Blood of a Thousand Stars (Empress of a Thousand Skies #2)(2)

Maybe Kara should’ve been moved by the gesture. She didn’t have a single memory before the age of twelve. Lydia had told her it was a cube malfunction; Kara had believed it all those years, and filled in the big white blank space of her mind with made-up scenarios. And she’d gotten so good at it that soon she was spinning entire tales, fabricating alternate lives on the spot while kids at parties nodded their heads, wide-eyed and amazed.

Underneath all the lies she’d told, the lies she’d been told, she had a true family and a real home—but what did blood really matter? Rhiannon was a stranger in every other sense of the word, and seeing her on the holos brought on a slew of feelings about a lot of people, most of them dead and gone. Lydia, the scientist who had harbored her. Her actual parents, the late Emperor and Empress of Kalu, whom she hardly remembered. And Rhiannon, the girl who’d come back from the dead, who was in the process of assuming her crown . . . while Kara crouched on a hot roof hiding for her life.

Aly unscrewed a canteen and took a big gulp, his head tipped back, his mouth parted. Kara turned away and tried to focus. She squinted at the doorway across the way. Her bangs fell into her face, and she pawed at them, annoyed.

“These will help,” Aly said. From his messenger bag he pulled out a bulky hunk of black metal that looked like two cups attached side by side. “They’re called binoculars. Vintage military gear. They magnify your vision.”

Apparently you could find anything on the black market. She took the binoculars and put them to her eyes. They were heavier than they looked, and everything came out blurry and small. “They don’t work.”

“You have them upside-down,” he said, shaking his head and grinning in that way that made her forget her life was on fire.

“I knew that,” she lied. Kara put the device to her eyes and immediately regretted it. The view was disorienting, claustrophobic, too narrow. She could only see a small cluster of people at a time. She ripped it away from her face and nearly dropped it.

“Whoa,” Aly said, grabbing it from her hand. “Everything okay?”

She shook her head. “I feel kind of dizzy.” She realized she had a headache, a light pulsing behind her eye. It wasn’t the binoculars. The meds Lydia had given her were running low. Kara had been taking them for years; Lydia told her the pills were to help manage the severe headaches and nightmares from her cube malfunction. And even if they treated her symptoms just fine, Kara had discovered that the cause was a lie.

The pills did help with the headaches, but they were DNA suppressors too, meant to skew Josselyn’s features—Lydia’s own biological design, if Kara had to guess. For the last couple of weeks she’d been weaning herself off by taking half doses, then quarter doses, to fractions of a pill every other day. This morning she’d broken a pill apart without a knife, and most of it crumbled to dust.

Kara had almost cried. Not that she could tell you why. There was something about the end of one simple routine that tethered you to your past. Even if it was a lie.

“You take it,” Kara said, handing the binoculars back. “Narrate for me.”

“Well, you’re not missing much,” he said, staring into the binoculars. “Just a bunch of pissed-off Nauies.” He rubbed the back of his neck like he always did when he was thinking. His shirt lifted up to reveal a strip of dark skin, his belly button a tiny outie, dimples on the inside of either hip.

“Are you well, Kara? I detect a sudden but minor change in your skin color.” Pavel’s eyelights went red. “The medical bible says this is a common physiological reaction to emotional stressors. Blood vessels open wide, flooding the skin with blood and reddening the face.”

“It’s called blushing,” Aly said. He’d dropped the binoculars; the corners of his mouth had turned up just slightly.

“You’re a rat.” Kara nudged Pavel with the tip of her boot so that he rolled back with the force. She felt herself flushing more. “I’ll open up that head of yours and rearrange all the inside bits,” she threatened.

“Better watch out, little man.”

“This is humor, correct?” Pavel’s eyelights had gone red. “Because theoretically we’re not too far off. There’s new research to suggest that cube-to-cube transfers could be enhanced. Nearby neural pathways can give and receive the info without even being prepped, without even—”

Aly dropped the hand with the binoculars. “All right, P,” he said, all the playfulness drained from his voice. “Chill out. She was just kidding.”

“Have him try me,” Kara tried to joke, but the mood had already shifted. Aly knew she didn’t like talking about their cubes. The mere mention put her on edge, reminded her they had all turned theirs off in case Nero was trying to track them right now.

Aly closed the gap between them and slid his palm into hers. She tried to ignore the way it lit her skin on fire. “You okay?” he asked.

“I’m fine,” she said, slipping her hand out of his grasp.

Aly gave her that look he made when he was trying to get a read on her—the slight pout in his full lips, his brown eyes opened wide so his thick lashes fanned out. He had a cut across his left eyebrow, the same spot where he’d nicked it when he was younger—but this time around, it had been the kid, Julian, who’d done it to Aly.