Into the Black Read online

  “That’s a rather grand assumption.”

  “But it’s not an assumption if it’s true; then it’s a fact. But I don’t say that because I underestimate your abilities—I don’t. I, in fact, find you quite impressive and don’t doubt you’d find him on your own. However, with my help, you’ll find him faster.”

  A bold claim. “And what makes you think that?”

  He opens his mouth.

  “If you say it’s because you’re so handsome, I’ll be severely tempted to hit you.”

  Deimos laughs. “That would be like me to say, but naï, that’s not why.”

  “Then?”

  “Are you ready to be astounded?”

  I roll my eyes. “Go on then.”

  “I’m not just an Avra-kaï with a pretty face; I’m a bounty hunter.”

  My mouth opens and closes. I may have guessed many answers from Deimos, but bounty hunter wouldn’t have been one of them.

  Deimos grins. “Astounded?”

  “Surprised,” I admit. “Do you ordinarily track people through the desert?”

  “I’ve tracked all over. People will run just about anywhere when they’re desperate.”

  It’s an unusual choice of profession for a royal, to say the least. Most who aren’t set to be rulers join the military, or religious services, or stay in politics in lesser roles—what I would have done, if I weren’t raised to be Avra. But Deimos has no reason to lie; after all, he has nothing to gain in joining me to find Eros. Of course, I don’t know him, but the little I do know—that he’s the youngest of the A’Sharon Avrae-kjo and that most have a positive opinion of him—tells me I needn’t worry. Given that I need to find Eros quickly … I suppose I can’t think of anyone more useful to have at my side. “Hmm. Welcome to the search party then.”

  Deimos snickers. “Well, seeing how we’re taking my bike, I was already invited, but thank you anyway.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  I glance around the dim garage, gleaming transports of every shape and size, each as luxurious and shiny as the last, are lined in long rows in the large, open room. We walk to a glass embedded in the wall just beside the entrance, and Deimos presses his palm against it.

  The glass lights up red, and a voice says, “Welcome, Avra-kaï Deimos Zielo Azani d’A’Sharo. Your transport is on its way.”

  “Thank you,” Deimos says happily.

  Moments later, a low hum fills the room, and then lights crest over the hill of the sloping tunnel as a sleek red sand bike drifts over to us. Deimos smiles and pats his bike before opening a compartment at the bottom and pulling out two red and black helmets. “I suspect this will work better than a headscarf.”

  “You’re right.” I shove my supplies back into my bag and take the helmet. “Thank you.”

  “Sure. I can take your bag, too.”

  I pause but hand it over. He opens a second compartment behind the first, then pushes our bags inside, seals both compartments, and smiles. “So which way are we headed?”

  I hesitate. The truth is, I don’t know exactly where Eros is; the nomads move all the time, so assuming he’s still with them, they could be just about anywhere in the desert. But their last location was near one landmark, and something still pulls me there.

  It’s a gamble, and I might be wrong, but it’s the only place I can think of to start.

  “South,” I say. “To Enjos.”

  Can’t sleep. Not sure I want to. And yet, after those sets in Dima’s dungeon, when sleep was the only thing I wanted and the one thing I couldn’t have—

  —the screaming the pain the—

  —sleep was a rebellion. But no amount of pushing my palms against my closed eyelids, no amount of listening to Mal breathe softly in the bed below me, no amount of staring into shadows wipes their faces from my mind. Their screams. Their writhing, and burning, and crying, and worse, worse: their silence.

  Their silence is the most haunting of all.

  Held hands and children huddled around their mother; an older sibling holding his silent baby brother. Crying and whimpering and alive, still alive, but just.

  How does Mal sleep with the memory of lying in the sand, surrounded by his dead family? Does he wonder if he could have done something more? It’s the question I wrestle with every blazing mo. Does he dream of his last moments with them like I do? Of Aren pushing a bracelet he made with his own hands onto my wrist, of rolling my eyes at Esta’s kiss, of arguing with Nol, and fuck, I want it to stop. I don’t want to remember, not anymore, because it hurts. It hurts so fucken bad and there’s nothing I can do to change it.

  But if I’m being honest with myself, if I had the choice to forget, I wouldn’t choose that either. Because if I forget my family, if I forget the only people on the planet who ever cared, who were there for me all along, then what do I have left?

  I’m a shell without them now.

  Eventually I roll out of bed and slip out into the hallway. It’s impossible to know what time it is—underground, so far from the suns and moons, the sets are determined by artificial lights and schedules, by people who decide when to turn on those lights.

  I’m guessing it’s still late—or really early—though, because the lights are dim when I step out of my room, and the withering look the guards give me says everything they don’t speak.

  “Can’t sleep,” I answer. “I want to go for a run. Is there somewhere I can do that?”

  The guards glance at each other, and then one lifts a shoulder and nods to the left. “There’s a track on this floor. I’ll take you.”

  “Okay,” I say, trying to pretend he’s taking me because I don’t know the way and not because he doesn’t trust me, not because I’m their prisoner. We start down the hall, but I hesitate and look back at the guard staying behind. “If Mal wakes up, send someone to come and get me.”

  The remaining guard nods. We continue down the hallway. This walk is a little less confusing—only five mos or so, left, right, right, left. Easy enough to remember, not that I’ll ever need to because they’ll never leave me alone anyway.

  We pass a few people who are probably civilians—they aren’t wearing a uniform, at least—who I guess are early risers, too. I spot one woman with a shaved head and the edges of a tattoo peeking out from under her sleeve. I don’t know her, but I’d recognize that tattoo anywhere because I have one, too. She must be one of the ex-slave refugees Rani mentioned taking in. Her dark gaze follows me as we pass, and I nod at her, tapping the identical band inked on my arm. We share a pained smile before she walks away.

  The track room is large, with some kinduv spongey, stiff, and bouncy floor with a thick blue ring bordering the room. The walls are deep red sandstone, and the ceiling is so low if I jumped I could reach it. Like everywhere else down here. Closed in. Underground. So far from the suns and free air and life.

  I shudder and try not to think about it.

  The guard points to a white line across the ring. “You start there. If you had a comm linked up the system, it’d give a running count for you with all sorts of statistics, but you’ll just have to count for yourself.”

  A comm linked up to the system—did they track everyone with nanites, too? Somehow I doubt everyone’s privacy had been invaded like mine. Somehow I doubt watching my every move through my eyes, and recording it, and viewing it like observing an animal all without my knowledge is standard operating procedure.

  And yet, she treated it like no big deal. Like I was overreacting. Like it’s unreasonable that I was blazed as a supernova after learning the only private moments I’ve had my entire life began when Kora’s panicked medic filtered all nanites from my system a couple terms back.

  But I guess I don’t have the luxury to hold on to that anger, because I’m here, and I have to deal with them, and there’s nothing I can do about it.

  I take a few mos to stretch out, then step up to the line, and when the guard moves out of the way, I run. It’s nothing like running in the des
ert, nothing like the sand in my toes and the slight slip of every step as the powdery sand pushes back, back, like sinking just for a breath with every step. It’s nothing like the morning rays of the rising suns painting the skies orange, red, purple, and gold. It’s nothing like filling my lungs with warm, free air that smells like home; it’s nothing like ignoring the Sephari buildings in Kora’s palace complex and pretending I’m back at camp running, running, running.

  It’s not comforting, and it’s not familiar, but it is moving. It’s pushing my legs until they ache—then harder. It’s taking steady, cool breaths until my lungs burn—then more. It’s pumping my arms and sweat dripping down my temples; it’s the tingling of my tiring body; it’s knowing the harder I push, the more it hurts, the faster and farther I run, the sooner I can clear my mind and focus on nothing but air and ache. But not the ache of guilt churning endlessly in my gut, not the ache of a hurt I can never fix; it’s the ache of muscles, and it’s good. It’s good.

  I have to believe that. I have to believe there’s still some good left.

  And I have to get to Asheron. For Mal, mostly, so we’ll be there when the nanites are fixed but also …

  I slow to a walk, heaving air into my lungs in long, shuddering breaths. I have to be realistic. When I get out of here—and I will get out of here—if I don’t go to Asheron, where else would I go? I’m not welcome anywhere. Humans are just as likely as Sepharon to kill me. Serek wanted me to claim my spot on the throne, but I …

  I don’t want that. Not really. I don’t want the responsibility of billions of people—most of whom will probably always hate me. I don’t want the hopes of every human weighing on my shoulders, praying for something I might not ever be able to get them as long as prejudiced Sepharon stand in my way.

  I don’t want it, but I’m not sure I really have a choice, either. Not when the other option is starve on the streets with Mal until someone kills us. Or worse—staying here. But with time slipping by, my window for getting to Asheron before they choose someone else to rule is closing.

  The guard watching me is leaning against the wall, arms crossed over his chest, head dipped toward the ground. Sleeping—or falling asleep, at least. But an escape isn’t an option, not really—there are too many checkpoints and cameras and guards and levels, and even if I somehow managed to get Mal, get my bike—wherever they hid it—and get to the surface without being detected, they’d run us down easily. I can’t outrun anyone on Day’s old junker; I was already pressing my luck trying to get to Asheron on that old thing as it was.

  Which means the only way I get out of here is if they let me. And they haven’t asked, not really, not yet, but there isn’t a chance in the Void they’re going to just let me walk out of here without doing something for them first.

  I don’t know what that something is, but I can’t imagine it’s going to be anything good.

  Still, I need to talk to someone and figure out how I’ll get out of this fucken place. Mal can’t get the help he needs here, and maybe he won’t be able to right away in Asheron, either, but they’re sure to build new nanites quickly, and when they do, the first with access will be the Sira and whoever is in his inner circle.

  It’s not a good plan—chances of actually becoming Sira are slim, and chances of the new Sira liking me enough to help Mal are slimmer, but it’s all I have. And even if it’s a shit plan, it’s better than being a prisoner here and accomplishing nothing.

  The guard is practically using his blond beard as a pillow for his chin as I step up to him—and then a thought kicks me in the stomach: a lot of the guys down here are bearded and pale.

  Pale like the bearded assassin who tried to kill Kora when I was her bodyguard.

  “I want to talk to Rani.”

  The guard jerks up, blinking rapidly and adjusting his posture, like I didn’t just catch him sleeping. “Um,” he says. “Rani?”

  “Yeah. Your leader—the woman who—”

  “You mean Commander Jakande.”

  “Whatever,” I say. “I want to talk to her.”

  He frowns and nods at a blue number on the wall. “You realize it’s four in the morning.”

  “Then later in the morning, but I want to talk to her today.”

  “I can put in a request for you, but it’s not that simple—”

  “It is simple, actually,” I say. “Your people abducted my nephew and me because they wanted to talk. I’m here, and I’m ready to talk. Make it happen.”

  He hesitates, then nods. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “You tried to kill Kora.”

  I’d had another intro ready—a better, less aggressive and accusatory one—but the realization is too much for me to ignore and it sets my blood boiling. It all makes sense; the assassin was pale because he lived underground where some of the people are light-skinned, and he was bearded because apparently that’s not an uncommon custom down here. The Remnant is anti-Sepharon, so it’d make sense they’d want to kill Kora, though why Kora over any other royal, I don’t know, but I’m going to find out.

  Rani arches an eyebrow and gestures to a seat in front of her desk. Her office is small—just a dark room with a ton of little lights, a propped-up glass, and stacks of what I think are supposed to be books but aren’t nicely bound like the ones in Kora’s library were.

  “Please sit,” she says.

  “I’m good.”

  “Suit yourself.” She leans back in her seat and looks at me. “I don’t know who Kora is.”

  “Hodgeshit,” I say. “If you’re paying half as much attention to Sepharon politics as you claim to be, you know who Elja’s former Avra is.”

  “Oh. That Kora.” She shrugs. “Yes, we accepted a deal to try to assassinate her. What of it?”

  My mouth opens and closes. Rani smiles at me nonchalantly, like she didn’t just admit to attempting to kill a royal. “You—a deal?”

  “The second from Eljan royals, actually. They were pretty determined to get her out of the picture—looks like they finally succeeded on their own.”

  It takes a lot of self-control not to gape at her. “From Eljan royals?” Is she saying Kora’s family hired them to try to kill her? But then—Kora said Dima had saved her from an assassination attempt when she was fifteen. Why would he do that if he was behind it? Unless … “Which royals?”

  “First was the Avra at the time—the explosion at her coronation was supposed to kill her … but got him instead.” She smirks. “Oops.”

  Kora’s own father. What in the Void was wrong with her fucken family? “And the second time?”

  “That was not long ago—her brother contacted us that time.” She smirks. “It was a win-win for us. Further destabilize their government and get paid in weaponry, tech, and credits.”

  I scowl. “And meanwhile, they got to blame the violence on us—on humans—because apparently it was us.”

  Rani shrugs. “Doesn’t bother us; we’re not trying to get along until we’ve changed things.”

  “No? It didn’t bother you, then, when they used the coronation explosion as an excuse to hunt down my camp, kill my family, and nearly kill me in the process?”

  Rani grimaces. “That was … an unforeseen consequence, and I’m sorry you had to go through that. But you made it out—and when they brought you to the arena, we made sure it didn’t go too far.”

  Didn’t go too far? My head was literally on the fucken chopping block—I was breaths away from execution. My fists shake, and everything inside me screams this is wrong, this is wrong, but she doesn’t care.

  “You’re welcome, by the way,” she adds. “For saving your life.”

  I force out a laugh—because if I don’t laugh, I might do something regrettable. Like leap across her desk and strangle her. “Doesn’t count as saving when you’re the reason I was there in the first place.”

  Rani purses her lips. “You would have been discovered one way or the other. You’re not just a half-blood, Eros, you’re the
son of a Sira. I hate to say it, but a quiet life was never in the stars for you.”

  Every part of me blazes to tell her off. To say I’m not just a pawn in her plan for power—but maybe she never saw me as more. Maybe that’s all I’ve been to her all along, since the moment she agreed to have me.

  And maybe it doesn’t fucken matter how she wants to use me, because I’m my own person and she needs me way Voiding more than I need her.

  I just need to get out of here first.

  I take a deep breath. “You said you abducted me because you needed to make your presence known before I went to Asheron, so we can work together from here on out. So, what’s it going to take to let me go?”

  She smiles. “You know, I’m glad you came back to talk, I was waiting for the right moment to finally have this conversation. I still think we can salvage this butchered introduction and work together.” I stare her down. She laughs and runs a hand over her buzzed head. “Okay, so, we want you to go back to Asheron and claim your place on the throne. And once the dust settles and you’ve been fully accepted—”

  “If you think I’ll ever be fully accepted as Sira, you’re deluding yourself.”

  “That’s true; I more mean once it’s official and you’re Sira, that’s when I’ll contact you.”

  “And then?”

  She crosses her arms and a slow smile slips over her lips. “Then we’ll tear it all down from the inside. Start a revolution with the Sira at the helm.”

  I frown. Tear it all down? A revolution? “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Exactly what it sounds like—you’ll dissolve the current monarchial setup and start over. Create a representative government with humans and Sepharon alike spoken for equally. We can work together, Sepharon and humans, once we’ve thrown out the old system, but we need to start at the government level or nothing will change.”

  I stare at her. Laugh. “Seriously. This is what you and Asha had planned?”