30. The End of an Alliance #2
“Perfect,” Dezeeves says. “I couldn’t have phrased it better myself.” Dezeeves cocks his head at me, birdlike. “We will break here. We have certainly covered much this morning.”
Things happen fragmentedly. Officers are standing and dispersing. Dezeeves is back over at the control table.
I’m still beside Drake, watching him, while he stares back. It’s like we can’t untangle ourselves.
“I know what I want,” I finally tell him, firmly, in Rhavnan. “And I know I don’t want your power. Or any power.”
He bends forwards in his chair. Speaks just above a whisper.
“Even though, together, we could end the war? Perhaps even topple the Queen?”
I don’t move. Barely even blink. “What?”
“Anything beyond the dome, which was built by her father, is dying, while her court’s magic feeds the dome – and only the dome. I believed you had learned that by now. And I won’t even mention the fact she destroyed both of our lives, chasing prophecies.”
“Yours wasn’t destroyed,” I snap.
“Wasn’t it?” His mouth cripples. “I grew up in a military compound, for my safety, and to get me stronger. I lived in a cell. I was trained rigorously. Lions probably fare better in circuses. I was tortured, for months at a time, in the dark.”
The dark. He’s afraid of the dark.
“She took things from me she had no right taking,” he continues.
“Like what?”
“My very existence. And…”
Very slowly, he lifts up the sleeve of his blouse.
The marks on his skin are identical to mine.
I can hardly see them, because my vision is blurring.
Nor can I hide the shock on my face.
“Don’t look so surprised,” he says, pulling his sleeve down again fast. “Where did you think they were getting the blood from, to give it to you?”
I have no words.
I just want to implode again.
Meg is climbing up onto the platform. She takes my arm, and I collapse into her, my head on her shoulder.
“What did you say to her?” she hurls at him.
“I told her nothing she did not know before.”
I pull away from Meg. Almost crash into Riss, who recoils from me.
Then steps closer. “What’s wrong?”
I don’t think about how it might be a bad idea, with officers around us.
I just hug her.
I missed her. The friendship we were starting to have.
She’s probably the only other person on this ship who cares Cosmer is in the brig, suffering.
She pats me on the back, awkwardly.
I let go of her. Ask, my voice breaking, “Can I come back to Intelligence with you today?”
She looks at Meg. “What do you think? We could switch for the day?”
Meg folds her arms. “I had plans for Ara.”
“Ara and Cosmer don’t really do plans.”
“I suppose we could switch.” Offhand, Meg adds, “We could continue the conversation we were having, Drake.”
I don’t like the sound of that.
But I want to be with someone who vaguely understands what I’m going through.
So I let Riss lead me away, not looking back, and the words I’m burning to her fall out of me the moment we’re in the hallway outside.
“They gave Cosmer osimidite in the brig.”
She shoots around to me.
Finally. Someone who cares.
“Cosmos,” she says. “Are you sure?”
“Will that be enough to get him addicted to it again?”
“I don’t know. If he’s had it twice in two days, that’s a lot. We just have to hope he’s stronger than it.”
Unseen forces claw at me.
Because I can’t see it.
I can’t see a future where I get to be with Cosmer. A future that doesn’t involve prophecies and people wanting me for my power – and even our demons that we made ourselves chasing us.
Despite the hum of Intelligence, and the static and crackling voices of my own frequency, I feel at peace.
This is better than silence.
I speak to no one all day, other than to accept my boiled eggs at lunch.
At sixteen, Riss finally comes over to my desk.
“Do you want to go to the Training Room? We can pick up where we left off.” She adds, “You look like you could do with punching something.”
I could.
We’ve been at it for an hour. I’m sore, sweating, bruising. She keeps going for me. She’s flipped me so many times. Keeps blocking me when I try to swing at her.
I feel the way Drake must have felt when Cosmer was running circles around him.
Stop dancing, he’d willed Cosmer.
But that’s why I can’t let my magic stabilise with Drake’s.
I don’t win my battles by cheating.
Or by putting my opponents to sleep.
Or by invading their dreams.
Our upbringings may have had similarities. But I’m nothing like him.
Riss jumps on me. My hips are angled, my body is low. It’s the perfect position. In the space of two seconds, I take control – ducking down out of her grip, and stepping fast, my foot locking behind hers.
I flip her.
I flip her.
I stand over her, my arms still out, my body still braced.
On her back, brisk but out of breath, she says, “Great. Let’s go again.”
We only keep training. I know I’ll feel this in the morning. But it’s doing wonders at blocking out all of the thoughts in my head. The agonising worry for Cosmer. My pain.
Now, I feel strong.
I think we could even go for longer. But Riss gets a message on her radio.
Dezeeves’ voice.
“Riss. Are you receiving?”
I instantly hit the punching bag behind me, imagining his pale, bony face. His ridiculous laugh.
“Receiving,” Riss repeats, getting to her feet.
“After this morning’s successful corrective instruction session, I believe we can end Integration by Seventh Day, as planned.”
Riss locks eyes with me. “That’s great.”
“Could you come up to The Bridge to talk through the last things we need over the next couple of days?”
“With Drake, too?”
“The baths have just opened. I believe, with Drake and Ara so close to Integration, we can allow them to go down to them together. We will call it another test.”
It’s sinking in. Cold, hard dread.
Going down to the baths with Drake? Without Riss or Meg?
Another test.
And it’s one I don’t think I’m going to pass.
“No,” I say loudly, once the frequency crackles out.
“Captain’s orders,” Riss replies. “What’s up? Don’t want a bath?”
“It’s being down there with Drake. He…”
I trust her, I remind myself. Probably more than anyone else on the ship, now that Meg seems to be gaining Drake onto her side, and even things with Drake himself are different.
“Drake and I started out as friends. But I’m liking him less and less. He seems to just do what he wants.” I look down at her arm. Her scars. “Riss. What did they inject you with to cure your sickness?”
Easily, she says, “Donated Rhavnan blood, for its magical properties – bought from Lartos, though.” She adds, bleakly, “Cost a fortune. Crippled my father, who sold off all the possessions in his Temple, which weren’t his to sell.”
“Sisters.”
“I know. It’s bad. He got himself thrown out of The Assembly and Disgraced. It’s why I had to go to war.”
Something falls into place, that I probably should have realised a while ago.
Riss has a talent.
A talent no Hevallan – or anyone – should have. Unless they had royal Rhavnan blood flowing through their veins.
“Your hearing ability,” I say. “Did that develop afterwards?”
She hesitates. “It came on quite suddenly when I got better. I tell people I was born with it, though. Avoids the questions.”
Slowly, I say, “When I was a child, Drake’s blood was put in me. That’s why I have my scars. I’ve only just found out.”
Riss’ eyes widen. “Is that why you have the sparking hands thing with him?”
“I think so.”
She blinks quickly, as if to see me better. “If you have his blood magic in you, can you do what he can, too?”
I wasn’t planning to tell her that. But since she’s been open with me about her own magic, and I’ve come this far…
“Yes,” I say. “I’ve only just started being able to, though. And the magic isn’t stable. Drake wants to get the magic stronger, which...” I try to think back to the conversation he had with Meg. “It might be possible. If we grew our connection.”
“Grew your connection? What does that mean?”
“I’m not sure.” My mouth dry, I say, “But honestly, I really don’t want him near my magic at all.”
“So, don’t let him. Get near it.”
“I don’t think it’s that simple. It’s like I’m fighting him, every time I speak to him. And right now, I’m winning. But…”
A Rhavnan saying comes to me, usually spoken about accepting destinies. Given time, the water will always cut the cliff.
She eyes me suspiciously. “You did tell Cosmer, didn’t you? About all of this?”
“He knows some of it.” I put my hands on her shoulders. “And I meant what I told you. I love him. And he feels the same for me. It’s why he’s in the brig. He was trying to protect me.”
She shrugs me off, eyes shifting from mine. “I don’t know. It all seemed to happen very quickly. I mean, I’m happy. And Cosmer must have been happy. But…”
I understand. “I would never hurt him.”
“This is serious, Ara. He’ll be executed if he’s found guilty at his trial.” She crosses her arms. “And one of his charges is IR – Inappropriate Relationship. They’ll execute you, too. You wouldn’t even get a trial.”
“I know,” I assure her. “And I’m going to come up with a way to help him.”
She scratches her nose. “I just don’t get this at all. Why put Drake’s blood in you? Wouldn’t that weaken him?”
“I think it did. It’s why he needs me now.”
She leans up to me. “If everything you’re saying is true, then I think you’re right to be wary of him. The only reason you’d want to weaken something powerful, is if…”
I finish off her trail of thought – because it’s exactly what I was thinking, too. “You were scared of it.”
It takes power to make myself stop walking when we reach Meg and Drake, just beyond the entrance to the baths. Because all of me wants to keep going, right to the hidden door in the furthest wall – the door that would lead me to Cosmer again.
“Be strong,” Riss says to me, patting my shoulder. And I know what she means.
“We don’t have to sit with each other,” Drake says, once Riss and Meg have left.
I sigh, trying to look anywhere but at him. “I think we have to. Dezeeves called it a test.”