“I shot myself last night after I sent you home.”
“Pity,” I groan. “Yes. Definitely warn me next time.”
“Or I could kill her so it never happens again,” he replies.
“Table that suggestion. We’ll revisit it when I’m feeling less angry. I will see you later.” I drag my feet for a few steps before they lose their numbness. Leaving the study, I locate Fulton with Oscil’s help. He’s in the tower known as Glory. This tower is for entertaining guests. It has a ballroom that ascends fifteen levels like the tiers on a wedding cake.
“Do you like this space?” Fulton asks.
“It’s very lovely,” I say.
“Do you like it for the coronation?”
“No,” I reply absently, gazing around. “I was thinking that something more public would be better. I don’t want people here. I want our home to remain private. Is there somewhere else that would suit?”
We go over several options for locations. “I think it should be here,” I say, admiring the hologram image in front of me of very beautiful floral gardens.
“The Botanical Gardens?” Fulton asks.
“Yes.”
“But it’s very hard to defend such a wide-open place.”
“It won’t be necessary to defend it. By the time the ceremony begins, there won’t be any resistance to the coronation. Trust me.”
He looks confused. “Do you want any special type of arrangements at the event?” he asks, going down his list.
“Flowers, you mean?”
“Mmm,” he nods.
“I want znous—as many as you can get.”
He laughs. “You do know that those are poisonous, don’t you?”
“I think I heard that. I still want them.”
“Then you shall have them.”
“Is there a bar in here?” I ask him.
“Yes. He shows me the bar, which is better stocked than the one in Kyon’s study. I take two bottles of Winslet from it, one in each hand.
“Can I have these? I want to have a couple of drinks with Phlix.”
“You can have anything you want, Kricket. This is your house.”
“Thanks. If it’s okay with you, I’d like to finish the planning later.”
“It’s okay with me,” he replies with a smile.
Leaving the ballroom, I have Oscil guide me to Phlix. She’s outside, walking along the riverside. When I reach her, I extend a bottle of Winslet out to her. “Care for a drink?” I ask.
“You mean alcohol?” she asks, looking stunned that I would offer it to her.
“Yes. I mean really freaking expensive alcohol.”
I pull out the bottle’s gold-ball stopper and hand her the emerald-green bottle. “Here taste it.”
She takes it from me and sips. “That is delicious,” she says before taking another sip.
“Yeah, it’s good. You know what else is good? It’s worth five thousand Alameeda Gipsons. That’s insane money.”
“I can get vaccinated with that kind of money!” she says.
“Do you have a contact?” I ask.
“I think so. Can you get me more bottles like this?”
“I can take requests, but do it as fast as possible. We’re running out of time.”
“I understand.” She hands me the open bottle and I take a sip of it, savoring the flavor. We walk along, looking at boats. “Are you going to miss this?” she asks.
“No,” I say immediately, but I don’t know if that’s true. “I won’t miss being scared all the time.”
“Will we ever not be scared all the time?” she asks.
“I hope so.”
“I’m glad that I’ll have you.” She links her arm with mine.
“Me too.”
“Do you think you can shadow us?” I ask.
“No problem,” she says.
She closes her eyes and concentrates. “We’re invisible to others now.” She winks at me.
“Fantastic. Come with me. I want to show you something.”
I lead her around the outside of the house to the gigantic doors where I first entered the estate. “This is Kingdom. Have you been in here yet?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “We were brought in through an interior courtyard.”
I show her inside. It’s just as I remember it, a creepy art gallery of portals. I take her over to the one of Naren Falls. We watch the falling water hit the pool of blue water, sending up spray everywhere. The dead body of the soldier isn’t visible anymore. Maybe some big beast dragged it off and made a meal of it. I don’t know, but I’m glad I don’t have to see his corpse.
“You can feel the mist on your face when you’re not in your secret bubble,” I say. “It’s a portal.”
“Cease speaking!” she says in disbelief. “Who made this?”
“Kyon.”
Her eyes get wider as she says again, “Cease speaking!”
“It’s true,” I reply. “Watch this.” I wind back my hand and throw the round, gold bottle stopper at the portal. It lands on the lawn and it half-rolls, half-hops on the turf, because the sphere is now caved in. “It’s sort of brutal on anything that passes through it though.” I take a sip of the Winslet, then pass it to her.
She takes a long draught before staring straight ahead at the falls. “That’s in the annexed area, isn’t it?”
“Yes. It. Is.” I feel her nudge me with the bottle. I claim it for another drink.
“How dangerous is the portal?” she asks. I glance at her. She looks at me, and then at the Winslet bottle.
I wind my arm back and throw the open bottle into the portal. After the emerald-colored glass crosses the frame, it implodes, shattering and spewing sparkling wine all over the lawn in front of Naren Falls. Birds on the branches of the trees inside the frame take flight.
“Well, that’s not good,” she admits.
“No. It. Isn’t.”
“I liked that wine.”
“It was good, right?” I say.
“Mmm.”
“So we’ll have to find another way there, unless you can think of a way we can get through this without imploding.”
“I’ll work on it.”
“I’ll look for another mode of transport. How are our flipcarts coming?”
“I asked Fulton for a couple. I told him that I wanted to teach you how to ride one, because you expressed an interest in learning.”
“Really? What did he say?”
“He said the flipcarts will be here sometime after zenith.”
“I like Fulton.”
“Yes,” she agrees. “He has a beautiful aura.”
“It’s nearly after zenith now. Should we go get our ride on?”
“I don’t know what that means,” she says.
“Let’s go see if the flipcarts are here and stash the other bottle of Winslet.”
“Let’s,” she agrees.
CHAPTER 17
PART OF THE PARADE
Leaving Phlix behind in her tower room in Victory, I return to my room in Mercy. I wander onto the balcony. Resting my chin against the railing, I look out at the river. The surface is without waves; the boats glide over the water without disturbing it, as if it’s solid and not liquid. My flesh tingles with an eerie feeling. The river has its eyes on me, watching. The still surface feels unnatural. There’s something in the river’s depth that wasn’t there before. My skin grows cold, and I have the overwhelming urge to shed my bones—to project into the future.
Stumbling into my bedroom, my timing is off and I don’t make it to my bed. My cheek hits the soft carpet and it rattles my head. Something attempts to keep me here even as I slip away. I blink and see the outline of Nezra, who crouches down on the carpet by me to smile as my vision fades. The curl of wintry breath passes through my parted lips.
I leave my body, but Nezra’s heavy gravity holds me just above it. She fights me, trying not to let me go. “Kricket,” she says in a singsong voice, “I can’t wait to see
you burn for what you’ve stolen from me!”
I bury her in the night as the stars rip me away and I drift in time. I follow the events as they happen in the future. Strikers arrive to take me to Freming House, the gilded cage where they keep their priestesses hostage. It’s not all they do there. It’s a lab, as well—a testing ground for more new genetic mutations. It’s a house of horrors. The things they’ll do to me border on the depraved. I can’t stay and watch it very long—it’s too brutal, and I’ll get the chance to experience it firsthand soon enough.
I turn in time and shift to another destination, one that I’ve promised to go to with a plan for Excelsior’s death. I have that plan now; it’s just unfortunate that I won’t survive to see it come to fruition. At least I get to die knowing he’ll follow me soon.
Touching down outside the crumbling governor’s mansion in New Amster, I find Giffen and Pan speaking together in low voices by the giant sentinel statues that preside over the manor. Giffen feels my presence immediately when I near him. He looks in my direction. He pushes his energy toward me, and I become a golden silhouette of billowing stardust and light walking out of the night. I keep my attention on Giffen, ignoring the man who was only my father for a brief time. There’s nothing really to say to him, anyway. He walked away.
“You’d better have a plan, like we discussed, Kricket, or bad things are going to happen to—”
“I do,” I interrupt. “We’re creating a Trojan horse for Excelsior. It’s something that he won’t be able to resist. He’ll be dead in two days.”
“What is this Trojan horse?” Giffen asks.
“I’d rather not say. It’ll ruin the surprise, and I don’t really think I can trust you to keep a secret.”
“If he’s not dead by then, we’ll turn your Rafe friends’ families over to the Alameeda.”
“Is that what you told Trey?”
“He didn’t tell you?” Pan asks beside me.
“No. He never told me about your threat. He just asked me to do it for him—for his family.”
“And you agreed?” Pan asks, like what I’ve said doesn’t compute.
I ignore him. He gets nothing more from me. Instead, I say to Giffen, “Will you tell Trey something for me?”
“Depends on what it is.” Giffen replies honestly.
“Tell him that I said I never loved him, that I was just using him.” I turn to leave, but then I think of something and add, “Oh, and don’t forget to watch the show, Giffen. You earned it.”
“What show?” he calls as I fade to go back in time.
“My execution.”
I slam back into my body in a rush. The frigidity of it lets me know I stayed away just enough to feel like I’m dead, but not to actually be dead. It occurs to me that being dead is the preferable choice in this situation, now that I know what will happen to me. The bad part would be that if I die here, there might be no vengeance against Excelsior and that’s all I have left.
“Oscil!” I pant, when I return to my body. “Oscil!” I call for the automated intelligence that is always available, but I get no response. I knew there wouldn’t be, but for some reason I had to try.
I struggle to get up from my floor. When I did this moments ago, in the future, I moved as fast as my numb legs would carry me to the balcony. But because I just lived it, I know without looking that the river outside is solid in several places. Strikers run over the surface of it with frestons strapped to them. A handful of Strikers are on the side of the house. They’re rising on clear disks that act as lifts, bringing them up toward my balcony.
Instead of having them arrest me out there on the balcony, I turn and run to the lavare. Moving to the counter, I splay my hand over it. Toiletries of every type rise from the surface. Selecting a fat, sticky lip liner, I write on the mirror:
Kyon—
Stay away. Nothing you can do. They’ll kill you. I’ve got this. Finish my crown for me.
—Kricket
It’s a lie. I don’t really have this. They’re going to eviscerate me in the most painful way possible, but there’s really no reason for Kyon to die too. It would only serve to give Excelsior more pleasure, and I really don’t think that’s fair. I just need Kyon to get the crown to Excelsior. He can do that without dying. And a part of me very much wants him to live so that he can have the kind of vengeance he’s dreamed about his entire life. It frightens me that I want that too.
A sound at the door makes me turn around. It’s the Striker with the pirate smile. He sends a chill straight to my heart as he says, “Your father, Excelsior, is expecting you.”
“Thank you, Ceecil,” I reply, using his name just to freak him out. It works. He collars me with a restraint and has me on my knees as he pushes the button and chokes me until I see spots. I drop the fat lip liner.
“What is this gibberish you’ve scribbled on your mirror, eh?” he asks.
“It’s a secret message to my consort. It says that I’ll kill Excelsior and see him soon and to make sure he has my empress crown ready for me when I get back.”
“Does it really say that?” he asks, and I realize that he can’t read English.
“It actually really does. I’m going to kill my father-in-law.” That earns me another push from his button, but this time I don’t just see spots—everything goes black.
My throat aches as I attempt to swallow. I open my eyes. Soft sheets slide beneath my fingertips instead of sterile, course fabric. Lifting my head from my pillow, I try to figure out where I am. I’m alone in a small but elegant bedroom. I’ve never seen it before. This is a new experience! I’ve never been in this room in my life or at any time in the future!
I shiver because I know I’m no longer on the same predictable path of time as I once was. I’m experiencing a new set of events. I’ve changed the future by at least a small degree. Last time, the Strikers brought me to Freming House. I had been conscious. Another very notable difference from this time versus last time is that I’m not having my ovaries removed in an operating room. This is a much better path so far.
I try to move my arm from the bed and find that it’s strapped to a railing. I lay my hand back down on the sheet. It’s a relief that I’m still wearing my own clothes, but it looks as if I’ve been in them for days. I’m rumpled and messy.
The door swings open and a technician enters the room. I recognize him. He’s one of the laboratory staff who had helped perform the procedure to remove my reproductive organs in the alternate time line. Before, he made several sullen complaints about the sloppiness of the other technician. It angered him that his colleague had messed up while creating a new batch with the eggs they had harvested, and it was left to him to exterminate several male offspring as a result.
I blink a couple of times while the technician adjusts the vial strapped to my arm. “Dobrey,” I murmur his name. My voice is thick, like I’ve been asleep for a while. He flinches hearing it, immediately moving away from me. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you.” He reaches for a tranquilizer gun, his hand shaking a little. “I have a plan! You’ll never have to kill another batch!”
He pauses. His blue eyes squint at me. “What are you talking about?” he asks.
“I know you’re being forced to do what you do. I know that the moment you stop doing it, you die. If Excelsior is made the emperor of Ethar, you’ll be made to kill on a scale that no one has seen before. You know what I’m talking about, don’t you?” I whisper.
“It’s that virus they’re working on in the lab next to ours, isn’t it?” he asks in a whisper so we’re not overheard.
I don’t really know what he’s talking about now, but I pretend that I do. “It is,” I tell him. “If you untie me and help me get out of here, I promise to get rid of Excelsior.”
He straightens, like I’ve said something completely ridiculous. My mark isn’t falling for it. I try again. He picks up a syringe gun full of clear liquid. “Forget that I said anything. Letting me go will get
you in trouble,” I say, as if I care what happens to him. “You should just do whatever you came here to do. What did you come here to do?” I need to know what they’re planning in order to formulate a plan.
“Excelsior ordered me to administer RU7 to you.”
“What’s RU7?”
He holds up the syringe gun of clear fluid, “It’s an interrogation drug.”
“What does it do?” I ask.
“It makes you see the stars,” he says. “And tell the truth.”
“He’s going to make me tell him the truth?” I ask.
“Among other things,” Dobrey admits. He takes a step toward me.
I hurry and ask, “How long have I been here?”
“I don’t know. A couple of rotations I guess.”
“Why have I been asleep so long?” I cringe, wondering if they took out my organs and then healed me.
“They’ve been preoccupied. They’ve been fighting with your consort, Kyon Ensin.”
“Fighting how?” I ask.
“Fighting for their lives,” Dobrey admits. “He’s been killing off all the Brothers not present in the compound. We’re all on lockdown.”
“Why am I still alive?” I ask. In the future, I would’ve already been executed.
“Well, you probably won’t be soon. Excelsior has promised to send Kyon your head if he doesn’t submit to the Brotherhood at your trial.”
“When is my trial?” I ask. This is new. He never put me on trial in the future. Have I managed to change things just by writing a note to Kyon on the mirror? The problem is that I don’t know if I’ve changed anything for the better, although, it probably can’t be much worse than before. Maybe.
“Your trial is this rotation.”
“Will my trial be public?” I ask.
He shakes his head vehemently. “No. Never. No one is allowed into the chamber with the Brothers. It’s secret. They have their rituals in there.”
“But that’s not fair! They can do anything they want and no one will know about it.”
“I think that’s the point. If it’s any consolation, your execution will be public.”
I know he’s right. I’ve already been to one of my executions in the future. I don’t think I want to be at this one, too.
Darken the Stars Page 24