Down Among the Dead Read online

  Copyright

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2019 by Katy B. Wagers

  Excerpt from Out Past the Stars copyright © 2019 by Katy B. Wagers

  Author photograph by Donald Branum

  Cover design by Lauren Panepinto

  Cover illustration by Stephan Martiniere

  Cover copyright © 2019 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  Hachette Book Group supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

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  First Edition: December 2019

  Simultaneously published in Great Britain by Orbit

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Wagers, K. B., author.

  Title: Down among the dead / K.B. Wagers.

  Description: First edition. | New York, NY : Orbit, 2019. | Series: The Farian War; book 2 | Summary: “Gunrunner empress Hail Bristol must navigate alien politics and deadly plots to prevent an interspecies war in this second novel in the Farian War space opera trilogy. In a surprise attack that killed many of her dearest subjects, Hail Bristol, empress of Indrana, has been captured by the Shen—the most ruthless and fearsome aliens humanity has ever encountered. As she plots her escape, the centuries-long war between her captors and the Farians, their mortal enemies and Indrana’s oldest allies, finally comes to a head. When her captors reveal a shocking vision of the future, Hail must make the unexpectedly difficult decision she’s been avoiding: whether to back the Shen or the Farians. Staying neutral is no longer an option. Will Hail fight? Or will she fall?”—Provided by publisher.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2019032463 (print) | LCCN 2019032464 (ebook) | ISBN 9780316411257 (paperback) | ISBN 9780316411264 (ebook) | ISBN 9780316411240

  Subjects: GSAFD: Science Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PS3623.A35245 D69 2019 (print) | LCC PS3623.A35245 (ebook) | DDC 813/.6—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019032463

  LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019032464

  ISBNs: 978-0-316-41125-7 (paperback), 978-0-316-41126-4 (ebook)

  E3-20190928-JV-NF-ORI

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Author’s Note

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Acknowledgments

  Discover More

  Extras

  Meet the Author

  A Preview of Out Past the Stars

  By K. B. Wagers

  Praise for K. B. Wagers

  This one is for those who have lost everything and somehow found the strength to rise again.

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  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Dear readers, there are some difficult moments in this book pertaining to grief, suicidal ideation, and self-harm. Please proceed according to your comfort level.

  I am royalty by blood, but there is little else one would consider noble about me. I drink too much, swear even more, and can’t seem to keep my hands from closing into fists when I’m angry. As a princess I got into far too many fights for my parents’ liking, and once I’d slipped the bonds of Pashati to disappear into the black, there was nothing left but to embrace who I truly was.

  A liar. A thief and smuggler. A killer through and through.

  I’d thought that was all I was, but I was dragged home by those who’d convinced themselves I was an empress worthy of the throne, and somewhere along the way I started to believe it myself.

  I am a killer. I am also an empress.

  I am the Star of Indrana and there is no one who can stand in my way.

  1

  We’re coming up on the embassy. It looks like the mercs pulled back when the Solies flew in,” Emmory said over the com link. “Majesty—”

  I jerked awake, the concussion wave of the explosion in my dream carrying into the real world in the form of my heart slamming against my rib cage. The room was dim, the early-morning light crawling in through the windows. The breathing of the other three women was rhythmic as they slept on, unaware of my nightmare.

  Gita Desai had protested when I’d turned my bios off, but I was glad I’d insisted. There was no reason to wake my Ekam up night after night just because I couldn’t sleep.

  My Ekam. Strange how a single word could cause so much pain.

  I curled into a ball, holding in the grief that always followed on the heels of the dream. Because it wasn’t a figment of my imagination, it was my reality: My brothers were dead. Most of my BodyGuards were dead. All I had left were Gita, Johar, and Alba.

  And we were in the questionable safety of Shen custody.

  I’d been betrayed, taken prisoner, and dragged away from Earth. Shortly after our arrival Aiz Cevalla had tried to make it seem as though we were guests on this planet across the galaxy from home, but with no way to leave and very little freedom over the last month it was hard to believe the lie.

  Prisoners or guests, either way it made little difference in the end. We were simply four people very far away from everything we’d ever known. My fury had snuffed out like an explosion exposed to the black, leaving me floundering the moment we’d touched boots down to the soil of this planet.

  While the others had set to the tas
k of finding a way to get us out of here and back to Pashati, I’d drowned in my grief over the loss of everything I knew.

  I ate when my Ekam told me to, answered questions that were asked of me as the trio of women continued to plan for an escape or some way to contact home, but otherwise I stayed silent, staring out the window at the jungle beyond.

  Our captors, or hosts, left us alone. They had a war to run, after all, and I got the impression that the events on Earth had caught them off guard just as badly as they had us. Or they were responsible for it all and playing the shock up for my edification. I poked at the tangled ball of details sometimes but could never seem to find the energy to grab a thread and pull.

  I did not want to be alive, yet here I was. The universe was once again cold and uncaring about what I wanted—as it had been with the deaths of my parents and my sisters. This dream echoed night after night in my head, and the ghosts whispered endlessly in my ear during the day. They were my new companions, and I welcomed them into my shattered life.

  A voice somewhere in the back of my head screamed at me. It scolded me for giving up. It shamed me for letting the empire down, for turning my back on everything I’d ever believed in. For betraying Hao and all the others by curling into myself instead of seeking revenge. It wanted me to get up and keep fighting, but I ignored it even more than I ignored my companions and my captors.

  The ghosts who haunted me were easier to talk to. They understood that it was better for me to stay down, that fighting would only kill more people I cared about. They knew what would happen if I raged.

  Baby, you should go back to sleep.

  “There’s nothing to do but sleep,” I murmured back, imagining the feel of Portis’s hand in my hair as his ghost whispered in my ear.

  He didn’t answer. Sometimes the ghosts spoke and vanished; other times I could have whole conversations and would look up to find Gita watching me with concern heavy in her brown eyes.

  I’d mentioned it once, curious if the others were seeing the same, if I was hallucinating or being drugged. But no one else could see the figments of my slowly cracking mind, and all Gita’s scans came up clean. The Shen weren’t poisoning me. So I stopped asking and tried to pretend they weren’t there.

  At least not when anyone else could see me.

  I slipped from my bunk, moving slow to keep from disturbing the others, and padded my way on bare feet to the window.

  The twin moons of Sparkos were setting, bathing everything in their silvery light. The jungle was filled with shadows, having one last dance in the breeze before they gave way to the pink light of sunrise. I could smell the thick salt of the sea and the heaviness of decaying vegetation seeping in around the edges of the window.

  It made me miss home.

  I pressed my hand to the thick pane and felt the slight give of the plastic. Johar had been diligently working on loosening the foundation of the sturdy window, and it wouldn’t be long before it would come free entirely. Then we could escape. To where I didn’t know. It felt very much like jumping from the frying pan into the fire.

  “Majesty, where are you?”

  I turned my head from the window at the sound of Fasé’s voice. My Farian ghost was more insistent than the others, constantly questioning my whereabouts as though she couldn’t see right where I was for herself if she’d just show her face.

  My anger at her was worse than the grief. I knew it was useless to blame the dead for their failures, knew even better that it wasn’t Fasé’s fault she hadn’t seen this coming and saved us all. It was mine.

  Your crew, your responsibility, little sister. Never forget that.

  “Hail?”

  I squeezed my eyes shut. Johar’s whisper seemed loud in comparison to Hao’s voice in my head, and the touch of her hand on my back was almost unbearable.

  The former gunrunner and smuggler from Santa Pirata had chosen to stay by my side. Her plans to retire and live in my empire were a decision that had ultimately led her here with me. I would have apologized if I could have forced the words out of my throat.

  “I couldn’t sleep.” It wasn’t really a lie.

  “I know. It’s close enough to morning, though,” she murmured, slipping into the space next to me at the window; the warmth of her body chased away some of the graveyard chill that had settled into my bones. She smoothed her hand over my back, resting it gently on my hip and tugging me against her. “We notice it, even if we don’t say anything. Don’t need access to your bios to know you’re not sleeping.”

  I didn’t want the comfort. It hammered away at the wall of grief I’d built around my rage. But my body was a traitor and leaned into Jo’s embrace before I could stop it. I wanted to curl against her, bury my face in her shoulder and weep, but if I started crying I didn’t think I’d ever stop.

  “Shiva, why do the gods take the good ones and leave me here?” My hands were shaking as I curled them into fists, hating the plaintive question that slipped free.

  “You are one of the good ones,” Johar said, fingers tightening on my hip. “Don’t argue with me, Hail, you know you are. I love you for it and so do your people. We’ll get out of here and go home. Then we can figure out what to do from there. Figure out who was responsible for Earth.”

  Earth—the attack on the peace negotiations between the Farians and the Shen and our desperate run through the streets filled my head once more along with a burning fury.

  Though no matter who’d fired the shots and blew up the embassy—Farian, Shen, mercenary—I’d been the one who brought them there. My foolish belief that I could somehow stop this brewing war between two alien races had been hubris. In the end I was responsible for the deaths of my people.

  Shame burned in my throat.

  “You know they’re dead, don’t you?”

  Johar took a deep breath and then exhaled. “You and I have a hard time trusting to hope, Hail. We’ve seen too much. We know the miraculous survival of the crew doesn’t happen but in the stories. I don’t begrudge Alba and Gita for wanting to hold on to that flicker in the darkness, though. It’s a small comfort.”

  It was no comfort for me. Jo was right, the real world didn’t give second chances and happy endings. It gave out death and grief, and bits of justice on the rarest of occasions.

  I’d already had my justice; I couldn’t hope for more.

  “I have led you all to disaster. Loving me is a curse none of you deserve to bear.”

  Johar reached across and cupped my face with her other hand, forcing me to meet her eyes. “I have good news and bad news for you, Hail. The bad news is love doesn’t win, entropy does. We all die, the stars will explode, the Milky Way will collapse, and the universe will tear itself apart.”

  She leaned in, pressing her forehead to mine. “The good news is we get to choose to love every day, which makes it even better, because it’s a choice.”

  “It’s the wro—”

  “Listen to me. We need you back. I understand the darkness you’ve been in for these past weeks, and none of us begrudge you it. However, it’s time you come back to us.”

  “I don’t know how much of me is left.” I don’t know if you want to see this rage fly free, Jo, it might burn the whole galaxy down. Those words remained unsaid even though I shook with the effort of keeping them inside.

  “There’s enough of you.” Johar smiled as she pulled away. “You’re still alive, aren’t you?”

  It should have been an easy answer. My heart was beating. There was air in my lungs.

  But the soul of me was gone. Gone like Hao. Like Emmory and Zin. It was nothing but ash.

  “I have lost the best parts of me.”

  The smile slipped off Jo’s face like water sheeting down a window in Krishan’s rainy season. “Hail,” she said again. “Don’t go out like this. You know they wouldn’t—”

  “Don’t.” I stopped her with a hand on her mouth as I pulled away. “Please, don’t say it.”

  I was expecting cruel
ty, harsh words of disappointment over how I’d let down Emmory and Zin and all the others who’d died. Instead Johar pulled me into a hug.

  “I would take your pain away, if I could,” she whispered, releasing me and slipping back to her bunk as silently as she’d arrived.

  I turned my face, now wet with tears, back to the window and the setting moons.

  She’s right, you know. Jet rested his head on my shoulder, and I let my imagination convince me there was weight to it.

  “About what?” I asked my dead BodyGuard. It felt like so long ago that Jet had died. But it had only been a little over a year since he’d sacrificed himself to save me from a bomb on a cold Pratimas day. “That love doesn’t matter? I suppose so. It only ever brings pain.”

  That’s not what she said, and you know it, he countered. She’s right about them needing you. The whole galaxy needs you. You didn’t quit when Wilson had you on the ropes, don’t do it now.

  “This is different.”

  No, it’s not. He chuckled, lifting his head to look at me with dark gray eyes. You know it’s not, stop lying to yourself, ma’am. You got knocked down. It happens to the best of us. Get up, spit blood at them, and keep going.

  Jet vanished and I rubbed the tears from my face as his words echoed in my ears.

  2

  The tears soaked into the long sleeves of the shirt I wore, leaving little wet patches on the smooth gray fabric. It was reminiscent of Fasé’s outfit in the days after she’d tried to kill herself.

  The resurrection of my previous Ekam had been so taboo, so against everything Fasé had believed in as to drive her to suicide. But I’d refused to let her do it and grabbed for her hand, insisting if she was going to die she’d have to take me with her.

  I won’t abandon you, not when you need me the most.

  At the time I hadn’t realized she would come back. Her soul reborn on Faria. I don’t even know if she’d realized that in the moment. All I knew was that I couldn’t stand by and watch her go without doing something to stop it. I closed my eyes as my memory threw my own words back at me. “Bugger me.”