Empress of a Thousand Skies(68)

He was quick to push himself up to sit, and he looked behind him, up the slope. They were outside of Pavel’s signal jammer, and any second some NX could pop up over the crest to find them.

Kara sat up and rubbed the heel of her palms against her eyes. He crawled toward her and pulled her into a hug. Her braid had come undone, and her crazy hair made a halo around her face. Or a lion’s mane. “Holy taejis,” she said breathlessly.

“You good?” he mumbled into her hair. His adrenaline was off the charts. He’d bloodied his knees and elbows, and he was sure that everything would hurt later, but it felt fantastic here—his arms around her, his face in her big mess of tangles.

“Don’t worry about me, Aly.” She looked up at him. Their faces were an inch apart. Only for a split second, though—Kara blinked and pushed him away. “Now or never.”

Now or never.

He exhaled through his nose, then powered up his cube for the first time in weeks. It was lightning running through him, pain and pleasure, striking nerve after nerve. And with his other hand, he touched the metal conductor to transfer his playback. There was a jolt of electricity, and his limbs went numb.

Aly closed his eyes as he shuffled through recent memories. It was hard to get back into it. His mind felt closed off, rigid. He pictured sticking his hands into the big, dark knot of his memory, up to his elbows, feeling his way around. Then something hooked on—a moment, a feeling. He’d found it.

“Stream playback.” His own voice sounded distant, but just saying it, dictating what he could and couldn’t do with his cube and his memories—it made him feel like a god. The data transfer felt like his soul was pouring out from the point on his neck and funneling into the hologram that projected up into the sky, out into the worlds. Alongside millions of strangers, he rewatched the moment he found the dead body on the royal escape pod. There he was, slipping on the Nau Fruman’s blood. The robodroid, throwing him one-handed across the room.

With his memories transferred, Aly fell to his knees and tasted salt in his mouth, felt his face flood with tears. His hand fell away and he doubled over, one hand to support himself while the other one wiped his face.

“Aly!” Kara said. She kneeled before him and lowered his hand from his face and wrapped her arms around his neck. She squeezed him. He could smell her, feel all the warmth from under her coat. For a long time, there was quiet, except for the sound of Aly’s heavy sobbing.

There was the rest of it, too, the stuff he couldn’t show them because he’d gone offline. But he’d never forget any of it: stabbing himself with the syringe full of tauri. Vincent piloting the escape pod.

“Who are you?” Aly’d asked him.

“I’m the guy who’s going to save your sorry ass,” Vincent had said. At the time Aly had been pissed, taken for granted that Vin had a mission more important than ten Alys put together. Despite it all, Vin had saved Aly like he said he would. Vin had died to keep his word, because Aly hadn’t been able to save him when the time came.

“They’re coming, aren’t they?” Aly asked now. His face was wet. He wiped it away and hoped he didn’t have snot coming out of his nose.

“You did it, Aly.” She’d ignored his question for a reason, and he knew he was right. “Everyone’s gonna know the truth.”

The guards rappelled down and approached slowly from all sides. Jethezar led the charge.

“Traitor!” Jeth said, grabbing Aly’s shirt with his sticky fingertips. He was a big guy, and he heaved Aly up to his feet so they were face-to-face. For a split second, Aly saw regret pass over his old friend’s features, just before he spit in Aly’s eye. To a Chram, it was the deepest insult—but it was for show, and Jeth had gone easy on him. Aly’s eye hurt like a choirtoi but at least he still had one. Jeth could’ve blinded him if he’d spit at full velocity.

Jeth pushed him to the ground and kicked him in the stomach. Kara cried for him to stop. The Tasinn watched in amusement. But Aly knew Jeth was doing what he had to do. They were all doing what they had to do. Aly crumpled up in a ball to protect himself from more kicks. His kidneys and ribs were getting pummeled.

Jeth pulled him up to sit, rough, and cuffed him. It was the second time today.

“Sorry,” Jeth whispered, so quietly Aly wasn’t even sure he’d heard it. And then loudly for everyone to hear, like an announcement he’d been dying to make: “Guess where we’re taking you, murderer.”





TWENTY-ONE


    RHIANNON



RHEE felt as if she’d been catapulted out of her body, as if she were hovering somewhere in deep space, her lungs seizing—not here, with her feet firmly planted on the temple floor of the order.

“That’s impossible,” a voice that sounded like her voice was saying. “Josselyn died.”

“We had to make a decision.” The Elder folded his hands on his lap. “Your sister was gravely injured, but survived,” he said. “She was taken to Fontis for life-threatening wounds. Seotra swore everyone to secrecy. It was important to protect the heir to the throne under any circumstance, and she was safer if the assassin believed she’d died.”

It was the same reason Rhee had chosen to stay hidden after Nero tried to take her life too.