CHAPTER NINE
It’s decided that Max and I will travel to Kali on Titania while the rest of his attendants return on their own ship. I don’t want my first meeting with Titania to be in Max’s company, so Rama and I go down to the dock before the others.
She waits on her dais. She’s smaller than most other warships, yet there’s nothing small about her when you stand below her looking up. She’s silver and beautiful and deadly, a beast with a dragon’s ferocity and an arrowhead’s elegance. The celestial symbols of the gods gleam along her wings. She has a quiet, otherworldly presence, like the calm before the storm.
Rama stays below while I climb nimbly onto her left wing and drop into her control room. Glass walls rise on two of the three sides, and inside are sturdy leather seats and a control panel with screens and switches. The air is cold, almost as if Titania, sentient and suspicious, wants to show trespassers that they’re unwelcome. I shiver, but an instant later the air grows warmer, softer. She’s adjusted her atmosphere just for me.
“Hello?” I say.
“Esmae.” Titania’s voice is musical, pitched like a high, clear bell. It comes from everywhere and nowhere all at once. “You won me.”
“You chose me.”
“Yes. It’s good to meet you at last.”
“It’s nice to meet you, too.”
“Of course it is,” she says. “I am unique, you know. It’s only natural to be fascinated.”
I smile. “I am.”
“Would you like a tour?”
I nod. Her voice guides me, and lamps spark on in rooms as I enter them. I explore the controls. She shows me a stocked supply room, a galley, four small bedrooms, weapons, emergency protocols, the maintenance logbook. Most ships have scores of repairs and upgrades listed in their logbook, but Titania has just a handful.
After the tour, I return to the control room. She shows me her communications and analysis systems, the code-cracking software that can presumably get past almost any shield in the universe, and a multitude of other advanced mechanisms that I can barely understand.
“What do I do to fly you?” I ask her. She’s the only sentient ship in existence, so I know very little about how she works. “Do I just ask you to go somewhere?”
“There are manual controls if you want to use them,” she tells me, “but I work best when I’m given an instruction and allowed to follow it without clumsy human fingers interfering.”
I laugh.
At the very end of the tour, she pulls up scans of her offensive weapons.
“You don’t want to miss this part,” she says, her tone edged with bitterness. “Wasn’t this why I was made?”
Most ships have one launcher for rockets, laser fire, and arrowheads. Titania has an unprecedented five. And they have names: Righteousness, Strength, Courage, Beauty, and Patience. The gods helped King Darshan build the launchers into the ship and glorified them with pretty names.
I rub the goosebumps on my arms and flick the scans off the screen. “Is there anything in this world you couldn’t destroy?”
“I doubt it,” she says.
And look where I’m taking you. To a realm of warriors, led by usurpers and traitors, a king and queen who took my brother’s throne for themselves. One way or another, I will keep her out of their hands.
I look out the front of the ship. The dock’s oval mouth is up ahead and I can see beyond it—stars, wisps of gas, the faint shimmer of the shields. And an invisible path across the galaxy.
As I touch the controls, Titania whirs to life under my fingers, her engine humming beneath me like she can read my mind. She wants us to go out there together.
“Why did you choose me?” I ask her softly.
“Because our hearts are the same.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I’m not a very bloodthirsty warship.”
I give a startled laugh. “Really?”
“I was made for war, but I don’t have war in my heart. It makes me joyful to fly, just as I’m sure it makes you happy when your bow feels warm in your hands, but taking pleasure in being good at what we do isn’t the same as finding pleasure in using our talents against the rest of the world. I will fight if I must, but I won’t enjoy it. I would rather be reading stories. Is all of that not true for you, too?”
“Is Alexi different?” It’s a difficult question to ask. I’ve worked so hard to try and be a perfect warrior of Kali—honorable, fierce, and glorious, just like Alexi. It doesn’t feel right to dig deeper into how different we truly are.
But we are different. I’m not my brother. I’m the shadow, and he’s the sun.
“Yes,” says Titania, “he’s different. He has a good heart, but war is very much a part of him. He was born for the warrior’s life. He was born for glory and bloodshed.” She pauses, then adds simply, “I chose the one I hoped would end a war, not the one I knew would start one.”
The competitors leave Wychstar one by one, each returning to their own realm with less good cheer than when they arrived. I watch Alexi and Bear go with an ache in my heart.
When it’s time for me to say goodbye to Rama, I’m almost tempted to just stay, because I can’t bear the idea of not seeing him every day. He hugs me tight, and I don’t want to let go. How can I leave him behind after all the years we’ve stuck together?
We join Max, who is in the middle of a painstakingly polite conversation with the king. Rama steps off to the side to speak to Max, and King Darshan uses the opportunity to look me in the eye for the first time since I threw all his plans to the winds. “Good-bye, Esmae,” he says, kinder than I expected. “You will always be welcome on Wychstar. I hope you know that.”
“Thank you.” I bite down on my lip, but the question slips out anyway. “Why did you want my brother to win?”
He turns away. “Does it matter now?”
Rama comes up behind me. “It’s an old story,” he says as his father leaves. “I asked Rodi. It seems a god once told Father he would get what he wanted if he built Titania. That’s why he took that vow of silence. That’s why he did all this. Because a god whispered in his ear.”
“Which god? What was it your father wanted in the first place?”
And what does Alexi have to do with it?
“Rodi didn’t have those answers,” says Rama. “I’ll have another go at pestering Father when this has all cooled down.”
I suppose we’ll both have to be content with this much for now. I give Rama one last hug and climb aboard Titania. Max is already inside the control room.
“Can you feel it?” she’s asking him. “The echoes of them?”
He nods. “Yes.”
I assume she means the echoes of the gods and goddesses who helped build her. I can feel them, too, in the otherworldly vibration in the air, the life force inside the ship.
Titania hums to life. I suddenly wonder if this is all a mistake. If I should stay here where the world is known and safe.
“Hold tight!” Titania calls.
And then she’s moving and I, who have always felt steadier on ships than I ever could be on land, grab hold of the back of one of the seats and clutch it for dear life, fighting a surge of panic. We leave the dock behind and soar past the sun lamps, over the city, across the sky. We’re in and out of both shields in seconds.
I whip my head back to see Wychstar grow smaller and smaller behind us until it vanishes into darkness and stars. My heart scrunches up with loss.
“She’s so fast,” I say, almost to myself. “It happened so fast.”
Max turns to look at me. “This was an invitation, not a contract. You can go back whenever you want. Even if that means we turn back now.”
“I’ll do it if I must,” says Titania in the voice of someone who is constantly forced to endure great hardships, “but I want it noted that I don’t like turning ’round and ’round in circles like headless poultry.”
“No.” I shake my head, then turn to Max and repeat it. “No.”
I walk past the seats to one of the walls of unbreakable glass. Aside from a few short trips with Rama, Radha, and their tutor, I haven’t left Wychstar since I arrived as a newborn. The familiar shapes of the deep space around the spaceship kingdom—the only home I’ve really known—give way to new things, stars and rocks and gas clouds and moons, places I’ve only ever seen on video cubes or not at all.
“When will we get there?” Kali would normally be half a day’s journey from Wychstar, but Titania is faster than most ships.
“Estimated journey time is five hours and six minutes,” Titania says.
That is fast. I press my hands to the cool glass. Then I remember: I have seen these places before. I traveled these miles in the care of a goddess.
Time passes. I stay by the glass, transfixed by wonder and memories. Max doesn’t disturb me. When I turn back a while later, he’s still there, asleep, a book open across his chest. It’s called Lavya and the Thumb, so I assume it’s about Ek Lavya. He was an archer before my time who possessed such skill that he was on track to outstrip his teacher’s favorite pupil. His teacher, who had promised his favorite pupil that he would make her the greatest archer of their time, stepped in. He asked Lavya for a gift and Lavya said he’d give anything. So his teacher asked for the thumb from his right hand. It’s said he cut his thumb off without hesitation and smiled as he handed it over.
I consider Max for a moment, thinking of the way he looked at me after the Warlords game. I hate that this cruel, ruthless thief is the one who seems to see me better than almost anyone else. If only I could cut his throat now and be done with it.
“You think very loudly,” he says, eyes now open.
“And what are my thoughts saying?”
“That you’re not sure how to feel about me.” He shrugs. “Understandable.”
I open my mouth to reply, but Titania interrupts. “There’s a distress call pulsing from coordinates not far from us. I think it’s one of Kali’s supply ships.”
Max scrambles to the control panel. “Let me speak to them.”
“—need help!” comes a crackly voice over the communications system. “They’ve cornered us and there’s no way out. They’ve already destroyed one of the engines. Can anyone hear me—”
“This is Prince Max, aboard Titania,” Max cuts in, and there’s a gasp of relief on the other end of the line. “I can hear you. Tell me where you are and what’s happened.”
The voice gives us a location not far from our own, on a different route to Kali. “We were on the usual Tamini trade route,” the voice explains, “and a fleet came out of nowhere. There must be only three ships out there, but they’re warships”—there’s a crack of launcher fire in the background to punctuate his point, and I flinch at the sound—“and we’re just a supply ship. You know our defenses don’t compare.”
“What do the ships look like? What realm’s coat of arms do they bear?”
The voice sounds afraid. “None, Prince Max, but we know whose ships they are.”
Max sets his jaw. “I’ll ask Kali to send help.”
“Why?” Titania asks. “Kali’s reinforcements won’t get there in time. We will. We can help them.”
“It’s not up to me,” says Max.
There’s a pause. Oh. They’re waiting for me. It hadn’t hit me until now, not properly, that I’m the one who gets to decide where Titania goes.
“Yes,” I say, “Yes, of course. Help them.”
Titania immediately shifts course.
“You told me you don’t want to be involved in a war,” I say to her.
“I also told you I would fight if I had to.”
She veers to the side, dodging an asteroid field and picking up speed. I look at Max and try not to sound as worried as I feel. “Who was that? What’s happened to them?”
“Kali gets most of its daily supplies from Winter because it’s by far the closest realm to us,” he tells me. “You know that already, but what you may not know is that we also do a weekly run to Tamini for a few supplies that aren’t easy to find on Winter. It’s a relatively recent trade route. It sounds like one of the ships was attacked on their way home.”
“Who would do that?”
Max just stares at me.
Alexi.
“This is what a war looks like when it isn’t yet a war,” Max eventually says. “Alex doesn’t yet have the army he would need to take Kali back.”
“And when you can’t attack head on,” I say, “you attack sideways. Cut supply routes, ruin infrastructure, destroy weapons so they can’t be used against you later.”
“Exactly.” He gestures ahead of us. “What do you intend to do when we get there? Titania follows your orders, not mine.”
I hesitate for a split second. This is my first test and it’s an unexpected, ugly one. This is a fight, an actual conflict in which my uncle and my brother are facing off against each other, and if I do what Max wants, I’ll be knocking Alexi back. It’s the exact opposite of what I’ve come here to do, but they’ll never trust me if I give away that I’m still on my brother’s side.
“Do what you have to,” I tell Max. “You’re far more experienced at this than I am.”
He nods, and there’s a grim look on his face that makes me feel suddenly sorry for his enemies.
You’re one of those enemies, Esmae.
I consider my next question carefully, then ask it as indifferently as I can: “Will my brothers be on those ships? I know they only left Wychstar a few hours ago, but—”
“No.” The look on Max’s face is impassive, but I wonder if he knows how relieved I am by that answer. “Your brother doesn’t favor the sideways style of warfare. Honor is too important to him. So when I said the ships are Alexi’s, I meant they’re on his side, but I very much doubt he sent them himself. One of his generals would have done so. General Saka, if I had to guess. She’s good at what she does. She knows how to win wars before they’ve even started.”
“Two minutes to the location,” Titania says.
My heart quickens. I move closer to the glass and look out but can only see more darkness.
“So Tamini has joined forces with Alexi,” I say. Just as I expected.
Max’s reply comes from behind me. “I expect they’ve been on his side for years, but we weren’t sure until now. General Saka is one of Queen Miyo’s favorite nieces, so she was always likely to back her.” He pauses. “And only someone involved with supplies on Tamini could have made this attack possible.”
I frown. “I don’t follow.”
“The warships couldn’t have attacked our supply ship by accident,” he explains. “We take precautions to protect the ships. All supply ships are cloaked. You can’t just stumble across them even if you know the route they use. The only way to attack them is by disabling the cloak.”
“Can’t that only be done from inside the ship?”
“Yes, but not necessarily by a pilot. A device planted on the ship can jam the cloaking signal.”
“And you think someone on Tamini had to have planted that device while they were loading the supplies.”
“Yes.”
I cross my arms and scrape my thumb across the opposite sleeve, back and forth, back and forth. I’ve spent years in training with Rickard, plotting wars in simulations, but the reality of this feels bigger and more dangerous than I’m ready for. I painstakingly planned every single move I would make to get myself to Kali to start dismantling my uncle’s reign from the inside, and I pictured every facet of how Alexi would win. But now that I’m here, I’m afraid.
“There,” says Titania.
I spin around and catch the flash of a launcher’s fire from the corner of my eye. By the time Max and I both reach the glass, the flash is gone. Then there’s another and another as launcher fire bursts out of the warships and strikes the failing shields of the supply ship.
It’s battered and weak, a wounded dove suspended wretchedly in the air while three wolves try to tear it apart. The warships are brutish and gray. Part of the supply ship’s shield is gone and at least half the ship is beyond repair; it’s a miracle the control room hasn’t shattered open and the pilots inside haven’t been destroyed by fire or the vacuum of open space.
The harsh flash of the fire makes me want to cover my eyes, but I force myself to look. The assault on the supply ship is relentless, and I watch as the invisible shield crackles and flickers into sight each time it’s struck. Most warships’ shields can cope with an assault for hours, but a supply ship isn’t built for such abuse. Bit by bit, the shield will break away until there’s no buffer between the launcher fire and the pilots.
The attack pauses as Titania comes into view. The flashes fade away and the warships fix their attention on us.
Their launcher bursts to life again, only this time it comes at us. I take a step back. The world is a sunburst of brilliance and terror—
The floor trembles, but the world doesn’t end. We’re fine. We’re completely unharmed.
Max’s eyes flash. “Do whatever you need to, Titania.”
And Titania obeys.
It takes just three seconds. The first is stillness, the lull before the explosion of the storm.
The second is the boom in the air, a vibration that rattles my teeth and makes all the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.
The third is the blinding light that engulfs each of the three warships. I turn my head away and squeeze my eyes shut. There’s no way not to recoil from that kind of light, and when I taste blood inside my mouth, I realize I must have bitten the inside of my cheek.
All goes quiet. The stark white behind my eyelids fades to darkness. It must be over.
I open my eyes. There’s only a broken dove in the sky and the wolves are gone.
Gone, like they never existed.
That is the sheer power of the ship that can never be defeated.
Titania approaches the supply ship. She creates a seal between the ship’s doors and our own so that the remaining supplies and the shaken survivors can board. She shifts back on course and the stars spin by again.
Max tends to the pilots in the galley. When he returns, he’s alone. He hands me a cup of hot tea. I accept it because that’s what you do, but my movements are as wooden as a puppet’s.
“There one minute, gone the next,” Max says. “I didn’t know it was possible to cease to exist so fast.”
Neither did I.
“I’m sorry,” says Titania.
“Don’t be,” he tells her. “You were only an arrow. Some-one has to draw back the bow and let the arrow loose.”
He means himself, but it’s exactly what I did, too. Drew back a bow and let an arrow loose. And now here we are.
I am small, I think, an insect in a world of giants. What can an insect possibly hope to achieve in a world like that?
But then, as Rickard would remind me if he were here, an insect can kill a giant with a bite.
The rest of the journey is uneventful, but I can’t stop thinking about the destruction of the three warships. Then something miraculous wrenches me back to reality.
“Look,” Max says.
I turn back to the glass. The star system flashes past us and then I see it in the distance, a shift in color that makes my pulse quicken. The dark of the galaxy bleeds away, replaced with newborn stars and gas clouds the color of fire. It’s the Scarlet Nebula. And somewhere below it is the orb of the planet Winter, pale and white with seas and snow, and that means—
There it is. A speck suspended in the starry blackness beneath the nebula, growing larger and clearer as we approach. Something vast and tall and ferocious, with gleaming stone and wild forests, and sharp, spiky towers.
My breath catches. Kali.