Empress of a Thousand Skies(80)

“How’s she going to eat those candies if she’s dead?” a little boy asked his mom.

Kara looked away, her head foggy—like a migraine was coming on.

“You two want a tour?” a kid asked them. He looked a couple of years younger than her, and two oversized teeth crowded the front of his mouth. He led them from the market aisle and brought them around the back end of a row of tents. “A thousand credits each and I’ll take you to see the Ta’an palace up by—”

He didn’t finish his sentence.

Another boy lunged out of nowhere and tackled him to the ground. He rolled on top and got off a few punches as the first boy blocked his face and wailed. Dust rose up and surrounded them like a cloud.

“Hey!” Kara stomped in between them and pulled the second boy off. He had blue eyes and sandy hair. He flailed some more and even tried to throw a jab in her direction, but as soon as he got a look at Kara, he stopped and wiggled out of her grip.

“Take it easy,” Aly said from the sidelines. “You did the job. He’s down and he’s bleeding.”

The first boy, with the badger teeth, pushed himself up and ran. “Screw you, Julian,” he called over his shoulder.

“Are you okay?” Kara asked.

He looked up at her for so long, Kara wondered if they knew each other. “The palace has been looted,” he said, a quickness to his words. The Nau Fruman accent seemed familiar to her, like a song she knew the lyrics to once. “There’s nothing left to see.”

“Lancer!” a woman called in the distance. The boy briefly glanced behind him but didn’t make a move to leave. He had the palest blue eyes Kara had ever seen.

“Lancer?” Kara asked. The mention of the name sent her pulse racing.

“Cool name,” Aly said to the kid. His voice was casual, but Kara had felt him stiffen.

“It’s all right. They named me after my dad. I used to hate it, but—” The kid stopped himself. He’s named after his dad. “Anyway, I don’t go by that name anymore.”

Kara’s head started to pound, a beat like a war drum. Suddenly she wanted to break this kid open and spread out all of his secrets. This was why her mom sent her here—to find this boy’s father. It was uncanny. She believed in fate. She would pray to any and all ancestors, whoever they were. “Does he work far away?” Kara asked.

“He died,” the kid answered. Kara thought to say sorry, but she didn’t know if that would make it worse. “He was on the Eliedio.”

The Eliedio. It was Princess Rhiannon’s ship. Kara met Aly’s eye, speechless. Not knowing what to say, she tried the truth. “I know how that feels. I lost my mom,” she said. The boy wouldn’t meet her eyes, but Kara knew he was listening. “It sucks. It sucks that she won’t be there whenever I wake up from a nightmare. Or that I’ll never hear her laugh again. And that she’ll never, ever tell me what to do—even though I hated it when she told me what to do.”

She could feel Aly’s eyes on her, but there was no one else in the world apart from her and this other boy. His floppy hair and his sad blue eyes that finally—finally—looked back up at her. He wasn’t much younger.

“And on top of her being gone, it’s like I’m not allowed to be mad at her.” Kara wanted to scream and cry, and she wanted to die sometimes too. She went on, this confession pouring out of her to a teenage kid who’d lost his hero, too, maybe. “But you keep it all bottled up, not for yourself, really, but so no one else has to deal with it. Until you get to fight someone. I bet it feels good for a second. But then that pain comes back bigger, sharper, like it’s edging out all your organs.”

The boy shoved his hands in his pockets, and looked even younger then. “Do I know you?” he asked.

“Maybe?” Kara said, genuinely wondering; they were connected somehow. “I feel like we might. We could. But let me ask you something . . .” She pulled her coin from her pocket. “Do you recognize this coin? Maybe your dad had one like it?”

The boy’s mouth puckered. He glared at the coin—then at Kara. “What’s your game?” he asked. “Is this some knockoff?”

“Knockoff?” Aly asked. “Hold up, do you recognize this thing?”

But the boy didn’t answer. He just lunged for the coin, and Aly had to grab his bony body and swat him down onto the ground. He held him there as the boy thrashed, like he was possessed. But he had nothing on Aly’s arm span. “You stole that from the Princess!” He spit out the word Princess.

“I didn’t,” Kara said. “I swear. My mom gave it to me.” Of all the people in the world she didn’t want to disappoint, it was this boy. They’d understood each other. Hadn’t they?

“It’s Rhee’s!” he yelled. “It was made for her. One for her and one for her sister!”

One for her sister.

“Ancestors.” Kara stumbled backward. Thudding in her skull. Was that the sound of her feet pounding, or the pulse of her headache? She was twirling and running, kicking up moondust.

A dream or a memory? She didn’t know . . .

“Kara. We gotta go. What am I supposed to do?” Aly asked, but his voice was far away. So was the kid’s.

She knew why she’d been sent here. Why everything felt so familiar.