“You didn’t ask me what you should wear,” he says in a stern tone.
My eyes narrow at him. “I’m a big girl. I don’t need your help dressing myself.”
He looks me over from head to toe again. “You’re tiny.”
I’m irritated by that comment. “Whatever.” I turn back around and try to take another step, but Kyon doesn’t let go of the sheet. I exhale a breath and pivot to face him. The sheet twists awkwardly around me. I glare at him. Kyon’s eyebrows pull together as his expression turns malignant. He jerks the sheet. I try to hold my ground but I end up being reeled back to his side.
Nose to nose with me, he growls, “Tell Oscil that you want to select garment number three thirty-three.”
His warm breath is on my cheek as I stare into his chilly eyes. “Where I come from,” I say slowly, so that my voice won’t quiver, “that number means half evil.”
His lips twitch, and then curl into a genuine smile. “On you, it’ll be the same thing.” He lets go of the sheet. I inch back from him. My sweaty palms clutch the soft material as I retreat. He watches me go, his expression unreadable. When my feet touch the floor again, I take a few backward steps away from the psycho freak. Gaining some distance, I turn from him and hurry to the dressing room.
Opening the doors, I find a large round room that can probably fit twenty people or more. High, round windows look out over sea-grass-covered sand dunes. An elaborate driftwood chandelier hangs in the center of the room, glowing brilliantly. I close the doors behind me and slump against them, letting out a deep exhale.
It takes a few seconds for me to pull myself together, but once I do I rush over to the windows, looking for an exit. My chin is flush with the bottom of the sill. Outside there are stone paths through the dunes. Benches line the paths and in the distance copses of tropical trees sway in the breeze. But that’s it. I see no other living creatures about and no mode of transportation. I didn’t really expect to though. Kyon was telling the truth when he said we’re alone here—wherever here is.
I turn around and look at the room. There’s a chaise lounge and several elegant, high-backed chairs covered in sea-foam-colored silk. There aren’t any clothes in sight. “What am I supposed to wear?” I ask in frustration. I think for a second. “Oscil.”
“Requirement?”
“I need to dress for the rotation.”
“Please step into the channel and make a selection,” a fem-bot voice says. In the middle of the room, a dark cylindrical enclosure rises from the floor. I eye it warily. Approaching it, I take a deep breath and enter the shadowy area through its open panel. “Please make a selection,” the voice restates. The panel closes, shutting me inside.
“Three thirty-three?”
A blue light descends from the top of the cylinder, scanning my body. When it drops into the floor, four steely, sharp scissor blades lift up out of round holes that open up in the floor. The blades spin around on steel robotic arms, whirling in helicopter-rotor swipes. I clutch and scratch the walls of the tube, clawing to get out, as the machine sheers the sheet from my body. The pieces of material fall to the ground. The fibers shred and are inhaled into lung-shaped holes in the floor by my feet. I bang on the tube, looking for a way out. “Stop!” I cry. “Stop! Halt! Cease! Shut the hell off!” Nothing happens. The machine keeps cutting and shredding. It has the same attitude as its creator.
When the scissors reach the top of my head, the blades retract into the arms of the machine. I pant and gasp as I try to calm myself. Next, aerosol cans emerge on the ends of the robotic arms. “Lift arms . . . lift arms . . . lift arms,” the fem-bot voice chants.
“Stop, you piece of junk!”
“Lift arms . . . Lift arms . . . Lift arms . . .”
Tentatively, I raise my hands a little. The voice continues to chant, “Lift arms . . . lift arms . . .” I keep raising them until they’re over my head.
The aerosol cans whirl around me, spraying every area on my body except my head. All my unwanted body hair disappears in an instant.
When the robotic arms reach the floor, the aerosol cans retract inside the automated arms. In their place, long slender knitting needles emerge on the ends of two of the arms while smaller needles present themselves on the other two. Threads spool out between the needles, weaving and sewing golden fabric around me as they rise up from the floor. When the robotic arms reach the top of my head, I’m attired in a flimsy gold-colored two-piece bathing suit. The whirling, deadly-sharp chopstick fingers descend again, this time spinning a web of see-through golden fabric around me. A golden tullelike wrap skirt circles my waist to my toes.
The mechanical arms rise to my head again. As they descend once more, the same shimmery golden fabric is woven around my shoulders and arms. When the arms slip away back into the floor, the dark cylinder surrounding me becomes a reflective mirror. I stare at my image. I’m attired in a golden cover-up with a long train that flows out behind me. Beneath it, a bathing suit is my only other cover.
“Do you require grooming?” the fem-bot voice asks.
“Ur . . . okay?” I murmur with a bit of apprehension.
“Shall I pair your grooming with your attire?” the automated voice inquires.
“Ahh, sure.”
The robotic hands come up from the floor again, but this time they’re not scissors or needles; they’re brushes and combs. In less than a minute, my hair is brushed and swept up in a high ponytail with intricate braids throughout.
After the arms disappear once more into the floor, the voice asks, “Do you require further assistance?”
“No,” I reply. The cylinder drops back down into small slats in the floor, and I’m left again in the middle of the room. My hands slide over the soft material of my outfit. I look down at myself. Golden sandals lie near my feet. I slip them on—a perfect fit.
Facing the doors that lead back to the bedroom, I tiptoe to them. I nudge the lever, opening the door a crack. Peering out, I don’t see Kyon anywhere. He’s not on the bed where I left him. Squaring my shoulders, I open one door wider, taking a tentative step outside the dressing room. My skin prickles, and I sense Kyon before I feel his hand come to rest firmly on the back of my neck. Every cell in my body reacts when I look up to see him beside me. He must’ve been leaning against the wall, waiting for me to open the door. He traded the white sheet around his hips for midnight blue swim shorts that show the obscene V-shape of his abdomen. His bare chest is disgustingly perfect and covered only by his black tattoo.
Hiding my fear of him within an annoyed expression, I continue to walk in the direction I was going. I try to outpace him so that his hand will drop from the nape of my neck, but he slows me with a warning squeeze.
“Breakfast is ready on the terrace,” he says in a satisfied murmur near my ear. I wonder at his tone for a moment until he says, “Number three thirty-three looks even better on you than I imagined.”
I don’t reply. Passing through the room out onto the terrace, I approach the round stone table. A kitelike awning extends over the table, shielding us from the glare of the tropical sun. Kyon pulls out a cushioned chair for me. It’s so big and tall that my feet barely reach the stone patio.
A levitating service cart is waiting near us. Kyon retrieves pewter-covered dishes from its surface. He places a platter in front of me. The lid lifts from it on its own, resting on a hinge. The aroma of pancakes rises. I inhale, my mouth watering. My eyes shift to Kyon’s plate as he sits next to me. He has something that looks like boiled squid on his plate. I shudder and make a face at it. Then, I stab a pancake from the towering stack on my plate, thrusting one onto the side of his plate.
“Eat that,” I say in challenge.
Blue eyes the color of the sky cast down upon me. “Why?” he asks.
“Because I don’t eat my pancakes until you do,” I reply with a lift of my chin.
He tries to hide his smile behind a sigh. “I have no need to drug you, Kricket. I can overpower you w
henever I desire.”
“That’s nice—you already drugged me, so your point is moot. Here, have some syrup too.” I lift the heavy pewter dispenser in front of me and pour a generous amount of syrup over his pancake.
He looks at me like I’m being dumb, but he doesn’t balk. Instead he lifts his cutlery and slices into the pancake. He mops up the syrup with the pancake on his fork. With more elegance than anyone should have, he takes a bite and chews it demonstratively. With a smug smile, he reaches over and lifts my glass of water. Saluting me with it, he takes a large sip. He puts it down along with his cutlery and holds his hands palm up in an are you satisfied gesture.
I sniff and lift my cutlery, beginning to eat. As soon as the morsel crosses my lips, I have to stifle the urge to groan with pleasure. It’s divine. “So,” I ask between bites. “What are we doing here?”
“We’re having breakfast,” Kyon replies. The ocean breeze stirs his hair. The sunshine makes his skin look golden.
“Okay. What are we doing after breakfast?” I ask.
“I thought I’d show you around your new home.”
“You actually live here?”
“We live here.”
“Alone?”
“I don’t like people.”
“You don’t like them or they don’t like you?” I ask.
“Does it matter?”
“Not really,” I say with a shrug. His presence dominates my entire being. He invades my senses with his nearness. I can’t ignore him and the silence is suddenly heavy. “Have you lived here long?”
“Long enough.”
“Long enough to fall in love with it?”
“You could say that,” he agrees. I try to hide a smile, but he sees it. “What’s funny?”
“You. The idea that you’d be in love with anything.”
“Why would that surprise you?”
“You strike me as someone who’s accustomed to extreme wealth—something like this must be like camping for you,” I reply. The house is amazing, but it’s obviously meant to function with no staff. When Kyon was at the palace, he was constantly with an entourage of Alameeda underlings, all waiting on his every whim.
He lifts his glass, takes a small sip. Replacing it on the table, he casts me a quick glance. “How do you know to what I’m accustomed?”
“You think that I simply ignored you while I was the Regent’s ward? I had to sort through and find the truth among the lies that your people kept feeding me, but I managed to learn a few things about you.”
His eyes narrow dangerously. “Such as?”
“Such as your position within the Brotherhood. You have the most coveted seat in Alameeda. The prestige of controlling the Loch of Cerulean is unequaled—as are the trappings that it brings. An ambassador of Wurthem suggested that you were not originally in line for it.”
“Did he?”
“Mmm. He implied that you gained it through other means.”
“What other means?”
“Intimidation. Assassination.”
“Do you always listen to gossip?” he asks.
“Always,” I say between bites of pancake.
“What else do you think you know?”
“You’re a shrewd investor. A source said you own some highly lucrative ventures in Wurthem—a fact that annoyed my source, since he believes that only the social elite in House Wurthem should be able to hold its wealth. He said your connections in Alameeda make you untouchable, but he refused to say which connections. Which made me think that he feared your connections more than he feared you.”
Kyon frowns. “I make me untouchable,” he says with more force than I expect. I’ve touched on something here. His loner-ish persona has roots that run deep.
I decide to push on despite the icy reception my words are garnering. “My source indicated that your business prowess was underestimated at first. He didn’t initially believe that a soldier such as yourself would understand the intricacies related to high finance.”
“What do you think?”
I shrug. “Strategy is strategy. Learn the game and play it. From what I know of you, I would think that you’d be better than most at that.”
“Why is that?”
“Because when someone like you gets outmaneuvered, he can usually push through it by using force.”
“Is there a point to this?” Kyon asks as he leans back in his chair.
I lean back in mine as well. I wipe my mouth with my napkin before resting it by my plate. “No. No point. Just making conversation.”
Kyon rises from his seat and extends his hand to me. “You want to talk? I’ll show you around and you can talk.”
I eye his hand for a moment. I don’t take it, but stand on my own and push my chair away from the table. “Oscil,” he says in an even tone. “Clear the table.” He indicates that I should follow him back into the house.
On the way, I look over my shoulder. A large hole opens in the center of the table. The dirty plates are magnetically pulled into it and swallowed up, then the hole disappears and the table resumes its solid form. A floating tray passes over the top of the table, spraying it with a cleaner and using a robotic arm to clean the surface. I watch it all with fascination before I feel Kyon’s hand on the small of my back guiding me away.
We enter through the bedroom archway, and he walks me through the elegant room to the doorway on the left. Once through it, we enter a high glass-ceilinged room. It’s a solarium of sorts that looks like an upside-down Viking ship. Wooden ribs jut out from the long spine and frame the glass panels of the ceiling. Glass walls facing the sea automatically lower and recess into the floor as we walk through the space, allowing the ocean breeze to touch my skin. A small river of water runs down the center of the room from one fountain into another at the opposite end. There are deck chairs and low tables arranged here and there for sitting and enjoying the view of the water outside.
A spiral staircase at the end of the room winds up through the ceiling to the next level. Taking the stairs up, we arrive at the next floor. Another gallery greets us. This one has wood-plank floors. Sconce lighting lines the walls. We pass doors to closed rooms. “What’s in them?” I ask.
“They’re guest rooms,” Kyon replies. We pause at one, and Kyon opens it. It’s a beautiful space with a view overlooking the floral garden on the other side of the house, but there are no furnishings. It’s empty inside. I glance out the window; garden-bots hover about on the grounds below, trimming shrubbery into perfect angles.
“So . . . no one stays here with you?”
“You’re the first.”
Lucky me! I think sarcastically. Turning away from the window, we quietly leave the room. We cross a gallery without opening any more doors. Finding another spiral staircase that climbs up into the ceiling, I grasp the trident-shaped wrought-iron newel. These stairs take us to the third floor, where a large office sits at the end of a short hallway.
The office is a command center. Every aspect of the island is visible by way of the virtual screens that encompass the circumference of the room. The island isn’t very big, maybe three or four miles. It’s shaped like a star, and from what the satellite imagery reveals, there are only a few other smaller buildings on the island.
“What are these?” I ask, pointing to a screen that shows a couple of thatched roofs fit between clusters of palm trees on the other side of the island.
“Small cottages. No one lives in them. They’re for our use.”
“And this?” I point to a huge building on the top of a mesa near a rapidly flowing waterfall.
“Hangar. It’s where I store all the skiffs and airships. Have you learned to operate any of them?” he asks.
“No.”
“Would you like to?”
I peek at him suspiciously. “Yes.”
“I’ll teach you.”
“Why would you?” I ask.
“It’s a skill you need to know, don’t you agree?”
“I heard
that priestesses aren’t taught those kinds of skills,” I say with a frown. They’re treated like pretty idiots until someone wants to use whatever extrasensory gift they possess, then they’re tapped and used for their expertise—whether they agree to it or not.
“They’re not, but you and I will hold ourselves to a higher standard.”
I look away from him as I process his answer. “And this building?” I ask, pointing to the largest building other than the house.
“Boathouse.”
I look around his office. There’s a solid wooden desk that is something only a pirate would own. I go to it and run my fingers over its smooth surface. A grid of light illuminates on the surface of the desk—it’s a keyboard of sorts to access the control center. I walk around the desk and sit in the massive chair behind it. It’s made to fit Kyon’s broad shoulders. I ease back, feeling like a child in an adult world. My fingers round on the ends of the armrests. I rub them, trying to get a feel for the person who owns it.
Kyon slowly takes a seat in a chair facing his desk—his hands temple as he watches me watch him.
“This place is so different from the places I’ve been to on Ethar,” I observe.
“It is.”
“Everything is minimalistic.”
“I thought it would be less confusing for you.”
“For me?” I scoff.
“You spend much of your time observing the surface of things, and you hardly ever take time to assess what’s underneath.” He holds up his hand, staving off my angry retort. “It’s not an insult,” he barks threateningly.
I hesitate, and then say in a calm tone, “Alright.” I realize abruptly that he’s reacting to the anger he sees on my face, and the fact that I was just about to yell at him. It affects him—he doesn’t know how to talk to me. I lean back in the chair once more. “So that was not meant as an insult—please explain.”
He takes a breath, trying to regain calm. “You’ve been thrown into a world filled with an overabundance of technology and wealth and excess. I’ve observed you peel away the layers a bit at a time, processing everything quickly—as is your way. I thought that it would be easier for you to see me without all those distractions. I could’ve brought you aboard one of my yachts, but I’ve observed you on the boats in the little lake at the Rafe palace. You hid your panic well, but I knew you hated every moment that you were afloat. It made you feel helpless. I also could’ve taken you to one of my estates, where you would’ve found ways to hide yourself away in so many of the distractions they provide. No. I wanted you here. I want us to see each other.”
Darken the Stars Page 4