Empress of a Thousand Skies(29)

“You have no opinion on an intergalactic war?” she asked.

“War was my father’s cause—not mine. Whichever planet rules supreme will do so for another twenty years, and then the power will flip, then flip again. Let all the planets who want to play raze each other to ash so the rest of us don’t have to deal with petty struggles.”

Petty. Sheltered. Young. Blind. Rhee had been insulted more in the past three days than she ever had before. Rhee forced herself to reach into the folds of her tunic and pull out Julian’s telescope. She felt her heart splinter as she handed it over. “Here,” she said. “It’s pure silver.”

“Must’ve cost something fierce.” The Fisherman brought the telescope close to his eye, not to look through it but to inspect it. She knew he’d never use it the way it was intended—to look up at the sky, to know you weren’t alone.

Did Julian know he wasn’t alone?

Did he think of her as often as she thought of him? She’d stayed up every night, terrified Julian would discover what she’d done.

The Fisherman tossed the telescope up in the air and caught the other end, seemingly happy with the trade. He stood up, and she expected him to rummage through his cabinets for chemicals and salves. Instead, he tore the tarp off a nearby tank and stuck his arm in the cloudy water, all the way to his shoulder.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Most people reckon these here tanks are empty,” he said, by way of response. Then, with a grunt, he extracted his hand.

Rhee gulped in a breath. In his palm was a creature with long tentacles frantically coiling and whipping through the air in all directions. She jumped back. Its bulbous head barely fit in the palm of his hand.

“It’s what’s called an octoerces,” he said, looking at it with a sort of respect and affection.

“Where—where did it come from?” Rhee licked her lips, regretting her decision to trust Dahlen.

“The same place this silver of yours was mined.” Of course. It was from the Outer Belt in deep space, a free strip of interconnected planets that Kalu had wanted to colonize for years. She’d heard of locals who fished it with nothing but a suit and an alloy harpoon gun, snatching up creatures that could survive without light and atmosphere, creatures that defied everything anyone knew about life. “It’s a bit angry now. It doesn’t like air, see, doesn’t breathe it . . .”

“But what are you going to do with it?”

The Fisherman squinted at her. “For the mark. Your Fontisian didn’t tell you how the procedure works?”

Dahlen shrugged at her, with not the least bit of sympathy.

As Rhee seethed, the Fisherman made a clucking sound. “The Vodheads can’t be trusted—the freaky potions they drink do something to their brains,” he said. Vodhead was a slur, one Rhee knew but had never heard anyone actually use. “How’d you end up in the company of a madman like him?”

“Same way I ended up in the company of a bully like you.” Rhee shifted in her seat as she eyed the creature. “The universe just has a way of bringing unlikely people together.”

The Fisherman squinted at her, sizing her up. “The bully, the madman, and the empress,” he said, stretching his mouth out into a smile that took up all the space on his pointy chin. “I like the sound of that. Now let’s get down to business!” He held up his free hand so that the octoerces wrapped a single tentacle around his palm. “It’s going to sucker itself to your face and bring the blood up to the surface in a random pattern,” he continued. His eyes narrowed in pain as the octoerces squeezed around his wrist and fingers. After a few seconds he yanked its head away and the whole thing loosened, leaving a series of faint, red circles. “Like this, but much darker. You’ll need five minutes, though.” The Fisherman reached into a drawer and pulled out a white rag. He tossed it to her. “Might want to put this in your mouth,” he said. He must’ve seen the confused look on her face. “So that you don’t bite your tongue off. Hurts, this one does.”

Rhee numbly put the rag in her mouth. It smelled fresh and was newly starched, seeming at odds with the dank place. Rhee’s breathing became shallow. She willed herself to stay calm. There wasn’t even her cube to distract her, some peaceful memory, some sensory program she could employ.

Just five minutes. She’d killed a man in less than five minutes.

The creature came closer and closer until she could feel its sticky tentacles exploring the left side of her face. You will not scream, she told herself—but she did want to scream. She wanted to run, too, but it was too late.

Then the slick, strange thing attached itself to her with a sucking sound, and pain exploded in her head. Stars burst in her eyes, though she wondered if they were blood vessels. It felt like it was slurping up her brain to the surface of her skull; she couldn’t think clearly. She could feel it suck on her eyeballs, too, through the flimsy flesh of her eyelids.

The Fisherman gave his hand to her then, strong, dry, scaly—but at the very least, familiar. “Just a little longer . . .” he said, in a surprisingly gentle voice. “Be strong.”

A tentacle fell across her neck, and she saw Veyron choking, gasping on his own blood . . . Her cry was muffled in her throat. She couldn’t breathe.

Then the Fisherman’s voice reached her, so quiet at first it seemed to be coming from inside her blood, from the murmurings of her own pain.