“Esmae, you were kind of in the middle of a sentence?”
“I was just saying I’m on my way out. I want to take Titania off Kali for a few hours. She doesn’t get to fly half as much as she wants to.”
“That’s a good idea. I’m sure she needs it.”
I hesitate. Then, for no fathomable reason whatsoever, I say, “Would you like to come with us?”
His eyes flash up to mine. He takes a minute to reply, and when he does, his voice is cautious. “Where are you planning to go?”
“I didn’t have anywhere specific in mind. You’re welcome to choose.”
He hesitates, then nods and follows me out the door.
Titania wants to know where to take us.
“I don’t know,” says Max. A grin crooks the corner of his mouth.
“How helpful,” she snipes.
“You’re missing the point,” I say, catching on. “You get to pick.”
“Me? Really?”
“Anywhere you like,” says Max.
“I’m going to show you something beautiful!” She bursts out of the shields so fast my head spins. We hurtle into open space. Once she’s steadied her pace, I unbuckle myself from my seat and sit down on the floor beside the wall of unbreakable glass. Vast stretches of galaxy twinkle beyond. I count the stars but quickly lose track.
Max comes closer. I study him for a moment and see stars and moon rocks in his eyes.
“I want Alexi to win this war.” It’s my voice, but I almost can’t believe I’ve said the words.
“I know.”
“How could you possibly know that?”
“I can see it in your face when people talk about him. I can see how badly you want your family to come home.”
I swallow. “How do you always see me exactly as I am?”
“I don’t know.” There’s a pause, and then he asks, “What made you decide to tell me?”
I wish there was an easy answer, but I don’t know why I said anything at all. “Why did you let me stay on Kali if you knew I want your enemy to win?”
“The alternative was to ask you to go, and that wasn’t the alternative I wanted.”
The moon rocks hurtle in and out of his eyes. I turn my head to the glass and watch a distant green nebula glowing bright against the void of space. Closing my eyes, I try to picture myself as an infant, surrounded by that void. Did I wail into the dark until my cries grew thin and tired? Did I lie quietly in my sealed boat entranced by the stars? Was I consumed by hurt and longing or was I captivated by the beauty? I don’t know. I don’t remember. Perhaps it was a little bit of both.
When Titania slows at last, I bolt to my feet; I know exactly where we are. The mass in front of us is uneven, wickedly jagged, gray-blue, cold, and almost translucent. It looks like an enormous piece of dark ice. And Titania is right. It is beautiful. Deep shadows cross its seas. A soft, haunting sound rises from the form and creeps into the ship, the eerie song of the hounds in the shadows.
“The Empty Moon,” I whisper.
Ruled by the god Kirrin, it’s one of those places mortals rarely go. Most would be too afraid. The seas are fathomless and terrifying. The creatures are deadly. Unlike the great beasts of Anga, born from the blood of the first raksha demons and typically peaceful, the creatures of the Empty Moon were bred by gods and they are supposedly without pity or mercy. The stories say there is a garuda that guards the palace; the hounds are as big as bears and will tear you apart if you fail their tests; the water beasts have three rows of teeth and tails as wickedly sharp as thorns.
Max’s hand isn’t quite steady as he reaches out and brushes the glass, like he wants to touch the Empty Moon. “Why are we here?” There’s an edge to his voice.
“It’s lovely to look at,” says Titania, “and it means something to you both. This where Esmae’s mother dove deep into the seas to find the blueflower.”
The blueflower jewel burns in my hair as she says it, as if it knows how close it is to home. I watch the Moon and try to envision the rare, beautiful blueflowers deep in its sea.
“And as for you,” Titania continues on, “You know what this place means to you. This is where you once—”
“Don’t.”
“You’ve been here before?” I ask.
He nods, his eyes fixed on the Empty Moon. I’ve never seen his face so completely raw. I can’t decide if the expression there is pain or longing. Both, perhaps. I reach for his hand, then realize what I’m doing and drop my own back to my side.
“I was here with my family once.”
“Weren’t you afraid?”
“Oh, we were safe.” He hesitates. “I was different then. I was better than I am now. Proud and brave. Too much of both, in fact.”
“You can’t have been so very different,” I say. “I see those things in you. Whoever the other you was, he’s still here.”
He looks at me, surprised. The intensity in his gaze makes me look away, but this time I do reach for his hand. He startles, like my touch has set fire to his skin, and stares at my hand in his for what feels like eternity. When our eyes meet again, I know—I know—what he’s about to do.
“Sometimes, I wonder if I’m still the same,” he says. His other hand slides to the back of my neck. My heart gives a jolt. He waits to see if I want him to stop, but I don’t. “Times like now. When I remember what it’s like to be brave.”
The kiss is just a touch at first. Then I let go of his hand and grip fistfuls of his shirt and it’s like an entire universe has been blown apart. He kisses me deeper and one hand coils in my hair like it coiled in the wires of the clock. I want his hands all over my skin. The kiss is fierce and bitter and full of wanting and it’s so very brief.
I don’t know who pulls away first. At first, I can’t quite think, and my body thrums with electricity, and then the disbelief hits.
How could I? After everything he’s done, how could I, how could I, how could I—
He sees it on my face and steps back at once. I think I see hurt before he schools his features into a perfectly blank mask.
“I’m sorry,” he says, “I shouldn’t have—”
I try to tell him he doesn’t have to be sorry, but no words come out, and I watch him retreat.
He steps away from the glass panel, away from the Empty Moon, away from me.
When he speaks again, it’s to Titania: “It’s time to go.”
And she throws us back into the stars and shadows of the galaxy.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
There’s a new ship in the dock when we return. It’s an unremarkable class of starship and would probably have gone completely unnoticed if it hadn’t been for the excited servants clustered nearby.
I quickly discern the subject of their conversation: the ship belongs to a soothsayer. She arrived unexpectedly and wanted to speak to the king, and he agreed to pay her ten thousand silvers for the advice she gave him.
“Saw it with my own eyes!” says the servant at the center of the cluster. “He ordered the silvers sent to her account.”
“But what did she tell him? It must have been very useful!”
“No one knows. They spoke in private.”
My eyes widen. Ten thousand silvers for advice? I push the kiss to the back of my mind and give Max an incredulous look, one he returns.
“I don’t like it,” I say.
“I don’t either.”
“Well, she’s still here. Why don’t we go speak with her? If she’s a true soothsayer, she can prove it.”
“By all means,” he says drily, “Go ahead and poke the beast.”
“Poke it?” I hoot. “Who said anything about poking it? I’m going to skewer it.”
Max doesn’t reply, but when I look back at him there’s a crooked, rueful smile on his face.
The soothsayer is alone in a visitor parlor upstairs, finishing a cup of spiced tea before her departure. The room has a magnificent view of one of the arched bridges that connects two of
the palace towers. The soothsayer, however, has her back to the scene, unmoved by the view. The glow from the artificial fireplace flickers over her face. She’s quite nondescript at first, with almost colorless gold hair and fast, slender hands, but then her eyes flash up to mine and I see mischief there.
She looks away and shuffles cards on the table in front of her. “You almost missed me,” she says. “Which of you wants answers?”
“I do,” I say.
She doesn’t look up at Max but points in his direction. “And him?”
“He’s not thrilled that his father gave you ten thousand silvers, so he’s here to make sure you’re not a fraud.”
Her mouth twitches. “I think that’s reasonable.” She gestures to the seat on the other side of the little tea table. Shadows skitter across the wall. “What would you like to know?”
I sit. “Everything.”
She gives me an amused look. When our eyes meet, an odd sensation creeps over me. I can’t quite work out what it is. She shifts the cards some more. I try to read them myself, taking in pictures of horsemen and skeletons and broken hearts, but none of it makes any sense to me. I search the soothsayer’s face. Her eyes don’t feel right. She doesn’t fit.
“You are Esmae Rey,” she says. I’m understandably unimpressed, but what she says next throws me completely off balance. “You are a curse made out of flesh and blood. And cursed yourself.”
No one outside the family knows my mother was cursed and almost nobody knows I’ve been cursed.
“You are the wielder of the Black Bow,” she goes on. “The winner of warships, the one whose heart will always be cleaved in two. You want your brother to win back his throne and his home, but you know what defeat will mean for the ones here who you have come to love. You will always be torn.”
“I—”
But she hasn’t finished. “You have a fierce, roaring lion heart. It believes in hope and love today, but will it always? Will it in seven weeks’ time?”
“Why?” I demand. “What will happen in seven weeks?”
“Esmae,” she says, emphasizing the syllables, “which means beloved, but may as well also mean betrayed.” She finally looks up at Max, a sharp direct stare like a knife, and his eyes go wide. She continued to look at him as she says, to me, “If you remember only one thing when I go, Esmae Rey, remember this: you are beloved by gods you don’t trust and will be betrayed by mortals you do.”
My spine prickles with cold. I look closely at her and suddenly I feel like I’ve seen her eyes somewhere before . . .
The chair falls over as I scramble to my feet. She doesn’t flinch.
Amba once told me that a god’s true celestial form is indescribable and a mortal couldn’t look upon it without losing their sanity. As a result, gods have become accustomed to taking human or animal forms instead, and they usually have a favorite form that mortals tend to recognize. Amba’s is the stern, beautiful woman I saw when I first met her. It’s only when a god wants to deliberately hide themselves that they will assume a different avatar, that of a cow or an old woman or a child or a beefy bushy-browed man, all of which I’ve seen Amba embody. Only her ancient, fathomless, god-dark eyes always gave her away.
Eyes strikingly like the ones in front of me.
“Are you one of the gods who love me?” I ask sarcastically.
She smiles.
I cut a look at Max. A muscle jumps in his jaw, but he doesn’t look surprised. He must have worked it out at the same time I did.
When I turn back, the soothsayer has vanished and in her place is a grinning boy god.
“Kirrin,” says Max, more exasperated than angry, “Of course it’s you. How appropriate for the god of tricks.”
“Tricks and bargains,” the god corrects him. “Never forget the and bargains. You may need one of those someday.”
“I certainly wouldn’t strike one with you,” says Max.
“Not you, Max,” Kirrin replies as his eyes flash in my direction. “That part was meant for Esmae.”
Kirrin looks no older than I am. He’s lithe, quick, with a tousled mess of blue hair and pale blue skin. His eyes are full of mischief.
I scowl at him. “Was any part of what you said to me true?”
“Every word I said to you was true. I never lie.”
“I hardly think you were telling the truth when you entered the palace and introduced yourself as a soothsayer.”
“I didn’t do that,” says Kirrin, offended. “The form I chose may have been described to Elvar and he may have come to his own conclusions about my identity, but my exact words, I believe, were ‘I come to give you valuable advice, King Elvar, and ask only ten thousand silvers in return.’ All of which,” he says with glee, “is entirely truthful.”
“Why did you bother?” I ask. “Does a god even need money?” Kirrin’s grin widens. “It’s not for you, is it? It’s for Alexi. To help him gather and equip his army.”
Kirrin doesn’t look sorry. “I’m very attached to Alexi.”
I can’t help but admire the audacity of handing funds to Alexi supplied by the very person fighting against him.
“Don’t make me remind you to leave my father alone,” Max says severely.
“I never agreed to do that, Max,” says the god, but his tone is fond. “I promised you I would leave him alone while you watched over him, but you were not watching over him today.”
Max looks fed up, like he more or less expected to be confronted with tricks and loopholes. It’s obvious he knows Kirrin well. At first, I assume this is because Max, like Alexi, got to know the god when they were children. Then, as I watch them and think of how easily Kirrin took on the guise of the soothsayer, I realize it goes far beyond that.
“It was you,” I say.
Kirrin raises an eyebrow. “What was?”
“The woman on the balcony. The one talking to Max when I was on the training field with Sybilla. That was you.”
“Indeed it was.”
And the old man the other day? The one who was so interested in my blueflower jewel? Kirrin rules the Empty Moon. It would be a travesty if I didn’t know a blueflower when I saw one, the old man had said. Of course he recognized it. Blueflowers come from his seas.
“They were all you. All those people. That’s why no one’s ever seen them before. And why we never see them again. You come here to meet Max and you take on a different form every time.”
“I like you,” Kirrin says. “Few mortals speak so boldly to gods they’ve never met before.” He seems more amused than offended. “I suppose your relationship with Amba has made you quite comfortable with our glorious presence?”
I don’t reply. A god comes to Kali to meet Max at least a few times a week. Why? Kirrin is supposedly determined to help Alexi, so why does he spend so much time in discussion with the other side? What do he and Max talk about?
I take them in, the silent prince and the smiling, mysterious god. “I don’t understand.”
“No, but you will when I’m finished.”
“Kirrin,” Max protests.
The god ignores him. “I assume you know of the fire that nearly killed your mother and brothers?”
“Yes,” I say warily.
“Do you know why it didn’t kill them?”
I repeat what Max told me: “They managed to get out in time.”
Kirrin snorts. “That’s only half the picture. It wasn’t the kind of fire that starts with an overturned candle and allows you time to flee if you smell the smoke in time. It was an explosion. Your family escaped because they fled before it even started. I told them the house was about to burn. The house, you see, had been specifically built so that it would burn easily when the time came.”
I recoil. “So it wasn’t an accident! Elvar tried to kill them?”
“No,” Max quickly interjects. “My father didn’t give the order.”
“But someone did.”
There’s no reply.
“Your uncle?
Lord Selwyn?”
“Give the girl a prize,” says Kirrin. “Of course Elvar and Guinne aren’t blameless. I suspect they know what Selwyn is up to but won’t acknowledge it. Elvar, you see, is more terrified of losing his throne to Alexi than he is of losing Alexi.”
It’s no wonder my mother resorted to poison. How else to put an end to these attempts to kill her children?
Max looks upset, but I have no room for sympathy for him. Does he want my brothers dead, too? Is that where his jealousy has led him? Why else hasn’t he tried to stop this? How can he allow his uncle to remain on the war council and in such a position of power?
“I can’t get rid of him,” Max says, as if I spoke aloud. “My uncle was the one who convinced my father to lay claim to the throne he wanted so badly. My father now has that throne. He pays attention to my uncle’s advice, trusts him. Selwyn wants what Mother and Father want. He wants Father on the throne.”
“Not for Elvar’s own sake! He just wants to be able to control the king.”
“Yes. And he hates you and Alexi because if either of you were to rule Kali, you wouldn’t let him control you. With my father dethroned, Selwyn would lose all he has.”
“But you have power of your own. If you can’t persuade the king and queen to send your uncle far from here, why don’t you at least tell the war council what he’s done? Grandmother and Rickard would happily see him imprisoned.”
“If I do that, Selwyn will know he can’t trust me. Right now, he thinks I’m on his side. I’ve never given him reason to think otherwise.” Max looks more exhausted than angry. “As long as he trusts me, he shares his plans with me.”
“And that means you’re prepared for whatever he does,” I say slowly. Like Skylark. He knew just how to persuade his uncle and the war council that an invasion would be a mistake. Would he have been able to cut off that plot so quickly if he hadn’t known it was coming beforehand?
“The consequences of revealing his hand could be worse than that,” Kirrin pipes up. “Selwyn has Elvar’s ear. Who knows how deeply the rot has set in? If Max gives himself away, Elvar may take Selwyn’s side, and Selwyn may be able to convince the king that his own son can’t be trusted. They’d find a way to take what power Max holds at present. It would be the end of Kali as you know it.”