A War of Swallowed Stars Read online

  “Well, at least it’s a moot point for one of them,” Suya replies. Turning his attention to Max, he says, not very unhappily, “I don’t think I’ve offered you my condolences, brother. Such a pity.”

  A muscle jumps in Max’s jaw. He looks like he’s seconds away from depriving Suya of his own immortality. I, for one, would not object.

  “Enough,” says Amba.

  Suya crosses his arms over his chest again. “Very well. If you want me to contribute something useful to this discussion, allow me to point out that it’s not too late to save this galaxy. If we can’t get Sorsha back to Anga, there is one other way to stop her.”

  Nobody replies. Tyre, Thea, and Kirrin can’t seem to meet Amba’s eye, but Max watches her for a moment and then says, “No.”

  “A ridiculous response,” says Suya scathingly. “What other solution is there, pray tell? Killing Sorsha is the only option we have left. I regret that it will cause you a great deal of grief, Amba, but you must see that there is no other way.”

  “But this isn’t Sorsha’s fault,” Kirrin protests. “Alex and I did this. Punishing her for our recklessness isn’t fair.”

  “You’re right,” says Suya. “It’s not fair at all, yet thanks to you, here we are. Do you think I take any pleasure in the idea of killing the last great beast left in this universe? Believe it or not, I do not. And yes, I am concerned about my own welfare, but must I point out yet again that we will all perish if she carries on like this?”

  “I know,” Amba says softly. Her voice is steady, but her knuckles are white in her lap. “Much as it pains me to admit it, Suya’s right. There is no other way.”

  There’s a heavy silence before Tyre breaks it. “How? Only one of the Seven can kill a great beast, and Ash vowed a long time ago that he would never allow a god to wield one of them again.”

  Kirrin restrains himself for exactly five seconds before chiming in with: “And we all remember whose fault that is, don’t we, Suya?”

  “Kirrin,” Thea huffs. “Priorities, please.”

  When Sorsha’s curse first manifested itself centuries ago, Ash, the destroyer and the keeper of the Temple of Ashma, gave Suya permission to use one of the first seven celestial weapons to kill her. Devaki shielded Sorsha from Suya and the golden sunspear, and he killed her instead. Ash was so infuriated by Suya’s carelessness that he vowed he would never allow a god to use one of the Seven again.

  Max still looks furious, but he says, “Isn’t Ash only about ten years into his Sleep?”

  “Nine,” says Tyre. “Which means he has ninety-one years to go, but we’ll have to wake him early and beg him to retract his vow.”

  Kirrin lets out a snort. “And which unlucky bastard is to undertake that thankless task? Don’t look at me,” he adds hastily when Tyre raises his eyebrows. “He’s not likely to be happy to see me. Thea can go. He likes her best.”

  “Everyone likes me best,” Thea points out. “I’m not as insufferable as the rest of you.”

  “Unkind, but true,” Kirrin replies, grinning.

  “By all means, talk to Ash,” says Suya. “But, as we all know he’s never going to retract his vow, perhaps we should consider an alternative.”

  I knew that was coming. Weeks ago, when we were on the Empty Moon, he came to me and made me an offer. I refused him, but I knew he wouldn’t let it go.

  The others stare at him. “What alternative?” Thea asks, confused. Bless her sweet soul, it hasn’t even crossed her mind.

  “He wants a mortal to go after Sorsha,” Max tells her.

  Thea’s mouth falls open. “Suya!”

  “You’re all being unnecessarily dramatic,” Suya snaps. “Ash will not allow any of us to wield one of the Seven. A mortal has to do it.”

  “Sorsha will kill any human who tries to get near her,” says Amba.

  “That’s a risk we can’t afford not to take,” says Suya. “Send Alexi. Considering he set her loose, it’s the least he can do. And with his skill, he may actually be able to pull it off. Give him the starsword and tell him to kill Sorsha.”

  “The starsword?” Kirrin is momentarily distracted. “It would be easier for him to reach her with the sunspear or moonbow.”

  “But they will be much harder to acquire from the Temple of Ashma. The starsword, on the other hand, is already conveniently in Titania’s possession.”

  At this, all six of them turn to look at the window, where I have been hovering just outside and shamelessly spying on them. At some point after King Cassel’s murder in that lonely house in the woods, Kirrin finally realized I was using the tether between us to get inside his head and now cheerfully blocks me every time I try to use it. Amba losing her immortality meant my tether to her was severed automatically. As such, I now have to use more traditional methods to snoop.

  Irritated, I refuse to react. I’m cloaked. No one is supposed to be able to detect me! Yet they’ve clearly been aware of my presence the whole time.

  I hate gods.

  Then Max says, “Is that true?”

  “Yes,” I say into his earpiece, rather petulantly.

  “How has Titania come to have the starsword in her possession?” Tyre wants to know.

  Kirrin has other priorities. “How did you know she had it?” he demands of Suya.

  “I am a sun god,” Suya reminds him smugly. “I am everywhere. I pay more attention than the rest of you do. King Cassel came to possess the starsword some years before he was abducted. I have no idea how. Elvar took possession of it when everyone thought Cassel was dead, and then Elvar recently gave it to Esmae. She never knew what she had. She thought it was an ordinary sword. She left it with Titania when she went to Arcadia.”

  “He’s already had this conversation with you,” Max says slowly, to me.

  “Yes,” I reply.

  Picking up on the fact that Max is listening to me over his earpiece, Suya shrugs and says, “I hoped Titania would persuade Esmae to use the starsword on Sorsha. I offered her a reward for her pains, too, but she was not inclined to help me.”

  “And I don’t regret it either,” I snap, forgetting for a moment that the only person who can hear me is Max. “I would have done everything I could to stop Esmae from going anywhere near Sorsha. I was never going to ask her to do it!”

  “What reward?” Max asks. “What did he promise you?”

  I don’t answer. I don’t want to think about it.

  —hands, feet, a beating heart—

  I delete that secret, treacherous cache of data.

  “I won’t ask Alexi to give his life up for this,” Kirrin says. “You know it’s more likely to kill him than not.”

  “Don’t ask him then,” Suya replies. “I will. I’ll offer him this opportunity to redeem himself and be the hero of the star system once more. And I wonder what Alexi Rey, the boy who has spent his life chasing glory, will say?”

  And with that, he vanishes.

  Kirrin seethes. “I hope Sorsha gets to eat him before she dies.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Titania

  “I have a tremendously brilliant idea,” I announce.

  This does not have the effect I had anticipated. It is an empirical fact that I am extraordinary, and it therefore stands to reason that such a proclamation should be met with delight, admiration, and praise. Instead, Max and Sybilla glance at each other with an expression I can only describe as dubious.

  “Go on,” Max says, a little too warily for my liking.

  Up close, he looks terrible. There are dark shadows under his eyes, and his entire body is rigid to overcompensate for his obvious fatigue. In light of this, and also because I happen to adore him, I decide to forgive his lack of enthusiasm.

  “I think we should go to Ashma and wake Ash from his Sleep.”

  Max blinks.

  Sybilla groans. “That was what you summoned us here to say?”

  If I had a face, I would be scowling. “I didn’t summon you,” I remind her.

/>   We are on one of the palace’s many rooftops. Well, I am. Max and Sybilla are inside my control room. As ever, he’s quiet and still. And, also as ever, she is pacing my floors with her spiky, stompy boots.

  “Titania,” Max says, “why us? Thea would get a better reception.”

  “Don’t you want to know how the starsword ended up in King Cassel’s possession in the first place?” I ask.

  He considers that. “Ash might not tell us. He’s going to be angry that he’s been woken from his Sleep early, and he’s going to be even angrier when he finds out we’re there to ask him to revoke a vow.”

  “I think it’s worth a try,” I insist.

  “The mystery of King Cassel and the starsword aren’t exactly a priority right now,” Sybilla says. “It’s not like there’s a ravenous space dragon, a galactic war, and a missing friend to worry about already or anything.”

  “Do you think I’ve forgotten any of that?” I demand, offended. “It’s all connected. We need to speak to Ash. I can feel it.”

  Sybilla’s expression does a dramatic shift. “Wait, would Ash be able to tell us where Esmae is? Max?”

  “I don’t know,” he says. One of his fists clenches at his side. The sound of her name always does that to him.

  “If you’re going to Ashma,” a voice interrupts us from over my speakers, “I will accompany you.”

  Sybilla looks surprised. “Is that Amba?”

  “Yes. I wanted to talk to her, as well.”

  “But you didn’t make her come here?”

  “She has achy bones!”

  “So do I!” Sybilla protests.

  I huff. “Amba was a war goddess. She helped King Darshan make me, she gave up her immortality for my favorite person in this universe, and she never wears horrid boots. When you do all that, I promise to give your achy bones the same consideration.”

  “Fair point,” Sybilla says and collapses into one of my seats as if she has accepted defeat.

  “So,” I press them. “Are we going? Are we?”

  There’s a pause, and then Amba’s voice comes over the speakers again: “Max?”

  He nods, reluctantly. “It is all connected. I don’t think waking Ash is a good idea and I don’t think he’s going to be happy to see us, but if there’s even a chance we can stop Sorsha without sacrificing Alex, if there’s even a chance Ash can tell us where Esmae is—” He breaks off, takes a deep breath, and says, “Titania’s right. We have to try.”

  I am almost beside myself with excitement, and I want to leave immediately, but Max has about three thousand and six things that he has to do before he can leave Kali, and Amba needs time to prepare herself for a journey, so I keep my impatience to myself and accept that tomorrow is about as early as anything is likely to happen.

  Max and Sybilla leave me there on the rooftop and go back into the palace. In the elevator, on their way down to the suite of rooms where Max does boring kingdom paperwork things, I hear Sybilla say, “You need to sleep.”

  “I sleep,” he says.

  I, the practically omniscient narrator: no, he does not sleep.

  “Quit lying,” she says irritably, “I know you better than that. It would be mind-bogglingly stupid to go to Ashma without getting a decent night’s sleep first. If it’s anything like the Empty Moon—”

  “It’s not.” Max is quiet for a moment, and then he says, “I know you had a hard time on the Empty Moon. You don’t have to come to Ashma with us.”

  She makes a sound that could be the distant cousin of a laugh. “As if I’m letting you go anywhere without me.”

  The silence crackles with a thousand things they’re not saying, but I know what they’re both thinking about. On the night Esmae asked me to burn down Arcadia, she ran into the yellow woods and was supposed to meet Sybilla and me on the other side. We waited for hours, but she never came. Her earpiece was unreachable. The woods were too dense for me to land in, so I flew above them in slow circles and my systems scanned the trees for her. For heat, for a heartbeat, for anything. I couldn’t find anything.

  Eventually, we had to go back to Kali, to refuel (me), rest (Sybilla), and hammer out some kind of plan to find Esmae. When we got there, I wanted to see Max, but Amba told us he had shut himself up in his rooms and wanted to be alone. So Sybilla went to check in with the Hundred and One, and I went out into space to find Sorsha. She, in turn, was searching for Suya so that she could avenge her mother’s death, but her hunger had started to take over. I tried to stop her, but I couldn’t.

  I, who never failed, had failed twice in one night.

  By the time I returned to Erys, the capital city of Kali, it had been three days since Esmae had disappeared and it had become obvious that Max wasn’t in his rooms. I don’t think he ever had been. Sybilla jumped on board in her stupid spiky boots and we hurtled back to the ash and bones of Arcadia. I let her out at the edge of the yellow woods and guided her through the trees to Max. He had been in the woods for fifty-eight hours and was half-dead from cold and exhaustion. When Sybilla found him, he was on his knees in the snow. He had found Esmae’s earpiece.

  It was a fight to get him back to the warmth of my hull. In the space of a few days, Max had left a place that had once been his home, had watched his sister torn from the stars, and had lost someone he loved, so Sybilla was gentle at first. When that didn’t work, she was a lot less gentle.

  Now, Max says, “You know what happened in Arcadia didn’t end the war. It just forced a pause. Alex is buying more mercenaries and salvaging what’s left of his army as we speak. This is the gulp of air before we go back into the water, Sybilla. I need someone I can trust to stay here.”

  “Damn it, Max,” she snaps. “Stop that. You’re making it seem like I’d be doing you a favor by staying here, but I know you’re just trying to spare me a repeat of the Empty Moon.”

  There’s a pause.

  Whatever she sees on his face, it makes Sybilla say, “What about Queen Cassela?”

  “Grandmother isn’t here.”

  This is news to Sybilla. “She what? But she never leaves Kali!”

  “Clearly, she does,” says Max. “She said she needed guidance and clarity and went to the Night Temple. And thanks to King Darshan, Rickard is in no condition to take over while I’m gone. It has to be you.”

  Another pause.

  Then Sybilla says, in a voice that has clearly been forced out between gritted teeth: “Fine, but only if you take a dose of sleep serum tonight.”

  “Fine.”

  There’s a chime as the elevator doors open. A moment later, I hear Sybilla’s voice, and this time she’s speaking to me.

  “Make sure he comes back,” she says.

  “I will.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Radha

  No one has touched my brother’s rooms in all the months he’s been gone, so it’s the only place in this palace that still feels like home.

  It should all feel like home. I was born here, I grew up here, I spent almost every day of the first sixteen years of my life here. I had friends, I had charitable causes to devote myself to, I had servants and tutors and flowers and gifts and just about everything any one person could ever ask for. If home is familiarity, this should be home.

  But that’s not what home is, is it?

  Rama liked to move as little as possible, so almost everything he ever owned is in his suite: his books, scattered haphazardly on the desks and shelves; the dozens of maps he liked to examine like they held all the secrets of the universe; his music player right by his bed; the beautiful hand-carved Warlords set our other brother, our sister, and I gave him for his ninth birthday . . .

  I’m sitting very straight at one of his desks, the very picture of grace. Princesses don’t slouch, Radha. According to my father, princes don’t slouch either, but it didn’t take him long to give up on trying to make Rama listen.

  If I look out of the corner of my eye, I think I can see him. Slouched in the other chair to
my left, his feet up on the desk. I want so badly to turn my head and look at him properly, really see him, but I know that if I do that, he’ll be gone. So I stay where I am and look out of the corner of my eye and take what little there is.

  “It’s time to go, caterpillar,” he says. His voice is a warm, lazy drawl. “There’s nothing left for you here.”

  It’s true. Of course it’s true. He’s not real, so he’s just saying what I’m already thinking.

  I trace the shape of a dried tea stain on the surface of the desk. “You left me,” I hear myself say instead.

  He smiles. “You left me first.”

  Also true. Rama was still here on Wychstar when I pulled away to become our father’s pawn in his vendetta against Rickard, his teacher in a past life. Guilt chews away at the edges of me, making me smaller. I did something horrible to Rickard, a man who was never anything but kind to me, and I don’t think I’ll ever stop feeling terrible about it, but I would be lying if I said that what’s even worse than that is knowing that trying to please my father cost me the last few months of the time I could have had with my brother.

  “I can’t go yet,” I tell him. “He owes me. I’m not leaving until he gives me what I want.”

  “He’s never going to give you what you want.”

  I hate that lazy, knowing voice. “I don’t want him to love me,” I snap. It’s not like me, but then ruining a man wasn’t like me either and yet here we are. “I want him to help. Father has resources and armies that could help us defeat the people who murdered you. I’m not going back to Kali until he gives them to me.”

  Before Rama can say anything else, I hear the outer door of his suite click open. A moment later, my other brother walks into the room.

  “I thought I’d find you here,” he says, smiling.

  Rodi is Father’s heir. He’s charming and kind and sunny, quick to joke, quick to put people at ease. He’s a lot older than I am, so I didn’t see as much of him growing up as I did of Rama. When I did, I used to gaze at him in awe and want to be just like him. I think I did okay at that part.

  “Any news?” Rodi asks, like he does at least once a day.