CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
I wake in my own bed, connected to machines, with a nurse sitting beside me. It’s a novel experience. I’ve had colds and fevers and various other minor illnesses in my lifetime, but I have never been in an infirmary bed of any sort, and it seems especially absurd that they’ve made me one in my own suite when I feel completely and absolutely normal.
Of course, the palace doctors don’t know that, and I suppose some overreaction is inevitable when royal princesses are thrown to the floor like dolls.
The blueflower jewel obviously did its job a long time ago, healed the cut on my arm and throat and whatever happened to my bones when the guard threw me down, but my brain may be a different matter. My head was badly rattled. Maybe I needed to black out before the flower could get to the wounds inside.
“Welcome back, Princess,” says the nurse. “I’ll fetch you some water and summon the doctor.”
She trots off before I can thank her. I check my watch and see that it’s past one o’clock, so I’ve been unconscious for a good few hours. Long enough to acquire a display on the table by my bedroom window. Flowers. A card from Rama that has the words I know you’re not really hurt, so don’t expect any sympathy from me looped across the front. A cake shaped like a dagger from the Hundred and One. I push myself up onto my elbows to see more clearly. And there, in the middle, a little robin made of feathers and twine, with bright curious eyes, its wings slightly open as if poised to fly.
I jerk my eyes away as the doctor enters my chamber. “Good evening, Princess,” she says, glancing at the nearest machine to check my heart rate. “Or perhaps I should say morning. You look well. How much pain are you in?”
I’m about to tell her none at all, then remember that such a recovery isn’t normal, and so I fib. “I feel bruised.”
“That will pass. You don’t have any fractures. Your brain scan also shows no swelling or injury. You may ache for a few days, but I’ll leave you some pain medication for that. I think we can clear our machines out of your suite and let you get on with your life.” She smiles. “You’ve been very lucky.”
I thank her. “I can’t believe I’ve been out of it for so long.”
“It wasn’t without help. We kept you under because we weren’t sure how badly you’d hit your head. We didn’t want you awake before we had a chance to assess and address any trauma.”
“Have you seen my uncle? How is he?”
“Stable,” the doctor replies. “We’ve identified the poison and are in the process of making the antidote. We expect him to make a full recovery. He should be ready for visitors later today, but it’ll take him a week or two to regain his strength.”
I fiddle with the bedcovers and ask, in a suitably innocent voice, “And have they determined why the guard poisoned him?”
“I’m afraid not, Princess. Master Rickard has interrogated the guard, but I don’t believe he said much.” She pauses, then adds, “I hear that Lord Selwyn would like him executed immediately, but the elders haven’t yet come to a decision on the matter. They wish to consult the king first.”
“As they should,” I mutter under my breath. It’s time Lord Selwyn remembered who really rules Kali.
Once my suite returns to normal, I shower off whatever dried blood is left on my skin. By the time I return to my bed, the sheets have been changed and Max is asleep in the chair the nurse vacated. The sight makes me smile, and for the first time, I don’t feel guilty for feeling that way.
I don’t wake him. I get back into bed, prop the robin on my shelf beside the metal model of Titania, and close my eyes.
Almost an hour passes and I still can’t shut off my brain. I hadn’t realized how shaken I am. Parts of the evening flash in my mind: poison; the purple of Elvar’s face; the pain that seized my entire body as I was thrown to the floor; the blood; the terrified faces; the chaos.
I curl my hand into my pillow and think of the stars and the moon rocks hurtling past Titania on our way to the Empty Moon. It calms me. I activate the portable music system Rama gave me years ago, then close my eyes, swallowed up by music and memories of rocks and—
—will be addressed as soon as possible.
My eyes fly open.
It’s just after dawn, if the glow of the sun lamps outside is any indication. Max’s chair is empty. I squint at my clock for confirmation. I must have dozed off after all.
The ship’s electronic voice doesn’t normally wake me, but it’s louder than usual. I sit up abruptly as the voice broadcasts across the realm again.
External communication systems are down. There is no need to be alarmed. The situation will be addressed as soon as possible.
This is bad. It’s never ideal for a spaceship kingdom’s communications to go down, but there normally isn’t any need to be alarmed.
External communication systems are down, the voice repeats for the third and final time. There is no need to be alarmed.
“I am alarmed!” I snap back.
It can be no coincidence that the communications systems have gone down mere hours after the king was poisoned.
Someone hammers on my suite door. I startle, but I’m not really surprised. “Esmae!” Rama calls. “Hurry up, we need to talk!”
I dash forward and open the door. Rama practically tumbles in, followed by Max and Sybilla.
“What—”
“They went to Skylark,” Rama blurts.
I recoil. “Who?”
“Twelve ships,” says Max, “Three generals, at least a hundred soldiers. It wouldn’t matter if that was the extent of it, but it wasn’t.”
Of course not. “They’ve taken Titania.”
He nods.
“How? She’s my ship!”
“Trickery, I believe. There was a recording of your voice on my uncle’s tech, different words in your voice spliced together to create a message for Titania giving her your permission to follow his orders. I assume the fact that he could prove you couldn’t go to her yourself because you were unconscious and wounded in bed helped his case.”
I swear bitterly. I should have been more careful. I should have expected this and put more safeguards in place to make sure no one could trick Titania this way. The generals won’t need more than twelve ships and a hundred soldiers to invade a small realm if they have Titania with them. I remember only too vividly what she did to the three warships out in deep space. There one minute, gone the next. That could be Skylark’s fate in just a few hours.
“Father woke about forty minutes ago,” says Max. “He was only conscious for a few minutes, and I wasn’t with him, but Mother was. Selwyn joined her and convinced Father that no one would ever try to kill him again if they feared his wrath.” Max looks every bit as angry as I feel, but his is a colder, harder fury. “My uncle’s planned this for a long time, Esmae. This is why he wanted you to do more interviews about Titania, and get more footage of you, so he would have access to more words in your voice. He may not have expected an opportunity quite like this, but he certainly wasn’t about to pass it up when it arrived. He must have used what little footage he could find to construct the message for Titania. He had three generals and their warriors primed by the time Father woke. And if Father hadn’t woken, he probably would have pretended to have received his permission and Mother would have backed him.”
“Why didn’t Rickard stop him?”
“He would have if he’d been here,” says Max grimly. “He’s in Arcadia. I assume he went to confront your mother.”
I press the heels of my hands to my eyes, trying to think. “What about you? Couldn’t you have stopped it? What about the other elders?”
“I didn’t know about it until external communications went down about twenty minutes ago. We haven’t been able to get the system back up yet.”
“He jammed the system to make sure you can’t call the fleet back, I assume?”
“We tried to get around it by flying outside the shields and calling the fleet,” says Sybilla, “but the bastard must have given the generals orders to keep the fleet’s systems down so that they can’t receive overriding commands to return.”
Rama looks angry. “So the generals know this is all very sketchy?”
“My uncle recruited all three of them years ago,” says Max. “They all have excellent records, but it’s obvious now that he always intended for them to be more loyal to him than to Kali.”
My fists open and close, my knuckles turning white. How could we have been so careless?
“What about the Wych ships?” I ask. “Rama? Aren’t they still with Princess Shay?”
“Yes,” he says, “My father, however, is not. Titania will only be neutralized if she goes up against Father or Wychstar itself. Our ships were only supposed to be a deterrent. Lord Selwyn must have made sure Father himself was nowhere near Skylark today. Even if I could warn him now, he won’t be able to fly there before your fleet arrives.”
I spin around to face Max. “Can’t you warn Princess Shay?”
“I already have. I reached out to her when we flew outside the shields. I told her it was a mistake, that communications had been scrambled somewhere. I told her I’d fix it. I’m going there now.”
“Titania’s much faster than any other ship in the star system,” I remind him. “We’ll be too far behind to stop an invasion.”
“They won’t send her ahead of the rest of the fleet,” says Max, “so we shouldn’t be more than an hour behind them if we can get out of here in the next few minutes. I have a pilot in the dock getting a ship ready. I tried to reach Rickard while we were outside the shields, but my uncle must have jammed his communications, too. He can’t have Rickard coming back too early, of course.”
I nod, then march back to my bedroom to get dressed.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Rama lets out a groan of defeat. “You’re planning to go with them, aren’t you?”
“Of course I am,” I snap.
Max protests. “Esmae—”
I go back to the door, a pair of leggings in my hands. “Tell me why Titania is about to attack a realm that doesn’t stand a chance against her, Max.”
He grits his teeth. “My uncle sent her there.”
“And how was he able to do that? Because I flew her to this kingdom and left her unattended in the palace dock.”
“This is not your fault,” he growls.
I want to cry. “It really is. I could have let Alexi have her. I could have refused to accept her. I could have given her to him. But I didn’t do any of those things, and now look where we are.”
I slam the door, throw off my sleepshirt and fumble with my leggings. My hands are so unsteady that I can’t even get a foot in. I almost break down in tears. I did this. Titania will be in Skylark in four or five hours. Titania, who hates battle. I have no illusions about her power. I’ve seen what she can do with my own eyes. People will die. And it will be because I fired an arrow and won a competition.
The door cracks open. “Let me help,” Sybilla says.
I look up. Her face is uncharacteristically gentle. She helps me until my hands grow steadier. I find a tunic, then put on my chain mail vest and vambraces. I hesitate, then retrieve the Black Bow from under my bed. If ever there was a time to use it, now is that time. I slot it into place across my back.
“I didn’t know you had a divine bow stashed under your bed,” Sybilla says, with an awed, lustful look on her face that she only seems to assume when she’s faced with a beautiful weapon. She traces the celestial symbols carved into the black wood. “Maybe it’ll bring us luck.”
“We could certainly use some.”
When we return to the parlor, Max is alone. I catch a glimpse of a dozen messy emotions crowding his face before he hides them.
“Where’s Rama?”
“He went to fetch his sword.”
“Why? He’s not coming with us!”
“You’re welcome to try and stop him, Esmae.”
Max is too kind to say what he should: Rama’s doing this because I am. I swallow and try not to think about that truth. Maybe it won’t matter who goes. The point of this trip is to stop a battle, not to fight one.
Definitely, absolutely, not to fight one.