Blood Crown (5 page)

“I told you, she is dead. I would know if she let lived.”

Galen sighs and returns to his post against the desk. He gives me a slight smile, the kind you give to a child you know is lying to you. “I will allow you your little game, Archibald, but my patience will not last much longer. Serantha will be found—she will be in our grasp within a day. And I will take pleasure in your discomfort while we put her to death.” He straightens and tugs at the hem of his jacket. “A death that, I assure you, will provide the final blow to humanity’s resistance—indeed to their very existence. He flicks imaginary lint from his lapels before raising his eyes to mine. “A very public, very thorough, death.”

I have forgotten to breathe, everything within me feels frozen, caught between my fears and my desires. Even my thoughts feel trapped in molasses. Galen moves toward me, stopping when he is directly beside me, his hand on my shoulder. “As of now you have been reassigned to Patrol 90z and will accompany us to the
Capital
. You will aid in the search for the heir, and you will participate in her execution.” He increases his pressure on my shoulder, his fingers curling in, digging into my skin until my pain sensors respond by eliciting a gasp.

“If you hope to have a place in the New Era, you will do this thing that I ask of you. Do you understand?”

I remain motionless, afraid to open my mouth for fear my emotions might betray me. Galen takes my silence for consent because with one more squeeze to my shoulder, he lets go and strides toward the door and opens it. “Take him to the naval wing.”

I leave my home, my empire, my people, in a plain, unmarked shuttle. I bring little with me—some few unadorned clothes and the sword my father gave me when I turned nineteen and was officially named heir to my father’s empire. It was not the first sword of state I’d received. The other, much smaller blade, I left in my room. It was meant for another time. A time when I was not only heir to the Empire of the East, but to the West, as well. A time when I was destined to become King with Serantha at my side.

But that time is no more. Serantha is no more.

And so I left the sword her father gave me. There is no need for it now.

There was no fanfare to send me on my way. I did not even say goodbye to my mother. I saw her, but she was holding court with several ladies and the moment seemed too superficial to utter the words
abdication
and
goodbye
.

Instead I touched her shoulder and kissed her cheek. I said hello and goodbye to the ladies who attended her, and left the room without a backward glance.

The moment I pass the borders of my empire, I open a com to a secret channel I discovered while monitoring noise from the console I’d had erected in my suite.

“Can I help you?” the voice on the other end says.

“Please tell the Postman that Wallace wishes to pick up his mail.”

When I wake, Minn gasps. She springs away from me as if I might bite her. I am sure I’d never do anything like that, but this is the way things have always been. The staff are afraid of me—truthfully, so are the guards. I suppose it was only a matter of time before someone put me in my place. Staff shouldn’t refuse the guards—and that’s all I’ve ever done.

My fingers creep, of their own accord, over my face. Soft, dry cloth covers the entirety of the left side. I feel nothing but a steady throb. No pain. Just a heartbeat in my cheek. But when I move to pull the cloth away, Minn leans forward and restrains my hands.

“No.”

It’s the first thing she has said to me in . . . well, in such a long time it hardly seems important to recall. No one speaks with me except to bark orders—and that’s usually Cook’s or Gart’s job.

I drop my hands to my stomach, where I keep them quiet. I don’t dare take my eyes from Minn’s. She might speak again and I don’t want to miss it. Her eyes are shadows, like smudges on her pale face, and a grimy cloth holds her dark hair back from her forehead. She is taller than me, thick, but she somehow seems fragile, tender-hearted.

I search her eyes for what I saw while Gart swung me around.
Did I imagine it? Does Minn really feel something for me, after all?

“Well, then.” Minn stands and turns for the door. So I did imagine it. She feels nothing—because Gart is right and I am worthless.

Minn glances back from the doorway, just the tiniest of glimpses, really. There is the flicker of a smile on her face, but I don’t know what it means.

Warm and dry, I sleep until I hear Minn and the others tiptoe into the room all the women share. The floor is littered with make-shift palettes, arranged into a semblance of meager comfort after years of scrimping every bit of cloth, every speck of produce packing material the women could scrounge.

I have always slept directly in front of the door, so if a guard comes it is my stomach his boot finds first, my hand he steps on. Tonight, though, Minn lies behind me, our backs touching. In front of me, Sher curls around her knees.

They
are protecting
me
.

This reality is more strange, more unnerving than Gart’s claws or the steady throb in my cheek.

Maybe I am not so hated as I believed.

I stare at the texture of Sher’s hair, counting the strands of red among the dark brown, and breathe with Minn. I feel every one of her breaths but I can’t sleep. Instead, I let my mind wander and indulge myself in the luxury of relaxation.

The rush of warmth inside my veins, so familiar to me as my only comfort, sweeps through my body until it coalesces in my face. The sensation is almost painful and I bite back a gasp. I don’t dare move, don’t dare disturb the women and girls who surround me. Tonight I might be one of them, a part of them, but tomorrow I know that will change. Will have to change.

So for tonight I will remain still, unmoving, barely breathing. For tonight, I belong.

Without ceremony the guards deposit me on the twenty-third floor—dedicated to naval administration. The tube coalesces and whisks the guards away, leaving me in a vast hall that extends to either side of me as far as I can see.

The walls and floor are gray, with no adornment of any kind. Thirty-six pinpoints of light streak across the wall and fall in together until they are chasing one another in a circle. As soon as I acknowledge the pattern the sparks move as one into a pulsing stream.

I follow them down the hall, turning north some seventy feet from the entrance. This hall ends in an unmarked door. Lights encircle the door, flash green, then fade from sight.

The door has no doorknob, but dematerializes when I reach the threshold. Inside, the room is abuzz with quiet activity. On the left, three soldiers stand motionless, their faces hidden by large goggles. Each droid flicks and gestures their hands in random patterns in the air—controlling unmanned ships across Western space.

The wall which houses the door is alight with streams of code moving far too quickly for the human eye—but I only need a glimpse to discern they are battle commands, supply requisitions, military reports and more. At this moment the Mind are engaged in twelve skirmishes with ship-states.

Excuse me. Eleven.

New Michigan
has been destroyed.

A flash of red catches my eye and I turn to see red lights pulsing around a resting pod. I am to enter, then. To be reprogrammed—reassigned to the navy where I will be expected to bring death to the beings I was created to Serve.

I hesitate.
No
, I think.
I cannot.

A shrill noise resonates within my brain, limiting neural function and filling me with one driving need. I step into the pod and place my hands on the panels, wincing as my fingertips connect with the interface.

I close my eyes as blissful silence descends upon me.

Utter silence descends on everyone in the control room as we watch a ship-state disintegrate into a million particles of light. It was almost a beautiful thing. Like a stellar event.

“
New Michigan
has been destroyed,” the soldier at the com says unnecessarily.

“How many dead?” My tone is hard, unemotional. I know I haven’t made any friends here. That the others think I am cold-hearted and disinterested.

“Fifteen-thousand, seven-hundred and twelve, sir.”

I exit the control room without another word. Once inside the transport, I give my destination directly to the ship through the nanotech Natalya Gifted me. My floor reached, I march to my room. It’s not until I’m inside, my back pressed to the closed door, that I allow my posture to relax, the mask of authority to fall away.

In the small closet near my bed, I push my few uniforms aside to reveal the back wall. From the shelf above the clothes I retrieve a pen—a rarity in this technological age. I step to the wall and add today’s losses to the list.