Page 1 of Tempting Fate

CHAPTER ONE

Uprooted

Airida

IF I KEPT my eyes closed, nothing was amiss.

Outsiders hadn’t invaded my home yesterday, demanding I come with them to be rescued. We hadn’t come face-to-face with armed guards. I hadn’t been marched to the main house at gunpoint.

I hadn’t heard my mother’s desire to kill me rather than suffer a scandal.

No, I could pretend I was in my own bed with the scent of hypra blooms filling my chamber through the open window. It would be mid-morning. One of my retainers would be making flatcakes for breakfast, the scent of them filling my nostrils as they cooked, drawing me out of bed at last. I’d eat in the sunshine of my garden, watching the bees and lizards as they, too, ate until they were sated.

I shuddered in a breath. This bed held none of the pillowy softness of home, and the unfamiliar bite of metallic ship air assaulted my nostrils.

My head pounded. I was now late for two doses of medication, and my stomach churned.

I rolled over, tugging the blanket to my chin, but stopped at a familiar buzzing. Reluctantly, I sat up.

A chiyi sat on the silver-grey blanket. The lizard was only a juvenile, less than a quarter the size of my palm. As I scooped it up, I took in the starship panels around me, the inlaid hatches in the walls, the mai Tasra crest engraved into each corner.

And opposite me, there was the two-decades old painting which had hung on my bedroom wall in my cottage. A nebula, painted by my sister when she was but eight summers old, all pinks and purples and thick lines of gold, blended together in an unpracticed hand. A gift to me. A bittersweet memory.

Water leaked from the inside corners of my eyes. Why it happened, nobody knew; no other kri’ith had eyes that leaked.

I forced down the howl of emotion rising in my chest. This was definitely the Dorimisa, our family ship.

I was on my home planet no longer.

Neither was this cobalt and emerald creature in my hand. I took my spectacles from the bedside shelf and perched them on my too-big nose.

Chiyi were my favourite of the flower lizards, with their domed bodies, stubby tails, colourful elytra protecting their iridescent wings—and their unusual fearlessness around people.

“What are you doing here, little one?” My voice echoed in the metal space. No more stone walls. No more fresh air. No more garden.

The lizard must have flown in when we’d boarded my sister’s ship on Orith—taking me off the planet to save me, so she had said.

The chiyi regarded me with big, marbled eyes, and cooed softly.

“Yes, we are both out of place here. But what are you going to eat?” I doubted there were any plants on board, and without nectar, the creature wouldn’t survive long. I pressed the comm unit by the bed. “Shohari?”

“A moment.”

The door whooshed open a few minutes later, and my sister strode in, pausing in the middle of the room. “Airi. It’s so good to have you here at last,” she said, a soft smile on her face but a tightness around her eyes. “How are you feeling, little brother?”

Like shit. And it’s your fault. Why did she care? She hadn’t bothered with me for years. “I need something to feed the chiyi.” I held out my hand, palm down now, where the young creature snuffled at my skin, hunting in the deep lines under my knuckle spines for gods-knew-what.

“Why did you bring a lizard?” She regarded me with a steady gaze, more bemused than irritated.

Yes, I’d spent too long gathering my things at my cottage, and that might have been why we’d been captured by our parents’ guards, but if these people insisted on upending my life, I was going to do it my way. I tilted my chin, staring her down. “I didn’t. It must have snuck on board. Can you show me to the kitchen?”

Shohari looked me up and down in the bed. “I can…” Despite her skeptical expression, she held out a hand.

I didn’t take it. I swung my legs round, my feet hit the metal floor, and I pushed up, cradling the chiyi against my solar plexus.

My head swam, and I sank down so hard the bed creaked. What hell was this?

“What can I get from the galley for you?” Shohari asked, her voice unusually gentle.