Shatter

  There’s no one waiting to sign my car back into the motor pool, and a sense of wariness creeps over me. It’s very late, but there should always be a parking attendant on duty. Still, not one to look a gift horse too closely in the mouth, I call out to my new bots and load them up with the black duffels I brought back from the warehouse.

  They follow me like automaton ducklings trailing behind their mother. I spent the drive dressing them in palace livery—no one will think twice when they see multiple bots trailing after the Queen, and because their guns are still locked in my car, security should receive no alerts at all. Especially since the bots don’t answer to M.A.R.I.E. It’s almost a shame I’m leaving; clandestine personal bots could come in quite handy.

  I hold the slaveminder in my hands—within the confines of my reticule, yes, but I’ll not allow the awful device out of my grasp until I can put it into Saber’s. If Reginald was telling the truth—and this time I do believe he was—at least Saber can own himself.

  It’s well past two in the morning—revelries in the palace often continue until dawn, but there’s nothing particularly special scheduled tonight, so most have found their way to their rooms, if not their beds. There are a few groups from the younger set, mostly tipsy and giggling. Some going so far as to snort most indecorously.

  I nod politely to those who see me, but no one tries to start a conversation. I must have that look in my eye. “M.A.R.I.E., my door,” I say, passing into my rooms.

  Saber sits straight up from my bed when the doors open, and his eyes are as haunted as I’ve ever seen them. Relief makes his entire body sag when he sees that I’m in one piece—not bleeding, not missing so much as the tip of my little finger.

  Suddenly giddy at the thought of the gift I’m about to give him, I can’t help but laugh when his eyes widen at the bevy of bots trailing me. Those eyebrows lower in suspicion a few seconds later—he’s counted the bags, and I’ve returned with every single one he helped me pack up before I left.

  “Bar the door, M.A.R.I.E.,” I order. “Duchess, put down your burdens and take your ladies to the corner. Power down, please.” The lead bot and her five followers place the duffels carefully on the floor before rolling off in an orderly line and positioning themselves in a tight group; then they fold themselves into compact cubes, less than a meter to a side.

  Saber studies them. “Are those the bots I helped you borrow the day everyone thought you went to the spa?”

  “They are indeed.” Sparks of pride erupt in my chest and I can’t help but smile. “I’ve been working on programming their motherboards for weeks—though finally getting a look at their full specs advanced the project nicely. They all performed their tasks admirably tonight, if I do say so myself.”

  I see Saber’s throat convulse as he swallows. “Dare I ask what their tasks were?”

  “I told you I would destroy Reginald, and I have,” I say with a level of confidence I’m not sure I really feel. But I don’t want to think too hard about the details just now. “Here,” I say, as much to distract myself as him, holding out the reticule. “I’ve brought you a gift.”

  Saber reaches out to take my offering as his eyes bore into mine, full of questions. I hand him my reticule, the purse strings pulled together at the top—like a bow on a reticule-wrapped present. His eyes don’t leave mine as he unties the ribbons and loosens the puckered folds.

  But the instant he peers into the bag, he cries out in alarm, dropping the reticule like a hot potato, leaping away from it, falling onto the ground and crab-crawling backward as though the pouch were about to explode.

  The silken purse tumbles through the air—I don’t know how fragile the little device is, but I definitely don’t want it damaged. Pain lances through my ankle as I dive at the floor, burning my elbow against the flooring as I catch my reticule. Belatedly I realize that practically nothing could break on this thick, plushy carpet.

  But I can’t take even the slightest chance. This tiny piece of tech means my Saber’s very life.

  “Are you trying to kill me?” Saber yells, and the blood drains from my face at the fear and anger in his eyes.

  The anger wins. “I’m trying to free you!” I shout back, all the pent-up emotions of the last few hours coming to a boil and leaking out my eyes. “You have no idea what I did to get this,” I say, wrenching the slaveminder out of my reticule and holding it out to him. “No idea how much more I would have been willing to do.” An angry sob wells up in my throat, but I swipe at my tears with my forearm—cursing every single one of them—and get to my feet, ignoring the twinge in my ankle.

  “You can’t—I can’t—” He stops talking and clenches his fists against the floor and I can see him breathing deeply, trying to get control of himself. “I can’t touch it.”

  All the fight drains out of me, and I feel limp and boneless. I almost sink back onto the floor—but after the swing of emotions I’ve endured tonight, I’m not sure I could rise again. And my work is not yet done. “What do you mean?” I know what he means. But I need to hear him say it. Like needing to be told twice when someone you love is dead. You know it’s true, but you need to know.

  “I can’t touch it.” He looks up at me, despair pouring through the shattered walls of his practiced stoicism. I wonder—having given up all hope, had Saber also given up despair? If so, it would appear I’ve given him the wonderful, terrible gift of hope. “A slave can never touch their slaveminder. That’s a death sentence—no chance of tampering themselves free. Slaves have been accidentally killed while resetting their timer, if someone gets too close.”

  “That’s despicable,” I say, my mouth dry, my tongue clumsy.

  “Is there any part of slavery that isn’t?” Saber says, agitated.

  I can’t argue with that. “He could have told me,” I mutter, a bit of the guilt over killing Reginald chipping away.

  “He’s a bastard.”

  “He was.”

  Saber’s chin jerks up sharply.

  “He’s dead.”

  Saber’s fingers tremble. “My countdown,” he whispers.

  “He sold you to me.” They’re the most abhorrent words I’ve ever said. “I meant for it to only last until I could get back and set you free. I would never—I didn’t want this to—” I shove my knuckles against my mouth to hold back the dreadful wail that wants to burst forth. I never, ever thought I would be in the position of owning a slave. Regardless of what the technicalities might be. “I don’t own you,” I whisper, as though saying the words could make them true.

  “Better you than him.”

  But I shake my head spasmodically. “I don’t. I won’t. I’ll care for the device that keeps you alive. That’s all. And if—” My shoulders are shaking so violently I have trouble making my voice work. “If you ever want someone else to have it, I’ll hand it over. You have only to ask.”

  Saber stares at me, silent and no longer trembling. “Put that down,” he says.

  I look at the little device in my hand. “What?”

  “Put it down.” He inclines his head to the side. “Over there.”

  I set the slaveminder down on my nightstand, then step away slowly, toward my bed. Once I’m sitting again, Saber crawls forward and brings a hand to my face, cradling my cheek. His lips touch mine like they’re asking for permission before deepening, trying to tell me something I don’t understand.

  “Why would I ever, ever want anyone but you?” he whispers.

  Tears stream down my cheeks and I inwardly curse that I’ve become such a watering can. “Why?” I choke out. “Why would you want me? I’m not a good person. I’ve done terrible things. I wanted to give you your freedom and I even failed at that. Everything I touch turns to ashes.”

  He scoots forward a little more, his knees on either side of mine, both hands framing my face. “I’ve done some pretty awful things myself.”

  “I
t’s not the same,” I argue. Truly, it isn’t.

  “I know. I do. But we have a chance to go forward now, together. To be the kind of people I know we both want to be.” He kisses my eyelids as I close them in surrender, wanting his sweet words to be true with every piece of my shattered heart. “If I’ve been able to fall in love with you, despite wanting desperately to not—”

  I laugh brokenly at that.

  “—and to stay in love with you in spite of everything that’s happened, don’t you think we can make it with a fresh start?”

  “Is there such a thing as a fresh start? A real one?”

  He hesitates. “Three hours ago, I reached what might have been the lowest point in my entire life. I hit the woman I loved and then sent her off, alone, to be tortured, mutilated, killed—who knows. If you didn’t come back, I was fully prepared to sneak away and hide from Reginald until my clock ran down. I knew that if you were harmed—if you were killed—I didn’t want to live with what I’d done.” He kisses me again, a gentle brush, like the tickle of a feather. “Now? It feels like a brand-new world. I’m expecting things I never let myself even dream about before tonight. If that’s not a fresh start, Dani, I don’t know what is.”

  I clutch at his arms, needing to feel his heart beating in his veins, just beneath my fingertips. “And you’re sure you want me in this new life of yours? I’ll always be a reminder of your old life.”

  “There is no new life without you.”

  His whispered words are an arrow to my heart, and I shake my head. “You deserve this, but I don’t. I’m not who I thought I was. I haven’t earned any kind of happily ever after.”

  “Then isn’t it wonderful,” Saber says, his breath warm on my earlobe, “that you are an integral part of mine?”

  He holds me so tight I almost fear I’ll break, but he seems to understand that’s what I need to hold me together. I scrunch my face into his shoulder, and though it seems like this is the right time to weep, my eyes are dry.

  “I was like this the first time I killed someone,” Saber says. “I told myself I had no choice—that it was them or me, and even if I gave up my life, someone else would kill them anyway. I decided that at least I’d been as humane as possible. But it didn’t make me feel any better.” His fingers are stroking my hair, decimating what was left of my elaborate updo. “Time makes it easier. It doesn’t heal all wounds; I hate that saying, actually. But it has a way of smoothing edges, like the ocean smooths a stone.”

  It feels like nothing will ever dull this knife’s edge pressing into my heart, but I understand that I don’t have to say it. He knows.

  He holds both my shoulders until finally I look up and meet his eyes. He’s smiling sadly, and that edge of sadness somehow makes me feel a little better. He’s not lying to himself, so maybe he’s not lying to me.

  “Reginald was my dragon,” he says. “And isn’t that what heroes do? Slay dragons?”

  I say nothing. He’s not going to convince me I was right, even if it did save him. Because I don’t tell him the sale was already made. That Reginald was unarmed and bleeding on the floor. I certainly don’t tell him that I killed Reginald because I wanted to. I just didn’t know it would kill a part of my soul, too.

  I force myself to get hold of my emotions and rise from the floor. “It’s time.”

  “Time for what?”

  “What we’ve been training for,” I say coyly. “You made me a promise several weeks ago.”

  “I did?”

  Saber continues to look baffled, but I let him wait a bit longer. “Help me with my laces?” I ask, turning to give him my back. He unlaces my bodice and starts to push the sleeves off my shoulders, but I stop him. “No, just the corset.”

  Soon the familiar polyethylene stripes are loosening their hold on my middle. Habit makes me brace for the rush to my head, the sick feeling in my stomach, but neither of them has manifested for at least a fortnight. I wrangle the garment out from beneath my dress and let it drop to the floor.

  “Lace my gown again?” Once I’m done up, I retrieve a warm cloak from my wardrobe and throw it around my shoulders—though I forgo a hat. I emerge from the back room and my eyes sting with an entirely different kind of tears.

  “You promised if I worked hard, I could walk out of here completely under my own strength. You just didn’t think you’d be coming with me.”

  I hold my hand out and he stares at it for a long time, as though he can’t believe it’s real. Finally he grasps it tightly in his and smiles up at me, his own eyes shining.

  “I’ve never been so happy to be wrong.”

  THE KING IS waiting for me. Truthfully, I was shocked he didn’t confront me as soon as I returned to the palace. But my Lens tells me he’s in his office, so that’s where I must go. I knock on his door, trailed by Saber and my six bots—each bearing a black duffel bag.

  Saber has the most important bag: the one with all my documentation, his slaveminder—carefully wrapped for both its and Saber’s protection—my tablet, and as much money as we could fit inside and still close the zipper.

  We’re ready.

  I knock on the door, a little surprised Mateus isn’t there guarding it. We wait for a good half minute in the Clock Cabinet, the lights dimmed to emulate low-burning candles, and I’m raising my fingers to knock a second time when the door is opened by my husband’s rat-faced assistant.

  “Just her,” Mateus says, narrowed eyes fixed on Saber.

  “No, no. I’ll be setting the terms tonight,” I say quietly. It’s not a threat, merely a statement of fact.

  Mateus hesitates, and I peer over his shoulder at my husband, sitting at his desk, leaning over papers as though he hasn’t even noticed that I’m here.

  “His Majesty speaks with both of us or he speaks with no one,” I say. Loudly.

  “Oh, there you are, Danica,” Justin says, rising from his seat to greet me, sounding jovial. “And alive, too. Thank goodness. You took those guns hours ago. What the hell have you been doing with them?”

  “Cleaning up some rubbish,” I say evasively.

  “Well, I suppose we have much to discuss, don’t we? Oh, Mateus, it hardly matters. Let the boy in.”

  I hate the way he uses the word boy even though they’re the same age.

  “She’s going to run back and tell him every word anyway, and I’d prefer he hears the nonedited version.”

  My mouth drops in indignation, but I realize he’s trying to unbalance me. I snap my jaw closed again, refusing to be riled.

  “Would you like the bots as well, Your Highness?” Mateus says nasally, addressing me.

  “Certainly not. Duchess, remain outside with your ladies.”

  “Duchess?” the King asks, his face a blank slate.

  I meet his eyes directly. “You’re surrounded by nobility who may as well be robots. I thought I’d dispense with the pretense.”

  “Amusing,” he says, his tone suggesting it’s anything but.

  “I don’t want your man in here, though,” I say, tilting my head toward Mateus. “And by the time our conversation is through, you won’t either.”

  “Really?” His Highness says, barely holding back a smirk that I can’t wait to wipe off his face. “Well, you’ve frequently given me good advice, wife. Off with you, Mateus. You’ll have to settle for the edited version. In the morning, I suppose.”

  “You may not want to send him that far.”

  His eyes dart back to me. “Oh no?”

  “You might need him. Soon.”

  The King is already standing, using his slightly superior height combined with heels to look down on me, but I don’t have to hide feeling cowed, because I’m not. I hold the trump card now; he simply doesn’t know it. “As the lady says,” he murmurs, addressing Mateus but looking straight at me.

  As soon as the door clicks shut, I sit on the arm of the
embroidered armchair without waiting to be invited. The King looks like he wants to call me out, then decides this isn’t the night for petty jabs, and instead flips out his tails with a bit of extra panache, reclaiming his own seat behind his massive desk. “What is this little meeting about, Danica?”

  “The time has come for me to leave, Justin.”

  “Leave?”

  “And never come back.”

  He smirks and I feel irrationally angry that he can’t have one conversation without playing the arrogant snot. “Why would you leave? You have everything you could possibly desire.”

  “Oh, do I? Pray, enlighten me.”

  “Well, for starters, you must have the thing you went seeking tonight, else you wouldn’t be here.”

  “You’re not going to ask what it was?” I ask, though I’ve no intention of telling him.

  He surprises me by shrugging. “If I’m ever asked to testify against you, we’ll both prefer that I don’t know the details.”

  I grant him the point.

  “So, as far as I can tell, you’ve wrapped up your problems, you’ve gained the affection of the court, we’ve reached an…accord, between us, that has been to our mutual benefit, and I’m about to cement our kingdom’s prosperity for generations to come.”

  I glare up at him, hating the emphasis he puts on the word accord, but I can’t call him out on it and risk him telling Saber exactly what he means.

  “Why leave now? You’ve washed the linens, prepared the hors d’oeuvres, set the tables, and made yourself presentable. The work is done! Won’t you enjoy the soirée?”

  “The whole point was to avoid the soirée.”

  He stands up again, but rather than come around the desk and circle me like a vulture, he crosses his arms over his chest and leans his hip against the desktop. “I don’t understand you, Danica. You’ve never wanted the things I wanted. Even when I thought you did. Even when it seemed impossible to want anything else.”