A War of Swallowed Stars Page 11

  My darling,

  I’m sorry. I’ve been looking for her. By the time you read this, I’ll be halfway across the star system. I regret that I didn’t tell you before I left, but I knew you’d try to talk me out of it. But once she’s home, once you see her, I think you’ll understand she’s no threat to us. She’s just a child. And she’s ours.

  I love you.

  My father wanted to find me. He wanted to bring me home.

  And I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that it’s the reason he’s dead.

  I’m still kneeling there, between two bookshelves, when Max finds me. I don’t know how long it’s been. Minutes? Hours?

  “Hey,” he says, and his hand on my back feels like an anchor keeping me from becoming untethered. “What are you doing up here?”

  I hand him the note. I watch as he reads it, his brows knitting, his eyes widening.

  “You don’t think—”

  “I need Titania,” I say, my voice little more than a croak.

  “She’s still out looking for Sorsha.”

  “I need to talk to her.” I fumble for my watch and tap an icon on the screen. A moment later, my watch connects to Titania’s system, thousands of miles away.

  She sounds like she’d be rolling her eyes if she had any. “I did tell you this could take some time,” she says.

  “That’s not—that’s not why I—” I stop, take a breath, and try to put my thoughts in some kind of order. “You watched Alex and Bear find my father in that cottage, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.” Titania suddenly sounds alert. “Why?”

  “Can you show me?”

  “I wasn’t actually there,” she reminds me. “I saw it through Kirrin’s eyes. I couldn’t record it.”

  “But you could re-create it?” I press. “Like you created those holograms of my parents and Rama that one time?”

  “I suppose I could create a rudimentary holographic sequence,” she says thoughtfully. “I can transmit it to you. But frankly, Esmae, I can’t see how it would help to see your father’s corpse—”

  “Please. There’s something I have to figure out.”

  She lets out a long, huffing breath. “Very well. But I expect answers when I get back. Detailed, comprehensive answers.”

  I end the call.

  “Don’t assume the worst,” Max warns me.

  I give him a look. “If my mother found that note earlier than my father expected her to, and was able to stop him from coming to find me, do you really put it past her to—”

  “To what? Fake the death of a king? Betray her own husband and imprison him for almost twelve years?” Max sounds appalled. “Even for Kyra, that’s too far.”

  “Is it? Really?” I swallow, my right hand coming up to touch the scar on my throat. “Look what she did to me. She believes there’s no greater threat to Alex than me. If my father decided to expose him to that threat, don’t you think she’d feel like he was betraying them? Don’t you think it would be a pretty small leap from there to deciding to stop him by any means necessary?”

  Max stares at me, his eyes darker than ever. “He was alive for years,” he says quietly. “A prisoner in a nice, comfortable cottage.”

  “And that,” I tell him, clenching my hands together to stop them from shaking, “is why the person who did that to him has to be her and not Lord Selwyn. If Lord Selwyn had decided to get my father out of the way, why not just kill him? We know he was capable of murder. So why bother with faking Cassel’s death and keeping him prisoner? It makes no sense. But my mother couldn’t just kill him. She loved my brothers more, but she still loved him.”

  “Then who did kill him?” Max wonders out loud. “The night he died, your mother was nowhere near the cottage.”

  “Maybe not, but someone else was,” I say flatly. “And I think Titania’s holographic sequence will show us exactly what happened.”

  Perfectly on cue, my watch beeps as a transmission comes in. I tap the icon to receive it and it starts to play, projecting a holographic scene onto the floor in front of us.

  The figures in the scene are about the height of my knee and move stiffly, the pixels visible at the edges, but the sequence of events and the accompanying sounds are perfectly clear. Max and I watch as Alexi argues with someone in the woods, facing us as though it’s us he’s speaking to. It’s not us, of course; it’s Kirrin, whose perspective we’re seeing this through.

  “One of their spies saw him, purely by chance,” I whisper. “That’s what brought Alex and Bear out there.”

  “Leila seems fairly sure your mother had no idea they were out there,” Max says, pointing to General Saka, who is walking away from the others.

  “Maybe she lied.” I clench my hands into fists, angry and nervous. “Or maybe she didn’t tell my mother what she was going to do until it was over.”

  Max takes a sharp breath. “You think Leila made the decision to kill Cassel without telling anyone?”

  “I think she probably wanted to spare my mother the agony of making that decision herself,” I say quietly. “Because, let’s face it, my mother couldn’t have let my father come back to Kali. She would have ordered his death. Maybe done it herself. I think it would have broken her heart, but she’d have done it, to save Alex from me. And I think, knowing that, Leila Saka made the choice for her.”

  As we watch the scene playing out in front of us, Alex and Bear confront the guards kneeling on the ground. They want to get past the shield on the cottage, but the guards insist they don’t have the keycard.

  A shield exactly like the one placed over the broom cupboard where I was kept. Rare, powerful technology that can hide what’s beyond it from even a god’s eyes. I should have questioned how Alex had gotten his hands on technology like that.

  “There!”

  I pause the sequence, then rewind it a few seconds and replay it. Leila holds up a keycard, while the guard she found it on looks flabbergasted.

  “She had it the whole time,” Max says quietly. “But she had to pretend she got it from a guard.”

  I don’t want to see the moment my brothers find our father and are too late to save him, so instead I rewind the sequence back to the woods.

  “She and Bear walked away in separate directions while Alex and Kirrin were talking,” I say, pointing it out. “They came back a few minutes later. That was just about enough time for her to slip into the cottage, kill my father, and return. He hadn’t been dead long when they found him. Titania told me that.”

  I notice, belatedly, that my cheeks are wet. I was so busy trying to find answers, I hadn’t noticed how much it had started to hurt.

  “I don’t know what to do with this.”

  Max shakes his head. “I don’t either.”

  “Everyone thinks it was Lord Selwyn.” I grimace. “He was horrible, and he would have killed Alex, Bear, and me if he’d had his way, but he didn’t do this. Shouldn’t we tell your parents that?”

  “Would that do any good? My father thinks his brother’s murderer is dead. My mother thinks he should have had a trial, but I have a feeling even she, deep down, thinks Selwyn did it. They’re just starting to make peace with it and with each other. Would it be kind or cruel to tell them the truth now?”

  “I guess that’s up to you,” I say. “You know them best.”

  “What about you? Will you confront her?”

  I can’t answer that. Instead, I lean my head against his shoulder. “He was going to bring me home.”

  “I know. I’m sorry.”

  And just like that, I know that there’s one thing, at least, that I have to do.

  I have to talk to my brother.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Radha

  When Esmae takes off down the hallway, it’s all I can do not to follow her. Not because I’m unbearably nosy, but because I would love nothing more than to put off what I know I must do.

  Princesses do not shy away from their duty, Radha. My father’s voice is an unwe
lcome, persistent presence in my mind. It’s incredibly annoying that in spite of the fact that he has spent most of my life ignoring me, the few things he’s bothered to say to me over the years are the ones that come back to pester me when I’d least like them to.

  “Are you going to stand out there all day?”

  I jump at the sound of Rickard’s deep voice from inside his rooms, and my face instantly turns a hot, guilty red.

  Clearing my throat and trying to compose myself, I inch into the room. “Good afternoon, Master Rickard.”

  “Radha,” he says and smiles. He actually smiles. At me. He gestures to one of the empty chairs. “Please,” he adds, warm and pleasant. “Sit.”

  I can’t detect any anger in either his voice or his kind, weathered face, but it must be there. How can he not be angry with me?

  “My father,” I blurt out, before I can stop myself. Princesses consider their words carefully, Radha. Well. So much for that. “My father let me return with the Wych army, and in exchange, he asked to meet with you.”

  Rickard nods. “Of course. I expected it. Let him know that I’m available whenever is convenient for him.”

  There is a quiet sadness in his voice, like he’s more resigned than anything else. “You’re not worried?” I ask. “About coming face to face with him again?”

  “We have met in this life,” he reminds me. “Before he took his vow of silence. When he revealed his rebirth and confronted me about what I had done to him when he was Ek Lavya.”

  “But this time will be different.”

  “Yes, it will.”

  “Well,” I say awkwardly, “I’ll let him know. Thank you.” I should stand and leave, but I find that I’m rooted to my chair. I take a deep breath, trying to maintain even a little of the poise I was taught from the moment of my birth. As calmly as I can, I say, “I’m sorry.”

  He shakes his head. “There is no need.”

  “There is,” I insist. “Esmae told me you understand why I did what I did, but that doesn’t make it okay. I ruined you.”

  “I think you’ll find that it takes more than the prick of a needle to ruin me,” he says gently. “I am a warrior, a loyal servant of Kali, and a devoted father and grandfather. No matter how strong or weak my body is, those things remain true. You did not have the power to take that from me.”

  I feel my cheeks go warm, but I say, “In that case, I still want you to know that I’m sorry. I should have known better.”

  At that, a small, sad smile flits across his tired face. “We have all made poor choices when we should have known better. What I did to your father, in his previous life, was a terrible betrayal. My pride prevented me from seeing the error of it before it was too late. But you would think, having done that, that I would learn from my mistake, but I did not. Eighty years later, I cursed Esmae.”

  My eyes widen. I didn’t know that.

  “I was so angry that she lied to me,” Rickard goes on, “I was so hurt by it, that I did not stop to consider her reasons before I said the words that will, eventually, doom her. I love that child, but because of my pride and my rashness, I will be yet another instrument in her destruction. So, you see, you are not alone in your mistakes, Radha. And as the one you wronged, take me at my word when I ask that you forgive yourself.”

  He must see something on my face, some sign of my reluctance to accept his forgiveness and my own, because he reaches out and pats me on the hand. “You are young,” he says. “You will, I hope, grow to an old and happy age, but you know there are no certainties in this life. You do not need my permission or my advice, but I am going to give it to you anyway: do not waste your precious time being afraid to live. Do not waste your time on fear or guilt. Live, and love, and find joy in whatever you can.”

  Do not let your father’s voice in your ear hold you back. He doesn’t say it, but I hear it anyway.

  Or maybe that particular voice is mine.

  Sybilla is arguing with the young guard posted outside the rose garden. This is not exactly surprising because Sybilla is usually arguing with someone but what is surprising is the nature of the argument.

  “You must know something,” Sybilla is saying, her long red ponytail almost aquiver with indignation. “How can you know nothing about plants?”

  “You seem to know nothing about plants,” the boy points out.

  “Don’t you take that tone with me, Jemsy! What about Henry? Or Juniper? Juniper must know—”

  “Just because her name is Juniper,” Jemsy retorts, “does not mean she knows anything about plants. What’s the problem, anyway? Since when do you care about the rose garden?”

  “Stop being so nosy,” Sybilla snipes, somewhat unreasonably.

  Unruffled, Jemsy rolls his eyes. He catches sight of me over Sybilla’s shoulder and straightens his posture. “Good afternoon, Princess Radha.”

  Sybilla turns around at once, her face a picture of mortification. I try very hard not to giggle.

  “Are you having trouble with the succulent I gave you?” I ask her in a bland tone, using every muscle in my face to keep myself from smiling. I swear only Sybilla could have a hard time with a plant notorious for its ability to survive just about anything.

  “It’s being difficult,” she says irately.

  My efforts to squash my smile are futile. “I can’t imagine why I thought it reminded me of you,” I remark.

  Her mouth twitches, and she hastily covers it up with a scowl. “Do you know anything about gardening?”

  “Come on,” I say, walking past her into the rose garden. It’s an enormous, beautiful hothouse, with long, deep troughs of soil imported from Winter and rows of blooms in the most brilliant colors. Max told me once that Elvar is the one who built the rose garden when he was young, and though he now pretends to be uninterested in it because on Kali such frivolous pursuits are frowned upon, Max sees him come in here when he thinks no one is paying attention.

  There are a few worktables set up at strategic points in the hothouse, and on one of them, I find Sybilla’s succulent. The soil in the little pot is soaked and the spiky leaves of the plant have lost some of their vivid, glossy color, but I suspect that’s because they’ve been practically drowned in water.

  “It only needs to be watered once a week or so,” I say, tipping the pot gently to one side to let the excess water trickle out. “Once it’s dried out a bit, it should be back to normal.”

  “Oh,” she says, her green eyes wide and bright like clear sea glass. “So it’s okay?”

  I hide another smile. “Yes, it’s fine.” I want to tell her how much it means to me that she cares so much about this small, silly gift I gave her, because I know it means she cares about me, but I keep my mouth shut. Sybilla has a habit of bolting like a skittish woodland creature when the subject of Feelings comes up.

  Case in point: she has more or less avoided me since I gave her the succulent and told her I thought she was pretty. I don’t know why that’s news to her—I kissed her, for heaven’s sake!— but here we are. I have tried to tell myself that she’s just been busy, what with Esmae having only just come home and a war going on and everything, but as the days go by, it couldn’t possibly be more obvious that she has time for everyone except me.

  Sometimes, I look at her and my breath catches at the way I feel about her. When did this happen? Was it when I first saw her, like in the stories Rama and I used to read to each other as children? I don’t think so. The first time we met, she was with Esmae, Max, Elvar, and the others on the bridge when I arrived on Kali. I remember thinking she was beautiful, but I think a lot of people are beautiful. It was an observation in passing, a fleeting thought lost in the mess of grief, anger, and guilt I was feeling at the time.

  But then Esmae had Sybilla shadow me, to keep me safe, and I started to see a lot of her. I tried to be friendly, but she was stiff and resentful and offered nothing back. I would probably have left her alone if she had been anyone else, but I saw her with Esmae and M
ax, saw her laughter and tenderness with them and her fierce loyalty, and it occurred to me that there was something hurt and warm and unutterably lovely under the scowls and thorns. So I persisted. And the more time I spent with her, the more I started thinking about her even when she wasn’t there.

  I get the impression that Sybilla isn’t as sure of her feelings as I am. Or it’s not as simple for her.

  And I know that maybe what she needs is time and patience, but I don’t have either. Even if Esmae stops Sorsha, this is still a war. We might not survive it. What Rickard said to me, about not wasting time, about not being afraid to chase happiness and find what joy I can—well, maybe he was right. Maybe no one has the luxury of time or patience right now.

  “I’d like to be with you,” I say, and she looks up from the succulent, startled. “I’d like to kiss you more than once. I’d like to hold your hand, and listen to you complain about everything, and protest when you get into bed and your feet are cold.” I hesitate, but keep going, refusing to lose my nerve. “If you don’t want that, too, that’s okay. But I’d like to know. I don’t want to wait and hope for something that may not ever happen.”

  She blinks at me, and blinks some more. “I don’t—I mean—”

  As she flounders, I resist the temptation to smile at how adorable she is. “Do you want any of it?” I ask gently, cutting her off.

  Sybilla looks up at the glass roof of the hothouse, at the succulent, at the roses, and at the floor. In other words, she looks at everything except me. Just when I think she may have forgotten how to speak altogether, she says, so quietly I almost don’t hear her: “I want all of it.”

  “Really?” I ask, my heart jolting against my ribs. “You do?”

  “But I don’t know how,” she says, looking at me now. Sea glass eyes full of uncertainty. “I think I’ll make a mess of it.”

  “That’s okay,” I say, smiling so wide my face hurts. “I might make a mess of it, too. We can make a mess together, or maybe we won’t, or maybe we’ll make a mess and then figure out how to clean it up.” I frown. “I think I’m losing track of this metaphor.”