Tarnished Are the Stars

by Rosiee Thor

  “Excellent. That definitely clears things up.” Anna rolled her eyes. “If you’re not going to explain it to me, the least you can do is keep your cryptic mutterings to yourself.”

  Eliza forced herself to sit, tucking one foot behind the other, composing herself to stall for time. She couldn’t tell Anna of the Queen’s mission. Though the girl had proved trustworthy thus far, Eliza still had not forgotten that Anna had tried to stab her only yesterday. She would need to reframe this in terms Anna could understand—in terms Eliza wanted Anna to understand.

  “We need the Commissioner’s holocom.”

  “Why? We have yours.”

  Eliza sighed, shaking her head. For a tech expert, Anna certainly knew nothing about the sort of tech Eliza was used to. “Every holocom is different. The Commissioner’s may have information we can use.”

  “Like what?” Anna leaned her head against the vanity, her braid swinging forward to be reflected in the mirror, twice as offensive—twice as intriguing.

  “His search history, for a start.” Eliza chuckled. “I’m more interested in what he might have uploaded to his personal database, to be honest. Holocoms are notorious for holding personal documents you don’t want anyone to see.” She shifted, remembering the secrets she’d kept on her own wrist tab back on the Tower before becoming the Queen’s Eyes—before she knew better than to commit her secrets to the written word.

  “And you think he’ll have something incriminating in his personal documents?”

  Eliza nodded, remembering what the Queen had said about the planet’s terraforming, about the health problems. “If there’s evidence of him tampering with your town, I’d wager that’s where we’ll find it.”

  Anna grinned. “Then I guess I’ll have to steal it.”

  “Not so fast.” Eliza held up her hand. “The Commissioner will notice if his holocom goes missing, especially if he has sensitive documents on it. We can’t simply take it. You’ll need to search its contents during the party. I’ll keep him occupied while you and Nathaniel break into his office and learn what you can.”

  Anna raised her eyebrows. “Are you sure Nathaniel should be the one to come with me? Maybe it would be better if you—”

  Eliza pursed her lips. “As much as it pains me to miss the fun, Nathaniel will serve you better. He knows the manor, and he knows his father far better than he’d like to admit, I imagine.”

  “I don’t need him to show me where the office is,” Anna grumbled.

  “But you do need him to guess the passcode.” Eliza lifted her own holocom and indicated the dial on the side.

  “And if he can’t guess it?”

  “Well, then he’ll have you. Who better to dissect the Commissioner’s holocom than the fabled Technician?” When Eliza had met Anna in the garden, it had been difficult to see past her bloodied clothes and wild eyes—not to mention her poor form. Truly, the girl had no talent for knife fighting. But she did have a talent for technology, and that was something Eliza could respect.

  Anna’s cheeks reddened, clashing spectacularly with her hair, but her eyes glinted mischievously. “I do love taking things apart.”

  Eliza could relate, as she dismantled the precarious stability of the Commissioner’s rule. She’d take the Settlement apart piece by piece, discarding the parts she didn’t want. She only hoped when it was all over she’d be able to put it back together again.

  Nathaniel was not prepared for friendship. He’d gone all his life without, but somehow he’d found himself with two, if not friends, allies. But now Nathaniel needed to be alone—he needed to be asleep.

  Nathaniel found no rest behind closed eyes. He deserved neither Eliza’s gentleness nor Anna’s forgiveness, and yet he wanted both so desperately—too desperately. Treason he could stomach, but alchemy kept him awake, sending his mind spinning and whirring like the metal cogs of Anna’s locket.

  Dragging himself from his bed, Nathaniel crossed to the desk as if in a trance. He was so very tired, but his fingers itched with unspent energy. He needed to hold the locket in his hands, remind himself of the weight of their mission. He’d failed so much—so many people.

  But mostly he’d failed Anna. They were a matched set, an outlaw and her hunter, both marked by metal and loss. They were two sides of a coin, a reflection in a spoon—almost touching, always chasing, never quite on the same page.

  He wouldn’t fail her again.

  But when Nathaniel opened the desk drawer, his hand found only parchment and ink bottles, no cold metal. The locket was gone.

  Before panic could crawl through his chest, there was a knock at the door. Nathaniel slammed the drawer shut and answered. Eliza had changed into a lacy, pale pink dress that matched the cakes she carried. “I thought I might join you for tea.”

  Nathaniel took a cake and invited her inside, glad to see she’d come alone. He needed the respite. The otherness he’d felt before as Anna and Eliza looked at one another still stretched over him like a net he’d not learned to move properly beneath.

  “Where’s Anna?” he asked, leading Eliza to the small coffee table in the corner.

  “When I left her, she was nose deep in that alchemy book of hers. She won’t notice my absence until I return, I expect.” Eliza sat, curling her legs beneath her on the armchair.

  Nathaniel doubted it but wasn’t sure how to articulate the magnetism he felt between them whenever the two were in the room, or how it bypassed him entirely.

  “I’ll admit, I thought it best we speak alone,” Eliza continued.

  Nathaniel’s stomach churned as he settled himself across from her. With a tray of cakes and Eliza’s own honeyed smile, her presence seemed ominous rather than comforting. Sweet things always spoiled eventually.

  “Wh-why’s that?” Hands shaking, Nathaniel tried to take a bite, depositing icing on his nose instead.

  “I want to show you something, and I didn’t think this needed an audience.” Eliza pulled a holocom from her pocket.

  “Did you steal that from my father?” Nathaniel asked before he could stop himself.

  Eliza narrowed her eyes. “No, this is my holocom. I use it to communicate with the Queen.”

  “Oh, right.” Nathaniel had almost forgotten Eliza’s purpose in coming to Earth Adjacent. She was always so deliberate in her choices, it seemed an impossibility that someone else was responsible for making them. But she answered to the Queen, acting on behalf of the crown, not herself. She had perfected the art of loyalty in a way he never could. “You’re not going to call the Queen, are you?”

  Eliza set the holocom on the coffee table between them and pressed a button on the side. “It does a lot more than that. Holocoms are communicators, recording devices, databases—both shared and personal. This is my link to the Tower’s database. I can look up anything, any word, any place … any person.” She let the last word hang in the air.

  Nathaniel swallowed with difficulty, though he’d not managed to consume any cake yet. “Like who?” He wondered if she’d searched his name. He hoped she hadn’t.

  Eliza’s finger spun a dial on the side of the device, and the blue image focused on a single name:

  Isla Fremont, née Perl.

  Nathaniel half placed, half dropped the cake back onto his plate as he leaned forward.

  “You mentioned your mother earlier, and I didn’t know whether or not you’d want to see her record. I know facts can’t heal your wounds, but it’s a start.”

  Nathaniel stared at his mother’s name for a long time. It was as if the world had frozen around him, encasing him in a bubble where anything was possible—where his mother wasn’t dead, where his mother could be brought back to life through data and code. The letters in her name danced across his fingertips as he reached for them, but then his hand passed through the image and the world came crashing back.

  “Wh-what did you find?” Nathaniel’s voice came out hoarse and distant.

  Eliza pressed another button on the holocom and t
he text vanished, replaced by an image of a woman not much older than Nathaniel. The woman had a soft face, devoid of the rigidity Nathaniel shared with his father, but he could see himself in her broad forehead, her crinkled eyes, her wavy hair.

  “There’s more in here than I thought there would be.” Eliza hit another button and the image disappeared. “She was born on the Tower, an only child like you.” She pulled up more text. “Showed an early proclivity for the sciences before she moved planetside, where they were banned. Most of the records here are from the minutes of her father’s council meetings—he was Earth Adjacent’s first Commissioner. Seems she had no trouble standing up to power.”

  Nathaniel’s chest tightened. There was one difference between them, at least. Would his mother be disappointed in him because he couldn’t do the same, or because he’d never truly tried?

  Eliza stopped scrolling. “This is the interesting part.”

  Nathaniel thought it had all been interesting, but he sat forward to listen just the same.

  “Nineteen years ago, your parents were married, and eighteen years ago, your grandfather died.”

  “I know.” Nathaniel might not have been particularly diligent in his studies, but this part of his family history could hardly be missed. “And my father became Commissioner.”

  “No, he didn’t.” Eliza gave a thin, sad smile. “Your mother did.”

  Nathaniel straightened. Nowhere in all his readings and lessons had he been taught that. Even the tech decrees went straight from Commissioner Perl to Commissioner Fremont, although now that he thought about it, his mother could have been Commissioner Fremont as easily as his father. None of the documentation ever included a first name.

  “There’s only a brief mention of it in a memo here.” Eliza pointed to a paragraph in the middle of the displayed text.

  It is with pride and confidence that the council writes to inform Your Majesty of the ascension of Isla Fremont to the status of Commissioner of Earth Adjacent. She wishes to continue her predecessor’s work to build a positive and productive relationship with the Tower and is supported by the full council.

  “She’s referenced here as Isla Fremont, but from here on out, she’s Commissioner Fremont.”

  Nathaniel ran his fingers through his hair with one hand, reaching with the other for the holocom controls to read on. “That makes for confusing record keeping, doesn’t it?”

  “That was my thought as well,” Eliza agreed. “It makes it tricky to differentiate between your mother’s actions as Commissioner and your father’s.”

  “Well, isn’t everything dated? Everything before my mother’s death is her, and everything after is my father …” Nathaniel trailed off, letting the text come to a halt.

  “When did your mother die, Nathaniel?”

  “I’m not sure—I was only a few years old.” He spoke slowly, as if each word was a puzzle piece falling into place. “Wait. Shouldn’t there be another memo to the Queen when my father became Commissioner? That would tell us when she died.”

  “That’s just it—there is no second memo.” Eliza moved his hand so she could key in a different search term. Oliver Fremont flashed in blue letters across the top, followed by the year he became Commissioner: 2874.

  “Eighteen years ago,” Nathaniel whispered. “This doesn’t make sense.”

  Eliza sighed and leaned back in her chair. “Someone doesn’t want us to know what happened to your mother. Someone wants us to forget she ever existed in the first place.”

  Nathaniel shuddered. He didn’t need Eliza to tell him who. Only one person had the kind of power needed to erase someone from history.

  “Why would he do this? Why keep me—all of us—in the dark about her? What good does it do to forget?”

  “What good does it do?” Eliza raised a brow. “That wasn’t rhetorical. What does your father have to gain from minimizing her life and covering up her death?”

  “Nothing!” It came out louder than Nathaniel had intended, and he found himself suddenly on his feet. His insides writhed, as though something was attempting to claw its way out of him. “Absolutely nothing at all! There’s no point—there’s never been any point.”

  “Hasn’t there?” Eliza asked, calm as ever.

  Nathaniel fell back into the chair, his limbs too heavy to hold him. “No,” he whispered. “But I don’t see how this benefits him unless …”

  Eliza inclined her head. “Unless?”

  Their eyes met, and Nathaniel knew instantly where she’d led him, where he’d followed, where his father’s treachery had been all along, waiting to be found.

  “Unless he killed my mother.” He wished he’d screamed the words, wished he’d stood up and tipped the table over. He would feel better, if he could wreck something, but Nathaniel had no rage to spend. Instead, he let his head sink, palms pressing against his eyes.

  His father was a murderer. If he’d killed his own wife, there was no telling what he’d be willing to do to Nathaniel. He’d thought he could have his father’s love if only he was smart enough, strong enough, good enough. But that love had never been attainable. Moreover, Nathaniel did not want it—not anymore. Every inch of him felt contaminated, as though the very skin he wore had been tarnished—not by illness but by murder, his father’s crimes a sin coursing through his blood.

  “Don’t tell Anna,” Nathaniel whispered.

  Eliza cocked her head. “Why not?”

  Nathaniel wasn’t sure he had an answer, only an instinct. “I don’t want her to know where I come from; I don’t want her to know I carry this death, too.”

  “Do you think this will change her opinion of you?” Eliza asked. “It won’t. We both know you are not your father.”

  Nathaniel nodded slowly. Anna reacted first and thought later, preferring to attack a problem rather than dissect it. But Nathaniel couldn’t do that. He couldn’t simply throw all his rage at his father and hope catharsis would come. He needed to sit with this; he needed to decide how it would change him—how it would change everything.

  “Anna will want to use this to turn me against my father, and I am against him, don’t misunderstand. I want to be angry—I do—but not until I’m ready. I don’t want her to decide how I’m supposed to feel about this.”

  Eliza nodded slowly. “Is that … how we made you feel? Like you don’t get to decide?”

  A bubble in Nathaniel’s chest burst, releasing the weight he carried. His feelings had always been a tangle. His father stifled them, Anna riled them, but Eliza somehow understood them.

  “I’m scared,” Nathaniel said finally. “I’m afraid of what we might become if we continue down this path.”

  “Some wicked paths are worth walking if the destination sets you free. Your father’s hurt you in ways I can’t fathom. Don’t ever question whether you deserve to live without that fear.”

  But it wasn’t only about their rebellion. It was about how Anna and Eliza looked at each other in a way Nathaniel couldn’t, how they shared an unspoken connection Nathaniel didn’t want. It was about more than right and wrong, anger and revenge. It was about the love Nathaniel didn’t feel—about the love maybe they did.

  “That’s not what I meant.” Nathaniel shook his head to clear it. “I don’t want us to become my parents, fighting over a title.” Nathaniel gestured to the holocom text.

  He did not want to be the boy he’d been in the service of his father, taking what he wanted without thought for others, and he feared he’d be no different in service of himself. But more than anything, he feared marriage would swallow him up. He would disappear just like his mother, eclipsed by the ambitions of those around him.

  “We won’t,” Eliza said. “We can do better. We are not doomed to become them.”

  They could do better, but only if they were honest with each other. Nathaniel liked Eliza well enough, but he didn’t want her. He liked that she defended him from his father. He liked that she spoke to him like an ally, not a soldier. Most
of all, he liked that Eliza did not look at him with the same intensity with which she looked at Anna.

  “I don’t want to marry you.” Nathaniel bit his lip, but he’d waded in this far already, he might as well make the dive. “You’re a lovely girl, and I know I’m supposed to feel lucky to be with you, but I don’t want you to be disappointed. I don’t want you to expect more than I can give.”

  Eliza pinched her brow. “More than you can give?”

  Nathaniel covered his face in his hands. She was going to make him spell it out for her. “I don’t feel the way I should feel about you, I know, and I—”

  “Stars, Nathaniel! You feel how you feel—there is no should about it.” She climbed from her chair and crossed to kneel beside him, prying his fingers from his face so she could look him in the eye. “Did you think I would be angry with you? It’s not any more your fault that you’re not attracted to me as it is mine for not being attracted to you.”

  The glass walls he’d built around this feeling shattered. “You—you knew I wasn’t attracted to you?”

  Eliza smiled. “Of course. I’ve known since we met.”

  “And you’re not upset?”

  “Are you?” Eliza asked.

  Nathaniel paused to consider. “No. No, I’m not. I think maybe I was—upset with myself, I mean. I wanted to be what you expected, but I didn’t know how.”

  “Rest assured, you are nothing like what I expected.” Eliza quirked her lips in a smile. “Thank the stars, you’re so much more.”

  Nathaniel exhaled slowly, unsure if he could trust the compliment.

  “Is there someone else?” Eliza asked. “Someone from your childhood, perhaps? Anna?”

  “Anna?” Nathaniel almost laughed.

  “I understand your disinterest in me, after all, I’m the girl chosen for you by your father. I wouldn’t want me, either, if I was you. But Anna is a rebellion with pretty eyes, and if I were you—well, I don’t have to be you to want her.” She laughed. “So that begs the question—if not me, and not her … then who?”