Last of Her Name

by Jessica Khoury

  It strikes me that the moment history names as Alexei Volkov’s greatest triumph, he must see as his greatest failure. After all his cleverness in overthrowing the Empire, the Leonovs still defeated him in the end, depriving him of the prize he truly sought. Volkov, who was always three steps ahead of everyone else, was outplayed at his own game.

  He was the only person who ever beat me, Volkov said, the first time he challenged me at Triangulum.

  A memory comes to me of my dad—my real dad, Teo Androva—so vivid it’s like he’s standing right beside me, his hands animated as he coaches me through the game.

  What’s the first rule of Triangulum, Stacia?

  “Time’s up,” Volkov says. He grips Pol by one of his horns and forces him to his knees, then draws his gun. Pol never once looks away from me, his gaze steady, but I can see his chest rising and falling as his breath quickens.

  “Wait!” I cry, still on my knees, one hand raised. “Please, I just need one moment …”

  If you can’t beat them, make them play by your rules.

  I frantically consider the pieces in play. What can I sacrifice? What can I use? What is my strength?

  I look at my multicuff.

  The transmitter in my hand.

  There are twenty Prismic missiles aimed at Afka right now.

  And I am holding the key to them.

  The idea is half-baked and clumsy, but it’s all I’ve got. I’ve never attempted anything like it. I don’t know if it will work, and if I waste what precious seconds I have on a plan I can’t execute, then I might as well shoot Pol myself. If I touch the wrong wire, I could set off the charge that launches the missiles, and Afka and everyone in it will be obliterated.

  This isn’t something I can rush.

  I need time.

  I look at Pol, sickened by what I’m about to ask of him. But this is the only way—the blasted amethyst gambit.

  I tap my bare wrist in the universal sign for time, and mouth, Please.

  His eyes widen with understanding. He whispers hurriedly to Riyan and Mara, then throws himself sideways, crashing into Volkov. The direktor falls with a startled shout. He starts to look my way, but Pol yells, “Death to the Union!” and draws his attention away with a kick to the direktor’s thigh. It’s a wonderful sight, but I have to look away and focus on my own work.

  I rip off my multicuff and pull out a few tools, hiding it in the folds of my skirt. At least this dress is good for something. Everything—everything—depends on this. I have to trust that I can do it.

  Me. Not the Firebird, or my ancestry, or anything else.

  The vityaze activates Pol’s collar. As Pol is forced to his knees, his teeth gritted against the pain, Riyan and Mara lunge at the soldier.

  The man activates all their collars as the other knights rush to help. Meanwhile, my fingers are a blur, sorting through my tools and jamming them into the transmitter, exposing its circuitry. I’m mostly just guessing at what I’m doing, trusting my instinct and my hands.

  Riyan fights through the pain and tessellates the air around the man, trying to crumple the tabletka he’s using to control their collars. For a moment, my heart leaps, as I realize Riyan still has his power; they must have fled Diamin before his sentence was carried out. Maybe we have a chance after all.

  Then Natalya steps in.

  Her hands spread, and the air fills with cracks. The sound is deafening, splintering, shuddering, and even the vityazes step back, looking uneasy as the Red Tensor unleashes her power. She twists the air and focuses her stress field on Pol, Riyan, and Mara. They fight back with everything in them, Riyan managing to tessellate just enough to keep them from being crushed.

  Wrenching my eyes away, I focus on the transmitter. Volkov and the vityazes are so intent on the three prisoners that they don’t notice my busy hands and the parts hidden in my skirt.

  I just have to stop my fingers from shaking. They’re so weak that my tools keep slipping, and I have to pause to wipe my clammy palms. The longer it takes, the more panicked I grow. Volkov was right. I am weak. I am broken. I can’t even fit a wrench around a bolt.

  C’mon, Stace, a voice echoes in my head. Pull it together.

  I freeze as a pair of hands covers mine.

  Slowly, slowly, I look up, and catch my breath.

  Clio’s blue eyes stare into mine, her face solemn, her hands around my wrists. She looks so real that I glance beyond her to see if anyone else has noticed. But Pol and Riyan are still fighting against Natalya’s control, while Mara struggles to pry off her collar. Volkov is watching them, his back turned. And no one sees the golden-haired girl kneeling in front of me.

  “You can’t be here,” I whisper, looking back at Clio.

  Stars, how I ache to throw my arms around her. But I have to keep working. I have to save the ones who are real.

  Eyes on the prize, Androva.

  The words she always yelled from the sidelines during my geeball matches. They echo through me like an aftershock. She’s the ghost of a girl who never was, but she’s my ghost. Her presence soothes my spirit, focuses my thoughts.

  Good, she murmurs. Now, which circuit controls the transmitter signal? Which one will blow up Afka if you touch it?

  I work faster, drawing strength from her presence. I can hear her, feel her, see her, like she’s right in front of me, holding me steady. She might not be real, but she certainly feels like it.

  That’s it, Stace. Us against the universe.

  Done!

  My hands tremble so much it takes three tries before I get the transmitter back together.

  Nice work, says Clio. Now come and find me.

  “What?” I look up—but Clio is gone.

  Of course she is, I tell myself, even as my heart sinks.

  She wasn’t there to begin with. She was just a shadow cast by my overtired, overstressed brain. But the strength she gave me is real. I can still feel it, coiled like a lion between my ribs.

  Looking back at the transmitter, I turn on the screen and hold my breath.

  This is the moment of truth. Either my tinkering worked, or we’re all dead.

  The screen flickers on and displays a loading gauge and the word Calibrating …

  I stifle a curse.

  I won’t know if my hack worked until the calibration is finished. Which means I have to stall before they can kill my friends.

  Rising to my feet and snapping my multicuff back on my wrist, I shout, “Alexei Volkov!”

  He turns, eyes narrowing. Riyan and Mara are lying flat on the ground, held in place by Natalya’s stress field. Pol is on his knees, grimacing as Volkov grips him by one of his horns and presses a gun to his temple.

  An unstoppable wave rises in me, higher and higher, water beginning to break. That wave is my fury, a snarling, blazing tangle of teeth and fangs. Barely holding it back, I square my shoulders and lift my chin. The transmitter is hot against my palm.

  “Enough of this,” I say, surprised at the firmness of my voice. My knees are still wobbly, but he can’t see that. “Stop hurting them. This is between you and me.”

  Volkov’s eyes flick with annoyance. “If you think you’re in a position to make demands, Princess, then you’re deluded.”

  “Maybe I am,” I snarl, “but I am not broken.”

  “Then prove it. Press that button. Show me you can rule the stars.”

  I glance at the transmitter. It’s at 30 percent calibration.

  Looking back at Volkov, I shake my head. “If ruling means making these choices, destroying lives as if they were pieces on your game board, then I don’t want to rule. Not if it means turning into you.”

  He narrows his eyes. “I told you, I only—”

  “You only want to be a hero, yeah, I know. I know all about you. But you’re no hero, Alexei. You just murdered twenty people. Does that sound heroic? You’d murder my friends and torture me. You’d wipe out half of humanity just to make yourself feel important. But you know who was rea
lly important? My father, Pyotr Leonov. He knew what you were, and he knew it was better to die than surrender to you.”

  Dark fury rises in the direktor’s eyes. I’ve touched a nerve.

  The transmitter calibration is at 50 percent.

  I press harder.

  “He trusted you, and you betrayed that trust. You betrayed everyone. You caused the deaths of my family in this very room. You obliterated anyone who threatened you. And despite all that, you still lost, because a few brave people managed to smuggle me away from you. They hid me for sixteen years. But I’m done hiding.”

  Seventy percent.

  He drives the barrel of his gun harder into Pol’s temple. Pol winces but doesn’t make a sound, his eyes locking on mine. Trusting me.

  “Are you?” asks Volkov, his eyes sharpening with interest. “Are you really?”

  “Isn’t that what you want to hear?” I ask. “Stacia Androva is dead. There. I’ve said it.”

  Ninety percent.

  I need fifteen more seconds.

  I draw a breath, and look him in the eyes.

  “My name is Anya Petrovna Leonova.” For the first time, the truth of those words sinks into my heart and takes root. “I am the heir to the Crescent Throne and the Guardian of the Jewels.”

  Ninety-five percent.

  “I am the Firebird Princess and the last of my name.”

  Ninety-nine.

  “And I will destroy you.”

  Calibration complete.

  I’m in.

  I look up, face flushed with triumph, and raise the transmitter, hitting a button to transfer the data on the screen to a hologram. The words shine between us:

  Self-destruct activated. Awaiting command to proceed.

  Volkov’s face goes white. “You wouldn’t dare.”

  “Alexei, if there’s one thing you need to know about me, it’s that I always push the red button.”

  He says nothing, just waits, while behind him, Pol and Riyan and Mara stare at me as if I’m a stranger. I have to ignore them for now and focus totally on the direktor. I can’t trust him for a minute.

  “Let me tell you how this will go,” I say. “You let me and my friends walk out of here, or I’ll blow up every missile in your armory and take this whole palace—”

  I cut off with a cry as pain bursts in my head.

  I stagger, grabbing the throne for support, pressing the heel of my hand to my temple. I drop the transmitter with a clatter. My thoughts speed and blur, like my brain is shifting into warp. With a gasp, I double over. I hear Pol cry my name, and I raise a hand to stop him from running to my side. I can’t see for the blinding white light that seems to surround me.

  I can just barely make out the vityazes with their guns pointed at me as they begin to close in. Then I have to shut my eyes and grind my teeth together, my knees weakening beneath the onslaught of pain and noise in my skull.

  Did they shoot me?

  Am I dying?

  Will they kill Pol and Riyan and Mara next?

  Squeezing my eyes open, I search for them—only to catch my reflection in the glass wall of the Solariat.

  I freeze.

  There in the glass I see a girl wearing the cosmos for a gown, and around her head burns a crown of crimson light, two fiery wings encircling her brow. The Firebird Crown, dropping sparking feathers of light that burst like embers on the floor, the floor stained with the blood of both my enemies and my ancestors.

  I raise shaking fingers to my head but feel nothing. The crown is a hologram, fueled by raw energy that streams in glittering ribbons from the Prism above. I’m caught up in the glow, trapped in a terrible spotlight. The energy doesn’t just pour from the crystal above; it streams from every light in the room, from Volkov’s tabletka, from the guns clipped to the vityaze’s belts, from every scanner and wire and screen in the room, even from the devices in the pockets of the dead Committee members. Waves of Prismic energy rush to sweep around me and gather around my brow, burning so brightly that the vityazes and my friends alike are forced to turn away, raising their hands against the shine.

  I curl over, lifting my hands to my face, overwhelmed by the pain in my skull. My thoughts are like a flash flood, too many and too quick to be understood. I stagger under the onslaught. The only rational words in my mind aren’t mine at all but a strange, cold, female voice deep in my subconscious, stating robotically:

  Firebird code activated.

  Identity confirmed: Anya Petrovna Leonova.

  Time inactive: Sixteen years, eight months, six days.

  Welcome back, Princess.

  The direktor slips an arm around me, and I’m too distracted by the rushing chaos in my skull to fight him off. He pulls me up, away from the throne, one of his hands closing around mine, and his voice is a triumphant hiss in my ear.

  “Finally.” His fingers snake around my jaw, locking my eyes against his. “The Firebird awakens.”

  Then he presses his gun to my temple and pulls the trigger.

  I dream that I’m standing in the Solariat, surrounded by glass walls. The lights are off, the chamber dark but for the ambient light that flows through the windows. The others are all gone: Volkov, Pol, Riyan and Mara and Natalya, the dead Committee and the vityazes.

  Am I dead?

  If so, this is one crappy afterlife. I remember Volkov putting his gun to my head, and the burst of light before I blacked out. I decide he must have stunned me; he still needs my DNA, after all. I force myself to believe that he needs my DNA alive.

  Outside, the indifferent stars burn. Alexandrine is a dark curve in the left window, visible only for its glittering cities, their lights outlining the continents where the people are living their distant lives. Falling into bed, watching holovision, stressing over school, scheming and laughing and whispering, completely unaware of one shattered girl in a broken sky.

  Feeling the weight of eyes on my shoulder blades, I turn but see only swirling darkness. The sense of being watched doesn’t leave me, though; I know I am not alone. In the shadows, forms coalesce and then dissipate, playing tricks on my eyes.

  So I close my eyes. I wait several moments, my hands folded against my chest, feeling my heart pound. I know this place isn’t real, and that I’m trapped in some sort of dream. But is it a good dream, or a nightmare? I can hear whispers at the edges of my perception.

  When I look up again, I start.

  A circle of figures surrounds me; this time, they don’t vanish when I look at them, though their forms waver like cloth in the wind. Solemn and indistinct, they watch with hollow eyes, and on each one’s brow, a golden bead of light burns. Row upon row of them wait in silence, and though my skin prickles and my heart races, I don’t sense malevolence in them. I’m not even sure whether they’re conscious or just phantasms of cybernetic code, less real than memories—the echoes of memories. They wear fine clothing, some of it centuries old in design, accented with jewels and gold; some wear crowns.

  “Who are you?” I whisper.

  But I already know, though I couldn’t say how I know it. I feel their names when I look at them: Vera and Ruslan, Galina and Zoya, Maksim and Fredek. There are scores of them. They stretch to infinity; I see a bit of myself in each of their ghostly faces. Emperors and the sons of emperors, empresses and the daughters of empresses. All of them Leonovs, with the Firebird pulsing in their genetic code, shining bright on their foreheads, their power and their curse.

  This is my family.

  I walk to the throne and stand before it, sensing my ancestors around me. The constant, pressing presence of so many—always at hand, always watching, always whispering. No wonder my ancestors all went mad.

  I hold my hands to my ears, whimpering as I kneel before the Crescent Throne. I bend forward until my forehead touches the floor.

  “I don’t want this,” I whisper.

  I don’t expect an answer from them; they’re just blips in a stream of code. But then one separates from the others. She is
tall and dark-haired, with a confident set to her shoulders. She steps forward and smiles at me. Unlike the others, who wear exquisite and elaborate garments, she’s dressed in a white lab coat.

  “Anya.” She takes my hands. Her touch feels real, her skin warm. “Welcome. We’ve been waiting for you.”

  I stare with open apprehension. Hers was the voice I heard when the code activated, but now her tone is warmer, more lifelike. “What are you?”

  “I’m a message, the most important message you’ll ever receive. And I’ve been waiting for you for sixteen years.”

  Is this what Clio was? Some string of code unfurling in my DNA? The woman’s skin is detailed enough that I can see the pores on her nose, the individual strands of her eyebrows, the green-blue depths of her irises.

  “Am I dead?”

  She shakes her head. “Asleep, but very much alive.”

  “I can’t do this,” I whisper.

  “Of course you can.” Something almost sympathetic shines in her eyes, but I’m reluctant to trust it. “The Firebird would not have activated if you were not ready. You have accepted who you are, and what’s more, you’ve shown that you control your own mind.” She steps back, pulling me to my feet. “And now it’s time you learned what every Leonova must, upon coming of age: Your origin. Your purpose. Your legacy.”

  I pull away, shaking my head. “You’re not real. I’m just going crazy.”

  She smiles. “Oh, Anya, you are many things. But you’re not crazy.”

  I fall back into the throne, pressing myself into it like a cornered animal. “I dreamed up my own best friend. I’m delusional. I chased a lie across the stars, and look where it’s got me. No family, no hope, no Clio.”

  “Come with me, and I’ll tell you about Clio.”

  I look up at her. My heart stands still. “What?”

  “I can tell you the truth,” she says. “But are you ready to listen?”

  She holds out her hand. I stare at it, wondering what more she could possibly tell me, what truth I’ve still not yet uncovered. And it frightens me, to think there might be more—another twist, another secret. I’m so weary of secrets. But this ghostly woman knows precisely which pressure point will shatter my resistance. After everything, Clio’s name still works on me like a hook, tugging me forward, always calling me deeper and further.