Inherit the Stars

by Tessa Elwood

Lord Galton lets go and taps the reader. The initiation text appears and he pounds the crosshairs with two harsh fingers, sinking the needle so deep into my wrist it almost spears the hover. I scream.

  Eagle barrels into Galton and they disappear from view.

  Compiling . . . compiling . . .

  An end table crashes, followed by a harsh, “You dare?”

  Flash flash flash.

  Severed skin and fire and of course the needle hasn’t punctured my wrist, not all the way through, that’s stupid, it can’t have.

  My arm might fall off.

  “Stand down,” says Lord Westlet from somewhere, chased by the Lady’s, “Eagle!” and Dad’s, “Enough.”

  And rising over it all, “Results inconclusive. Please retest.”

  Genevieve stands at my shoulder, pointing at the holorecord above my screaming wrist. My head swims and the letters fuzz, but they don’t rearrange.

  Lord Galton’s finger points with his wife’s in unmitigated triumph. “And what do you say now?”

  “No,” I say.

  It’s wrong. It has to be. The chip acclimated. It worked.

  Except the holo doesn’t change and I can’t see Eagle.

  Mekenna’s brow knots as she reaches for my wrist.

  “Decontamination,” I rush out. “It’s because of Decontamination.”

  “What?” asks Genevieve.

  “Asa,” Dad warns.

  He should know me better.

  “Wren blew up her lab once, with us in it,” I say, because it’s true and as good a place to start as any. “One of her chemical experiments went wrong. The fire wasn’t so bad, but the fumes were awful—so slimy you could actually feel them—and we got sick. Really sick.” I look over my shoulder at Dad. “Remember that summer Wren kept me on Urnath? And she kept dreaming up excuses why we couldn’t come home yet? That was why. We had to flush the chemicals out, and Wren didn’t want you to know.” My wrist hurts and my arm and I refocus on Mekenna. “It worked, we got better, but her eye color changed twice and my toenails fell off and never grew back. Here, you can see.” I reach for my shoes, but lightning shoots up my wrist and through my head and my legs buckle.

  Genevieve catches me as the room upends. “Get it off, just get it off her.”

  But Mekenna’s already deactivating the reader, retracting the needle. The crosshairs disengage, then the energy field, and my wrist slides off the hover. I clutch it to my chest.

  “Genevieve,” says Lord Galton.

  “You’ve proven the point,” she says. “Oh God, she’s bleeding. Here, baby, let me see.”

  I hug my arm tighter, take a shaky step back. “I’m fine, it’s fine.”

  Lord Galton snakes around Mekenna to grab my arm. “No, you’re not done yet.”

  “You cannot be serious.” Lord Westlet appears behind Galton a second before Eagle does, blocking his path. The room shrinks, condenses, the world boiling over.

  “Baby, your blouse is red, you have to let me see.”

  “She needs a blood chip scan. Now.”

  “My Lord, as I said, a medichip can’t—”

  “Can’t? You’re sure you are fully cognizant of all technological advances in the thirteen years of their lockdown? I want her scanned.”

  “No.” Dad.

  “Asa.” Eagle.

  “You do not get a say in this.” Galton.

  “Sweetie, if you would let me—” Genevieve.

  “Enough,” I yell. Loud. It echoes. I raise my head. “Scan me.”

  I SIT ON THE BED, MY BACK TO THE OBSERVATION WINDOW, but it doesn’t matter. I feel them, their eyes. Watching.

  The small lab tastes of scrubbed steel and stars. Gray floor washed silver in the overheads. Mekenna stands at the deep counter built into the opposite wall, pulling packets from this drawer, filling a glass from the sink, dropping something into the water.

  “Drink this.”

  Clear bubbles float and pop between things that squiggle.

  “It’s for the scan,” she says.

  Which I asked for.

  I gulp it down. Mildew slimes down my throat and I cough. Mekenna sweeps the glass away, then takes my wrist without preamble and cleans the blood. Swift, efficient strokes that burn. I grab the bed’s edge with my free hand and don’t pass out.

  Barely.

  “That was interesting.” She rips open a packet, removes a transparent sealant square and smooths it over my wrist. “I would have said impossible.”

  “What is?”

  “An inconclusive signature from someone who isn’t newly chipped.”

  Breathe, just breathe.

  “It happens to me all the time,” I say. “At home.”

  “Again, interesting.” Mekenna cleans up the packet and dabbing cloth, rinses out the glass. Then she returns and jabs an injector pen into my wrist.

  I yelp.

  “For pain.” She steadies my hand with careful fingers that don’t match her eyes. “So what exactly were you contaminated with?”

  “I don’t know? Wren called it the Bug.”

  Which is sort of true. That’s what Wren first called the Blight, before it destroyed the farms.

  I sway, but there’s nothing to keep me steady and upright—except Mekenna.

  “And you lost your toenails,” she states, as if she’s pegged the lie I can’t talk my way out of.

  I kick off a shoe, reach down to slip off my sock. Stubby toes with bare gaps. At least they don’t have those weird green threads anymore.

  Mekenna’s mouth curves on an oh, but all she says is, “Lie down, please.”

  I do, scooting back on the slick metal surface. There’s no mattress, but the chip hasn’t acclimated enough for my back to feel things yet.

  Just as long as it doesn’t matter for the scan.

  The ceiling tiles are locked white squares.

  More opening drawers, metal clattering.

  “This is a live scan. All information will be streamed to the holo in the observation window.”

  Mekenna lines a series of discs along the counter and activates them one by one. They spring into the air. Skitter to float above my head in a long glowing line. Then they lock together and beam white. Scan me up and down in a regulated march. Two passes, five.

  Then the beam cuts out and the discs cluster. Mekenna pulls them from the air.

  Shouts rise beyond the observation window, indistinguishable through the pane.

  Don’t react. Whatever she says, don’t be surprised and don’t react.

  “It seems you’re not chipped.” Mekenna opens a drawer and tosses in the discs.

  I loosen, almost float. “I told you.”

  “Of course, any biotechnician worth her salt intent on building untraceable medichips would program them to be untraceable—even by her own scanners.” Mekenna reaches across the counter to a small control panel embedded in the wall. Keys in a quick code. The lights change. Not dimmed so much as altered.

  The observation window is blacked out.

  I sit up, slow.

  Mekenna leans back against the counter. “And any biotech with half a brain would keep track of said chips and would know where every last one of them was, and where they’d have no possibility of being.”

  The room is cold and so am I. “I’m not chipped. We don’t even have medichips in Fane.”

  She shrugs, more with eyebrows then shoulders. “Perhaps. But perhaps you do. Or perhaps your father stole and repurposed one of ours. The Electorate will trust my word over his or even Arron’s—the technology is mine, after all—and this whole charade is for our benefit. Now, perhaps that particular type of signature reader has a known tendency to fail when retesting subjects. Or perhaps your father is a conniving bastard who not only subverted our alliance but stole another man’s child. Which would you prefer?”

  She wants to change the story. My House in the balance and she doesn’t even care.

  And when it was Wren at stake, neither did I.
>
  “Orrin,” I say. “You want Orrin.”

  “So Arron did speak to you.” Her smile eviscerates. “Yes, I want my husband back.”

  “No matter what? Even if it hurts?”

  The smile crumbles in a ragged line. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

  “No, he’s married.”

  Her expression doesn’t change, caught as if the muscles broke.

  “He has a restaurant and a ten-year-old. A boy. With freckles. I found an article in the feeds. Lord Westlet can show you.”

  I’ve gutted her. She’s bleeding all over the sterile floor, and I don’t have sealant enough to stop it and what I do have won’t make it better.

  But I offer it anyway.

  “You don’t need an ultimatum.” I slide off the bed onto unsteady feet. “If you want to talk to Orrin, I’ll make it happen. If you’d rather yell at Dad, I’ll send him in. It doesn’t have to be a game. You can just ask.”

  “THAT WAS AMAZING, DEAREST,” SAYS MY MOTHER.

  I freeze in the doorway between the lab and the lab’s cluttered office.

  Genevieve leans against the wall, a breezy tangle of flowers and salt. She peers past me and says, “Do pardon us, Mekenna,” before closing the door.

  The office is tiny, more an antechamber between the lab and the observation room—the door to which is also shut tight. I can’t even hear muffled shouting now.

  Which means they’ve moved past shouts to threats.

  Genevieve’s skirt brushes purple gloss against the stacked filecases as she lifts my hand and smooths the sealant with a gentle finger.

  Or else the injected meds are kicking in.

  “How ever did Gavin manage it?” she asks.

  “He didn’t.”

  “Now we both know that’s not true.” Airy and teasing.

  “Then you know wrong.” I yank free and pain spikes from my wrist to my heart. Or the other way around. I hug one to the other. “You don’t get to hurt us by claiming me.”

  She bites her lip. “I would never—you’re my daughter, Asa. I would never hurt you. You know that, right? You have to know that.”

  Me. That’s me in her voice.

  I shrink back but she eases closer.

  “If Gavin hadn’t locked me out, do you think I’d have missed a second of your growing up? That I wouldn’t have loved to have shown you off? You were such a cute baby, small and perfect.” She smooths my scalp with a touch even my bones feel, petal light and nail-edged. “And such lovely hair. This color suits you, but it’s much too short. Gavin’s idea, no doubt? Odd.” Something flits across her lips and her eyes grow old. “He used to quite enjoy length. Never mind, dearest, we’ll find a way to make it grow.”

  My hair will be short until I die.

  Her hand slides down to my jaw. “Baby—”

  “I’m not your baby!” I push away. “Or your darling or dearest or anything else.”

  “No, you’re right. You’re the Heir.”

  “I’m not—”

  “To Galton,” she says.

  And my guts join Mekenna’s on the floor. “What?”

  “There was an accident, last year. Jaered cannot have more children.” She takes a step, the hint of dewpetals in water. “He has no siblings. His mother had no siblings, nor his grandfather. You are the last of his line.”

  “No.” I shake my head, block her out. “No.”

  “He will not give you up.” Another step, gloss and thorns. “Nor should he. Ba—Asa, this is your inheritance. What you were born for. Nothing in Fane compares. Even your largest city could fit within one of Annasan’s lesser districts. And Westlet! Not that it doesn’t have its share of charm mind you, but trees? In the capital? I’ve seen more birds’ nests than people. Of course they have territory enough, and there’s the blood bond to contend with, but you were made for grander things and we can make them happen.”

  Her hand falls on my heart.

  I’ll make it happen, I’d promised Mekenna. I’ll make it happen.

  “I. Am. Fane.” I squeeze my fists until my wrist screams, and the truth blazes everywhere. “And nothing touches that.”

  Flame rises through her cheeks and chokes her eyes as she opens her mouth and—

  Laughs. “Such fire, and you were such a little thing. How I’ve missed seeing you grow.”

  My heart smears with the red on my shirt.

  “All of you, Wren and Emmaline. You can’t image what it’s like, being locked out. I’d forgive Gavin anything but that. If only he—”

  The observation door opens and other voices soar in.

  “—take your word on it?” asks Lord Galton, brutal tenor. “No, she comes with me.”

  “I haven’t the slightest interest in your expectations,” Lord Westlet nearly purrs. “The results are sent and cannot—what was it?—be ‘deleted, overwritten, or tampered with.’”

  “How incredibly convenient.”

  “Why, yes, the Electorate thought so. It was their idea.”

  Eagle fills the doorway, and our eyes meet. My chest knots in relief or joy or terror and all I want is to grab his hand and run.

  He steps inside and shuts the rising argument out.

  Genevieve swallows a sigh. “Eagle, is it? Looking for some quiet?”

  He walks forward, focuses on me and me only. She might not exist. My heart kicks up.

  “I’m quite sure it’s loud enough out there to give anyone a headache, but if you don’t mind, my daughter and I are—”

  I reach out and he pulls me away from her and opens the lab door, stopping just inside.

  “Mekenna,” Eagle says, but his voice says, out.

  Mekenna is still leaning against the steel counter, face stripped and dying.

  “Let her alone,” I say.

  His hand tightens on the handle.

  “Eagle, sweetheart,” says Genevieve from behind. “As I said, we were in a—”

  He spins, slides an arm over her shoulders and almost hauls her to the observation room door, which he magically opens to push her through. “My Lady,” he says, stepping back.

  “Really,” she says, “I’m not sure—”

  He slams the door in her face.

  I nod to Mekenna and gently close her back in the lab. I turn and run into Eagle who is somehow right here, forearm leveraged on the door above my head.

  “What happened? What did she say?” he asks, like the world ended and I didn’t bother to tell him.

  In the three seconds since I left the lab.

  “God, Eagle, what hasn’t happened?”

  “I haven’t killed anyone yet.” Serious, almost austere, as if he’s a vengeance ghost from one of Wren’s favorite dramas, suited up and ready to go. I laugh. I can’t help it. Big, silent bubbles I can’t stop because every time I look at him they just bounce more.

  His jaw sets and I’m half sure he’ll launch into an epic ghostly monologue, except—the corner of his mouth upends on a lopsided smile.

  The giggles fade. Catch on the half-moon scar that twines his mouth and turns it sneaky. The brown of his eyes echoes in his lips. Warmth and wonder like life is this shiny, beautiful thing.

  No wonder he smiles so rarely. Everyone would forget how to breathe.

  He kisses me. A series of kisses. Brief and gone and back again, until the seconds between are too many and too much and I follow his lips so he’ll stay. And he does. Hand on my neck as mine finds his hair, and then we’re out of sync and in rhythm. Upended or anchored or tangled or breaking, and his smile radiates under my skin.

  Our noses brush, his eyes still closed. “I won’t let them.”

  “Let them what?”

  He presses his forehead to mine. “Take you to Galton. For retesting.”

  There’s more, I can feel it, but his eyes don’t open.

  “And if I say no?” I say.

  “They promise to take you. By force. In force.”

  Galton will invade.

  “No!” I du
ck away from Eagle, run to the observation room door and pull it open.

  The room centers on Galton and Dad. Dad’s hand locked around the other’s raised fist. Galton must have swung.

  Galton bends so close to Dad, they could almost kiss. “You will hand her over. I don’t know what armies you amassed during your lockdown, but I can promise—they won’t be enough.” Galton pulls free with an easy twist, as if Dad’s hold was no barrier. Sees me in the doorway. Offers a mocking, half salute. “Next week, Daughter.”

  Not a threat or a promise. Those would assume the possibility of doubt.

  Galton holds out a hand to Genevieve. She takes his arm, but she watches Dad and Dad alone.

  You idiot, she mouths.

  And they’re gone. A swish of heels and skirts disappearing into the hall. The room a vacuum in their wake.

  Lord Westlet looks at the Lady, but her face is as etched as his.

  She smooths her wrinkle-less dress. “I should—I should see them out.”

  Lord Westlet nods and leans against the observation window, waits for Dad to move.

  Dad doesn’t.

  I can’t, either.

  Eagle’s behind me, hand on my shoulder.

  “The Electorate won’t back Galton’s lab over Mekenna’s,” Lord Westlet says at last. “He has ties here, but they are not that good. The second test would not have transmitted. Assuming Mekenna’s silence, there’s nothing to say it even happened.”

  “Yes,” Dad’s lips barely move. “But will they back me?”

  “With force? I can’t offer that.” Dad’s chin lifts, and Lord Westlet sighs. “If you cannot feed your people, you cannot fight a war and I cannot fight it for you. I haven’t the soldiers or resources to face Galton alone. And should I be idiot enough to try, Daric will have the perfect excuse to rend this House from the inside.” His words gain a bitter edge. “This alliance and your fuel was supposed to prevent that.”

  Dad nods. Accepts.

  Everything.

  “I need to talk to Dad,” I tell Eagle.

  Eagle shifts, fingers just brushing my neck as he steps past me through the door. “Father, a word?”

  Lord Westlet turns toward us. “Now?”

  “Yes.”

  The Lord shakes his head but pushes off the window and moves to the hall door. Eagle starts to follow.