Blood Crown (30 page)

I squeeze his hand in return, then focus on the dock as our pod navigates us inside. I feel the ship’s intelligence reaching out to me. It knows me, welcomes me. If offers me a status report, but I tell it to wait, not ready to hear that there are zero people onboard.

We dock without issue. The pod shuts itself down as soon as we exit it. I straighten my tattered skirts and fuss at them. “Stars,” I mutter. I hold tight to the bodice and yank at the skirt with my other hand, cringing a little as the fabric tears. All I have left are the creamy underskirts and now even they threaten to fall to the ground.

Lily would be mortified.

“Well, that’s a shame.” Nic comes around the end of the pod and ogles me. “Hmm. On the other hand, it could be an improvement.” In two long strides he wraps his arms around my waist and tugs me to him.

“Though, nothing about you needs improving.”

I press my hands to his chest, pretending to push him away when I really don’t want him to move at all. “Ha. That’s not how you felt when you first met me—I mean when you recently first met me.”

“True.” He ducks his head to place a trail of kisses down my neck. I shiver beneath his touch. It surprises me when he locks gazes with me again to see his eyes dark and serious. “In the beginning, I had hoped the reports were wrong, that you weren’t really dead.”

I nod, unsure of how else to respond.

“But when I finally came to terms with you being gone, I just . . . well, I broke from my family’s ways and joined the rebels—you know. I knew it was you the second I saw you. There was not a single ounce of doubt in my mind. But it was like seeing a ghost, or a dream, come walking into real life. It took a while for my mind to catch up to the reality of your return and to accept that the dreams I’d once held so dear might actually come to pass.” His voice is hoarse with emotion. He swallows, then presses his lips to mine with the desperation of hope reborn.

When he finally pulls back, I take his hand in mine. “Come on. We’ve got a war to win.”

We move through the dark corridors that flicker to life as we approach. He keeps his hand in mine during the ride up the transporter to the control room. He only lets go of me to take his sword in his hand. I bite back an argument when he places himself in front of me just before the transport opens. It’s not like I need him to protect me.

But his symbiants are a part of me now, and that means he is too. So I know he doesn’t act out of disrespect for my ability. He is still the boy-prince with a sword and a vow to keep.

When the transport opens, I don’t see what he sees, don’t see the gun raised or the blast that burns the air as it zings past me, singeing some wayward curls.

“Stand down!” Nic hollers.

“Who are you?” I recognize that voice—

I shove past Nic and the lights come on. “Dillon? What are you doing here?”

Minn runs toward me and throws her arms around me. “I am so sorry, Sera. Dillon and I couldn’t go along with the transfer so we stayed behind—but then the Mind came and we hid from them . . . it was only after they left that we realized they took you. That they’d taken both of you.” She looks from me to Nic, wariness and distrust evident on her face.

“We couldn’t even figure out how to turn everything back on.” Dillon’s shoulders slump and he hangs his head.

“Good thing the ship holds a week’s worth of air for an entire population—you could have suffocated,” Nic says as he moves past us and toward the controls. Dillon’s face blanches.

Dillon shoots Nic a dark and distrusting glare so I move to Nic’s side and take his hand in mine, letting the Blood Crown appear and radiate on my forehead—and Nic does the same.

“This is Prince Nicolai. We are—” But I don’t need to finish because Dillon and Minn fall to their knees, pressing their foreheads to the ground. “Hey, get up. Don’t do that.”

Nic chuckles when I jump away from him and let the Crown subside. He is, of course, used to such fealty, but it is entirely new to me. I help Minn to her feet.

She looks at me with wonder, no doubt searching for the Crown which has faded from view. Finally she throws herself at me and presses her face into my hair. “I’m so sorry, Sera. If only I’d known—if any of us had known . . .” But of course she can’t finish the thought. And there is no point to it, anyway.

If anyone had known my identity I would have been killed a long time ago, when I was still a small, defenseless child. Now, as an adult, with the Bond intact, I am a much more formidable foe.

“But,” I pull Minn over to the console where we each take a seat. Nic and Dillon meet each other part way and shake hands, but I tune them out, focusing on my friend for the moment. “Why are you here? Why not just go to
New Oregon
with the others?”

Minn shakes her head before I stop talking. “It wasn’t right. I mean, I’m not saying it wasn’t right for the others but Dillon and I—someone has to stand up for them, ya know? We’ve lived our whole lives enslaved to the Mind. We didn’t talk about it—how could we?—but I know everyone feels the same. It was no kind of life.”

She swings her chair from side to side and begins picking at her rough cuticles. “My ma told me stories of how it used to be when the King and Queen ruled the West. She told me what an honor it was to work in support then, to serve your family. To serve you.” Her deep brown eyes regard me. I let her see all of me, for the first time not holding anything back.

“She even told me stories about you.” She offers a shy smile and focuses on smoothing out her cuticles rather than holding my gaze. “’Course, I didn’t know it was you. I was a year older than you and you were a real-live princess. I used to imagine
I
was the lost princess.”

I reach for Minn’s hand, surprised again when she doesn’t pull away. Instead she puts her hand on top of mine, clasping it with her work-roughened skin. “You are our savior, Sera. You are our princess, our Queen. You have always been brave. You have always protected us, even when we did nothing to protect you. I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t want to fight for us. I wouldn’t.” Her gaze burrows deep into mine, like she’ll pull conviction from me at any cost.

“But, if you’d consider it, I promise they are worth saving. They’ve just been beaten and broken and there’s no hope left in ’em. But you could give it back to them.” She squeezes my hand and I watch while tears fill her eyes and spill over onto her cheeks. “Please don’t give up on them.”

Nic comes to stand beside me and places his hand on my shoulder. I look up at him and smile, and he smiles at Minn. I let my Crown show and Minn gasps. “We aren’t giving up.” I peer at both Minn and Dillon, making sure they see the hope and determination shining in my eyes.

I feel Nic’s pride and conviction radiate through his touch. “We will fight.”

I am glad for Dillon and Minn—they give me hope, help me remember who we are fighting for. Dillon, a short, boxy man with an honest face, has a quick mind and offers ideas as we plan our course of action.

In confidence, I ask him to be Serantha’s personal guard. “Serantha won’t like it, but I would feel better knowing you were at her side.”

Dillon casts a glance in the women’s direction. I suspect he realizes that protecting Sera will also mean protecting Minn.

He offers me a curt nod. “I’ll be subtle about it.” He grins and I clap him on the back.

“Let’s get to work, then.”

“We don’t know if we stand a chance,” I tell Minn and Dillon while Nic reaches out to his people. I watch him out of the corner of my eye—he hasn’t said anything about his parents, about how he must be feeling. I lost my parents so long ago that I don’t know what to say to make his loss bearable. I suppose there will never be the right words.

“The Mind have already destroyed several ship-states.” Minn cries out and Dillon puts his arm around her to steady her.

“I’m sorry,” I say in a low voice. I don’t know how to make up for all those lives lost, and I think it will haunt me forever. I don’t have it in me to tell her about Sher. Perhaps I am heartless, after all. I can’t find it within me to offer condolences or ease a hurting heart. I shake my head and press forward. “They thought they had us and wanted to show us our whole civilization wiped out so we could know we had lost everything before they killed us, too.”

Nic leans back in his chair, the screen in front of him scrolling through an endless array of coordinates.

“Nic’s going to get his people to help. The . . .” I glance at Nic, but decide to carry on . . . “King and Queen of the Eastern
Capital
have been murdered.” Minn’s face blanches, but I keep speaking. “The East has tried to remain uninvolved in the Mind war, but Nic is confident he can bring them to our side.”

“The andies won’t stop until all humankind is extinct. Right?” Dillon says. I don’t respond.

“But the East will help us, won’t they?” Minn asks, twisting her hands together in her lap. Dillon tightens his arm around her shoulder.

“We should have helped Sera all those years but we didn’t.” Dillon says in his rumbling, gravelly voice. “Because humans are built to protect themselves and their own and sometimes we make a mistake and forget we are all in this together. Sometimes we forget it isn’t just us and our loved ones, that it needs to be everyone—all of us.”

I take a fresh look at this man I barely knew all my years in support. He was one of the servicemen—repairing the ship and running odd jobs for Cook and anything else he was asked to do. He didn’t spend much time in the kitchen, and he had always been covered in grease—like most of the men were.

Now he stands tall, still dirty, still wearing clothes that are barely more than rags, but he seems . . . proud. Capable. Courageous. I reach out and take his hand. A flicker of suspicion crosses his eyes—everyone’s reaction to me over the years—before he forces his shoulders to relax and offers me a small smile.

“It’s true—we are built to protect ourselves and those we love. But it doesn’t mean we can’t love everyone around us. I didn’t believe it myself until Minn put her trust in me. I understand it better now.” My hand hovers at my forehead, my fingers tracing the spot where the Crown appears—but where it lies hidden at the moment.

“Anyway—we have to try. And if the East is unable to join us, we will fight anyway.”

Minn nods so fiercely her hair bobs on her shoulders. “I’d rather die fighting than let those andies blast me out of existence like yesterday’s trash.” Her words are like a gong, her gaze a burning brand. She has hope and she will fight to the last to ensure that hope finds purchase.

Exactly the kind of wild hope we all need if we have any chance of survival.

“I’ve got them,” Nic says in a low voice full of tension. We haven’t talked about how we’ll approach his people, but he is using a focused com so the rest of us are out of view for now.

“Nicolai?” a man asks as he takes a chair in front of the screen. My heart pounds when I see that it is the King. “Nicolai! My son!”

“Father?” I take the seat next to Nic, still out of view of the screen, and reach for Nic’s hand under the console. His fingers are trembling.

“Karenina! Come!”

I watch Nic. His cheeks are pale with high spots of color. Inside, he is a jumble of emotions.

“And Mother? How can this be?”

From off-screen I hear a woman’s voice call, “Is it him? Please, God, let it be him.” For a moment the screen is covered in white and various shades of red, and I hear shuffling. I glance at Nic with a question, but he is focused on the screen, his expression wide open.

“Father. I thought—I thought you were dead.”

“Nicolai, you’ve let your hair grow long,” a woman exclaims.

Nic swipes at his bangs but they flop right back. A wry expression replaces the shock on Nic’s face and I feel his relief and joy—immediately followed by annoyance and regret.
Even discovering I am still alive, they offer me nothing but opposition.