Stitching Snow

by R. C. Lewis

  “Make them listen to the voice in the corner.”

  “Exactly. We call it Tipping. Doesn’t always work. I—we try not to do it if we can avoid it.”

  I remembered Moray looming over my bed and restricted my shudder to just a slight clenching of my toes. “Sometimes a nudge can save your life, can’t it?”

  Dane’s jaw muscles twitched, like he wanted to say something else, maybe ask what I meant. I was glad he resisted. Cusser came into the command compartment, checking the system status display, and seeing the drone sparked another question.

  “We were lucky to stop Tobias and Harper, then. But having the virus ready, prepping the drones to breach the solar screen and get the shuttle running? More luck?”

  “Let’s just say I don’t trust easily, and I plan ahead.”

  His plan had been better than mine. I had to give him credit for that. And I had a pretty good idea where those trust issues stemmed from.

  “Some of your other plans are making more sense. Tell me about your father.” When he stayed silent, I pushed harder. “Tell me why you’re doing this, or I’ll decide you aren’t included in my promise not to botch anything.”

  He held back a moment longer before the words burst out. “I was born on Windsong, all right? At the embassy—only it was hardly an embassy at all, just a place they could keep a few ‘Exiles’ contained. We were activists Matthias barely put up with, trying to show that we wouldn’t Transition uninvited, that we wouldn’t ‘possess’ or control anyone. Trying to bring this system back together. All of us came from Windsong once. We used to be one people.”

  We were, hundreds of years ago. Before merinium was discovered on Thanda, before the technology was developed to tame Garam. And before people became so afraid of a subgroup that had a peculiar genetic quirk for body-hopping, before my ancestors led the Liberation that ousted the body-hoppers from the throne.

  Dane wasn’t finished. “My mother died when I was born, so I grew up in the embassy with my father. He sent me away to live on Candara when I was eight because he thought Windsong was becoming too dangerous. He promised he’d follow soon, but then you were taken and they were all arrested.”

  My throat cinched shut. I wanted to say I was sorry, but I couldn’t. An apology was nothing in the face of something like that.

  “There, I answered your questions, Essie,” he continued. “Now tell me the truth. Why didn’t you jump at the chance to get off Thanda? Was I right about Petey?”

  “No, absolutely not. It’s because I didn’t want to go home,” I said simply. “I still don’t.”

  “What do you mean? Who were the people who took you, then? How did you get away from them and end up alone in a mining settlement?”

  I didn’t want to answer. The answer made everything even worse. It admitted my failure. It made all the bad things that had happened my fault.

  “Why didn’t you go to the Bands, tell the officials who you were?” he pressed.

  The instinct to run pushed me to my feet. I only got as far as the compartment threshold before the truth spilled out.

  “Because no one kidnapped me, Dane. I ran away.”

  I kept busy in the engine compartment whenever I could, making Cusser double-check the Garamite brats’ work and ensuring everything held together. When those tasks were done, I pulled out my slate and fell back on my old routines. Being busy meant filling my head with simple, logical thoughts rather than memories I’d struggled to keep buried for years. Better to solve a trifold number matrix puzzle than consider the ramifications of choices made by my nine-year-old self.

  Dane let me be sometimes, but when I refused to answer his questions, he came up with his own theories. That I’d run away because I was angry with my parents, or I didn’t like the pressure to be queen someday, or I feared they would realize I was part Candaran. Perfectly good theories, so I let him think he was right.

  Surely, he figured, I’d stayed on Thanda so long afterward because I was afraid of the trouble I’d caused and how angry my father would be.

  Sounds good, Dane. Let’s go with that. I wouldn’t say the words aloud. Nor would I tell him the truth. All I said was, “You might just as well kill me as take me back there.”

  Two days after our escape from Garam, Cusser reported that a relay for the radiation shield was being a bit twitchy, adding a few choice adjectives of its own. So much for the repairs being simple enough for schoolchildren to do. I checked the diagnostic while hoping the kids got failing marks. Software problem—the relay wasn’t communicating properly with the rest of the system—so I activated a console and set about stitching up the code. Dane leaned against the adjacent wall and watched me work.

  “There’s something I can’t figure out,” he said. “How did you do it? Just nine years old…How did you get all the way from Windsong to Thanda and survive there on your own?”

  His questions scraped against my nerves, but this was something I supposed I could tell him. “Had a bit of help early on. Someone who got me away from the palace.” A member of the Midnight Blade—the queen’s guard—but that bit was none of Dane’s business. “I cut my hair, kept my head covered. I was clever enough to get to a spaceport and stowed away on a transport that got me to a merinium barge bound for Thanda. Only off-planet passage I could find.”

  “And once you got to Thanda?”

  “I pretended to be a boy at first, made things a sniff easier. Got down to the Bands and scraped by. Learned to fight because there were always bullies about. Once people knew I was handy with tech, being a girl didn’t matter. Like I told you, though, they only have a few uses for girls in the Bands, and I decided I’d be better off in one of the mining settlements. You know the story from there.”

  He remained quiet until I got the relay to play nicely. “My uncle told me what the palace on Windsong was like,” he said when I was done. “All lazy luxury. Servants making sure you don’t have to lift a finger, cleaning drones so efficient you never actually see them at work. Hard to believe a girl who grew up with that could handle life on Thanda.”

  “Well, you adapt quickly when you have to. Can’t be that surprised. You came to Thanda knowing I was there, didn’t you?”

  “Sort of. Eight years with no sign of you, so I picked the least likely rumor to try first.”

  “Rumors?”

  He looked at me like I’d suggested going back to Garam. “Yeah, the rumors of Windsong’s missing princess. You haven’t heard them?”

  “We were lucky to get much real information from outside Thanda, let alone rumors, and most of that only when I cracked a network or two. I thought everyone believed Exiles took me.”

  “Well, we Candarans knew better, and a few others questioned the official story.”

  I almost didn’t want to know. “What were they saying?”

  “You were uniting the Garamites against Windsong, you’d died in an accident and the kidnapping story was a cover-up, you’d never left Windsong but were being kept in a secure location. Lots of others. No one really seemed to think you were on Thanda, though.”

  An itch started in the back of my brain. “And you happened to crash-land near the mining settlement where I happened to be?”

  “It’s not where I expected to find you. I really did think you’d be in Umbergild. Isolated, comfortable, seemed like a reasonable place to keep a princess prisoner. Like I said, I figured landing near the most prosperous settlement on the planet would mean some chance of getting help.”

  Yet another result I could blame on my great miscalculation, doing too good a job improving the mine. And Dane hadn’t been far off, thinking to look for me with the Ascetics. Just several years too late. “I was right, wasn’t I? About this being a scheme of your own, not your government’s?”

  Dane’s turn not to answer.

  I sighed. “The mark on my shoulder tipped you off?”

  He nodded, and I fought not to blush at the memory. “I expected either kidnappers or royal agents k
eeping guard, not a girl tinkering with drones in the settlements. The red hair was a nice touch, too. Otherwise I’d have known who you were from the beginning. You don’t exactly blend in.”

  I grunted and sat on a coolant tank. “The day I was born, my father was more interested in unusual weather for the season. He chose my name and had some genetic resequencing done.”

  Dane flinched slightly. “That’s supposed to be painful.”

  I just shrugged. It wasn’t like I remembered the experience. “He wanted what he wanted. So I was made Princess Snow, eyes like the sky and hair as white as my name. You remember Windsong, though. My appearance wasn’t as uncommon there as on Thanda.”

  “I suppose not.”

  After a few minutes of silently watching me double-check a power junction, he left me alone in the engine compartment. I began to wonder: how different would it have been if he’d known right away who I was?

  Only one answer came to me. He’d have given himself away…and I wouldn’t have been fool enough to think he was my friend. No one could act that well.

  As Candara neared, my anxiety grew more pronounced. Diverting Dane to his home planet was a good stalling tactic, and I was proud of myself for coming up with it. If the Exile leaders were anything like every other governing body I’d known, it would take them ages to make a decision about what to do with me.

  That didn’t change the fact I had no idea what they might do with me meanwhile.

  Although busying myself with the engines had its appeal, I stayed in the command compartment the day we reached Candara. The globe we approached looked very different from Garam’s mottled tan. Much of the surface was covered in the blue of oceans swirled with white clouds, and varying shades of green made up most of the land masses.

  It looked a lot like Windsong. Fitting, I supposed, since they were called mirror planets. Nearly identical orbits, but separated by half a cycle, one always on the opposite side of the sun from the other.

  We entered the atmosphere, and Dane communicated with some kind of flight authority who gave him permission to land in Gakoa, their capital city.

  I hadn’t seen a real city since leaving Windsong, and I wasn’t sure what to expect. I’d been told Exiles were militaristic people who drilled in formation three times a day. With Dane’s fighting skills, I could believe it, but as we flew over Gakoa, I didn’t see anything like that.

  Instead, the city was full of sweeping buildings made of stone, striking in their simplicity. Almost grand, in a way I’d never seen before. Trees lined the causeways, and open green spaces dotted the city. Parks. No military drills seemed to be taking place anywhere. As we flew lower, I thought I spotted children playing—something I hadn’t seen since I was a child in the Bands.

  We approached a large cluster of buildings at one end of the city, butting up against a rising mountain range. The governing complex, Dane told me. It had its own small spaceport, and he carefully guided the shuttle into the hangar.

  No more time to back out. No chance for an easy escape back to Thanda. I was officially in enemy hands.

  Except my mother had been one of them.

  “Let’s go,” Dane said, gesturing for me to go ahead of him. “Dimwit, Cusser, stay here.”

  The spaceport attendant seemed to know who Dane was, merely nodding as we passed. As we worked our way into the complex, we came across other workers, guards, and low-level officials. All of them seemed to know Dane. No one questioned him or tried to stop him. Or seemed surprised to see him, for that matter, though they gave me a few curious looks. Guards opened doors without a word.

  I got the feeling I was missing something.

  We took a lift up several levels—maybe all the levels—and came out in a foyer with a pair of large doors attended by a matching pair of large guards. Again, they said nothing, just pushed the doors open. We entered, and I quickly took it in.

  The vast room had a high ceiling and a wall-size window overlooking the city. In the center was a table surrounded by at least a dozen chairs. More stark simplicity, as there was no other furniture, no computer terminals, nothing. The floor, walls, and table all appeared to be made of marble, though the room was light and the table dark. Most of the chairs were occupied, and the occupants—all of them at least as old as Petey—turned from their slates to look at us.

  This room radiated importance, and so did the people in it.

  “Dane!” a man said as they all stood. “Where have you been? We’ve been trying to reach you for half a season, and nothing! No word on where you’d gone! It’s irresponsible.”

  That was all the confirmation I needed—my kidnapping had been a solo operation. Dane took the rebuke, his shoulders squared, before responding.

  “I’ve been to Thanda. And I’ve brought back Princess Snow.”

  These people were old, and I never expected them to move so quickly. They surrounded me, hands grabbing my shoulders and arms, too many to shake off.

  “Let me go!”

  “What are you doing?” Dane demanded.

  Ignoring him, they dragged me forward and shoved me hard against the table, holding me down.

  Someone pulled my sleeve off my left shoulder. Their fingernails scratched me. I struggled harder.

  “The mark!”

  “But is it authentic?”

  “Get the windows.”

  The room darkened, and I twisted my head around to glare at them. A bluish glow approached from the side. It was a black light. I knew what they’d see—the fluorescing nano-ink forming my tattoo, designed to keep it intact as I grew up. Only the royal family had access to it.

  Strong footsteps sounded on the other side of the room.

  “It’s real.”

  “It is her.”

  The hands released me as the room lightened again. I shoved them away and backed up, pulling my sleeve into place.

  “What have you done?!”

  The new voice resounded off the marble walls. My eyes followed it to a tall man with dark hair, younger than the others, who grabbed Dane by the shirtfront and slammed him against the wall.

  The man glanced my way, quickly turning back to Dane when I met his eyes. I knew his face.

  It was Kip.

  It was the guard who’d helped me escape Windsong.

  I COLLAPSED INTO ONE OF THE vacated chairs. No one noticed; all attention was focused on the confrontation across the room. One of the men who hadn’t been involved in examining the royal mark tapped on his slate as if he had better things to do. Dane glared at Kip but made no move to escape his grasp.

  “I did what no one else managed in the past eight years. I finally got us the leverage we need to make Matthias release the prisoners.”

  “She was safe where she was!”

  Safe…We have to get you safe, Princess.…You have to run.

  Dane’s glare faded, replaced by confused horror. “You knew? You knew she was there? All these years my father and everyone have been held and you knew?”

  Some of the others gave Kip looks of their own, some confused, others accusing. A few turned to me.

  “Tell us what you know, Princess,” said the man who’d first greeted Dane. He had silver hair, harsh eyes, and jowls that quivered when he spoke. “Who took you from Windsong, allowing us to be blamed?”

  You must keep it a secret. Never tell anyone the truth.

  I couldn’t answer. If Kip hadn’t betrayed me in all these years, I wouldn’t betray him now.

  “No one took her,” Dane said. “She told me she ran away, but she wouldn’t say why.”

  Kip gave the answer before anyone asked me. “She ran because Queen Olivia tried to have her killed.”

  “What? How do you know that?” Dane pressed.

  Kip gave me the same look he’d given me that day eight years ago. A look full of horror, regret, and self-disgust. A look I’d wished erased a thousand times since, but none of it had faded.

  “Because I was ordered to kill her.”


  “You were the one,” Dane whispered. “The one who helped her escape.”

  A knife in Kip’s hand, both of us staring at it, staring at each other…The indecision in his eyes fading only when he hands it to me.

  Kip released his hold on Dane, but then pulled him into his arms like…like a father would. Dane neither fought nor returned the embrace. Now that I looked, there was a resemblance between the two of them. Something in the lines of the jaw and nose. They had to be related.

  “I’m sorry, Dane. It was my fault. I didn’t realize Matthias would move on our people so quickly, and there was no time.”

  His words twisted in my gut. I knew how much it wasn’t his fault. How much it was mine.

  Dane pushed away but didn’t say anything, just looked between me and Kip. I avoided his eyes.

  “The fact remains, we have her now,” said Quivery Jowls. “Dane is correct—Matthias would likely trade the prisoners to get her back. We’re certainly not making progress on any other front.”

  “Didn’t you hear what I said?” Kip protested. “The queen wants her dead.”

  “That was eight years ago, Kip. Many things have changed since then.”

  “Perhaps there’s a better use for her,” said another, a woman with unusually straight posture. “She is the heir to the throne.”

  “For all we know, she’s as bad as her father or worse,” Quivery Jowls cut in.

  “But if ever there was a time for a coup—”

  That jolted me free of the memories. “Do I look like anyone’s blazing queen?”

  Everyone stared at me, their faces saying the same thing—I absolutely did not look like any kind of queen.

  “Glad we’re all clear on that,” I continued. “Now ship me off for a trade, lock me in a dungeon, or send me back to Thanda to mind my own business, but don’t be thinking I’ll be part of some unhinged revolution.”