by K. B. Wagers
“I thought I’d killed all of you. I thought I sent you into the embassy and when it exploded—”
“That’s enough. We’re not dead, Hail. It’s okay. You’re okay.” He murmured the comfort over and over as I sobbed. “I’m sorry it took us so long to get to you.” Hao pressed a kiss to my hair. “So sorry for everything you’ve gone through. I love you. I swear I’ll never let you get hurt again.” His arms tightened around me.
The ship jolted, and this time alarms sounded. I swallowed back the rest of my tears and let Hao pull me to my feet. “What’s going on?”
“Reasonably sure we’re being shot at.” Hao looked past me, and I turned to see my Ekam standing behind me.
“Emmory.” I pressed fingers to my mouth in an effort to hold in the tears. I wanted to believe it was him.
“Hail.” Emmory put a gloved hand on my hair, moving with such care that my eyes filled again. I tried not to tense, but I couldn’t help myself and he paused, his look gutting me. “We are not the enemy here, Highness. I swear.”
It was the Highness that did it. The otherwise useless platitude jerked me back to a moment when this had all started. When it had just been the three of us—me, Emmory, and Zin alone in my room on the Para Sahi. Two Trackers and a runaway princess unsure who to trust. That moment where I’d had to choose to trust Emmory and he’d never given me reason to doubt since.
I stepped into his embrace, feeling the solid safety of his arms wrapping around me. “I’m sorry.”
“No, don’t apologize,” he murmured against my ear. “Never for that. I’m sorry I couldn’t keep you safe. I promised you never again and I broke that promise.”
“It’s all right. You couldn’t have stopped this, I know that now,” I whispered back, the sobs catching in my throat again, spilling into the air in a staccato mess.
“Emmory, why aren’t you answering your com? We’ve—” Zin broke off, skidding to a halt in the doorway. “Hail?” The hope in his voice almost set me crying again as Emmory released me.
I nodded, holding a hand out. Zin took a step into the room and my treacherous brain whispered, Are you really sure it’s him?
Zin saw my flinch and froze. His easy smile almost hid the sorrow as he folded his hands together and bowed. “Majesty, it is good to have you back. Emmory, they need you on the bridge.”
“Stay here.” Whether Emmory’s words were for me or Hao and Zin, I remained rooted to the floor. I wanted to follow, but my feet refused to carry me forward.
“What’s going on?”
“The Shen, Majesty.” Zin had backed up and was by the open doorway; the movement was meant to give me space, but part of me just felt lost again.
“Is Mia—” I had to pause and unknot my thoughts. “Bear with me, please. Did I imagine that Mia was here?”
“No, you didn’t imagine it,” Hao replied. “You tried to bust her out.”
“That was you, wasn’t it? Not your ghost.”
“It’s never been a ghost, Hail.” Hao’s voice was gentle even as the words stung. “Just your brain telling you what you wanted to hear, but to answer your question, yes that was me.”
“I need to talk to her,” I said. “If the Shen are shooting at us they need to know she’s on the ship and they’ll only believe her, or me, maybe. It depends on if it’s Aiz.”
“Majesty, Emmory said to stay here.”
“Since when have I ever listened to him?”
A smile flickered to life on Zin’s face. “You do occasionally, ma’am.”
“Fair point.” I smiled back. “How long has it been?”
Hao figured out the nature of my question before Zin did, and he touched a hand to my elbow. “A year, sha zhu. Standard. About eight months back on Indrana.”
Time was a funny thing out in the black, almost inconsequential except when you were planetside and trying to ground yourself. If it had been a standard year, that meant the time on Sparkos had been only slightly longer back home on Pashati.
I wanted to ask about home, but the words refused to form. Whatever it was, I had to hold out hope that Alice and Taz and the others were handling it.
I was in no position to be empress. Not right now, possibly not ever again.
I looked between the two men and straightened my spine. Hao was safe. I knew that. Trusted it more than I trusted anything else at the moment.
Zin was, if not exactly safe, not unsafe. I knew he was real, had to trust it in the general scheme of things or I’d probably lose my new tenuous grasp on reality altogether.
I wanted that certainty, needed it as much as oxygen, but I couldn’t find the words, and I ruthlessly told myself that if Hao trusted them and I trusted him, it was good enough. It seemed awful to demand that these people who’d fought so long and hard to find me prove they were who they said they were.
I rubbed at my face. “Things have been rough, and I may not be capable of rational thought right now, but I do know Aiz will stop at nothing to rescue his sister.”
“You’re capable, Majesty, crown or not,” Zin said.
It is him.
I squeezed my eyes shut at the sharp burst of relief in my chest as a conversation at the bottom of a canyon on Guizhou came to life in my head. “You pick words from one of the few times we’ve shouted at each other, Starzin? It’s a risk to use something so out of character for you to prove to me you’re real.”
“It seemed appropriate.” He held his hand out and this time I took it, pulling him into a hug.
Zin exhaled, pressing his cheek to mine. “We are still here, with you, and will remain so to the end.”
“I don’t deserve any of you.” I clung to him and felt the muscles in his arms shift as he hugged me closer.
“You deserve it, and you have us. Welcome back.”
“Not all the way.” My exhalation was shaky, but I managed a smile as I pulled free. “But closer, I think. Let’s go to the bridge before Aiz—I’m assuming that’s Aiz shooting at us—blows us out of the black.”
We headed out into the gray corridor, following the curve around to a set of stairs and another, longer hallway that dead-ended with doors that slid open when Zin pressed his palm to the panel on the side.
I prepared myself for the onslaught of greetings as we walked onto the bridge, but someone had passed on a requirement that everyone give me space and act like I’d only been gone for a few minutes instead of a year. Sergeant Nidha Sathi, the Royal Marine who’d been part of the team on Earth fighting with us during our flight from the embassy, stood near the door. She met my gaze and gave me a nod that I returned.
Kisah offered a smile, and I spied her fingers reaching for me before she stopped herself and shoved them back into the pocket of her pants.
Emmory greeted me with an eyebrow. “I thought I said to stay in your room, Majesty.”
“You did. But you need me here.” I leaned against a console. “Nice ship, where’d you get it?”
“Stole it,” Fasé replied without looking up. “There wasn’t any way to fit all your people into my ship, and taking a Vajrayana would have made the trip take a little longer than any of us were happy with.”
“Took you long enough as it was,” I muttered, and Fasé slanted a gold-eyed stare my way.
“If you’d been a shade more cooperative we could have found you sooner.”
“I’m sorry, I was busy thinking you were all dead.”
“Yes, I’m well aware,” she snapped; her earlier gentleness had been tossed aside and this new angry Fasé was a stranger to me. “I expected less wallowing from you.”
“Fasé Terass!” Sybil stood up from what I assumed was the captain’s seat to stare at us.
“What?”
“You will not speak to the Star of Indrana like that.”
Fasé waved a hand, dismissing Sybil’s words. “Tell me it’s not true. Between her and the Cevallas, they’ve likely killed us all with their stupidity. I think I’m allowed to be peevish when I’
m scrambling to fix the mess.”
Sybil’s reply was garbled and it was only then that I realized they were shouting at each other in Farian and I’d understood all of it up to that point.
The ship shook, more alarms blared, and my temper hit the end of its tether. “Someone give me coms,” I ordered.
“Right here, ma’am,” Iza said, lifting her hand in the air across the bridge.
“Bring them up.” I crossed the room to her, putting a hand on the back of her seat at the last second instead of her shoulder. The majority of the people on the bridge were Indranan, mostly my BodyGuards, though I spotted a few naval uniforms in the mix. Along with a few Farians, all of whom were staring at me. “Is there more than one ship?”
“Three, ma’am. Com’s live.”
I nodded, wishing my answering smile to her weren’t so forced, or that the voice in my brain weren’t babbling a list of reasons why it couldn’t be Iza sitting next to me.
Would you fuck off for five minutes and let me handle this? I thought.
Fine, if you want to put yourself at risk.
“Hey, Aiz, you want to stop shooting at us? I’m reasonably sure you don’t want to kill your sister or me.”
“Hail.” Aiz appeared on the screen in front of us, and I whistled at the dark circles under his eyes.
“You look like shit.”
“Back at you. Where is my sister?”
“She’s fine,” I lied, but Emmory nodded in the corner of my vision as a confirmation.
“Give her back.”
“We should talk,” I replied, shaking my head. “You and I both know that being at opposite ends of the table isn’t where either of us wants to be. We’re going to keep at this, though, until someone comes to their senses.”
“And you think that should be me?”
“You’re older,” I said, and watched his mouth twitch as he fought to hold in his amusement. “More experienced, more familiar with the Farians and this whole mess.”
“Flattery, Hail?”
I lifted a shoulder with a tiny smile. “You’re too far away for me to punch in the throat.”
Aiz’s laughter made several people, Iza included, jerk in surprise. “Very well. We have a base not too far from here. We can’t jump to it, the Farians will spot the energy signatures. So stay in regular drive. I’ll send you coordinates and see you in a few days. We can talk then.”
The screen went blank. I looked down at Iza. “Received coordinates, ma’am.”
“Good. Who’s flying this thing?”
A Farian with red hair split into two braids smiled and raised her hand. “I am, Your Majesty. Teslina Agne.”
“You’re one of Fasé’s converts?”
“Yes, ma’am. Though I was serving on the Pedalion’s Favor before the Mardis and your people—appropriated it.”
“You can say stole,” I replied, unable to stop the smile from spreading.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Let’s be on the way.”
23
Majesty.” Emmory cleared his throat and I turned to look at him. “We should go home.”
“Not a conversation to have in public, Ekam,” I said, looking around. “Aiz will chase his sister across the galaxy if necessary, so the first step is returning her. Iza, give Teslina those coordinates so she can get us under way.”
I ignored how her eyes flickered to Emmory and my Ekam gave a tiny nod of approval before she answered me. “Yes, Majesty.”
“Is there a ready room on this ship?”
“Behind you, sha zhu,” Hao said just before he touched my arm. My instinctive jerk was small, but I know he felt it nonetheless. “It’s over there.”
“Someone bring Mia up here. You with me.” I reached up and squeezed Hao’s fingers on my arm. “Fasé and Sybil, you two come with us.”
“You go,” Sybil said to Fasé. “I will fetch Mia.”
“Emmory and Gita.” My Dve was standing by the door to the ready room with her arms crossed over her chest, and I forced myself to pat her on the shoulder even though the motion was stilted and made us both flinch.
I noticed Hao’s fingers tangling briefly with hers as we went through the door, and some of the screaming in my brain stopped. If he trusted that she was real, I should be able to also.
Shiva, this dance was going to be exhausting. I struggled to wrap what composure I had around myself like armor, shoring up the broken bits of me into something resembling the empress I knew they all expected.
“Majesty, we need to take you home.”
Six months and a hundred deaths coupled with the images of the future Mia had shown me had burned a certainty into my soul. Going home would only result in disaster at this point. I had a feeling if I set foot on Pashati again before this was over I would never leave and the galaxy would burn around us before the fires consumed us, too.
“I can’t do anything for Indrana from Pashati, Ekam.” I shook my head at Emmory.
“I cannot keep you safe here. Not with one ship and a handful of BodyGuards.”
I held his gaze, knowing I was seeing the concern and frustration only because he was letting it show, and then offered a gentle smile.
“I know.” I looked at Gita and Hao before I leaned both palms on the table in the middle of the room. The ready room was a decent size but the closed door made me edgy, and I struggled to keep those feelings at bay as I dealt with the issue in front of me. “Gita told you what happened on Sparkos?”
“I received her report.”
I couldn’t stop the chuckle and gestured in Hao’s direction. My brother’s entire body had tensed at my question. “His reaction makes more sense.”
Emmory didn’t respond. I looked to where Fasé sat in the corner farthest from the door.
“Did you see it?”
“I did not.”
“Interesting.” I nodded, mulling over my next words before I allowed them to leave my mouth. “I would ask you all for a favor that I will in return owe you.”
I had Emmory and Hao’s interest now; they recognized the importance of my words. Gita and Fasé didn’t, though they were still curious thanks to my formal tone.
“The events of Sparkos are violent, there is no doubt of that. I died—repeatedly. It was not mindless, though. It was for a purpose and it was something I agreed to.”
Gita closed her eyes. Emmory swallowed. Fasé and Hao watched me, the pair of them with their golden eyes that were so similar. They had always been at odds, more so after Cas’s death, but they were more alike than either wanted to admit.
“I do not doubt that the events Gita relayed to you happened as she remembers them, as she was shown by the Cevallas. I, however, carry something different.” I lifted a hand off the table and pressed it to my heart. “The favor is this—meet me halfway, despite any misgivings you may have. Do not seek vengeance against the Cevallas for the choice I made. I don’t ask you to trust them. I ask you to trust me.”
“Done, Majesty,” Emmory said without hesitation, and Gita was surprisingly only half a second behind him in her agreement.
“That was three favors,” Hao said, but he smiled and dipped his head. “But I will agree to meet you halfway, and I will always trust you.”
I shook my head. “I need you to agree to all of it or none of it.”
“I am not sure I can do that, little sister.”
“What chaos reigns when the pair of us agree,” Fasé said, glancing over without a hint of a smile at Hao. “I need no favors from you, Your Majesty, and my trust in you has been shaken by the company you now keep.”
“Fair,” I replied. “My trust in you was shaken when you sent Cas to his death, but I got over it, didn’t I?”
The other humans in the room sucked in startled breaths at my sharp words. Fasé still just looked pissed.
“Anyway.” I took a deep breath and pushed away from the table. “You two are welcome to change your minds; just let me know. Emmory, Gita, I appreciate
your understanding.”
The door opened, and Sybil walked in, one hand wrapped around Mia’s covered arm and Zin behind them. Mia’s hands were curiously no longer bound or covered, and I wondered whose decision that had been.
Sybil stopped at Emmory’s gesture and directed Mia into a seat on the opposite side of the room from me. The Shen sat, her gray eyes finding mine first before she looked around the room at the others.
She held Fasé’s gaze the longest, and I bit the inside of my cheek at the Farian’s glare. Whatever composure Fasé had carried prior to my disappearance seemed to have vanished.
I shared a glance with Emmory, giving a tiny shake of my head as I crossed my arms over my chest, content to let this contest play out.
“Something on your mind, Mardis?” Mia wasn’t at all concerned by Fasé’s glare, and she asked the question in Indranan, not Farian. I quirked an eyebrow up, watching as Fasé’s eyes narrowed even further.
“You knew!” she shouted, shoving herself out of her chair and pointing at Mia. “You knew we were alive and didn’t tell her. You pushed her down this path, Mia, knowing what it will bring down on our heads!”
I wasn’t the least bit surprised by this news, though Fasé’s obvious anger was interesting. Now that my head was clearer, I could see all the clues both Mia and Aiz had dropped—either consciously or not. Or even Talos, when he’d called Gita my Dve. Aiz had done it, too. I should have caught that. Should have known the Shen would know the difference between my BodyGuards. It was obvious to me now that I hadn’t wanted to believe anything other than my deepest fears.
In some ways, Fasé had been right: I had been wallowing. That was a bitter pill to swallow.
“Fasé.”
She ignored the warning I turned her name into. “You have twisted this—twisted her—to your own ends. Did you think for a moment about the consequences?”
“You are so new at this,” Mia replied with a tiny shake of her head. It seemed a strange comment, coming from her, but Fasé didn’t react with more than a snort of derision. “I understand your anger, but there is nothing else that will stop what is coming, Fasé, except to kill those things the Pedalion insists are gods. Don’t pretend you don’t want them dead as much as we do. We did what was necessary to give Hail the tools to win in a fight.” Mia got to her feet, frustration rolling off her in waves. “But she made the choice, we didn’t force her into it. You’re foolish if you fall into the same trap as the Pedalion and think you can somehow control the Star!”