“Mother.”
That’s her voice. She’s not awake, she just does that. She almost never talks in her sleep, but when she does, it’s always that word. Mother. Mother. Mother. It is the phantom she never stops chasing.
I love Esmae, so I will never, ever tell her the truth.
No one knows how much I know, you see. No one guesses how much I see. Two gods helped King Darshan build me and, whether they intended it or not, they left some of themselves behind when they were finished. And, in turn, they carry some of me with them.
You know who the gods are, of course. Amba, the war goddess, and her brother Kirrin, the god of tricks. Who else could it have been but those two? They have had a hand in this war since the very start. Hubris will be the downfall of the gods, the stories say, and in Amba and Kirrin it must surely be true.
The tether between us means I can see what they have seen, be it past, present, or future. Where they go, I go, too.
I was there when Kyra Rey called for Amba and asked her to grant her third and last boon.
I was there when the king of Wychstar asked Kirrin for a way to punish the man who had wounded him most.
I was there when Amba put her hand over a bloody knife and told the woman holding it to stop.
I was there with Kirrin when Alexi Rey took his mother by the shoulders, tears streaming down his face, and said, “Mother, what have you done?”
They are always just pieces, raw data that I meticulously sift and process until I can make sense out of it.
Esmae is still asleep. Her fists are clenched on her chest and her brows are furrowed, but her heartbeat is healthy. From what I know of humans, any sleep is better than no sleep.
There is a nudge at my consciousness. It usually means someone wants to make contact with my system, so I look for the signal source. Kali. Max, specifically. He has been trying to reach me all day, but I never answer him when Esmae can hear me.
I answer now. “She’s safe,” I tell him. That’s always the first thing he wants to know.
“I assume she’s not there,” he replies. He knows it’s not a coincidence that Esmae is never the one who answers these calls.
“She’s asleep. We’ll come back when she wakes up.”
He sounds tired. “How is she?”
“She’s the same.”
“And you?”
He always asks me that. I like that about him. “I’m very well, thank you,” I tell him. “How are you?”
“The same. I’ll see you soon, okay?”
“Goodbye, Max.”
When I end the connection and shift my attention back to Esmae, she’s awake. Only just, according to her heart rate. She blinks slowly, then looks around my control room.
“We’re not home.”
“An astute observation,” I remark. “You were asleep, so I made the executive decision to allow that to continue.”
She makes an undignified snorty sound that I have learned to interpret as a laugh. Feeling somewhat smug for getting that out of her, I set a course back to Kali.
Then, inexplicably, I ruin the moment by blurting out, “You said that word in your sleep.”
Well, perhaps not inexplicably. The truth I can’t tell her is clearly corrupting my data stream and making me say stupid things. Esmae doesn’t reply for a few moments, but I can see how tight her fists are. She knows what word I mean. Mother. She told me once that it weighs more than the universe to her.
“Can you show me my mother?” she asks me.
If I had a hand, I would smack my head with it like humans do. I try to dissuade her. “Is that a good idea?”
“I just want to see her. All the footage I’ve ever seen of her is years and years old.”
A hologram flickers to life in the middle of the control room. Its colors are slightly muted, but Esmae’s sharp intake of breath tells me it’s more than she expected. She steps closer. Those fists are still clenched at her sides and her eyes are wide. An assassin could walk right up to her and she wouldn’t notice. I wish she could see herself. I wish she could see how catastrophically defenseless she is.
“Mother,” she whispers.
Kyra Rey looks silently back at her. She has a long neck, brown skin, dark brown hair, and gray eyes with creases at the corners. Her hair is thick, long and pinned into an untidy knot. She is only a little taller than Esmae, but where Esmae is small and soft like a duckling, Kyra is more of a swan. Graceful and aloof.
I don’t think either of them would like those descriptions.
“Do you think she cares?” Esmae asks me. “That Alexi tried to kill me, I mean?”
“I think it would have broken her heart if you had died,” I answer carefully.
“Really?”
I believe it’s the truth, but I wonder if it was the wrong thing to say. I may not be able to keep Esmae from chasing ghosts, but I certainly should not be helping her do it.
I try to distract her. The image of Kyra flickers, and I re-create her father instead. Esmae startles and takes a step back. Cassel Rey died eleven years ago, so the version of him in front of her is young, with bright blue eyes and bronze skin and an easy, kind smile.
I pluck samples of his voice out of archived footage in my database. “Esmae,” I make his hologram say in his voice.
All the color has drained from Esmae’s face. She reaches a hand out to touch her father and her fingers pass right through him. She snatches them back.
I don’t think this is helping. I switch the hologram to Rama instead. That should be more of a comfort.
“Hey, Ez,” he says in that sweet, lazy drawl of his.
“Stop it!” There are tears in Esmae’s eyes. “Titania, stop!”
I make Rama disappear immediately. “Didn’t you want to see him?” I ask her, confused. “I thought it would make you feel better. I’m sorry, I didn’t think.”
“It’s okay,” she says, still staring at the place where Rama was. “I’m okay.”
Even I, a machine, know that’s a lie. But I cannot comfort her. I cannot hold her hand or stroke her hair. I cannot bring the real Rama back for her. All I can do is stay with her so that, even when there is no one else, neither of us is ever alone. All I can do is stand guard between her and the secrets that will swallow her whole.
CHAPTER FOUR
Sybilla is in the dock when Titania and I return, and she’s royally ticked off.
“We had a deal,” she snaps at me. “You’re not supposed to leave Kali without me! How am I supposed to be your bodyguard if your body is too far away to guard?”
“And by bodyguard, I assume you mean minder. Captain of the Keep Esmae Out of Trouble squad. Remind me what I’m supposed to get out of this deal?”
“You don’t get my fist in your teeth!”
I laugh, but she doesn’t even crack a smile. I look closer and see what she’s trying, as usual, to hide. Fear. I relent. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have gone without you.”
Satisfied that she’s made her point, Sybilla thaws. She follows me into the halls of the palace, the familiar walls and pillars gleaming white with accents of honey. “Your uncle asked to see you as soon as you got back,” she says.
My uncle, the usurper King of Kali. He’s the only one who is happy with me these days. Not only does Elvar believe I’m the key to his victory, thanks to a vision from the god of tricks, but I’m now the only person in the world who wants Alexi to lose even more than he does.
“Where is Elvar?” I ask Sybilla.
“War council meeting.”
I stop walking. “I’ll see him when the meeting’s over.”
“He specifically said he wanted to see you as soon as you got back. Which means now.” Sybilla gives me a look that says she sees far too much. “You haven’t been to a war council meeting in months.”
“I don’t see the point. What do I need the war council for? To tell me where to go and who to fight? I can figure that out myself. And with Titania and Elvar on my side, who
exactly can keep me from doing what I want?”
Sybilla lets out a high peal of laughter. “Come on, Esmae. You can get all thorny with anyone else, but not with me. I invented thorny. You haven’t been dodging the war council because you think you can do whatever the hell you want, you’ve been keeping away because you don’t want to face Rickard and M—”
“Stop.” It’s barely a sound, but she hears me and she stops at once. She knows better than anyone just how much the dark, quiet things hidden under the thorns can hurt.
The war council has gathered in the king’s study today. They’re seated around the large oval table when I walk in, twelve of them including Elvar himself, and they stare at me in surprise.
Over half the group scrambles to their feet. “Princess Esmae!” someone says.
“Esmae?” Elvar’s head swivels in my direction, and what’s visible of his face beneath his blindfold breaks into a relieved smile. “You’re back! We’ve been so worried! Are you hurt?”
“No, I’m fine.”
He looks visibly relieved, then says, “What can I do for you?”
I glare at Sybilla, who gives me an unapologetic shrug. Wretch.
It’s tempting, but I don’t give her away. “I just wanted to let you know I was back, Uncle. And as I’m here,” I add pointedly for Sybilla’s benefit, “I might as well stay for the rest of the meeting.”
“Will wonders never cease,” comes an amused voice from the other side of the table. It’s my great-grandmother, the old queen Cassela. “Do sit down, my dear.”
The only empty seat is between Rickard and Max. Typical. I sit, carefully avoiding looking at either of them. Rickard puts his hand over mine, briefly, and I know what the touch is supposed to say. Stop avoiding me. Come back to us. Rickard has always been very good at loving people even when he’s disappointed in them, but I’m not very good at dealing with how much it hurts to see that disappointment directed at me. And Max, well, that’s easier not to even think about.
Lady Su Yen, one of the king’s advisors and a general in the army, gestures to Sybilla and addresses me. “No one outside the war council may be present at a meeting, Princess.”
“Sybilla is Princess Esmae’s personal guard,” Elvar replies before I can. “She goes where Esmae goes.”
“But surely we’re not expecting the princess to be assassinated in this room?”
“I agree,” I tell her, “and I have mentioned many times that I don’t need a guard, but—”
“Esmae, you have almost been murdered once already,” Elvar interrupts me, “and I was very nearly assassinated in my own private garden not long ago, so I don’t see how we can possibly be too careful. Sybilla stays.”
The sun lamps above the city shine in the windows. In the distance, beyond the lamps, I can see the darkness and stars of space. I wish I was back out there. I feel exposed in the glare of the light.
“To get back to our previous discussion,” says Rickard, and his voice is as deep, calm, and normal as ever, which makes it unbearably tempting to look at him, “the Blue Knights are definitely on the move. They intend to meet Alexi in Arcadia, if the pattern of their movements is any indication.”
The Blue Knights are a group of warriors spread across the star system who follow Kirrin. They’re famous for their utter devotion to their favorite god and to anyone he in turn favors. And now that Kirrin has openly revealed that he’s on my brother’s side, they’ve decided to fight for Alexi.
I expected it, so I’m not surprised. I’m more than a little bitter, though. If the last three months are anything to go by, any love Alex lost by murdering Rama is negligible in comparison to the number of gods, beasts, and kingdoms who have shifted to his side. Meanwhile, the best we can claim is an alliance with Shloka, a relatively small territory, and the fact that Wychstar, furious about what happened to their prince, won’t fight for either of us.
“We have Titania,” I feel obliged to say. I hear her agree in my earpiece, which I haven’t taken out yet. “Alexi’s numbers mean very little when you factor her in.”
“Esmae, you know full well that the laws of righteous warfare won’t allow us to use Titania against infantry,” Rickard says, “Only against other ships and weapons. We’ll be outnumbered in a battle on the ground.”
“Then we need to stay in the sky.”
“I agree, but it won’t be easy,” says Rickard. “Alexi’s strategy will be to get us on the ground and neutralize Titania at any cost.”
“Other alliances are still possible,” says General Khay, a new advisor who was added to the war council after I got rid of Lord Selwyn. I like her a lot more than her predecessor. “There are at least fifteen realms who haven’t yet chosen a side.”
“Elba is our best option,” says Grandmother. “They have enormous reserves of gold, with which we could buy the services of entire fleets of mercenaries.”
“We’ll invite their king to the Lotus Festival next week,” Elvar says. “It will be a good opportunity to feel him out.”
Shortly after that, the meeting is over. Advisors start to leave, trickling out one by one. I prepare to flee, too, before anyone can get hold of me, but then Grandmother points out the window.
“What is that?”
“It’s a ship,” Rickard says, squinting to see past the glare of the sun lamps.
“And not one of ours,” Max adds.
Elvar’s face blanches. “We’re not expecting any visitors. What if it’s another attempt against our defenses?”
I move closer to the window and gaze past the lamps at a silver speck outside our shields, glittering against the total void of space. The crimson and gold clouds of the Scarlet Nebula and the pale orb of Winter are on the opposite side of Kali, so it’s unlikely this ship came from there. And unlike most starships, this one is shaped like a zeppelin, an ovoid with gracefully curved wings jutting out the sides. It’s exactly like the ship Rama and I snuck off with once, the one that malfunctioned. The realization makes my heart sink.
It’s Wych.
“What was that, Esmae?” Rickard asks me. I must have said it out loud.
“The ship,” I say. “Only one kingdom has a fleet of royal ships shaped like that. It’s from Wychstar.”
There’s a moment of dead silence, and then Rickard’s watch crackles to life with a sentry’s voice. “Master Rickard, there’s a ship requesting entry. Do we have the king’s permission to allow it past the inner shield?”
“No!” Elvar croaks. “Absolutely not! What if King Darshan has decided to move against us after all?”
“Who is on the ship?” Rickard interrupts him to ask the sentry. “What do they want?”
“She says she’s Princess Radha of Wychstar,” comes the reply. “And she wants to see Princess Esmae.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Elvar agrees to let Princess Radha meet us on the arched stone bridge of the palace where royal visitors are usually greeted. I walk there with the others, jaw so tight it aches. At this point, I’d rather face almost anyone in the world than face Rama’s favorite sister.
Rama was only a year old when his mother Queen Radha died from complications during her youngest daughter’s birth. On top of that, King Darshan was still in the final few years of his vow of silence and there are almost six years between Rama and his older brother and sister, so it’s not surprising that he and the baby princess Radha grew up close. I was the unexpected addition to their team of two, the newcomer to their royal schoolroom, the girl no one could quite explain the presence of.
And now Rama is dead.
When she appears alone at the end of the bridge, my heart drops. The Radha I knew was shy, with bright eyes and a sweet smile and a full face and soft curves and an endless parade of creative hairstyles, but this Radha is a ghost. Her thick hair is up in a simple, neat twist that the old Radha would have found woefully uninteresting. Her face is hollow and the soft, rich brown of her skin is almost washed out. Her dress, an emerald green shift
that I’ve seen her wear before, hangs off her. Gold bangles gleam at her wrists and even they look like they might slide right off.
We did this to her, Rama.
“It wasn’t your fault,” Titania says in my ear.
Radha approaches us and, as protocol dictates, curtseys first to Elvar. She takes his outstretched hand. “I’m so grateful you allowed me to visit, King Elvar.”
“The pleasure is ours, Princess Radha,” Elvar replies, and to his credit he almost sounds like he means it.
Radha greets Guinne, who joined us before we arrived at the bridge, and the queen says, “My dear, where are your guards?”
“I flew alone. I came despite my father’s wishes to the contrary, so my ship was all I could bring with me.” And then, before any of us can react to that, she moves down the line with the graceful ease of someone who was born to it. “Prince Max, how nice to see you again. Queen Cassela, Master Rickard, it’s an honor to meet you both at last.”
Then, finally, me. Our eyes meet. Hers are just like Rama’s used to be, brown and kind, and my throat closes up tight.
“Hello, Radha.”
Her eyes brim with tears. “Oh, Esmae,” she says. She takes my hands in hers, squeezing them tightly, and goes on in a rush, “Father wants us to have nothing to do with any of this, but I knew I had to come. I can’t hide on Wychstar while my brother’s murderer gets away with what he did. Let me help you.”
I open my mouth to reply, but no words come out. I didn’t expect this. I thought she’d grieve quietly on Wychstar and carry on with her life. That’s what the girl I grew up with would have done, but then, I suppose, none of us are the same anymore.
Max glances at me and steps in. “Are you sure about this?” he asks Radha. “Are you absolutely sure you want to be involved in this war?”
He doesn’t say it out loud, but I hear it all the same, the silent warning: Your brother got involved, and it killed him.
House of Rage and Sorrow Page 2
