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A sign our people would finally acknowledge. Kaelum’s humanity was the very thing that made him strong, and a good future king.
“Jax took my ship,” Kaelum said, searching my face for deception. “He meant to lead Crux away.”
I drew my spine taut, looked him in the eye, and told him the truth. “I have no idea what happened. I was not there, and had no idea Jax was anywhere but at your side.”
His eyes narrowed, but not in anger. He looked away, searching, as though deep in thought. “If you weren’t there, and Crux isn’t missing a ship—he’s not missing a ship, is he?” I shook my head, and he went back to musing. “Then what are we missing?”
He turned back to Lucas, confused and thoughtful, before standing up straight. “What if Crux shot at him? Or they met with Zathki resistance?”
Lucas nodded. “Then we should be looking—” He glanced up, as though he could see the floating remains of the warrior and human in space.
Kaelum didn’t even glance back at Beau or me, he simply spun and marched out of the room, with more purpose than I’d ever before seen in his stride.
It made a strange pride swell within me for the first time. Perhaps he did not think of me the same way, but someday—maybe someday soon—my brother would be the leader of all Thorzan.
CHAPTER27
BEAU
“Ineed your help.”
Queen Rochelle tipped her head to the side, her smile pleasant, but there was an edge behind it I recognized. Something had changed since she’d found me at Crux’s lab.
She must have known that I’d seen Vorian and had determined to keep him with me at the palace. Now, she wasn’t sure what to make of me.
And frankly, I wasn’t sure what to make of her either.
It was early in the morning, but a tall blue Thorzi had shown up at my chamber door, demanding a private audience with Vorian. I thought the Thorzi’s name was Vipha, and he didn’t look much like a warrior at all.
Vorian could handle him, certainly, and though he gave me a scowling, narrow eyed look and said that I may stay, it was clear that Vipha wanted me gone. So I told him it was fine, that I’d go get breakfast, and I set out to find the queen.
“Of course,” the queen said serenely. “What can I help you with, Beau?”
“I’d like to get back to Crux’s lab.”
Surprise sent her eyebrows high up her forehead, but now that I knew she was Vorian’s mother, everything fell into place. She’d left him, fled from Crux’s domineering control, and fallen into the arms of the Thorzi king.
Good for her. I was glad she’d gotten away. I hoped she was happy now.
But Crux still had power over my future, and I couldn’t leave it to him.
“I really don’t think—”
My smile tightened too. “Oh, I’m not asking you to come with me. I just need a way to get there. I think you could do me that one favor. For Vorian.”
A shadow crossed her features. I was pushing, but, well... maybe she didn’t owe Vorian anything specific, but from where I was sitting, he deserved way better than he’d gotten all his life.
The queen didn’t have to give him that. Neither did Crux or the king or Kaelum. But I intended to do my best to give him everything I could—everything good in the world I could cobble together for the two of us.
After a moment, she sighed. She hung her head, but when she looked at me again, there was steel behind the warm brown of her eyes. “Do you know how to use a terrapad?”
I didn’t, as I hadn’t been on one alone, but she quickly remedied that, and I was ready to kiss my ass goodbye as I zipped out from the palace and toward Crux’s laboratory. There were way too many ways to die this high up, and I decided, crouched and cowering toward the center of the stone disk, that the next time I bothered with a terrapad, it’d be with Vorian there to wrap my arms around.
When it hovered a step above the ground outside of the laboratory, I got off on shaky legs. It took me a second to catch my breath and straighten out my clothes. And while looking at the lab made me want to shrink in on myself and get small and docile, I wasn’t doing this for me.
I was doing it for Vorian and our future. We got to build something, whether Crux wanted us to or not. For that, I could keep my head held high.
Thorzi really did not believe much in security. I guess that’s what happened when a culture said if you couldn’t protect what was yours, you didn’t deserve to keep it. When I pressed a tablet by the door, the entrance whizzed open a second later.
