by K. B. Wagers
“And more.” Mia nodded. She took another step away from me, slipping her hands into the pockets of her pants. “I am continuing my father’s work, this task that was set long before my birth. But Aiz and I have different ideas of how to accomplish it than our father did. Not everyone is happy about our choices.”
“At the risk of sounding arrogant, I suspect I’m one of those choices that people are disagreeing with?”
“A small faction.” Mia waved a hand. “Hamah does not agree with them, but he—”
“Doesn’t like me very much.” I grinned.
“He is concerned for me,” Mia replied with a sigh. “We grew up together, though that was not his first childhood. It makes him overprotective.”
“By all accounts you can take care of yourself, though I’ve yet to see it,” I said, and held my hands up when Mia gave me a look. “I’m just teasing.”
“I actually believe you this time.” She smiled, and her shoulders relaxed. “Hamah is concerned about other things.”
“What did he say to me? I couldn’t quite understand it.” I raised an eyebrow at Mia’s hesitation.
“He said you will be the death of us all.”
I couldn’t think of a good response to that. “Why won’t this work?” I asked instead, waving my hand in the air.
“You’re not willing to let go,” Mia replied. “Until you do, you’re not going to be able to work with anything more than what Aiz or I could give you.”
She didn’t have to say it. I already knew that if we were hobbled with that limitation, there was no way Aiz and I would win the fight.
“Hamah had better watch his mouth, and so should you for repeating his nonsense. Aiz will step on both of you hard.”
“I don’t agree with him, Talos. I’m just telling you what he’s saying.”
I paused at the intersection. Several weeks had passed since the incident with Hamah in Mia’s rooms and while I’d forgotten all about it, it appeared he hadn’t.
“What he’s saying is dangerously close to treachery. Mia has seen all this—the Star included. Hamah’s personal issues are clouding his judgment.”
Talos’s and Vais’s voices were clear in the quiet. Shen was slowly getting easier for me to understand. My choice to join my own people in the evenings as they practiced the language rather than take Aiz up on an offer to teach me was likely the reason. As an added bonus it seemed to have allayed Gita’s concerns about my state of mind—at least for the moment—and I hadn’t heard any more whispered conversations about knocking me over the head and making a run for it.
Being able to understand whispered conversations in hallways between Shen was a new experience and I leaned against the wall, careful not to make any noise.
“The point,” Vais said with a heavy sigh, “is so you’ll go talk to him. He’ll listen to you. Maybe you can keep him from getting jarred.”
I frowned. Jarred? I must have misunderstood that last word because it didn’t make any sense. Kivotio was the verb for kivo, which was jar or vessel. I shook my head and made a note to ask Alba about it later. It must be slang of some sort.
“Fine. I’ll try, but you know how he is and if he takes a swing at me I’m killing his ass and not bringing him back. Then you can explain to the Thínos why he’s back with Jibun.”
I tiptoed back a few steps and then headed down the corridor and around the corner. “Morning,” I said with a bright smile.
Talos was better at hiding his discomfort than Vais, and his easy greeting almost seemed genuine. “Morning, Star of Indrana.”
“One of these days I’m going to get you to call me Hail,” I replied. “Are we sparring today?”
Talos shook his head. “I believe Aiz wanted to spar with you alone. Which, you should probably get a move on if you don’t want to be late.”
I grinned at him and headed down the corridor with a wave of my hand.
You going to tell Aiz what you overheard? Hao asked, catching up to me and matching my stride, his hands stuffed in his pockets.
You should tell Gita, Emmory said from the other side. It’s something you could use against them.
She doesn’t want to use it against them, Emmory. She’s working with them.
Hao’s words stung, but I couldn’t argue with him. He was right after all.
“Do you two mind?” I closed my eyes, but not before I saw the flash of disappointment on my dead Ekam’s face. “It’s necessary. I’m not going to tell anyone, though. Gita doesn’t need to know, and it’s Shen politics; they’ll sort it out themselves.”
The ghosts vanished without a reply and I continued on alone, trying to pretend like the disapproval of dead men didn’t cut to the bone.
“You’re late.” Aiz didn’t look up as I came into the gym.
“Kill me for it,” I replied, rolling my shoulders in what felt like a futile attempt to release the tension from them. My tenuous grip on reality felt like it was slipping through my fingers with every passing second. I exhaled; the sound was louder than it should have been in the silence.
Now Aiz looked up, his eyes narrowing as he studied me. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing.”
He caught me by the chin, raising an eyebrow when I didn’t fight my way free. “Do me the courtesy of just saying you don’t want to talk about it instead of lying, Hail. I can respect the former. The latter pisses me off.”
“Fine,” I said. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Was that so hard?” He released me with a smile that faded when I didn’t respond. “Hail—” He caught himself and sighed. “I said I would respect your privacy, but I am here if you need to talk.”
“I’d rather fight.” I regretted the words as soon as they left my mouth. Aiz had a habit of recognizing when I was too eager for blood and denying me a sparring match until he felt I’d calmed down enough.
For a moment, his decision hung in the balance, but then Aiz shrugged and gestured. “Come on, then.”
“You’re doing well,” Aiz said, sitting cross-legged by my side a little while later. “We’re so close. I didn’t expect you to progress this fast, but I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised you took to this better than the healing.”
I rolled over onto my back, the rush of coming back to life still scrambling my brain. There was something dangerous about the way Aiz’s energy made me feel. Jo had spotted it that very first time. I knew I should be more cautious, but the cycle of pain, energy, pain was too strong for me to escape from. “How so?”
“Most recruits tap out a lot sooner, give in to the pain a lot quicker. You fight, Hail. The worse it gets, the more you fight, and the fact that you don’t really know when to quit makes it all the more thrilling.”
My head was spinning. The fight hadn’t been as brutal today, but the ghosts were loud and Aiz had kept up his illusions until I wasn’t sure which were ghosts and which were him.
He’d even morphed into Gita at one point and it had thrown me so badly that I’d completely missed the kick aimed at my head.
I’d woken up on the ground, the electricity singing through my skin the way it always did after Aiz healed me. Times like this I knew why everyone worried about me. I only felt alive when I was here—dying.
They were all right to be worried about me; I was coming unraveled before their very eyes.
“I really am going to beat you one of these days.”
“I’m looking forward to it, Hail. I haven’t been defeated in an age. It gets tiresome.” Aiz stretched out next to me and held his hand up. “You and my sister are probably the only people alive who could accomplish such a victory, and she refuses to spar with me.”
“You lied to me,” I said, and was more than a little surprised by his laughter.
“You’re going to have to be more specific about that. When?”
“During the negotiations. You dismissed the story about drinking the blood of the gods, but you were lying. Why?”
�
��It seemed easier at the time,” Aiz said.
“So you did.”
“Yes and no.” He pressed his temple to my head until I turned to look at him. “It was a practical reason. There were genetic markers in their blood that contained the key we needed.”
“Key?”
“The one that allowed us to have children. What we didn’t realize at the time was that the markers were broken up among the gods, and by not killing them all we were missing part of the puzzle.”
“The part that allows the Farians to reincarnate,” I whispered, and Aiz nodded.
“Partially. We are able to circumvent the reincarnations of those who are Shen so they don’t come back on Faria.”
“Yes, Mia mentioned that.”
“Good.” Aiz sighed. “However, there is nothing I can do for those Shen gifted with humanity. All our children since the flight have been bound to one life and one life only. I lost my only child—a daughter—before I realized it and vowed not to have any more until we fixed what was broken.”
“I’m sorry, it’s horrible to lose people you love.”
“I know you mean that and even more so that you understand it. It’s one of the reasons I like you, Hail.”
“You have a strange way of showing it.” I reached a hand out, watching in drunken fascination as blue sparks leapt from his fingers to mine. “Why do you leave my old scars when you heal me?” The scar from the failed bank job we’d tried to pull on Marrakesh still decorated my left forearm.
“I could take them away if you wanted,” Aiz replied, tracing a finger along the scar. “But scars remind us where we’ve come from. It’s rude to steal that from you without permission.” He smiled when I turned my head to look at him. “I could fix everything, though, not just the scars. I could undo what happened to you on Candless.”
“Hail,” Emmory said, giving me the Look. “Your value as the Empress of Indrana is more than your ability to bear children. The empire needs you.”
I pressed my right hand to my belly button and shook my head, clearing out the memory of my Ekam and his gentle reassurance that day in the palace. “No. No, thank you. I am not in need of fixing.”
Aiz’s grin was sharp as a broken bone. “Mia said you would refuse, but the offer stands regardless.”
“Are you propositioning me, Aiz Cevalla?”
“Not me.” He shook his head. “You are amazing, but I don’t sleep with humans. Besides, my sister’s wrath?” Aiz blew out a breath. “Not something I want to bring down on my head.”
“You’re not concerned about mine?”
Aiz made a laughing noise of dismissal. “You cannot make me miserable for eternity. When this is over, Mia will be able to.”
I heard the words he wasn’t saying. She’s not yours and she won’t ever be. That was what Hamah and the others missed in their concern about me. I would grow old and die no matter what we did here, while Mia would become like her brother. One way or another we would go our separate ways.
The thought of it made me sadder than I’d expected. “Like lightning, I am an expert at dying,” I murmured. “Like lightning, this beauty has no language. It makes no difference whether I win or lose.”
“I have not heard Rumi in a very long time,” Aiz said.
“Hao had a real book of his poems; he let me borrow it once after a great deal of badgering on my part.”
“Your relationship with Hao is a fascinating thing. I have misjudged it repeatedly.”
“Most people do. I miss him with every beat of my heart,” I whispered, rolling away from Aiz and getting to my feet so he wouldn’t see my tears. I quickly wiped my face as Aiz got to his feet.
“Hail.”
“It’s fine.” I waved him off, but Aiz grabbed my wrist and tugged until I turned around. “Useless to cry,” I said. “I know.”
“It’s not useless, Hail. Our minds seek the comfort for a reason. There’s no shame in it.”
A soldier appeared in the doorway. “Thíno Aiz?”
“Yes?”
“Thína Mia needs to speak with you. She said it was important. She said she’d commed you directly, but you hadn’t—”
“I was busy.” The words cut through the air like one of the mysterious laser weapons, and the woman at the door braced. “Another attack?”
“Yes, sir. I am sorry, sir. It’s important.”
Aiz turned back to me. “I’m sorry to interrupt this.”
“It’s fine,” I replied. “I’ll go back to my rooms and clean up. Then join you?”
He nodded and we parted ways.
15
I wrapped my arms around my waist. The sudden grief over Hao was choking me, and I wondered if Aiz could be convinced to end this for me after the fight was over.
Ironic that you’re assuming you’ll survive. Or maybe not. You’re the one who always makes it through alive, aren’t you?
“Majesty!”
I froze, Gita’s voice tangling with the voice in my head and my frayed nerves. That’s Gita, the rational part of my brain reminded me as I came through the door. You don’t want to hit her. I uncurled my fists with a great deal of effort.
“Majesty, they’re alive.” Her face was bright with hope. Alba was right behind her with a smile on her face.
“What?” I shook my head. “What are you talking about?”
“I got through,” Alba said. “I know you said to drop it but I couldn’t get that image of Hao out of my head. I realized early that it had been too easy to get into the Shen’s systems. Almost like they wanted me in there so they could control what I was seeing. But that file I found didn’t match with anything else. I’ve been trying to find my way around it for weeks. I couldn’t get news or a line out. Nothing, it was like they were actively blocking me from the outside. But I did it. And I found this—”
I slapped her hand away before she could touch me. “What is going on?”
“Majesty?” Alba looked at Gita. “I just want to show you the news report. Fasé got everyone out; no one was killed in the embassy explosion. Everyone is alive. They are looking for us.”
“No.” They are dead, my brain screamed. “No one could have survived that explosion.” I whirled on Johar. “You don’t believe this, do you? You told me they were dead.”
“I said I thought they were dead, Hail, in the face of overwhelming evidence.” Johar shook her head. “The universe decided to prove me wrong and give us a miracle after all, and I am totally okay with being wrong here.”
“Why are you—” I broke off with a strangled gasp. Was this a test? Or all part of the plan?
The last clinging thread of my sanity snapped.
Our minds seek the comfort for a reason. Aiz’s parting words flooded back into my brain as the image of Emmory’s face sliding away like water filled my vision.
The Shen could have replaced them all at any point, Hail. Cas’s ghost pointed out the awful truth with a cheerful grin. You have no way of knowing.
How did I know this was Alba? That this was Gita. “Oh, Dark Mother, no.”
This was the horror I’d been living in, and Aiz had practically thrown the clues in my face. I was truly alone. Everyone I cared for, down to the last person, was dead and gone. My heart cracked wide open, spilling onto the floor at my feet. I pressed a hand to my chest, fighting for a breath. Why I was forcing air into my lungs I didn’t know, except that part of me had to stay alive.
“Hail?”
“Don’t touch me.” I backed away from Gita as Alba looked on in shock. “Just, don’t. I don’t know who you are.”
“You don’t—what is that supposed to mean? I’m your Dve, Majesty. We need to get out of here now.”
“Gita is my Ekam, because Emmory is dead,” I snarled.
“They’re not dead!” she shouted back. “Aren’t you listening? They’re not dead, Hail.”
“He could have replaced you. I don’t know.”
“Replaced us? What are you—”
> “Don’t touch me!” I grabbed Gita by the throat, propelling her across the room. She didn’t fight me, and she hit the wall hard. There were tears in her brown eyes, but I stepped down on the sympathy.
That’s lesson two—these beings will lie to you, trick your eyes, do everything they can to gain the upper hand in a fight. You can’t let them.
“That’s enough.” Johar stepped between us, putting a hand in the middle of my chest and shoving me away.
I swung my elbow into her face without the slightest hesitation. Johar’s head snapped back. I was already spinning to my left when Alba hit me from the side, and I sprawled face first on the floor several meters away. I was back on my feet in a flash, a hard lesson learned from the number of times Aiz had followed knocking me to the ground with a vicious kick.
“Majesty, stop this.” Gita held her hand up, the other pulling Johar back by the arm.
“She’s not going to,” Johar murmured, wiping the blood from her mouth and cracking her neck. “Come on, Hail, you know me. You want to fight? Let’s fight.” She shook Gita off and put her hands up.
Two punches in, I knew two things for certain: It really was Johar and she was going to lose.
She let me slip out of an arm lock instead of pressing the last dozen centimeters to break my elbow like any Shen would have. I slithered free, kicking her in the face once, and was aiming for a second blow that would have snapped her neck when Gita’s boot slammed into my ankle with such force that I felt the bones crack.
The door opened, and Shen rushed in.
“Stop this at once!”
They separated us. A pretty Shen with dark brown eyes whose name I couldn’t remember pointed his gun at me when I started to get up and shook his head.
“Stay down, Your Majesty. Thíno Aiz is on his way.” His Indranan was surprisingly good.
Grinning at him, I settled back on my elbows and tipped my head back.
My ankle was throbbing in time with my heartbeat, pain shooting spikes up my right leg. It was glorious. I felt alive. I closed my eyes and hummed.
Aiz sighed heavily from the doorway. “Is everyone still breathing?”