by Maura Milan
Ia wasn’t strong enough yet, and she wasn’t ready. But time wasn’t going to stop for her. She could keep running. But her demons were vicious, and they would catch up to her soon.
CHAPTER 39
BRINN
“WHAT IF the fight is actually over, Brinn?” Liam asked.
She looked over at him, a small smile creeping across her face. A fake, one that she had used thousands of times before when she had to pretend she wasn’t Tawny. She had no idea what to tell Liam because she didn’t know how to feel about it all.
The two of them sat side by side, just as they had when they left Aphelion, strapped in to their flight seats, chins tilted high to see what lay ahead. They had just departed from Nirvana along with almost their entire fleet. In moments, they would all pass through an open gate within Penance’s arches, connecting their location to a private star system in Commonwealth territory. They had been invited by Lind and Juo, along with their new group, the United Cause, to meet and discuss the terms for peace. Once they came to an agreement, there would be no more need for bloodshed or to complete Penance.
She knew she should be happy, but Brinn felt an emptiness inside as her work approached a premature end.
Despite the promise of an armistice, Einn had ordered everyone to carry their new jump belts, along with the black-hole prototypes Brinn had developed. Just in case, Einn had said.
Brinn looked over to the other soldiers in their ship—refugees, Drifters, and defectors of the Commonwealth who had joined their cause. They all sat still and tense. None of them had expected that this day would come. That the Queens would address them as equals and invite them to create a new government together. But was that enough to make up for everything that had happened? All the homes and planets that had been taken? All the families that had been broken apart?
Einn walked up and down the lines. “In moments, we’ll be touching down on solid ground. It will be new for some of you. To see grass. To see the sky. To see the women who once were queens.” His eyes connected with every one of theirs. He knew their value. Their worth. “You are all here because this moment belongs to you.”
“Are you going to accept the terms?” Liam was the first to ask, but Brinn knew everyone else was wondering it.
Einn’s voice never wavered. “I will make my own choice, and I give you the freedom to make yours.”
He stopped at Brinn, glancing at the clunky edge at the side of her hip. The pistol he had given her, concealed by a black shawl she fastened across her right shoulder.
Their units had grown stronger since their last clash against the Commonwealth. With each mission to take down Star Force envoys protecting refugee send-off ships, they had more followers, more soldiers to add to their cause. They were more powerful than ever before. She was stronger, too.
Brinn was on the lead ship along with Einn and a small unit of elite troops. Liam was their point of command. He had led dozens of missions so far, all of them successful. She hadn’t asked about the casualties, the bloodshed that he’d seen. But she knew that it had hardened him. He was different from when they had first met, always doing things by the book. But now there was no guide. It was just them figuring it all out. Not just their tactics and strategy, but their own moral compass. Their own reasons to fight, or not to fight. To kill or not to kill. Everyone had a different vision of what lay at the end of the road, of what all their actions would amount to. It was blinding, so much that you couldn’t see all the details. But it was there. They just had to keep clambering toward it with everything they had.
Some people, she was sure, saw peace. Some people saw the death of the Olympus Commonwealth as just payment for all the suffering they’d caused.
And what did she see at the end of that road?
Absolutely nothing. She didn’t feel the need for vengeance or the desire to make things right. Because there was nothing left. Everything had already been taken from her. Faren was dead, and so were her parents. Even if they had survived, nothing would change. How could there be a chance of happiness for them, or for her, after everything they’d gone through?
They landed on a field filled with long grass and wildflowers the color of the setting sun. Lind and her advisers were already waiting for them, the royal villa in the background. A new banner with the copper swallow of the United Cause flew at its entrance.
As they disembarked, Brinn trained her eyes on Lind. She was more beautiful than on the holobanners that were marched up and down the streets of Nova Grae during the Provenance Day parades. Her hair was a long, glossy brown, the same brown Brinn had dyed her hair for years and years.
She hated Lind at that very instant. Her life of privilege, of not having to worry about being socially shunned for how she was born into this world.
A hand rested on her shoulder, and she swiveled with a start. Her eyes landed on Einn’s. They were a deep gray like the sky before dawn. Staring into them, she should have been afraid. But they were calm and steady. A pool of unknown mystery—something that should be feared but was instead a thing of beauty. Because it meant anything was possible. It meant that destiny had not yet been written.
Einn took his hand away and extended it to the former Queen Lind. Lind accepted his hand, grasping it firmly between her soft, slender fingers. Her fingernails were clean and perfectly shaped.
“Juo couldn’t grace us with her presence?” Einn asked.
“She is attending to refugee matters,” Lind said. Behind her was a line of men and women whom Brinn used to think were important. She saw heroes of the Uranium War, captains and commanders and even scholars who were known for their ideas of peace and philosophy. General Adams was there, the same man who had captured Ia and dragged her to Aphelion. Brinn almost laughed. Ia was captured by that man but dead because of the young man who stood by Brinn’s side right now. It was funny how people’s paths converged, how they pushed people in directions they would never expect.
“As you know, we’ve come to negotiate the terms of the treaty. We both seek the same goal, freedom for all.” Lind’s voice was as clear and dignified as birdsong, but somehow it grated harshly against Brinn’s ears. Her brother’s blood spilled across the dirt of Nova Grae because he had wanted that same freedom. Where was Lind then?
“And what is your definition of freedom, Lind?” Einn asked.
Lind smiled at him, a perfect smile, one that had probably been taught to generations and generations of royal queens. “That would take quite a while to explain. I have studied the subject for years. Shall we walk by the river while we discuss?”
Anger rose up Brinn’s throat. She knew what was to come. Lind would talk of the ancient philosophers, of their examinations of the very ideas of liberty.
But they were just words, Brinn thought. More words that did nothing. Regurgitated like vomit for all to gather around and clap.
She saw through the copper swallow’s rising melody, trying to rouse all of them from the dead. A gift of hope to keep them alive. But no, it was your lungs, your blood, your cells—that kept you alive.
Hope was a lie. A lie that could burn through everything. All her plans. All of her work. The destiny that she chose.
Lind wanted to fight for her freedom? No, she wanted to take it away. So Brinn would have to claw onto it, clutch it in her desperate fingers, because there was nothing else.
“Wait,” Brinn said. Lind turned, looking at Brinn for the first time. But Brinn’s gaze wasn’t on the former queen; it was on Einn. “You told us that we are here to make a choice.”
Brinn pulled out her pistol, and the shot rang throughout the field.
The bullet flew, meeting its mark. It buried itself deep into Lind’s stomach and she fell. Within moments, the woman who was once queen was just flesh.
General Adams reached for his pistol, but before he could draw, Einn had unsheathed the knife at his hip. The blade pierced right though the general’s neck. Blood trickled slowly at first, then sprayed out around them.
The general crashed to his knees, clasping the knife, unable to pull it out to grasp onto the few seconds he had left.
Einn leaned down, listening to the general’s dying breaths. “How wonderful it is to see you at this very moment.”
Like clockwork, the first troops quickly swooped in on Lind’s personal guard. She couldn’t see him, but Brinn knew Liam was there, valiantly leading the attack. A series of spatial tears formed around her, and new soldiers jumped into battle. Gunfire erupted on both sides.
From the front lines, Brinn saw her inventions at work. She had created, and her creations had power. Words meant nothing compared to what those soldiers held in their hands, what she held in her hand. A circular metal disk that she had been developing for the past few weeks. She pressed down on the activation timer and hurled it as far as she could at the approaching enemy. She counted five seconds, and the black-hole bomb detonated. A swirl of darkness appeared, the absence of light, a mouth that swallowed everything.
There were no more words. There was absolutely nothing.
It was a quick victory. Brinn crouched by the river and soaked her hands in the water, washing off the dirt and blood that had dried into a thick, speckled brown on her skin. A shadow fell over her, and she looked up. Einn stood beside her. His expression was that of stone.
“Are you horrified by me?” she asked.
But Einn didn’t answer. “Do you know why I asked Lind to define freedom?”
Brinn shook her head.
He looked up at the sky. “It’s because a lot of people don’t even understand it.” Then his gaze lowered to hers. “You made a choice,” he said. “That’s what freedom really is. Everyone has their own reasons for being here. This isn’t my dream. This is yours. We just happened to collide. That’s why you went along with building those bombs. That’s why you’re working on Penance. This is the work you choose to do.”
Brinn stood there frozen. Einn made her feel seen for the first time in her life. And she felt as if she was finally in control.
“Thank you,” she said.
He shrugged. “I was going to kill her anyway.” Then his eyes seared into hers. “Like I said, we just happened to collide.”
Goner was right. Einn was chaos personified. But there was something free in the way he lived. His choices were his own. And now so were her own. She had chosen to stand on this side of the battlefield with him.
As she walked through the piles of casualties, she heard her name.
“Brinn.” The voice was faint, barely a part of this world.
She looked down, and her eyes grew wide.
Liam lay slumped on his side. His hand was on his chest, using all of his remaining strength to cover his shredded flesh. He didn’t have much longer.
Her strength drained, and she dropped to her knees beside him. She tried not to look at the blood. It was everywhere. Yet his eyes were still the same as on the first day she met him. Even though she was different now, even though her skin had hardened, and her emotions had gone distant and cold, his were the kind of eyes that still made her heart thunder inside.
There were strings that tied her to the Brinn who used to be. A compassionate girl who wanted to love, needed love, and was willing to give it. And over this past year, with the loss of her family, a lot of those strings had been cut, like a boat from its anchor.
And soon she would feel that cut once again. So deep. So sad.
With great suffering and great strength, Liam’s hand closed the gap between them, his fingers grasping hers. His skin was warm with his blood.
“Don’t feel bad,” he gasped. “I told you I was prepared.”
Her eyes stung, and she blinked to keep the tears at bay. She didn’t want that string to sever, but here it was, already unraveling.
“Is there anything you need?” she asked. There wasn’t much time left, but she could give him comfort in the remaining moments.
His hand squeezed hers. A light touch. The warmth in his hand faded. “Tell me I fought hard.”
Brinn thought back to Einn’s words. This is the work you choose to do.
“You did well,” she said. The tears streamed down her face. A sob was trapped at the base of her throat, but she grappled with every ounce of her being to hold it in. “Liam, you did well.”
Satisfied, his lips turned upward in a final expression. His eyes left hers to gaze at a different beauty. Brinn was thankful that during his last moments, he was staring up at the sky.
CHAPTER 40
IA
THE DEMON STARED back at her. No matter how many times she blinked, he was still there. Ia rewatched the broadcast of the peace treaty over and over, staring at the holoscreens, at that black helmet with two sharp horns on top of its head. Every time she saw Einn on-screen, her brain stuttered as if it was on pause. A very dangerous hiccup that she couldn’t quite get rid of.
“Turn it off,” Knives said.
“No.” Ia’s voice clawed its way out of her throat. “I need to see it.”
Knives got up abruptly and left. It was only then that she realized he was asking her to turn it off so he didn’t have to watch it again. He had just seen Einn murder his father. Of course he didn’t want to face that over and over.
Instead of getting up to check on him, she reached for the control screen and replayed the footage all the way from the beginning. This time, it wasn’t her brother that she was fixated on.
Brinn Tarver shot Queen Lind. It was an impossible sentence, one that she’d never have thought of conjuring up, but here it was. A statement of truth. It had happened.
She paused the recording the exact second before Tarver pulled out her weapon. She recognized it as Einn’s pistol by the white pearl engraving on the grip. He had given it to Brinn, just like he had given Ia the knife the day of her first kill. Einn was the type who liked to give people the matches for the fire.
Ia magnified the image to study Brinn’s expression. The lines of her face were deep and weary. There was darkness where there used to be light.
It was as if Ia was looking at herself. Back when she felt like all was lost. She was very familiar with that anguish. When the Star Force destroyed her planet, killing her mother in the process, that was the first time she had become acquainted with that terrible feeling. Every time it came for her, it was stronger and stronger, until hope was merely a childish memory.
And that was how she knew there was another explanation why Brinn did it. And it had nothing to do with Einn. Her brother was just very good at showing Brinn the way. If Ia was there to talk to her, maybe it’d be different. Maybe the face on the screen wouldn’t be so angry and so ready to throw herself right into the pit of despair.
Ia’s heart cracked inside, vessel by vessel, piece by piece. She stormed out of the chapel, raging with each step, and burst into the employee lounge. Eve and Vetty looked up from their game of Goma.
This whole time she had been so scared of Einn, of facing death so soon after she had pulled herself away from it, that she had forgotten there were other people tangled up in this fight. So she would cut those cords. She would point them back toward the light.
She was going to get Brinn Tarver out of there. That was her mission, and she had been a fool for forgetting it.
Ia pulled up a chair to their table. “It’s time we talk strategy.”
CHAPTER 41
KNIVES
WHEN JUO AND LIND announced the secession of the royal lands from the Commonwealth, the first thing Knives wondered was which side the general was on. General Adams was a man who valued tradition and discipline. He’d fought for the power of the Commonwealth all his life. It was hard to imagine him leaving all that.
“There are others who are brave enough to join us,” Lind had said. More than anything, Knives had hoped his father would choose differently this time.
So when he saw him on the recordings, Knives was relieved. As one of the greatest generals of the Olympus Commonwealth, there was a grand narr
ative that his father had lived, and it was no longer his after that one decision—to join Lind and Juo. Erich Adams had thrown away the title, the prestige, that place in Commonwealth history. Knives had admired his father at that moment.
But then he saw the blade plunge into his father’s neck, and the moment was gone, replaced with the horror of watching him die. And this sadness of possibly never being able to feel that again. That admiration he’d had just moments ago.
A knock sounded at his door. “It’s me,” Ia said from outside his room.
The door slid open, and she peeked inside. “Are you all right?”
Knives sat on his bed, staring at his hands. He didn’t answer.
She took a few small steps inside his makeshift bedroom, a storage closet for ration supplies back in the day. There was enough room for a cot and his few belongings, which weren’t much. His jacket and his old Star Force flight suit, whatever he had on him when he left the hospital.
He didn’t have to run that day, he thought to himself.
What was he running from? What was he always running from? He rubbed his knuckles across his tired eyes.
“Listen,” Ia said slowly. “I came to tell you that I’m leaving.”
“I’m still trying to wrap my head around everything.” He ran his fingers through his mess of hair, and his eyes rose to hers. “Did you just say you’re leaving?”
“My brother needs to be stopped. If I can’t fight him, then I need to find the person who can. There are rumors of someone called the Half-Man.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Knives said.
“I know. I mean, the Half-Man is just a nursery rhyme. But that’s what you thought about Fugue, and it ended up being real. If this guy exists, then he should be on our side. Not Einn’s. It’s worth looking into.”
“No, not that,” Knives interrupted. Since the accident, Ia hadn’t been alone. She had help. She had support. Because she needed it, or at least Knives thought she did. “Are you sure you’re ready to go out there?”
