by R. C. Lewis
A couple of them took my arms and hurried me along, taking most of the weight from my injured foot. My brain couldn’t process fast enough.
“Who are you talking about?” I asked. “Who’ll know I’m here?”
“The king and queen. Your broadcast.”
I shook my head. “They’re both dead.”
The whole group of them paused. Then a man behind me gave a gentle shove. “It doesn’t matter. The Exiles have arrived and the Midnight Blade are resisting. Maybe the Golden Sword, too.”
“How do you know?”
“The networks are flooding with information now that the locks are off.”
But where’s Dane?
They didn’t know the answer to that, so I went with a different question. “Why are you helping me?”
The woman holding my left arm replied. “We suspected what your father used our poisons for, but those who tried speaking up…nothing good happened.”
“And we do remember your mother,” added the man behind me. “Queen Alaina was a good woman.”
“But she was an Exile. I’m half Exile.”
Someone in the group laughed. “Well, not doing a very good job possessing us, are you?”
They got me into the lift—no more unconscious guard inside—and things started to blur. Servants and technicians hurrying me to the private chamber behind the throne room. Watching the networks as word spread that the king and queen were dead. A member of the Golden Sword arriving and swearing his loyalty to me, guarding the room.
Waiting. Worrying. What happened to Dane?
After hours or days or only a lifetime of minutes, the door opened. I tried to stand, but my body refused.
Half the governing council of Candara entered, Stindu at the head. He wasn’t the one I wanted to see. “Where’s Kip?” I asked.
“Still seeing to the skirmishes in the outlands,” Stindu said. “The Midnight Blade have stood down, but more fighting of one kind or another could break out any time. You promised us a queen. Time to see if you can deliver.”
I couldn’t. I’d planned everything up to this moment, but never imagined I’d live long enough to see the other side.
Not alone, anyway.
The door opened again.
“Dimwit! Where’s Dane?”
“Dane Dimwit call Dimwit.”
The wrist transmitter. Dane had been wearing it. “Report, Dimwit. Tell me what happened.”
“Dimwit door open. Dimwit medical protocols. Doctors Dane doctors.”
Something inside me exploded, like a ball of light filling me up. “You got him to a hospital? He’s alive?”
A long beep. “Doctors critical critical critical! Dimwit Essie find Essie.”
The light dimmed but didn’t go out. Dane had been alive when Dimwit got to him, but I’d seen the blood. It might have been too late.
Or it might not.
The council erupted around me, demanding to know what had happened, waiting for me to translate Dimwit’s broken speech patterns.
I held up my hand. I had to know how bad it was. “Shut it! Dimwit, you said you opened the door. Was it completely closed?”
One beep. That was no.
“What blocked it?”
“Legs…Dane legs.”
Claiming the throne should have meant I could do what I wanted, but another lifetime passed before I left the palace and went to the hospital with a pair of Golden Sword guards. Madness ruled the hallways, doctors and medics rushing to treat casualties—some royal guards, some Candarans, and some citizens caught in the middle.
The hospital staff had better things to do than attend to royalty, so I was glad I’d wrapped my hair under a scarf and told the guards to act like we were just there to check on injured friends. It helped that I was there to do exactly that. Dimwit tapped into the computer system to find Dane’s room, leaving the doctors to do their healing.
The guards remained stationed in the hall when Dimwit and I went in. I stood just inside the door, motionless except for one hand pulling the scarf off my head. Dane lay on the bed, one arm dangling over the edge. The drone went straight to the medical readouts, but they were beyond me, so I stared at Dane’s chest until I saw it move at least twice. He was alive, but so pale. “Major blood loss and trauma.” That had been the doctors’ reply to the palace’s inquiry. “Recovery uncertain. Will continue to monitor.”
The sheets were drawn up to cover him, but the shape underneath was unmistakable: one leg intact, the other ending at the knee.
The bed angled to prop him up a little. His arm dangling over the edge like that irked me. Like no one cared that he had precious little blood to spare and could hardly afford to have any of it pooling in his hand. That finally moved me across the room. I took his hand to rest it more comfortably at his side, but once I held it, I found myself not letting go.
I couldn’t let go.
I studied his face as I had never dared when he was awake, as I hadn’t since pulling him unconscious from his shuttle. The planes and angles, the lines of his jaw and nose that made him look vaguely like his uncle. The curve of his lips, usually so serious, but waiting for a reason to smile.
He was still beautiful.
I was still terrified.
The things that terrified me now were much more complicated and confusing.
His lips continued to draw my eye. I hardly remembered what it had been like when he’d kissed me. Too fast, too sudden, and I’d been too half-asleep. But the reason I hadn’t broken his nose was obvious. He was the first person I’d ever wanted to kiss.
Maybe it was unhinged. Maybe it was even wrong. But I didn’t know whether he’d make it through another hour, and I couldn’t risk losing my last chance.
I drew one leg up to half kneel on the edge of his bed, gently resting his hand on his chest. My heart thundered, which only made me wish I could lend some of its strength to him. With the slightest hesitation, my fingers skimmed over those perfect lines of his face—through the brown curls that tickled the edge of his ear, down along his jaw, and over his chin before brushing lightly across his lips.
I leaned forward, my hair falling over my shoulder, so close I discovered he had seven tiny freckles sprinkled across his nose. Then closer, and I closed my eyes, pressing my lips to his. They were warm, still with life in them.
His lips touching mine, touching me, and I wasn’t lashing out or running away. I’d spent my life always doing one of the two, but not anymore. Not when it came to him.
I pulled away enough to whisper, “Don’t you dare die. Not when I’m finally ready.”
Then I kissed him again just to hold the tears back. He couldn’t die. I couldn’t lose him.
He shifted beneath me.
Before I could back away, his fingers curled around the back of my neck, holding me in place.
I let them. I’d never let anyone so close before. But I never wanted Dane any farther away from me again.
Then it was a real kiss, his lips moving to find where they fit with mine, exploring and searching. I swore I could read his mind without Transitioning, could feel how he’d ached for this, how long he’d been waiting.
Or maybe that was me.
My fingers wound through his hair, memorizing the gentle curls. His other hand found my waist and pulled me to him, pressing against my bruised ribs, and I winced.
Dane stopped, but kept me close. “You’re hurt.”
I looked at him like he was unhinged, because he was. “Nowhere near as badly as you are.”
His fingers lightly ran up my side, adding pressure until the tingle that stole my breath gave way to another sharp twinge through my rib cage. “That’s bad enough.”
“I’m fine. Are you in pain? I shouldn’t—I’m sorry—”
He silenced me with another brief kiss, sending sparks of electricity down my spine—the kind that definitely didn’t hurt—his fingers tangling in my hair. “I feel all right, Essie. I think it has something to do with tha
t thing.”
I followed his nod to the device strapped to his upper arm. A med-infuser. Lots of painkillers, probably, and something to prevent infection, especially for his leg.
“Your leg. Dane…”
“It’s better than being dead. You can stitch me up a replacement as good as the original, I bet.”
That wasn’t funny. But I was surprised he knew what I was talking about. “You know what happened?”
“I first woke up a while ago. The doctor explained everything to me. I’m lucky they saved the one.”
“No one told me you woke up. It took hours to get them to tell me anything! I didn’t know if…I thought you might…”
“Are you saying you wouldn’t have kissed me if you knew I’d live?”
“No, just…I was scared.”
He gently pulled me down to lie next to him, my head tucked against his shoulder. So close. So unfamiliar. It set my skin buzzing.
Moving away wasn’t an option.
“I was scared, too,” Dane said. “The doctor couldn’t answer all my questions. The prisoners?”
“The council rescued them. They’re in a hospital closer to the prison.”
“Good. But something’s still bothering you. What’s wrong?”
A lot of things were bothering me, but when I came to the hospital, it was with one particular question ricocheting in my head. “When you told me to go, to run, did you Tip me? I don’t know how to keep you from Transitioning to me.”
“Why do you want to know?”
“Because if you did, I hate you for it. If you didn’t, I hate myself for not even hesitating.”
“Then I did. Can’t have you hating yourself.”
“Don’t. Tell me the truth.”
“Dane truth Dane,” Dimwit added.
Dane sighed and immediately winced, the chirp of the medical monitors speeding up. The stab wound. He was in more pain than he’d let on.
“Essie, I told you I would never do that. Not without your permission. But don’t hate yourself for it. It was what I wanted you to do. And it worked, right? We won.”
Won…Was that what we’d done? My mind filled with images—my father bleeding to death, the guard with my knife in his chest, Olivia’s body consumed by flames, the council demanding I make decisions, take action, act like the queen I’d promised I’d be.
“I’m scared I’m going to botch this, Dane,” I said softly. “The plan was to die fighting and make sure someone who knew how to be a leader stepped in. Someone like you, or Kip. I don’t know how to be a queen. Not really. Blazes, we both know what a miserable act the whole princess thing has been.”
“What if I could do it with you?”
“How?”
“Every queen has her king.”
I twisted around to raise an eyebrow at him. “Oh, I see. You want the Windsong throne instead of Candara’s?”
He smiled, so he knew I was teasing. “That’s not really it.”
“You need to work on your timing. Suggesting I marry you when I’ve only just gotten used to the idea of kissing you, it’s completely—”
He silenced me again with another kiss, one my body relaxed into. I was definitely getting used to it.
His next words weren’t teasing at all. “Essie, I don’t want you to be alone and scared anymore. That’s all. Royal engagements are always long. If you decide you don’t need me or my help anymore, you can change your mind.”
“Well, that’s not likely, is it? I’m a right stubborn mine-rat.”
“Essie stubborn Essie.”
“See, even Dimwit knows it,” I added.
“I think that drone’s a bit sharper than you realize,” Dane said. “He could make a good nanny someday.”
A strange sort of tingle fluttered through me. “First kissing, then an engagement, and now you’re talking about kids already? Are all Candarans in such a blazing hurry?”
He closed one hand on mine. I hadn’t realized I’d laid it on his chest. “No, it’s probably just me.”
“You’ll be here to help me either way, won’t you?”
“Definitely.”
Something twisted inside. “What about Candara?”
“That’s the beauty of it. Like you said, you’re a daughter of both worlds. I’m Candaran, but Windsong is my home. Maybe we can finally bring our people back together somehow. Garamites and Thandans, too. This is where we all started.” He fell silent, but something in his hold told me he had more to say. “There’s a problem, though,” he finally said.
“Only one? I can think of at least ten.”
“If we go ahead with it…if you say yes…how do we tell our children that we fell in love after I kidnapped you?”
I thought back to waking up on the shuttle, how angry I’d been, how much I’d wanted to kill Dane when I understood his plans.
It felt like three lifetimes ago.
I slipped my hand away from his so I could touch his cheek, familiarizing myself with the feel of his skin, the slight hint of stubble after what had been a very long day. “If they ask, we’ll tell them we met when I saved your life, and then you saved mine.”
“What, with the sinkhole? I told you, that was Dimwit, not me.”
“Dimwit Essie save Essie.”
I laughed—the first laugh in years I’d really felt. “Fine, Dimwit, you can have credit for that one. But my life on Thanda wasn’t a life. It was trying to disappear, to exist without existing. You saved me from that, Dane.”
“Let’s agree on something, then. Your job will be to do what your mother wanted. To give the people better than they’ve had. And my job will be to make sure you still have time to stitch and weave like you really want to.”
That sounded nice. Terrifying, but nice. Maybe we could do it, at least for a few years. Until we undid some of the damage my father’s family had inflicted on this system. And maybe as the worlds healed, the people would rig a better way, one that didn’t need me to be their queen. I could tinker and fuss with drones and computers, and we could do it in a place that wasn’t freezing every single day.
No hiding. No running. That could be a life worth living.
“Dane Essie kiss Essie.”
No idea where he’d learned that word.
It was a good idea, though.
I STARED AT THE WALL-SCREEN. Newsfeeds from all four planets scrolled in divided sections. More data than one person could absorb, but I tried anyway. When the words started to blur, I tapped some commands on my slate, and the display changed. Much cleaner, less hitting me at once, but the information it held still jammed my headache-throttle to full.
The vote had passed overwhelmingly in all the provinces, accepting me as queen of Windsong. The population wanted confirmation that the governors hadn’t been complicit in the war before deciding whether they could keep their posts. I agreed, so we were still sorting through files. Until that was settled, all the provinces reported directly to the Royal City.
Thanda was largely behind me as well, thanks to Petey. He had pull on MineNet. I wanted them to have more autonomy, but they needed help to improve living conditions. The Station chiefs—the closest each settlement had to a leader—formed a coalition to work out details.
Garam was another matter. Much more complicated, with many more opinions on how things should be run. Brand served as liaison on that front, keeping me updated.
Then the biggest source of my headaches. A variety of petitions came in from all sides daily, problems for me to fix, puzzles for me to solve. Too many for one person.
Someone entered the office through the door at my back as I switched to another feed. I didn’t bother turning. The barely audible click every other step told me who it was long before he wrapped his arms around my waist. I held them there, just in case he thought of letting go.
A sparkle caught my eye. The sight of Dane’s mother’s ring on my finger still startled me after days and days of wearing it. I pushed the surprise away with the memory of
how happy Dane had been when I said yes. How happy I’d been, and still was, especially in moments like this, when we were alone and some of the pressure of being queen drifted away.
“How’s the pain?” I asked.
“What pain?”
Every day, I asked; every day, he denied feeling any. It was the only lie I let him get away with. Not like the weight he felt from the blood on his hands. He didn’t get to keep that from me. Just like I didn’t from him.
But if the pain ever got worse, I’d call him on it.
“I should adjust that actuator on your leg. It might help.”
“If you want. Are these the committee logs?”
I sighed and nodded. “I’m not sure they’ll ever settle this. How can we make sure Candarans don’t abuse their—our—abilities without starting at the assumption that Transitioning is evil? How can anyone trust me to be fair about it?”
The warmth of his breath tickled as he whispered in my ear. “Essie. They do. And why shouldn’t they trust Elurra, the Supreme Crown?”
“Dane,” I admonished him. “Don’t call me that. No titles, not between us.”
His lips nuzzled along my neck. “My Elurra, my Essie, my brave and clever queen. I’ll call you anything you want.”
“If I’m brave, it’s because I have a good partner. Fifty-one days without system-wide war, but I’m scared it won’t last.”
“Brave is being scared and doing what needs to be done anyway. Like your mother taught you.”
I glanced at the painting above the desk, one of the few things from my childhood I’d kept in the palace when I took the throne. It was of me and Mother—her gaze steady, cradling infant-me in her arms. Calm, but strong. I still wasn’t sure how much of her I had in me, but I was learning.
“My bravery cost you a leg,” I said. “I hate that.”
“Shh. I’m alive and I have you. My leg was a fair price.”
Before I could protest more, he turned me around, drew me close, and kissed me. The palace disappeared, and with it all my worries. No more queen of Windsong and prince of Candara. Just Dane and Essie, the only perfect fit I’d ever found in my life.
He pulled back, keeping me firmly in his arms and pressing his lips to my forehead. “You’re doing a good job.”
