Shadow Run

by Michael Miller

  I grimaced. Qole, being Qole, was not beating around the bush. I hadn’t intentionally neglected to mention my betrothal, but the truth was that Qole made me wish Ket didn’t exist. “Congratulations aren’t exactly in order. The marriage is a political convenience. Every member of the royal family is paired with whoever is viewed as the best mate. We don’t have any say in the matter.”

  It was what I’d been wanting to tell her all evening, and I felt like she had to understand.

  “Sounds…romantic,” she replied. “So, what, would you prefer condolences?”

  We circled with a group of dancers, moving in rhythm to the strings and with the bodies around us. As the bass crashed into a long, low reverb, we all dipped our partners, and I supported Qole’s weight in the crook of my arm. She resisted at first, tensing, but then she melted into me. Her waist against my arm, the movement of her body, felt as though it were feeding some part of me that was ravenous. I wrenched my eyes up to hers, and we lifted back into position.

  I changed my mind—all evening I had been wanting to talk to Qole, but now all I wanted was this. To be with her, holding her, moving to the music.

  And definitely not discussing my impending marriage.

  “Not condolences either, no.” I sought for a better way to explain. “While it is a part of our lives, it’s a formality.”

  “Maybe that’s why you forgot to mention it.”

  “I didn’t mention it because it doesn’t matter. Ket doesn’t mean anything to me; it’s simply that her bloodline, parenting, and genetics will work best with mine. Besides, pairings like this don’t really change the outside relationships of many people.”

  Qole’s eyes narrowed, but her voice was neutral when she spoke. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that many royals are in love and have relationships with others, even of lower classes, despite their official marriage. It’s not advertised, but it’s a well-known and accepted fact of life.”

  “It’s sure not an accepted fact of life anywhere I’ve been.” Her tone was no longer neutral, it was distinctly cold. “I don’t know who would agree to come second—or third?—to that…” She swallowed whatever she was about to say in a bitter mouthful. “Although, right, what would I know? I haven’t even been many places. But at least where I’m from we still have our pride, despite how much has been taken from us.”

  “Qole…”

  Her brief silence was just as frosty. “But you don’t mind if someone’s poor, hey?”

  This was treacherous ground. Her accent always meant trouble. It came out stronger only when she was distracted or furious, and she definitely wasn’t distracted. From me, at any rate. She was so focused on our argument that she was actually dancing rather well.

  “No, I—” I didn’t get far.

  “Then all those lucky girls will be so grateful for your interest.” Sarcasm wasn’t like her, but it seemed like she’d been practicing.

  “No, I don’t want that,” I insisted.

  “Oh, just the royal classes then, because everyone else’s genes are so far beneath you?”

  “No, I didn’t mean that, either!” Once again, language was utterly failing me with Qole. “I mean that I can still have whatever relationship I want. Systems, no, I mean…”

  I want you. But I couldn’t say it. Not when she was glaring at me like she wanted to kill me. At the same time, her eyes were growing more distant. It was like she was slipping away from me, and I didn’t know how to stop it.

  “Since you can supposedly have whatever—whomever—you might want,” she bit out, “then you shouldn’t have to marry the ice-raker, hey?”

  Ice-raker? Whatever that was, I gathered whom she meant. Frustration bubbled up within me. “Of course I have to.” I jerked my head to encompass the people, the party. “Isn’t it obvious?”

  Qole stopped, and I almost bumped into her. “Not to me.”

  “Then I must be doing a very poor job explaining, because it’s not like you’re making this any harder than it has to be,” I hissed with sarcasm to equal hers. “It’s just an aspect of royal life you obviously can’t understand.”

  Her eyes flashed alarmingly black for an instant, and it wasn’t a trick of the light. “Of course I could never understand. I’m a savage, rustic idiot, after all.” Her tone was raw and harsh. “It’s for the best—my genetics are a bad match for just about anyone, anyway.”

  “Qole…” She’d never looked down on her family or her history before. For a rare moment, I was at a loss for words. What had happened? Where did I go from here? All I knew was that I somehow had to hold on to her, not let her go.

  The music chose that inopportune moment to fade to a lingering end, and Qole pulled away to bow curtly. She should have curtsied, but I wasn’t about to correct her.

  Someone snickered, though, and I remembered we weren’t alone. We were surrounded, in fact.

  “Your Highness, thank you for the dance.” She turned and attempted to walk away into the crowd.

  Unfortunately for her, the crowd parted, letting her pass, and I realized that everyone around us was staring. Which meant the entire ballroom was staring. We were officially no longer being either surreptitious or unnoticed in our interaction.

  “Oh, systems. Don’t pay it any attention, Ketrana. My brother always did like to play in the mud, and I suppose he hasn’t grown out of it.”

  Solara’s voice, as pleasant as always, rang like the last clear note of the music across the ballroom from where she was standing next to Ket. Snide laughter followed it. A white-hot blade of fury sliced through me. Qole stumbled, almost flying into a group of people who backed away from her. Clutching at the skirt of her dress, she disappeared through the doors without another glance.

  I strode after her, appearances be damned. I would make this right, and if it caused some gossip, so be it. I wasn’t going to let Qole suffer another major embarrassment in my home by my hand—or Solara’s.

  “Ladies and gentlemen.” The deep tones of Father’s voice carried through the sound system and across the ballroom. “Please gather for the dance of the betrothed, as we celebrate the upcoming marriage of my eldest son, Prince Nevarian Thelarus Axandar Rubion Dracorte, to Princess Ketrana Akensia Sirine Gwenara Dracorte.”

  My steps faltered, then died. I could dodge decorum on many things, but not this. I couldn’t flout my father’s wishes publicly. I had a duty. It almost felt heavier than I could shoulder, yet I couldn’t set it down.

  Somehow, this seemed worse than all the dangers Qole and I had survived together. I had to abandon her to whatever she was feeling and dance with a fiancée I could not stand, never mind how I felt about any of it. How I felt about Qole.

  I turned and walked back to the royal dais.

  For a blinding minute, I hated everything about Nevarian Dracorte and his arrogant, revolting royal family. I wished they would all get sucked into a black hole so I would never have to see them again. A black hole, I thought with a bitter laugh that came out like a sob, had to be powerful enough to take care of even a Dracorte.

  Without seeing, and walking as fast as I could in my blasted heels, I brushed by people in suits and gowns and even more ridiculous outfits I didn’t know the names for—some that were barely there—before I turned a corner and found myself in dimmer, less populated hallways of white stone shot with silver. Dark blue carpets ran the stretching lengths, and ornate alloy wall sconces emitted faint, frosty glows. I only paused long enough to wipe my eyes—idiot tears from an idiot captain over an idiot prince—before I continued moving, my arms hugging my half-revealed stomach through the whispery, twisting fabrics of my dress. The citadel was more than warm enough, but all the mocking eyes on me had raised my flesh like a chill. Made me feel naked.

  How did Nev stand it? So many people watching him all the time…No, I told myself firmly, you are not going to feel sorry for him. Besides, he seemed to thrive under all the attention. I, on the other hand, withered and shrank,
seeming to lose more of myself every minute.

  …I had to get out of here.

  I turned another corner so quickly that my ankle buckled in one of my heels and pitched me against the nearest wall…and almost into a white statue that looked suspiciously like Nev. No one was around to raise a too-sleek eyebrow at the biting curse that ricocheted around the high, narrower hall. For once, I was alone.

  Sagging against the cool, smooth stone, I slid down until I hit the floor, not caring an atom’s worth that this was an inappropriate way for me to be sitting in this gown…or to be sitting at all. I cared so little, in fact, that I twitched aside the black, purple, and white folds of the skirt, baring nearly the length of my legs, to get at the buckles of my damned heels.

  Once the shoes were free of my feet—or vice versa—and dangling in one hand by their long straps, I stood, shoved away from the statue of maybe-Nev, and set off down the hall again. Part of me wanted to drop the heels, but then another absurd part of me thought Solara might want them back, never mind that she probably had five hundred pairs. And that they might not even be in her size.

  I crushed what felt like light-years of soft blue carpet under my bare feet. I wasn’t sure where I was going. All I knew was that I wanted to head in the opposite direction of any invasive, mocking pairs of eyes, or any member of the Dracorte family. And if my march took me in the direction of my ship, and off this systems-damned planet, so much the better.

  …Did I really mean that? In spite of Nev’s and my agreement, if that was all it had been, was I willing to abandon this place? Maybe, now that I’d seen the type of people who wanted to benefit from studying me. I’d almost believed, for a little while, that they were different from how they seemed. Nev had believed in his family’s goodness, rightness, after all…

  But he obviously believed a lot of scat that no one but a reeking royal would swallow about the greater good, when all royals really cared about was themselves. Nev seemed blinded by the dazzle that he’d been raised with, and I almost couldn’t blame him. With all these vibrant colors, these masking perfumes, these luxurious textures and vast indoor palaces, I couldn’t even get my bearings. The ground underneath me still felt off-kilter, in spite of my feet being out of the heels.

  No, I wouldn’t leave yet. But at the very least, I wanted to talk to my crew to regain some perspective. Even Eton’s belligerent arguments would be reassuring right now. The Kaitan was where I needed to be, a home away from home. There wasn’t any more Shadow on board, so I couldn’t sense that to find them, but somehow I’d reach my ship eventually.

  Whipping around another corner, I skidded to a halt, as did my thoughts.

  Standing in the shadows in front of me were twelve armored guards. For a second, we stared at each other. And then my eyes shot around. This hallway was a lot darker. The carpet had vanished, leaving only chilly stone under my toes. No perfumes scented the air, and the dim lighting was even colder. There were no other people within sight or even my hearing range.

  “Excuse me, Miss Uvgamut,” one of them began. He was the one with the Disruption Blade. The others had an array of guns. He sounded perfectly polite, but that made no difference. “May I ask where you’re going in such a hurry?”

  “My ship,” I breathed. “I wasn’t welcome there, at the ball. I just want to go home.” I want to see my friends and wrap myself in my furs, I almost added, but seeing my small form reflected in his polished armor made me not want to sound any more vulnerable than I already was. I straightened my back, trying to stand taller.

  His eyebrows rose. “Miss Uvgamut, I’m very sorry. That’s not possible.”

  Worry arced through me like a static charge. My voice hardened. “Why not?”

  His hand dropped and he spread his fingers wide at the soldiers behind him—a signal to them to fan out and start circling around me, I realized, when they started to do so. “Miss, would you come with us, please?” But he said it in a voice that didn’t sound at all like a request.

  All my internal alarms started screaming at once. This felt very, very wrong. But now, my confusion vaporized. I was no longer off-balance. My breath quickened, my muscles tensed, and my weight shifted to the balls of my feet. My body was telling me exactly what to do.

  It was telling me to run.

  I spun in place, and I ran. I heard the Bladeguard swear and issue a soft command; before I made it ten steps and heard their boots pounding on the ground behind me, I knew I wouldn’t make it. They were faster than I was, especially with the damned gown tangling around my legs.

  “Sub her!”

  I didn’t know what that meant, and I didn’t want to find out. I halted, gripped the long straps of my shoes in either hand, and pivoted in the same breath.

  One of the heels whipped the first guard in the face, probably destroying his cheek in the process, while the other one crushed the second guard’s hand and sent his pistol spinning away. My vision began to darken.

  “Get her before her eyes go!”

  One of them tackled me. His sizable mass brought me to the cold, hard ground. My dress tore, but the damage to my body was worse. My breath left me in a rush, my ribs creaked, and my shoulder screamed.

  Scream. I opened my mouth and let out a shriek that practically vibrated the walls. The guard who’d tackled me clapped a hand over my mouth, mashing my lip against my tooth. I tasted the metallic flavor of blood.

  I jerked my head, and my teeth sank into his hand with all the strength in my jaws. I tasted his blood then, even through his glove.

  He shouted a curse. His other hand ripped free from underneath my weight and cuffed me over the head. My temple bounced against the ground, and stars flashed in my vision, brightening the rapidly encroaching darkness. They weren’t the subtly twinkling stars of the still sky, or the liquid streaks of an engaged Belarius Drive. These were violent stars, bursting and popping like high-speed supernovas. Only then did my teeth let go of him.

  Somebody seized a handful of my hair, breaking some of the jeweled strands braided into it. A tinkling rain of gems on the hard floor accompanied the sting of an injection in my neck.

  The stars burst all over my body then, tingling, weighting my limbs with their impossible gravity. I couldn’t move. I could barely protest as two guards lifted me up by my arms and began dragging me down the hallway, away from the direction of the ball or any help. Into the darkness.

  But the darkness was barely in my eyes anymore. I tried to reach for the Shadow beckoning at the edges of my vision, and I couldn’t. Whatever they’d given me kept me from it, just like it kept me from lifting my head.

  My eyes rolled back under heavy lids, and a different sort of darkness claimed me.

  I opened my eyes only a few more times before we arrived, enough to know that I had no idea where I was, and that they’d carried me, silently, for a long way. Long enough for me to wonder at the inefficiency of not using a chair or bed equipped with hover jets, or even old-fashioned wheels. But maybe they didn’t want to draw more attention to themselves than one limp body could already bring. All the turbolifts we took, dropping us deeper into the depths of the citadel, seemed to be for private use only.

  After we passed through a pair of thick, alloy doors—any opulence in the décor long since abandoned—I realized, with a sickening lurch, that the room almost looked familiar, even in my blurred, murky vision.

  It was white, lined in counters, cupboards, and shiny equipment. The closest object that I could make out in the center of the room was a long table, outfitted with straps and blinding spotlights. An operating table, nearly identical to the one on the Treznor-Nirmana destroyer. Other tables were beyond it, but I had trouble focusing that far.

  I couldn’t fight nearly as much as the last time, however, as they hefted me, gown and all, onto the table. The bindings bit into my arms and legs as they positioned and tightened straps, but I was unable to even tug against them, let alone break them.

  The guards blurred int
o the background. Maybe some of them had left, but I couldn’t tell. Time passed, but how much I wasn’t sure. Maybe only a half hour. Maybe hours. Voices faded in and out, and my shoulder blades grew sore and cold from the metal surface of the table.

  Eventually, I heard a voice that caught my drifting attention. It was vaguely familiar, and angry, unlike any of the other voices. “What were you thinking? She isn’t supposed to be here.”

  “Apologies, my lord,” the Bladeguard replied in his polite, steady tone, “but she was attempting to return to her ship to leave. She resisted, and we had to act fast. This was the only place we could take her where she wouldn’t be seen in this condition.”

  “Did she see?”

  “Her eyes have been open intermittently.”

  There was a sigh. “The damage is already done, thanks to you, but perhaps we can control it. If this sets us back, there will be repercussions.”

  “Yes, my lord. Should we move her?”

  “This is the most secure place at the moment. We don’t want anyone else getting their hands on her.” The voice was only irritated now, the anger under control. “We’ll move her elsewhere when all our guests have departed. Stand by, for now.”

  Someone else came into focus then, leaning over me: a man with close-cropped dark hair, a clean face, and a dark blue lab coat over a sleek black suit. Other than the lab coat, he could have just come from the ball. His silver-gray eyes reminded me of scalpels. They were already cutting into me.

  “It’s a pleasure to see you again, Captain Qole Uvgamut,” Rubion Dracorte said in a too-smooth voice. “I apologize for your treatment. I didn’t mean for this to happen. You and I were supposed to meet for testing tomorrow, and those tests wouldn’t have involved any of…this.” He glanced down at my restraints with a regretful expression. Still, his eyes were curious, eager. “Your guards panicked. Really, I regret it, and I hope you’ll let me make amends.”

  His eyes didn’t linger on me as he said this but glanced somewhere above.