by R. C. Lewis
A screeching buzz, like a wasp the size of Dimwit, tore through the air above us. We spun just in time to see a crackling ball of energy hit the infirmary, enveloping it in a net of lightning.
Then we heard the screams.
I launched myself toward the building and nearly tore my arm off. Dane had grabbed hold and was pulling me another way.
“What are you doing? We have to get in there, we have to help them!”
“No, we have to get out of here right now!”
“What kind of blazing coward are you?”
Another building was hit—maybe by a different weapon, because it just exploded, the shock wave knocking us down. Dane lost his grip on my arm, so I pulled myself up and started running. As usual, he was too fast, tackling me hard to the ground. I tasted blood. I swung my elbow back and made contact with something, maybe his ear. Enough to weasel out from under him, but not enough to get very far.
“Theo is in there!” I protested, trying to break his hold around my waist. I sent him in there.
Another shot, another building consumed by electricity.
“I’m sorry, Essie, but it’s too late for them. Come on!”
He was right. The screams from the infirmary had stopped. A sudden cold flooded me; a piece of me died. I wanted to go home, even if home meant the palace. I stopped fighting Dane and let him pull me into a run.
Men scattered all over the base, ignoring us as they shouted at each other to repair the perimeter defense, to launch countermeasures. Some just ran for their lives. One passed near a shack when it got hit. Then he was gone.
Just gone.
Anything left was unrecognizable as ever having been human.
The shock left me stunned enough for Dane to drag me to the barn and shove me into the transport. He took the pilot’s seat and swore.
“The controls have a security lockout. Can you bypass it?”
The schematics I’d studied flashed in my mind. No time for code-breaking. I had to fool the computer into forgetting it needed a code at all. I grabbed some gear, pulled my slate, got on my back underneath the console, and yanked off the access panel. Each conduit was a thread, and I traced them through the fabric of the control system. Everything disappeared but the puzzle. One thread stood out, then another. A few stitches, a few twists and knots.
Finally stitching again. A smile flitted across my lips, but fell away just as quickly. Theo was dead, and I was happy because I didn’t have to act like a princess for a moment.
I wanted to throw up.
“Essie, I hate to rush you, but could you hurry?”
The anxiety in his voice told me not to ask why, just work faster. “Almost got it. C’mon, you botched little—there!”
The engines came to life, the transport lifted off the ground, and we surged forward so quickly that I slid, jamming my leg against one of the seats. I hauled myself up into the chair and checked the rear display on the console.
Flames engulfed the barn. That explained Dane’s anxiety. Buildings smoldered and sparked all around us, smoke obscuring everything. Another explosion bucked the transport, throwing me against the side console.
“Your turn to hurry, Dane.”
“Working on it.”
He slammed the accelerator and jerked the lateral controls, narrowly missing a chunk of metal that had torn from a wall. For a second, I thought he’d gotten turned around and we were going the wrong way, but then I saw the river. He was taking the shortest route out of the wreckage.
The burning ruin that had been a militia base minutes ago disappeared in a mass of smoke and debris behind us. Another fire lit inside me, replacing the chill I’d felt earlier.
“I’m done. I can’t do it anymore. No more games and pretending. I’m just going to kill him.”
Dane could only afford a quick glance away from the controls, but it was like a laser drilling into me. “No, you won’t. We stick to the plan.”
“Why?”
“Because we’re too far from Kip and the fleet, and we’re not ready.”
“What does it matter? I can’t look him in the eye and be the dutiful daughter and pretend I don’t know that he just killed those men, and his own guard, too. I can’t do it!”
“Yes, you can. Because your father didn’t do that.”
Minutes ago, he’d been lecturing me on my father’s machinations. The words caught in my chest and took a second try to get out. “What?”
“He knew you’d be at Saddlewood. He never would have launched that attack today.”
“Then who?” The answer struck me as soon as I’d asked the question.
“Olivia must have access to the army posing as Exiles. She just took another shot at killing you, and in case you missed it, she almost succeeded.”
WE BY PASSED THE SAFETY LIMITS of the transport, trimming a few hours from our return trip. Dane and I remained silent most of the time. I busied myself with small tasks, ensuring the royal identification code broadcasted cleanly so the defenses at the outland borders would let us through, and transferring the gun scan to a small data-chip I tucked safely inside my locket.
A message came from the palace when they got word of the attack, stating an escort would be sent. Dane refused, claiming he didn’t want any more attention brought to our location. Then he had me disable the transport’s locator. Simple enough.
“Do you really think I’m a coward?” Dane asked.
I refused to look up from my slate. “Isn’t that what you call it when something bad happens and you run the other way?”
“You don’t get it, do you?”
“Get what?”
“Why I’m here.”
I tapped out a few ideas for a self-modulating subroutine. Maybe someday I could send it to Petey and someone could see if it fixed Zippy’s timing issues. Petey…I still hadn’t gotten word to him. “No, I get that. To save your father, clear the name of Candarans everywhere. Good reasons.”
“Look at me, Essie!”
His voice was so sharp, so full of an emotion I couldn’t define, that I couldn’t help turning. Anger. That was part of it. And something else.
“I told you, protecting you isn’t an act. So when the attack started, my first instinct wasn’t to run away. It was to get you safe. And not just because of how I feel about you—because you’re this planet’s best chance at a real future.”
“What do you care what happens to Windsong?”
Dane refused to release my gaze, and it was harder than ever for me to break away from his. “Candara isn’t my home. It never has been. Windsong is where my parents fell in love, where I was born, where my mother died. This will always be home to me.”
The locked room overlooking Gakoa flashed in my mind, the mountains and river, the peace of being separate from everything but taking it all in. The place of a king watching his kingdom, holding the weight of his world. Dane clearly hadn’t wanted any part of it.
“You don’t plan on claiming the Candaran throne, do you?”
“When we rescue my father, it’ll be his to take, if he wants it.”
“I saw how the people there looked at you. Kids like Tatsa. How they love you.”
His hand twitched on the controls. “Maybe. But they don’t need me. Not like your people need you.”
He was so wrong. Not about what the people of Windsong needed, but about how this was going to play out. I couldn’t sit there and listen to him anymore. I stood, thinking I’d get some sleep on one of the bunks at the rear of the transport.
“There’s something you don’t get, Dane,” I said. “I’m just a pawn in this. Sometimes a pawn can set things in motion, but they rarely make it to the endgame. Not with the power we’re up against.”
After I slept, I took a turn keeping an eye on things so Dane could rest. When he woke up, we went back to not talking. The closer we got to the Royal City, the tighter I gripped my knees, my nails digging into them.
“We have a problem,” I said. “I wasn
’t exaggerating before. I can’t be near my father and pretend I don’t know what he’s doing. Not after that. Not after seeing those men. It doesn’t matter that he didn’t order the attack. He’s ordered others. How can I be in the same room and not tear him apart?”
“The same way I’ve managed to be on this planet without anyone finding out what I am. You’re going to take that anger and use it to fool everyone. You’re going to make your father think you hate the Exiles just as much as he does, and you’re going to find a way to turn that against him.”
It made sense, turning my anger that way. But I knew it would be the hardest thing I’d ever done.
The Exiles did this. The Exiles killed Theo. The Exiles blew that man apart right in front of me. Over and over, I repeated it to myself, asking what the next step would be if it were true.
Guiding the transport into the city with an escort of armed skimmers, I saw the soldiers in the infirmary. Walking from the transport into the palace with a phalanx of Golden Sword guards surrounding me, I saw the man who had simply disappeared, his eyes in the moment before he was gone. Entering the throne room to face my father and Olivia, I saw Theo, blushing as he remembered my mother.
Father looked both relieved and furious upon seeing me. Olivia just looked furious. I wondered what lie she’d told him to make the attack a mistake. A botched set of orders. The wrong coordinates. A rogue lieutenant acting on his own.
I didn’t care. I could guarantee I was more furious than both of them together. Father approached, arms out to embrace me. No way could I take that without trying to rip his throat out, so I cut him off, letting the fire fly through my voice.
“Where are the prisoners?”
As hoped, that stopped him. “What?”
“The captain at Saddlewood told me how this started, how the Exiles took advantage of my kidnapping to launch this war. You stopped the first attack and took prisoners from their embassy. I want to know where they are.”
Father’s expression shifted again. “Snowflake, you don’t need to worry. Those prisoners are secure. They won’t be able to hurt you.”
“I don’t doubt that, but if I’m to lead this world someday, I need to face our enemies. I want to look in their eyes and assure them they will never see freedom while I live, that their people will not frighten me into a corner. I want to see their faces as I snatch any shred of hope they have left in them.”
I hated every word as it left my mouth, but pride glowed in Father’s face. Pride that someday I’d be exactly the kind of ruler he was. The expression brought back the roiling nausea. “If that is what you wish, Daughter, you shall have it.”
“I will see to it,” Olivia said. “My guards do watch the prison, after all.”
That was a problem—her first two attacks hadn’t worked out, and I knew she’d try harder this time—but I refused to let her see my fear.
“Make it soon,” I snapped, turning to leave before she could respond.
The servants read my mood, practically diving out of the way as I stalked to the residential wing. As soon as we were in the suite, the mask fell, and I began to hyperventilate.
“Essie breathe Essie.”
For the first time in my life, I couldn’t tell the drone to shut it.
“Essie, slow down,” Dane said, taking hold of my shoulders.
I jerked away. Hurt flashed across Dane’s eyes, but it had just been a reflex. “I’m sorry, I just—What I said, I didn’t even think. If the prison’s guarded by the Midnight Blade, and you won’t be with me—”
“Wait, what?” he cut in. “Of course I’ll be with you.”
“You can’t be, Dane. Even if one of the prisoners weren’t your father, someone will recognize you.”
“They’ll see I’m with you. They won’t give me away.”
“You will give you away. Seeing them and your father, how can you—”
“Let me worry about that. I’m not letting you go alone. Besides, if I didn’t go, the queen would be suspicious.”
That was true, but every cell in my body rebelled against the idea. The fear coalesced to something I could identify.
“Olivia’s too determined to kill me—you’ve seen what she can do,” I said. “All I’m doing is buying time. And if my father finds out what I’m doing, he’ll kill me himself. But they can’t kill you, Dane. They just can’t. You have to see it through. You have to finish what my mother started. Promise me.”
He hesitated before putting a hand to my cheek. This time I let him, even though the warmth of his skin only added to the burning terror in my heart. “I can’t promise that, Essie. I can’t, because if they’re going to kill you, they’ll have to kill me first.”
The terror bubbled into panic. “Then what good is any of this? What if we both die before accomplishing anything and your people can’t get through the defenses? We fail. My father wins, and nothing changes.”
“It’s simple. We won’t fail. If they kill us, we make sure it’s after we’ve done too much damage to reverse, and Kip will see it through. But I have no intention of letting that happen. So here’s what I’ll promise: I promise your father won’t win.”
He was so confident. Maybe confident enough for both of us. I lingered in his touch one more moment before turning away. “Tell me when Olivia sends word about the arrangements.”
“Are you going to get some rest?” Dane asked.
“No, I’m going to contact Theo’s family.”
I didn’t know whether it would help, getting a message from the princess-to-the-crown, telling them how sorry I was about his death. But it was all I could offer.
Life was so much easier back when I was selfish.
Before we left for the prison, I told Dimwit to move on the plan to bumble into Olivia’s wardrobe and spray down everything with thederol. It would be better if he made the attempt while I wasn’t around. Of course, if I didn’t come back from the prison, it wouldn’t matter if he got the thederol on Olivia’s things or not. In that case, I hoped Dimwit would be sharp enough to just wander away before someone decided to scrap him.
Father came to see us off, stating Olivia was otherwise occupied. Just as well. The two Midnight Blade guards who would be accompanying us made me uneasy enough.
“You do what you said, Snow,” Father said. “Face the enemy, show them you aren’t afraid, that they’ll never defeat us.”
“What about the Exiles’ body-hopping?” I asked. “Do I need to guard myself against it somehow, to keep them from turning me into their puppet?”
“We’ve already accounted for that. You have nothing to fear.”
I couldn’t imagine what that meant, and the words brought anything but relief. The only way to keep me from Transitioning was to make sure I didn’t touch anyone, but I knew that wouldn’t stop a full Candaran.
The journey to the prison was much shorter than the last, but felt longer. I didn’t bother asking the guards’ names. They didn’t look like types I wanted to get to know.
We traveled out of the city, across the border to the next province, and wound into a canyon cutting through the Ridgecrest Mountains. Deeper and deeper, dipping into a side canyon with barely enough space for the transport in some places. Finally we stopped in front of a building butting up against the rock face.
Building was an overstatement, though. It was hardly bigger than my shack on Thanda, nowhere near large enough for any kind of prison. Dane and I followed the other two men inside.
It wasn’t the prison. It was the guard station. The guards who’d brought us just nodded at those on duty. They knew to expect us. A tunnel had been cut into the mountain through a heavy door at the rear of the guard station.
It turned out my father’s love of the traditional—to the point of archaic—had gone too far.
He didn’t have a prison. He had a dungeon.
I’d never been in the actual mine on Thanda, but it had to feel very similar. Dark and cold and damp, moisture gathering on every
surface. A mingled stench of mold and filth set off an urge to gag—the Station back on Thanda was the royal rose garden by comparison. The only light came from flickering sconces spaced along the wall. Dane followed so close, I could hear a slight raggedness in his breath, but he stayed in control.
The first cell came on our right. No door. No barrier of any kind. Just a cave with a stone ledge covered in threadbare blankets, a corroded toilet, a stone basin with water trickling in continuously…and a woman with a heavy chain manacled to one leg.
At least, I was pretty sure it was a woman. She huddled on the ledge, wearing little more than rags, her long straggly hair obscuring her face.
“This is the most arrogant of them,” one of the guards said. “It can’t even be beaten out of her.”
His words made her look up. There was still life in her eyes as she glared at the guard, then an extra spark as she glanced at me. Before I could come up with a response to the guard’s declaration, the light flickered brighter, and I saw.
Scars across her throat.
They took her voice.
It didn’t make sense. She didn’t need her voice to Transition. Even for Dane, Transitioning took some effort, so in her physical state, I doubted this woman could muster the strength to do it anyway. Now I understood what my father meant. Olivia knew how to stay invulnerable to Tipping; she would’ve told her guards in the early years. Then the willful neglect had taken away any threat left in the Candarans. So what was the point of the mutilation?
Faint noises of moving chains in other cells triggered the answer. Without voices, the only way the prisoners could communicate or even know the others were still alive was to Transition to each other. And they were too weak.
They were alone.
Keep the face on, Essie. Keep up the act. Twitch out later.
I took the cold of the cave and put it into my voice, never taking my eyes off the woman. “Leave us. Perhaps I can get through to her.”
Maybe they thought I would beat her. Maybe my royal authority was enough for them. Whatever it was, the guards left. I waited until I heard the heavy door close at the head of the tunnel, but even then I didn’t drop the act, and I didn’t let Dane move. An image recorder was bolted into the rock face, taking in the entire cell. I’d expected that, though. I had one hand in my pocket and flipped a switch on a tiny signal emitter I’d stitched. It wouldn’t block the recorders, but it would interfere with any microphones. No one would hear as long as I kept my voice down.
