by Rosiee Thor
They were old friends, Nathaniel reminded himself. Their letters, at least, suggested that.
So close to him, surely Eliza would smell whatever his father had refrained from describing, but to her credit, she did not show it.
“I’m so very pleased to meet you,” she said in a fluttery voice, then frowned. “No, that isn’t right. It seems ever so wrong that we have not met, and yet I feel I know you completely. Don’t you agree?”
Nathaniel only nodded.
“Let us adjourn to the sitting room.” Nathaniel’s father motioned for them to follow, leading their party into the next room.
“It’s such a difference, being planetside,” Eliza said as she steered him toward the door, her arm steadier and firmer than he’d expected. “The Tower is so cramped. We don’t have enough space for homes like this.” She gestured around them at the high arching walls. “You may not believe it, but I lived in a one-room apartment on the Tower.”
Nathaniel had never stopped to consider that life on the Tower might be anything but better in every aspect. He supposed Earth Adjacent had the one benefit of simply being larger.
“Do sit down, Eliza.” The Commissioner motioned toward the center of the room. “Can I get you a refreshment?”
“Please.” She settled on the loveseat, leaving room for Nathaniel to sit beside her—the farthest end from the Commissioner.
Nathaniel sat gratefully, pressing himself against the armrest so as not to sit too close to Eliza. It would not do for him to dirty her fine clothes. Despite his efforts, he still found layers of her skirt beneath him, as it was too large to contain on one end of the seat.
“Miss Eliza was just telling me all about her schooling on the Tower,” the Commissioner said. “She could be a great help to you with your own studies.”
“Oh, I doubt Nathaniel needs my help. He has always been the picture of intellect in his letters.” Eliza rested her hand on Nathaniel’s, just barely touching his skin.
He wished she wouldn’t. He did not deserve to be touched, marred by dirt and filth and the kind of blood no one could see.
“You’d be surprised,” the Commissioner muttered into his drink.
Eliza flushed, pressing her fingers harder against Nathaniel’s knuckles. “I do apologize.” Her words carried more force now, leaving behind the airy lightness from before. “I feel somewhat uneasy. I don’t know how to treat you, Nathaniel. We know so much about each other, and yet it is as if we know nothing at all.”
Before Nathaniel could devise a reply, the Commissioner spoke again. “Perhaps once Nathaniel has had a chance to tidy himself, he can oblige you with a tour of our gardens and you may become better acquainted.” The Commissioner handed her a crystal glass filled with a pink beverage to match her ensemble.
On another day, Nathaniel might have flushed at his father’s insult, but he could not find it in himself to feel embarrassment, not even in front of Eliza. He couldn’t feel anything at all.
Eliza fixed Nathaniel with a winning smile, full lips parted just so. “I do hope so! I’ve only ever seen replicas of real flowers before.” She pointed to the silk roses adorning her hat, made from deep crimson cloth, red like the real thing, red like so many things.
Like Anna’s hair. Like Roman’s blood.
Nathaniel let go of her hand and stood abruptly. “I’ll take my leave now.” Stepping around the furniture carefully, so as not to accidentally tread on Eliza’s skirts, he made his way toward the door. “As my father said, I must tidy myself. Do excuse me.”
He did not wait for his father’s permission. Nathaniel bolted from the room, and not a moment too soon. Bile threatened his throat, and he removed his cravat to cover his mouth just in time. He heaved, his whole body shaking, sweat streaming from every pore.
When Nathaniel calmed himself, he pulled the cravat from his mouth. It was dotted with bile and saliva, but Nathaniel barely saw it. He could have sworn it had been sky-blue silk when he donned it that morning, but now in his hands it was red.
Eliza couldn’t remember the last time she’d laughed in earnest. She’d given foolish nobles a chuckle for a favor, a giggle for their confidence, but she was hard-pressed to think of a time in the last five years she’d laughed for herself.
Now, seated on the Commissioner’s sofa, watching her mud-covered fiancé run from her like a scared child, Eliza laughed, full and unrestrained. The Queen had been without substantial companionship for too long, warping her sense of humor. This engagement was her idea of a joke; there was no other explanation.
Only the Queen did not joke.
“Another drink?” the Commissioner asked, pointing to the nearly empty crystal glass in her hand.
“Thank you.” Eliza handed it back, having poured its contents into the potted plant only moments ago. She knew better than to drink from a strange glass, though the temptation of alcohol weighed heavily as reality settled down around her. Nathaniel, no more than a child with mud on his shoes, was her future. She’d gone from the Queen’s right hand to the would-be wife of a boy who could never be her equal. Would that he was a girl, she could bear the wildness. She might even find she liked it.
Now more than ever, Eliza felt Marla’s absence acutely. Once, they’d promised when they visited Earth Adjacent, they’d go together. Hand in hand, step-by-step, they’d explore the planet. But Marla had always been better at keeping promises than Eliza. Marla had been better at so many things. She’d simply been better.
Eliza gripped the sofa cushion beneath her, nails biting into fabric. It did not serve her to compare Marla to Nathaniel. Yet she’d left Marla out of duty, and now she would marry Nathaniel for the same obligation. Everything always came back to the Queen.
The Commissioner busied himself with her drink, giving Eliza time to compose herself, so when he turned back, she’d arranged her face in a pleasant display of apathy.
“A few business items before we indulge,” Eliza said, setting the offered beverage on the coffee table. Better to establish the power dynamic before the Commissioner had a chance to assert himself, and with Nathaniel out of the room, she’d no need to play demure.
The Commissioner leaned against the armchair opposite her with a sigh but did not protest.
“I’m sure you’re in no hurry to see your son and I wed; after all I’ve only just arrived and there’s so much planning to be done for a wedding as momentous as ours.” She paused, remembering the Queen’s lessons on oration and on the power of silence. Here, she would allow the Commissioner’s mind to fill in the blank she left with the possibility for splendor, the opportunity to show off.
“Certainly, it will take some time to arrange the event,” the Commissioner agreed, his voice strained as though coming from far away.
Now that she’d reminded him what was to be gained by their union, she would dangle a morsel before him to keep him satisfied until Eliza could complete her mission. “Still, it would be a shame to wait until the wedding to celebrate. After all, I’ve not yet met any of the planetary lords.”
“Councilors.” The Commissioner cleared his throat. “I have councilors, not lords.”
“All the same.” Eliza waved her hand, brushing off his correction. “If I’m to be Nathaniel’s wife someday, I ought to know the Settlement’s elite. What say you to an engagement party?” If all went as planned, there’d be no wedding at all, but Eliza needed to make connections, and what better way to get to know the Commissioner’s trusted advisors than to charm them the way she had the Tower’s aristocrats?
The Commissioner considered, eyeing her with narrowed focus. “Perhaps you’re right. It would be best to present you sooner rather than later. The Settlement could use a bright spot of news, and you’ll certainly light up that old ballroom.”
Eliza kept her gaze relaxed, her smile loose, but inside her mind churned. The Commissioner had taken the bait so easily. She’d expected him to push back. Judging by the state of his foyer—the dusty chandelier he clearly
never used, and the poorly lit entrance—the Commissioner did not often entertain. Perhaps the Settlement was in need of a morale boost after all, or perhaps he’d something to hide, using her arrival as the perfect distraction.
No matter; whether he knew it or not, he’d given her far more than she’d asked for.
“Shall we plan for a week, or is that too soon?” Eliza pouted her lower lip just so.
“My staff is perfectly capable of—”
“Oh! I didn’t intend to insult your staff, Commissioner.” The lie spilled forth, practiced and unassuming. She cast her gaze down and to the left, waiting. In a moment, his pride would get the better of him and …
“Four days,” the Commissioner snapped.
Eliza leaned back, letting her eyes fall upon the Commissioner’s face. “Impressive! I look forward to enjoying an evening of celebration with my betrothed and the Settlement.”
“He’s a handful,” the Commissioner said, settling himself back in his armchair, legs crossed, elbow propped on his knee. “Truth be told, it’s a relief to pass this burden on to you.”
Eliza’s stomach clenched. “I’m sure he’s not so bad,” she said, the defense slipping from her lips before she could stop it. She was, in fact, not sure. Only moments before, she’d thought him and their entire arrangement a chore. Nothing had changed. Nothing would change.
Now it was the Commissioner’s turn to laugh, a hollow, unforgiving laugh. “I assure you, he is.” He leaned forward, eyes boring into hers. “I know it must seem an imposition, leaving your home to come live here, to marry my disappointment of a son.”
Eliza blanched. She’d read Nathaniel’s letters, felt his loneliness acutely, but she’d thought it an exaggeration, the kind of adolescent fancy she never allowed herself. But the Commissioner had truly called his own son a disappointment, the disdain on his lips enough to shock even Eliza.
“I won’t lie to you. My son is insubordinate, inept, and frankly an idiot.”
Eliza’s heart beat a bruise against her chest to the cadence of his words. It was not her job to stop this abuse. Eliza did not deal in the business of right and wrong, only in necessity. She did not need to protect Nathaniel from this. But even in the face of his absurd appearance—perhaps because of it—Eliza could not bring herself to ignore the Commissioner’s words. She imagined herself rising from her seat and hurling her glass at the man’s head. She would leave the room and find Nathaniel, tell him he was none of those things, though she knew not how true her words would be. She would wrap him in her arms, even endeavor not to care if he got mud on her dress. She would retire her blade to become his shield.
“My hope is you might find a way to reach him. Though I have failed to impress upon him the weight of his position, someone like you might have a chance to mold him.” The Commissioner eyed her. “He can be broken. And he can be fixed.”
Eliza fought the urge to turn her fantasy into a reality. She’d heard those words before, an accusation, a weapon. But she’d never needed fixing, and neither did Nathaniel.
Though Eliza longed to impale the Commissioner on the sharp heel of her shoe, she needed to maintain the appearance of neutrality. She pushed down every violent impulse she had, and instead said, “We understand each other, Commissioner. Your son is young and impressionable.”
The Commissioner nodded. “So you’ll attempt to … influence him?”
Eliza stood. “I hope I can provide him direction.” She would remain vague about what direction that might be.
If Nathaniel was a rusty blade, unpracticed and unfocused, she’d teach him to be sharp, then guide him straight through his father’s heart to take his place. The Queen needed something from the Commissioner, and if this one would not bend, she’d make sure the next one would.
Anna had known many people to die during her lifetime—an occupational hazard of being a surgeon, or so Thatcher would say. In Anna’s experience, death came faster to those who least deserved it, lost to illness, to surgery, or to the Commissioner’s soldiers.
But Anna had never lost anyone she loved before.
She’d loved the boy who lay dead in the grass. He was her family, and she’d never told him. Now he would never know.
He knew, said a voice in her head. But that didn’t make it better, didn’t change his fate. Roman had been everything she couldn’t be: honest, brave, and full of affection. Anna thought when she died, she’d have no regrets. But she’d assumed she would go well before anyone else. She hadn’t expected to live long enough to bury anyone, least of all Roman.
Running her bloodstained hands through Roman’s hair, feeling its bounce for the last time, Anna wiped her tears with her wrist, leaving behind a streak of red on her skin.
She had to move. She had to bring him home.
Anna slid her hands beneath his body and lifted with all the strength she had left. She didn’t remember him being so heavy. She didn’t remember him being so small.
One step at a time, she forced herself toward Mechan. The Settlement gates were just out of sight, and it wasn’t safe. Any minute Nathaniel might return with a dozen officers to arrest her.
Let them come. She didn’t care. She’d fight them tooth and nail until they put a rusty bullet in her head. Then, at least, Roman wouldn’t be alone.
But someone had to tell Ruby. It had been only months since Ruby’s husband was shot. A merciful death, they’d called it when they told her in the yard of her little cottage. Runners weren’t usually so lucky, more often held for questioning and hanged in the square. To be shot outside the gates where other runners could still collect his body and personal effects—well, that was a downright blessing.
Anna couldn’t let the runners tell Ruby her son was dead, too. She couldn’t save Roman’s arm all those years ago, and she couldn’t save his life there in the field, but she could carry him home to his mother where he belonged, each step a penance for wrongs she could never make right.
When she arrived outside Mechan, two runners, Kate and Theo, met her on the path.
They spoke words she did not hear, gesturing wildly, conversing with frantic eyes.
A storm raged all around her—bodies moved in a frenzy, but she stood at the center where nothing moved, nothing mattered.
Kate tried to pry Roman’s body from her arms and Anna returned to the present, sound rushing at her from every direction.
“No,” she said, the word quiet on her lips, her arms tight around the boy who turned colder with every second. She couldn’t let go.
And then the world stood still, and Kate and Theo fell silent, turning their heads slowly away.
Ruby stood in the center of the path, mouth open as though waiting on a word that wouldn’t come. Her arms hung at her sides, and the worry lines in her forehead were as deep as Anna had ever seen them.
She locked eyes with Anna for a breathless moment before her gaze drifted down to the boy in her arms. Anna could only imagine what a sight she was, covered in mud and Roman’s blood. She must have looked a nightmare, one Ruby had imagined before.
Slowly—ever so slowly—Ruby took a hesitant step forward, her hand reaching with the ghost of a wish, before she collapsed, knees hitting the dusty ground. Her hands recoiled to her neck and chest, shaking and scratching like the scream on her face was stuck silent in her throat.
“Someone fetch Thatcher,” Theo said.
Anna blinked, unsticking her eyes from Ruby for a moment to look at Roman’s face. Even in death, he looked joyous, his lips upturned in a smile.
“It’s too late.” The words came out a whisper, but everyone could hear her; the square was so very silent. “He’s already gone.”
Theo turned to Anna, something akin to kindness or pity in his eyes—Anna could no longer tell the difference between the two.
“No, for her.” He pointed to Ruby as she clawed against the fabric at her throat, trying desperately to breathe.
When Kate returned with Thatcher, pushing his chair w
ith considerable force, Ruby was gasping for air, eyes darting and hands shaking as she tried to undo the collar of her shirt.
“Get her inside,” Thatcher said, waving at his house behind him.
The runners got Ruby to her feet and half walked, half carried her to the door.
Anna sucked in a long breath as Ruby disappeared, but then Thatcher turned his eyes on her. His gaze swept over her bloodstained clothes and he sighed, all the muscles in his face falling.
“Come.” It was neither an order nor a plea but a suggestion.
Anna had no argument left inside her, only the emptiness that came after tears and the fullness that came before pain.
When they, too, were inside, Thatcher ushered her into the operating room and gestured for her to place Roman’s body on the table.
She wanted to explain that he could do nothing—that no surgery could save Roman now. But she just stood in the doorway, holding on to a boy who had already let go.
“I need to clean him up.” Thatcher’s voice wavered, though his hands were steady. “Ruby will want to see him when she’s calm again, and she can’t see him like this.”
Anna looked down at Roman. The blood had dried now, a dark stain against the white shirt he’d worn.
With more effort than it had taken to lift him, Anna relaxed her arms. Her joints stuck like rusty gears, unaccustomed to moving, stuttering with every inch she gave. Disentangling herself from Roman, Anna stepped back from the table, blood cascading down her front. A considerable amount had pooled between them, kept from spilling over by the pressure of her grip.
“I can handle it from here.” Thatcher lifted a pair of scissors and began to cut the soiled fabric away from Roman’s body. “You go clean up.”
Anna shook her head, hand still wrapped around Roman’s, cold and tiny. “I don’t want him to be alone,” she croaked.
Thatcher’s jaw relaxed, and he set down the scissors. Wheeling himself back and around the table, he reached up to put his hand over hers. “My dear,” he murmured, “he’s already alone.”