Chapter 46
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Evelyn was impressed with the speed that Lillian and Veronique had slapped together the first few propaganda videos.
The crew had certainly kept themselves busy while she’d been recovering.
She pulled up the first of the clips on her tablet while Veronique watched from across the table, clutching a coffee like it was the only thing keeping her from flailing her hands about in excitement.
The video started with a solid black screen, a faint, familiar tune playing.
Evelyn turned the volume up and recognized a folk tune that had been popular right after the war that had ended with the Compromise.
After a moment, the pitch-black pixels slowly faded into an image.
The Grand Opera House. The building she’d attended so many performances in as a child was a marvel of Tanalian architecture, finely carved relief work in the stone honoring the seasons ringed the roofline, a gleaming gilded cupola.
She tried not to cringe when she heard her voice emanate from the tablet.
Evelyn had always hated hearing her own voice, one more reason Corrie had never dragged her on stage in any of her productions.
Her breath caught when she heard the sorrow in her voice.
Veronique had managed to coax out her regret, the despair she felt when she thought about the Tanalia she’d thought she was protecting.
The image changed, again and again. Another memory depicted, another anecdote in her own voice on the speakers. Museums, orchards, universities. Text filled the screen.
Remember who we are.
As the screen faded to black, Evelyn swiped a tear from her cheek. She flipped the tablet over.
Veronique was staring at her, rolling her mug in her hands.
“Did you have to do something to my voice? It sounds so . . .” She cleared her throat. “It’s effective.”
Veronique shook her head. “That was the least amount of editing we did. Just moved some stories around.”
“Lillian wants to upload this?”
“A few variations, yeah. Some shorter, just one story at a time.”
Evelyn’s heart started to race. It made her skin crawl to think about the entirety of the planet seeing this, listening to her voice. She had never wanted the spotlight.
No one said cleaning up your mess was going to be a good time, Evelyn.
It was easy to hide in her closet and play with electronics. But putting herself front and center, declaring that she was taking the crown from her father was starting to feel very, very real.
Every word out of her mouth would be scrutinized the minute she bled into that damn cup. Every action dissected and analyzed. The reality of everything she was positioning herself to do hit her, severing her grip on the denial she’d been clinging to.
For a brief moment, she realized she’d be living the opposite of the sort of life anyone on the Dawn would want to lead, but she quashed the thought.
Her selfishness was the thing that had put her in this position in the first place.
The cozy existence she’d retreated into here on the Dawn would be relegated to her fantasies.
Evelyn was in no position to dream of keeping the life she was starting to love onboard.
No position to dream about keeping Aiden, any of them, after they fulfilled their obligations.
He may seem to adore her, but she had serious doubts that he’d adore being trapped on an unstable planet.
She wouldn’t blame him. She wasn’t looking forward to it herself.
In order for Tanalia to have freedom, hers would have to vaporize — and that was assuming that all of Corvinia’s carefully orchestrated plans went off without a hitch, that she truly did have every aspect of her harebrained scheme finely tuned.
If it would help to oust Emil from power, it would be worth it. Sacrifices weren’t supposed to be painless.
With a sigh, Evelyn shoved the tablet back to Veronique. “When is she planning on starting the hack?”
Veronique grinned. “Right about now, actually. Do you want to watch her in action?”
Evelyn shook her head. “As thrilling as watching Lillian type and yell at L.I.N.D.A. sounds, I should probably do something more constructive.” She looked over Veronique’s shoulder.
The lobby planters had been emptied, the dead vegetation fed into the recycler to make paper products.
The soil looked freshly tilled. “How’s Cairn doing? ”
“He’s fine. He had a brief meltdown, but he’s come around.”
“I don’t know if there’s enough pineapple-flavored confectionery in existence to apologize for ruining his work.”
Veronique snorted. “Once the shock wore off, he was very grateful you managed to boost the shields. The assessment he made once we got to the space station was worse than he’d calculated in the midst of the attack. He wouldn’t have been able to make the jump if they’d got another shot in.”
The guilt she’d had gnawing away subsided a bit. Big picture, their lives were more important than any botanical display — no matter how lovingly tended. She flashed a weak smile.
Veronique pushed back her chair. “I’m going to go watch Lillian do her thing.”
Evelyn headed across the lobby and was surprised to find Aiden in the little storage room. He was sitting at her folding table, staring at her books, levitating an assortment of electronics. She took a moment to just appreciate the sight of him from the door.
No one should look that sexy in a button down.
She tapped on the doorframe as she entered, breaking his concentration.
The objects remained aloft, and if she wasn’t mistaken, the speed at which they rotated in the air increased as he saw her in the doorway.
The smile that spread across his face made Evelyn weak in the knees.
She shoved away the thought that seeing that smile might be one of the sacrifices she was about to make.
“Hey there, dollface,” he said, reaching out a hand to her. She crossed the small space and let him pull her onto his lap.
“What are you doing in here? My whiteboard is way too small for you.”
He chuckled, tucking her waves behind her ear. “I was looking for you.”
Evelyn wondered if she’d ever stop getting butterflies when he did that hair thing. Probably not.
“Can you assess me? My levels of Amplification?” he asked. “I still feel pretty juiced.”
The butterflies in her stomach turned to lead.
Shit. Had she harmed his psychic makeup when she’d run so much power through him?
Nodding, she unfocused her eyes and took in Aiden’s energy.
The familiar wave of comfort crashed over her as she focused on him, warm blankets and old books and freshly baked bread.
She reveled in it, wanted to roll around like a happy puppy in a field of clover, but that wasn’t what she needed to look for.
Concentrating, she looked for the golden light that she associated with Amplification energy.
The light had shone around him when she’d peeked at him in the shower, and it still emanated from him, shining off of his person in waves.
But now that she wasn’t gazing up at him through a haze of lust, Evelyn realized that it didn’t look as concentrated as it should.
It was more . . . She squinted, focusing on the shining light around his shoulder.
The light that shone around Aiden was bright, but instead of a solid glow, it was thousands of small pinpricks of light; diluted energy that had coalesced around him.
Evelyn blinked her eyes rapidly and refocused on reality. Aiden was looking at her with an expression of such unadulterated adoration it made her chest ache.
“You do still have some Amplification clinging to you. It looks different than I’ve noticed it looking before. It could be residual,” she said, biting her lower lip.
“I’m sensing an ‘or’ in my future,” Aiden said.
She snorted.
Always best to rip the bandage off, right?
“Or,” she said, “I could have, um, accidentally done something to alter your psychic ability.”
He arched an eyebrow. “Permanently?”
Evelyn shrugged. “Maybe? I don’t know. Amplifiers don’t usually run the potential of the universe through other people until their ears bleed.”
“Hmm.” Aiden went back to quietly staring at the bookcase.
Evelyn’s heart sank. She knew it was too good to last. She’d assumed the siphoning was going to be the thing to drive him away.
She’d never imagined that she could scramble his psychic makeup via Amplification.
The corruption of someone’s psychic energy felt so wrong to her Tanalian ideals.
She was changing him, and wouldn’t blame him if he hated her for it in the end.
She shifted to get off his lap, but his hand snaked around her waist before she could move.
“Don’t run. I’m just thinking,” he said.
He tucked her head under his chin and hugged her to his chest like a giant teddy bear.
Her heart raced as she tried to calm herself.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise to her that he could read her so well.
He’d spent entire days cataloging what made her tick.
She felt her cheeks burning. Imagining rejection at every turn was probably an unhealthy coping mechanism.
She watched the objects whirl in the air while he worked through this new information. Egg timer followed music player. Music player followed can opener. Can opener followed nose hair trimmer.
What fucking garage sale did Corrie raid for this collection of junk?
She felt him place a gentle kiss on the top of her head, and when she turned to look at him, he was smiling.
“What?” she asked, not bothering to hide her confusion. “You look pretty happy for someone whose molecular structure might have just got scrambled.”
“This” — he directed his eyes to the spinning objects — “is taking no effort. I feel stronger, like I’ve suddenly gotten useful to this venture. I want to run some tests, see what I can do without you having to boost me at all.”
Evelyn drew her eyebrows together. “It could still be temporary, Aiden.”
And it could be so much worse than a power boost.
He nodded. “Hence, tests.”
Aiden had headed straight to the bridge to pull up Cairn’s star chart. He was looking for an underdeveloped planet, maybe an abandoned colony they could touch down on. He wanted space to throw things around without worrying about damaging Lillian’s paint.
It would also probably be a good idea for Evelyn to have a larger pool of energy to draw from than the now-empty lobby planters. Practicing with gadgets seemed pointless now, like doing reps with pencils when you were used to weights.
Cairn had his feet up on the console as he watched the news scroll by on the view screen. He paused the stream to help Aiden sift through the possibilities, ruling out planets that would burn too much fuel to travel to and from in an expedient amount of time.
“Learn anything worth knowing about the state of the galaxy?” Aiden asked. He pulled three more possibilities onto the screen for Carin to approve or veto.
“The pundits have moved on from Bauder’s increased patrols. Shows of force from that lot are expected.” Cairn moved one of the planets into the possibility stack and trashed the rest. “I did see a brief piece about unrest on Tanalia.”
Aiden smiled and added a few more planets into consideration. Cairn eliminated all but one.
“This one’s closest,” Cairn said. “Antopolet. There’s a small gem mine on one side of the planet, and a few dozen scattered colonies, but the rest of the surface is relatively untouched.
Six hours to get there. Minor detour out of the way to pick up the arms shipment.
” Cairn sifted through images, searching for the optimal place to set the Dawn down.
“Some of these plant varieties look interesting. Maybe I’ll hop off the ship and take some clippings. ”
As far as Aiden could tell, the population of the planet was largely focused around the mining operation. The rest of the world seemed to be full of lush, untamed forests. A perfect place to experiment.
To discover if he really had something to offer Evelyn now.
Aiden knew she wasn’t shallow. The woman lived in ancient T-shirts and battered sneakers.
She cringed whenever someone mentioned her royal lineage.
Evelyn hadn’t batted an eye when she discovered that the man who had rescued her was a thief, a smuggler, an occasional con.
She seemed to like him as he was just fine.
But Aiden would feel better if he could offer her something more than a condo in Orlando, a crash course on lock picking, an unused marketing degree, and his heart.
If she had permanently altered the nature of his talent, he could use it to shield her from the coming storm.
Assuming she’d let him.
It killed him a little every time he watched her instinctually withdraw. He’d like to pummel every person who had taught her that she was something that should be hidden away, a dark secret to be locked in a vault and forgotten about.
It was going to make meeting her parents super awkward.