Into the Black

by Ava Jae

  “Whoever said I was flirting with her?” Deimos winks at me and disappears back into the clothing room. My face burns as Mal cracks up behind me and Kora suppresses a giggle. I put on the blazing shirt.

  Deimos emerges from the room with a gold circular band and what looks like the bottom of a gold shoe with strings attached to it. “Here.” He passes me the band and places the shoes at my feet. “Those were the most understated I could find.”

  I nearly laugh as I run my fingers over the smooth metal band engraved with writing I can’t read. “This is pure gold.”

  “Sha.”

  “As are the shoes.”

  “Very observant.”

  I look at him. “And that’s understated?”

  “You’ve forgotten where you live.” He gestures to my extravagant bedroom and the view outside overlooking the courtyard and one of the gold-studded fountains with water somehow manipulated to look like molten gold. “Gold is for royalty, and your mission tonight is to convince a room of racist old men you’re just as much royalty as the former Sira himself.”

  “He’s right,” Kora says. “The clothes he’s chosen for you are perfect. The style nods to Elja, your former home, while communicating with Ona fashion. It’s regal without being over the top.” She looks at Deimos. “Good choices.”

  “Why, thank you. At least someone appreciates my talent.”

  I sigh and slip my feet into the awkward shoes, but I’m not sure what to do with the band. I frown at it until Deimos plucks it from my fingers and takes my left hand.

  “Here.” He slides the band over my hand and up my arm, until it rests over my bicep—covering my tattoo from Elja. Bumps rush over my arms as he steps back and nods to the mirror on the opposite wall. “Take a look.”

  I turn around and face myself in the mirror. With the black pants I’m still wearing from earlier, the black and gold-edged scrap of a shirt, the gold arm band and gold shoes, I have to admit, they’re right. I look Onan—and more than that, the gold accents make my eyes impossible to ignore.

  I look like Sepharon royalty. And I’m not sure how I feel about it.

  “You definitely look the part.” Kora steps next to me. “Now you just have to act it.”

  But the way they’re covering my tattoo, like my past is something to hide, sits heavily in my stomach. I’m not ashamed of what happened, and it’s not like people don’t know I was Kora’s servant for a time. So why try to hide it?

  I slip the band off and slide it onto my other arm. I don’t like the tattoo or what it represents, but it’s a part of my story now. And I’m not going to pretend otherwise.

  When I turn back to everyone, Deimos is nodding and Kora … Kora’s worrying her lip. There’s something sad in the way she looks at me, brow slightly furrowed, lip twisting. Does she actually feel guilty about it?

  Good. She should.

  I turn to Mal. “What do you think? Can you see me?”

  “Kinduv.” He squints at me. “I can see the gold at least. And, um, how you’re standing.”

  “Would it help if I moved closer?”

  He shakes his head and scoots to the edge of the bed. “Naï, it’s okay. You look …” he hesitates. “It looks right, I guess.”

  I smile weakly. “You guess?”

  “Yeah. It’s just weird seeing you look so … them.” I grimace, and Mal quickly adds, “But you don’t look bad. It fits you.”

  It’s so strange, standing here in the palace, dressed as royalty. Glancing at myself in the mirror, I want to say Mal’s wrong and it doesn’t fit, I want to say it feels wrong to see myself as one of them, to present myself as Sepharon royalty.

  But the truth is it doesn’t. I may not have been raised here, I may never have imagined myself here, I may never have wanted myself here—but seeing myself like this now, I can almost imagine what Asha must have thought my life would be like. I can almost picture being here all along, with a Sepharon father teaching me how to navigate Sepharon politics and standing proudly behind me even in the face of hate and racism—and a human mother smiling beside me.

  I can almost imagine maybe I really was meant to be here. Maybe Asha was right all along.

  Entering the dining room is like waltzing into a pack of starving kazim. Deimos, Kora, and I are some of the last ones to enter—only Ashen and Lejv have yet to arrive according to Deimos’s quick check moments before we entered ourselves.

  And now, standing at the entrance in front of twelve royals for the first time, I want nothing more than to turn around, walk right back out, and pretend this isn’t happening. But I can’t. I have to act like I belong here, like I want to be here, like I know I’m the next Sira even though I doubt that’ll ever happen. So I walk right up to the place Kora told me to—at the inner crest of the apex, across from where former Sira Ashen will sit—because apparently the best way to show everyone I’m serious is to spend my meal sitting across from my grandfather, who has all but said he thinks I’m trash.

  In other words, this is going to be a blazing party.

  I take my seat on the cushion, sitting back on my heels like Deimos suggested—because even the way I sit makes a fucken statement—while he and Kora sit cross-legged on either side of me.

  It’s not exactly the most comfortable position—my knees and toes are going to be killing me by the time this is over—but I’ll forget about all that as soon as the former Sira comes in to glower at me. At least I could save Mal from this uncomfortable posturing—he opted to stay back in my room and relax with whatever food we send back to him. I don’t blame him for not wanting to show. I sure as the Void wouldn’t be here if I didn’t have to be.

  A man with dark hair pulled back glares at me from down the table—the guy who assigned me my room. He isn’t dressed like one of the royals—his clothes look closer to the uniform the staff wear here—so he must be the former advisor Kora mentioned, Niro, who gave her a hard time before I got here. I stare him down until he averts his gaze.

  “Hello, eran,” Deimos says cheerily to a tall, thin man who’s started the glowering game early with a heated look at Deimos. “Haven’t seen much of you the last set or so—have you established yourself as Lejv’s favorite enthusiast yet?”

  I rush through the names Deimos and Kora taught me today—he said eran, which means brother, so this must be Oniks—no, wait, Oniks is the former Sira—Deimos’s grandfather. I scan the table and find him quickly—a stern man with thick black hair and a trim beard, dressed in customary A’Sharo black and red. So then the thin guy must be … Sulten. One of Deimos’s many brothers, Sulten.

  Sulten’s face colors at Deimos’s taunt. He scowls. “I should have known you’d be the first duped into the half-blood’s ridiculous game.”

  “This half-blood has a name,” I say, centering my gaze on Sulten. “Unless you want me to refer to you as Deimos’s ugly brother, maybe you should try using it.”

  Deimos gapes at me then throws his head back and laughs loudly. I guess I’ve surprised Sulten, too, because his eyes bug out of his head as his face flushes to a deep shade of purple, and I expect Oniks to be just as pissed, but instead he has a ghost of a smirk on his lips.

  Is he actually … amused?

  Two men with piercings on their faces, dressed in black and silver—Ona’s colors—laugh next, one touching his forehead to the other’s shoulder as he laughs (Simos and Ejren, I think), and Aleija and Jule—who are easy to remember because they’re the only women beside Kora and the older woman, who I assume is Lija, here—join in the laughter, too.

  This isn’t the first impression I was planning to make, but I guess this works.

  “Oh, what’s wrong, Sulten?” Aleija croons, grinning at the furious Avra-kaï. “Were you not expecting Eros to speak for himself?”

  “You really are your father’s son,” the Ona council member says—his name is … Tamus! Tamus, with the longish brown hair, former Avra of Ona, Simos’s father. Kora told me something about him but … I d
on’t remember what. Doesn’t matter. I can talk to him without every detail.

  “Thank you.” I smile—and for once, for once, it’s genuine. I may not know much about Asha, but from what Deimos has told me about him … being like my father may not be such a bad thing. “Did you know my father well?”

  “Refer to him as ‘my father,’ not Sira Asha.” Deimos’s suggestion. And one Kora agreed was a good idea: “Reinforce the notion that you are his son. The more who accept it and see the connection between the two of you, the better.”

  “Ashen is a childhood friend of mine,” Tamus answers. “I watched all of his sons grow up—and one never forgets their best friend’s first born.”

  Ah, that was what Kora had told me—Tamus and Ashen are close, so she didn’t think Tamus was likely to support me ever. Still … maybe she was wrong?

  “Many remember Asha as a young visionary Sira—and he was,” Tamus continues, “but in private, he was also very spirited.”

  “Spirited to a fault, some might say,” a voice answers behind me. Everyone rises, and so do I, which can only mean one thing.

  The former Sira walks around the long crescent-shaped dining table, a tall, lean man with long hair tied into a bun following in his wake. Murmurs of acknowledgment ripple around the room as they nod and bow to their former ruler.

  Ashen steps to his place directly across from me and looks me over. His gold-rimmed irises are dark—more like Roma than Serek—and something about his cool, dispassionate gaze rolling over me sends a shiver down my spine. His stare catches on my tattoo—or maybe my light, barely-there markings?—and my skin prickles at the pause.

  He isn’t looking at me like an adversary or even a threat. The slight curl of his lip, the apathetic stare—he’s looking at me like he might an animal prepped for slaughter.

  The room is deadly quiet—all gazes settled on us. Everything inside me screams move, screams say something, screams bow, but he isn’t my ruler and he never was.

  Still, he deserves some respect, and shunning him isn’t going to win me any friends.

  I break the silence. “Good to finally meet you. I’ve heard much about you both.” I glance at Lejv, who watches me with an equally apathetic stare.

  “As have I,” Ashen says, but his tone is flat, unimpressed. Which is fine. I didn’t expect him to try to make me feel important—he brought Lejv to Asheron himself, so I’m the last person he wants to see.

  Ashen sits and so does everyone else as Sepharon servants enter the room with plates, trays, and bowls piled high with steaming food. Ordinarily the sight of all this incredibly delicious looking—and smelling—food would instantly make me hungry, but with Ashen sitting across from me and talking to Lejv, and awkward conversations burbling around the table, it’ll be amazing if I manage to eat anything.

  After the food is served and everyone has a plate full of meats, vegetables, fruits, breads, and a variety of sauces and gravies, Deimos clears his throat and smiles. “So, I imagine the genetic testing results have come in.”

  Lejv frowns at his plate, but Ashen glances at Deimos and nods. “They have.”

  “And judging by the fact that no one has attempted to claim otherwise—”

  “They verify what my youngest son claimed, sha,” Ashen finishes.

  “Can’t say I’m surprised,” Tamus says. “Eros looks much like his father. And his eyes speak his heritage clearly enough.”

  “Sha,” Deimos adds. “Seems he’s the only candidate with an undeniable physical connection to the line of succession.”

  Ashen’s gaze flickers to me, then back to Tamus, but he doesn’t answer. Lejv shifts uncomfortably—if he’s chosen over me, he’d be the first Sira without the iconic gold gaze. Not that it matters in the grand scheme of things, but the Sepharon are big on tradition.

  “Some might argue Kala has already made his choice,” Kora adds. “As the gold eyes originated from Kala’s blessing on Jol and his family line.”

  Two middle-aged men in green—from Inara judging by their colors, if I’m remembering right—glance at each other. I don’t remember everything Kora said about the men from Inara, just that they’re a year apart and one of them is the former Sira—just recently replaced with his fifteen-cycle-old son, Kalan—while the other is his brother. Judging by their reaction to Kora’s mention of Kala, though, I’d bet they were religious.

  “I severely doubt Kala intended to put a mongrel on the throne,” Ashen says. “But time will tell—we all submit to his will in the end.”

  My throat tightens and muscles clench at the word—mongrel. Like some kinduv inbred animal. And as if anyone knows what their deity wants. This asshole is supposed to be related to me, and he’s sitting there talking about me like I’m diseased.

  Blood doesn’t make family. I know that. But that doesn’t make it sting any less.

  I take a large gulp of whatever’s in my sweating stone flute—the liquid is cold, but it burns down my throat and traces a hot path into my stomach. My head is fuzzy for a blink and I eye the glass. It must be some sortuv brew—which means the last thing I want to do is drink it quickly in this company where I need to have my wits about me.

  Deimos slides a smaller stone flute toward me and nods with a smirk. I sip that instead—lukewarm water.

  “So, Eros,” Lejv says loudly, obviously intended for everyone to hear. “We missed you yesterday—was your journey from the redblood camp long?”

  “Long when you end up without transportation, sha,” I answer. Deimos, Kora, and I agreed they don’t need to know what actually held me up—getting abducted by rebel humans who made me swear to support them isn’t exactly the sign of a strong ruler. And a man who promises humans much of anything isn’t someone they’re going to want to back. But it isn’t really a lie—I didn’t have transportation when the Remnant took Day’s bike from me. I’m lucky they gave it back so Mal and I could travel back with Kora and Deimos.

  “Ah, of course. How fortunate the former Eljan Avra and the young kaï were able to find you out there.”

  The move is obvious—discrediting my two biggest supporters, which discredits me by association. “I owe a debt to Kora and Deimos,” I say. “One I intend to repay in full when I’m Sira.”

  Deimos smiles. “We’re happy to serve our future ruler.”

  Lejv laughs and a couple around the table join in with him. “Of course you are.” He chuckles. “And I suppose you’ll serve that redblood he brought with him, as well, in this hypothetical scenario?” He turns to Ashen and smirks. “Can you imagine? A half-blood on the throne and a redblood Sira-kaï?”

  People around the table frown and glance at each other.

  “Mal isn’t my son, he’s my nephew,” I say. “He wouldn’t be Sira-kaï.”

  “That doesn’t explain what he’s doing here,” Lejv says. “Or why you thought it’d be a good idea to bring a redblood into Asheron and treat him like royalty.”

  “I’m treating him like a person,” I answer stiffly. “He doesn’t have his own room—he’s staying with me, because the nanite attack the former Sira was removed from the throne for killed all remaining members of his family.”

  Lejv purses his lips, but I’m not done—not even close. I lean forward and keep my gaze on him. “I’m not apologizing for bringing an orphan to the capitol—an orphan, I might add, who is a making of the throne I’m inheriting. We destroyed his life—all of us—and I intend to make it right for him and for the others whose lives we’ve ripped apart with our hatred and intolerance.”

  It isn’t a speech I should be making to a room full of bigoted Sepharon royalty, but the words pouring out of me are true. Whether I like it or not, I’ve been a part of this from the very beginning—my existence wasn’t an accident; it was a strategic political move. And no one else is going to make things change, no one else is going to take care of people like Mal, ground into the sand and left to die. No one else is going to change the world for him, and for his children, an
d for his children’s children.

  I want Safara to be a better place, a safer place, for people like me, like Mal, like the Sepharon servants bringing us food and drink and disappearing into the background. But no one else is going to do that—no one else is going to try to change a blazing thing.

  It’s up to me.

  I’m the change.

  My words echo in the silence of the room; even Lejv and Ashen, glowering at me from across the table, don’t have a rebuttal ready.

  So I speak for them.

  “My father was ready to do the unacceptable—the unthinkable, to many of you—to make Safara a better place for everyone. I’m not here by accident; having me was a deliberate move, and I’m not backing down now.”

  I sip the brew again and keep my eyes on Lejv and Ashen. But there’s nothing for them to say, not really.

  I’ve made my move.

  “That was incredible.” Deimos laughs and claps me on the back hard enough to make me cough, but then lowers his voice so he doesn’t wake Mal, who is fast asleep on my bed. “Kala, did you see their faces? Lejv looked ready to wet himself.”

  “You did great, Eros,” Kora says with a tired laugh. She sits on the edge of my bed. “I don’t think anyone was expecting you to come in with so much confidence and presence. You held your own.”

  “Held his own? You more than held your own, Eros—you decimated them. You showed everyone you’re a real contender and you’re not going to sit back quietly.”

  I smile and sit on a pile of pillows on the floor—I guess Mal decided there is such a thing as too many pillows after all—leaning my head back against the edge of the floating bed. “I’m kinduv impressed with myself,” I say honestly. “I was nervous at first, but when Sulten and Lejv started talking me down, I just got really blazed off.”

  “Blazed?” Deimos frowns. “Is that Eljan slang?”

  “Redblood slang, I think.” Kora laughs.

  My face warms, but I shrug. “It still translates.”

  “Blazed,” Deimos says again. “I like it.”

  I smile.