunningly pristine, all its buildings uniformly white. Narrow tubes connect the buildings, incorporating them all into an elegant frame.

  I remember as a kid, I was once given a school assignment to re-create the palace by connecting foam blocks with narrow sticks. Clio helped me label each building. It took days to complete, and I remember my mother bursting into tears when I unveiled it. I thought she was crying because I’d mixed up some of the labels and ruined it.

  Now I think it might have been for a different reason.

  Did my parents live here once? I try to imagine my easygoing dad and my quiet mother in this bustling, floating metropolis. They’d seem as at home here as a mantibu on Sapphine, but maybe I don’t know them as well as I thought I did.

  The idea leaves me hollow.

  Once we’re in the palace, everything will change. Volkov expects me to give him the Firebird, but I have no idea how to do that. He hasn’t brought it up since our first conversation, and I haven’t dared bring his attention back to it. I know he must think of it every time he looks at me, but whatever his plans are for extracting it from my DNA, he hasn’t said what they are.

  I watch closely as the astronika approaches the palace shield. The space around us flickers blue and parts, just like the vineyard security fence back home, though no doubt a thousand times stronger.

  I twist my multicuff, my stomach filling with nervous flutters.

  The shield reseals behind us, and we glide through the compound, navigating the framework with gentle nudges from the thrusters.

  A memory drifts back to me—a conversation with Pol after we’d finished a history lesson. Instead of sending us to the local school in town, our parents had enrolled us in the same cyberschool. When our courses synced up, we liked to do them together, usually sprawled in the shade of the vineyard with our tabletkas hovering over us. Clio would braid my hair while we studied, weaving in leaves from the grapevines, and Pol would quiz us on the lesson.

  “Isn’t a floating city a dumb idea?” I’d wondered after one of our civics lectures.

  “Weren’t you listening at all?” Pol explained that the Autumn Palace had originally been the lab where the Leonovs conducted their work, back when they were scientists. The zero gravity of space was the optimum environment for their experiments. After they discovered the Prisms, their orbital station became the center of their growing empire. Scientists turned conquerors.

  Only now I know that their research into the Prisms went much further than anyone realized, that they could somehow control the crystals’ energy and wield it against their enemies. How twistedly brilliant they were, to seed Prisms all over the galaxy. Making their subjects dependent on the very thing the Leonovs could use to destroy them.

  The astronika makes a hard dock in the palace hangar. I’m escorted out of the ship by a cloud of vityazes, Volkov walking beside me. The hangar is massive, and there are four more astronikas docked there, each as shining and vast as the first.

  A white, egg-shaped lift waits to whisk us through the palace’s tube system and to the Rezidencia at its heart. I sit between Natalya and Volkov, my hands between my knees, heart hammering. The lift and the tube are mostly made of diamantglass, so it feels like we’re soaring through open air. Looking out, I watch the palace’s buildings flick past, and beyond them, the transparent veil of the perimeter shield shimmers like an oil stain.

  The pod slows to a stop in the center of a wide circular chamber inside the Rezidencia, where glass walls look out to the rest of the floating palace. I recognize the room from the holomap. Voices echo off the walls; even whispers are amplified in the wide space.

  “Princess Anya,” Volkov says as he helps me out of the pod. “Welcome home.”

  I suppress a shudder. This place feels nothing like home.

  Red-clad vityazes await us in orderly rows, snapping to attention as Volkov strides past. I bob in his wake, noting the differences between the Rezidencia of now and of before. In the holomap, these walls were decorated with imperial banners, but now only Unionist rings are there.

  The direktor is dressed up today, suited in a floor-length red coat with white trim. I match him, but not by choice. When I opened my wardrobe this morning, all the clothing had been removed. Only this remained—a white gown with red trim, cut in a vaguely military style, with the embroidered front mimicking the pattern of the vityaze’s armor. I can read the not so subtle message in the dress’s colors: Unionist red paired with Loyalist white. I’m meant to show unity between the two factions, whether I want to or not.

  I feel numb as I follow him out of the hangar, Natalya a few steps behind. I glance back at her, still searching for some sign of the real Natalya. There must be some way to override the brain jack, or to get her to wake up from her fugue. Stars, if I could get her out of here, if I could somehow return her to Riyan, that would be worth every bit of my surrender. Maybe I can convince Volkov to let her leave with Clio. I could tell him I’ll refuse to cooperate unless he does.

  But my hopes are faint. I know how fully I am in his control now, reduced to a piece on his game board.

  Another smooth glass lift takes us through floor after floor of the Rezidencia. I press my hands to the walls and watch the levels as they flick past,
losing count as the lift gains speed. Blue lights race across my skin, then slow as the lift comes to a silent stop.

  We’re at the heart of the Rezidencia. Because of the structure’s spherical shape, it’s the largest floor, nearly a mile wide. And its center, just like in the holomap, is a conservatory.

  We step out into a misty, humid room. Simulated sunlight filters through leaves of every shape and color. Plants cluster around the lift tube, so that it’s almost hidden. The door seals behind Natalya, and Volkov gives me a little smile.

  “Your father and I used to hide in here and pretend we were Motherworld adventurers, exploring the ancient jungles.”

  He leads me down a plant-lined path. The floor is made of synthetic pebbles that crunch underfoot. When I pass the plants, holos pop up telling me their genus and species and planet of origin. There are palms from Rubyat nestled against algae ferns from Emerault. Ponds display kelp from Sapphine, with little red fish darting through their depths.

  I slow to a halt when the path splits into a circle around a small tree. My throat tightens as I reach out to run my fingers through the smooth slinke leaves dripping from the branches. A holo label pops up, offering to tell me more about this “unusual specimen native to the fringe planet of Amethyne.”

  A thousand memories stir in those swaying leaves. They flutter and hide in the slinke’s depths like shy fireflies. Memories of Clio, of Pol, my parents. My home.

  “Princess …” Volkov has noticed I stopped, and now returns for me. “You will have plenty of time to explore the gardens. Come along now.”

  Sighing, I withdraw my hand. The leaves fall still, but the memories don’t.

  We board yet another transport pod, and this one carries us to the square building on the edge of the palace, where the Committee’s political prisoners are housed. Volkov assures me that all the Loyalists arrested in Afka are inside.