by Rebecca Rode
Silence it is, then, Ember decided and turned back to the window.
As the escort predicted, Ember’s new quarters were situated in a large round building with several small living compartments. They were the same off-white as the pods, the seaweed brushing up against them with each gentle ocean wave. A guard met them at the door and offered Ember a hand out of the vessel, but she stepped over the gap herself and strode inside.
She passed through the outer door and entered a small hallway. There were four doors here, two on each side and all identical. Amai led her to the second on the left.
“You must always have an escort when you leave,” Amai explained as she unlocked it and stepped aside for Ember to enter. “Just tell the guard where you want to go. He’ll take care of you.”
“Why must I have an escort?” Ember asked, eyeing the darkness beyond the doorway.
Rather than answering, Amai gave her a long, sorrowful look. Ember knew exactly what it meant.
“They know what I did,” she said softly.
“Half our force is in mourning. It’s better to keep you out of sight until things calm down. Until then, this is the safest place for you.” She placed a hand on Ember’s shoulder and practically shoved her inside.
Light flooded the room. At twelve paces square, it was larger than her bedroom on Earth, although it felt more cramped because of the furniture. The metal cot in the corner was the folding kind, just like on the ship. At least the mattress looked thick enough. She hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep since her kidnapping.
It felt like ages since she’d sat in her future-telling booth, saving every single credit for Dai’s medicine and missing her mother. Talpa, her clan chief, had done more than sell Ember as homage to the Empire—he’d betrayed their entire village. So many lives lost.
She should have prevented every single one.
The floor beneath her lurched with an unusually large wave. Tethered or not, she’d have to get used to sleeping on the ocean. She wasn’t sure her stomach would ever feel right again.
A tiny closet jutted out in the far corner. No, not a closet. A bathroom barely large enough to contain a toilet. A showerhead extended from the ceiling, and a lip rose from the floor to keep the water in, the drain dead center.
“They should be bringing your next meal shortly, and then you can rest,” Amai said. “Be ready to begin training first thing in the morning. Your team has already been assigned.” Amai headed for the door.
“Where’s Mar?” Ember asked.
“She’s been placed elsewhere,” Amai said curtly. Then she was gone.
They’d put Mar with the other flickers, then. She felt a pang of disappointment, but she couldn’t blame the Daughter for wanting to separate the dangerous Lady Flare from everyone else. Amai said it was for her own protection, but Ember knew better. The Union always protected their own first. That was exactly as it should be.
Ember was too tired to think. What she needed was a shower and some sleep. She could think it through in the morning. She pulled the vial of sand out of her pocket and set it down on the bathroom counter. She would have tossed the stuff into the ocean had it not reminded her so much of the home she’d never see again.
“Now to finally smell like a woman,” she said with a sigh. She turned on the shower water, frowning when it came down in a trickle. Even surrounded by ocean, it seemed the Union was tight-fisted with its resources. Hopefully the water was warm.
She touched it with the tip of her finger and waited a moment, testing it. Nothing happened. The water was indeed filtered, then.
Of course it is. She scoffed at herself for crossing the line into irrational paranoia. Why would they bring her all the way here just to kill her with a poisonous shower? As untrusting and distasteful as the Daughter was, at least the woman had the decency to tell Ember what she expected of her. It was more than Commander Kane had ever done.
Dai’s words floated back into her thoughts. If you choose to serve her, be very careful. I have yet to discover whether this Union is the antithesis of the Empire or an extension of it.
She was being careful, truly. But didn’t she need to trust the woman at some point? She was offering Ember everything she wanted—Stefan, a purpose. Revenge. More than anything, Ember wanted to make the Emperor pay for what he had taken from her. And when he’d suffered enough, she wanted him to suffer all over again. Didn’t that mean exactly what the Daughter was proposing? Wasn’t removing the emperor a logical way to gain her revenge?
Ember had just begun to peel off her clothing when a knock sounded at the door. She’d forgotten about dinner. She groaned and slipped her shirt back on, leaving the shower on as she stalked to the pod door.
She yanked the door open to reveal a man in his late twenties, heavy stubble lining his strong jaw. He held no tray of food. Beneath his thick eyebrows, his intense, angry eyes latched onto Ember like a predator’s.
There was something familiar about him. It took her a second to place the man. She’d last seen him on a ship, next to his wife—who had died at Ember’s hand. Lillya. Ember had relived the moment a hundred times in her dreams—Lillya slumped to the ground, her husband’s expression as he realized what he’d lost.
Ember had been ordered to kill him, too. Instead, she’d knocked him unconscious. That moment had saved countless lives later, enabling her to fool Commander Kane until the Union could fight back.
“You’re alive,” she said softly, a grin spreading across her face. The slightest weight lifted from her shoulders. Just one life of so many—but, still, a life that haunted her. “You survived!”
He hesitated, a slight pause, a moment of reconsideration. Then his face hardened again. “I’ve been waiting for this.”
Chapter 3
Ember stumbled back and fell hard as he lunged at her. His knee hit a chair, but he shoved it aside, then turned back to her. His eyes held the same rage he’d displayed at his wife’s death but also something more, a heavy pain Ember knew well. He wasn’t thinking clearly in his state of grief.
And he was determined to kill her.
Instinctively, she reached for his inner light but was met with a solid, impenetrable shield. Why hadn’t she insisted on carrying a stunner?
She scrambled toward the open door. “Guard!”
Her attacker’s hands closed around her throat from behind, yanking her backward and closing off her windpipe as her remaining breath squeaked from her lungs. He slammed her against the wall. Pain sliced through her head like red-hot lightning.
A shout sounded from the hallway, but the man kicked at the door and slammed it shut. The voice outside was muffled now. Not the guard’s. A woman’s.
Ember struggled to grab his arms, to kick him, anything, but his grip was unyielding. Why was it always choking? Her would-be assassin in the Empire cell had tried that too before she—
The memory slammed into her mind like a blast of cool air. She reached out for his inner light again. It burned with anger. She could hardly draw near, even exerting all her mental energy. His shield was strong, but she sensed it weakening slightly as his emotions intensified. Summoning all her strength, she threw a mental arm at the man’s shield. It bounced off.
Her lungs screamed for oxygen as the room beyond the man’s face blurred. She tried again. And again. Ember had pierced dozens of shields wearing Kane’s collar. Why couldn’t she do it now, when she needed it most?
The Daughter was right. Ember was no soldier. It was her ability to touch a person’s inner light that made her valuable. Without it, she was nothing.
Suddenly the man’s fingers slipped, his hands trembling. Were those tears running down his face?
Air. Precious oxygen. He had released her.
The room slid sideways as Ember lay on the floor, filling her lungs in a series of gasps. It took all her strength to open her eyes enough to see her would-be killer’s face. He was on his knees now, weeping, arms wrapped around his chest as if holding himself together.
&
nbsp; A woman appeared overhead, eyes wide with alarm. Ember’s attacker jerked as if struck, then slumped to the floor. A guard rushed over seconds later and secured the man’s arms, stuffing a stunner back into his belt. It wasn’t the same guard she’d seen outside.
The woman knelt by her side as she lay there still gasping. Her breath came in wheezes now, but at least it came, bringing a deep pain with it.
“There you go, dear,” the woman said, stroking Ember’s hair. “Harlow won’t bother you again. Don’t worry. Just breathe. Your lungs will know what to do in time.” Her shoulder-length brown hair hung in waves. A few strands of gray were woven through the brown like an intricate piece of artwork.
Ember lifted her gaze to the now-open door. This woman had to be one of her neighbors. Perhaps she’d heard the commotion and fetched help. But where was the guard who had offered Ember his hand as she arrived?
“Just unconscious, thankfully,” the woman said at Ember’s unspoken question. “I found him on the ground, sleeping the afternoon away with a nasty bump on his head.”
The second guard managed to drag Harlow’s slumped body out the door now. The sound of trickling water came from the back of the room. The shower. “He tried—” Ember managed, but it came out as a croak.
The hair patting began again, more insistent this time. “Don’t speak, dear. I’ll help you up when you’ve caught your breath. I have to apologize for Harlow. He’s been through a lot, poor boy. Should have expected him to do something like this.” She sighed. “He’s been angry at everyone since the Empire incident—lost his wife there, barely escaped alive. But you know that, don’t you?”
Ember stared, unsure how much to admit to this stranger. Did she know what Ember had done? It was obvious Harlow knew her part in it. That meant others probably did too, and they would have an equally strong hatred for her. If you choose to serve the Daughter, be very careful.
Her throat felt like it was kinked, and her mind still raced from the adrenaline. She had almost died. Again. That was what came of trusting people—the Daughter, the guard outside. A man she thought she had saved. Her abilities made her powerful in some ways yet vulnerable in others.
“Ah, well,” the woman said. “Now isn’t the time for chitchat, is it? I’m Neraline, from across the hall. Don’t you worry about Harlow. He’s on his way below.”
Below? As in the ocean? This woman wasn’t making any sense. But then, Ember’s mind wasn’t working all that well either. “Thanks,” she croaked.
“You’re welcome. It’s very nice to meet you, Ember.” At Ember’s expression, she nodded. “Yes, I know more than your name. I’ve waited a long time to meet you. But we can talk about that once you’ve had your shower.” She motioned to the bathroom, where steam had begun to fill the air. “That was what you were doing before you were so rudely interrupted, wasn’t it?”
Ember pushed the woman’s arms away and pulled herself to a sitting position, her vision a bit blurry and the room tilting as she did so. Or was that the waves underfoot? She tried to swallow and winced at the deep ache it caused. “You—you know me?”
“We’ve never met before now, but I feel as if I know you, yes. I’ve watched you from afar these past weeks. I feel as if you were my own daughter.”
A chill overtook Ember now. She’d been rescued from one insane person just to meet another. “Explain.”
“We’ll talk about it when you’ve had a chance—”
She ignored the pain and forced the words out. “No. Tell me what you mean.”
“I really think—” Her voice trailed off as she met Ember’s eyes. “All right, if it puts you at ease. Nick and I—” She paused, then plunged on. “Your father and I were once lovers. A long time ago, years before you were born.”
Ember stood under the showerhead, letting the water wash over her. She had accepted Neraline’s offer to discuss this later, muttering something about not wasting water before escaping to the safety of the bathroom. The heat of the water inflamed her throat even more, making it nearly impossible to swallow, but she welcomed any pain that distracted her from the ache in her soul. Your father and I were once lovers. Her emotions swung from anger to excitement, then back again.
Neraline had saved her life, so Ember owed her some measure of kindness. But she couldn’t help feeling betrayed at the woman’s timing. Did she really have to spring this on her in a moment of vulnerability? Well, Ember had asked. Now she had to prepare herself to discuss not only her father but a younger version of him, a man Ember didn’t know at all. The fact that this woman did made Ember instantly resent her.
She was not some kind of twisted daughter-that-could-have-been. She refused to fulfill Neraline’s bizarre fantasies about her father. For all she knew, it was all a lie. The woman could have discovered Dai’s name from Amai or Bianca or even Mar.
There was only one way to know.
She reached out and gently touched the woman’s inner light, then shuffled backward two decades. Memories that old tended to fade, allowing her to see only glimpses of emotional moments, colors, and smells captured over a lifetime. It took some searching to find what she was looking for.
There. She hovered over a memory that pulsed more brightly than the rest.
Neraline hovered over her love, who lay upon a medical bed. His eyes were downcast, his lips pressed firmly together.
“I can’t just watch you leave,” she whispered. “I won’t. There’s nothing for me here.”
Nick shook his head in that stubborn way of his. “There’s nothing for you out there either. I don’t like it, but this is how it has to be.” He reached out a slow, tentative hand.
She moved her hand before he could take it. “No. I’m coming, and that’s final. I accept the risks if things go wrong.”
“Ner, you’ll only get hurt. Knowing it was my fault would kill me, I swear it.”
He didn’t see it. Nick gave her purpose. He was her brightness in a dark world, her color in the drab black-and-white sameness of the lab. He was her future, whether he understood that or not.
Ember jerked her hand away, nausea gripping her gut.
Dai had never mentioned another woman. He had been faithful to Ember’s mother in conversation, actions, even in his glances. Everything he did was for his wife. It was one of the reasons the Roma had allowed the newly married couple to remain despite his gadjo heritage—their love was a deep, effortless kind. The type of love that didn’t simply begin or end but just was.
They were together now in the stars, watching her. No matter what Neraline had to say, nothing would change that.
Ember would listen. Nothing more.
She toweled dry, vaguely realizing she’d forgotten to wash her hair. The mirror reflected a massive bruise forming on her neck, several dots of purple revealing where Harlow’s fingers had closed around it. She’d survived a bruise like this once before. She would survive it again.
A pile of folded clothing sat next to the sink. She lifted the shirt to examine it—an ugly dark gray. At least it was clean, unlike her Empire-issued black shirt. And the trousers fit slightly less snug than her former monstrosity, although nothing would ever be as comfortable as her familiar skirt and blouse. Bianca was likely being forced out of her Roma attire right now as well. Would she become a worker, or would they force her into military service?
Ember finished dressing and examined herself in the mirror. With her bruise and stringy hair, she looked like a ragtag soldier. It fit her mood.
At the last second, she slid her flicker jacket back on. Then she turned back to the door and took a deep breath. Ember had faced armies and powerful leaders. Surely she could face her father’s lover.
Ex-lover. There was a huge difference.
Ember half expected the woman to be gone. She’d taken perhaps twenty minutes to get ready, enough time for her visitor to slip out and return another time—at which point Ember hoped to have the door properly secured. But Neraline sat patiently in the chair Em
ber had vacated, ankles crossed, hands folded daintily in her lap. She looked the very picture of Empire propriety.
Ember took the opportunity to examine the woman more closely. Dark hair and eyes, like Ember’s mother. Her father’s preference, apparently. And she was kind of pretty—a round face, deep dimples. Eyes creased with pain and life experience. She was in her late forties, about the same age as Dai.
Ember tried to imagine her father taking this woman into his arms and kissing her. Then she flung the thought away with a grimace.
“Feel better?” Neraline asked with an irritatingly understanding smile.
Ember ignored the question. “Where exactly did they send Harlow?”
“Our holding cells are underwater. Much more effective than any solitary confinement the Empire could devise, let me assure you. You’ll be quite safe.”
Now that the shock had worn off, Ember had to know more. How had Harlow survived, much less escaped, while surrounded by Empire ships? How had he known about Ember? Who else knew what she could do?
What did Neraline know, in particular?
“Definitely bolt the door when you’re here, though,” Neraline continued. “And next time, don’t answer it until you know who’s on the other side. They’ll double or triple the guard, I’m sure, but it’s better to be cautious.”
Ember nodded. First her reading in the waiting room, and now this. Until she achieved her goal, she would trust no one. For the moment, that included Neraline.
“What questions do you have about your father and me?” Neraline asked. “I’m sure you have plenty.”
Ember shook her head. “No.”
“No?”
Ember folded her arms. “No, I don’t have any questions. If he wanted me to know about you, he would have told me.”
Neraline sat back in the chair. “Ah. He always was a quiet man.”
It was true. Dai had been unusually reserved for an Empire-bred man, but among the Roma he was practically mute. He’d spoken very rarely, choosing to listen instead. He hung back at events and avoided large groups. Yet when he had something to say, it came out with a power born of deep passion. Ember had loved hearing her father speak to others because she could see their minds changing about him right before her eyes.
