Tarnished Are the Stars

by Rosiee Thor

“I’ve got it,” Eliza panted, holding up the vial in her hand, careful to obscure its contents with her fingers.

  Anna scrambled toward her, eyes wild and desperate, but Eliza brandished her knife. “Don’t.”

  Anna took a step back, gaze jumping from Eliza’s eyes to the single eye on the hilt of Eliza’s dagger.

  “Come, Eliza. It’s time for us to return to the Tower.” The Queen extended her hand.

  Eliza pocketed the vial and reached tentatively, the Queen’s voice drawing her in. She wanted to be the Queen’s Eyes again; she wanted to be the best.

  “Eliza?” Anna’s voice shook, a quiet tendril catching her by the heart.

  Eliza couldn’t afford to look back at her. The eyes, as the Queen always said, were the window to the soul, and Eliza knew if she looked into Anna’s, she would crumble.

  “Come with me, and all will be well.”

  But not all would be well. The Queen did not forgive; the Queen did not forget. Eliza could bear whatever punishment the Queen gave her if it meant Anna could live. Anna deserved better than a girl who would always disappoint her. Anna deserved the world she wanted—a world free of heart disease and prejudice, a world where she didn’t have to run, where she could stand tall and proud of who she was.

  But the Queen wouldn’t give it to her.

  If only Eliza could see into the Queen’s soul, she could truly know if she’d made the right choice. If she looked into the Queen’s face and saw light and hope, she would know to go with her, and if all that looked back was a monster—well, Eliza could be a monster, too.

  The Queen’s fingers were inches away. It would only take a moment before Eliza was back within her grasp, forever bound.

  Eliza reached, hand closing around the lace veil. The Queen took a sharp intake of breath, and Eliza pulled.

  Beneath her veil, the Queen was both older in the eyes and younger in the face than Eliza had expected. Her hair was the same peppered gray as the Commissioner’s, curly and cropped below her ears. She wore no cosmetics, and though the lords and ladies of her court would have all carried loud opinions about her appearance if they’d seen her, Eliza knew it did not matter. She would always find the Queen beautiful beyond comparison.

  Because the Queen had been her teacher, her mother, her world.

  Eliza held the Queen’s gaze. She needed to know who the Queen was at her core, if she was worth fighting or worth fighting for. But the eyes told her nothing at all, no story lay in her dark gray irises, no central truth to guide Eliza. She saw no strength; she saw no weakness. She saw nothing at all.

  We are made or unmade by our choices.

  She would make the Queen choose and see who she made herself to be.

  “Give that back!” The Queen snatched for the veil, but Eliza was too quick, holding it out of reach.

  “No,” Eliza growled.

  “Eliza, this is highly unlike you!”

  “You don’t know what’s like me—you don’t know me. You only know the version of me you wanted, the version of me that suits you.” Eliza couldn’t seem to stop, though she knew she’d gone too far. “You want me to go back with you, it’ll be the real me, the whole me.”

  “This is ridiculous.” The Queen shook her head. “I will not tolerate this kind of behavior. I’ll decide what to do with you later. Now give me the vial.”

  “You want the vial? I stay behind.” She had no plan, no scheme. She only wanted to know which the Queen would choose—her legacy, or Eliza. “You want me, you leave it with Anna.”

  “You do not give me orders! I am your Queen! I trained you, I taught you! Who do you think you are, to disobey me?” the Queen snarled, raising her still bloodied dagger.

  Eliza leveled her own, ready. This was no training exercise in the Queen’s office; this was life and death, right and wrong, truth and lies.

  “You are nothing without me—you are me. Eliza—little Elizabeth. You are only what I’ve made you!”

  “We are made or unmade by our choices,” Eliza said, spinning the Queen’s own words. “And I have chosen. From now on, I make myself.”

  Eliza didn’t wait for the Queen to strike, dropping the veil and lunging forward with her blade.

  The Queen blocked her attack, eyes darting from Eliza’s blade to her eyes.

  Eliza ducked just in time, the Queen’s dagger searing through the space where her face had been.

  “Choose,” Eliza said. “Me or the vial.”

  “I do not choose!” the Queen screamed as she brought her knife down, eyes wide and wild.

  Eliza dodged again, evading her blows with more ease than was natural. Was the Queen doing it on purpose to lull her into a false sense of security? Two could play at that game.

  Eliza sliced forward with her dagger, staring pointedly at the Queen’s shoulder. She let her grip falter, hesitated a step. It worked. The Queen caught her wrist in a tight hold, bending her arm backward in a painful twist. Her gaze narrowed on Eliza’s center, and her blade found Eliza’s chest.

  A hot searing burn pierced through flesh and muscle. Eliza stumbled back, looking down at the silver hilt protruding from purple velvet. She inhaled, and sharp pain erupted across her chest.

  The Queen had drawn first blood, but the fight wasn’t over. She’d disarmed the Queen, and that was worth all the pain in the world.

  “Still, so sloppy with your tells. You’ve learned nothing,” the Queen spat.

  “Don’t forget yours.” Eliza suppressed a grin. I didn’t matter if Eliza hadn’t improved. Where Eliza was weak, the Queen was weaker. Without her veil, the Queen’s eyes told Eliza all she needed to know, every move she intended to make.

  The Queen’s jaw dropped. “How dare you!”

  Eliza didn’t have time for the Queen’s pride. The Queen stretched out to reclaim the dagger in Eliza’s chest. Eliza ducked under the Queen’s arm and came up with her own under her chin, pinning the Queen against the wall.

  “You are my Eyes—my Eyes,” the Queen croaked.

  “You have no eyes,” Eliza replied, and she plunged the knife deep into skin and bone, carving out whatever was left of the Queen’s soul.

  The world froze while Nathaniel’s father fell. His face was slack, his eyes wide, a crimson streak across his throat. It seemed to take years for Nathaniel to reach him, knees crashing into the hard ground beside him.

  “Father!” Nathaniel reached for his head, cushioning it against the floor. “Father, say something. Can you hear me?”

  Nathaniel’s father didn’t move.

  In the distance, Nathaniel could hear yelling—was it Anna? He didn’t care. His father lay bleeding, and though he’d made Nathaniel bleed and bruise on occasion, this was different.

  His father was many things to many people—an adversary to Eliza, a nuisance to the Queen, a tormentor to Anna. He’d ruined lives; he’d saved Nathaniel’s. He’d been a role model to Nathaniel, and at the same time, he’d been an abuser. He was father, and he was foe; Nathaniel wasn’t ready to accept that was all his father could be.

  There was so much blood. Nathaniel scrambled to stop the wound, but his fingers slipped across skin until his hands were stained red. His father had not blinked in minutes, and as Nathaniel dropped his gaze to his father’s chest, he saw it did not rise or fall. The wound was too deep, the damage too much.

  If his father died, Nathaniel would never have the chance to confront him about the things that truly mattered, or the chance to change his mind. He wasn’t ready for his father to die.

  But death didn’t care if Nathaniel was ready. Death had come, and it wore a veil.

  Nathaniel would make the Queen pay for what she’d taken, but as he turned, his breath left his body. When he’d rushed to his father’s side, he’d left Anna and Eliza to face the Queen.

  Now the Queen had no face.

  “Wh-what did you do?” he breathed, rising up on his knees.

  Anna blinked at him and then turned to Eliza, as if to echo the
question.

  Eliza stared down at the corpse at her feet. Blood pooled around the Queen’s body, rapidly spreading out beneath her. She looked as though she’d met a thousand blades, but Eliza held only one.

  Nathaniel tasted bile in his mouth. There was so much blood—so much death. He held tighter to his father’s body.

  Eliza stared down at her hand, her arm and chest covered in blood splatter, a silver knife protruding from her chest. “I didn’t want her to hurt you,” Eliza whispered, her eyes wide, her breaths shallow, and then she, too, fell to the floor.

  Anna rushed to her side. “Eliza!”

  “The vaccine,” Eliza croaked, pointing to Anna’s pocket, a smile playing on her lips before her eyes fluttered shut.

  Anna bent over Eliza’s body, examining the knife embedded in her chest. “Not good,” she muttered.

  “Is she all right?” Nathaniel asked.

  “She’s been stabbed. Of course she’s not all right!”

  Nathaniel looked down at the body beside him, still and lifeless. There was nothing he could do for his father—nothing except be the kind of man he’d always wanted him to be, the kind of heir to carry on his legacy. But the Fremont legacy was as much his father’s as Nathaniel’s to shape.

  Nathaniel let go of his father’s body and stood on shaking legs. “What can I do?” he asked, crossing the room to assist Anna.

  “Nothing,” Anna snapped, sitting back on her heels. “Get my satchel—no, there’s nothing useful in there.” She shook her head, hands shaking. “I can’t visualize the injury like this. I can’t see what the knife’s hit—we could be dealing with a severed artery, or a punctured heart. I need my grandfather’s tools, but Mechan is too far and I—”

  “What if I can get you something better?”

  Anna fixed him with a humorless stare, as though she might add him to the list of the dead if he didn’t follow through.

  “Your grandfather—I can fetch him. He’s a doctor, right? He can help.”

  Anna stared at him for a long moment. “What are you waiting for? Go!”

  Nathaniel didn’t need telling twice. He took off, sprinting from the office and back toward the officers’ bunker. He didn’t have time to let his thoughts linger on the father he’d lost, or the father he’d never truly had. The Commissioner was dead, but Eliza could still be saved.

  When he arrived back at the holding cell, Thatcher sat against the wall, eyes closed. “Mr. Thatcher!” Nathaniel cried, forgetting the man had waived the honorific. “Please wake up. I need your help.”

  “Don’t wake an old man from his nap—hasn’t anyone taught you manners?” Thatcher blinked rapidly, squinting at him through the bars. “Stars! What happened to you?”

  Nathaniel looked down. His father’s blood covered his arms and knees, a stain to carry with him forever, his father’s weight added to Roman’s across his shoulders. “Never mind this.” He gestured to his appearance. “Anna needs your help.”

  Thatcher sat straighter. “Is that her blood? Is Anna—”

  “No, she’s fine. This is my— The Commissioner’s.”

  Thatcher eyed him, a long, searching stare. “So you stopped him.”

  Nathaniel didn’t know if he could truly take credit for the Commissioner’s downfall—didn’t know if he wanted to. Now wasn’t the time to argue semantics, though, so he nodded.

  “Then you did what you set out to do. You should be proud. You saved many lives today.”

  “There’s one more life that needs saving, if you’ll help. Anna’s doing her best, but she needs you.”

  “She doesn’t need me.” Thatcher frowned but gestured for Nathaniel to help him. “Take me to her—and try not to drop me.”

  Nathaniel carefully eased the man into his arms, but compared to the lives Nathaniel was used to carrying, Thatcher’s body weighed nothing at all.

  When they returned to the Commissioner’s office, Thatcher took charge of the scene.

  “We’ll need good light—move her here onto the desk.”

  Nathaniel positioned himself at Eliza’s head, helping Anna move her from the floor.

  “Careful not to jostle her. Keep her level so the knife doesn’t move.”

  Nathaniel reached for the hilt—sleek steel with a vine-patterned pommel. To think such a small blade had taken down a giant like his father.

  “Don’t touch it!” Anna pushed him out of the way. “We can’t remove the knife until we know what it hit.”

  Nathaniel stepped back as Anna and Thatcher carefully cut away Eliza’s dress, exposing the wound. They volleyed words Nathaniel didn’t understand, falling into an easy rhythm as Anna moved around the office, fetching tools from the Commissioner’s shelves, Thatcher barking orders.

  Eliza lay in an ambiguous state of consciousness, her lashes fluttering, her limbs twitching. He’d never seen her so vulnerable and exposed. She’d always been the one in control; now her life lay in their hands.

  Looking down at his own, Nathaniel saw his father’s blood dried and flaking from his skin. He’d been powerless to save his father, and now again he could do nothing to help Eliza. If she died, he would have done nothing to stop it, and if she lived—well, she’d be furious he let Anna and Thatcher ruin her dress.

  Nathaniel backed out of the room. Anna and Thatcher would not miss him, and he couldn’t stand just watching while they worked—not with two dead bodies on the floor. He needed to wash the blood from his hands.

  Back in his bedroom, Nathaniel drew himself a bath, but as he removed his bloodstained clothes, something heavy dropped from his pocket. The holocom. It was still recording.

  It seemed like ages ago he’d snuck it into his pocket, hoping to record his father’s confession. It had worked, in a sense, but the confessions he’d caught hadn’t been so much incriminating as enlightening. His father hadn’t murdered Nathaniel’s mother, and he hadn’t poisoned Anna’s village. Instead, he’d admitted to a deep, painful love for Isla Fremont—risking everything to ensure she got credit for the vaccine. Nathaniel couldn’t fault him for that.

  And the Queen—Nathaniel had once thought kindly of his grandmother. She’d stood up for him in his father’s council meeting, and though she always seemed intimidating, he’d never thought her cruel.

  It didn’t matter. They were both dead.

  Nathaniel climbed into the bathtub, letting warm water wash over his tired body. He scrubbed and scraped the blood away, rinsing the remains of their deaths down the drain. Then he picked up the holocom and deleted the recording. It was a tactic worthy of his father—showing the council how much worse his father had been in the hopes of making himself look better. He wanted to be Commissioner, but he didn’t want it like that. He wanted to earn it on his own.

  Anna had forgotten how it felt to cut into skin. She’d swung her fists more than a few times in the last day, but pressing the blade of a scalpel against flesh was different.

  Flesh was fragile.

  But Eliza wasn’t. She was strong and solid beneath Anna’s fingers, life beating through her like a drum. It would take more than a blade to bring her down, more than a queen. Still, Anna’s heart thundered a nervous rhythm.

  Together, she and Thatcher prepared the makeshift operating table, gathering the tools they had, hoping they wouldn’t need the ones they didn’t. As they worked, sterilizing blades, preparing gauze, he talked through the steps of the operation. This was how it always worked; Thatcher explained, and then Thatcher cut.

  But Anna didn’t want him to.

  Eliza was more than some villager from Mechan being fitted for a TICCER. Eliza meant something to Anna, even if she couldn’t articulate what.

  Responsibility had finally caught up with her, or maybe she’d slowed down to meet it. Either way, Anna wouldn’t let someone else take the blame for what she’d done or what she’d yet to do. All the years she’d spent running from her guilt over Roman’s surgery were years she spent running from Roman himself. She woul
dn’t let herself do the same to Eliza.

  Eliza had stood between Anna and death. She’d fought the Queen for her; she’d killed the Queen for her. She’d chosen Anna.

  And now Anna would choose her back. Eliza was hers to save, even if she wasn’t hers in any other way.

  “Let me.” The words were barely a whisper, but in the quiet, they sounded like a shout.

  Thatcher eyed her with overcast eyes. “Are you certain, Deirdre-Anne?”

  “It’s Anna,” she said.

  “Anna.” Thatcher nodded and handed her the scalpel.

  She pressed the blade to Eliza’s skin and made the first cut.

  When the surgery was over, they moved Eliza back to her room to recover, but Anna couldn’t bring herself to visit. She’d walked past Eliza’s door a dozen times but couldn’t go inside. Eliza would wake soon, confused and in pain. Anna wasn’t ready to face her. Too many things were changing at once, and when she confronted her feelings for Eliza, one way or another, their relationship would change, too.

  Thatcher returned to Mechan to add the vaccine to their well as soon as Nathaniel recovered his wheelchair. Tarnish had already done its damage, and it wouldn’t save most of the citizens of Mechan. Still, lives would change.

  If the serum worked, Ruby might very well get her wish: Thatcher would never see her child on his operating table. At least not for a TICCER. It would never make up for Roman—nothing ever could. That place in their hearts, in their home, would be forever empty. But in this one small way, Anna had succeeded.

  “Ah, there you are!” Eliza said, leaning against her doorframe. “When you didn’t come to see me, I thought maybe— But you’re all right.”

  Anna stepped back. When had Eliza opened her door?

  Eliza had changed into a lavender silk robe, and her hair was back under control—though Anna noted she hadn’t put it back into its carefully curled style, letting it fall loose across her shoulders. She looked somehow small without some type of hat perched on her head.

  “I’m fine, I was just—” Anna let her words fall flat. She’d been doing nothing at all, for once in her life. “How are you feeling?”