Qole didn’t move. “You’ve just stooped to the same level you accused him of being on—acting behind my back, trying to control me, harming one of my crew. Now for the last time, let him go. Or so help me, by our ancestors, you both will never set foot on this ship again.”
“Enough of this nonsense.” Eton threw me across both shoulders like an overlarge, lumpy scarf and walked straight up to Qole. “You simply aren’t old enough to understand what you’re dealing with here.” He put a hand on her arm and pushed her aside.
Or tried to. Qole stayed rooted in the spot, completely against the laws of physics, given her and Eton’s relative mass. She looked up at him, grabbed my legs, and hauled me off his shoulders and onto the ground next to her as though I were made of straw.
Eton shook his head and headed for me, only to have Qole dig her palm into his chest and shove him staggering backward several feet. He stared at her in disbelief, as Arjan grabbed her arm and twisted it down. “Qole, calm down.”
I could have told him that was the wrong way to go about it. She let him bring her arm down, then grabbed one of his pant legs and heaved up, sending him into a surprise somersault onto the floor. He lay there, gaping at her, as Eton moved in and attempted to simply pick her up. Maybe he thought he could carry both of us out on his shoulders.
She moved faster than he did, ducking out of his grasp and stepping aside, with fluidity befitting a level of training she didn’t have. He ignored her, diving for me, and that was when her eyes went completely black.
Her arm snaked out and she grabbed his shoulder, pulling him back. As Arjan came up behind her and attempted to put her into a hug, she punched Eton so hard he landed sprawling on the floor next to me. He groaned and didn’t get back up, which meant he was approaching what I felt like.
“Qole, listen to me—” Arjan began.
She didn’t. She whipped her arm up over her shoulder and smacked him in the face. He staggered backward, then fell into a sitting position.
She whirled around and knelt near him, grabbing his shirt and pulling him close. “No, brother, you listen to me. I may be young. I may not know what I’m doing. But those are not choices you get to make for me. Not now, not ever. I don’t make your choices, and you don’t make mine. Do you want off this ship? Then get off. I would never stop you. But do not pay lip service to me and my life one minute, and then decide I don’t have the right to take the risks you wouldn’t. Risks that, if not taken, would have us both working in the cannery in Gamut for scat to eat.”
She looked back at me, where I had finally staggered to my feet.
“Qole, it’s okay, I—” I started, but she cut me off.
“You, shut up.” I did. She turned back to Arjan. “I expect outsiders to try to control us. But you’re my brother, and you would make a slave out of me by taking away my choices.” She stood. “How could you?”
Arjan looked up at her, blood running from a cracked lip, and his eyes welled up with tears.
For once, I couldn’t think of anything to say.
“Now,” Qole said, her eyes blacker than ever. “What am I going to do with all of you?”
I should have felt satisfied at how easy it was to reach down and seize the collars of both Arjan’s and Eton’s jackets as if they were unruly children and not men who were twice the size of me—or three times the size, in Eton’s case.
Instead, under the cold anger that encrusted my emotions like the darkness coating my vision, I felt a tremor of fear, as if I were standing on the surface of a frozen lake that had just shuddered beneath my feet.
I couldn’t keep this up. Using Shadow this much would kill me faster than being outside without a coat in an Alaxak winter. I’d only gotten a few more hours of sleep since using it on the destroyer, and I’d nearly died then, I was almost sure of it. I wasn’t doing nearly as much this time, not reaching beyond what already dwelled inside my body, but I could still feel the toll it was already taking on me.
I was also nearly as sick from the betrayal. I had to do something with these two quickly, either before my strength ran out or before I used that strength to throw them out into space.
Out into space…That gave me an idea. Probably the same one they’d had for Nev.
Nev braced himself as if he thought I was about to grab him too, but he didn’t try to run. He looked too exhausted to move, and just stood there, shirtless and panting, over the bag they’d tried to put him in. But I only passed him in the hallway, dragging Eton and Arjan behind me as if they were now the sacks of garbage or laundry headed off the ship.
For once, Nev hadn’t done anything.
Arjan didn’t struggle, probably out of shame, and neither did Eton, probably because he was still dazed from the less-than-gentle tap I had given him. Actually, I’d tried to be gentle so I wouldn’t kill him. The blow had still gotten the message across, apparently.
Hefting them up two flights of stairs to the bridge was nearly as easy as dragging them down the hall, except for maneuverability. I didn’t take as much care as I could have to keep from bashing limbs or heads against the metal railings.
“Qole, where are you…You’re not crazy, are you?” It was Arjan, fear in his voice, but I didn’t care if he was afraid. In fact, so much the better.
“Not yet,” I said through gritted teeth. “Now shut up.”
Groaning, Eton reached up to try to grab my hand at his collar, but I shook him off as I crested the last set of stairs and hauled them onto the bridge. Halfway across the room, I hurled them the rest of the way. They landed and tumbled with a clatter over the metal grating of the floor…right onto the solid paneling of the airlock’s base.
I mashed the button, sealing them in with a whooshing hiss.
“Qole!” Arjan shouted, pressing his hands against the windows of the inner doors. His cry tore at me, but I ignored it. Even Eton mustered the strength to roll to his feet and pound once in frustration.
I pushed the button that silenced their end of the comm. But they could still hear me, for now.
“I never thought you would pull something like this,” I snarled. “I told you that you would both be off this ship if you didn’t listen.”
There was something heartbroken in both of their eyes at that moment. Arjan had the humility to look like he deserved everything I was doing to him, but Eton stared at me like I’d gutted him.
But I was the one they’d gutted.
My anger went out of me like Shadow from an open maglock. I sagged against the wall and blinked as my vision brightened. It was still dim on the bridge with the lights at their night setting, but less dim now. I also blinked tears from my eyes that I quickly wiped away with my forearm.
“I can’t believe either of you,” I said, growling through the quaver in my voice. “Consider this your holding cell. Until further notice, you are off the Kaitan, as soon as I can get you off. Make yourselves comfortable in there.”
I silenced my end of the comm too, and turned away from them.
…And I nearly jumped to find Nev leaning against the wall in the shadows behind me. It wasn’t a relaxed pose, more of a depleted one, but he still managed to slide out of it gracefully.
“Sorry, I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop,” he said, his voice low. “I just wanted to make sure…”
I glared at him with all the anger I could muster, which wasn’t much. “That I wasn’t going to kill them? Of course I wouldn’t. But if you’re going to try to tell me what I should or shouldn’t do too, there’s still room in there.” I tossed my head over my shoulder at the airlock.
Nev didn’t say anything, and I glanced behind me.
Arjan pivoted away from the windows so he didn’t have to meet my eyes, while Eton was trying to kill Nev with his stare alone, by the looks of it. I’d silenced all sound between us and them, but there was more than one way to communicate. I pushed another button and the clear glass panes tinted until they were too dark to see through.
I looked out the
sweeping viewport ringing my command station, at the strange, warped streaks of light like frozen reflections of stars on a rippling black ocean. I’d never been this far from home. The Kaitan had, no doubt, since it had made the journey to Alaxak in the first place, but it hadn’t gone much farther than the planet’s asteroid sea in decades. We’d left that boundary behind nearly as soon as Telu had programmed a course for Luvos and I’d engaged the dormant Belarius Drive however many hours ago.
“Needless to say, thank you for saving my life.” Nev’s voice moved, coming alongside me, perhaps so he could take in the view as well. “Airlock’s getting more use than it has probably had in a while. As sociable as you all are, I can’t imagine you dock much in space.”
Even his jibe was weary, but the corner of my mouth still twitched. His ability to dredge up a sense of humor at inappropriate times might have come from his carefree upbringing, but I somehow still appreciated it. Sometimes, I even wished I had the same ability.
“When it’s company like yours…” I trailed off as I noticed the blood dripping from his scraped elbow, the raised gouges crisscrossing his already bruised arms and chest—though the bruises were significantly lighter than they should have been, thanks to whatever he’d jammed into his neck on the destroyer—and the oozing cut from who-knew-what, maybe the zipper of Eton’s jacket, swiping down the length of his back. Even the gash on his brow from his first fight with Eton had reopened. “Nev.”
“Hm?”
“You’re a wreck.”
He glanced down at himself. “So I am.” Then he winced at even that movement and rubbed his throat.
“Here.” I was moving before I thought about what I was doing, on autopilot. I opened one of the many lockers set into the wall and pulled out the ship’s medi-kit, which was also getting a lot more use lately.
“You don’t have to—” Nev began.
“Sit,” I ordered.
He perched on a bench in only synthetic thermal bottoms, his feet bare on what had to be freezing metal grating, shirtless and bleeding, head hanging.
Maybe one of the bonuses of strong-arming half of my crew into an airlock was that the rest took me more seriously…if Nev could even begin to count as crew. Despite looking like anyone who’d had the scat beaten out of them several times in a row, he was a royal. Not only that, a blasted prince. And not only that, but in line to rule as heir to the entire Dracorte family empire.
“We don’t have anything too advanced here,” I said, suddenly self-conscious about the battered case I held. “I’m sure you’ll tell me that next time I should consider saving up for a proper medi-kit, but—”
He held up a hand and accidentally—or not—brushed my forearm with his fingers. He wasn’t looking up, or trying to move with much precision, almost like he was drunk. He must have really been tired. About as tired as me. “My apologies. I was being an ass.”
The words warmed my belly like a gulp of something hot to drink. I could also probably admit that I’d been an ass too, earlier. Everyone had been using Nev as a punching bag—the leather dummy in Gamut’s bar came to mind, which was actually supposed to be Nev’s father, the Dracorte king—but I didn’t have to, as well. Not everything was his fault.
But I couldn’t find the words to apologize like he had. I sat next to him, sifting through the contents of the kit.
“This is going to sting,” I said. “Here, turn.”
He shifted his back to me. “I’m not too worried.”
I hesitated before touching him, unsure, suddenly, if I was even allowed. Were there rules against touching princes? But since when had I cared what I was or wasn’t allowed to do?
He didn’t flinch or make a noise when I started in on the long cut down his back with a swab soaked in acidlike disinfectant. Still, I moved quickly, cleaning the wound as best as I could without causing him too much pain.
I stuck bandages over it afterward, then said, “Elbow.”
Without arguing, he gingerly rested his head against the wall, keeping his back off it, closed his eyes, and curled his arm up to give me the best angle at his elbow. I tried to ignore the fact that the arm was nicely muscled as I leaned forward to swab and bandage the bleeding scrape. Looking at the rest of him as little as possible—it felt too sneaky, somehow, with his eyes closed—I finished the job in silence.
But I didn’t feel like stopping there, and Nev didn’t move. I could almost think he was asleep, if I didn’t know firsthand how much this disinfectant burned. I set his arm down for him and began cleaning the reopened gash on his once-perfect brow—though, for all his injuries, his face still looked pretty damned near perfect.
He could have reached the gouges on his chest himself, but he’d likely mess up his elbow dressing in the process. Besides, his eyes were still closed. With only a brief hesitation, I doused another swab in disinfectant, leaned over him so that I hardly touched him, and dabbed at the worst of the wounds there.
When I risked a glance at his face again, his eyes were open. He watched me in a still way, almost holding his breath, as if he didn’t want to startle me. I went back to work, trying not to feel the weight of his silvery stare.
“Thank you,” he murmured, when I finished.
“That would be all I’d need, for you to come down with an infection.” It wasn’t exactly what I wanted to say, but it was the easiest thing. I still didn’t look up at him. With all the idiotic, whirling nervousness I’d had in my stomach since he’d touched me on the destroyer, what if Shadow appeared in my eyes? I’d been avoiding his gaze for half the previous day for that reason. I busied myself packing up the medi-kit.
“Well, then thanks for sparing yourself an inconvenience and letting me benefit as a pleasant side effect.” He was still resting against the wall in a posture that looked like every part of him must hurt.
I paused on a small bottle. It wouldn’t work as fast or as effectively as one of those injector tubes, but it would deaden the pain a bit. “Open your mouth,” I said, unscrewing the lid.
“Qole, I don’t want to deplete your entire kit—”
“Then buy me another one and open up.” By now, there was no point in denying he had a million times the resources I had. No point other than pride, but I was feeling less proud and more off-balance and tingly, at the moment.
He sighed. I thought he might accept the bottle from me as I raised it toward him, but he apparently took me literally and tilted his head back, lips parted. I smiled to see the incongruity of a prince and wielder of a Disruption Blade opening his mouth for medicine, waiting like a child. As I tipped the contents into his mouth, my breath caught when I tried to push down the laughter that rose inside me. I ended up sloshing a few drops on his face.
He choked and grabbed my hand in reflex. “That tastes terrible.”
“Sorry, my prince,” I said, with as much sarcasm as I could dredge up. I pulled my hand out of his without quite ripping it away and packed up the rest of the medi-kit.
He winced, but apparently not from pain. “I really can’t abide the sound of you calling me that, for some reason.” He relaxed, as much as he seemed to be able to, into the wall again. “Maybe I’m just tired,” he added, with a hint of a sardonic smile, “and I won’t mind hearing it after I get some sleep.”
My lips curled, in spite of themselves. What an arrogant brat. He was funny about it, but he was still an arrogant brat. Just moments before I’d been furious and filled with Shadow, and now here I was laughing with a systems-be-damned Dracorte. “Well, you won’t hear it again, so don’t get used to it.”
“I won’t. You are my captain, after all. Captain.”
“Don’t even pretend to—” I began with a scowl.
“I’m not.” He met my eyes in all seriousness. “I’m on your ship, and I’ve promised to follow your orders. I’ll respect you as my captain.”
The tingling increased to a full-body buzz. My blood sang, my heart pounded. Nev, a blasted prince, was acknowledging me as hi
s captain when my own crew barely could. And he meant it. Sometimes he said things just because they seemed like the right thing to say, but I could tell when he felt them.
I held his eyes finally, wanting to say something without quite knowing what, but then whatever last bit of energy I had drained out of me. I slumped against the wall next to him, my bare shoulder brushing his for a second before I tipped slightly away. “At least someone does.” I snorted. “You, of all people.”
“You shouldn’t snort. It’s a rather unbecoming noise,” he said, yawning. “…Captain.”
Unbecoming. I grew up on a frontier world of dust and ice. I didn’t even know what that word meant. To prove the point, I snorted again, but I couldn’t help the smile that kept tugging at my lips.
“Seriously, though,” he said. I thought he might be talking about snorting until he said, “I think Arjan and Eton are good people. They’ve got your back, and now that they’ve been reminded you’re in charge…you might want to give them a second chance. Although, don’t tell them I said that.” He glanced toward the airlock, where Eton and Arjan were still hidden from view. And here was the man they’d tried to kill, suggesting I go easy on them. Nevarian Dracorte, for all his faults—like being a Dracorte—was an oddly decent person. Or maybe I was just tired, thinking that. And I was, so, so tired. I closed my eyes and let the feeling wash over me.
“Tell me about them.”
“Hm?” I said, blinking at the sound of Nev’s voice next to me. I’d almost dozed off sitting up, and suddenly realized I was leaning into him, my whole side pressing into his more and more. I wasn’t sure if it was ruder to stay like that or pull away, but the warmth was comforting on the cold bridge, so I decided not to move, tingling all the more.
“Tell me about the crew. They’re my crew too, now, after all.”
“Well, you’ve met Eton and Arjan,” I said dryly. I plucked at a stray thread on the inner seam of my leather leggings. Somehow I’d once again found myself alone in his presence without wearing too much. At least this time he was equally, if not more, undressed. His synthetic thermal bottoms still made my leather pair look rough-cut and shabby. “What do you want to know?”
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