Beyond the Red

by Ava Jae

“Kora,” Eros whispers in my ear. “We have to go. You can’t be here.”

  “Wait,” I say, but I can’t see Serek anymore through the wall of black-clad bodies. Neja has slipped into the circle and my guards are pulling me away and Eros keeps saying he’ll be all right, we have to go, you’re not safe and I’m not safe but I don’t care.

  Hands grab my arms and pull me out of the room. I’m too numb to struggle.

  My cheeks are hot with streaks of tears and I’m in my room hugging Iro and I don’t know how I got here or how long I’ve been sitting on my bed or when I took off my shoes or if I’ve been crying all this time.

  Eros is watching me from across the way. My guards are nowhere in sight—probably standing in the hall.

  “I don’t understand what happened,” I whisper.

  “I’m not sure, either,” he says. “He was dancing with an ambassador and he collapsed.”

  “He was fine,” I hear myself say. “He was fine before. I was just with him …”

  Eros takes my hands. I’m not sure when he got so close to me. He’s not allowed to be this close to me, not here where anyone could enter at a moment’s notice.

  I’m not sure I care.

  His hands are courser than Serek’s, but equally strong as he kneels in front of me and rubs his thumbs over the back of my hand, sending sparks of heat skittering over my skin. “He’s being well taken care of. Neja saved my life. She’ll help Serek, too.”

  I nod repeatedly. Although I stare at Eros, I focus on nothing.

  Kala, if he doesn’t recover … nausea surges through me and I press my hand over my lips. I can’t think that way. Eros is right—Neja is extraordinarily skilled. She’ll help him. He’ll be fine.

  Please be fine.

  How could this be happening again? Have I displeased Kala so much that He would allow not one, not two, but three of my lifecycle celebrations to be ruined with some sort of tragedy? My coronation and Midos a cycle later were awful enough, but now this?

  Please please please be fine.

  Eros leans toward me and looks deeply into my gaze. He passes me a washcloth and offers me a small smile. I crumple the cloth in my hand, and stare at the cloudy gray filtering of his eyes. I hadn’t noticed it before, but now that his hair has grown back, Eros has very long dark eyelashes.

  “Kora,” he says. “I’m going to let go now. You should wash up and prepare to see visitors. You’ll probably be getting updates on Serek’s condition very soon.”

  I nod and his hands slide out of mine. I move numbly to the bathroom and splash cold water on my face, blinking until my reflection comes into focus. I submerge my face until my eyes stop stinging, rub the makeup off my eyelashes and eyelids, and clean the dark streaks off my cheeks. I try to wash the stain off my lips, but it sticks stubbornly to my skin. It’ll fade in the night. When I emerge from the bathroom, I am still alone, and Eros is standing beside the door. I glance at him, but he shakes his head. No word yet.

  I sit on my bed and twist my fingers in the fabric of my dress. “What if it was meant for me?” I whisper.

  “I was thinking the same,” Eros says, “but we still don’t know this is an attack.”

  I shake my head and squeeze the fabric into my hand. “It has to be. Serek wasn’t ill.”

  “I know, but—”

  “Eros, please. We both know this was an attack.” I pull my shoulders back. “And I will see to it that whoever is behind it is punished severely.”

  We wait in near-silence for several segments. Anja is conspicuously absent, but I don’t summon her—I wouldn’t want her here, anyway. Eros stands in place beside the door, but I pace incessantly across the room, to my window, to the glass doors leading to the garden, to the bathroom, onto my bed, back over the carpet. My pacing makes Iro anxious, and he moves back and forth across the room with me. I drum my fingers and try to read, but I can’t focus on the words. I can’t focus on anything but memories of Serek’s convulsing body on the stone floor.

  Kala, I hope he’s okay.

  My stomach turns endlessly and tides of heat, then cold, overwhelm me as I imagine the worst—Serek’s dead, or comatose, or in severe, permanent pain, or something equally awful. My fingers shake and I grip the windowsill. I close my eyes and force myself to breathe. One lungful of air after another.

  “Would you like some water?” Eros asks, and I shake my head and spin around.

  He’s standing right in front of me, and he places his hands on my shoulders. Even though I want more than anything to collapse in his arms, I almost tell him to step away—it won’t be long before someone comes with news of Serek’s condition. But there’s a softness in his eyes, a deep-set worry trapping the words in my throat, and I can’t bring myself to speak them.

  “It’s going to be okay,” he says. “Everything will be fine. I promise.”

  I know I shouldn’t—it’s dangerous and I need to get away from him before someone sees—but I melt. He pulls me into his arms and caresses my hair and says everything I need to hear. We sit on the edge of my bed and he watches me and there’s a strength there, in his face, in the intensity of his gaze that I need.

  But the comfort isn’t just in his eyes, it’s in his body against mine. It’s in the way his muscular form holds mine upright, the way his strong arms hold me together and his breath blows smooth and slow onto my hair. It’s the spicy scent of his skin, the rumble of his voice, the way my head fits perfectly in the space beneath his chin.

  This feels right, somehow. This feels perfect. This feels like we were molded together and separated for so long, until now. This embrace, this beating of his heart against my ear and rhythmic inhale-exhale of his chest, this is everything I could want wrapped up in a single moment, were it not for the undertone of waiting for bad news.

  But if this is perfect, then there must be something wrong with me, because there’s nothing perfect about an Eljan queen getting close to her half-blood servant.

  I close my eyes and push away the thought. I don’t want or need to think of politics right now. This night has been terrible enough without my ruining a much-needed moment of peace.

  “Thank you,” I whisper.

  “Sure,” he says. Then, after a pause, he touches the wrap on my disfigured arm and a chill washes over me, turning my muscles to stone. “Why do you keep your arm covered all the time?”

  No one has ever asked me that before, but it’s because most everyone knows. It’s hard to forget a coronation that ends in a ball of raging fire. I shudder and pull my arm across my chest and stare out the window. “I mentioned to you the assassination attempt at my coronation that killed hundreds of people.”

  He hesitates, then nods.

  I bite my lip. “Well, I didn’t escape unscathed.”

  He frowns and opens his mouth—just as the doors slam open. We leap away from each other and I gasp as guards flood my room—both black and gold guards of the Sirae palace and the red and white-clad guards sworn to protect me. I step toward them and open my mouth—they can’t just barge in here—but then Dima and Jarek step into the room and I clamp down on my irritation.

  “Thank you for knocking,” I say. “How is Serek? Is he hurt?” Stupid question. There must have been some repercussions to whatever happened to him. At the very least a bump to the back of the head when he fell.

  I can only hope that’s the extent of the damage.

  “He will live.” Dima crosses his arms over his chest. “Neja was able to detoxify his system before any permanent damage set in.”

  His words are a cool blanket soothing my stomach. I sigh and sit on the edge of my bed feeling as though I’ve run for sets without rest. “Thank Kala,” I whisper, and someone steps next to me. I glance up at Eros, who stands beside me, his hands stiffly at his side. Something’s wrong.

  I look at Dima, Jarek, and the guards, and ice drips down my back. They watch my every move, and there’s something strange about the way Serek’s guards are eyeing me, at the
malice hardening their gazes and the stiffness of their posture.

  Dima and Jarek do not move or speak. They are waiting on me, it seems.

  I stand. “Do we know what happened? Was he attacked?”

  “Sha,” Jarek says. “He was poisoned.”

  Heat chases the chill from my limbs, replacing the fatigue with a fire that curls my fingers into fists. “Poison,” I repeat, and my voice doesn’t sound like my own. It’s a cold, hard thing I barely recognize.

  “Administered orally,” Dima says. “Moments before he fell.”

  The fire lessens. At the ball, he was dancing with me moments before he fell, and as far as I could tell, he hadn’t eaten or had anything to drink just before taking my hand. “I don’t understand. Did he eat before the celebration?”

  “Neja doesn’t believe it originated from food.” My brother steps toward me. “She says the traces originated from lipstain left from a kiss.”

  I blink. “Lipstain?”

  Everyone is staring at me and I don’t understand. Poisoned lipstain? Who else was Serek kissing before he danced with me? Or was it after? My stomach twists and sinks at the thought, but naï. I would have noticed, wouldn’t I? If there had been traces of another woman’s makeup on his lips, wouldn’t I have seen it? I was close enough that it should have been obvious, and I don’t remember there being anything on his lips.

  And even if there was something there, wouldn’t it have affected me as well?

  Dima steps past me and picks up a dark purple tube resting on my dresser. He holds it up to the light and it glimmers like crushed gems.

  The lipstain Anja gave me.

  Dima extends his hand to the guards, and one of them passes him a smaller version of the glass I have on my desk. I recognize the strange fist-sized octagonal shape instantly—it’s a medical unit, like the kind Neja uses. He lays it flat on my dresser, opens the lipstain, and pours a droplet onto the glass.

  “Substance identified,” it chirps, but Dima waves his hand over it twice, silencing it. He’s grimacing when he passes the glass and my lipstain to Jarek, who looks at the screen and shakes his head.

  “I’ll give this to Neja,” Jarek says, and he bows and steps out of the room. Eros is standing so close to me that his heat radiates against my arm. I nearly step away, but his hand is held just slightly in front of me, almost as if to tell me to stay back. Almost as if he’s trying to protect me, but from what?

  “Kora,” Eros whispers, just loud enough for me to hear. “When I say so, take the garden entrance behind us with Iro and run as far as you can into the setting suns. They’ll find you.”

  I stare at him. What in Kala’s name is he talking about? Take the garden entrance with Iro and run to the suns? What does that even mean?

  “Take them,” Dima says. He turns away and steps toward the door; understanding slams into my stomach like a well-placed kick.

  Everything happens at once.

  Eros leaps in front of me and shoves me back as the guards converge. There’s a knife in his hand and they’re pointing phasers at him and he screams, “Kora, now!” My feet are rooted to the floor. How is this happening? How can they believe I would do this, that I would try to kill the man I was going to marry?

  Eros screams and something warm slaps my cheek—blood. One of my guards lunges around him and reaches toward me. My heart slams against my ribcage and instinct snaps me awake. I have to move. I have to move or I’m going to die.

  My hand slides under my pillow to grab the knife, and I throw it with all of my might. It slams home in the guard’s chest and he slumps to the ground. Somehow Eros got an unlocked phaser and he’s backing toward me and shooting at the guards. He shouts “Run, you idiot!” and he means me.

  I lunge for the glass doors, scream for Iro, and burst into the warm night air, jumping over the banister and skidding to a stop just outside the sitting area. I can go right into the garden or left around the palace and into the city.

  There isn’t really an option.

  Iro leaps out behind me, and Eros takes half a step outside, but arms wrap around his waist. He’s screaming something and he’s saying run. He’s saying move but all I see are guards yanking him back inside and he’s going to die.

  He’s going to die.

  But I’m going to die if I don’t run.

  I want to go after him—I do. I want to rush back inside and free him, but I don’t even have my knife anymore and I’ll be arrested on the spot. And then what?

  So I climb onto Iro and urge him to run as shame burns tears down my cheeks.

  Iro and I slip through the shadows of the night, and I’m grateful for my dark dress, which helps me blend significantly better than my normal bright clothing would have. Most of the patrolling guards have been diverted to the uproar inside, so I’m able to direct Iro past the long training wing, the warrior sleeping quarters, and the animal pens without incident. My heart pounds manically in my chest and I keep crouched low over Iro’s back, clinging to the fur on either side of his neck for support. He moves through the sand as smoothly and silently as a shadow, and I focus on calming my panicked breaths and listening as carefully as I can.

  There are distant voices behind me and shouting inside. They’re still looking for me, no doubt, but I’ll encounter the large majority of guards as I reach the gate. I’ll have to move quickly and pray I’ll be able to break through the barrage of guards undoubtedly waiting for me.

  We sprint along the edge of the wall, pausing behind every building to wait for footsteps to pass or voices to fall away. My heart drops with every murmur carried in the wind, but soon we reach the north end of the wall and the gate is within sight.

  It’s open—and surrounded by white and red-dressed guards. I count sixteen standing sentry with their phasers ready. Would they shoot me? Iro could handle the blast of a phaser easily, but my skin isn’t so tough. I’m terrified of finding out just how far my guards have turned against me, but I can think of no other way to get past them. There’s only one way out of the complex, and they know it all too well.

  Sweat drips down my back as I look for another exit. The walls are sleek and far too tall to climb. The building hiding me from sight is a small, vacant temple. It was once the main temple of the complex, when the palace was first built, but has since been replaced with one ten times its size located on the west side. The roof is steeply pitched, then cut off at the top. The edge of the roof is so low that it is even with my shoulders—an architectural aesthetic lost many generations ago—and the walls are a thick, course stone. I rest my forehead against the ridge of thick fur on the back of Iro’s neck and close my eyes. He grumbles softly and I run my fingers through his fur, soothing him.

  I have to get across. I have to break through these men, or I might as well turn myself in.

  And then what? There is only one punishment for a crime as vile as the one I am accused of—death. And of a most vicious, public kind. Considering the severity of the crime, I’d be lucky to be granted a beheading. Naï, my execution would be something much slower—like being hung by the arms in the center of Vejla and eaten from the inside out by specially programmed nanites.

  My heart bleeds for Eros, who is at their mercy at this very moment. Kala knows what my brother will do to him. Every step away from my most loyal friend is a shard of glass tearing through my core. But if I turn around now, his sacrifice will be for nothing.

  And Serek, who is fighting for his life—dear Kala, please spare him. If he survives, he will think me a traitor, a girl who would kiss him and kill him simultaneously, but I don’t care as long as he lives. Tears prick my eyes but I rub them clean. I can’t get emotional. Not when the guards stand just two hundred paces away. I open my eyes and take a deep pull of warm air.

  If this doesn’t work, I’m going to die.

  I have to move before I scare myself out of it.

  “Iro,” I whisper, combing my fingers through his fur. “We have to get through that gate.”


  I don’t know how much he understands, if any of it. Kazim are highly intelligent creatures, but there’s debate whether the domesticated creatures understand much more than their names and a few simple commands. I like to think he understands, but I mostly speak to him for my own benefit. No matter what happens, at least I’m not entirely alone.

  A low growl rumbles through his body. I wince and hope the guards don’t hear. Iro backs up against the wall and crouches low. I groan. Is he truly taking now of all times to nap? But then he races forward, leaping onto the roof and a gasp hitches in my throat. He doesn’t stop there, though—two quick steps on the plateau of the roof, and I squeeze my fingers into his fur as he unleashes a roar that turns my blood cold and leaps over the guards.

  I see some faces. Wide eyes. Open mouths. We’re halfway over the guards before they drop to the ground with their arms over their heads or scatter, panicked. Someone shouts out as we sail over them and hit the sand behind them, leaving a crimson cloud in our wake. The phaser blasts begin almost immediately, but nothing navigates the desert as well as a kazim. I press myself against his back as we zig-zag through the night, racing around the edge of the city, flashing past curved stone buildings and parked transport of all shapes and sizes. My heart is a drum in my ears and I’m not sure if he’s been hit, but every time I peer up, a sizzling flash of red whizzes past my ear, so I keep low and let Iro’s instincts carry us away from the chaos and screaming phasers.

  I don’t look back until the blasts have long since faded away, Vejla is a smatter of darkness behind us, and the rising suns stain the horizon a violent shade of purple and red. All I see are endless oceans of scarlet, but I don’t dare ask Iro to stop. I press my face against the back of his neck, hold on tight, and try not to think about all I am leaving behind.

  The suns are well over our heads by the time I accept that we’ve lost any potential pursuers. Iro has slowed considerably and his breaths come labored and heavy as we move through the forever sands. The heat is unbearable; my hair is plastered to my face like soggy adhesives and sweat dampens my skin, stings my eyes, and soaks large swaths of my dress. I’m tempted to peel the cursed thing off—the dark color that worked perfectly to conceal me at night drinks up the heat of the suns and magnifies it onto my blistering skin—but wandering naked in the desert is probably not my best idea.