A Spark of White Fire

  “Out in the city?” Rama repeats. “On Kali? Do they do that?”

  I grin. “It seems so.”

  “Is that music? I can hardly cope with my shock.”

  His lazy voice is so comforting, so known, like a favorite story. I describe what I can see, and he tells me he’s hiding from the royal sword master, and we talk like we’re sitting side by side.

  “Are you happy there, Ez?” he asks.

  I wish that were an easy question to answer. I came to Kali for one reason and one reason only, but there are days when I almost forget about war. In spite of my hatred and mistrust of many of the people around me—hatred and mistrust I’m certain aren’t as vivid as they were a few weeks ago—I like my life here.

  I had some idea of what to expect from royal life because I often saw Rama’s brother and sisters busy with their obligations on Wychstar. (Rama himself refused to contribute to tasks he deemed either too strenuous or too tedious, but he would frequently sneak away to read stories to the children at the hospice. He still thinks he’s kept that a secret from me.) I haven’t been surprised by my new responsibilities and I’ve taken to them well. I learn about other realms’ customs and rulers. I help Guinne plan state dinners. I check menus. I visit new babies in the city. I sit in with Elvar and Max in the throne room each afternoon while a steady stream of citizens come to bring gifts of respect or ask for help. Rickard and I drive around Erys in a chariot so he can show me the city. Elvar walks with me in the palace gardens after dinner and tells me stories about my father. Asteroids rock the base ship and starships fly in and out of the shields. And for now, at least, Titania remains safely in the dock.

  “Ez?” Rama says again. “Are you still there?”

  And then there’s the vision. My supposed death at my brother’s hands. Impossible, absurd, yet nevertheless disturbing. I haven’t told Rama about it, partly because I don’t want Lord Selwyn to find out if he is indeed keeping an eye on my tech, but also because it’s such a bleak idea that I don’t know how to share it with even my best friend.

  “I think I could be happy here,” I finally say. “I think I am sometimes. Sometimes I can trick myself into believing this mess will all turn out okay. Sometimes I can ignore the hole in my heart where my mother and brothers should be.” I blink back tears. “Sometimes I even forget I miss you.”

  “What a terrible friend you are, you brat.”

  “I love you, Rama.”

  “And I love you, Esmae.” I can almost see him rolling his eyes, and it makes me grin. “Gah, I wish you’d just come back, you know. There is no one interesting left in this palace. You’ve left, Radha’s left, Ria left years ago, Rodi’s always busy, Father’s perpetually grumpy—”

  The fact that his brother is busy or that his other sister left two years ago to study archaeology on Shloka is not new information to me, but I had no idea Princess Radha had left. “Where did Radha go?”

  “She’s off doing diplomatic work for Father,” Rama grumbles. “I’m not sure where. He says it’s sensitive information and won’t tell me.”

  “That must be enjoyable for you.”

  “I object to the amusement in your voice. You know I hate secrets at the best of times.”

  “You’ll survive.” Nevertheless, I listen patiently to him as he complains bitterly about his father’s determination to keep secrets from him and the palace cats’ determination to pester him ceaselessly and any number of other inconveniences that annoy him on a daily basis.

  It’s not Rama’s fault, but I probably would have seen the shadows sooner if I hadn’t been distracted.

  They fall over the courtyard from high above, black like crows, their shape so unnatural that I look up. A pair of starships dart across the sky. They have narrow, pointed wings like curved knives and they’re small, but fast. I’ve seen starships like these in books. They’re called them corpse ships, because that’s what they leave behind.

  I say an unceremonious good-bye to Rama and stand. Sybilla returns. Her eyes are on the sky, too, watching the ships slide out of sight. She looks worried.

  “Where have they gone?” I ask.

  “I don’t know.”

  I run as fast as I can up the thorny wooded paths to the palace. Sybilla is on my heels, but I’m faster, and she doesn’t catch up until I’m already at one of the sentry posts.

  “The corpse ships,” I say, breathless and afraid. “Where have they gone? Why have they gone?”

  Two sentries look at each other. “I don’t think they’ve gone anywhere, Princess,” says one. “We were told the crews need to train.”

  They’re training. I walk away, heart stuttering, and sit on the plinth of a statue by the palace gates. My legs feel wobbly. I look up at the sky and watch the ships with their sharp, wicked wings do another circuit of the city.

  No one is about to die yet.

  Yet.

  “Esmae.” Sybilla’s next to me, her voice not entirely unsympathetic, and I realize how close I’ve come to giving away the truth of my loyalties. “No one begrudges you your concern for your brothers’ lives, but what did you expect? The ships have to train. They have to be ready for when the war comes.”

  If the war comes, I want to say. If, not when. War feels so close, an oppressive presence in the air. I want more than ever to win, but more than even that, I want to win quietly. I don’t want to rip my uncle’s throat out anymore; I just want him to go quietly so that Alexi can have his home and crown back. It’s an unrealistic hope that’s doomed to disappointment, but it’s what a few weeks here on Kali have done.

  “You don’t really want to see this world burn down in a war, do you?” I ask.

  Sybilla scuffs her foot against the ground. “War doesn’t have to burn the whole world down. I don’t want Kali ripped apart, but I’m not afraid of battle. From the very moment I was born, I’ve battled against everything. War is what I do. I don’t know what I’d be without it.”

  I think of the way she said she doesn’t do second dates, and I wonder if part of it is because she’s afraid of happiness, of anything that might make her stop fighting for even a minute.

  I remember what she told me the day we met, the way she said she had once been one of the unwanted children left to the palace’s care. “Have you always lived here? On Kali?”

  There’s no way to really tell. Accents don’t vary much across the planets and space stations of the star system anymore, and centuries of people traveling more or less freely between realms now means a certain kind of name or skin color or other physical feature is not a certain sign of where a person is from.

  “My father moved us here six years ago,” she says. “We lived in Sting before that, but then he found work with one of the finest smiths here.” Sybilla pauses, sees the question on my face, and answers. “My mother died when I was born. He never forgave me. As soon as he found out about the queen’s school at the palace, he sent me away. We haven’t seen each other since.”

  “I’m sorry.” It’s no wonder she behaves like she’s made of thorns and broken glass.

  “I’m not,” she replies. “I have a better life here than I ever had with him. Don’t you feel the same way?”

  The abruptness of the question catches me off guard. “I suppose I do have a better life here than I did on Wychstar, but I had Rama when I was there and that counted for a lot.”

  “You may not have Prince Rama here, but you have us. And you could make such a difference.”

  I think unexpectedly of little Juniper, who keeps dying in training because she’s too busy making sure Jemsy and Henry are okay. I think of the others, a hundred and one faces.

  I could teach them a trick or two that could save their lives.

  A trick or two that they’ll use against my brothers.

  Sybilla is still watching me, and it’s the hopeful look on her face that decides it for me.

  “Gather the Hundred and One tomorrow,” I say. And wonder if I’ll live to regret it.
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  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  It’s the post-dinner lull, when we usually all sit in the warm, snug, book-filled family parlor and read or talk or walk outside in the terrace gardens. I have a spot by the window and I look out at the star-stained sky, the red and gold of the Scarlet Nebula, the orb of the planet Winter. My mother and brothers are in a city somewhere on that planet preparing for a war.

  The mother who wanted me gone. The brother at least two gods believe will kill me.

  I rub my arms to keep warm.

  I sense Rickard behind me before he speaks, his voice deep and gentle. “What is it, Esmae? What’s happened?”

  How can I tell him? Here is where the broken trust between us shines brightest, like light so sharp it’s unbearable to look at. How can I tell him that my choices and his curse could soon have me spitting blood onto grass as I die?

  And so I don’t.

  “Esmae,” Elvar says from behind us, “would you like to join an old man for a walk in the gardens?”

  I help him to the doors, my hand on his arm to guide him across the room. Rickard goes to play dice with Guinne and Sybilla. Beyond them, the old queen dozes ungracefully by the artificial fire and Max is mostly hidden behind a copy of The Three Stolen Queens. It’s a peaceful time of day, so peaceful that I can’t quite believe there are so many thorns and such bitterness buried just under the surface.

  The gardens outside the parlor are built on an enormous terrace, a maze of wild hedges with beautiful flowers strewn across the paths. Above and around us, the skies seem endless, a harsh black-blue dotted with stars and stained to the east with the crimson of the nebula. Starships zip across the skies.

  “Have I told you about the time your father and I stole a starship and tried to fly to Tamini?”

  I smile. “How far did you get?”

  “Our mother found us before we left the dock.”

  We laugh. After a few minutes of walking, we stop to rest on a bench. Elvar turns his face toward the stars. “We were so brave as boys, Cassel and I. I sometimes wonder if everyone grows afraid as they grow older. Kali is not a place for the old and the tired and the fearful.”

  “You are none of those things, Uncle Elvar,” I say, but we both know that’s a lie.

  “May I ask you a question, Esmae?”

  I nod out of habit, then remember he can’t see me. “Of course.”

  “You lived on Wychstar almost all of your life. You knew the royal family well. Do you think King Darshan will join Alexi’s army? Do you think he’ll come here with him just to render Titania useless?”

  So that’s the new terror plaguing his mind. I wonder what Lord Selwyn hopes to gain by putting it there.

  “King Darshan is too clever and too fair to do that, Uncle. He may offer Alexi silver or troops if he thinks it’s worth his while, but he won’t involve himself directly. He won’t come with him, just to make Titania useless. He won’t try to destroy the ship he built just because he can.”

  “And yet he does favor Alexi, doesn’t he? Some believe Darshan deliberately rigged the competition.”

  I hesitate. I have to be careful about how much I lie. “I don’t think there was any specific plan for Alexi to win. Darshan constructed the competition as he did because he was inspired by a display of Rickard’s he’d once seen.”

  “Yes, they knew each other years ago,” Elvar agrees. “I remember when they fell out.”

  I’m puzzled. “Fell out?”

  “I was only a boy then, which means Darshan must have been twenty or so, long before Rickard had made his vow to Cassel. Darshan was one of Rickard’s students, you know.”

  “Was he? His son seemed to think he never made the cut.”

  “He might have let him believe that to avoid explaining what really happened. He had only been training with Rickard for a few months. Then they argued. Darshan had promised Rickard half of Wychstar’s wealth in return for his lessons, you see. Rickard had no interest in Wychstar’s wealth, but he wanted to see if the boy would keep his word. He asked him to deliver on his promise. Darshan panicked and threw a fit.”

  I wince. “I’m sure Rickard wasn’t impressed.”

  “No. I would die for Rickard, but even I have to admit he can be very harsh.” Elvar sighs. “In front of everyone present, Rickard turned his back on the boy. He told him that he could give up his lessons or give up half of Wychstar’s silver, but he couldn’t keep both. Darshan was humiliated. He left. Word has it he’s never gotten over the incident.”

  “Do you think that’s why—” I remember who I’m speaking to and abruptly bite my tongue. I was about to speculate about Titania, and the god who told Darshan that the ship would get him what he wanted, but Elvar is not the right person for that.

  “Esmae?”

  “Sorry.” I shift the conversation back to a safer topic. “You have no need to be afraid of Darshan, Uncle. I truly don’t believe he would try to destroy Titania.”

  “You are kind to try to reassure an old man,” he says fondly. “I’m so happy you came to Kali. Your presence has made a world of difference to me.”

  It’s difficult to cling to my hatred of him. It’s just as difficult to understand how a man who can be so gentle with me can be so cruel to his nephews and so dismissive of his son.

  I guide my uncle back into the parlor. Grandmother is still asleep in her chair and Max is still hidden behind his book, but Sybilla, Guinne, and Rickard have all left the room. Elvar stops to talk to Max for a few minutes before retiring, trailed by his usual escort of royal guards.

  I return to my seat by the window. The sight of Winter below takes my mind immediately back to Amba and her terrible certainty about my fate.

  A movement makes me turn. Max has abandoned his book and crossed the room. He leans against the window beside me.

  I look away. I’ve started to see him differently since I joined the war council. He supports his uncle on a lot of issues, yet simultaneously avoids escalating the war wherever possible. He speaks of Alexi and Bear dismissively, bitterly, but argues against attacking them prematurely. He’s the jealous prince I expected but also so much more than that. Max is the reason Elvar has kept hold of the throne. Max is the reason Kali hasn’t fallen to pieces.

  The realization should make me happy, the discovery of a chink in Elvar’s armor. The usurpers’ hold on Kali would crumble if Max were removed from the equation. And I could easily remove him from the equation if I wanted to.

  And yet I haven’t. I don’t want to.

  “Father told me what you said to him in the garden just now. You’ve made him feel better about Wychstar’s possible role in the war. Thank you for that.”

  “Your father should never have become king,” I say bluntly. “It’s making him sick with worry.”

  There’s a heartbeat of silence, then Max says, “I know.”

  It’s more honesty than I expected, and it clearly wasn’t easy for him to say. I want to push the issue, but I don’t have the heart to. “You and Rickard are very close,” I say instead.

  Max nods. “He was never able to teach his grandson or me, but he treated us just the same as he did Alex and Bear. The four of us were excitable and reckless and sometimes very badly behaved, but Rickard would only laugh at our angry parents and say ‘Can’t you see into their hearts? They’ll grow up well, I promise you that.’” A faraway smile lights Max’s eyes. “He loved us.”

  That, I understand. In a world where they were raised to be warriors and meticulously disciplined by ambitious, ruthless parents like Elvar, Guinne, and Kyra, who loved them but probably offered them very little in the way of affection, they must have been starved for the warmth and merriment that Rickard brought to their lives.

  “He let us cry when we fell down,” Max says. “He hid cakes in our rooms when we were punished. He let us travel across the galaxy with him.”

  Touched, and more than a little envious, I look at Max and look past the cousin who helped destroy us. I
notice the way his eyes crinkle at the corners when he smiles, and the way he pushes his sleeves up past his elbows whenever they slip down, and the way his dark hair sticks up at the back. Small parts of him that I can look at without prejudices or preconceptions, parts of him that aren’t tainted with history.

  His eyes crinkle in a smile now, and there’s something about the way he looks at me that flusters me. I turn away again. “I sometimes tell myself to trust you because Rickard does,” I hear myself admit.

  “That’s not a good reason.”

  “I know. I tell myself that, too.”

  “He means the world to you,” Max says.

  I nod, my eyes fixed on Winter once more.

  “Then why doesn’t he teach you anymore?” he asks quietly.

  To my own surprise, I tell him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  I was Rickard’s student for almost seven years. He flew to Wychstar every week for two days, and we crammed in as many lessons as we could. I don’t know how he explained those absences to the war council on Kali, but he always came.

  For four of those years, I was happy. He told me stories about Kali and the star system. He made me see the world in brand new ways. He found the best parts of me and amplified them, and he found my weaknesses and tried to teach me how to use them. He loved me like I had been his own child and better than my own parents had. He understood how much I wanted to be like Alexi, as good as Alexi, how much I wanted to show my family I was worthy of them.

  And it was he who first told me I didn’t need them to be worthy. That I didn’t have to define myself by my mother or father or brothers. You are more than Alexi’s sister, Esmae.

  Then, when Alexi, Bear, and our mother were exiled, Amba stepped in. She told me only disaster would come of my lessons and that they had to stop immediately. I understand now what she was afraid of, now that she’s told me about the vision of my death, but at the time it made no sense. She spoke to Rickard. Whatever she said, he promised her that he would stop teaching me.