A War of Swallowed Stars Read online

  “It keeps happening,” Sybilla says. “It’s a targeted attack, and it’s coming from inside Kali. Alexi has someone here, someone with at least some access to the base ship, and they’re trying to hack the inner shield. If they bring it down, Alexi and whatever’s left of his army can invade. Esmae did a lot of work to even the odds, but I think we’re still going to be outnumbered and overwhelmed if there’s an invasion, especially if we hold troops back to protect civilians.”

  “Aren’t there tech specialists who can track down the hacker?” Amba asks. “Surely that is a priority?”

  Sybilla sighs. “The signal keeps bouncing around, or so they tell me.”

  Shields are a vital part of a spaceship kingdom, but they’re complicated. Both Kali and Wychstar have two shields apiece, both almost invisible to the human eye: the outer shield and the inner shield. I would quibble with the lack of creativity in naming them, but I suppose simplicity matters more.

  The outer shield is simply an atmospheric bubble, helping to maintain the ship’s temperature, oxygen, and gravity, but the inner shield is a physical barrier. It’s partly in place for protection against asteroids, but it’s also there to make sure that no starship or person can get in or out without the right codes or permission from the war council.

  Right now, the most important thing about Kali’s inner shield is the fact that Alexi can’t just sweep in with his army and take the kingdom by force.

  Unless, of course, a very, very skilled hacker is able to compromise the integrity of the shield.

  “I can take a look,” I offer. “If it’s data we need, I can find it.”

  Sybilla nods. “That’s a good idea.” There’s a pause, and then she says, “Ash didn’t say anything else about Esmae? He didn’t even give us a hint about how to find her?”

  “For the fifteenth time,” Amba says wearily, “all he told us was that we would need her, and when we did, she would be there.”

  “But that’s proof that she’s alive, right?” Sybilla’s smile, a rare phenomenon, is almost dazzling.

  Amba nods, cautiously. Max still hasn’t moved, but I can see the line of his jaw is taut.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask, confused.

  Amba glances at Max, then says gravely, “If Esmae is alive—”

  “Which we now know for certain she is,” I interrupt.

  “Yes. We do. So why hasn’t she come back to Kali?”

  There’s a silence. Sybilla’s mouth flattens into a line.

  Then Max speaks for the first time. “She hasn’t come back,” he says, “because she can’t.”

  “She has been imprisoned,” Amba finishes for him. “It is the only explanation for why she hasn’t come back. And, based on the fact that Kirrin, Thea, Tyre, and Ash have not been able to find her, it sounds like sophisticated shielding technology has been used on her location.”

  “Sort of like the technology that was used to hide King Cassel in that cottage in the woods,” I say.

  “Exactly like that, yes.”

  For a moment, no one speaks. I don’t know about the others, but I suppose, for my own part, I have been so busy these past few weeks trying to convince myself that Esmae is alive that I didn’t think beyond that. I didn’t process the rest of the data. I didn’t consider possibilities like trauma, interrogation, pain, terror, all those very human horrors.

  “She’ll be okay,” Sybilla says quickly, as if she wants to convince herself of it more than the rest of us.

  “But where is she?” I ask. “Who could have taken her?”

  “We know who,” Max says, his voice little more than a snarl. He turns from the fireplace, and I see now that his eyes are the darkest they have ever been.

  “I don’t deny that Alexi is the obvious answer,” Amba says, “but if Kyra had her, I don’t believe she would still be alive.”

  “Maybe she doesn’t know,” says Sybilla. “Alexi could have hidden her from their mother because he knows what she’d do.”

  “If that’s the case, we have no way of tracking her down,” says Amba. “Alexi and Bear are cloistered in King Ralf’s palace at the moment, and therefore inaccessible to us. And if they haven’t told their own mother that they have Esmae captive, it’s unlikely they’ve told anyone else.”

  “Someone must know something,” Sybilla argues.

  “Someone does,” says Max. Something crackles in his eyes, something not entirely unlike Ash’s terrible lightning.

  “But they’re either too loyal or too afraid to betray Alexi,” Sybilla says with a sigh.

  Max makes a sound that could have been a laugh. “Then we give them something to be even more afraid of.”

  Amba looks up at him, calculating. She’s not a war goddess anymore, but she’s never looked less human.

  That feeling comes over me again, the one that says a storm is coming.

  No, not coming.

  It’s here.

  “You have worked very hard to fit yourself into this mortal life,” Amba says slowly to Max. “Are you certain you want to throw that away?”

  “Mortal life hasn’t gotten me very far,” he replies coldly.

  “Very well,” says Amba. “Take Titania and get what you need. Sybilla and I will stay behind and find out what we can.”

  “What’s going on?” Sybilla demands, her eyes flashing warily between them. She can sense the storm, too. “Max, what are you going to do?”

  “Something I can’t take back,” he says.

  “I think—”

  But I never find out what Sybilla thinks, because at that precise moment, with a fierce urgency I can’t ignore, a transmission crackles across my system.

  I have become so accustomed to Kirrin blocking me from accessing the tether between us that it takes me a fraction of a second to realize the transmission is from him. At first, I think he’s forgotten to block me, but then I feel intention, his intention, pulsing over the tether. Whatever he can see, he wants me to see it, too.

  So I look, and when I do, everyone is dead.

  I am Kirrin, and Kirrin is me, and we both stand in the ruin of everything.

  Snow crunches underfoot, a narrow, crooked path through the burning wreckage of rubble, trees, metal, and corpses. Here and there, an object resolves itself out of the chaos: the wing of a corpse ship, the chimney of a house, an overturned chariot—was there a battle? That’s Kirrin’s voice, inside his head. No, surely a single battle couldn’t have done this. But then what did?

  We are not actually here, of course. This is a vision, and therefore not much more than a dream, but very little in my lifetime has ever felt as real as this does now. Kirrin and I pick our way over a deformed, burning hunk of metal, brushing flames off our shoulders like they’re cobwebs. Fire can’t hurt a god.

  From there, higher up, something winks in the pale morning sunlight, and I feel Kirrin’s confusion and concern turn to panic.

  It’s glass, the glass of a windowpane. But it’s not just any window. It’s an arched, mullioned window set in a broken piece of honey-colored stone, the exact color of the palace in Erys.

  Kirrin and I both understand at the same time:

  It’s Kali. This is Kali.

  But why is there snow on Kali?

  Kirrin scrambles across the ruins, frantic now, and I am swept along with him, my own panic throbbing in time to the thump of his bare blue feet. There’s Elvar’s broken throne— what could have destroyed the whole kingdom?—and there’s a hand that could be Elvar’s, buried under rubble, but Kirrin tears past it and I cannot bear to look any closer anyway.

  Sorsha, he thinks, scrambling for a possibility, any possibility. She could have done this. Maybe.

  Out of the corner of our eye, I see a distinctive red ponytail streaked with ash—don’t look—and I want to tear myself away from Kirrin, break this connection, erase this vision from my memory altogether, but then Kirrin stumbles to a halt and I find that I can’t leave. I can’t not see.

  There is
someone a little way ahead of us, the first sign of life in this hellscape. A god sits surrounded by flames and ashes and brick, untouched, his arms wrapped around his knees and his dark golden head bowed. He rocks back and forth.

  “Tyre,” Kirrin’s voice croaks out of him, but his brother doesn’t react. He can’t. After all, we’re not really here. We are only trespassers in a future that hasn’t yet happened.

  Don’t look.

  We look.

  It’s impossible to tell who died first, but Kirrin hopes it was Max, if only because that would have meant he wouldn’t have had to watch Esmae die. Her head is on his chest, and her body is sprawled across his, and the bones of his legs are all wrong, and blood pools at the corner of her lips, and there’s so much ash and blood that it’s hard to see much more than that.

  They’re gone. They’re all gone. I cannot compute it. I refuse to process this data. I’ll purge it, erase it, wipe it for good—

  Kirrin kneels beside them. He reaches out and tenderly brushes some of Max’s sticky, bloody hair away from his forehead. If you look past the blood, they could both just be sleeping.

  Before I can break away and escape, there’s a flash of memory, an echo of their last moments—

  “Any ideas?” Max asks.

  Esmae’s smile wobbles. “I’m all out of moves.”

  Max pulls her close. She turns her face into his neck and one of his hands clenches in her hair. “Close your eyes,” he tells her.

  She does.

  And then it’s over, and I am back in the present. I am looking at Max and Sybilla, both very much still alive. The palace is very much still standing.

  Over the tether, I hear the quiet, frantic pulse of Kirrin’s terror.

  I don’t know how to stop it, he says.

  I want to object. I want to tell him that I have seen too many visions come and go inside gods’ heads, and I refuse to believe that they exist simply to torment gods with futures they cannot avert. I want to tell him that surely, somewhere down the line, there must be a vision that can be averted, that is glimpsed purely so that it will be averted.

  But those objections are human, and I am not human. Instead, I parse the data, analyzing every frame of the vision, reliving every horrifying instant of it through the cold lens of a machine, and I come to the only reasonable conclusion.

  Only a fierce, terrible battle with Sorsha could have caused that kind of destruction.

  And she’s getting closer. We’re almost out of time.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Radha

  I have no idea how so many people can shout so much and yet say so little. The emergency summit has been in session for well over an hour, but we’ve achieved absolutely nothing. Thirty-nine heads of state in an old, beautiful music hall, and all they’ve done is shout at each other.

  To be fair, some of them haven’t. Rodi, for example, has only tried to interject to quiet the others. Some, like King Ralf of Winter, Prime Minister Gomez of Shloka, Princess Shay of Skylark, and Fanna, the new queen of Elba, haven’t bothered to say anything at all. Maybe they’re used to this kind of nonsense and know they have to wait it out. Meanwhile, around us, grown adults throw accusations of deceit, trickery, and stupidity at one another, each one determined to accept as little blame as possible for the situation the entire star system is in right now.

  At last, Queen Miyo raises an ancient and irritated hand. As the eldest head of state and the ruling queen of Tamini, which is where the summit has been held, protocol demands that everyone fall silent in deference to her. It takes a moment or two, but the others quiet down, some with disgruntled grumbles.

  “We are here to address our impending doom,” she snaps. Her voice is like paper, thin and old, but with a decidedly sharp edge. “We are not here to quarrel like children. Whatever our opinions on who does or does not share blame in this disaster, they can wait until we have dealt with our most pressing existential threat.”

  With the slight petulance of chastised toddlers, the previously fist-thumping, bellowing heads of state settle back into their assigned seats in the first row of the circular music hall. Their aides and advisers sit in the second and third rows. I’m in the seat right behind Rodi. No guards are permitted in the room.

  On the circular stage in the middle of the hall, a space where an orchestra or performer would normally be, is a tall holographic screen. It’s blank at the moment, translucent and crackling with static, but I suppose it’ll be used if someone feels the need to illustrate a point with visuals.

  “The Rey twins should be jailed until we have dealt with the beast,” someone on the other side of the hall says gruffly. I think it may be the President of Tova. “I shudder to think of what further trouble they could cause if they are allowed to continue like this.”

  “Esmae Rey is presumed dead,” King Ralf cuts in, his voice deep and steady. He gestures with his one arm. “She has not been seen since that night in Arcadia, and I have it on good authority that no one on Kali knows where she is either. In addition to that, I have given Alexi Rey sanctuary in my palace. It allows me to keep an eye on him. I will not break my promise and give him up.”

  “I don’t think we should be wasting time talking about the twins,” says Queen Fanna. She has a clear voice that wobbles only slightly as she addresses a full summit for the first time. “Sorsha is the one we have to worry about right now.”

  “I am surprised to hear you take that line,” someone says. “Didn’t one of the twins assassinate your father?”

  “My father was a murderer,” Queen Fanna says bluntly. “He murdered my mother, and my two stepmothers after her. We all knew it, but we could do nothing. I suspect many of you knew it, too, and chose to do nothing. If one of the Rey twins did indeed assassinate my father, Elba owes them a debt of thanks.”

  There’s a moment of startled silence. No one seems to know quite how to deal with a young queen who refuses to show any of the decorous grief expected of her after her father’s untimely death.

  I like her.

  Perhaps sensing that it would be wise to pivot, the President of Tova turns back to King Ralf. “I am struggling to understand why you have offered sanctuary to Alexi Rey,” he says. “I understand that the boy has had a hard time and he is well liked, but he deceived you and several others, played some part in the fall of a beloved and respected goddess, and set the beast loose. For my part,” he goes on, smugly, “I can only be grateful that Tova had the sense to refuse to take any sides in the Rey war. It seems to have ended poorly for those of you who did.”

  Prime Minister Gomez shrugs. “I have had no regrets about offering my aid to Elvar,” she says. “I was not tricked by a boy and his toy city.”

  There are some muted grumbles at that. I suspect that none of these important heads of state want to be reminded of the fact that they threw their lot in with a boy who hoodwinked them.

  “Yes,” Queen Miyo says coldly, “We have not forgotten that you sided with Elvar.”

  “And I have not forgotten that your great-niece attempted to murder a girl in my territory,” Prime Minister Gomez replies. “Shall we discuss that further?”

  Queen Miyo falls silent, her lips set in a thin line.

  After a tense pause, King Ralf speaks up. “Alexi needs guidance and compassion,” he says. “He knows he made a mistake when he lied to us about Arcadia. He knows he was wrong to set Sorsha free. How many of us have the humility and grace to own up to our mistakes? I trust he will not make those mistakes again.”

  Rodi makes an incredulous noise. “He murdered my brother. You do remember that, don’t you?”

  King Ralf flushes. “I am truly sorry about Prince Rama. But you know as well as I do that Alexi did not intend to kill him.”

  “But he did kill him, King Ralf. And while you sit there trying to rehabilitate his character, there is nothing left of my brother to rehabilitate.”

  “Esmae Rey broke the laws of righteous warfare,” someone else says. “I
f you want to start counting losses, Prince Rodi, I can tell you I lost friends when she burned Arcadia. How do we know she isn’t in hiding somewhere to avoid punishment? Additionally, what assurances do we have that Titania won’t destroy our cities next time? Wychstar may be safe from your father’s creation, but the rest of us are not.”

  “There is a great beast literally eating the stars in the sky as we speak!” Queen Fanna snaps, having apparently reached the end of her patience. “I recommend this summit rethinks its priorities.”

  Before anyone can reply, the doors of the music hall slam violently open, making us all jump.

  A god stalks in, with three enormous grey wolves at his heels. The music hall erupts into gasps and cries of alarm, followed by a terrible, hushed silence when one of the wolves lets out a bloodcurdling growl. Even the President of Tova, who never seems to know when to shut up, shuts up.

  The god looks like a human, dark-haired and youngish, but even without the presence of the unnaturally large wolves, we know what he is because he wears the black battle gear of a god. Fitted black trousers tucked into black anti-gravity boots, strange, almost liquid pieces of armor across his chest and shoulders, black buckled belts crisscrossing his body with a dozen small knives slotted into the belts, and a golden crest of a howling wolf on the breastplate. We’ve seen it all in thousands of pictures and paintings of gods at war.

  Fear ripples across the music hall as the god walks slowly down the aisle, to the stage in the heart of the room. Apart from Ash, who wears his battle gear whenever he takes his human form, no god ever wears theirs unless they’re about to cause utter devastation.

  I don’t know which is worse: that this might be Ash, or that this might not.

  Then, as his boots hit the stage and he turns, the wolves rumbling around him, the lights of the music hall hit his face and my eyes almost pop out of my head.

  “Max?” I whisper in disbelief, too quietly for anyone to hear.

  Something clicks into place. These are the wolves of the Empty Moon, the terrifying, fearsome beasts that only the gods Kirrin and Valin can command. I suppose I didn’t recognize them straight away because the only time I ever saw one, it was lying placidly at Max’s feet like a devoted puppy.