CHAPTER FOURTEEN
I wake just after the sun lamps spill dawn into my suite and dress quickly. If Lord Selwyn is even half as determined to send me back to Wychstar as I suspect he is, today may be the only chance I ever get to see Kali.
It’s early, but the palace is already thrumming with activity. The base ship vibrates far below us and the austere, honey-colored hallways are filled with footsteps, the clink of dishes, a multitude of different voices. Servants curtsy to me as I pass them, an odd experience I don’t think I’ll ever get used to, and every guard I encounter asks me if I need an escort.
I stop at a balcony to look out at the city. The Scarlet Nebula is a stain far beyond the shields. Small ships dart to and fro, on patrol or on a trade mission. The streets below twist and turn, busy with shopkeepers and armorers and traders. Crooked, copper-colored chimneys spit coils of smoke that curl up and are sucked away into the base ship’s flues. The sweet, spicy scent of Kali’s traditional berry wine drifts across the crisp, recycled air. Every now and then, an electronic voice crackles mildly over ever-present speakers, summing up the population’s use of resources: Kali is currently at 85 percent human capacity. Water pressure will be reduced by 1 percent for the next two hours.
I watch silver specks working at battle formations on a distant training field: the Golden Lotus; the Dove’s Kiss; the Embrace—all oddly beautiful names for such sharp, disciplined movements, all so familiar from my own lessons with Rickard. Two small warships face off above the field’s soldiers, their armed warriors leaping clumsily from one wing to the next as they learn how to battle in the air. Wing war is as popular on Kali as it is on Wychstar for obvious reasons; Rickard spent much of our time training me in it.
I watch the ships wistfully. I don’t miss the swordplay much, but there was beauty and exhilaration in racing across a flying ship. I miss the precarious dance from wing to wing.
Time to move on.
The palace, itself, is immense, but I explore as much as I can without attracting too much attention: the kitchens, the dock, the dice rooms, the banquet halls, the weapons room. I breathe in the leather and metal and fire of the weapons room. I watch the dice players win and lose money, property, even loyalty. I lose myself for over an hour in the library, in the pages of books on mythology and politics and glorious adventures.
I try very hard to not think about my mother.
Eventually, I find myself in front of the gods’ altar in the conservatory. A simple, ancient column, made of the smoothest and darkest marble, the altar is inscribed with the two hundred and nine names of the major gods. The room is domed, glass-roofed, and exposed to the stars, and there’s the usual wooden bowl in front of the altar for offerings. It’s a beautiful place.
I didn’t think to come with milk and honey, but I could make a different offering. I check myself: tights, tunic dress, leather vambraces, and just the one pocket in all of that with only a scrap of creased paper inside it. I smooth the slip open and turn it over. I must have scribbled the first half of a geometric equation on it at some point, because all that’s left is a few inky numbers faded from a wash. It’ll do.
Each of the gods’ symbols has been carved into the floor across the conservatory. My eyes fall on the wolf symbol of Valin, mostly because it looks like a careless child has scratched over it with a knife, but he’s a god of wisdom and choices and that seems fitting for the circumstances. I don’t think I’ve ever met him, but he’s always portrayed in paintings and books as a knight with a sword on his back and one of the deadly hounds of the Empty Moon crouched loyally at his side.
I smooth the creases out of the paper and fold it into the shape of a hound before placing it in the offering bowl.
“Valin?” My voice is hardly more than a whisper, but it’s audible; you have to say their names out loud to get their attention. “I don’t know what to do. I may not have much time here. And my mother—”
“He can’t answer you.”
I spin around. Max stands in the conservatory doorway. His eyes are fixed on the offering in the bowl and there’s a funny look on his face.
My own fills with heat. “I didn’t know you were there. How much did you hear?”
“Most of it,” he admits. “Why do you feel like you may not have much time here?”
“I expect your uncle to try to send me back to Wychstar. You may have noticed he doesn’t like me much.”
“He can try sending you anywhere he likes. And he’ll fail. It’s not his decision to make.”
I wonder if Max means it, but I don’t press the issue. Pointing to the wooden bowl, I ask, “Why are you so sure Valin won’t answer me? Only the gods decide who they answer.”
Max shakes his head. “I didn’t say he won’t answer you. I said he can’t. He’s gone.”
“He’s dead?”
“About a hundred years ago. Didn’t you know?”
“No.” I give the altar a rather bitter look. “Well, that’s typical. I ask a god for help and it turns out he doesn’t even exist anymore.”
Max fixes his gaze on the clumsy, creased paper hound in the bowl. “What did you hope he could do for you?”
I shrug. It’s not a matter I intend to talk to him about. Instead, I ask a question that’s bothered me since yesterday: “Did you try to kill Alexi?”
He frowns. “What?”
“I overheard General Saka and Alexi talking yesterday. They mentioned a fire.”
Max pauses and then says, “When we exiled Kyra and your brothers, we sent them to a house in one of Winter’s cities. We had it built for them. It was supposed to be a safe place, somewhere they could make new lives for themselves.” He scrubs a hand over his jaw. “There was a fire about a year after they arrived. They got out just in time.”
“But?”
“But Leila Saka is obviously convinced the house was a trap and the fire was my attempt to murder Alex and Bear.”
“Was it?”
Max gives me a long, silent look that makes me feel like I’ve made a mistake. “You ask an awful lot of questions for someone who only wanted to come home,” he says before walking away.
I’ve only just left the conservatory when Rickard finds me.
I want to turn and run when I see him, partly because I don’t know if someone’s sent him to chase me down, and partly because this is the first time we’ve been completely alone since that terrible day on Wychstar and I don’t know how to address it.
He smiles, and I return it cautiously. It’s not the same between us, and I don’t think it ever will be, but I’m glad for even this much.
“There you are,” he says.
“Am I wanted?”
“Elvar and Guinne have organized a procession for later this afternoon. They want the people of Erys to see you.” Rickard’s eyes twinkle. “I have, however, been asked to inform you that you may refuse to participate, and no one will hold it against you.”
“Do you think I should do it?”
“I don’t think you should be paraded about, but part of royal life is getting to know the people your family rules. If you want to claim the space you would have occupied if Kyra had never sent you away, you’ll need to attend events like these.” He glances around us to make sure no one is nearby, then adds, “And between you and me, Elvar is desperate for the stability your presence could give him.”
“Me?”
“He has supporters, but he’s afraid Alexi has more. You are Alexi’s sister and Cassel’s second child. Elvar and the war council hope that your public acceptance of his rule will help legitimize him.”
I study Rickard’s face, but it’s impassive. I asked him once how he could serve my uncle after what he’d done. “Maybe if you had threatened to leave with Alexi and Bear,” I had said, “Elvar would have let them stay, rather than risk losing you.”
“My loyalty is to Kali,” he told me back then, “not to the man or woman who rules it. My family is in Kali. My heart is in Kali. And you must remember, Esmae, that Elvar was once one of my students, too. I knew him when he was just a hurt, hopeful boy who wanted nothing more than to prove he was worthy of his family name. You of all people should understand how that feels. Loyalty is not as black and white as you think.”
I want so badly to know how Rickard feels about the current situation. What he really thinks of me. Is he glad I’m here? Or is he disappointed in me for stealing Titania away from my own brother?
His tone softens. “I know you’ve dreamed of Kali, Esmae. I remember the girl I met in a market years ago. You were a brave, lonely child with a hungry heart and enormous dreams. You have one of those dreams in your hands now. You’re here. And if you want to stay, you’d do well to win yourself Elvar’s trust and goodwill.”
I wish I could tell him Elvar’s trust and goodwill are exactly what I want and that I intend to use them against him. Instead, I say, “I’ll join the procession.”
“Good.” He offers me his arm. “It’s not until after midday, so come, let me show you around the palace. What have you seen already?”
He guides me expertly around the maze of hallways and bridges. The city stretching beyond us is noisy and efficient, the rhythm of machines and chariots and voices like clockwork. It’s very different from the cacophonous collision of noises on Wychstar; this rhythm is smoother, ordered, like musical notes: a machine’s click and whir; a chariot’s rumble; voices calling names in order; a machine’s click and whir; a chariot’s rumble; a servant calling another; and so on.
Rickard introduces me to courtiers and servants. He takes me to a private parlor decorated with emerald curtains and shows me the maps and battle plans hung along the wall. He takes me to the sentries’ headquarters housed in one of the spiky towers to meet their chief. He takes me to meet the smith downstairs, and she puts my measurements into her printer to make me my own armor.
I’ve noticed that the soldiers around the palace wear very little armor. Their uniforms are simple, dark gray shirts or tunics with fitted dark gray trousers and flat, sturdy boots on their feet. Archers wear quivers on their backs. Soldiers, a vest of light, almost liquid chain mail, and vambraces of the same nearly weightless, nearly impenetrable material. Kali’s army is a smooth, disciplined one, known across the realm for its loyalty to the king’s word. It’s said that when its soldiers move in formation, they look like moonlight reflected off the sea. It’s true.
They say Alexi’s armor is a pale gold these days, setting him a small but pointed distance away from the silver of Kali’s fleets.
The smith’s workshop is a noisy, clanking, beautiful mixture of the old and new: axes beside lasers, designs for swords sketched onto tech screens, hot forged steel works combined with the products of printing machines.
My vest and vambraces take shape in the printer, glossy and fluid and silver. The smith smiles at me. “They’ll need another hour or so to finish,” she says and points at my watch. “I’ll send you a comm when they’re ready.”
I leave reluctantly; I wanted to watch them being made. Rickard chuckles at my disappointment, then takes me to an elevator and down several floors to a set of hallways that have a shinier, steelier look than the austere beauty of the rest of the palace.
“Simulation rooms,” Rickard explains, stopping at a glass door so that I can see the enormous white chamber and controls inside. “They’re exactly like the ones we used on Wychstar.”
And I don’t plan on stepping inside any of these. I didn’t come here to train or to fight. Part of the reason I chose to come here to find my uncle’s weaknesses instead of simply taking Titania to Alexi is because I want the war to end quickly. I want Alexi back on the throne, and I want them to pay, but I don’t want to see this kingdom in ruins before that happens. I love what Rickard used to call the backstage of warfare—the history, the design and construction of weapons, the music of a war bugle, the flight paths of starships, the formations and strategies. I love gripping pretend wars in both hands and manipulating them like clay, seeking out different ways to win, but part of the joy is knowing those wars are only stories I can write and rewrite as many times as I like. I don’t long for war itself.
We leave the simulation rooms behind and board the elevator again. This time, we travel even deeper below Kali, down and down until the spiky, woody feel of the city above gives way to the unadorned steel and grease and engines of the base ship. This is Kali underneath its forests and sharp towers and pretty lanterns, a hodgepodge of water pumps and air filters and gears. The walls are white and chrome with low ceilings and noisy air vents, the engines are loud, and the floors are stained with oil. There are areas devoted to every function the base ship performs, from sustaining the atmosphere to powering the shields to supplying the cities with electricity, and there are tech screens filled with data everywhere.
One of these screens catches my eye. It’s behind a locked door, quiet and lit up like it’s always powered on. A series of numbers whisks across the screen. They appear to be an entirely random sequence, but there are gaps. Nine numbers are missing.
“Emergency shutdown,” Rickard explains. “That’s the first of six different numerical sequences. Each one is missing the final nine numbers. Elvar, Guinne, Max, and I are the only people who know the complete sequences.”
“The rulers and their most trusted adviser,” I say. “Hasn’t that always been the way?”
He nods. “If all six sequences are completed, Kali’s systems will turn themselves off.”
“Completely?”
“Completely. Shutting down the ship for good is the final step of permanent evacuation.”
Such a measure is rarely necessary, but it was used once or twice in the days when there were more spaceship kingdoms in the star system. Most gave up and returned their base ships to their origin planets, but one shut down at the end of a bitter war and another evacuated its healthy citizens and shut down when a fatal disease spread too rapidly to be isolated safely.
Automatic doors open and close as we continue. The sheer breadth and scope of the base ship is extraordinary. We eventually reach a wide hallway with a set of sturdy doors at the very end.
“You know of Kali’s storerooms, of course,” says Rickard. “They’re full. With these stores, Kali can feed, fuel, and power itself for five years if all supplies from the outside are cut off.”
The only time such a thing has ever happened was about a hundred years ago, when Winter and Kali had an argument and Winter refused to supply Kali with food or fuel for six months. Winter’s embargo could have meant the end of Kali, and so Kali did what it does best and went to war. A god eventually intervened, the war ended, supplies were flown in, and the world went back to normal. Still, these storerooms have been maintained ever since.
“Why am I here, Rickard?” I ask him. “Why are you showing me all this?”
“Because you may be queen of Kali one day.”
I frown. Not this again.
“Elvar may name you his heir. You must have realized that after last night. He believes in blood, which Max is not. He also knows that an heir who is one of Cassel’s children is likely to be a more popular choice with the world at large. Either way, you could be queen. And if that day should come, you will need to know more than what I’ve shown you today to care properly for your realm.”
“I don’t want to be queen. I want to live on Kali, not rule it.”
Rickard smiles. “Well, we’ll see.”
Footsteps clatter down the corridor behind us. I look back to see a palace guard stumbling to a halt.
“Master Rickard—”
He’s obviously agitated. Rickard strides up the corridor to meet him. The guard glances at me before dropping his voice to a whisper. I try to read his lips, but he’s speaking too fast.
Rickard looks concerned. He replies quietly, and the guard takes off again without another word.
“We’ve been sent for,” Rickard says.
“Why? What’s happened?”
“Your brother’s here.”
My breath catches.
“Bear. He’s in a ship, just outside the inner shield, and Elvar is about to shoot him out of the sky.”