Chapter 4
SEREYA
The attendant asked whether they needed separate rooms.
“A suite,” Roemary said. “Sereya shouldn't be alone tonight.”
For one foolish moment, Sereya had thought the question was for her.
The attendant nodded and passed a hand over the panel beside the door. It opened onto a sitting room with a tall window and two smaller doors beyond. A bowl of fruit waited on a low table. Someone had folded blankets over the back of a couch.
There was no blood on anything.
Sereya stopped just inside.
“Will this be suitable?” the attendant asked.
Roemary crossed to the first sleeping room. Looked in. Crossed to the second.
“It will have to be. We need clothes. Everything we own was on that ship.”
“There are garments in each room. If the sizes are wrong, use the service panel and someone will bring others.”
“And our luggage?”
The attendant's eyes moved to Sereya, then back.
“Nothing has been recovered yet.”
Sereya wished Roemary hadn't asked. She could still see a piece of the ship tumbling past the ramp, far too large to be turning over like that.
Somewhere inside it might have been the little case beneath her bunk.
Two good dresses. A comb with a chipped tooth.
A scarf she never wore because someone might recognize the pattern.
Six years she had kept that scarf.
“We'll need access to a proper communications service,” Roemary said. “My father will be frantic.”
“The instructions are on the panel. Some channels are restricted during the lockdown.”
Roemary's mouth tightened.
Sereya stepped forward before the attendant had to apologize for that too.
“Thank you. For the rooms.”
“Of course.” The female glanced at the dressing on her hand. “Medical assistance is available through the same panel. You needn't wait until morning.”
Sereya nodded.
The attendant left. Roemary took the room with the larger window.
“Did you hear her? Nothing recovered. As if that answers anything.”
Sereya put her hand on the back of the couch. The blanket was soft beneath her fingers. She had been cold on the transport, though everyone else seemed to be warm.
“They're still looking for people.”
“I know that.” Roemary turned. “You don't have to say it as though I don't know.”
“I didn't mean—”
“After everything I did to get us off that ramp.”
Sereya looked at her.
“If I hadn't insisted that the guards move us, who knows how many more would have been hurt? Someone had to say something. Poor Graecey. I warned her on the ship that the whole presentation was badly arranged. You heard me.”
Sereya remembered Graecey trying to get the groups together. The clip in Adryel's hair. Roemary coming back up the ramp furious because Khalzin had chosen Janae.
She did not remember a warning.
“Sereya.”
“I'm tired.”
“We all are.”
Roemary waited. There had been a time when Sereya would have filled that silence with an apology and whatever answer was wanted. Tonight she could not seem to find the words quickly enough.
At last Roemary sighed.
“Go wash. You still have soot on your face.”
In the smaller sleeping room, Sereya closed the door and put her palm against it until the lock engaged.
Then she tested it.
The bed had a pale coverlet and more pillows than she needed. A stack of clothes rested at its foot. They were plain and new, with small size labels fastened to the seams. Beside them stood a pair of soft shoes.
She sat down to remove the shoes she had arrived in.
The first came off easily. The second heel was split, and a strip of the lining had caught against her stocking. She worked at it with her uninjured hand. Pulled too hard. Swore under her breath.
That nearly made her laugh.
She had survived two explosions and a collapsing ramp, and now a shoe had defeated her.
It came free on the next attempt. She dropped it beside the other and sat looking at her bare feet.
Graecey had been wearing sensible shoes.
Sereya bent forward, elbows on her knees.
She had seen Graecey's hand reaching. Seen the male go after her. Fiviel. She had learned his name during the long preparations for this arrival, when the Gol-Vetts had been faces on a screen and everyone had argued about which one they preferred.
He had gone over the edge trying to keep Graecey from falling.
Sereya pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes, caught the injured one, and flinched.
There should have been something she could do with that. Something better than sit in a clean room while someone else folded blankets and found her shoes.
She went to the service panel.
It offered food, clothing, medical care, and information for the Galactic Alliance survivors. She selected the last option. A notice appeared explaining where verified updates would be posted.
No new names.
She checked again, though the first notice had scarcely disappeared.
Still none.
The water ran gray around her feet.
She had kept her bandaged hand clear of it, as the medic had instructed. With the other she scrubbed her face and neck, then stood beneath the warm spray until she realized she was waiting for someone to tell her she had used enough.
No one came.
She stayed a little longer.
Afterward, she put on the borrowed sleeping clothes and rubbed a towel through her hair. Without the soot, she looked younger. Exhausted. There was a pale mark along her jaw where a flying piece of something had grazed her.
Her mother would have tilted her face toward the light to examine it.
The thought came so suddenly that Sereya reached for the edge of the basin.
She could remember her mother's thumb beneath her chin. The cool touch of a ring. Could almost hear the question that would follow, whether she had been climbing somewhere she had been expressly told not to climb.
She had always said no.
Her mother had never believed her.
Sereya laid the towel down. The room was very quiet, and she hated how much she wanted to hear that question again.
There had been a roof at home, reached by a service stair.
She and her brothers were forbidden to use it.
Naturally, that had made it the best place in the house.
No visitors there. No one telling them where to stand or how long to smile.
Once, she had taken a bottle of sweetwine up to watch a meteor shower and discovered that the sky was far more interesting than the wine.
That was the part she wanted to remember tonight.
She held to it while she crossed the room. Sat on the bed. Picked up the soft shoes and lined them neatly beneath the chair, because they were new and someone had taken trouble over finding them for her.
On the ship, Roemary had done things like that.
Not shoes. A seat saved at a crowded table. A drink brought without asking. Once, when Sereya had been having a particularly bad night, Roemary had appeared with a blanket and asked no questions at all.
Sereya had stayed beside her long after the drink was finished.
She should have gone to bed.
For months before the voyage, she had practiced the history that belonged to her new name. Where she had grown up. What work she had done. Why there was so little to find about her family. She could answer the program's questions without stumbling. Had answered them, and passed every check.
Then a lonely evening aboard a ship, a little wine, and someone sitting close enough that she didn't have to speak loudly.
She had told Roemary the truth.
Not all at once. That was the part she could never forgive herself. She had had chances to stop. Roemary had taken her hand, and Sereya had kept talking. Her family. What had happened to them. The name the officials had told her never to use again.
It had felt so good to say it.
For a few days afterward, she had slept better than she had in years.
A knock sounded at the door.
Sereya stood too quickly. The room tipped, and she caught the bedpost.
“Yes?”
“Open it.”
She unlocked the door.
Roemary wore one of the supplied robes. She had found a way to arrange the belt so that the plain garment looked made for her. Her silver hair fell loose over her shoulder.
“You're doing the quiet thing.”
“I was getting ready for bed.”
“I mean earlier. It reads as sulking. I need you presentable tomorrow.”
“I'll be presentable.”
Roemary reached toward her cheek. Sereya held still while a strand of damp hair was tucked behind her ear.
“Today was awful. I know.”
For a moment, with her voice soft and her fingers careful, she was the female who had brought the blanket.
Sereya hated that she could still feel the difference when that female went away.
“Dhomhes,” Roemary said. “When there's an opportunity for us to speak privately, you'll make yourself scarce.”
“Of course.”
“Without needing to be told.”
“Yes.”
“Good.” Roemary glanced past her at the room. “You know, I was thinking on the transport. The anniversary's coming up, isn't it? Six years this autumn.”
Sereya could feel her damp hair against her neck. One cold drop slipped beneath her collar.
“Autumns must be hard,” Roemary said.
Sereya had not mentioned an anniversary on the transport. She had not mentioned her family at all.
“I'm going to sleep.”
Roemary smiled.
“Sleep well.”
Sereya waited until the other door closed before shutting her own.
She locked it. Tested it again.
The officials who had given her this identity had warned her about records, about calls home, about trying to reach the money that still belonged to her.
The trust would demand proof. Proof would lead back to the person she had been.
She had done everything they told her until the night she had mistaken loneliness for a reason to trust someone.
Now Roemary could remind her of that with a date.
She hadn't said she would tell anyone. Hadn't needed to.
Sereya turned off the room lights and sat beside the window.
The fires were still visible below the terraces. She counted the moving points of light above them, lost one behind the smoke, and waited until it emerged again.
Dhomhes had been waiting for a medic when she last saw him. She wondered if he had finally let someone treat his hand properly.
He had asked after the injured woman she was helping and listened to the answer. When Sereya had nearly asked about his hand, he had waited. She wished she had finished the question before Roemary took over.
He hadn't sought her out afterward for an explanation of Roemary's behavior, which people so often seemed to believe she owed them. For that alone, she was grateful.
She watched the search lights until her eyes hurt, then made the window opaque and went to bed.
She woke to voices.
For a moment she could not find the room around her. The ceiling was wrong. The light beneath the door was wrong. Her heart was already pounding by the time she remembered the terrace, the suite, the clothes she was wearing.
A male spoke in the corridor. A female answered him sharply.
Sereya pushed the coverlet back and reached for her robe.
No alarm. She listened for one while she tied the belt, fingers refusing to work properly. If there was another attack, she needed to wake Roemary. Find the service corridor. Get clear before the main passage filled.
She crossed the sitting room, careful not to brush the low table, and opened the suite's outer door a little.
“It would be best if you were back at your residence—”
“I don't—”
Red hair. A familiar lifted chin.
“Adryel?”
They turned toward her. The male was Stron, the Ruler's son. He wore a tunic and pants instead of the formal clothing from the platform, and there was no weapon in his hands.
“Are you okay?” Adryel asked her.
“I heard voices. I just wanted to know who was out here.” Sereya's gaze darted from Adryel to Stron and back. “Are you okay?”
Adryel nodded. “Fine, thanks.”
Sereya nodded too. She was standing barefoot in a doorway, holding it as though someone might try to force their way through. She loosened her hand.
“I was… I was afraid that something else had happened.”
“You are safe,” Stron said. “We are patrolling the halls to keep all of you from the Galactic Alliance safe.”
“Thank you,” Sereya said.
“And I was escorting Adryel back to her residence.”
Adryel grimaced, but nodded as he gestured down the corridor. They started walking.
Sereya stayed at the door.
“You still don't get to tell me what to do,” Adryel said.
“I believe I just did.”
“I don't like you, Stron.”
“You are certainly challenging, Adryel.”
They went on together. Adryel's shoulders were stiff, and Sereya suspected the conversation was far from finished.
She waited until they were out of sight before closing the door.
No attack. No smoke. No reason for her heart to keep beating so hard.
She leaned against the door and let it slow.
Adryel had looked annoyed, not afraid. She could tell Stron she didn't like him and still let him walk her home. Sereya tried to imagine saying that much to someone so much stronger than herself. Saying it without first working out what it would cost.
She couldn't.
Back in bed, she left the coverlet loose around her feet. The corridor was quiet again.
This time she knew someone was out there.