by J. M. Page
Snow slumped into her seat. “I wrote down the coordinates there,” she said, thrusting her chin toward the control panel as she yawned.
He typed them into the navigation panel, actually going through the entire pre-launch checklist for the first time since he’d met the Princess. They were lucky nothing had gone wrong with their hasty escapes.
“Looks like it’s pretty far,” he said, watching her as she curled up in her seat, fighting to keep her eyes open. “You should get some sleep.”
She waved him off, hiding another yawn behind her hand. Like this, so sleepy and innocent, it was hard to remember she was the hope of the Empire. So many people out there just praying that she was really still alive. Really coming to help them.
Hunter swallowed and rubbed his chest where the Queen’s chip was embedded into his heart. Most chips were harmlessly implanted in a person’s arm, but Hunter got special treatment. The Queen wanted to be sure she controlled him.
Funny thing was, he’d been much less motivated to be loyal when it was only his life on the line. Now he had his father to think about. If anyone could understand his desperate need to reunite his family, it would be Snow, right? Even if that meant betraying her…
“I don’t sleep well,” she murmured, her eyelids drifting closed.
They opened wide again long enough for the launch, but once they were en route to the next destination, she began to drift again.
Without saying anything, Hunter rose from the pilot seat and pulled a blanket from one of the supply cabinets. Something else caught his eye and he lingered on it, debating with himself.
He knew she’d like to have it. It would make her feel safe and secure. He could already picture the little smile that would curve her lips when she spotted it waiting for her.
But it would also make it easier for Snow to turn on him. To decide she didn’t need him anymore. That would ruin everything.
His decision had been made the moment he saw it, before he ever engaged in the meaningless argument in his head. He already knew what he was going to do. Weighing the options was only trying to fool himself.
With a sigh, Hunter grabbed the blaster from the cabinet too, locking it behind him.
Snow was already half-asleep when he returned, muttering under her breath, curled into the fetal position, cramped in the uncomfortable-looking chair. He pulled the lever on the side of the chair and eased her back before draping the blanket over her and tucking it under. Making sure the safety was on, he set the blaster next to her, patting it, remembering her teasing him in the restaurant.
That memory brought a smile to his lips and before Hunter knew what he was doing, he’d bent and placed a kiss on her forehead, no silk barrier between them as he whispered, “Sweet dreams, Princess.”
He was pretty tired himself, suppressing yawn after yawn as he pulled up the ship’s shields and warning systems. He secured everything the best he knew how and turned down the lights before leaning back in his chair and closing his eyes to catch a few winks.
It could have been twenty minutes or twenty hours later when he first woke up. Time had little meaning in these uninhabited reaches of empty space. But it wasn’t the length of his sleep that was concerning. It was his reason for waking.
At first, he wasn’t sure what it was, he’d just woken with a general sense of alarm, but then he heard it: helpless mumbling. His heart seized and he turned to see Snow’s face scrunched up, her lips moving with another sorrowful cry.
“Snow?” he called across the dim craft, her form — tangled in the blanket he’d gotten her — only illuminated by the faint red glow of operating lights.
She murmured something unintelligible and angry, kicking her legs out. At some point while he’d slept, she found the blaster set there for her and clutched it to her chest like it was her baby.
“Snow?” Hunter tried again, standing from his seat and tip-toeing over to her. He couldn’t just let her be tormented by nightmares.
“Snow, you’re having a bad dream,” he said, reaching out. The moment his hand touched her arm, Snow’s eyes snapped open, and in one movement she was upright, pointing the blaster at him.
Hunter jumped back, his hands in the air. “Hey, it’s alright. Are you awake now?” Sleep deprivation made people do crazy things.
She blinked, her eyes focusing, and looked at the weapon in her hand, lowering it with her gaze. “I— I’m sorry,” she said, sinking back into the chair.
Hunter lowered his hands and knelt next to her, compelled by the broken sound of her voice. “That’s alright,” he said. “My pretty face is still intact; no harm done.” He smiled, but she didn’t.
“Do you… want to talk about it?” He could only begin to guess which ‘it’ caused the Princess such fitful nightmares. She certainly had her fair share to choose from.
“No,” she said firmly, exhaling a heavy sigh. “I don’t know. Thanks for this, by the way,” she added, resting the blaster in her lap. “You trust me with it even knowing how trigger-happy I am?”
He chuckled, nodding. “We’re in this together, aren’t we?” Were they? He could betray her at any moment and still he tried to reassure her.
He could turn on her, just like Callie had turned on him. It was amazing he’d been able to sleep at all, or was he just past feeling guilty? He certainly wasn’t past being disgusted with himself.
“Yeah, I suppose we are,” Snow answered with a small smile.
He started to stand, but she reached out for him, keeping his hand on her armrest.
“After… After I left the hideout… I thought I was going to be in this alone,” she said. “But I’m glad I’m not. I don’t think I’d have made it this far without you Hunter.”
“Don’t start thanking me yet, Princess,” he said, his heart beating faster than it should.
“I know, I know… This could all still end horribly for us, but we have a better shot together, I think.”
They did. Or they would. If Hunter could sort out his loyalty. As much as a part of him really wanted to commit to her cause, another part knew the moment he did, the Queen would detonate the chip in his heart.
How had he gotten himself into this situation?
She squeezed his hand and he brought his gaze back to the bottomless chocolate depths of her eyes, lids still drooping with exhaustion.
Right; that was how.
“You’ve still never told me what made you do it in the first place.”
“The palace?” she asked.
“Mhm.”
She sighed, her shoulders slumping. “You have to understand, after we fled the palace—”
“We?” Most people had only heard rumors of the Princess’s escape in the dead of night. No one knew for certain what — if any of it — was true. It was widely assumed if she had made it, she hadn’t done it alone.
Snow nodded. “My father had a close friend, an advisor — Plick. Whispers that the Queen had sent her guards to kill me in my sleep spread like wildfire and he managed to smuggle me out through a secret passageway behind the fireplace…” She looked off into the distance, her eyes unfocused as if she was reliving that night.
“He took me to Zomer, where years before he’d managed to secretly purchase a hunting cabin high in the mountains. He and my father met in the service,” she said.
Hunter nodded. Everyone who’d been on the frontlines in the outlands came back paranoid. It wasn’t surprising that her father’s friend thought he might one day need a residence no one knew about.
“But once we were there, I never saw another person. It was too dangerous. I was cut off from the rest of the Empire — from all of civilization really. But we weren’t far. I could still climb trees and spot the tallest spires of the Summer Palace. It depended on the day if I felt they were mocking me or begging me to come home.” She swallowed, her jaw flexing. Now it was gone. It would never taunt her — or be home to her — again. Hunter squeezed her hand.
“How did you get f
rom that to…”
A watery laugh bubbled up from her throat. “To torching it?” Hunter nodded.
“Well, like I said, I was cut off. I only had what Plick told me to go off of and he was militant about keeping information about the Queen from me. He trained me, drilled into my head that she had spies everywhere that wanted to kill me—”
Hunter’s throat tightened. He wondered if she felt how slick his palm had just gotten.
“—but I think he didn’t tell me what was happening in the Empire because he thought I’d want to strike back before I was ready.”
He decided not to comment on that, but his expression must have given him away. She chuckled and nodded. “Yeah, he wasn’t far off, huh? First chance I got I made a big spectacle without a plan…” She sighed, pulling her hand away from his, burying her head in her palms.
“Once he was gone, I didn’t know what to do, though. I probably would have just lived like a wild forest person if I hadn’t ever gotten the nerve to go into Zomer City.”
His eyebrows shot up. “You went to Zomer City?” He couldn’t help but remember the feral look of her before she’d cleaned up. How had she gotten past the Guard? If the Queen knew how close she’d come…
He wouldn’t be the one to tell her. He wouldn’t be responsible for more deaths.
“It doesn’t feel real anymore,” she said. “Like it was a dream, or it was happening to someone else. I hadn’t seen or spoken to another person in months and they were having some sort of festival… I couldn’t resist the smells — have you ever had a Zomerian Solstice Cake?”
“Is that the one with the citrus filling?”
“It’s like eating a pillow,” she said, nodding. “And when it’s fresh?” Her eyes rolled back and she groaned, biting her lip. “Just perfect. My parents took me to those festivals in the summer and we always got Solstice Cakes.”
A heavy pause hung between them and finally, Snow sighed. “Between the smells and the music… I guess my feet had a mind of their own. But when I got there, no one seemed very… festive. There were guards scowling everywhere and the hushed way people were talking… It seemed more like a funeral than a festival. And that’s when I heard the things they were actually saying. About the Queen, the Empire, their lives… about me.”
Hunter had nothing to say, nothing to add. He just sat there quietly, trying his best to encourage her to keep talking without saying anything himself.
“That was just the last straw, I guess. It was one thing for her to take away everything I loved. To ruin my life. A Princess sacrifices for her people.” It sounded more like a recitation than any real conviction. How many people had told Snow that what she wanted didn’t matter if it was for the greater good? How many times had she suppressed her own needs and wants for the good of the Empire? Was she still? Did she even want any of this?
“It was different to know, without a doubt, that she’s making everyone miserable. If people were happy with her rule… that would be one thing, you know? I would be sad, but I could let her have it if I thought it was what the people wanted.”
“But knowing that everyone still held out hope that the Princess was coming to save them was too much?” he guessed.
She nodded. “I wasn’t even really thinking. It took me over a day to hike to the palace, the whole time just thinking about Plick at our rickety little table. So still and cold.” She swallowed, blinking rapidly, her eyes glossy and wet.
“We used to have smoke signals, back in the days of the war, you know? It’s so warm on Zomer that the fireplaces are purely decorative. Sometimes there would be an artificial fire for ambiance, but we never actually lit the fireplace unless there was something wrong — at least, that’s what Plick told me. The war was over long before I was born. But the night we fled, he lit the fireplace, he told the city — the Empire — that the palace was in distress. The Queen had taken control.”
“So you burning down the palace…?”
“I was taking it back,” she said, her voice firm, a fierce unyielding light in her eyes. “I hoped that the symbolism wouldn’t be lost, but I didn’t know about the resistance. I didn’t know that she’d gotten so bad people thought she might actually stoop so low for sympathy.”
She looked unsure now, nibbling her bottom lip, not meeting his eyes. “Did I do it all wrong? Did I ruin everything?”
“Of course not,” Hunter said. “If the rebels had done it, they’d be taking credit for it. Everyone knows that. So all that’s left is making sure they know it was you, not her.” He stood up abruptly, wondering why the hell he was helping her plot her return. It was one thing to passively sit by and observe. It was another entirely to actively undermine the Queen.
“I’m not even sure it would matter,” she said, hanging her head.
Hunter wasn’t convinced. In fact, he had an idea. It took only the discreet press of a button to start recording. “If you could talk to your people, what would you say?”
Snow sighed, her eyes ringed with dark exhaustion. She looked up, looking weary, but something hard as steel took over in her gaze, and suddenly, he saw a leader before him. “I would say… I know things have been hard. I know times have been dark, but dawn is coming. I’m coming. Your Princess is doing everything she can to right the wrongs that have been done to us all. Don’t lose hope, don’t lose faith. Light will shine again in our Empire, if it’s the last thing I do.” For once, she sounded confident in her conviction.
Hunter swallowed and pressed the button again. Soon, her message would go out to the furthest reaches of the Empire. Soon, there would be no doubt that Snow White had returned.
“Do you want some tea? I’m going to make a cup,” he said. He needed to step away from her. Distance would cure him of these traitorous thoughts. Would stop him from wanting to cup her face in his hand, drawing her lips toward his. Distance would rid him of the desire to hold her while she slept, to ward off the nightmares. Distance would cure him of this pressing need to declare his undying loyalty to her.
“Please. That sounds lovely.” She smiled at him, her eyes heavy with sleep once more.
Hunter grit his teeth together. He needed a lot more distance.
Chapter Fifteen
Snow
Hunter’s retreating footsteps vibrated through the floor of the ship as it hummed along towards its destination. Snow took a deep breath, her nerves still jangling from their conversation. She’d revealed too much to him. She’d opened up too much.
Was she wrong for thinking she could be so candid with him? It seemed every choice she made was too hasty, too bold, too improvised. All these years in seclusion were meant to be building up to something, but now that she was on her own, she acted too rashly, spoke too quickly, and — maybe worst of all — trusted too easily.
She scrunched her eyes shut and dropped her head to her hands. If Plick was still around he’d want her to be warier of everyone. Not just Hunter — though she could already hear all the things he’d have to say about that little relationship — but Beaver, too. He’d have warned her against getting too chummy with the people on Avuuna. Plick had always been one for caution above all. Better to be paranoid than dead, he’d say.
But how else would they have found out about the rumors zipping through the Empire? That people thought so little of their Queen they believed she could be the arsonist herself?
Plick would have — and did, when he was still alive — told her to stay far away from Zomer City. But then how would she have learned how miserable her people were?
She took a deep breath and let it out, dropping her hands and leaning back to look ahead at the colored points of light in the vast expanse of space. There were things to be learned in breaking the rules. Important things.
Plick had done a good job of teaching her to defend herself with a blaster, teaching her how to spot a liar, but he’d never taught her how to be a leader. He was too focused on keeping her alive and preparing her for the inevitable day when
she would face the Queen. There had never been any thought given to what would happen afterward. Everything Snow knew about ruling her people, she’d learned from her mother. And that knowledge mostly consisted of things that were inappropriate for princesses. Not exactly useful when she was trying to stage a coup.
Snow found herself now in a position that neither of her parents envisioned, and for the first time, it occurred to her that she might have to forge her own path instead of relying on the wisdom they’d passed down.
It wasn’t a comforting thought.
A series of beeps sounded from the navigation panel just as Hunter returned with two steaming mugs.
“Looks like we’re close,” he said, glancing toward the flashing lights at the front of the ship. “Should be entering the atmosphere any time now. You ready for this?”
There were so many things ‘this’ could be. She brought the mug of tea to her lips, drinking instead of answering. She swallowed and frowned at the mug.
“What? Did I get it wrong?” Hunter asked. “Lemon, not cream, right?”
Snow took another drink, nodding, studying him over the rim of her mug. “And a sprinkle of sugar,” she said. He’d remembered.
A knot in her chest tightened. There was more to breaking Plick’s rules than just learning things about the Empire. There was this. Companionship.
Hunter smiled, seeming pleased with himself as he drank his own tea and the knot inside her unraveled, a warm contentedness taking its place.
Sure, he was infuriating, but when she looked at Hunter, Snow couldn’t help but feel a certain way. A way she hadn’t felt since she’d been forced to flee the palace under cover of night.
She felt at home.
“If I’m not ready now, I don’t know when I’ll ever be,” she said, dragging her gaze away to the rapidly growing red dot before them. It was a tiny planet, cloaked with a thick reddish atmosphere. She’d never have given it a second thought if Beaver hadn’t told her about it. She just hoped this guy would have some answers for them.
