45 Burn Everything Down
Burn Everything Down
T he instant Kalvin called the all clear, Spie tore out her flesh-colored earpiece, crushed it between her fingers, and let the resulting mess of broken wiring scatter across the ballroom floor.
Simultaneously, she ripped her other hand from Arbora’s and fought a growing swell of n au sea. What had she just done?
The vast ballroom seemed to pulsate in her vision.
In every direction, people moved. An awful, endless, milling colony of producers, camera operators, assistants, attendants, reporters, contestants, and imperial guards.
Black visors, white uniforms, pretty fuchsia dresses.
Humming drones and the squeaky wheels of rolling equipment.
Normally, the sensory overload wouldn’t bother her; normally, she’d find relief in the loud busyness, let the external overwhelm distract her from any thoughts she didn’t want to face.
And there were always so many thoughts Spie didn’t want to face.
For her, quiet had always been unsafe. Quiet was the battlefield where her thoughts emerged fully armed, prepared to assault her.
They whispered and shouted and intruded, reminding her of her failures, of her inability to measure up to the daughter of an emperor, let alone an emperor herself.
They told her Nicky would’ve been better off without her as a sister, that he didn’t love her, that the reason he kept so private was because he didn’t trust someone as loose and unreliable as she.
There were thoughts about her real father, thoughts about the empire, about the constantly brewing civil and foreign strife, about the suffering she knew existed but wasn’t strong enough or caring enough to do anything about.
So, Spie worked hard to never be silent long enough to let the thoughts emerge.
The best way to fight them was to avoid fighting them altogether.
Some battles couldn’t be won, after all.
But today, she’d done something that couldn’t be compartmentalized away. She’d asked for Arbora VinVanxin’s hand in marriage. In the eyes of everyone watching, including her mother and brother, she’d done the right thing. No one knew she’d just become complicit in a plot to rescue Artemis Ialan.
No amount of external stimuli could distract from the tension banding her chest.
“Spielin.”
The voice wasn’t loud, but it carried, cutting through all other sound as easily as a shovel through wet sand.
Spie turned. There was only one person behind her.
Only one person capable of speaking her name with such heavy despondency.
Like the syllables that made up Spie’s identity were full of thorns.
Emperor Gracelin Expani rose from her makeshift throne.
Positioned at the north end of the ballroom, the symbolic seat, complete with a set of carved eagle’s wings spanning a full ten feet, had been placed on a raised dais.
For the broadcast, Nicky and Spie had been arranged below their mother, Nicky to her right and Spie to her left.
A united front of Expani in the shape of a triangle. The strongest of shapes.
But only if one of the angles didn’t self-implode.
Gracelin carefully descended the quintuplet of purple velvet steps.
She carried herself with a poise and regality that Spie could never hope to emulate.
Spie was sexy, playful, confident. But she’d never been regal.
She’d never learned to walk through the world as though expecting every molecule to bend to her will.
Had never possessed the self-assurance that she was the single most important being in the universe.
Gracelin was shorter than Spie by a full hand, her bone structure daintier.
Her dark, grey-streaked hair was done up in a practical bun, her cheekbones razor-sharp, chin pointed, eyebrows heavy.
Her dress was an ostentatious affair with a flaring collar and lengthy train in the same tones of ivory and wisteria as Spie’s.
Circling her forehead was a silver diadem.
A simple design that flared around her skull.
Delicate metalwork made to resemble wings that sprouted from a central black-and-red stone.
Orrist basalt.
Spie nearly vomited then and there. But she held her composure. She might not possess the imperial qualities of her mother, but she’d learned to be a damn good actor. It was her greatest strength—pretending not to hurt.
“Your Excellency.” Spie dipped her head and bowed at the waist.
There were still too many cameras around, too many people watching, not to play her role perfectly. She breathed through the clenching in her jaw, softening her facial muscles back into an effortless smile. Gracelin Expani possessed a singular ability to make Spie bend.
The impersonal brush of fingers on Spie’s shoulder signaled that she could rise.
She did so, meeting her mother’s gaze. In those deep brown eyes, brown like a walnut shell after being dropped in water, she yearned to see a flicker of maternal love.
She’d spent her entire life convincing herself she didn’t want that love, but no matter how old she became, a part of her still did. A part of her always might.
Maybe all those times Spie had acted out as a youth hadn’t been out of true rebellious intent.
Maybe she’d just been desperate for her mother’s attention.
Isn’t that what children did? Sought out bad attention in place of no attention?
Wasn’t being ignored more awful than being chastised?
At least when Gracelin Expani was expressing disappointment, Spie felt like she mattered.
Had there ever been a time when Gracelin had loved Spie freely? Had she once held a young, squirming Spie to her chest and experienced an inexplicable swell of maternal love? Or had Spie been born unlovable by the one person who was supposed to love her?
Gracelin’s gaze swept over Spie’s face, appearing to scrutinize every detail. Based on the downward press of her thin lips, whatever she found wasn’t satisfactory. It never had been. Never would be.
The scary truth was, Spie might’ve become her mother’s successor if Gracelin had bothered to believe in her.
She might’ve done all the right things if her mother had simply shown a single iota of affection.
She might’ve done exactly what Nicky was doing now: let an innocent woman die so the Expani name could live on.
If Gracelin Expani had only loved Spie, perhaps Spie would never have betrayed her.
“Your performance was adequate today.” Gracelin had a contradictory way of staring into Spie: assessing her without truly seeing her, making Spie feel both flayed and invisible.
“Miss VinVanxin will make a suitable consort. Your history with one another isn’t ideal, but things have been unstable with the Moons, and the alliance may prove fruitful. ”
Spie cut her gaze to where Arbora stood off to the right, in conversation with her handler and a pair of attendants. Behind them were Nicky and Cailin.
Her brother caught her staring. For a brief moment, he held her gaze; there had always been a gravity between them, an invisible ley line that came with sharing not only DNA but a womb.
His lips formed the shape of the words thank you .
For choosing Arbora, for refraining from speaking Artemis Ialan’s name.
He didn’t know that what Spie had done was worse.
“With the Love Galaxy fallout,” her mother continued, “now isn’t a good time to ease you out of the public’s purview.
We need to play on the offensive, take full advantage of the engagement period to drum up bliss-filled publicity.
We’ll start talks about wedding dates soon, but I’m thinking a year out—it’ll give people something to look forward to.
After, we can start a slow step away for you. ”
There it was, the arrangement Spie had made with her mother before agreeing to do Love Galaxy .
Do the show, get married, and then no more imperial obligations.
Two months earlier, it was everything Spie had wanted.
But as Spie stood there and sought to imagine herself leaving Elsidor City, fleeing to a calmer life somewhere far away from politics and cameras and the weight of nations, she no longer felt relief. She no longer felt anything.
The dream was hollow.
In its place, a different image filled her mind.
Artemis Ialan the day they’d met, sticking her head out of her garbage truck’s window and shouting in that heavy, thick X-er tongue, her blue hair a dark navy, strands frizzing free of her low queue, her complexion like washed-out bedsheets, her gaze full of ire.
But Spie would never be able to have Artemis Ialan.
Not as a lover or a partner or even a friend.
That wasn’t a dream that could be. Because if Arbora pulled off the impossible and saved the X-er today, then Spie would need to let her go.
Artemis would be a fugitive, never safe in the empire, always hunted.
If she was to have any hope for a life, it would have to be far away and in the shadows.
Spie, who existed under constant scrutiny, would endanger Artemis with her proximity.
But there was something Spie could do. She could fight for a universe where people like Artemis Ialan didn’t have to die. She could step into her power instead of running away from it.
Her gaze flicked back to Arbora. She didn’t know what her new fiancée’s group would ask of her, expect of her; she didn’t know their ultimate goals or if she would agree with them. But she intended to find out.
Spie had never wanted to be emperor. Never believed herself strong enough, capable enough, smart enough.
Had given that future to Nicky. Even thinking about taking it back made nausea rise up her throat.
But if that was what it took to reshape the empire into something worthy of Artemis Ialan?
To save her brother from his downward spiral?
She didn’t know if she could do it. Certainly, the empire deserved better than her. And most likely, she would fail. But for the first time in her life, she wanted to try. And not just for Nicky, for Artemis—for herself.
Behind and slightly above her mother, the makeshift throne loomed impossibly large, as though capable of swallowing a person whole. How could anyone sit there without getting lost in everything it meant? There was only one way to find out.
“Actually, I’ve changed my mind.” Spie returned her gaze to Gracelin’s face.
Focused on the age lines spidering from the corners of her mother’s eyes and mouth.
Reminded herself the woman was human. Nothing more, nothing less.
“Though I appreciate your willingness to acquiesce to my previous demands, I no longer find them necessary. I know I’ve been a disappointment to you, and I regret my previous actions.
These last weeks, I’ve had time to reflect on my choices and what it is I truly want.
” She dipped her head to demonstrate humility.
You taught me this, she thought. How to lie.
“What you truly want?” Gracelin tilted her head just so, gaze narrowing. She waved a dismissive hand at an approaching staff member.
Spie met her mother’s eyes. The density of her regard probed at Spie’s resolve. Was like staring down the eye of a storm and refusing to run.
This is how wars begin, she thought. Not for the first time, she yearned to have been born into a different family. A family that allowed her to make choices without having to consider the lives of trillions.
But she wasn’t considering the lives of trillions (or maybe she was, in part).
But that wasn’t how she’d gotten here. She’d gotten here by considering the life of a single, blue-haired, foul-mouthed, arrogant-to-the-point-of-frustrating-everyone-around-her woman.
And maybe that made Spie a selfish person; maybe she should’ve been able to stand up to her mother on ideals and principles alone.
That was the difference between her and Nicky: he’d watch Artemis burn to save the world he thought was right.
He’d tie himself to the altar of his principles until he was a starved, withered husk.
But not Spie. She’d burn everything down to save Artemis. Or begin to, at least.
She couldn’t say which was worse.
“I want you to reconsider me as your successor.” The words were like dynamite exploding inside her. But she refused to waver. Back straight, eyes forward, smile on her lips. “It shouldn’t be Nicky. It was always supposed to be me.”