Blood of a Thousand Stars (Empress of a Thousand Skies #2)(12)
It had come to him, that wisp of a long-term organic memory, like it had traveled on a current all the way around the world to come back to him, to bring him home. He said the words. He prayed. Aly didn’t know if he’d ever felt Vodhan’s spirit more than he did in this moment.
The hangar that housed the internment camp opened up to a fenced-in outdoor area, which was guarded by UniForce soldiers standing at intervals all the way around. The UniForce’s “peacekeeping unit” hadn’t split up the Fontisian and the Wraetan prisoners; why would they? Wraeta and Fontis were technically on the same side—both actively anti-Kalusian and thus, according to the backward logic of Nau Fruma, a latent threat to the moon’s sworn neutrality. Detaining them in the first place was an act of martial law, which seemed to mean Nau Fruma’s security police could basically do whatever they wanted.
It was a load of taejis—not just because of the moon’s true allegiance to Kalu, thinly disguised as neutrality, but because they were oblivious to the tensions between the Fontisians and Wraetans. What else would anyone expect? It was Fontis that had colonized Wraeta long before Kalu had blown his planet to bits. Fontis that scooped the Wraetans up like a bully with someone else’s toy, mined the entire surface for all the precious minerals that didn’t exist anywhere else in the galaxy, brought in their precious god Vodhan. And then what? They’d roped Wraeta into wars they’d never wanted a part of. So many of his own would never forget that. Some hated Fontis almost as much as they hated Kalu.
The guards would have had to be blind if they didn’t see those tensions. Slurs like Vodhead and dusty were thrown all across the camp, and it didn’t matter to anyone working there; it was no skin off anyone’s back if the two groups tore each other apart. But they’d separated themselves with an aisle down the middle of the lot, as wide as the Ismee River. Everyone treated it like snake-infested water. Cross it and you’d be liable to get yourself killed.
For the most part, Aly had been treated okay by the other prisoners—tons of them recognized him from the holovision show The Revolutionary Boys, knew he’d been accused of killing Princess Rhiannon and acquitted by default when she’d announced she was alive over holo. Which meant Aly was a big hero. Hugs, high fives, claps on the back as soon as anyone got close enough to touch him. He was a celebrity all over again, and he hated it. What had he done for any of them? Not a damn thing.
Now he had to turn it on, smile like he did for the cameras, more people to impress and more shit to make up for. Besides, being charming was his best friend and costar Vin’s job. And now, having all these people who treated him like hot stuff just because he had the decency to not kill the princess seemed twisted. But they didn’t know what he’d done—that his own petty nonsense had gotten Vin killed in the crash over Naidoz. That he’d broken out of a jail on Houl and left all the other prisoners behind. That way back when, he’d passed as Kalusian, abandoned his own history and his own people, just because it was easier if folks didn’t consider him a dusty.
No. He didn’t deserve to be famous, and he didn’t want to be either. It was the reason he’d been chosen to blame in the first place. He was easy to pick off then and, he was worried, just as easy to pick off now. Aly thought a lot about whoever had framed him. Whose decision was it to point at this black guy’s holo image and say Him? Was it personal, and were they tracking him now? He couldn’t shake the feeling that any minute he would get dragged away and accused all over again on yet another public forum. No way he’d been absolved for real.
The paranoia made him look around now. Most of the inmates were obsessed with their handhelds, tech some of them had smuggled in. The guards looked the other way, because they were too lazy or didn’t care, but usually the inmates at least pretended to hide them. Now, though, they weren’t even bothering; dozens of holoscreens shimmered throughout the room. Only then did Aly remember that today was the day Empress Rhiannon was supposed to return to Kalu. How could he have forgotten?
The scene was somehow worse replicated across so many different handhelds in the crowd. The Empress was there now on the holoscreen. Petite, yet regal, with a slight frown stretched across her brow. She was wearing the ceremonial red. And she was . . . getting egged.
Riots were spreading through the capital city of Sibu. Aly closed his eyes, felt the blood cement in his veins. For years people had fawned over the girl, and when she was younger they’d given her a half-assed name like “Rose of the Galaxy,” built her up as the orphan princess trapped in her desert tower—then turned on her in thirty seconds flat. Once she was partway to being a woman and not just some little girl, they made her a symbol they could point their fingers at, blame her for their terrible lives. His heart half broke for the girl, but it didn’t surprise him, not even a little bit. Aly knew better than anyone how the public listened to the first thing they heard if a guy like Nero said it.
Onscreen, a glass bottle shattered at Rhiannon’s feet, and someone—a Fontisian guard, of all folks—grabbed her and threw her over his shoulder like she was no more than a kid. Which was pretty much true. She was only sixteen.
And she was Kara’s little sister.
He still hadn’t wrapped his head around it all: that he’d fallen for a Ta’an. The true empress, though she seemed to hate thinking of it. She preferred he still call her Kara and not her real name . . . Josselyn.