11
NEVENI AND I remained in the darkened shaft until the silence had lasted for a good minute, and then we crawled back along the slippery metal surface, heading the way we came.
“Do you . . . ,” I began, then fell silent.
“What is it?”
“I just . . . You know more than I do about such things. Do you think that went well?”
She didn’t reply for a long moment. “I think if the marriage goes through, Tyrus had better test all his food for poison.”
“Of course.”
“I don’t know, Nemesis.” She gave a faint laugh. “I’ve never dealt with galactic politics. I’m glad I’ll never have to. You passed the exit.”
I eased back around, saw her feeling about the metal shaft, finding a hinge. Then light spilled up into the metal enclosure, and she peered downward. “I think it’s too far to jump here.”
“No, it’s not,” I said, and thrust myself down, landing neatly on the ground. I held out my arms. “Trust me?”
“Um. You’re sure you can catch me?”
“Yes.” When she still hesitated, “I won’t let you break your legs. I promise. You don’t seem to realize how strong I am.”
“One way to find out.” Neveni dropped down, and I caught her easily, then set her on her feet.
For a moment, we just looked at each other, and then she said, “Are you hungry at all?”
Startled, I nodded.
“Come on. I’ll introduce you to roasted snake. It’s disgusting.”
“Then why eat it?”
“It’s a very good kind of disgusting.”
She turned to leave, just assuming I’d follow, as we always had ventured together to new places on the Chrysanthemum. The ripple of happiness that moved through me was unexpected. . . . And so I followed her.
• • •
The roasted snake was disgusting. Until it was not.
I described it to Tyrus as we were led to our sleeping chamber for the evening. “You eat the venom pouch first,” I explained to him as we stepped inside. “I tried it without, and it tastes like rubber. Then the venom is worse, but the rest of it transforms once you’ve eaten it.”
Tyrus was a finicky eater. He’d try things to be diplomatic, but every morning he had the exact same breakfast, and generally one of the three same lunches. He had several such benign neuroses, like his need to always sit with his back to the wall, or to complete an even number of kilometers whenever he ran. Weights had to be lifted in sets divisible by ten, and if he fell a few short due to an interruption, he would always find his way back to the exercise chamber just to get in the final few he’d missed or it would “vex him all day.” That sort of thing.
Knowing he’d never try it, I described the snake as well as I could. He listened to my account with a morbid fascination.
“After the venom, the snake tasted almost like . . . chicken.”
Tyrus laughed as we passed through the doorway, bidding good-bye to our escort. Outside the windows, Lumina’s proto-night had fallen as it often did in the planet’s winter—a bright moon still lit the sky almost as brightly as most suns, but the sun itself was not in sight.
“Strange how wherever you go in the galaxy, you will encounter the taste of chicken,” Tyrus murmured. “That’s an oddity of . . .” He trailed off as he turned about, surveying the room.
One bed.
Tyrus stared a moment. So did I.
Of course, we were publicly engaged. And this was . . . this was normal.
A heat stole under my skin, and I darted a quick glance at Tyrus, caught him doing the same to me. We hadn’t yet shared a bed.
“There looks to be an exquisitely comfortable couch . . . ,” he said.
“You wish me to take it?” I said.
“No, I’d take it, of course.”
“There’s no ‘of course’ to that, Tyrus. You’re the Emperor of the galaxy.”
“I will take it,” he repeated.
He stepped away—but I grabbed his arm. His bicep felt tense, and his eyes immediately shot to mine. He was nervous too, and the realization made a warmth surge through my heart.
“There’s no need.”
He smiled tentatively, a slight flush to his face. It was so rare to see him nervous in this manner that I couldn’t help a giddy smile. Then he caught my lips in a fervent kiss, and my back hit the wall, and I found myself smiling again like some dazed, silly thing, but he was too.
A chirping. Transmissions. Always something to call to him. I eased him away and watched him walk—my gaze clinging to that exact posture, the easy grace honed by that same self-discipline that drove him to craft his own muscles. He called for an audio feed, and I turned away and stepped into the washroom.
A strange, dancing nervousness fluttered inside me, and it only mounted. I’d be alarmed and make assumptions about that roasted snake from earlier if there weren’t something so thrilling about the sensation. Even my hands seemed to be tingling with a strange, pleasant fear.
I met my eyes in the mirror, two currently dark irises glittering with an intensity that made me start. I traced my finger over the bridge of my crooked nose. I’d never fixed it because Donia had loved it this way. . . . And I did too. It was always the reminder I needed, even now, even this day: Here I am. And I am still me.
I washed up, and when I returned to the bedchamber, I could hear Tyrus in the other washroom doing the same. Restless, I roved back and forth, trailing my fingers over the dresser. When I heard him switch off the water, my breath caught. I cast my gaze down, hoping I appeared perfectly calm, standing before the mirror.
Tyrus appeared behind me, and I felt his gaze like a hot, searing touch . . . tracing the bare skin of my back, my arms, my legs bared by the sheath nightgown I’d chosen.
Then he closed the distance, and how strange to see him reflected back at me, for I saw now that he was taller than I sometimes realized, that his shoulders were broad, his arms heavy with muscle. So often all I could see was how easily broken he would be compared to me.
He traced a finger down my back. My heart thumped wildly. Then his arms, muscular, strong, pulled me back onto the warmth of his body and his lips brushed over the tender skin of my neck.
“You are so utterly beautiful.”
“I know,” I agreed.
He smiled against my skin and then his lips laid the softest of kisses on my skin, finger brushing aside the strap of my gown, and the hot kisses trailed up the arch of my neck. There was something that made a tingling sensation spring through me, and a sound escaped my lips. One I hadn’t meant to utter.
I looked at his reflection, saw a secretive smile on his face, like he was pleased to have figured out something. Then I turned, draped my arms about his neck, and gave in to the need to have him closer to me. His mouth met mine and his tongue probed between my lips, tasting me, and we made our way across the chamber.
My leg touched the bed, and my heart gave a frightened spasm. I asked him, “So do we begin the sex now?”
Unfortunately, that seemed to break the mood, because Tyrus began to laugh. Then I began to scowl. And I no longer wished to begin the sex.
He smothered his mouth with his hand, his cheeks pink, flushed. “I’ve just never heard it put that way. I think we should . . . begin the sex at a time that feels right.”
“Not now?”
“Not now.”
Every centimeter of me, from the tips of my toes to my hairline, seemed alive with awareness of him as I reclined in the bed. My gaze lingered on his back as he stripped off his shirt, neatly folded it, and then unlooped his belt, with the sheath holding the scepter. It settled on the table with a clank. Then his trousers, which he also took great care to fold.
His face was too rough to be pretty or handsome, his hair perpetually somewhat tumbled, whether by his hand, or something else, but every centimeter of him was lean, taut, disciplined. He sprawled onto the bed beside me, and we both looked each other over.
“I notice you haven’t asked me about today. Did you manage to eavesdrop?”
A denial rose to my lips. Then at his teasing smile, I could not help but curve my lips.
“I did. Neveni and I crawled into the ceiling. I believe we may be friends again.”
“That’s great. What did she say?”
“You want to know?”
“I’m not demanding answers to questions,” he said lightly, “but I’m interested. She’s your friend. You don’t tell me about friends every day.”
“Because I don’t have other friends.” I pressed my cheek to his shoulder and his arm swept me closer still, to rest my weight over his chest.
“You can invite her to come back with us. She can visit as long as she wants. I’m sure she’d love to see the Hera.”
“I don’t think Neveni will care for that. The truth is that she—”
Then I heard a humming. A strange hum. I pressed a finger to his lips, for he hadn’t heard it yet. Then it grew louder, and he heard it too. About us, the chamber began to vibrate, then rattle.
Only for a moment were we both frozen there. He launched himself to his feet and rushed across the chamber to look out the window.
“Something’s about to happen,” he shouted to me over the noise. “I think it’s overhead!”
A dim thought flickered forward in my mind about strange phenomena that took place on planets like this—hurricanes, tsunamis, and earthquakes. . . . But I didn’t believe for a second in coincidences. My mind flew over the exits I’d noticed, and the building’s design. We were on the top floor. Three stories. Then the humming mounted to a clamor that resounded through my bones, and I knew the sound: a starship.
I launched myself at Tyrus, seized him, and dragged him under the heavy brass desk just as a great blast of light tore open the roof above us.
An onrush of searing heat. There, a starship loomed overhead, blotting out the stars, and Tyrus and I were already moving through the chamber, which looked now like a mountain of flaming, ashen debris. I urged Tyrus with me, counting on my superior strength if he resisted. He didn’t. He stumbled along to keep up with me, but another blast didn’t follow. Through the stinging in my eyes I saw the starship’s bottom door opening, spilling people in respirators and rubber suits into the flaming structure. . . .
They had flashlights and scanners, and I could tell they were looking for something.
Someone.
I knew who it was they sought.
Pasus had been clever to attack this way. He couldn’t have slipped armed people into this building designed to neutralize weapons. Instead he’d brought a ship down right from space to blast open the roof and take what he wished. We ducked down low and stumbled through the burning corridor. Tyrus tugged my arm so we swerved into a busted room.
There I saw her: the Successor Primus of the Empire crouched on the ground, hands over her head, screaming mindlessly.
Tyrus and I exchanged a glance. He moved to grab her, but I shouldered him aside and did it instead. I was stronger. I could move faster. I seized Devineé and hauled her up. She was the only one of us Pasus wouldn’t kill. The closer we kept her, the better.
Choking black flames rose in the air, and Tyrus kept his hand on my shoulder so we wouldn’t lose each other as we scrambled forward. A man in a respirator appeared amid the smoke, blade in hand. He aimed a slash at me and I shoved Devineé into his path. He averted his blow, only to receive my fist across his face.
Tyrus caught Devineé before she could fall, but more flames sprouted nearby and silhouettes of Pasus’s people darted toward us.
We couldn’t do this. We had to escape.
They wanted her?
She’d swallowed the Vigilant’s Bane. Let them have her.
I kicked her away from us deliberately, where they could see her fall, and then grabbed Tyrus and fled.
He resisted only a second before survival trumped his misgivings about abandoning her.
We made it out of the building just as the great black shadow of the starship rose over the roof, and then it fired its cannon to finish off the compound.
The noise swelled, impossibly loud now, like a mallet striking my bones as I sprawled over Tyrus. I couldn’t hear my own cry of pain as agony lanced through my ears, rattling my skull until it threatened to crack.
A hot, invisible wall slammed into us, and the ground disappeared, my vision going dark with the dust and debris that choked my lungs, my skin nipped by the tiny bites of shattered glass. Then we crashed to the ground, our bodies crammed together as the building collapsed above us. I covered Tyrus as best as I could, my eyes squeezed shut, rancid air scorching my lungs.
On all sides, all sides, we were trapped.
And Tyrus wasn’t moving at all.