“The problem is,” I continued, “that didn’t make me love him any less, or ease the burden of his passing. It almost makes it worse. To be left with so much responsibility, without knowing if one is worthy…”
“Solara,” Heathran said, his voice barely a whisper. “I’m sure you’ll make an excellent queen.”
He was genuine. The gamble had paid off.
I held his eyes. “And you an excellent king. I feel like I understand you like no one else.” Finally, I let myself lean closer and put a hand on his arm. “If there is anything, anything within my power to do to ease your sorrow, just give me word.”
“Your…being here…is a comfort all its own.” His soft, higher-pitched voice was beginning to sound huskier for a reason other than grief.
My face crumpled, and my body caved toward his, as if I couldn’t help it. Now that I’d gained his trust, he would believe it. I collapsed onto his shoulder and let loose a muffled sob. His arm immediately came around me, strong and warm—not at all like the formal, stiff responses I’d gotten from him before.
“At least your system is whole,” I gasped. “I wish that my parents’ assassin were a nameless Xiaolan hireling—if indeed that is who it was,” I amended in a gracious murmur into his shoulder. “It was my own flesh and blood who took my parents from me, and who is now trying to betray me more than he already has. Can you imagine? The distance between my father and me was one thing, but I once thought Nev and I were close. It would be as if Shadia…”
“I can’t even think it.” It was another risk mentioning his sister, in case I triggered a defensive reaction, but fortunately his voice was only brimming with sympathy. And if I planted even the slightest wariness of Shadia within him, so much the better. She was obviously too close to Daiyen, despite the rumors, and so she might also object to my new closeness with Heathran.
“Yes, you have your sister,” I said in an approximation of numb grief. “Be grateful, despite all you have lost. You still have someone who loves you. I fear that the evil lies of my once-brother have even turned young Marsius against me, never mind several of my generals. Marsius was stationed on Aaltos, studying to become my supreme commander. But now…” My voice hitched. “I am utterly alone in the galaxy. I have no one.”
His hand squeezed my shoulder. “That is not true, Solara.”
I pulled back. If I looked at him with innocent confusion, it would give the lie. So instead I scoffed and glanced away, as if I didn’t trust him. “What do you mean?”
He turned my face back to his, his dark eyes burning as warm as the golden lamps around us. “You have me. I will not allow you to suffer alone. Just as you promised on my behalf, you can always turn to me if you need anything, anything at all. I’m here for you.”
With that, the solution to my final problem fell into place. Money to combat Nev, the drones, and the other royal families’ ire would be of no concern. There was no more Daiyen or Belarius the Elder to stand in my way. And all without weakening my family name with marriage, or giving Heathran much of anything in return. It was just as I’d guessed: Heathran, feeling out of control in his grief, needed someone to care for amid theirs. It was a way for him to feel more in control, as if doing something for another would fix what had happened to him.
My lip quivered in what Heathran assumed was an emotion of another sort, drawing his attention. “Oh, Heathran…,” I breathed. My eyes widened, swallowing his with the full force of my most defenseless, longing gaze.
He leaned forward.
It may have been another test. Even if it wasn’t, there was no way I would capitulate so soon, not after the chase he’d led me on. Where was the fun in that? I pulled back at the last second. “My apologies…I…”
Heathran immediately removed himself to a respectable distance. “My apologies. It’s too soon.”
“No, Heathran, of course not. I wish to see you again, but my emergency comm is buzzing.”
He waved me away, definitely understanding such things. I even got a rueful smile from him, and I felt like I’d won the night.
Unfortunately, as I left Heathran’s quarters and reactivated my earpiece, I realized that I’d been honest about more than I’d intended. My emergency comm was buzzing, and a series of messages were waiting from Suvis and those generals still loyal to me. It didn’t take me long to gather the gist of them all:
Aaltos is mobilizing.
I wished I’d received the warning sooner, but the delay had been worth it. Besides, Nev was likely headed to Alaxak to defend it from further attack—a fool’s errand. Even if a ragtag fleet of fishermen had somehow managed to take down a battle carrier and its accompanying starfighters, there was no way, even backed by Aaltos, that they could fight off the fleet currently mobilizing around Luvos—a fleet that wouldn’t be there for long.
I suddenly froze, pausing in the middle of the hall, uncaring about the curious looks I received.
Nev might already be well aware of that. He’d proven himself far craftier than I’d given him credit for. I wasn’t entirely positive, but beneath his arrogant swagger, his overused muscles, and his unceasing bluster about right and wrong, he might actually be able to think like a king.
So where, then, I wondered, might he be headed?
“That,” Telu said, “doesn’t look anything like Aaltos.”
She was right. As militarily adept as the Dracorte world had been, it was spare on orbital security. Now, through the Kaitan’s viewport, the planet Valtai, the seat of the Treznor-Nirmana family council, made Aaltos look more like Alaxak in comparison.
I’d never seen so many cargo stations, docking bays, construction docks, or weapons platforms, hovering above the atmosphere like planetary rings. Not to mention the destroyers. Many were docked, either under construction or shiny new and ready to launch a hundred plasma missiles on command. But a few were much more active, patrolling the planet’s perimeter.
“This might be a problem,” I muttered. Nev glanced at me from the copilot’s station, probably because it was one of the few things I’d said within his hearing all day.
There was nothing to say to him. I didn’t even want to think about our situation—whatever that situation was, whatever I had imagined it to be. At some point, somehow I’d finally let myself imagine that we, Qole and Nev, together, could work without the universe cracking apart. Indeed, it turned out that the universe was pretty solid, and it had solidly inserted itself back between us. Or maybe it had been there all along and I’d been living in a strange warp in space-time this past month.
Like now. It might have looked like we were only an arm’s length from each other on the Kaitan’s bridge, so close, like our fingers could touch if we reached out…but we couldn’t, not ever again.
He was meant for someone else. He always had been.
I wouldn’t have even thought a king—one destined to marry a princess or queen from some other royal family—would be permitted to stoop so low as to ride with us on the Kaitan again, but that was part of the plan. We were back in disguise.
Our approach to Valtai was much the same as Aaltos: slip in and hope nobody noticed us. The problem was, somebody in the extensive Treznor-Nirmana security system was bound to get suspicious.
“Bribery, if worse comes to worst?” Basra said from his station beneath us.
“Someone will turn us in,” Devrak said, seated next to Nev. “They have spies everywhere.”
“Hack their radar systems to mask us?” Nev suggested next, with a glance down at Telu.
She snorted. “They still have viewports, genius. We’ll look even more suspicious if we appear there but not elsewhere. Besides, if they detect anyone hacking their system, they’ll be on even higher alert. Planetary security on a capital world like this is mega different from an unsuspecting battle carrier.”
I almost expected Eton t
o chime in with something like, “Blast straight through them, then,” until I remembered he wasn’t up in the weapons turret. Something pinched in my chest. Maybe one of the many pieces of my heart, grinding against the others.
Arjan wasn’t around, either. He wasn’t off the ship, but he was in his quarters for some reason. Whatever the cause, it irritated me. Here we were, trying to subtly infiltrate an enemy planet and not-so-subtly blow up a fleet, and Arjan didn’t feel the need to watch? Sure, Nev had taken the spot Arjan usually occupied when he wasn’t in the fishing skiff, but only because my brother wasn’t there to begin with.
The plan was to sabotage the fleet the Treznors were building for Solara before it could be used to bolster her ship numbers—a plan that Nev had come up with that everyone from Devrak to Talia to Basra had decided was the way to go. Maybe because none of them would flinch over what those battle carriers and destroyers might have cost. I thought it was a waste, but there was no way to steal the ships without access codes that only a member of the Treznor-Nirmana family possessed. This was the best we could do, I was forced to admit.
Without a large fleet of our own, our strategy was to use ground troops, slowly and quietly ferried to construction docks hovering in Valtai’s orbit, overwhelm security, do the job with high-energy explosive charges, and then leave before either the Treznor-Nirmanas or Solara could rally.
Just out of range of detection, we had twenty of our own destroyers—all we had—commanded by Talia and Gavros and accompanied by a small fleet of innocuous shuttles loaded with troops—two of which had already landed at the construction docks under various excuses, while carrying elite covert-ops teams trained on Aaltos for precisely such missions. Now we just had to join them. We’d come separately to make sure the coast was clear for Nev and Devrak, and because I was the best pilot for a quick getaway. If all went as planned, the destroyers wouldn’t even have to get involved. The last thing we wanted was a standoff with Nev as hostage, giving Solara all the time in the systems to show up with an armada.
“We’ll be fine,” Nev said. “The other two shuttles made it, and we will too.”
I wasn’t sure how he could be so calm, especially since he had the most to lose if we were caught.
Telu voiced my thoughts exactly: “Yeah, and those shuttles didn’t look quite as strange as we do. Even with our new registration numbers, we look like mercenaries or smugglers at the very least.”
“This would be a fine time to remind everyone that the king should probably not be on a strike mission,” Basra murmured.
It had made the most sense for Nev to stay back with Talia and Gavros, but he’d refused. He’d officially declared Solara a traitor and himself the Dracorte king over the QUIN, calling for his family and all their subjects to follow him.
“The last thing I want to do now,” Nev said, repeating a familiar refrain, “is hang back from danger. I must set myself apart from Solara, charge into battle like my father would have done. That’s what will earn me respect.”
Apparently, the Forging still wasn’t quite good enough.
And yet, as much as I didn’t want to relate to Thelarus Dracorte, or for Nev to emulate the man, I understood. I couldn’t imagine forcing others to do what I myself wouldn’t. And at least it gave me an excuse to be a part of…this…for a little longer. Nev’s presence on the Kaitan was the only reason I hadn’t set a course back to Alaxak and left this civil war to people who knew what they were doing. A small voice—not a hallucination, thank the ancestors—wondered if, behind his logic, Nev had the same desire to stay closer to me.
But that was stupid, and might as well be a delusion. Because we weren’t—couldn’t be—close.
“Where’s Arjan?” I demanded in an exhale of frustration that really had nothing to do with my brother.
“Dunno,” Telu said from below.
“Well, someone go find him.”
To my surprise, Nev jumped up. It wasn’t just that he was a king, as I was constantly reminding myself; it was that he and Arjan didn’t get along very well. Or, at least they hadn’t. Ever since Arjan had comforted Marsius, Nev had been polite and considerate around him. He probably wanted to prove that he didn’t mind fetching him, both to me and Arjan.
But Nev didn’t look polite, or considerate, when he came storming back onto the bridge a few minutes later. He looked absolutely furious. “We need to turn around, go back.”
“What?”
Rather than respond, he pointed directly behind him.
“Oh, Great Collapse,” Telu said, seeing whatever it was before I could.
Marsius came slinking up the bridge stairs. Devrak put his face in his hands, only bringing them away to rub his temples in what looked like restraint. Maybe to keep from yelling.
I had no such restraint. When I could find my voice, I shouted, “What in blasted hell is he doing on board?”
Nev kept pointing, until Arjan came up after the boy.
“He did this,” Nev ground out, any attempt at friendliness gone from his voice. “There was no way Marsius could have stowed away on his own. There were too many people watching him, too many ways for him to get caught. He didn’t even know this ship, and yet he was in Arjan’s quarters, playing cards with him like this is all some sort of a game.”
“I know it’s not a game,” Marsius insisted. “And it’s not Arjan’s fault.”
Basra’s voice drifted up from below. “That’s why Arjan has been so happy to sleep in my room, instead of having me over. I thought it was because he’d finally realized my decorating was superior.”
Basra’s quarters on the ship had little to no decorations, despite the metal wardrobe locker that was packed with sparkly dresses. That explained his dry tone, and the hint of rebuke. And maybe even sheepishness that said I should have known.
Arjan didn’t look sheepish, not in the slightest. He folded his arms and stared defiantly at us all over Marsius’s head. I wanted to punch him.
“I wished to help,” Marsius said. His voice was quieter, but steady.
“Why?” Nev demanded of Arjan, ignoring Marsius entirely. “Is this some attempt at revenge? My family hurt you, so you want to hurt them?”
Marsius looked at them both questioningly. “Wait, how did we hurt—”
Arjan spoke right over him without answering. “You think I would do something so disgusting? Only a Dracorte could think of something like that.”
“And I can help,” Marsius interjected before Nev could. “If Solara catches you, I could try to convince her to let you go.”
“One,” Nev said, ticking up a finger, finally addressing Marsius, his restraint audible, “she wouldn’t listen to you. Two”—a second finger followed—“what happens if the Treznors catch us instead? What then? What were you thinking?” Once again, he directed his anger at Arjan.
“I did it because this was what was best for him,” Arjan growled. “He didn’t want to be left behind. He hates Aaltos, and he misses his family, which you would have noticed if you weren’t too busy being king.”
“So you think bringing him here is better?”
“It’s better than where he was.”
“Are you mad? This isn’t about his personal happiness; this is about his safety!”
Arjan blinked, and I realized he truly hadn’t considered the danger. He was a Shadow fisherman, dodging death in the skiff every day, so his perspective on what counted as dangerous was skewed, as mine often was. But even more, lately, Arjan seemed to be living in the moment, rather than looking too far ahead. “One isn’t more important than the other,” he said.
Nev shook his head. “How dare you risk my brother’s life—”
Arjan barked a laugh sharper than one of his throwing knives and nodded at me. “And what is it you think you’re doing with my sister? Wait, is it because she isn’t royal, so her life
matters less? Is it because she’s easy for you to use, because she loves you?”
“Arjan!” I yelled, barely holding the Kaitan straight. I hadn’t even admitted that to Nev yet…and I wasn’t ever planning on it. “That’s none of your damned business. Besides, I’m old enough to make my own decisions, unlike Marsius. I’m your captain, no less, and you had no right to bring him on board without my permission. Which I wouldn’t have granted.” I was furious, but more than that, I wanted to bury what Arjan had said in an avalanche of words.
He tossed his head, scoffing even though Nev had fallen silent with a stunned look on his face. “Yeah, well, at least I didn’t bring him here because I want to use him in any royal ploy or plot or scheme. I let him on board because he needs family. He needs to feel needed. Better yet, he needs people like us.”
That hardened Nev’s expression a bit, but he still didn’t argue. He only turned to Devrak, locking eyes with the older man for a minute.
“We can’t go back,” Devrak murmured eventually. “We’ll most definitely give away that something is amiss and jeopardize the others if we turn around right now.”
It was Nev’s turn to scrub his hands over his face. “Devrak, how can we take the risks we must with him on board? And risk losing two of the last three members of the Dracorte family?”
Neither of them looked my way, carefully, but we were all thinking it, especially Arjan—who did look at me pointedly: Nev was, of course, willing to take risks with the rest of us. But unlike what Arjan thought about that, I saw it as a sign of respect.
I knew it was. So why was doubt now crawling into my brain?
I’d felt it from the beginning between us, that gravity tugging us together. But while I’d been drawn to Nev for some unfathomable reason I couldn’t describe, some undiscovered law of physics that seemed to defy reality, he’d always needed something from me. Even when he was exiled, without a home or purpose, he’d needed somewhere to stay, something to do.
Was Arjan right? Could Nev not help using me because he was a royal, a prince, and now a king like his father, just like I couldn’t help letting him, because I was stupidly, hopelessly in love? Had this love made me weak?
Shadow Call Page 24
