After the Crown

by K. B. Wagers

  The emotions still swirling through me demanded some kind of recognition, but I couldn’t find the words for it. I couldn’t find the words to express just how much it meant that Emmory had put his trust in me but everyone else seemed to think I was being reckless.

  Zin opened his mouth to say something, but all that came out was a breath of air. His shoulders dropped fractionally and he nodded. “Uie Maa. You’re right. I’m sorry. I am—we are all worried about you.” His anger had dissolved and the concern in his voice settled into the cracks in my defenses, freezing and breaking them apart.

  Cas looked wounded. “Majesty, I—”

  “Don’t.” I pushed by Zin, grabbed my pack and started forward, then stopped abruptly and sighed. “I’m sorry, too.” I was glad that the only other witnesses to this were the few Harveys poking their heads out of the trees.

  “For what?”

  “This.” I waved a hand upward at the rocks. “I swear I wasn’t trying to get myself killed. I just—it was easier for me to go first. I wasn’t thinking. I’m back in a place I feel comfortable. I’m sorry to make things more difficult for you. I really don’t mean to do it.”

  Zin looked ashamed; Cas shifted uncomfortably. Dailun watched us with an almost refreshing lack of concern for the drama playing out in front of him.

  “Majesty.” Cas went down on a knee and Zin followed him. “You are the shining stars in the blackness of space. The hope of the lost and forsaken. The spark that must not be extinguished. We are ever loyal to you.”

  I shared a resigned look with Dailun; the young pilot raised an eyebrow at me but he didn’t say a word. I dropped my pack and pulled my BodyGuards into a hug, pressing my cheek first to Zin’s and then to Cas’s. “You are all the family I have left; I swear to you I will never thoughtlessly throw that away.”

  Their arms tightened around me and we sat that way for a few seconds before Dailun cleared his throat.

  “Sister, we really should get moving.”

  I released my BodyGuards and wiped the tears from my face with the heels of my hands. “Are we good?” I asked, getting to my feet.

  “Yes, ma’am,” they both replied.

  I picked up my pack and headed up the damp creek bed that would take us to the main canyon.

  Dark shadows were crawling down the walls by the time we reached the mouth of the main canyon. The light retreated, leaving the damp walls an ominous shade of blood-red.

  The roar of the river was so loud I could scarcely hear my own heartbeat, let alone Cas’s shouted question.

  Holding up a hand, I mouthed, One minute, then considered my options as I studied the reddish water rushing by less than five meters below us.

  Our timing couldn’t have been worse. It was the tail end of the rainy season and the Guizhou was still swollen, which meant the easier path to the cavern was underwater and would stay that way for at least another week.

  We didn’t have a week to waste.

  I muttered a curse, looked over at Cas, and jerked my head back the way we’d come. He followed without question, mostly because asking me anything would have been a waste of time.

  We cleared the bend and the noise level dropped, blocked out by the jutting rock and screen of trees clustered in the mouth of the side canyon.

  “The lower path is blocked. I was afraid it might be, because of the rains, but I was hoping we’d get lucky and the river would still be low.” I shoved my hand into my hair, wincing at the reminder of my injured finger. I leaned over and stuck my hand under a trickle of clear water. The blood stained the water, and I bit down on the inside of my cheek trying to keep the tears at bay.

  “Take a seat,” Zin said, slipping out of his pack. “I’ve got a medical kit.”

  I took off my own bag and dropped down onto it. “There’s another route to the cavern, but it’s dangerous enough in the daylight.”

  “So we’ll camp here tonight,” Cas said.

  Zin crouched beside me, taking my hand and spraying the wound down with a disinfectant that stung enough to have me swearing.

  “Bugger me, that hurts.”

  He just grinned at me and wrapped a seal-patch over my finger. “That will keep the dirt out. The nail will grow back.”

  “Yes, we’ll camp here tonight. It’s safer and there’s no point in rushing. The other route will be slick from the rains and will take us the better part of the day to walk.”

  Zin finished with my hand and returned to his pack to pull out the tent. “You’re sure the cavern isn’t underwater?”

  “The computer is still active, which is a good sign. There’s always a chance that something has broken through in the last two years and flooded the chamber, but the entrance will be above water.”

  “Dailun, help me get some food put together,” Cas said.

  I tugged a collapsible lamp from my pack, shaking it out and tapping it twice until the glow spread out in a circle around us, chasing back the darkness.

  We finished setting up camp and ate a tasteless meal. I realized my stomach didn’t care about my tongue’s input and wolfed the food down. Afterward, I rolled myself up in the thermal blanket and, pillowing my head on my pack, fell asleep almost instantly.

  I woke out of the dream in a haze of confusion and lay there for a minute staring into the blackness before I figured out where I was.

  Before everything came crashing down on me.

  “Majesty?”

  “I’m all right,” I managed to whisper. “Just a dream.” I struggled free of my blanket, putting a hand on Zin’s shoulder before he could rise. “I’m fine. I need to pee and you’re so not coming outside with me for that.”

  “Majesty.”

  I started to protest, then sighed as the whole argument we’d just had replayed in my brain. “Fires of Naraka. Fine, come on.”

  I thought I heard a rumbling chuckle as I stepped over him and out into the night.

  It was cool, but easier to see outside the tent. The first of Guizhou’s moons was high in the sky and I could see the edge of the second coming up over the rim of the canyon wall. The ghostly outline of Bai Gu—the massive gas giant neighbor—glowed against the dark sky.

  I’d thought that sleep would have come hard, but the combination of the climb and the breakneck pace of the last few days had left me unconscious for close to six hours. I found an alcove and Zin thoughtfully stayed closer to the tent with his back turned until I finished.

  Tucking my hands up into my sleeves, I wrapped my arms around my waist and picked my way back out to the main canyon through a combination of moonlight and memory. I sank down onto a rock near the edge and watched the faintly glowing water of the Guizhou tumble and swirl below. Zin sat next to me.

  “Where’s the light coming from?” he asked.

  “There is a plant that grows near the river’s edge. It soaks up sunlight during the day like a solar panel and then emits that pale blue light at night,” I said. “When the rains come the fragile leaves are ripped free and sent spinning at the mercy of the water.”

  I snorted with suppressed laughter as the memory of a conversation drifted through my head. “Portis said something similar to me once. He’d said we were all just leaves in a river. Fighting the current wasn’t just useless, it was impossible.”

  “That sounds like him.”

  “He was such a fanciful idiot.” I let the tears fall. Zin wrapped an arm around my shoulders and I turned into his embrace. The sob startled me. It was drowned out by the rushing water, but I knew Zin could feel it jolt through my body and his arm tightened.

  The dream that had woken me came back in a rush. The last trip out here with Portis had been routine. We’d left the crew in port and taken a shuttle out to the drop-off point. It had been the dry season, so the hike to the cavern was relatively easy.

  We’d taken our time. It was a relief to be on land after more than eight months in space with little more than quick dock stops to relieve the boredom.

  “
I love you.”

  I laughed and untangled myself from Portis, stretching with a sigh. “I noticed.” The sun was warm on my bare skin.

  He pushed himself up onto an elbow and slid his hands into my hair. “I’m serious, baby.”

  Frowning, I looked up into his green eyes. Worry lurked in their depths, partially hidden by a tenderness Portis only ever showed to me. “Is everything all right?”

  “I just don’t ever want you to doubt this. Doubt us. No matter what happens, promise me that, okay? Promise me you’ll remember that I love you.”

  “You’re making me nervous.” I shifted, but Portis pinned me to the ground.

  “Please, Cressen.”

  “Okay.” I grabbed him by the head and pulled him down for a kiss. “There, I promise,” I murmured against his mouth. “Happy?”

  He sank down onto me, feathering kisses across my cheek and down into the curve of my neck. “Nothing could make me happier.”

  Soul-crushing sadness collapsed down on me. There hadn’t been time to think. Hadn’t been any time to really let the reality settle into my brain. Portis was gone.

  “Oh, Shiva. Forgive me.” I wasn’t sure who I was asking for forgiveness from—the gods or Portis. We sat there in the moonlight, tears spilling down my cheeks as I tried to come to grips with the gaping hole in my heart.

  “There’s nothing to forgive, Hail,” Zin said, his voice cutting through the roar of the water. “Take a moment to grieve him. We’re not going anywhere.”

  “I can’t. I’m afraid I’ll fall apart.” Whatever I’d lost, I had an empire to think about, and falling apart from grief would have to wait. There wasn’t time to grieve. Maybe there wouldn’t be. Maybe I’d end up dead before this was all over and—

  I didn’t want to think about it. I didn’t want to delve too deeply into the maybes and the possibility that this would end anywhere but with justice.

  “I know how you feel.” Pained humor rumbled in my ear. “But you gave me time when we didn’t have any. Right now we have all the time in the world.”

  “I wish he were here,” I whispered up at the stars. “Can you imagine the trouble we’d all get into?” I wiped the tears from my face with the heel of my hand and blew out a breath, finally feeling like I was ready to face whatever the universe wanted to throw at me since I woke on the floor of Sophie’s cargo bay.

  “It’s terrifying to think of, Majesty.” Zin helped me to my feet and we navigated back to the tent. Cas and Dailun pretended to be asleep as Zin and I settled back into our blankets.

  “There’s no point in trying to get an early start,” I said, ignoring their ruse. “We’ll want the sun up to dry some of the water off the path we have to take.”

  “Get some more sleep then, Majesty,” Cas said. “There’s no telling when we’ll have another chance like this.”

  He was right. I reached out, curling my fingers around Zin’s as I closed my eyes against the dark and let sleep drag me back down into the abyss.

  25

  I was alone in the tent the next time I woke. Daylight filtered through the fabric and I sat up, stretching my arms out in front of me with a yawn. I felt better, far better than I had in weeks.

  Dragging my thermal blanket outside with me, I shook it out and then folded it neatly so I could stuff it back in my pack.

  “Good morning.” The greeting I called to Zin when he came into view died in my throat. “What?”

  “Majesty.” There was fury in his eyes and grief rolling off him in waves so strong I felt my own knees give a little.

  “What is it?”

  “Emmory just messaged me. Phanin has executed the matriarchs in his custody.”

  It was like a punch to the stomach. One hand flew to my mouth while I fumbled for purchase with the other on the nearby wall of the canyon. “Mother Destroyer. Their daughters?”

  Zin shook his head. “Not yet.”

  “Do you have names?”

  “Zellin, Acharya, Waybly, Surakesh, Naidu, and Maxwell.”

  My aunt, Leena’s mother, Matriarch Maxwell. Oh, Shiva. I’d spent my childhood around those women. In some ways they were as much mothers to me as my own had been, and since my return I’d forged a new relationship with most of them.

  “What about Leena? Taran?”

  “No mention of them, Majesty. Let’s hope they’re safe.”

  “Zaran? The Matriarchs Hassan and Prajapati?”

  “No word on them either, Majesty. Or if Clara Desai was among those killed, though I expect if she had been it would be in the news.”

  My anger rose up, burning the grief like a flash fire, and the next words out of my mouth were jagged-edged and sharp as broken glass. “Get packed up, we need to get moving. I’m not letting those monsters sit on my throne for one second longer than I must.”

  “Yes, Majesty.”

  We broke down the camp in silence, shouldered our packs, and headed toward the main canyon.

  The trek was easier than I’d expected. My anger gave me a laserlike focus and I didn’t slip once as we picked our way down the treacherous rocks to another side canyon closer to the raging river.

  I slowed my pace, smiling in relief at the sight of the rock wall, streaked red by the setting sun, and reached out to the computer with my smati.

  “You can drop the camouflage, computer.”

  “Holy—” Cas sucked in a surprised breath as the rock face before us wavered and vanished, revealing a pair of wide steel doors that stretched all the way up to the rim of the canyon. “You did not build this.”

  “Nope,” I replied, starting forward again with a grin. “I won it.”

  “Excuse me?” Zin jerked around to stare at me. “How?”

  “It’s a very long story.” I waved a hand in his direction and then slapped my palm down on the reader set just to the right of the door.

  “Welcome, Captain,” the computer said, and a side door popped open in the rock to my right. It hadn’t questioned my BodyGuards’ presence at all, which was interesting.

  Lights flipped on as we passed through the door into the cavern. The air was musty and a little damp, but a quick scan of things told me all was intact and dry as it could be. I raised my hands and spun in a little circle, facing the three men with a smile. “Welcome to my hideout.”

  My words echoed back to me, bouncing off the cavernous walls. I thought I saw a flicker of amusement fly across Zin’s face, but he remained silent.

  “Weaponry is over there. There’s some on the ship but we might as well load what we can.”

  “Majesty,” Cas replied with a quick nod and tapped Dailun on the shoulder. The young pilot dragged his eyes away from the ship and followed him.

  I crooked a finger at Zin and headed for a room on the other side of the cavern. In reality it was nothing more than three walls of transparent aluminum set around a hollowed-out space in the cavern wall. Portis had built it when I couldn’t set foot in the old, windowless room where the computer and other equipment had been kept. The walls had been too close, too solid, and triggered my claustrophobia so badly the first time I’d entered that the panic had stayed with me for the rest of the day.

  I pressed a hand to the panel by the door, and it opened with a quiet snick, sliding aside. The air in here wasn’t damp, it was dry and sterile-smelling. The rock wall and ceiling had been coated with the same transparent aluminum as the walls, creating a hermetically sealed environment that kept the hardware from dying on us.

  The table in the center of the room lit up as the computer came all the way to life. I swiped my hand over it, glancing at the messages that had accumulated in my absence.

  Most of them were job offers, and I caught myself reaching out to tap on one when Zin cleared his throat.

  I glanced over my shoulder with a sheepish laugh. “Old habits die hard.”

  “Where did you get all this?”

  “Here and there. The ship came with the hideout. I won them from a Xim-born cardplay
er whose three-hand poker face wasn’t nearly as good as he’d thought.” I laughed. “I had a shit hand, too. He was an idiot.

  “Portis and I took the little Saxon-made Cuttlefish out for a spin and a complete overhaul not eight standard months before all hell broke loose. Now I know why.”

  “What was the poker player’s name?” Zin asked.

  “Tob, maybe, or Bob. I don’t remember, honestly.” I raised an eyebrow at his frown. “Why do you ask?”

  “We’d just like to know. He’s a potential nuisance at the least, an enemy at the worst.”

  I stopped and grinned at him. “Are you keeping a list?” My grin faded when he didn’t smile in return. “Auho! Seriously?”

  “It’s our job, Majesty.”

  “Bet you five credits that weasel is dead in a ditch somewhere, but his name’s in the ship’s official files as the former owner if you really need it.”

  A quiet chime dragged my attention back to the screen. Dropping my hand down on the screen froze the messages scrolling across, and I locked eyes on the notification bar at the top.

  A new message, coded urgent, had just appeared.

  “Are you kidding me?” I hesitated before tapping the message from Bakara Rai. There was a single line of text:

  I HAVE A PRESENT FOR YOU, YOUR MAJESTY.

  “Majesty, who is that?”

  “I—” The ping of an incoming message from Hao cut me off.

  “Little sister, trouble is coming. Saxon ships are requesting permission to land in port.”

  “Bugger me. We’ve got company.” I was moving even before Hao finished talking. Swiping a hand over the screen of the table, I set the computer to download all my messages into my smati and shuddered a little when it complied. “Zin, we’ve got to move.”

  “Emmory just told me.”

  “Hao,” I said out loud so I wouldn’t have to repeat myself. “We’ve got a change of plans. We’re not going back to Shanghai. Get out of there and head for Santa Pirata, we’ll meet you there.”

  “Sha zhu, that is unwise.”