Blood of a Thousand Stars

by Rhoda Belleza

  They had reached the subterranean level: Dark and gloomy, it was filled with old furniture that had gone out of style during the Great War. The atmosphere was oppressive. Aly felt like he should tiptoe.

  Even Kara dropped her voice to a near-whisper. “Nero wants me to go on the air and denounce her—blame her for the council massacre. I can’t.” She seemed to be looking for something; she was glancing in different rooms as they passed, opening doors that led into unused vaults and the kind of barren quarters used to house servants or inmates of the throne.

  “Yes you can,” Aly said. A plan was taking shape in his mind. “We can use Nero’s tactics against him. Undermine him on his own turf, where he feels safest.”

  “How?” Kara said. She threw open another door. She let out a sigh, as though disappointed to find it empty.

  “You do the broadcast. But we’ll send Rhee a message, to let her know you’re here for her,” Aly said. “That you believe her, even if you’re saying the opposite. Like hiding in plain sight.”

  “But even if Rhiannon were to return, what then?” Dahlen asked.

  “Then we get the two sisters together—to denounce Nero. He’ll have no choice but to return. He’ll have to reassert control. We get Kara and Rhiannon to a safe spot, and we kill him.”

  “No.” Kara’s voice was firm.

  “No?”

  He met her eyes. There was fire in them—the same light he’d seen when they first met. “I’m Empress now.” Aly’s heart caught on the word empress. As if he needed a reminder. “I can’t run from it. Whatever plans I had, whatever it was I wanted—or thought I wanted—it doesn’t matter.”

  “Kara . . .” he said. It sounded like she’d been going through some major taejis and hadn’t had anyone to talk to. To say the least.

  “And besides,” Kara said, cutting him off, “Nero can’t be killed.”

  “No one can’t be killed,” Dahlen replied calmly.

  Kara sighed. “He’s got the overwriter. Which means he’s connected to the minds of countless innocent people. And if he dies, all of their minds will be destroyed.”

  “Destroyed? How do you know this?” Aly asked.

  “He told me,” Kara said defensively.

  “You can’t believe a madman,” Dahlen scoffed. “Nor can you accept his madness as sense.”

  “But what if he was telling the truth?” Aly demanded. He felt suddenly sick to his stomach, remembering all the people he had ever disappointed—all the people he had abandoned. The folks in the Wray. The prisoners on Houl and Nau Fruma. Kara.

  “All risks must be calculated. There is no greater threat than the existing one: Nero, with the overwriter.”

  “Agreed,” Kara said. She tested another door; they found a room packed with barrels of honey wine. She backed out of it before Aly could suggest they take one for the road. “But if there’s any truth to what he’s saying—that thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, of people will die—I need some collateral against him.”

  “I’m not following, Empress,” Dahlen said. “What are you proposing?”

  They were nearly at the end of the corridor. She whirled around suddenly to face him.

  “We have his cube.” She took a deep breath. “I need to upload it.”

  For a long second, they were all silent. Even Pavel could think of nothing to say.

  “That’s nuts,” Aly choked out finally, “and dangerous. And why you? Any of us could do it.”

  “Because he thinks I’m his pawn. I can get closer to him than any of you can. I’m the one who is going to kill him. His cube is just my insurance.”

  “Insurance?” Dahlen asked.

  “That he doesn’t kill me first. If I die, his cube dies with me. Maybe he’ll kill me anyway, but . . . it might make him hesitate. Give us the advantage.”

  Pavel filled the heavy silence. “There’s actually precedent in the cube-to-cube transfers,” he said, “and the way memories are willed down to family members before one’s death . . .”

  “Exactly.” Kara spun on her heel again. There were three doors yet untested in the hallway. Aly wondered what she was looking for. But he was too agitated to ask. “It’s basically the same thing.”

  “Or it’s as different as night and day,” Aly argued. “It’s the difference between two living souls choosing to transfer memories between their cubes, versus . . . this.” Aly couldn’t even come up with a word for it, but it felt wrong, like they were violating Vodhan’s law itself.

  “You did it,” Dahlen pointed out.

  “That was a droid’s comm unit,” Aly fired back. He had uploaded the droid’s memories on Uustral, and even that had almost overwhelmed him, brought him to his knees. “Not a humanoid cube. Besides, I was in a medical facility.”

  “Kara would need a very sophisticated medic,” Pavel chimed in. “It’s likely she will have to have a portion of the hardware melded to her own cube . . .”

  “I know someone who can do it.” Kara tested the next door over. It swung open, and she peered inside. Aly looked over her shoulder to an empty room. She pushed her way past him and down the hall farther.

  “You ‘know someone’ qualified for complex cube surgey?”

  “Not just complex but illegal, according to the G-1K summit accords,” Pavel pointed out as he wheeled after Kara.

  “Right. Illegal, dangerous, and complex,” Aly said, counting the improbables one by one on his fingers. “You just got a guy that can do that?”

  Kara flung open the last door, revealing a Wraetan girl with braids to her waist that flung every which way as she came at them with a chair.

  Aly moved in front of Kara reflexively, shielding her with his arm. Dahlen lunged forward to meet whatever feralness this girl was bringing, but Kara elbowed Aly out of the way and pulled on the back of Dahlen’s shirt with both her hands.

  “Stop,” she yelled, just as the girl registered the scene and dropped the chair. She put both her hands up, eyes wide as she took in the massive Fontisian who was about to rip her head off.

  “Took you long enough,” she said. It seemed like she was talking to Kara, but her eyes never left Dahlen’s.

  “Everyone, this is Issa.” Issa dropped her hands to her hips at the intro. Aly realized there was a medic patch across her uniform. “She’s my guy.”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  RHIANNON

  AFTER she’d killed Veyron, Rhee had claimed she knew plenty about death. She’d been ready to rush headlong into a haphazard plan to murder Seotra, the statesman she’d mistakenly blamed for Nero’s plot. But Dahlen had challenged her—questioning her in that condescending way that felt distinctly him. Why? Because you’ve killed a man? he’d asked. That makes you just as qualified as most, which means not qualified at all.

  Now she knew that he was right: Taking one life didn’t give you intimate knowledge of death. Having her family taken from her didn’t either, even if she felt their absence deep down in her bones—like there was nothing there, no blood or marrow, just the sorrow that burned off, evaporated, turned her into something toxic so that for the longest time all she could feel was rage.

  There was only ever one thing to know: Death begets more death.

  The massacre of the United Planets council just three days ago proved it beyond a doubt. Losing the Fisherman had shaken her down to her core. The protests on the streets of Sibu had risen to new heights. All around the galaxy, riots were breaking out in otherwise neutral territories. Everyone had heard about the attack, and nobody could agree who was to blame—only that someone had to pay.

  If Rhee was right, Nero would step up immediately to keep up appearances, and do the work of acting appalled at the violence at the council meeting. Rhee thought it cowardly to flee. But Jeth had insisted, and Lahna agreed they definitely needed to put some distance between her and Nero. Julian had said
nothing, and hadn’t since the massacre—though Rhee knew he’d been burning with rage, and would be happy to kill Nero himself for his part in Veyron’s death. They’d barreled through the Bazorl Quadrant, exhausted, away from Kalu.

  Nero, a killer with a handsome face and an ever-convincing smile, would no doubt revel in comforting a grieving galaxy. He’d need to pin the blame on Rhee for what he’d done, just like he’d blamed Aly for supposedly killing Rhee, and Seotra for killing Rhee’s parents.

  She should’ve listened to Dahlen. His promises are a trap, and I thought you would do better than believe him, he’d said of Nero. The flimsy cease-fire was merely an excuse, a cover while Nero got his hands on the tech he’d used to possess all of the royal Tasinn—the guards who should have been on her side.

  Jeth had brought them to Elsse, a tiny moon outpost outside of Fontis, to wait out a UniForce fleet passing through the quadrant. Rhee was practically buzzing to get back, but they were fugitives, and they had suffered too much to fall back under Nero’s control.

  Lahna was teaching Jeth to shoot with a bow and arrow—the UniForce never used them anymore—and out of the corner of her eye, Rhee saw an arrow fly across the mesa. It traveled through a series of holographic bull’s-eyes until it stuck into the bark of a tree thirty meters in the distance. Lahna nodded, satisfied, as Jeth returned her bow. They moved with a serious precision, both soldiers at heart. The slaughter seemed to have brought them together, and showed Rhee just how little she knew about war.

  She kicked up her good foot and got herself up into a handstand. After a few seconds of wobbling, she found it—that perfect equilibrium—while the tiny pebbles and tufts of grass dug into her palms.

  It was a way to stay calm, to keep her focus and drown out the pain of her foot—but her mind wandered to all the missteps that had led her here. All that blood. All those helpless, panicked ambassadors, overpowered and overwhelmed by the deadly Tasinn. Their throats slit, blood pouring down suits and splattered across polished tables. And all the betrayals before that, the stupid, childish decisions she’d made that led to death. Abandonment. So many people hated her, and still she hated herself more.

  Blood was rushing to her head now, and Rhee felt herself tilt. Kicking her legs in the air, she managed to straighten out—but she could feel her arms straining.

  “You never could hold them that long,” Julian said from behind her. The sound of his voice crashed over her. Rhee wobbled again and almost recovered, until the coin fell from her pocket. Her right elbow gave, and her body slanted too far to the left. She went crashing down in the grass. From the ground, she surveyed Julian’s outline, backlit by the sun.

  “I still can’t.” She grabbed for the coin.

  Julian held his hand out, and she took it quickly—afraid he’d change his mind. He pulled her up, and she stood to face him now and stifled a wince as she shifted her weight to her left foot. Outside the palace, they used to challenge each other to handstands by wading through the uneven sand that shifted underneath their palms. Was that only a few months ago? It seemed impossible so much had changed.

  And yet there were moments, recently, that she felt he was coming back to her. Like when they’d taken down the robodroid together in unison—one fluid motion. She could have sworn his eyes had told her she still meant something to him. He was still the person who knew her best in the world.

  He pulled the telescope out of his belt. She’d left it on the makeshift pillow of bundled-up clothes that morning. “I never thought I’d see this again.”

  “I’m sorry I gave it away. I had to barter for the Fisherman’s help once.”

  “It came back to you eventually.” Julian shrugged. That it did. But the Fisherman’s death was a steep price to pay. “I’m sorry about your friend,” he said.

  “It’s . . .” Rhee paused. She was going to say It’s okay, but they both knew it wasn’t. She swallowed, and changed the subject. “Fitting, that.” She nodded to the telescope. “You said I could borrow it ’til I saw you next.”

  “And here we are.” Julian didn’t look up. His hair would’ve fallen across his eyes now, if he still wore it long. She wondered if he could ever look at her without thinking of his dad—the man she’d murdered over nothing. Rhee had taken so much away from this boy, her best friend. Her ex–best friend. And in return all she’d given him was the rage. That anger that expanded, from the center of your heart and outward, until you radiated it—crowding out everything else so that every happiness was poisoned and every pettiness only grew.

  There had been a time where Rhee could look at the world only through the lens of her own revenge, every movement a step closer to fulfilling a bloody destiny. It had gotten her here, and any faithful followers she had were either dead or had abandoned her. None of it was worth it. She’d have to make it right.

  Rhee took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Julian,” she said. The words were so dumb, so insufficient, but they were the only ones that came. “I’ll never stop being sorry.”

  Julian started to make lines in the grass with the toe of his boot, his hands shoved into his pockets. Rhee ached with the familiarity of it; he’d always done it when he was thinking, as if his brain had an excess of energy that needed to be siphoned off into multiple activities.

  “I know,” he said at last. And finally he looked at her, squinting against the sun. His face was thoughtful, focused—wholly absent of any hatred or scorn. Rhee didn’t think an expression so neutral could make her heart leap like it did, but maybe this was a path. He might never forgive her for killing his father, but maybe, just maybe—

  “Rhiannon!”

  Rhee turned, her thoughts interrupted. Jeth and Lahna ran toward them with a furious urgency. Jeth clutched the handheld. A projection bounced in the air.

  Her stomach seized with dread again. “What’s wrong?” she asked. “What happened?”

  Instead of answering, Jeth amped the feed so it beamed out across the tall grasses and rolling fields. On the holo, Rhee saw her sister—her image blurry at the edges, soft and ethereal in the sunlight. She looked like an ancestor come back from the dead, because she had. A banner beneath her read: ELDER TA’AN CONFIRMED ALIVE.

  Without thinking, Rhee reached out to touch her. But her fingers only met air. “Joss . . .”

  As though dispersed by her touch, the feed cut back to a news anchor.

  “Princess Josselyn Ta’an has reappeared after six years,” the anchor said, a pretty new-wave Kalusian who emulated Nero down to the small, polished button on the collar of his immaculate shirt. “The announcement came after a DNA test result confirmed she is the eldest Ta’an . . .” It panned to footage of Joss in the palace. She was beautiful, and so familiar, in every aspect the girl her sister would have become. Did become, Rhee told herself.

  Joss was alive.

  Had been alive all this time.

  “She came . . .” Rhee trailed off, unable to form any kind of coherent thought, much less say a prayer. Josselyn had come forward, answered her call—at the very moment of the greatest turmoil, when Rhee herself wasn’t there.

  She wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. Despite knowing her sister was alive, despite having heard her voice, Rhee hadn’t truly believed it until now. It was a defense mechanism, a way to protect her heart.

  Now, she knew—this was what she had always wanted: not just to find her sister, but to have a partner on the throne. Joss would protect her, like she always had. They could take on Nero together.

  Josselyn and the broadcaster—one of Nero’s favorite shills, someone from the Outer Belt with flushed blue skin and yellow reptilian eyes—were talking.

  “Where you’ve been, Josselyn?”

  “Somewhere safe. That’s all I can say. I wouldn’t want to put anyone in danger, but I was cared for, and I’m thankful.” Joss had poise and empathy radiating from every pore.


  “But didn’t you say you had a bout of amnesia?” The broadcaster’s pupils dilated slightly every time she asked a question. “When did your memories come back? What was your first one?”

  Joss’s mouth opened and closed again. It was the first hint of any uncertainty. Rhee took a step forward. She was desperate to hear the answer.

  “It was of my father, taking my hand . . .”

  Rhee was disappointed. She wanted something specific, something about her . . .

  “When Rhiannon put out a reward for your return, you didn’t come forward immediately. Why?”

  “Just hop on a craft and fly back through three war zones?” Joss said, in a way that was both teasing and firm, as she lifted her chin. Rhee felt a surge of pride. That was the Joss she remembered. “I think where I’ve been is hardly as important as the fact I’ve returned now. The galaxy is suffering.”

  On screen, Joss blinked, pausing half a second with her eyes closed. Her lashes looked black and dramatic and lovely against her wide cheekbones.

  “She’s so pretty,” Rhee blurted out. “She was always so pretty.”

  “She looks familiar,” Jeth said.

  “Why wouldn’t she? She’s the Empress,” Lahna said. Rhee felt something reach into her chest and squeeze. She used to hate that word when it was her title, yet now that it was Josselyn’s she suddenly felt its absence. Lahna must’ve realized the effect of her words, because she squeezed Rhee’s hand once more. “Sorry,” she whispered.

  “That’s not why,” Jeth countered as he watched the holo. “She reminds me of someone . . .”

  “Me too . . .” Julian said.

  “Does she not look like Rhiannon?” Lahna asked.

  “Kind of, but that’s not it,” Jeth said, squinting his white eyes at the holo.

  Julian cleared his throat. “Do you think we can trust her?” he asked, in a low voice. The question was so unexpected that it undercut the pleasure of hearing him say we.

  “What do you mean? Why shouldn’t we trust her?” Rhee looked to Jeth and Lahna for support, but they were both stone-faced.