“This way I don’t have to spend my time hand-feeding you sweetgrass syrup one drop at a time, you greedy little prince,” I tell him. He waves his antennae at me, occasionally racing up and down my arm like he’s checking on my work.
When I finish it and stock it with syrup, he scales one of the spreading, silver petals to lap the “nectar” from the center well.
“What do you think? Is it better than Harl’s garbage-bloom?” I ask him. He doesn’t answer, too busy gorging himself to remember his benefactor.
Ungrateful bug.
The next day, I make him another foil flower, even more elaborate with miniature stamens and a curling leaf. This one he decorates with threads of silk, weaving patterns into it, making it a home in what must be a strange environment. He is planetless, too, but I suppose inside his silk hammock, the universe looks the same wherever he is.
A sudden longing for my Alara hits me. She is my home. Wherever we go, as long as we are together, we’re home.
It’s lucky Harl’s comm can’t transmit or I’d be contacting her right now, R’Hiza damn any delicate political balance it upset. I rub the center of my chest, where our fated bond tugs at me harder and harder the further I travel from her, like a string unraveling to its limit and threatening to yank my heart from inside my ribs.
On the morning of the third day, the homing beacon chimes, letting me know we’re close to the Eye. I change from my wrinkled, black sveli, the priests’ uniform I’ve worn almost daily for the past decade, to a white one, woven of pure, undyed tilifiber, the color worn by generations of kings, and embroidered along the edges with tiny golden stars.
It was a present from my father. He said it was a promise that one day I’d rise to rule the Five Planets. I found out later that he promised the same to all my brothers. A sick joke designed to see us claw and bite to earn our place behind him. But now I know my place isn’t behind anyone. It’s beside my Alara.
While I’ll never be a Jara, let alone an Emperor, I want Zomah to know the minute he sees me that he no longer commands me. Only she does.
I prepare the bird to dock, scanning the nav for a glimpse of the space station when the sensors indicate it’s close by. But when the Eye comes into view, it’s not the pristine, dark pyramid I launched from.
It’s a wreck. A shattered fragment of its former glory. The base of the pyramid is gone, the empty space dock perches dangling exposed beneath the ruined remains. The escape pods are all missing, leaving deep pockmarks in the formerly smooth sides, and the black glass shell—what is left of it—is riddled with cracks. I’d be surprised if anyone was still alive inside it.
Whathappenedwhile I was captive on R’Hiza? Did Zomah start a war with my brothers while I was gone? Or did he betray the Mizaran mercenaries somehow and earn their wrath? How many shadowcloaks died for his ambition?
The comm lights up and Zomah’s bloodless voice slithers through. Of course, he survived. “Lyro, my son. I knew you’d come. Do you have her?”
My bones chill at his familiar, manipulative tone. He wants to use me. Use Lena. Thank Alioth my comm can’t reply. He’s going to rage when he realizes I’ve kept a prize so valuable from his clutches.
“You’re angry with me,” he muses over the comm. “It was not a slight toward you that I allied with your brother. I thought JaraNik would have more influence over the Emperor. But look what it has bought me.” His words scrape out, bitter and damaged. “Do not punish me, for I have already lost everything.”
So Nik did this.My heart pounds against my ribs, emphasizing each word.Nik. Did. This.He understood the message I sent with Delphie. He trusted I was telling the truth. He destroyed the Eye.
“Your mother is safe,” Zomah says, a wheedling note creeping into his voice that tells me it was none of his doing, even though he wants credit for it. “She’s here with me. If you want to hear her voice again...”
He trails off, his lie so obvious even he realizes it’s futile to continue. She’s not here. She’s safe with Nik, or she’s dead, but she’s definitely not here.
“It’s not too late,” he grits out. “You and I can use the terrakin you retrieved to wrest some power back from the Emperor. I know you have her. You wouldn’t show your face here if you’d failed.”
I should leave him here. Turn my bird around and let him starve, alone, in the wreckage of his little empire.
“I made you. All your training with the blades, your discipline, your political skill? I gave that to you. Even the cloak on your back came from me. All I ask is your mercy. Do not deny an old male a small kindness after all I have done for you.”
My head tips back in the pilot’s chair, and I laugh, loud and long. Does he think I’m still a greenling, leaping for his approval? Does he think I forget the thousands of hours I worked to gain my skills, the hundreds of beatings I took, the dozens of assassinations I carried out at his and my father’s bidding? The promises they never kept? I don’t owe him anything.
“Coward,” he spits. “You are not worthy of Chanísh’s line. I told him to leave you behind, but he insisted his concubinesneeded a plaything. Something to lose to keep them in line. He was right. You were a bloodless weapon no matter who wielded you. One finger lifted in your direction, and those females would put anything in your father’s ear I asked. You were a sulky little pawn, but an obedient one.”
My fury swells. I know this is just another tactic to provoke me to respond. Another string Zomah pulls because he’s desperate to survive. But damn me to R’Hiza, it works. I can’t leave him to die alone. I want to see his ghost greet the goddess with my own eyes. I want his blood on the hem of my sveli.
I guide my bird into the devastated dock, tethering directly to the airlock. Its carbonsilk and epylium door has withstood whatever happened to tear apart the spaceport’s shell.
“Welcome home,” Zomah purrs through the comm.
Home. That’s the word that spurs me as I buckle on a breather and make my way through the splintered labyrinth. I have to step over countless charred cloaks before I reach the very center of the Eye, where Zomah makes his quarters.
It always puzzled me that he preferred to dwell in the dark. Now I understand why he did not prefer a location closer to Alioth, as my father did. The deeper I go, the less damage there is. Of course, a priest who plans a war would give up the goddess to save his own skin.
Zomah opens his arms when I open the door, spreading his cloak like wings. “My son,” he says warmly, eyes glinting like stones as he moves toward me. “Take off your mask, let me see you. Alioth smile us, I wasn’t sure you were coming. Why didn’t you answer me?”
