Blood of a Thousand Stars (Empress of a Thousand Skies #2)(29)

“But you wouldn’t have survived.” Kara thought of the people on the zeppelin, vacant, drawing triangles over and over again. “Or if you did, it wouldn’t have been a life worth living.”

“I know that. I wasn’t thinking straight. But at the time a Ravaging felt safer than compromising everyone here . . .” Kara’s skin prickled at the mention of a Ravaging. It’s what Aly had called it. It had been hinted at in Vodhan’s teachings.

“But you came, and instead they broke it,” Issa said. “Here I am.” She looked down at her hands like she had just realized: Here she was. Her face crumpled like she might cry. “You made them do that for me. I’m alive because of you . . .”

All Kara had done was lie on the spot, out of instinct—a thing she was good at, a way to fill in the blanks for a history that had been wiped. But she felt wholly unprepared for crying. She’d seen Lydia cry only once. And that was right before she died, when she admitted she’d lied to Kara for as long as she could remember . . .

“Don’t cry.” Kara forced her voice to sound light as she pulled the towel away and refolded it for no reason. She pressed it back to Issa’s head. Gently, she had to remind herself. “You’re safe now.”

They fell into a silence after Kara whispered to her to say she had seizures if asked. Issa looked at her quizzically, but didn’t press her on it. She was probably delirious—and anyway, what more was there to say? Kara blotted and redressed her wound, and eventually, Issa fell back asleep.

But she couldn’t get Issa’s story out of her head. Was the update linked to the overwriter? The timing seemed convenient. She thought of Lydia, then—the woman who had thought logically, critically, who always had the same refrain: There are no coincidences.

The horror of it all, the scope and the trespass of it, finally sunk in. Kara knew she had to destroy the overwriter, that it was critical to get it before it fell into the wrong hands. But she couldn’t help but let her mind wander, wondering if such a thing could be used for good. And if it could free instead of enslave.

What if she could use the overwriter to erase Josselyn Ta’an?

She wondered, for the briefest of seconds, if Aly was right when he’d pretty much called her a coward. But how could she be Josselyn, when her heart and mind were empty of that identity? It used to make her jealous that there was only a void where everyone else could pull from a wealth of high-def memories; the best she could do was snatch at shadows of her old life.They were ominous, dark, quiet things that lurked in the back of her mind. They were intense sensations, like the remnants of a dream. And always that nightmare—or the memory?—of free-falling in the dark, plummeting down as she clawed at nothing, the wind stealing her voice.

All that was left of Josselyn was in her biology, clamoring to etch itself onto her features. Kara touched her chin. DNA suppressants were temporary, and if they were hard to get now she couldn’t imagine what it would be like once the galaxy notched up to all-out war. She’d never be able to stop herself from changing back. Not for good. There would be no end to that constant fear that someone would see Josselyn Ta’an. She would always be on the run, living one long, drawn-out lie. She would never be free.

Unless . . .

Unless she could change everyone else so they didn’t remember her face at all. Erase Josselyn Ta’an permanently, from everyone’s minds, all at once.

She recalled the official Kalusian memo addressed to her father, the last emperor, which Pavel had shown her while they were spying on the internment camp: 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 . . .

The Emperor had wanted to erase the Great War from memory, to heal the galaxy and the political divide the war had caused. As horrifying as that kind of power was, he’d had noble reasons. Hadn’t he?

And then she remembered the last thing Aly had said to her—that if you didn’t want to live a lie, it was up to you to change the truth.

The idea, the scale of it, made the room swim in front of her eyes. If Kara did use the overwriter, she would destroy it immediately afterward. The world didn’t needed Josselyn anyway. It had Rhiannon, who’d survived an assassination attempt and clawed her way back to the capital to take on an unruly opposition. It was likely her sister would be better off without her too, never mind that she’d asked Josselyn to return to Kalu.

Rhiannon would be better off without some prodigal sister to challenge her legitimacy to the throne and undermine her in the eyes and hearts of the public.

Josselyn Ta’an was as good as a ghost.

And now Kara would soon have the means to make sure no one remembered her.





NINE


RHIANNON


AS she made her way to Dahlen’s quarters, Rhee tried to swallow down the taste of ash. It was as if the two words she’d uttered had singed her tongue.

I accept.

She’d just officially agreed to ally with the man who’d killed her family, who represented everything she hated—his vanity, his tendency to suddenly care whenever he was in front of the camera. And the worse part was that he knew all along she’d say yes. She needed him. She also knew Dahlen would be furious, but he’d come to understand. He had to.

Rhee might have come off as moody and unpolished on holos, eager to avoid interviews, generally unlikeable, just as Nero had implied. Fine. But she cared about things that mattered. She didn’t want the war to continue. Too many people had died in vain.