Blood of a Thousand Stars (Empress of a Thousand Skies #2)(11)
Kara sucked in a breath. She knew of the overwriter’s capabilities because it had been used on her. But targeting masses of the public, deleting specific memories all in one stride—it seemed particularly invasive, and particularly difficult. Had Lydia known?
We’d be shells, Lydia had said of the overwriter. Every memory—every part of your mind that makes you you—ripped out.
Is that what she’d hinted at when they’d been escaping from the prison on Houl? Is that what Nero was attempting on the scientists she and Aly had seen on the zeppelin? They were vacant, childlike, drawing triangles obsessively for no reason. Had they lost their minds to this experimentation?
We’d be shells . . .
And what would anyone want to erase on a mass scale?
There were more facts and figures that Kara’s mind skipped over until she got toward the final fragment: “. . . as the political divide is insurmountable with our current history. This provides the necessary justification . . . for the memory of the Great War itself to be erased from the collective memory, for the good of the people and advancement of the galaxy . . .”
“Kara,” Pavel said, letting the translation drop so the words rearranged into the original text. “Do you recognize the language?”
She shook her head, half in response to Pavel, half in disbelief at what she’d read. “Some sort of ancient Kalusian, I’m guessing?”
“Yes. It’s no longer spoken, or taught to the public,” Pavel said. “It’s Royal Kalusian. It’s a language passed down only through the royal lineage, and read only by the highest in the Ta’an cabinet.”
Understanding dawned on her. Her skin started to prickle.
“What are you saying?”
“That this was written to the Emperor Ta’an himself.”
“Turn on the translator again.” When the words arranged themselves into a language she could read, Kara scanned down to the bottom.
“Executive Order 10642.”
Her father had signed his name right under it. Emperor Ta’an had not only known of the overwriter technology—he’d planned to use it.
FOUR
ALYOSHA
THE guards kept saying it was a “camp,” and no one was going to call them out on it. The prisoners wouldn’t even talk about it with each other. It made sense, Aly guessed. Throughout the whole history of humankind, people had always been in a rush—taking shortcuts, dropping words, slurring phrases together. “Good morning” became “morning,” and “don’t worry about it” became “no worries,” and “what’s going on” became “what goes.” And so “internment camp” just became “camp.”
It had been two days since Aly and Kara had been separated during the protests. Two days since Aly had been taken in by the UniForce, despite the fact that Nau Fruma was technically neutral. Two days. But already it felt like an eternity.
He had kicked and screamed and got the taejis beat outta him. They were cowards, all of them, taking a cheap shot to the back of his head before he could even shout for Kara to keep going. Not knowing where she was drove him crazy now. All kinds of things could’ve happened to her. It was a war; soldiers became monsters. And Rhiannon had put a target on Josselyn’s back, whether or not she’d meant to. It scared him to think how many people were looking around for Kara—and how many of them might try and get a higher price from Nero for delivering Josselyn dead.
And now he wasn’t there to protect her.
It was all his fault; he hadn’t followed his instincts to take her hand and hitch a ride the hell off this moon, to the edge of the galaxy. Just disappear, take care of his. Being with Kara messed with his head like that, made him think that if they could get a person like her on the Kalusian throne, then all of them had a damn decent future ahead of them. A chance at peace.
But that had been a pipe dream, a fantasy he’d been swept up in—and now he’d paid the price. They might have been rounding up only Wraetans and Fontisians, but who knew what they’d do with a Kalusian girl aiding and abetting the enemy. And who knew what would happen if they found out that Kalusian girl was actually the Empress of Kalu.
Aly knelt in front of a makeshift altar littered with statues of Vodhan in different sizes. Some people had brought them from their homes—a last-second grab before they were forced into the camps. And some of them were made here, carved out of a fine white talc that dissolved a little bit more every day.
There wasn’t a ceiling, meaning the dust floated in and coated everything. The walls were stained and grimy with handprints, the whole place overrun with rats longer and leaner than any he’d ever seen, because of the lower gravity. The air was thick with the scent of close, unwashed bodies. It was worse than the Wray, which was saying a whole lot.
Initially, Aly wasn’t praying at this makeshift altar so much as avoiding the chaos of the hangar’s back lot. But he grabbed a loop of prayer beads tangled at the feet of the statues and held it in his hand, clutching one between his thumb and his knuckle as he said Vodhan’s prayer. He’d said it a thousand times before—mumbled it under his breath without much thought to the words, rushing through the calls and responses so the Fontisian missionaries would let him run out of the church tent and play. Even now, praying made him antsy, like there was something else he should be doing. Scheming, strategizing, figuring out his next move. But in that quiet moment, as soon as he closed his eyes the words came back to him—that prayer emerging from that dark, murky ocean sloshing around in his skull.