A War of Swallowed Stars Page 9

  “Okay, what’s going on?” I ask.

  Rickard lets out a weary, long-suffering sigh. He looks as pale and ill as he did when I left for the Empty Moon, but at least he has the strength to get out of bed now. “In short,” he says drily, “Guinne is angry with Elvar for killing Lord Selwyn—”

  “There should have been a trial,” says Guinne.

  “—Elvar is angry with Guinne for not understanding why he killed Lord Selwyn—”

  “She knows how much Cassel meant to me,” Elvar says.

  “—and Elvar and Guinne are having trouble speaking to Max,” Rickard finishes, “because he revealed that he’s a reincarnated god to the entire galaxy just a few days ago, and they’re now not quite sure how to treat him.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Guinne protests.

  “Of course we know how to treat him,” Elvar chimes in. “He’s our son.”

  “Who kept a secret from us,” Guinne adds.

  “Which would have been fine,” says Elvar, “if he had, upon deciding to reveal that secret, seen fit to share it with us before telling everyone else.”

  Max clears his throat, his expression both sheepish and amused. “Is that it? You’re cross with me because I didn’t tell you first?”

  “Wouldn’t you be?” Guinne snipes at him.

  I smother a giggle.

  “Mother, Father,” Max says very seriously, his eyes twinkling, “I’m very sorry I didn’t tell you first.”

  “You’re forgiven,” says Guinne in a mollified tone of voice.

  “Indeed,” says Elvar. “After all, we know the oversight was because you wanted to save Esmae. That is an entirely understandable excuse.”

  Rickard raises his eyebrows. “And what about the matter of Lord Selwyn? Can you both come to an understanding about that?”

  “We’re not quite there yet,” says Elvar stiffly.

  “That will take some time,” Guinne adds, just as stiffly.

  “I know you cared very much about him, Guinne,” Rickard says to her. “I admit I’m surprised you didn’t bring him back when you had the chance.”

  I startle. “Bring him back?”

  Guinne turns her face in my direction. “You may know that I was once granted a boon,” she says. “It can be used once, just once. I can reverse a single event. Undo it.”

  “Any event?” I ask, astonished.

  “There is a time limit,” she says. “I cannot, for instance, decide now to undo Cassel’s kidnapping and thereby avoid this war. My boon must be used within minutes of the event. It’s a failsafe to make sure the knock-on effects are minimal. Or so I was told.”

  “So if you’d decided to at the time, you could have reversed the moment when—”

  “When my brother died, yes.”

  I blink. “Why didn’t you?”

  Guinne smiles faintly. “I can use my boon only once. I cannot use it lightly.”

  She doesn’t say anything more about it, but her face turns ever so slightly in the direction of the window, where Max is standing, and I know. She’s saving it for him. This is a war. She wants to make sure she can bring her son back if the worst should happen.

  I’m glad. Not just because I despised Lord Selwyn and had absolutely no desire to see him resurrected, but because it makes me feel a little better to know that whatever happens, Max will have a second chance.

  “You needn’t worry, Rickard,” Guinne says, clearing her throat and steering the conversation back to his question. “Elvar and I will get there in the end.”

  “Get there faster,” Rickard replies, sounding like a grumpy old man for the first time ever. “I’m too old to spend my last years trying to fill uncomfortable silences.”

  “Last years,” Elvar scoffs. “You’ll outlive us all.”

  “Did you know?” I ask Rickard. “About Max’s past life?”

  “No,” says Rickard, looking over at Max with a fond smile, “but I wasn’t surprised to hear it. I was a child when Valin sacrificed his godhood for Kali. I remember that day. And I’ve seen a great deal of him in you over the years.”

  After they’ve gone, I look across the room, where the unusual, almost liquid metal of Max’s celestial vambraces and breastplates are draped across my desk. “You went back to the Empty Moon,” I say.

  “Yes,” he says. “I went back to get my battle gear and my wolves.”

  “You didn’t have to do that.” I look up at him. “I don’t mean the part where you went to get them. I mean the part where you put that armor on and told everyone who you are. I know what that must have cost you.”

  He smiles a little ruefully and picks up the vambraces, bringing them over to the bed. Up close, I see that though they still possess a strange, inhuman, incandescent quality, they’re scuffed and worn. Max lets me examine them, his jaw tight. “For as long as you’ve known me, I’ve tried to stop this war,” he says. “So you think that’s who I am. But the reason I fight so hard for peace is because I know what war is. I was every bit as arrogant, proud, and careless as any god you’ve ever known, Esmae. My celestial armor isn’t pristine and new. It’s used. I don’t remember everything, but I remember enough.”

  “And that’s why I know what it cost you to put it back on.”

  “It was a price I was okay with paying,” he says. “Losing you wasn’t.”

  I don’t want to ask. I’ve been happy. I’ve been safe, cocooned from both the outside world and the consequences of what I’ve done, but I know that can’t last. I know that outside these walls, time ticks on, stars are dying, and I can’t keep hiding from that.

  “I’ve been talking to the servants,” I say, referring to the palace maids who have been bringing me my meals while I recover. “They told me there have been riots.”

  “We’re handling it,” says Max. “You should rest. You haven’t paused for so much as a breath since Rama—”

  “I’ll rest when this is over.”

  He sighs, but because he’s Max, no matter how he may feel about my choices, he doesn’t try to stop me from making them. “Father jumped the gun with the Blue Knights when he had them all rounded up and interrogated,” he says. “I had them released when I got back, all but the few who were actually involved in what happened to us, but it was too late. Alex’s supporters used the opportunity to stir up trouble and paint Father out as a tyrant and usurper, and Father’s supporters retaliated by blaming Alex for the danger Sorsha poses to us all. There were protests.”

  “The people have a right to have their voices heard,” I say quietly. “And it sounds like neither side is wrong. What happened to the Blue Knights wasn’t fair, and Alex is to blame for Sorsha.”

  “I agree. And the protests were peaceful for a few days, but once the stars started going out, the riots started. We had to send soldiers in to keep people from being killed.” Max scrubs a hand over his hair. “People all over the galaxy have been watching the news, and listening to rumors and speculation in bars and tearooms, and they know that we’re running out of time. And unlike those of us in power, they have absolutely no control over what’s happening. They’re angry and they’re afraid and I don’t blame them, not one bit.”

  My stomach twists with guilt. “I should never have let things get this far.”

  “It’s not all on you.”

  “Maybe not, but I’ve played a pretty big part. I owe our people an apology. We all do.”

  He nods. Of all of us, he probably has the least to apologize for, but I know how seriously he takes his responsibility to Kali. If it hadn’t been for the rest of us, Max would have fought tooth and nail for peace, and he probably would have won.

  Honestly, it feels like I owe my people a whole lot more than an apology, but I can start by stopping Sorsha.

  “Tell me the rest,” I say.

  Max’s expression is grim. “We went to Ashma.”

  “Why?”

  “Let’s go see Titania,” he says. “She should be there when we talk.”

>   When we get to the top of the tower where Titania happens to be, we find Amba there already. “There you are,” she says, like she’s been waiting for me. “Sit. Try not to interrupt until we’ve finished.”

  “I’m not six,” I mutter.

  She gives me an exasperated look, waits for me to sit, and then lays a sword in my lap with a ridiculous amount of ceremony. It’s the one Elvar gave me before I left for the Empty Moon, the one that used to be my father’s.

  “That sword,” says Amba, “is one of the Seven.”

  “No, it’s King Cassel’s sword. Lullaby.”

  “Both of those things can be true,” Amba replies.

  Then, together, they tell me everything I don’t already know: about Ashma, Suya’s offer to Titania, the hacker, my great-grandmother leaving Kali for the first time in years, the summit, and, of course, the sword.

  I interrupt quite a lot.

  When they’re finished, I don’t know how to sort out everything I’ve just heard. I look down at the sword in my hands.

  It doesn’t feel any different to me than it did when I last held it. It still feels light, balanced and sharp. It still feels like my father’s sword. It’s almost impossible to believe this is one of the Seven, mightier than even my Black Bow or my brother’s Golden Bow.

  “This is the weapon that’s going to kill Sorsha?”

  Amba’s mouth presses into a line, but she nods.

  I don’t like it. It’s not just because I know how much Sorsha’s death will hurt Amba. It’s also Sorsha herself. The idea of killing such a beautiful, innocent creature, the last of the majestic great beasts, is abhorrent.

  “And Suya, the sun god, wants to give this to Alex?” I ask. “Because he thought I was dead? But if I kill Sorsha, he’ll make Titania human?”

  “That’s pretty much it,” says Max.

  “That part is moot,” Titania cuts in, a little too quickly. “You won’t survive if you go after Sorsha. Suya’s promises aren’t worth that.”

  “But Max made a promise, too,” I remind her. “And we’ll all die if we don’t stop her.”

  “Alexi can do it,” says Titania. “He’s the one who released her from Anga, knowing that she was cursed. It’s his mistake to fix. Let him take the risk, not you.”

  I look at Amba, then Max. They both look unhappy but resigned. Like they know what’s coming.

  “You really want this, don’t you?” I ask Titania. “You really want to be like us.”

  “If I’m human,” Titania replies quietly, deliberately avoiding answering the question, “I won’t be useful to you anymore.”

  I catch Max’s eye, remembering a stranger, a game of Warlords, a crooked smile.

  “You’re not required to be useful to anyone, Titania,” I tell her.

  She’s quiet, but it lasts for just a beat before she says, “It means the world to me that you would say that, but I’m not going to let Suya transform me. At least,” she goes on, before any of us can argue, “not until this war is over. You need me. And I want to stay by your side.”

  “Then I guess we know our next step,” I say softly.

  Amba clenches her hands around the arms of her chair. “So you’ll do it?”

  “Yes.” I flex the hand without a thumb and try not to let my uncertainty show. “I’ll stop her.”

  But before I can do that, I need to find out if I can still hold a sword.

  The palace surgeon fits me with a prosthetic thumb. It’s mechanical, like my mother’s hand and General Khay’s arm, but unlike their prostheses, it doesn’t have that relentless ability to crush. It’s more cosmetic than anything else, but it does connect to the residual nerves in my hand, which allows me some movement at the joints. The range of movement is nothing like what I used to have—the prosthesis doesn’t, for example, bend quite the way I need it to in order to hold a knife steady, nor does it have the strength to aim and fire an arrow—but it’s still nice to be able to make a fist again.

  After the surgery, I find Ilara Khay, one of Kali’s generals and a member of the war council, waiting for me. “Good,” she says, by way of greeting. “Laika and I have been waiting.”

  Laika is a raksha demon who can take the form of a lion in battle. Much as I like her, I protest. “I’m not ready to fight lions yet.”

  “No need,” says General Khay cheerfully. “You’ll be training with me. Laika will referee.”

  “I guess I can cope with that.”

  I do not cope with it.

  In fact, it’s a travesty. I’d forgotten how much it hurt to be punched in the face.

  “Ilara,” Laika protests from the sidelines, clapping a hand over her eyes. “You could have given her some warning!”

  “An opponent in battle will not give her any warning,” Ilara replies unrepentantly.

  “But this isn’t a battle. This is her first time training since she was wounded, captured, and wounded some more.” Laika stomps across the grass to where I’m lying on my back, mostly shocked that my nose isn’t broken. “Come on, Esmae, let me help you up.”

  I let her take my left hand and help me back to my feet. I scowl at General Khay. “You’re supposed to be helping me,” I remind her. “Not punching me in the face.”

  “Your reflexes need waking up,” she replies.

  “And you thought giving me a nosebleed was the best way to do that? Are you going to get Max’s wolves to attack me next?”

  “I suspect they’d be more likely to attack me if I tried to ask that of them,” she says. “And in any case, now that we know Max can command all the wolves of the Empty Moon, we no longer have to worry about facing them in battle. In fact, I think they’ll be very handy on our side instead.”

  Three of those wolves were playing with chew toys in the courtyard the last time I saw them, but I take her point.

  I wipe my bloody nose on my sleeve. Laika scowls at Ilara. “No more punches to the nose,” she warns.

  General Khay shrugs. “I make no promises.”

  For the next hour, she and I spar. We use the time to test the leg I wounded and my right hand, neither of which is quite as strong as they used to be, and Ilara and Laika both show me ways to compensate for any weakness in either. I’m sweaty, bruised, and exhausted by the end of the hour, but I know I’ll get better.

  After that, we move on to weapons. Swords and knives first. I try using the prosthesis first, but my grip with the new, unfamiliar mechanical thumb is awkward at best, so I switch to my left hand. I was always better with my right hand than with my left, but I trained often enough with twin swords to be pretty good at wielding both swords and knives with my left hand. It’s going to take me some time to get used to using just my left hand and I’ll have to rebalance myself, but I can do it. I’ll get better at this, too.

  I’ll be able to use the starsword.

  I can stop Sorsha.

  But that won’t be enough to beat Alex, a little voice in the back of my mind whispers.

  I push it away. One thing at a time.

  Finally, we move on to the bow. I know it’s going to be a disaster before I even nock the first arrow. For one thing, it’s almost impossible to lift and hold a bow with my right arm. It doesn’t have the muscle memory that my left arm does and, more importantly, the prosthetic thumb doesn’t allow me the firm, steady grip I need.

  “Okay,” Ilara says, exchanging a long, silent look with Laika. “That’s not going to work.”

  “I know,” I say, my teeth clenched.

  Fury sends electric pulses of heat along my skin. Archery was my greatest strength in battle, the thing I had worked hardest at and was proudest of. It won Titania for me. It was the one thing I knew I could do better than my brother.

  And now, well, now that’s not true anymore.

  “Hold the bow the way you normally do,” says Ilara.

  I switch the bow to my left hand. My muscles click gracefully together like puzzle pieces. The bow is as steady as a mountain.

&
nbsp; “Now nock an arrow.”

  I sigh but comply. As soon as I try to fit the arrow into place, it slips right out of my hand. The angles of my prosthesis won’t allow me to hold something as slim as an arrow. Without my thumb, I can’t aim it or fire it.

  Simmering with rage, I glare ahead at the target, unable to look either Ilara or Laika in the eye.

  Unexpectedly, a voice behind me says, “There is another technique you can use.”

  I turn to find a boy with blue skin and a young man with short, untidy blond hair standing a few feet away. Kirrin and Tyre. Two of Amba’s brothers. And Max’s, too.

  Ilara and Laika are both startled, and neither seems quite sure how to react to the sudden presence of two gods, but I just scowl at Kirrin. “What do you want?”

  “Tyre can help you. You should let him.”

  “Why would you want that? You’ve never been on my side.”

  His eyes are grave. “Sides got complicated a long time ago.”

  “You mean you feel terrible for what you’ve done to Amba and Max, so you think you can make it up to them by helping me.”

  “I think they want you to stay alive,” he says. “And, believe it or not, so do I.”

  I doubt that, but I shift my attention to Tyre. I’ve met him just once, I think; you can never be completely sure with gods, who like to take on all kinds of shapes and forms when they interact with humans. The one time I can be certain of, we were on the Empty Moon, when Tyre, too, had been deceived into believing Max had forgotten his mortal identity. Both Max and Amba are obviously fond of him, so my voice is a lot more polite when I say, “Sorry. What did you say?”

  “There’s another technique.” He steps forward. Something about his stillness, his quiet, reminds me of Max. It makes me feel more at ease with him. He gestures to me. “May I?”

  I nod. Tyre steps up behind me. He lifts the arm holding the bow so that it’s in place again. He then picks up the arrow that slipped out of my hand and slides it between the index and middle fingers of my right hand. “This hasn’t been taught in some time,” he says, shifting the angle of my hand so that the arrow nocks neatly against the bowstring, “but it works. Use those two fingers to aim the arrow and pull the bowstring. Use your prosthetic thumb for support, nothing more.”