“Cooperation is imperative,” my mother says, her voice razor-sharp. Her lazy demeanor is now fierce, calculated. She doesn’t even glance at my dagger as she strolls down the platform, the white fur around her neck bright. “You, of all people know that, Kole.”
He hacks a cough in answer. His gray suit is stained red. The other soldier punches him in the stomach, a sick grin on his face. Dena whimpers and I feel my face pale.
I never thought I’d see Dena afraid.
“Did you retrieve the box from him?” the Queen asks. The soldier holds out a small metal box. I know what it is, but as I search through the pages in my mind, half of them have been replaced with new memories, rather than the facts I memorized over the years. But the box’s darkened exterior, few frayed wires and the rusted inscriptions tell me enough: it’s from Earth.
Chancellor Kole groans.
Blood trickles down a gash across his cheek.
“Leave him alone,” Dena hisses, her voice is thick with tears.
The Queen turns to me. “Do you know what this is, Lissa?”
I don’t answer.
“It’s a voice recorder, from Earth. Gage was a very interesting man, wasn’t he? He thought he could keep it from me, he thought he was smart.” She laughs. Irritation flashes in her eyes when Chancellor Kole’s cough cuts her short. “He’s dead.”
Julian silently passes the Queen and stands by my side.
“There’s a problem, you see,” she says. She speaks slowly, too slowly. Chancellor Kole is seeping blood, and if she drags on any longer, he’ll die. What does Chancellor Kole have to do with the recorder? And Gage?
“The recorder is locked, protected. Gage, idiot that he was, configured it to recognize one voice only.”
“My voice,” I whisper.
“Smart girl,” my mother says and strides toward me. I eagerly take the small box from her elegant fingers. I’m holding an artifact from Earth. At the thought, giddiness trembles through me.
Chancellor Kole is dying and I am thinking of Earth. My mother looks ready to rip off my head and I am thinking of Earth. I clench my jaw.
“Unlock it,” she says, her voice soft and commanding.
I force air through my nose. Jutaire air. Only Chancellor Kole and Dena wear masks, no one else. In White Plains, they are the ones who stand out, not us. Us.
I almost laugh. I have a place where I belong and I still don’t belong.
“No.”
The temperature drops. “What did you say?”
“I said no.” I meet her eyes as defiantly as I can. My daggers pulse against me—two around my waist, another hidden against my leg.
“Very well.” She turns to Rowan. Ilen and the other soldier hold Chancellor Kole by his arms as Rowan slides a sword out from the soldier’s sheath. He presses it against Chancellor Kole’s neck.
Chancellor Kole looks at me, his black eyes strangely focused. “Don’t,” he wheezes, “do it.”
Rowan presses the blade harder and Chancellor Kole shuts his eyes with a shuddering breath. Rowan glances at the Queen, and I catch a flicker of something in his eyes that makes me pause.
Remorse.
I look back at my mother, panic rising in my chest. “Leave him alone.”
“Why? Wouldn’t you want him dead? After what he did to your poor uncle?” She asks.
“No one deserves to die,” I say, my voice quiet.
“No,” she says with a humorless laugh. “No one deserves to die. Everyone is destined to. Unlock the box.”
“Lissa, please,” Dena begs. Julian remains silent.
Chancellor Kole doubles over. My breathing quickens. Rowan pulls the sword away, the tip wet with blood.
No.
“Stop!” My voice echoes. Hysteria taints my words. “How do I open it?”
“Flick the switch,” the Queen says smugly.
There’s a nauseating, sickening rolling in my stomach. Gage was smart. He wouldn't encrypt information in a precious artifact from Earth unless the situation was dire. Unless the information was of utmost importance.
My mother is right. My uncle was an idiot.
The box speaks through the three tiny slits on its side. The vibration of a voice I never thought I’d hear again tingles up my fingers.
Gage's voice. I thought I would no longer mourn him, now that I have my real father, now that I know what Gage would have done to me. But nothing can replace the years where I thought he was my father, always looking out for me.
“Lissa, if you’re hearing this, it means I have failed. Moreover, it means I am dead. You likely know the truth now and Slate must finally be reunited with his daughter. And Lissa”—he pauses—“I am sorry. Very and truly.”
If I ever had any doubts, I know now: Slate is my father.
The Queen scoffs, dragging me back to the reality before me.
“In this digital recorder, I've protected a file. It will open to your voice only, with a set of words I once told you. I know you more than you know yourself, Lissa. You will figure it out.”
“As for what lies in the file,” he trails off with a sigh laden in remorse. Julian’s fingers press against my arm.
“As for what lies in the file,” he starts again, “it is the truth. I would never lie to you. I've thoroughly tested what began as a theory, a speculation, and this is the conclusion.”
He clears his throat. And when he speaks again, his voice is constricted with emotion. “Unlock the file, Lissa, and decide what needs to be done.”
Silence. The large room is suddenly too small. I won’t decide what needs to be done.
My mother will.
“Password.” I flinch at the female monotone. I think of all the words Gage had told me. There are so many. Gage never said anything that didn’t need to be said. Every word was uttered for a reason.
“I don’t know what it is.”
“Neither do we, darling,” the Queen says. “But you’ll figure it out. Or they’ll die, one by one.”
As she says the words, more soldiers enter the room. Two of them grab Dena. She screeches and struggles against them. One of them slaps her across her cheek and she stops, stunned into obedience. When they come for Julian, he doesn’t even move a muscle as they pull him in front of me, where I can see him. He doesn’t react at all.
Fear rolls through me. No amount of training could have prepared me for this.
I stare at the recorder, as if that will make it spill its secrets. Chancellor Kole coughs again.
“You are you,” I say to it, remember Gage’s words on the hill when I took my first breath of the toxic air. Nothing happens. The light is still red. The Queen stares in silence, as does Rowan. And everyone else.
There are too many eyes on me, too many.
“Well, try another, we don’t have all day,” one of the soldiers whines. The Queen slants her gaze at him and he straightens.
Chancellor Kole is the only one moving. Heaving, because he is dying.
“Rowan,” the Queen says. I glance up and meet Rowan’s eyes as he draws more blood, deepening the gash across Chancellor Kole’s neck. A scream builds in the back of my throat.
“Lissa,” I hear Julian whisper.
I swivel my eyes to his, my movements are jittery, too much of a display of my fear. But when I meet his eyes, there’s no one but us. No blood. No death. No threat.
“You are running out of time,” the Queen says. Chancellor Kole cries out. He falls to the ground when the soldiers release him. He moans and heaves.
The man who had taken countless lives, who acted as the most hated man in human eyes to protect them all, is dying. Rowan drops the sword and pulls a small dagger from his waist.
I hold my breath as the clatter of the sword echoes into silence. Everyone does. Because suddenly, no one is breathing. Suddenly, every eye is on me. The room thickens with anticipation. Even the walls grasp their breath.
I close my eyes. And there, in the dark harshness of my breathing, I
hear Gage’s voice on the threshold of death.
“You are not my daughter.”
The red light turns green.
And Rowan plunges his dagger through Chancellor Kole’s heart.
Dena screams and I nearly drop the recorder as my ears explode with her bloodcurdling cry.
“Dena, shut up,” Julian thunders. The walls yell back with his furious words. In swift movements, he kicks the soldiers away from him, twists their arms behind them until they themselves drop in pain. He’s by Chancellor Kole’s side in heartbeats.
“No,” I breathe. I press my fingers against the edges of the recorder, letting the pain of the metal edges bite into my skin.
Julian’s hands roam over Chancellor Kole’s chest, which is covered in blood. It covers the tile beneath our feet and pools around him. But there is no use. He’s dying.
The Queen watches with pursed lips. Rowan wipes his dagger across his thigh and drops it back in its sheath, his forehead wrinkled and eyes downcast for barely a moment before his face clears of emotion. He looks blankly at the Queen. As if nothing happened.
As if he didn’t just slaughter an unarmed old man.
He’s as two-faced as everyone else.
“It’s no use, boy,” Chancellor Kole rasps. The knees of Julian’s pants are soaked in blood, his hands red. Dena tries to break free from the soldiers holding her back, but they don’t budge. Chancellor Kole looks at me, his eyes losing focus. “Stupid girl. I told you, I told-”
He grabs Julian’s shirt as blood sputters from his lips again. “Protect my daughter.”
And those are his last words.
“You murderer.” Dena breaks the silence, her voice is raw. Julian slowly lifts his head from against his chest and looks at me with pained eyes.
“Press the button,” the Queen says. I blink and Chancellor Kole’s body comes into focus again.
“You killed him,” I say breathlessly. My body trembles with anger.
She doesn’t care. “Press the button or they’ll all die.”
Julian is by my side in an instant. His bloody hands close around mine and gently force my finger to the button.
I bite my lip as Gage’s voice spills from the wretched instrument again.
“You unlocked it,” Gage says sadly. Light static fills the silence, drowned out by the rushing in my ears and the thudding in my heart. “When I said you are greater than man and Jute, I meant it. You are greater. And because of that, dear Lissa, you are in danger.”
“The Jute are going to make Earth their home. They will leave us here to wither away and the last of the human race will fade into nothing.” His voice changes and I hear the smile in his voice. I’ve seen it countless times—a small one, twisting the right edge of his lips while his eyes drown in sorrow. “But. There is always a but, isn't there, Lissa?”
I would have smiled at his old joke. Less of a joke, really, but it always managed to lighten gloomy stories.
But now, it’s different. Now, my smiles are smothered in this harsh reality.
“But Jute cannot breathe oxygen,” he says. “There is no use in going to Earth if they'll die days after they inhale.”
“That's where you come in. Where your value lies, and why you must be protected at all costs. I entrusted Kole with this recorder, just as I have entrusted your life to him.” His voice is low now, grave. “The Jute need you Lissa. I made a grave mistake and the Jute know they need you. But no one knows what for.”
He sighs. “So hear me carefully. The only way for them to survive on Earth is through you. Your blood. One drop can reproduce in heartbeats and holds the ability to thrive on both Jutaire and Earth.”
“I’m sure you’re wondering how it works. There's a certain obligate anaerobe, or bacteria, if you will, that thrives in every Jute. It also lives in your blood via symbiosis, a state in which the bacteria survives healthily in both oxygen and non-oxygen states.”
“You are a hybrid. The only one of your kind. And with one drop of your blood in each of the many Jute, they will be like you—they will breathe both oxygen and the toxic air without issue.”
He sighs again. “But you, dear Lissa, will be dead.”
The recording shuts off. I lean forward, closer and closer, but that's it. He’s gone. The box is as silent as the room around me.
My mother doesn’t intend to crown me as heir. It’s an act. My mother intends to murder me.
To suck me dry.
“Ilen.” My mother says with a jerk of her head. He doesn’t react. He’s staring at Chancellor Kole’s lifeless body. She raises her voice. “Ilen.”
“Yes, your Majesty.” He rushes to her and bows. I try not to look at the body of the man I hated for so long.
“Prick her vein.”
I shiver. The soldiers stare at me. Dena and Julian stare at me. The throne room shrinks.
She brought me out here without a word, but this was her motive all along. She may not have known exactly what she needed me for, but we both knew I would be used. Didn’t I climb into her carriage knowing that?
I didn’t know I would be killed.
I don’t know anything anymore. My life was a lie. My mind is a muddled haze.
“Relax, daughter,” she says with a humorless laugh. “We have to perform a test. Make sure you really are our Princess.”
Ilen comes forward with a case. He unfolds it, pulling out a needle and two vials, each one the length of my hand. I inhale sharply at the thought of so much blood. She knows I am the Princess. My breathing is a testament to that, however vague.
Ilen swipes the inside of my arm with a wet substance. His hands tremble.
The Queen wants to test Gage's theory, to see if my blood really is more valuable than the air I breathe.
Ilen presses the needle into my arm and I suck in a breath. Beads of red slowly trickle out, forming a steady stream down the first vial.
I grit my teeth at the pull. Clench my fists. Then it hits me.
If Jute can breathe oxygen with my blood, then the effect can go both ways—humans can breathe the air of Jutaire. Lack of oxygen will no longer be a hindrance. They can fight back.
My mind begins to clear as the answer slowly clicks.
Yes. Yes, they can. We can.
The sudden weight of everything comes crashing down on me. And I fall. Darkness swallows me whole.
Because finally, finally, there is hope in the world.
I wake to a void in my chest, empty and sad. I wish Julian were here, or Slate. Or even Dena or Chancellor Kole.
My breath shudders when I see his dark eyes devoid of life and his unusual white hair stained in his own blood.
I hated him, once. I thought he was a heartless murderer. But all he wanted was to protect his daughter and his people.
Chancellor Kole would never have hung so many humans if it weren’t for the Jute and their orders.
In the end, he was murdered.
And despite the hatred I harbored inside me against him, I forgive him. Because I know now why he did what he did.
And in the end, the blame lies with the Queen.
The pillow beneath my head is plush and soft, unlike anything I’ve ever felt before. Above me, a silken canopy of midnight blue, dusted in glittering white, drapes over the four bedposts, emulating the night sky.
I sit up. My Louen tunic and suit is gone. Someone changed me into a pale yellow nightgown. Gold and white sheets swirl at my feet, the material a caress against my mostly bare skin. The richness of the room emanates from the walls’ elaborate deep brown decor. The trims are honey brown, a sunlit beacon in the dark.
On the other end of the room is an unlit fireplace, two brown chairs embossed with gold sitting on either side. To my left is the door, a slab of white against the brown wall. To my right is a dresser, sprawling with trinkets and other accessories I can't name from their silhouettes. Another smaller door, most likely leading to a bathroom, stands beside it.
It’s beautiful. Rich.
I lie back against the pillows with a small smile on my lips.
And immediately sit up.
No. I'm in the center of Jute territory. The man I thought my father is dead. The mother I never knew I had is the Queen of the Jute. I’m in her castle, where Julian’s lookalike brother murdered Chancellor Kole before my eyes.
And my blood.
The inside of my arm prickles in reminder. They have two full vials of my blood.
The lab the Queen spoke of must be somewhere here. How else will they conduct tests? And what tests will they conduct?
I slide out of the bed. It's tall, and my feet barely skim the floor when I sit on its side.
My belt and daggers are gone and I feel vulnerable in this flimsy dress. When I move toward the door, keen on sneaking out, someone knocks. My heart catapults to my throat when I pull it open.
Julian.
The bandages dotting his face are gone, his scars barely visible. Jute heal fast, he had said. He looks more like Rowan now, with dress pants and a midnight blue shirt, the sleeves rolled right beneath his elbows. His messy hair glistens with droplets of water.
But when I hear his monotone, something inside me falters, stumbles and can’t get up.
“The Queen requires your presence in her chambers, Princess. Her Majesty requested that you make yourself presentable.”
Princess. The word feels like a slap. I stare at him, my breath frozen in my chest. Something flickers in his eyes and I wait for him to speak, to say something.
And when he doesn't, anger rushes through me, strengthening me. I press my lips closed. Inside, my heart is breaking, but I can't let that show.
“I will,” I reply coolly. He flinches and lowers his eyes. And though everything inside me screams the opposite, I move to close the door. But when I touch my hand to the wood, he reacts. He reaches out on instinct, his fingers brushing against my skin and I want more. More.
What is wrong with me?
“Wait,” he whispers. His voice cracks in pain. I exhale through my lips.
“Yes?” I breathe. He searches my face.
“I’ll keep my promise.”
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