Down Among the Dead Read online

  “You are, but at what cost?” Her expression was clean of any amusement. “I have no ships I’m willing to lend you right now, so you have no way off this planet and no way to get back to the human sector of this galaxy.”

  “This doesn’t engender any goodwill on my side, you know.”

  Mia leaned back in her seat. “You believed me when I said if you left on that shuttle everyone would die. Why don’t you believe it now?”

  “I—”

  I was saved my fumbling by Aiz’s arrival. He came into the room through the open door, reaching back and closing it behind him. Now he was fully dressed, not barefoot and shirtless, and with the pistol hanging from a holster under his left arm.

  “Mia, no den asfalés.”

  “Ahora,” she replied, her lips twitching into a smile. Aiz nodded and sat by her side, fixing his eyes on me. She rolled her eyes with an amused look at me that clearly said, See?

  There was a long moment of silence as I met Aiz’s gaze. Mia seemed content to let us have this staring contest, and it went on for several minutes before Aiz conceded with a tiny smile.

  I went back to my food, hiding my surprise over the victory.

  “Hail, I knew trust would be difficult, given your people’s associations with the Farians, but—”

  “A Shen tried to kill me at that party, my Ekam—” My voice cracked as I interrupted Mia, but I ignored it.

  It didn’t matter now that I’d killed a Shen while his hands had been on Emmory and my Ekam hadn’t died. Emmory was dead now. They all were.

  “What am I supposed to make of that?”

  “What would be the point of killing you there?” Mia countered. “When we could have killed you so many times before? I hope you believe me when I say that flashy statements and worthless pomp are not our way. If I’d wanted you dead, I would have walked into your hotel room back on Pashati and killed you myself. I could kill you right now, Hail.” Her tiny smile should have chilled me to the bone, but that vicious voice in my head whispered that maybe baring my throat to her and getting it over with would be better for everyone.

  “Do it, then. What’s stopping you?”

  Aiz stopped shoveling food into his mouth and chewed as he stared thoughtfully at me.

  Mia’s calm gray eyes met mine and a sudden sorrow flooded them as she shook her head. “Oh, Hail. I wish I could take that pain away from you.”

  I pushed out of my chair and spun away from them, pressing my fingers to my eyes. “I don’t want your fucking pity.”

  “You don’t have it. You have my sympathy. You have my respect. Hail, we need your help—”

  I froze at the touch on my arm; even through the fabric I could feel the heat of her skin. I dropped my hands and looked at her. “I am not in any position to help you. Especially here.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong. You are the Star of Indrana. The one who can see through the light. The one who calls out the rot from its beautiful façade. The one who loses everything and saves everything in return. Without you, it all burns to ashes.

  “We don’t want you dead, Hail. It’s the worst thing that could happen.”

  I am already dead. My body just hasn’t figured it out yet.

  Her words were like frozen needles under my fingernails, but somehow I found my footing and sidestepped my grief, taking refuge in the anger. “Here we go again,” I said. “I am not your savior. I am not your prophecy. I am not your weapon! Give me something real to hold on to or let me go so I can hunt Jamison down and cut him into pieces for what he’s taken from me.”

  Mia inhaled and flexed her hand on my arm before she released me and stepped back. “We have gotten off track. Hail, sit down, please. Finish your breakfast.”

  I told myself I was choosing to go back to the table, not following an order that—no matter how delicately it was phrased—was still an order. I picked up my spoon again and poked at the food in my bowl.

  Aiz had been silent the whole time, eating as though nothing unusual were happening. Now he put down his fork and folded his hands together on the tabletop. “The man who attacked you in the embassy wasn’t a Shen. He was a Farian, but I have seen the surveillance footage so I understand your confusion. He was not after you, he was after your people. The Farians have a use for those who look like us. They are too obvious to blend in well,” he said.

  “What would be the point of the Farians trying to kill my people?”

  Aiz pinned me with a look. “After the last month, do you really have to ask?”

  This time I was the one who looked away.

  “You care about your people, Hail. It’s not a weakness, it’s an admirable thing,” he continued. “But it is something the Farians would exploit. Six months ago I would have sworn the Farians would have protected you to the end, but the inclusion of Fasé and her rising power may have tipped the balance. Fear makes people dangerous.”

  “You think the assassin was there unconnected to Jamison?”

  Mia and Aiz shared a look before she answered. “It’s possible. However much I would like to blame the Farians for what happened on Earth, I have to say it’s more likely Jamison was the one responsible for it all.” A smile flickered to life. “As you said, he is a shit mercenary.”

  I shoved at the sympathy in her voice that dragged at the pain in the depths of my chest. “Let’s back up a minute. There are Shen who work for the Farians?”

  Mia sighed. “Yes and no. They are not Shen, but they have been separated from their gods and so they look more like us than Farians. They are still Farian to the core, more so if the truth be told because they are willing to sacrifice themselves for the cause.”

  I remembered what Fasé had told us about how the Shen came to look more like humans than Farians. “Why does the separation change you?”

  “The Farians are linked to their gods. Rooted to the soil of Faria. It is that connection which makes them look the way they do. I do not know the specifics, but Aiz could tell you.” She gestured at her face. “Aiz and our father, the others who were with them. They are the first Shen. They shattered that link with the gods and with the breaking lost their connection to our home. It was an easy sacrifice. But there were other sacrifices they did not realize at the time. Things that took a far greater toll on them.”

  “Like what?”

  “The loss of our immortality.”

  4

  I blinked at her. “You aren’t immortal? But the Shen came from Farians, Aiz said—”

  “We make no distinction between those who chose to break from the Farians and become Shen and those who are born from human-Shen pairings.” Aiz shook his head. “The universe, however, is not so kind.”

  “My people,” Mia said. “Those of us who are blessed with human kin are different from my brother’s people, though we are all Shen.”

  “When I die, my soul is reborn,” Aiz said. “But my sister and the others—”

  “We just die,” Mia said, picking up when her brother lapsed into silence, and I watched Aiz’s shoulders jerk.

  He reached out, closing his fingers around Mia’s. “My sister will die. I will not.” Aiz shook his head. “I also will not accept that.”

  “I am sorry,” I said. “However, I still don’t understand how you expect me to help you.”

  “If we go home,” Mia said, her voice soft, “we can be reborn.”

  “Home?”

  “To Faria. We will go home and finish what we started.” Aiz’s smile was slight, dying before it made the climb from his mouth to his eyes. “I wasn’t lying to you. That part of the negotiations wasn’t up for discussion.”

  “You were lying about just wanting a settlement on the planet.”

  “If, as Mia said, it were to happen, it would be a miracle. I don’t have enough faith left that Adora and the Pedalion will see reason in this. So we will take the whole planet as our due. The Farians who choose to rise up against the Pedalion and their worthless gods are welcome to stay. Fas�
�’s rebellion has proven, however unintentionally, to be most beneficial to our cause. I was hoping she would join us, but her death at your embassy will be a significant setback for her plans.”

  I realized then that Fasé and Sybil and her siblings wouldn’t stay dead, and I wondered how long my brain would insist on hearing her ghost whispering in my ear. Swallowing down the pain, I shook my head at the pair of Shen and grabbed for the bravado that had always saved me. “You’ve got a lot of fancy ships here, but I doubt it’s enough to match the Farians.”

  Mia’s laughter spilled out into the air, a sound as brittle as old-fashioned castings raining down on a metal floor. “These are not our only ships. We have dozens of outposts, Hail. All with just as many ships as this one. This war has been going a long time, but now we are finally winning.”

  “How do you finance all this?”

  “Our people live all over the galaxy, Majesty. It’s easy for us to blend in with humanity, to make sure we are among our own kind in case of emergency. The Farians can’t spot us, and you humans are rather involved in your own worries most of the time. Our people have businesses in every sector imaginable—manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, finance, construction, shipping.” Her mouth quirked upward in a smile. “We also do business in your former line of work. It is all done in service to the cause. We have built a nation in the shadows of humanity, safe from Farian attack, all to fuel this endless war. When I call, they will come and fight.”

  “How many?”

  Mia shrugged. “Enough.”

  Her words confirmed my suspicions that the Shen had integrated themselves into human society, and I wondered just how many thousands, if not millions, were hidden in plain sight.

  “Assume for the moment I believe your claim that it was Jamison who attacked us and blew up the embassy,” I said as I set my spoon down next to my bowl.

  “You don’t believe us.”

  I studied her and then shook my head. “I don’t have a reason to, and you don’t have any proof. I’ve known people like you—granted, they were human—but it’s no different. You’ve both forgotten I sold guns to the leaders of hundreds of petty wars for decades. Everyone thinks their side is the righteous one, the justified one. What do you want with me? Because I’m not about to believe you rescued me and my people from Earth out of the goodness of your hearts.”

  Mia laid a hand on Aiz’s forearm, stopping his rebuttal. “Assuming for the moment that you believe us, we want your help, Hail. Freely given. To finish what my brother started and help us be whole again.”

  “What are you offering me in return?”

  “In exchange, we will help you visit justice on whoever it was that attacked you and your people. We will keep Indrana safe from the Farians and whatever else is coming. The Shen will be your allies.”

  “I cannot make an alliance with you. Not while Indrana and Faria are allied.” I shook my head. “And there is no way we can break that alliance without bloodshed.”

  “The alliance is already fracturing, Hail, and you will soon no longer be empress.” Mia shrugged. “We are not interested in your empire, though we would welcome such a friendship should it happen. I agree with you that it would be unlikely as long as the Pedalion holds power. Your people’s lives are too entangled with the Farians. Ripping you apart would be most dangerous.”

  “So what then?” I set my spoon down. “I’ll admit I am not the most politically savvy person, but even I know that an alliance with a single person isn’t worth a lot.”

  “Hail, a single person can move the stars themselves.” Mia reached her hand out again, a hopeful smile on her dark lips. “Did Fasé ever show you what the future holds for you?”

  I stared at her hand, heart aching in response to the memories flooding my brain. “Yes. No. I mean, she showed me futures that didn’t happen. Ones where the choice had already been made. We talked about the others, including the one from the Council of Eyes. All of it, I’ll be honest, is asking me for a lot of faith I don’t have.”

  Mia rolled her eyes. “Farians. I had hoped Fasé was better than the superstitions of her upbringing. What is the point of sending a soldier into battle without all the information, all the weapons to defend themselves?”

  “She said it wasn’t wise to know too much.”

  Mia muttered something in Shen that I was reasonably sure was a curse, and looked at the ceiling before responding. “Is it wise to fight not knowing why? Not knowing what you’re trying to save? Let me show you what is coming.”

  I reached out, intent on pressing the exposed tips of my fingers to her palm, when Hao’s ghost whispered in my ear.

  Cas knew what was coming. It cost him his life.

  I jerked back, scrambling out of my chair and away from Mia before I consciously realized I was moving. Aiz moved in front of his sister, his hands raised, and I put my own up as I backed away.

  “No.” My voice was raw in my throat.

  “You can’t dodge this, Star of Indrana. There’s no escape from what is coming,” Aiz said. “The light will swallow us all up. Bodies and souls.”

  “Aiz, it’s fine.” Mia rose from her own seat and moved around him. “Hail, if you will just let me—”

  “No.”

  Taking a step toward me, Mia thought better of it when I snarled and she dipped her head. “Okay. You’re not ready. It’s okay.”

  It wasn’t okay. I fisted my hands, battling the desperate desire to throw a punch at something, anything. “I should go back to our rooms,” I managed.

  “We’ll take you.”

  There were new guards outside our door. They stiffened when we approached.

  “We’re not going anywhere,” I said. “And we’re not your prisoners. Is this really necessary?”

  “Probably not,” Mia admitted. “If I give you leave to come and go from your rooms as you please, do you agree to a guard?”

  “Sure.”

  “Aiz can send you what footage we have from the attack at the party and what information we’ve gathered. I have a meeting to attend tomorrow morning,” Mia said with a smile. “But I will send someone to get you for dinner and we will talk again.” She looped her arm through Aiz’s and headed back down the corridor. I slipped through the door after watching them go.

  “Majesty, are you hurt?”

  I shook my head, flinching when Gita closed a hand on my arm. She released me with a murmured apology.

  “What happened?”

  Johar and Alba joined us as I sank down at the table in the corner. My left hand was still locked in a fist and I spread it open against my thigh.

  “Jamison is the one who attacked us.” I rubbed at my forehead. “The Farians may have also been involved, or they may have only been trying to kill all of you. I don’t know for sure. They want me to help Aiz finish the fight he and his father started. They want an alliance.” I frowned. “With me, not Indrana.”

  “You can’t be serious—” Gita stared at me, wide-eyed, and blew out a breath before she dropped her hands from her hair. “I’m sorry, Majesty. That’s—”

  “I know. I know I shouldn’t believe them, that there’s no reason to believe them. But what else am I supposed to do?” I lifted my hands helplessly.

  “We all know it was Jamison’s men at the party, right? I hate to say the Shen might be telling the truth, but Adora left just before the shooting started,” Alba said.

  I sucked in a breath. The memory of Adora leaving the party had slammed into my head before my chamberlain even finished speaking. A red haze of fury dropped itself over my world.

  I was a weapon seeking a target, and a part of me knew there was a very real chance Mia was using that to her advantage; but it was drowned out by the louder voice in my brain screaming for vengeance. “Fuck,” I muttered, because it seemed a better idea than screaming.

  “And Aiz took out a waiter who was about to shoot his sister.” Alba smiled when we all stared at her. “I’ve been over my recordings from th
at night. There’s no outward sign of nervousness from Adora, but her timing is impeccable. And Aiz wasn’t pretending to be surprised. Believe me, I’m not defending them, but he really was caught off guard and Mia was in real danger there.”

  Relief flooded through me, stronger than a shot of whiskey at the confirmation that I hadn’t been imagining Aiz’s surprise. That I hadn’t been grasping at something, anything, to justify my belief in Mia’s words.

  “What are we going to do?” Johar asked.

  “I don’t know.” I shook my head, hunting for the right words. “I need to talk to her more, figure out what they actually mean. If they want me to fight with them, or what.” I sighed and lifted my hands. “I know you three don’t need to be here. I was going to ask them—we got sidetracked. Mia wanted to show me the future.”

  “Did you let her?”

  “No, I—” The words stuck in my throat again and I pushed to my feet, suddenly desperately in need of motion to keep the scream from crawling out of me. “They could kill all of us, but here we are still alive,” I said when I could speak again. “They took us off Earth because it was safer than leaving us there. And I’ll be honest, I’m not sure I can blame Aiz for that decision.”

  “Why don’t they just take us home, then?” Gita’s question cut like razor wire.

  “They need my help. Even if we don’t believe it, Mia believes that me going home will kill everyone.” I knew the answer didn’t satisfy her. It didn’t satisfy any of them, judging from the looks I was getting.

  “You could help better from Indrana.”

  The thought of going home, of facing everyone’s pity, of having to go through my days with a whole crowd of new BodyGuards around me, made an explosion of pain go off in my chest. I wanted to curl up around it and never get up. “I don’t think they will let me go,” I said. “We can move around the compound as long as a guard accompanies us. She didn’t say anything expressly about not going off the base, but I suspect that’s more because she assumes the jungle will stop us than anything.”

  Johar made a dismissive noise. “I’ve been in worse jungles. Find me a long-distance ship we can get to and I’ll get us out of here.”