Blood of a Thousand Stars (Empress of a Thousand Skies #2)(24)

“Won’t you finally explain why you instigated those attacks on the Empress’s procession yesterday?” Dahlen had grown tired of listening.

“Me?” he said, raising his eyebrows. “As if I would stoop so low. As if I needed to.” He actually seemed offended by the suggestion—was it possible he was telling the truth? “I didn’t sully your homecoming, my dear. History did. You did. Those who’ve opposed Ta’an rule for years aren’t going to just flip. I invited you here so that we could perhaps strike a deal, like civilized people. Find a way in which we work together to fulfill our mutual obligations. After all, two minds are better than one, Empress.”

“She’d never work with you,” Dahlen said. He spoke the words Rhee herself wished were true.

“Rhiannon, is it going to be a habit to let a Fontisian speak for the crown?” Nero shook his head. He’d parted his thick, dark-blond hair to the side—the new style in the capital.

Rhee ignored the question. She had her own agenda, and she’d indulge this as long as she could stomach it. “What’s in it for me, if I agree to work with a liar such as yourself?”

But Nero cut her off before she could continue. “I’m not a liar, Empress. I’ve merely embellished.”

“You made the public believe in fictional threats, just so they’d take your side in this war. You tip them in your favor more and more each day!” Rhee felt Dahlen staring at her openly now, but she wouldn’t meet his eye. She turned over the terrible truth of her situation: He was in control of her image. UniForce was loyal to him. There were spies in the palace. Her throat closed as if he were strangling her, like he’d strangled her legitimacy. Her ability to rule.

“Tell me exactly what’s fictional about a dying planet? About a lack of resources? And about having to share those precious resources with people who aren’t even from here!” His northern accent came out as he’d made his last point. All the carefully constructed imagery he’d created fell away. He was worked up. His hair had fallen in front of his face.

“Ancestors,” Rhee cursed. “You believe in this drivel.”

Veins bulged in his neck, and Rhee caught a glimpse of a dark spot, triangle shaped, just behind his ear. It unsettled her—this imperfection on a man always so perfectly groomed. “Is it really too much to ask you to see this perspective?”

“Yes, when the perspective is a bigoted one,” she said.

“I can’t help it that this appeals to them,” he said, gesturing to his face. “Twelve generations of the same stuff and people start to think it’s unfair. You Ta’ans being born into your power . . .”

“Enough.” Rhee stood up, and Yendit moved forward, prompting Lahna to stand in defense. Nero wasn’t wrong—she had been born into power, and for so long she’d seen it as a given. A right. But how could she address any unfairness or injustice under the thumb of a madman?

Rhee desperately wanted to spar, to address this the only way she ever knew how. She wasn’t cut out for diplomacy. But through her teeth she asked: “What is it you actually want from me?”

Nero frowned and ran his fingers through his hair. “It hasn’t even occurred to you that I could possibly want to help you, has it?”

“No,” she said. “It hasn’t. You’re a compulsive liar and a sociopath.”

“Fine.” He threw his hands up in the air. “Look, there’s still a large population that wants a Ta’an to rule. Loyalists and all that,” he said with a wave. “Rather than an agonizing political struggle, or a power play where you try to convince my second-wavers to jump ship and I try to convince your supporters to switch over, let’s just combine forces.”

It was ridiculous that he’d even think she’d fall for it. He opposed everything the Ta’an dynasty had stood for all these generations. Honor, bravery, loyalty. Everything she stood for. And she would never forget his talk of “whispering into cubes” as he stood over Dahlen’s unconscious body.

This was so obviously a trap, she could’ve laughed. Nero wanted to keep her close so he could keep an eye on her, prevent her from finding out the truth about him and exposing it. He wanted to control her, manipulate her, get under her skin like he had with everyone else in the damn galaxy.

There was no better way to find out the truth than from the inside. He wanted to keep her close.

But who’s to say she wouldn’t be the one keeping an eye on him, controlling him, finding ways to undermine his rule?

“Let’s say I agree . . . then what?” The question gave the room the feeling of a pressurization chamber—it crushed her where she sat. Behind her, Dahlen and Lahna said nothing, but she could feel the anger and tension in them.

He leaned back, intolerably smug. “I gain access to the palace, to you. Just the occasional briefing or so. A DroneVision spot, perhaps. And you’ll get the Tasinn back, at least for your appearances. In exchange, you might find that people will start answering your comms, Empress.”

She wondered how long it would take the Tasinn to kill her if she moved to strike Nero. “I expect that this arrangement would include pulling the UniForce troops out of Nau Fruma?”

“Effective immediately.”

“And our ultimate goal would be to move toward peace?”