Empress of a Thousand Skies(73)

“You disgust me.”

“I’m disappointed to hear that.” His face hardened, its beauty smoothed away by something deeply sinister. “Because the truth is I admire you very much. Veyron did too.”

Rhee felt sick at the mere mention of his name. She’d killed a man, and she would do it again. She would never be worthy of Julian or his forgiveness.

“How did you turn him?” she asked of Veyron.

“He begged to spare your life, said he loved you like a daughter . . .”

She banged her shoulder against the glass barrier in anger. “Answer me!”

“You know the answer, Rhiannon. In the end you weren’t his daughter. And it was between you and Julian. I still haven’t decided if I should spare the boy, seeing as Veyron didn’t technically fulfill the contract.”

“Julian will kill you first,” she said, hoping it was true. He was strong, and fast. He had good instincts. But he also had a soft heart—he was too trusting. She should have stayed with him. Looked out for him, like she always had.

“I’m untouchable,” Nero said, and Rhee feared he meant it. “Do you think I’ve acted rashly? That I seized my chance when I could?” He shook his head. “I own everything and everyone. I’ve been planning since I was your age, picking and choosing my allies, building a loyal army of followers.”

“They’re not followers, they’re viewers, you fool. They’re fickle. This isn’t loyalty! You’ve preyed on their fear and—”

“And I got exactly the result I wanted,” he said, cutting her off. “I have millions of Kalusians foaming at the mouth for war. We’re going to invade Wraeta.”

Rhee shook her head. Her mouth was dry. “Why?”

“You know the difference between you and me, Princess?” Nero asked, ignoring her and clearly relishing the moment. “I played the long game. But you—you want what you want, and you want it now. Do you have any idea how much time it actually takes to start a war? A successful one, at least . . .” He paused, and then brought his sleeve up to shine one of the brass buttons on the front of his blazer. “When one’s plan fails, you have to have another in place, one you can enact immediately. And when Veyron failed, I found another Wraetan to blame for your death.”

“How poetic,” Rhee said through gritted teeth. But she fumed beneath the sarcasm. Veyron and the boy who’d been blamed for her death, both of them sacrificed at the altar of Nero’s war lust.

“And meanwhile, you’d taken care of the hardest part: Seotra. So blinded by your own desires that you constructed a narrative, set up your father’s best friend, and then had him burn. So you tell me: Who’s the fool?”

Rhee felt suddenly hollow. Instead of blood and guts there was nothing inside except oxygen. Nero had lit a match and set her on fire from the inside out.

“At a loss for words, Princess? You? Ask me again—ask me why I’m invading Wraeta.” Nero’s face lit up as he waited for her to respond. There was true happiness in the contours of his smile. But Rhee thought it was like watching skin peel away, exposing the rotten soul underneath.

Fine. She would play. “Why?”

“Because Wraeta has the overwriter.”

Rhee would have laughed if she didn’t know Nero was serious. The overwriter was another myth, a dangerous idea someone had claimed to invent at the last G-1K summit. A technology that could not only read a cube but change it, altering a person’s memories and thoughts and feelings.

“You can’t really believe the overwriter exists,” Rhee scoffed, wishing she sounded more confident.

“I don’t believe it does,” Nero said. “I know it. Fame and adoration fall short. A face like this will age.” Nero smiled again as he motioned to himself. “But power won’t. Imagine being able to speak through any cube, to anyone at will, throughout the whole universe. Imagine being able to whisper to them, not through their ears but their minds . . .”

“You’re sick.” She shook her head. She felt numb. She didn’t bother to ask why he thought the overwriter existed, or why he believed it was on Wraeta. He was obviously insane.

“And it seems you’re cursed. Everyone you love dies.” There were still glimpses of the man she thought she knew. The whole time he’d been plotting her death. It was beyond any kind of evil she could’ve imagined. She ached for her dagger. She imagined cleaving his heart into quarters, separating the arteries the way you might carve out the membranes in an orange.

“You killed them.” Nero had taken everyone she loved away from her. Though Rhee remembered the Elder’s words and felt a flicker of hope that her sister was still alive.

He shook his head. “That’s not true. Not the Fontisian.” He sighed. “I won’t be the one to kill him. You will.”





TWENTY-FOUR


    ALYOSHA



ALY couldn’t believe it. He was still unsteady on his feet—and Kara backed up, recoiling from her mom like she was diseased. Lydia had just told them she was responsible for all of this. When he tried to take Kara’s arm, she yanked it away.

“You helped them Ravage those people?” she asked Lydia.

“I didn’t know,” her mom answered. “I was just a scientist. I was working on ways to speed up person-to-person transfers, to facilitate information flow. When I got invited to the G-1K summit I was thrilled. I never dreamed . . .” She trailed off. “Summits were just as much about philosophy as they were science. We were talking about existence and memory—and people came in with brilliant, crazy ideas. It’s what made it so exciting. Dynamic. But when Diac Zofim claimed he’d found a way not just to extract memories but to change them . . . no one believed him at first.”