A War of Swallowed Stars Read online

  But what is he doing here?

  The expression on his face is one I remember from the Empty Moon, when he was pretending he’d forgotten his mortal life: haughty, cold, and unimpressed. But his eyes aren’t like anything I’ve seen before. They’re almost on fire.

  With one hand on the head of one of the wolves, as if to restrain it, he waits for someone to dare to speak.

  Finally, Queen Miyo finds the nerve. “Who are you?”

  “I am Max Rey, crown prince of the spaceship kingdom of Kali,” he says, and there’s an echo of something ancient and dangerous in his voice. For a moment, I almost forget he’s human. “And I am Valin, ruling god of the Empty Moon.”

  The others take in sharp, shocked breaths. I just goggle at Max. I could have sworn he wanted nothing more than to keep his past life a secret. Why is he doing this?

  “Lies,” someone sputters. I don’t take my eyes off Max, but I’d bet my teeth that it was the President of Tova. “How dare you claim the identity of a god?”

  “Good god, man, keep your mouth shut if you know what’s good for you,” Rodi snaps. “How can he possibly be commanding the wolves of the Empty Moon and wearing celestial battle gear if he isn’t who he says he is?”

  “Why are you wearing battle gear?” Queen Fanna asks, sounding more curious than alarmed.

  Max’s dark eyes flit to her. “Because I’m at war.”

  “With who?”

  “With anyone who stands in my way.”

  Queen Miyo tries in vain to wrest some control of the situation back. “What is the meaning of this, Prince Max?”

  “This is a summit,” he replies. “I am a head of state.”

  She flounders for a way to explain her outrage. “You were not invited.”

  He raises an eyebrow. “Well, that’s going to be a problem, I’m afraid. Because I came here to address this summit, and King Ralf in particular.”

  Everyone turns to look at King Ralf, who has gone quite pale. To his credit, he remains calm, his shoulders squared, his jaw set. “I will not give up your cousins. I offered them sanctuary. I will not dishonor myself by breaking that promise.”

  “I could make you break that promise, King Ralf.” The threat falls quietly, but hard, like a stone in water.

  King Ralf doesn’t speak.

  “Happily for you,” Max goes on, “I didn’t come here to make you break a promise. I came here to get Esmae Rey.”

  “She died in Arcadia,” King Ralf says, genuinely bewildered. “Didn’t she?”

  In one stride, Max is across the stage and his hand is around King Ralf’s throat. “She’s in your palace,” he growls.

  Rodi and I look at each other, startled.

  “No,” King Ralf croaks, his eyes wide. “She is not, I swear it!”

  Max lets him go. Without taking his angry, steely eyes off King Ralf, he gestures at the music hall doors. I glance over and see two young soldiers marching an unfamiliar man in. He’s quite old, his hair gone white, and he looks terrified as he stumbles up to the stage.

  “Do you know who this man is?” Max asks King Ralf.

  The king looks appalled. “That is one of my palace doctors. You have no right to hold him captive!”

  “I have been in your palace,” Max cuts him off. “I have talked to people. Funny thing is, Max Rey couldn’t have made them tell him anything. But even the most devoted of servants forget to keep secrets when a god asks the questions. This particular doctor was seen going to the quarters you gave Alexi,” Max continued, “on the day Arcadia was destroyed. So I thought it might be a good idea to pay him a visit and ask him why.”

  I lean forward, my hands clenched over the back of Rodi’s seat.

  “Tell him what you told me,” Max says to the doctor.

  The doctor doesn’t even hesitate. “I was summoned to Prince Alexi’s quarters several weeks ago,” he says. “He begged me for my help. He had a prisoner in his quarters, and he wanted me to put her in stasis. I did as he asked. I could not speak of it to you or anyone else, my king, as it would have gone against my oath to reveal any information about my patients.” He glances at Max, and it’s obvious to everyone why all oaths have been abandoned now.

  King Ralf jolts to his feet. Max doesn’t stop him. The king is even paler than before. “You put a prisoner in stasis in my palace, on Prince Alexi’s orders?” he asks the doctor.

  “I did, my king.”

  “Was Esmae Rey that prisoner?”

  The doctor glances at Max again, then nods. “Yes.”

  I put a hand over my mouth.

  King Ralf staggers back. His eyes dart to Max. “I didn’t know.”

  “I can see that,” says Max coldly.

  “Interesting,” says Queen Fanna. “You told us with such certainty that Prince Alexi would never make the same mistakes again, King Ralf. Yet he is still lying to you.”

  “No one would judge you for revoking the sanctuary you offered him and giving him up to us,” Max tells him. “You know it would be the quickest way to end this.”

  “I cannot break my promise,” King Ralf says softly.

  Max gestures to the soldiers, who release the doctor. “You can have your doctor back.” He looks around the room. “Thank you all for your attention. Sorsha will not be a problem for much longer. This summit is over.” Without waiting for a reply, he turns back to King Ralf. “You will return to Winter with us, take us to Alexi’s quarters, and make sure we get Esmae back.”

  With one last growl, the wolves stalk back up the aisle. Max pauses at the doors, a shadow against the light outside, and says, “Stay out of our war if you wish. You have my word that my father and I will not hold it against you.” He waits for a moment and then adds, “But if you do choose a side, choose wisely.”

  Then he’s gone, and the doors slam shut, leaving us in silence.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Esmae

  There’s a clatter of footsteps outside the broom cupboard. I tighten my grip on the knife beneath the covers of the cot, and Bear leaps to his feet.

  Look weak, I tell myself. Look like a stiff breeze could blow you over.

  It’s not hard. I’m not even sure I’m pretending.

  The door bursts open and Alexi, my mother, and General Saka come back in, barely squeezing into the tiny space. My mother looks furious, while Alexi’s ears are a dark red. He can’t quite meet anyone’s eye.

  “Queen Miyo just sent me a message,” Leila Saka tells Bear, her voice cold and clipped. “My great-aunt says King Ralf knows we have your sister and he’s on his way here right now with Max to force us to release her.”

  My heart leaps. Max found me.

  Bear’s mouth falls open. “How did they find out?”

  “The doctor,” says Leila bitterly. “It seems someone saw him coming in here that first day. They made him talk.”

  “Enough of this,” says my mother. In spite of her fury, she’s as cold and calm as a pond. “We have a few hours at best before they get back to Winter. If we move quickly, we can avert disaster completely. First, we have to get her out of here.”

  Bear frowns. “But if they already know she’s here—”

  “She must not go back to Kali,” our mother says. “We cannot have her fighting this war. Leila can get her off Winter in less than an hour. One of you may accompany them if you don’t trust Leila to keep her alive.” Her eyes flick to me briefly. “She’ll have to be put back in stasis before we take her anywhere. The less trouble she can cause, the better.”

  “The doctor isn’t here,” Alex points out.

  “We’ll have to take our chances. Bear, go to the palace infirmary and get hold of a vial of stasis serum. I don’t care how you get it, but get it. Do you understand me?”

  Bear’s brows snap together, but he seems to realize that defying our mother on this will only mean more trouble for all of them. He leaves.

  “Now, this is very important,” our mother says to Alex, coldly and firmly. “B
y the time Ralf returns, most likely with Max in tow, there must be no sign whatsoever that she was here. I will take care of wiping this cupboard clean. But you, Alexi, have a far more important job. When they get here, they will ask us where she is. We will say we don’t know. When they ask if she was ever here, we will deny it.”

  Alex looks appalled. “It was one thing to hide Esmae behind King Ralf’s back, but I can’t lie to his face!”

  “Yes, you will,” our mother hisses. “You will look confused, outraged and, above all, convincing. You will do whatever it takes to make Ralf believe that everything he has been told is a lie. If you do not, he will revoke the sanctuary he offered us and, now that Max has told every head of state in the galaxy that you have once again been keeping secrets from your allies, we will have nowhere to go. Arcadia left us in a shambles. We need time to recover. Even a few more weeks will make all the difference. Without that time, we are all as good as dead.”

  “Alex, listen to your mother,” Leila chimes in. “We cannot afford to make King Ralf angry.”

  “He’ll think better of us if we tell him the truth and explain ourselves,” Alex protests.

  “That is too great a risk. If you want to survive this war, if you want your crown, you must lie.”

  And, because I can’t help myself, I hear my voice cut in:

  “My crown.”

  It’s petty, of course, because I don’t want the crown of Kali. But it seems like a good time to remind them all that one of King Cassel’s twins was born first, and it turns out that twin wasn’t Alexi.

  My mother lets out a sharp laugh. “You see?” she says to Alex. “And you tried to tell me she’s not a threat.”

  Alex looks hard at me, then back at our mother. “What does she mean, her crown?”

  At that, I laugh. It’s a hoarse, cackly sound, altogether too much like the wicked witch of this fairytale. “You haven’t told him? How is he supposed to trust you when you never tell him anything?” I clutch my ribs, which are white-hot with pain. A small price to pay for that laugh. “Oh, Mother. You really are your own worst enemy.”

  Leila Saka gives me a vicious kick to the ribs. I think I hear something crunch. “Quiet!” she snaps.

  Pain splits my body in two, but I don’t stop laughing.

  “Leila!” Alex intervenes, smacking her foot away as she pulls it back to repeat the kick. For a moment, his anger vanishes, and when his eyes meet mine, they’re earnest and dismayed. “Are you okay?” he asks me gruffly.

  The door bangs open before I can answer, and Bear comes back in, out of breath. “I had to steal them out of a drawer,” he says, red with guilt. He holds up two full, clear syringes. “I didn’t have time to read instructions about how much someone Esmae’s size needs, so I brought two.”

  “Good,” says our mother, recovering her composure. “Inject her with both, just to be safe.”

  I’m out of time. If they put me back in stasis, I have no idea where I’ll be the next time I wake up. If I ever wake up again. I can’t wait to be rescued. I have to get out. Now.

  But there are four of them, and they’re all trained warriors, and I’m badly wounded.

  I try to think, my mind rapidly calculating possibilities like the moves in a game of Warlords.

  When Bear hesitates over injecting me, our mother makes an impatient sound with her tongue and gestures to Leila, who then snatches the syringes out of Bear’s hand.

  “Alexi, hold her in place while Leila gets the serum into her,” our mother orders. “I don’t trust her not to struggle.”

  Blazingly fast, I reassess the way the pieces on the board have moved.

  There.

  A way out.

  Alexi approaches the foot of the cot, while Leila comes for my heart. In the instant before either of them touches me, when they’re just close enough, I move.

  Flicking the knife to my right hand, where my four fingers can just about close over the handle, I use the flash of steel to distract them. Then I jerk my right leg up, kicking the syringes out of Leila’s hands. As they fly upward, I snatch one out of the air with my left hand and plunge it right into Leila’s heart.

  She drops like a stone, and I roll off the cot, grabbing the other syringe off the floor as I go. As my mother shouts a warning and Alexi leaps for me, I flip the syringe around and jab it into his shoulder. He collapses.

  Pain screams along my ribs, all the way down my left leg, but I can’t stop, not even for a second. Switching the knife back to my left hand, I drag myself slowly to my feet, my eyes on my mother, who watches the knife with a stunned, furious look on her face.

  “Let me go,” I say quietly.

  My mother scoffs. “You’re out of serum and that knife will only keep one of us at bay. All you’ve done is waste a few minutes.”

  Then, unexpectedly, Bear speaks up, his voice gruff. “Go.”

  Our mother’s head snaps to him. “What?”

  He steps past me and puts his enormous arms around our mother, holding her back. “Go,” he says again.

  I stare at him in shock. Outraged, our mother struggles against his greater strength, but it’s no use. He has her metal hand pinned to her side, and without it, she has no way of extracting herself from his hold.

  I walk backward, bumping into the door. I have to switch the knife to my thumbless right hand again so that I can turn the doorknob. The whole time, I don’t take my eyes off Bear.

  “Just this once,” he says, with the faintest echo of a smile, “I’m choosing you.”

  Almost blinded by tears, I turn and run.

  Well, I limp.

  When I stumble out of their suite of rooms into a warm, brightly lit hallway, I’m prepared to fight, but there’s no one there. My mother’s determination to sneak me out of the palace unseen has worked unexpectedly in my favor: she’s obviously gotten rid of the guards and servants who would normally be attending to them.

  I take a moment to catch my breath and wipe my tears away. It’s hard to see past the throbbing pain all over my body, but I force myself to think. I’ve only been to this palace twice before, and certainly not to the guest quarters. I have no idea how to get out of here.

  But maybe I don’t need to. All I need to do is buy myself time until Max gets here.

  So I run down the hallway, dragging my left leg behind me, the knife clutched in my left hand like it’s my newborn baby. Fresh blood trickles down my leg, wet against the dried blood and sweat already sticking my torn leggings to my skin. I turn a corner, stagger down another hallway, and trip down a flight of stairs at the end.

  Someone lets out a startled cry, and when I come to a stop at the bottom of the stairs, my left leg buckling under my weight at last, I find myself in a large, wide entryway, looking into a number of shocked, horrified faces. A couple of girls in pretty dresses, a few servants in King Ralf’s livery, and a guard who doesn’t seem to know whether he needs to reach for his sword.

  I lower myself to the bottom step of the stairs, wrapping the four fingers of my right hand around the closest balustrade post for support. “You,” I say to the guard, pointing my knife at him, “stay where you are. And one of you,” I say to the servants, “get Princess Katya. Quickly.”

  One of them, a young girl with a round, kind face, turns on her heel and runs out of the room.

  I count the seconds in my head, keeping my eyes and my knife pointed at the guard, who, in turn, keeps his sword pointed at me. Meanwhile, one of the other servants ushers the two girls in dresses away. The seconds turn into minutes. I lose count.

  I don’t know how long Alex and Leila Saka will stay in stasis. In fact, I’m sure my mother has already forced her way past Bear to get them the serum that will reverse the effects. They could be on their way to find me already, and I don’t think they’ll find it hard to convince a confused guard and a few frightened servants to hand me over to them. It may be too late to keep me a secret, but it’s not too late to kill me.

  When I hear
footsteps, I tense. Several of King Ralf’s guards burst into the entryway, all armed, and tall, blonde Princess Katya follows close on their heels. Her eyes go wide when she sees me on the bottom step, bloody and filthy, left leg stretched out in front of me, a knife in my hand.

  Her husband, Prince Dimitri, puts out a hand to stop her from approaching me, but she shakes her head and comes closer, past the guards, who don’t lower their weapons.

  “Hello, Esmae,” she says, more calmly than I would have given her credit for. “You’re looking well.”

  I laugh, and she recoils from the sight of my teeth. There’s blood on them. I can taste it.

  Katya sits down on the floor a few feet away, sweeping the long, full skirts of her dress under her. Out of reach of my knife, but closer than her husband and her guards are happy with.

  “I didn’t want to believe it,” she said. “Papa sent me a message from the summit, right before he left with Max. I was at a luncheon all the way across the city, but I came straight back to find out for myself if it was true.”

  “What happened at the summit?” I ask, the words creaking out of my throat. My ribs protest.

  “You don’t know? Goodness, it’s quite a story!” She hesitates. “Esmae, I know you are technically my father’s enemy, but I cannot bear to just leave you like this. I can have a doctor here in two minutes.”

  “No,” I say. “No one touches me.”

  No one points out the absurdity of such a statement. I’m vastly outnumbered. They could do anything they wanted to me and I probably couldn’t stop them.

  Prince Dimitri’s handsome face softens slightly. Without speaking, he reaches into his breast pocket and pulls out a large, clean handkerchief. He balls it up in his hand and tosses it gently in my direction. I let it land on my knee and thank him with a nod. Releasing the balustrade post, I use my free hand to press the handkerchief to the place on my leg where most of the blood seems to be coming from. The spotless white is soaked red in seconds.

  Well. It was a kind thought, anyway.

  I notice, belatedly, that the hand holding the knife has dropped to my side. When did that happen? I try to lift it, but it won’t move. I’m exhausted, broken, and woozy. Even as I try to pull myself together, to defend myself from the next threat, I can feel myself coming untethered, wandering far away.