by R. C. Lewis
Just one, but his black-and-gray uniform loomed like a wall. Every guard so far had been Golden Sword, my father’s men. With my father dead, they might shift their loyalty to me. Some might be good men…some might be like Theo. But this man was Midnight Blade, loyal to Olivia to the death.
I didn’t slow down, running straight at him, hoping to take him by surprise.
No such luck.
He dodged me, grabbed hold, and spun around, throwing me back the way I’d come. I slammed into the ground, pain jolting through me, but forced myself to roll to my feet and face him.
The guard had a throwing dagger in one hand and too much space for me to stop him. Instead of running at him again, I twisted to one side as the knife flew past. I felt it split the air.
Then I watched it plunge into Dane as he ran up the corridor.
My heart stopped.
His momentum carried him forward, tumbling to the ground. Mine carried me back around to the guard.
The guard whose knife was buried in Dane’s gut.
He smiled.
Just like in the cage back on Thanda, instinct guided my body, rage fueling it. Only this time, I had everything Dane taught me. No wasted movement, every action living only in its own moment.
Pain sparked through me and I added it to the fire consuming my body. I attacked. When the guard blocked, I hit harder. When he dodged, I moved faster. My vision blurred, but that didn’t slow me down.
Soon a knife stuck out of the guard’s chest. My knife. I couldn’t remember how it had gotten there. It didn’t matter. I had to help Dane.
A siren blasted my ears, echoing off the smooth walls. Lockdown. If we got trapped in that chamber, it was over.
I turned, and my eyes found Dane’s. He was still with me. He looked right at me and took a breath.
“GO!”
And I did. I ran to the far side of the hub and slid into a new corridor before the security door slammed down.
I didn’t turn back until I heard Dane’s muffled cry.
The picture of the room seconds before flashed in my mind. He’d collapsed right on the threshold. If he hadn’t pulled himself all the way in before the door…
“Dane!” I screamed, pounding my fist against the steel.
A control panel blinked on the wall, and I ripped the cover off, jamming a link from it to my slate. My eyes scanned the encryption and security protocols, figuring how it was put together. Fifteen minutes. That was how long it would take me to stitch a patch to open the door despite the lockdown. ’Gig could’ve done it in ten.
We didn’t have fifteen minutes.
My mother’s voice vibrated in my bones. Windsong needs you to give them better than they have.
Echoes of Dane’s voice in my mind, yelling at me to go, shattered the ice I kept around my heart.
He might already be dead on the other side of the door. If he wasn’t, he would be soon.
The siren kept reminding me: No time, no time, no time.
I bit my knuckle until it bled, staring at the door as if I could go back and change the last few minutes.
I couldn’t. Every action lived in its own moment.
“I’m sorry, Dane. I’m so sorry.”
And I ran again.
THE COMMAND TERMINAL held more tech than I’d ever seen in one place in my life. When I thought about all the different things the massive computer system controlled, my hands snapped to my sides, afraid to touch anything. I’d never been afraid to touch a computer in my life.
Shut it, Essie, you’ll have to touch it to stitch it.
The blaring screech of the lockdown siren tempted me to find its controls and turn that off first, but everything else was too important. I unloaded several gadgets from my kit, all stitched during spare moments, none guaranteed to help. At the least, I’d have to do plenty of on-the-spot modification now that I knew what I was dealing with.
This was a lot bigger than cracking MineNet just to see if I could.
Step one was to crack a single layer of access so I could burrow my way in and get access to everything. A dummy lockpick program distracted the security systems while I opened up a panel to see if I could stitch my way around. First try hit a dead end, but the second weaseled through.
Display screens along the wall scrolled mountains of information. Too many systems, too many subroutines. Chaos. I hated chaos. I had to get my bearings, find order amidst the badly organized madness.
Everything had a category, whether it was marked or not. Water treatment—I cut my way in and looked at the code to see what it did. I found no routines for sanitization checks or purifying cycles or anything else water might actually need. Just for “targeted additives.” Another look confirmed it handled releasing the various poisons in different provinces, down to individual houses.
I shut it down completely.
Orbital defense grid. That got shut down, too, clearing a path for the Candaran fleet.
Next, broadcasting. I didn’t want to be delicate and selective. I wanted the broadcast frequencies open—all of them.
The communication system seemed to like its privacy, but I’d been dealing with the drones for years. They were more stubborn than this bloated computer would ever be. I got down underneath a console and ripped off another panel.
My hands shook. The right still bled where I’d bitten it.
Dane…
A plume of black hopelessness rose up in my core, flooding out to my trembling fingertips. Now I really understood the sound he’d made that day in the mountains in a way I couldn’t before. The day his world ended.
The same sound fought its way through my lungs.
I slammed my hand onto the marble floor, focusing on the sting. “Not. Now. Essie,” I muttered.
Solve the puzzle.
My first stitch nearly tripped a lockout, but I cut it off with a second. A third convinced the communication system I was the best friend it could ever have.
For the first time in years—my lifetime, at least—communication on Windsong was free and open. I doubted anyone knew it yet. That was about to change.
I got back to my feet and entered several commands on the console, locking in the frequency I’d memorized for the Candaran fleet and opening a channel on the off-planet network.
“This is Snow,” I said. “You lot had better be where you’re supposed to be.”
“Ready and waiting.” Kip’s voice. The black ache inside swelled again. “What’s the situation?”
I swallowed hard so I could get the words out. “Matthias is dead, the defense grid is down, and I’m about to make the broadcast. Start moving in.”
I cut off the transmission before he could ask about Dane.
A little more digging revealed a section for outland operations with two subsystems nested inside. The networks each side used to communicate and coordinate their forces. I double-checked which was for the so-called Exiles and killed it. Then I flagged several files, adding to my collection of evidence, skimming the contents as I did.
The operational overviews revealed how my father had kept the deception so secret. The “Exile” army was relatively tiny. Most of the attacks were automated, like the one on Saddlewood. Just enough troops to stage occasional man-to-man battles. Enough to convince the world. Few enough to be sure of their loyalty.
A lot of blood on those few hands.
Something else in those networks made my brain itch. I looked closer. All the “Exile” operations had Olivia’s clearance code tagged on, while the militia’s had Father’s. Every single one, no exceptions. The networks had been fully isolated from each other until I opened up the whole system. Had Father and Olivia worked as a team, keeping things separate for clarity, or had Olivia been behind the fake war all along, duping Father as much as everyone else?
Had I made a mistake?
Too much oxygen and not enough. Another panic attack. I couldn’t focus.
I thought of his expression when he talked about the Ex
iles and violence in the outlands. He’d lied to me too many times. I didn’t know what sincerity looked like on his face.
If he hadn’t known…if he’d thought the war was real…had he still deserved to die?
I thought of my bedroom, what Dane had kept from happening. What no one else had ever stopped. Was that enough reason for Father to be dead?
It was for me.
And Dane…
My knees half buckled before I caught myself on the console. The scream of the lockdown siren pushed me back up.
Not yet!
My job was almost finished. I took out my locket and retrieved the data-chip, loading it into a reader. All I had to do was add its files to those I’d just rounded up, compiling them all into one packet, and set up a broadcast for all available channels.
I got halfway through the first part when something slammed into my side, knocking me to the ground.
Instinct rolled me into a crouch, facing the attack, despite the pain radiating through my ribs.
Olivia. She’d slipped in the direct entrance through the royal quarters.
Too slow, Essie! I’d known she’d be on her way. Where else would she have gone?
“What have you done?” she demanded, advancing on me.
I didn’t bother with an answer. I was more concerned with the long rod in her hand. The police force in the Bands carried something similar to beat down kids who got in their way. The blazing siren drowned out the sound of her metal-encrusted boots on the hard floor.
She had the rage—that was clear on her face—but I knew she didn’t have training or practice. I could handle this.
I dodged her next swing, nearly flattening myself on the ground, then grabbed the weapon before she could change direction. I tried to yank it away, but she pressed something on her end of the rod.
The invisible cage in the VT fight on Garam was nothing but a gentle breeze compared to the pain that charged through me. Every muscle went rigid. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t see. I couldn’t even cry out.
Maybe this was death. So close, only to fail at the end.
But the pain stopped, leaving echoes twitching through me. Still a chance, but I’d have to be sharp.
“You stupid, selfish little girl,” Olivia said, the rod poised for another strike. “Your father should be here by now. Where is he?”
I pushed myself off the floor, telling my ribs and head to shut it when they screamed. “Dead.”
The look in her eyes brought a pulse of satisfaction, dulling the pain. “You lie.”
“No. I watched him bleed to death.”
Her shriek might have held words, but I didn’t waste energy deciphering them. I scooted away from her wild swings, dodging to avoid contact with the weapon.
Just a little space. Just enough room to move. Just enough to get to the console and enter the last few commands. But Olivia had always been driven, and now was no different. I kept from getting hit again but couldn’t even find enough time to stand.
Finally I had an opening. I slammed my foot into her knee. She cried out and stumbled back but didn’t fall. Still, it broke her rhythm, making her more wary.
She wasn’t used to pushing through pain.
I slipped my hand into my pocket, grasping the cylinder. I needed to move back, get just a few sniffs more space. A little stalling should give me time to do it.
“We both know you’re going to kill me,” I said. “Could you at least tell me why?”
“Because I’m tired of you getting in the way, wretched girl. You’re just like your mother, bringing nothing but weakness to your father.”
I was in the way because I was in line to the throne, but I saw something else beneath the surface, shining in her eyes. The reason she hated me.
She knew what he’d done. She blamed me for that weakness.
I almost threw the canister right then, but I was still too close. Before I could find a way to continue stalling, she did it for me.
“I won’t make the same mistakes he did. I’ll destroy all the Exiles as we should have years ago. You’ll be the first to go.”
So she knew that, too. “You mean the second. My mother was the first. Why didn’t you just tell my father what she was?”
“Because the fool loved her. He would have made her death too quick. You Exiles deserve to suffer.”
Exiles suffering…Dane…
I couldn’t afford the distraction. Not yet.
“Someone taught you that we deserve to suffer,” I said. “Who was it?”
The venom in her eyes could have turned a harri-harra in its tracks. “The Exile who killed my parents.”
An unexpected flicker of pity moved through me. I understood pain so deep it could steer the whole course of a life, change an identity.
But Theo and the soldiers at Saddlewood shouted the truth in my head. Father may have deserved to die, and whoever killed Olivia’s family, too. But they didn’t deserve it.
My mother didn’t.
Dane didn’t.
I didn’t.
Olivia came at me with the rod again, charged high enough I could see sparks crackling on its surface.
Please, Dimwit, if you’ve ever done anything right, let this be it.
I pulled the canister from my pocket, flicked the release valve with my thumb, and threw it at her.
The chemicals reacted instantly. Blue flames blossomed around her legs, concentrated on the metalwork of her boots, which began to glow with heat.
Her screams melded with the siren. I rolled out of her path, but the heat followed my right foot. My boot had caught fire where I’d kicked her, picking up some of the thederol. I yanked it off and threw it across the room. My foot still felt like fire, but the burn wasn’t bad.
Olivia tried removing her boots as well, but they were too thoroughly engulfed to touch. She hopped in a strange sort of dance, stumbling toward the console.
My breath caught. She couldn’t destroy the computer. I braced myself to knock her out of the way if I had to, but she tumbled the other way into a wall.
Then the flames were everywhere.
I wrapped my arms around my head, trying to block out the sound. Nothing could block the smell—the acrid, putrid stench of burning death. I retched.
By the time the fire control system recognized the unusual flame and released its extinguishing spray, it was too late. I tried not to look, but once I did, I couldn’t un-see it. I did that to her.
If my stomach hadn’t already emptied itself, it would have at that moment. Then I remembered the man at Saddlewood who’d been blown apart in front of me.
I didn’t know how to feel.
Instead of deciding, I hauled myself off the floor and hobbled to the console, my burned foot screaming every step. My hands couldn’t hold a tool steady enough for the sloppiest stitch, but it didn’t matter. The stitching was done. I tapped the last commands, and my recorded message was loaded into the communications network, moments away from going worldwide. System-wide.
The job was finished.
Dane…
My head ran the numbers automatically. The knife wound, the rate of blood loss, the time that had passed.
And that assumed he’d gotten clear of the security door.
I didn’t bother fighting the tears. There was no one left to hide them from. The siren silenced, and my own voice echoed through the room.
“I am Princess Snow, daughter of King Matthias. Many of you remember my mother, Queen Alaina. When I hear you speak of her, I know how loved she was by her people. But she had a secret. She was not one of you. She was Candaran—an Exile.”
I had to get into the security hub. Had to see for myself. But it was still locked.
“Although I was young when she died, I know she regretted the dishonesty. She did it because she believed she could make a difference for this world, for this solar system. Because she knew that my father, King Matthias, is an evil man.”
“Aye, he was,” I muttered,
loading command codes onto my slate.
“Included with this broadcast are files detailing the crimes of Matthias and Olivia. I encourage you to examine them closely, confirm that there’s been no tampering. Above all else, I am here to inform you that there is no war against the Exiles. The armies slaughtering the militia in the outlands are controlled by the crown. As I speak, the true forces of Candara are moving in to end the bloodshed. Do not fear them.”
Fear…every shambling step down the corridor toward the security hub amplified the fear shuddering through me. But I didn’t stop.
“They are not here to take power. They are here for me. My true name is Elurra. I am a daughter of both Windsong and Candara. And I am asserting my right to the throne, but only if the people of Windsong will have me.”
Right then I didn’t want the throne. I wanted to see the nightmare awaiting me and let the world end.
The message finished, leaving me in silence at the security door. I entered a code from the slate and braced myself, imagining the worst so I couldn’t be surprised.
Surprise gave way to confusion.
The guard I’d killed lay just where I’d left him. The door on the opposite side of the hub was already open, a large pool of blood crossing its threshold.
So much blood.
But no body. No Dane. Just some very strange tracks trailing away from the blood.
Tracks that looked suspiciously like those of a four-legged mining drone.
I FOLLOWED THE BLOOD TRAIL through the maze of corridors but quickly ran into a problem. The technicians flooded out of their labs and spotted me. I couldn’t run—not with one boot and a burned foot on top of what felt like badly bruised ribs and an overall aching body. But their approach didn’t seem violent. It seemed more…concerned.
“Princess, you have to get somewhere safe.”
What does safe have to do with anything? “Have any of you seen a robot, about this tall?”
“What? They’ll know you’re down here. Come on.”
