A War of Swallowed Stars Page 8

  Back home, to a place where Rama grins as he says you owe me exactly two hundred and twelve favors for this. Where Sybilla complains bitterly about, well, everything. Where I’m a little girl and a goddess tells me stories. Where Rickard’s eyes brighten with warmth and he says I’m proud of you, Esmae. Where I’m a servant running across a palace, a prince at my heels, both of us laughing. Where I’m a princess and a tear slips down my uncle’s face as his fingers trace my face. Where I’m a girl in the woods with her brothers. Where a sentient ship waits, surrounded by stars. Where Max smiles crookedly at me and says you should have looked. Home is so many places.

  And so many of them are gone for good.

  “I don’t think she’ll make it,” a male voice says from somewhere far away.

  A woman’s voice replies, pitched low. “I don’t know what to do.”

  “Princess Esmae,” the male voice says firmly.

  That’s me, isn’t it?

  I blink, letting my eyes settle on Prince Dimitri. He’s the one speaking. “Princess Esmae,” he says again, now that he has my attention, “I really must urge you to accept Katya’s offer of medical treatment and—”

  He breaks off, turning at the sound of some kind of commotion beyond the entryway. Katya turns her head, too, pale gold brows scrunching together.

  “I think I hear your father,” Dimitri says to Katya.

  My heart gives a painful lurch. Suddenly, I’m not far away anymore.

  Katya rises gracefully to her feet. “Fetch Papa,” she says to one of the guards. He bows and departs.

  I’m on my feet, too, my left leg wobbling unsteadily beneath me. I don’t know when that happened.

  A moment later, King Ralf marches into the entryway, but I barely notice him. Because a familiar gray wolf stalks in right after him, making the guards back away. And behind the wolf, in a god’s battle gear, his dark eyes incandescent with rage, is—

  “Max.”

  His face is cold and steely, and a muscle jumps in his clenched jaw, but the moment I say his name, his eyes snap to me. Then he’s in front of me, and I tumble into his arms, and I’m sobbing into his shoulder, and his hands are shaking. He holds me so tight it hurts every single bone in my body, and still, somehow, it’s the best feeling in the world.

  “You found me,” I whisper.

  His voice shudders out of him. “You found me first.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Esmae

  I drift in and out of the real world, to fleeting glimpses of reality between long stretches of quiet, dreamless darkness. There’s Titania, her voice murmuring reassurances in my ear as her lasers cauterize the wound on my leg. There’s Sybilla, her hands on my face as she leans over me to whisper fiercely, “Be okay, damn it.” There’s the weight of an enormous, soft blanket of breathing fur, keeping me warm when I shiver. There are bright lights, urgent voices, the click and beep of machines. And there’s a hand, holding mine.

  There are other things, too: the memory of shivering in the snow, the cloying smell of blood, sweat, and dirt, a throbbing ache where my thumb used to be. I try not to notice these things.

  When I wake, it’s because my cheek is wet.

  I crack open one eye and see the vivid pink tongue of a wolf slobbering inches from my face. A sound creaks out of my throat, somewhere between laughter and protest, as the wolf licks my cheek again.

  “Get off, Rage,” a male voice grumbles beside me, rough with sleep.

  There’s a huff, and then the pink tongue vanishes, along with a weight that I hadn’t even noticed. I open both eyes to the familiar sight of a white ceiling carved with pale gold suns, moons, and stars above me. My ceiling. I’m in my bed, in Erys, on Kali. I’m home.

  Except I’m sure my bed used to be bigger. Yet, for some reason, no matter which way I twitch my arms, I bump into something.

  Every part of me feels stiff and achy, including my eyelids, for heaven’s sake, so I blink very slowly and very gingerly turn my head to my right. Max’s chest is inches from my nose, rising and falling, so close I can hear his heart beating. One of his hands is still entwined with mine. He never let go.

  Smothering a groan of pain, I turn my head back to my left. Sybilla is wedged up against my other side, snoring. Snoring.

  And there seem to be three huge, fluffy wolves sleeping on my rug.

  “This isn’t even the weirdest thing that’s ever happened to me,” is all I can muster the energy to say.

  “True,” Sybilla says, yawning. “That time you ate a pork skewer without any sauce was definitely weirder.”

  “Why are you in my bed?”

  “For cuddling purposes.”

  “I told her to get out,” Max mumbles, turning so he can rub his cheek against my hair. “But she won’t go.”

  “You were both asleep,” Sybilla replies primly. “Someone had to keep you safe.”

  “There are three celestial wolves on my rug,” I point out. “And you were snoring five seconds ago.”

  She opens her eyes just so she can roll them. “It was obviously a clever ruse to trick a would-be assassin.”

  “Please,” I beg, sputtering, “it hurts to laugh. Stop it.”

  “Go back to sleep,” Max says.

  “He’s been awake for three days,” Sybilla tells me. “He’s cranky.”

  He kicks her.

  Sybilla stays put. I continue to be squished in my own bed. One of the wolves whimpers in its sleep, like an oversized puppy.

  “Did I hear you call one of them Rage?” I ask sleepily.

  “The dark gray one is Rage,” says Max. “The ashy gray one is Sorrow. And the one that’s almost white is Joy.”

  “I approve of those names,” says Sybilla.

  “You would,” I mumble. “I, for one, think they should have been called Fluffy, Fluffier, and Snuggleboop.”

  I fall asleep to the sound of their laughter.

  The next time I wake up, it’s because my bedroom door slams open. By the time I startle awake, almost snapping my stiff neck in two, all three wolves are ready to pounce.

  “Down, doggies,” Radha says cheerfully.

  The doggies do not get down, but one of them—the pale gray one, the one Max said was called Joy—stops growling and looks at Max as if to ask why she has to put up with such nonsense. Max sighs, clicks his tongue, and the wolves immediately return to the rug, clearly ready to go straight back to sleep.

  “Esmae!” Radha says happily, reaching across Sybilla to give me a hug. “I’m so happy you’re home!”

  “What are you doing here?” Sybilla demands before I can reply.

  “Anyone would think you’re not happy to see me,” says Radha, amused.

  Sybilla pinks slightly. “Well, I—I mean—”

  Taking pity on her, Max says, “I’m sorry for not stopping to say hello at the summit, Radha.”

  “Oh, please don’t be, I completely understand!” Radha lets out an unexpected peal of laughter. “Their faces when you walked in! And the scenes after you left, oh, it was the most fun I’ve had at a summit since ever.”

  “Is there going to be a lot of trouble?” I ask, my voice still a little croaky.

  Radha makes a face. “Honestly, I don’t know. For now, no one wants to make Max angry, but I think a lot will depend on whether he makes good on his promise to stop Sorsha.”

  “You promised them you’d stop her?” I ask him incredulously, sitting up straight.

  “I suppose you could call it that. I told them she wouldn’t be a problem for much longer.”

  “How can you know that?”

  Max and Sybilla exchange a look. They know something they haven’t told me yet. “We’ll figure it out together,” he says at last, reaching for my hand again.

  “As for why I’m here,” Radha goes on, fidgeting with the edge of my blankets. “I went back to Wychstar to persuade my father to help us. I’m not sure why he did it, but he let me come back here with most of our army.”

&
nbsp; We stare at her, shocked. When Radha first told us she wanted to go back to Wychstar and talk to her father, I’m pretty sure we all thought it would be a wasted trip.

  “He has one condition,” she adds. “He wants to meet Rickard one last time.”

  “I can’t see how that could possibly be good for either of them,” I say.

  “I don’t know,” says Max, considering. “It might give them both the closure they need.”

  “Would you ask Rickard for me, Esmae?” Radha asks. “I’m not sure he’ll want to see me after what I did to him.”

  “He doesn’t blame you,” I assure her. “He doesn’t blame your father, either. He understands. So you should ask him yourself. I think it would do you good to speak to him.”

  “I suppose. Even if he doesn’t blame me, I owe him an apology. Oh!” she adds, brightening. “I almost forgot! I brought presents!”

  She bounds out of the room, returning with an armful of wrapped parcels and a big grin.

  Sybilla looks confused. “Your father’s army wasn’t the gift?”

  “You’re adorable,” says Radha, and Sybilla’s cheeks immediately go bright red. “This is for you, Max,” she goes on, holding a book out to him. “It’s about Wych woodworking techniques.”

  “Thanks,” he says, touched.

  “And, Esmae, for you,” she says, handing me a heavy, flattish square box wrapped carefully in layers of silk.

  I thank her and start unpeeling the silk, then pause when I see Radha produce a succulent plant out of nowhere. It’s in brilliantly vivid shades of pink and green and presented in a small, intricately painted clay pot. She holds the succulent out to Sybilla, beaming.

  “Um,” says Sybilla, obviously bemused. “Thanks?”

  “It reminded me of you,” Radha explains. “You know? Because it’s pretty, prickly, and hard to kill.”

  The expression on Sybilla’s face sends Max into a fit of choked laughter. I hastily look away before I succumb, too, and concentrate on unwrapping my own gift.

  The wooden box is beautiful, simply made and carved, and when I open it, I catch my breath at the exquisite set of marble Warlords pieces inside.

  “This was Rama’s,” I croak. “We used to play with this set all the time.”

  “I know,” says Radha. “I think he would have wanted you to have it.”

  I look up at her, and I understand what this gift really is: not just a treasured memory of an old friend, but a gesture of forgiveness from a new one.

  “Thank you,” I say quietly.

  She takes my hand. “We’re all with you to the end, Esmae. Whatever that end may be, we will be there, with you. You know that, don’t you?”

  I look at each of their faces, my heart too full to speak.

  Then, before I can reply or, alternatively, burst into tears, a petulant voice crackles over the tablet on my bedside table:

  “I see you’re all hanging out without me.”

  “Titania, it’s you!” I say happily. “I’ve missed you!”

  She snorts. “You could have fooled me.”

  “You’re outside the window right now, aren’t you?” Max asks her.

  “Where else would I be?”

  I crawl out of bed, my stiff, sore muscles creaking in protest, and stumble unsteadily to the window. I pull back the curtains and there she is, my ship and my friend, shining in the sun.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Titania

  “Are you absolutely sure?”

  I huff in exasperation. No one can grind my gears quite like Sybilla does. Literally.

  “I am a machine,” I inform her, enunciating each word with what I hope is icy dignity. “I do not speak in uncertainties. Of course I’m sure.”

  “No need to get testy,” she says, casually putting her boots up on my console.

  “I can make it very uncomfortable for you in here, you know.”

  “Hey, I’m here keeping you company, aren’t I?”

  I sigh. “Fine,” I say grudgingly. “Look.” I pull up the relevant data on my screens. “You see that red signal among all the green ones? That’s the hacker’s signal isolated from all the others. Now that I know its signature, I’ll recognize it no matter when or where in the system it reappears. That means I can block it. Whoever the hacker is, they’ll never be able to overwrite any of the shield protocols.”

  “I understood maybe half the words you just said, but I think I get the gist,” Sybilla says, studying the data on the screen with narrowed eyes. “This is good, Titania.”

  “You don’t have to tell me that.”

  “But there’s still no way to tell who the hacker is?”

  “Not like this. I can track their signal but not their identity. They use different terminals and ports each time. The only consistent thing about it is that the signal comes from the base ship each time.”

  “Over two hundred people work in the base ship.” Sybilla groans. “I’ll have someone start checking their records for red flags, but after what Elvar did to the Blue Knights, it really won’t look good if we investigate two hundred innocent people to find one spy.”

  “Are they still in the city jail?” I ask in a hushed voice. “The Blue Knights, I mean.”

  “No,” Sybilla says. “Elvar had them all arrested, but Max got back in time to prevent him from putting them all on trial for treason. He and General Khay did some sleuthing and found out that only three of the Blue Knights still on Kali knew about the attack. The others had no idea. He had them released. The damage was done, though. Alexi’s supporters have been protesting for weeks, calling Elvar everything from a tyrant to incompetent. The kingdom’s never been so divided.”

  Most of this is incomprehensible to me. Human motivations and political shenanigans are still a puzzle I can’t quite make sense of. But I do know what a divided kingdom means, and it’s never anything good.

  “Does Esmae know?”

  Sybilla makes a face. “Not yet, but she will. We’re trying to tell her as little as possible until she’s more herself.”

  “Once, I tried to protect her from things I thought would hurt her,” I tell her. “When they slipped past me anyway, it was so much worse than if I’d told her the truth. You should tell her.”

  After Sybilla leaves, I fly out of the dock, through the shields, and away from Kali. As I cross hundreds of thousands of miles of space, I count stars. How many have gone missing since I last counted them? It’s like a strange, ugly game for children, counting stars in a dying galaxy.

  When I find Sorsha, she’s asleep on a moon, her scales gleaming in the reflected light of the sun, her tail twitching restlessly. She opens one eye when I approach and almost immediately closes it again. I suppose she knows by now that I’m not a threat to her.

  I notice something when I draw close. A god, in the form of a snowy white wolf, pacing the cold, rocky surface of the moon beside the beast.

  The wolf looks up at me, vanishes, and reappears inside my control room in the form of a blue-skinned boy.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask.

  Kirrin looks tired. “I tried using my power on Sorsha’s helmet again.”

  “You must have known it wouldn’t work,” I point out. “It is absurdly irrational to keep attempting something you know is doomed to failure.”

  “I had to try anyway.”

  “You’re afraid,” I guess.

  Kirrin sinks into one of my chairs, his boyish mischief almost entirely gone. “I am afraid,” he confesses. “I am afraid that my brother and sister despise me for what I’ve done to them. I am afraid that Alex will lose the hope, honor, and goodness that’s always been a part of him. I am afraid of the grief I will feel when I lose everyone I love as our sun is devoured. I am afraid of what it means to die. I am afraid of a lot of things, Titania.”

  “You’re afraid it’s your fault.”

  I’m not sure how I know this. Maybe it’s because Kirrin and I are still connected.

  He
glances up in surprise and his mouth twists in a rueful smile. “Yes. I was the one who freed her, after all.”

  “And you’re thinking of what you saw.”

  “We both saw it. Something left Kali in ruins. Something killed Max, Esmae, and who knows how many others.”

  “Only Sorsha could have done that,” I remind him. “And it won’t get that far. We’ll stop her.”

  “I’m afraid of that, too,” he admits. “Suya spoke to Alex. He told him what he needs to do to kill Sorsha. And Alex, of course, said he’ll do it. If Suya can get him the starsword, he said he’ll go up against Sorsha. He’ll do whatever it takes to win his friends and allies back. He’s become so preoccupied with what other people think of him, it’s like nothing else matters.”

  “Well, he can have the starsword,” I say unsympathetically. “You can take it to him right now if you like. Better him than Esmae.”

  “They’ll both lose if they try to stop her alone,” Kirrin says. “But they might win if they fight her together.”

  I scoff. “He held her prisoner for weeks. He would have let his mother kill her. Why should she help him?”

  “Because millions of lives depend on it.”

  I don’t have an answer to that.

  Below us, on the moon, Sorsha stretches her wings and takes to the sky.

  I don’t count the stars on my way back to Kali.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Esmae

  My reunions are all heartbreakingly joyful. Amba, Rickard, Elvar, Guinne, and the Hundred and One are all transparently happy to have me home. Admittedly, Amba shows her joy by tsking at the sight of me and informing me that I should have known better than to let myself get captured, but I know now that under that stern glare is more love than she knows what to do with.

  Some of my reunions are as awkward as they are joyous: when Elvar, Guinne, and Rickard come to visit me, they sit somewhat stiffly in chairs around my bed, with Max hovering at the window. Elvar and Guinne both have blindfolds over their eyes, of course, so their expressions are harder to read, but it’s still impossible not to notice that they are pointing their heads in opposite directions. On top of that, it seems like the only person any of them is speaking to is me.