Stitching Snow (27 page)

My stomach roiled. All those years on Thanda, I’d thought I understood my father’s monstrosity. That understanding deepened when the Candarans told me they weren’t involved in the war at all. Father put his own rule above everything and everyone—even his own people. Confronted with these soldiers, dead and dying due to Father’s actions, it reached a new level of reality for me.

But the same man had told me bedtime stories. Had shed tears when he told me my mother was dead. Had been heartbro-ken when I was missing and genuinely happy when I returned.

Had done other things.

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It wouldn’t come together. The pieces jammed into spaces where they didn’t fi t.

Collect data now, Essie. Process later.

I cleared my throat. “Captain, I don’t want to get in the medics’ way. Could we see some of your weapons stores?”

“Of course, Princess.”

I wanted to drink the fresh air once we were outside, but I restrained myself to more controlled breaths. We didn’t go far, just to one of the storage shacks next to the infi rmary. Larsen slid open a crate and removed a gun.

“This is our standard fi eld rifl e. Range of half a link, variable charge. Steady and reliable, but the Exiles’ weapons are a bit better. I’ve often wondered if they’re getting contraband from the brains over on Garam. I haven’t any proof, of course, ma’am.” Maybe he had proof of something else. I turned and gave Dane a slight nod.

“May I, Captain?” he said. Larsen handed him the rifl e, which he quickly broke down, laying out the components on another crate.

I stepped closer and looked it over, glad for a puzzle to focus on. I didn’t know much about weapons, but when I saw the guts of a thing, I could fi gure it. Charge generator, polarizer, conduits, contact relays . . . Something was off. The scanner from my pocket confi rmed it, and I saved the scan fi le to my slate.

With that confi guration, the gun would fi re bolts that looked pretty good, but didn’t do much more than give the target an irritating shock.

It was all true. Nothing but theatrics on the “Exile” side, but the Windsong militia soldiers didn’t know that. The injuries, the deaths on their own side, they were all too real.

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My mind clicked through the information, stubbornly trying to make it compute, refusing to wait any longer. The effort distracted me, turning the rest of our tour into a meaningless blur.

When I surfaced, the captain said he had duties to return to and left us in Theo’s care to decide what else we wanted to do.

“You can see, Princess, they do the best they can here,” the guard said. “It’s the same or worse all across the outlands. A bad situation all around.”

“War usually is,” I murmured. “Theo, would you mind checking in with the medics? Get a list of supplies and tech they need. If we can’t get the injured to the hospitals, we should at least get these infi rmaries as close to hospital-quality as we can.”

“Certainly, Princess.”

It was a task that needed doing, but all I really wanted was to get Theo out of the way so I could talk to Dane. The guard left for the infi rmary, and I set off in a different direction toward the near edge of the base. Past the shacks with soldiers carrying out their tasks, out into the wild fi elds overgrown with brush and young trees. My sleeve snagged on a branch, scraping the skin underneath, but I just tugged it free and kept going. Once I knew no one could hear us, I turned to Dane and let the words burst out.

“It doesn’t make any sense!”

He stepped back, startled. “What do you mean?”

“I mean none of this adds up. Why is my father carrying on with this now that I’m back, now that it’s
acknowledged
that Exiles didn’t take me? Why does he insist on convincing this whole planet we’re at war with you?”

“Do you know anything about your own history?” Only what the tutors had told me. Being on Thanda had been 259

S T I T C H I N G S N O W

all about running away from the past. I said nothing, but it was answer enough for Dane.

“Kip told me a few things. It’s because Matthias’s power was slipping, Essie. He’s never been able to keep hold of the kingdom like your grandfather could. He doesn’t know how, not like a real king. Unrest and uprisings plagued his reign from the beginning. He brought in Olivia as royal theurgist, and that helped for a while, but the people didn’t actually like her that much. So he married your mother, and the kingdom was more stable than it had ever been during his rule. When she died, he almost lost the throne.”

I fll inched. After Mother died, after the wedding to Olivia . . .

that was when everything changed.

Dane stepped a little closer, but his eyes held sympathy, not threats. “Then you disappeared, and he took the chance to create a convenient enemy out of people he’s already afraid of. Afraid because if we Transition, we can understand anyone from the inside. Afraid because there’s no keeping secrets from us. That’s what Transitioning is, Essie; it’s about understanding people, and to someone like your father, that’s
worse
than the fear of possession or mind-control. He chose the kind of leader he’d be years ago, and it was the wrong choice.” I knew what he wasn’t saying. I was the right choice. “He’s my father. What if you and Kip are wrong? What if there’s more of him than my mother in me?”

“We’re not wrong.”

He reached for my hand. I wanted to let him take it, but I pulled away. “Don’t.”

“No one’s going to see.”

No one will see, no one will know, it’ll be our secret. . . .

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“I said, don’t.”

The edge in my voice sent him back a step. “Essie, I’m sorry, I—”

“I had a choice, too, Dane,” I cut in. “Fight for the right to live quietly on Candara with you or come to Windsong, where the odds say I won’t survive the year, but hopefully I’ll take my father and Olivia down with me. My choice wasn’t supposed to include you coming along and getting killed, too, and when I’m probably going to die anyway, you shouldn’t waste your feelings on me.”

Dane shook his head. “You’re brilliant, Essie, but you’re still dim on a few things. Feelings can’t be wasted. Knowing they’re real for however long they last makes them worth having.” Something wrenched inside me. “You’re wrong. Feelings can be real without being worth anything at all.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because somewhere inside me is the little girl who loved her father, and in his twisted black heart, he
does
love me. After all he’s done, what’s
that
worth?” Dane had no answer, and neither did I. His eyes said he wanted to blank it out for me, make it so it had never happened, but we both knew that was impossible.

The silence hung, and in the end, neither of us got a chance to break it.

A screeching buzz, like a wasp the size of Dimwit, tore through the air above us. We spun just in time to see a crackling ball of energy hit the infi rmary, enveloping it in a net of lightning.

Then we heard the screams.

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I launched myself toward the building and nearly tore my arm off. Dane had grabbed hold and was pulling me another way.

“What are you doing? We have to get in there, we have to help them!”

“No, we have to get out of here right now!”

“What kind of blazing coward are you?” Another building was hit—maybe by a different weapon, because it just exploded, the shock wave knocking us down.

Dane lost his grip on my arm, so I pulled myself up and started running. As usual, he was too fast, tackling me hard to the ground. I tasted blood. I swung my elbow back and made contact with something, maybe his ear. Enough to weasel out from under him, but not enough to get very far.

“Theo is in there!” I protested, trying to break his hold around my waist.
I sent him in there.

Another shot, another building consumed by electricity.

“I’m sorry, Essie, but it’s too late for them. Come
on
!” He was right. The screams from the infi rmary had stopped.

A sudden cold fll ooded me; a piece of me died. I wanted to go home, even if home meant the palace. I stopped fi ghting Dane and let him pull me into a run.

Men scattered all over the base, ignoring us as they shouted at each other to repair the perimeter defense, to launch counter-measures. Some just ran for their lives. One passed near a shack when it got hit. Then he was gone.

Just gone.

Anything left was unrecognizable as ever having been human.

The shock left me stunned enough for Dane to drag me to 262

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the barn and shove me into the transport. He took the pilot’s seat and swore.

“The controls have a security lockout. Can you bypass it?” The schematics I’d studied fll ashed in my mind. No time for code-breaking. I had to fool the computer into forgetting it needed a code at all. I grabbed some gear, pulled my slate, got on my back underneath the console, and yanked off the access panel. Each conduit was a thread, and I traced them through the fabric of the control system. Everything disappeared but the puzzle. One thread stood out, then another. A few stitches, a few twists and knots.

Finally stitching again. A smile fll itted across my lips, but fell away just as quickly. Theo was dead, and I was happy because I didn’t have to act like a princess for a moment.

I wanted to throw up.

“Essie, I hate to rush you, but could you hurry?” The anxiety in his voice told me not to ask why, just work faster. “Almost got it. C’mon, you botched little—there!” The engines came to life, the transport lifted off the ground, and we surged forward so quickly that I slid, jamming my leg against one of the seats. I hauled myself up into the chair and checked the rear display on the console.

Flames engulfed the barn. That explained Dane’s anxiety.

Buildings smoldered and sparked all around us, smoke obscuring everything. Another explosion bucked the transport, throwing me against the side console.

“Your turn to hurry, Dane.”

“Working on it.”

He slammed the accelerator and jerked the lateral controls, narrowly missing a chunk of metal that had torn from a wall.

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For a second, I thought he’d gotten turned around and we were going the wrong way, but then I saw the river. He was taking the shortest route out of the wreckage.

The burning ruin that had been a militia base minutes ago disappeared in a mass of smoke and debris behind us. Another fi re lit inside me, replacing the chill I’d felt earlier.

“I’m done. I can’t do it anymore. No more games and pretending. I’m just going to kill him.” Dane could only afford a quick glance away from the controls, but it was like a laser drilling into me. “No, you won’t. We stick to the plan.”

“Why?”

“Because we’re too far from Kip and the fll eet, and we’re not ready.”

“What does it matter? I can’t look him in the eye and be the dutiful daughter and pretend I don’t know that he just killed those men, and his own guard, too. I can’t do it!”

“Yes, you can. Because your father didn’t do that.” Minutes ago, he’d been lecturing me on my father’s machinations. The words caught in my chest and took a second try to get out. “What?”

“He knew you’d be at Saddlewood. He never would have launched that attack today.”

“Then who?” The answer struck me as soon as I’d asked the question.

“Olivia must have access to the army posing as Exiles. She just took another shot at killing you, and in case you missed it, she almost succeeded.”

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24

WE BYPASSED THE SAFETY LIMITS of the transport, trimming a few hours from our return trip. Dane and I remained silent most of the time. I busied myself with small tasks, ensuring the royal identifi cation code broadcasted cleanly so the defenses at the outland borders would let us through and transferring the gun scan to a small data-chip I tucked safely inside my locket.

A message came from the palace when they got word of the attack, stating an escort would be sent. Dane refused, claiming he didn’t want any more attention brought to our location. Then he had me disable the transport’s locator. Simple enough.

“Do you really think I’m a coward?” Dane asked.

I refused to look up from my slate. “Isn’t that what you call it when something bad happens and you run the other way?”

“You don’t get it, do you?”

“Get what?”

“Why I’m here.”

I tapped out a few ideas for a self-modulating subroutine.

S T I T C H I N G S N O W

Maybe someday I could send it to Petey and someone could see if it fi xed Zippy’s timing issues. Petey . . . I still hadn’t gotten word to him. “No, I get that. To save your father, clear the name of Candarans everywhere. Good reasons.”

“Look at me, Essie!”

His voice was so sharp, so full of an emotion I couldn’t defi ne, that I couldn’t help turning. Anger. That was part of it.

And something else.

“I told you, protecting you isn’t an act. So when the attack started, my fi rst instinct wasn’t to run away. It was to get
you
safe. And not just because of how I feel about you—because you’re this planet’s best chance at a real future.”

“What do you care what happens to Windsong?” Dane refused to release my gaze, and it was harder than ever for me to break away from his. “Candara isn’t my home. It never has been.
Windsong
is where my parents fell in love, where I was born, where my mother died. This will always be home to me.” The locked room overlooking Gakoa fll ashed in my mind, the mountains and river, the peace of being separate from everything but taking it all in. The place of a king watching his kingdom, holding the weight of his world. Dane clearly hadn’t wanted any part of it.

“You don’t plan on claiming the Candaran throne, do you?”

“When we rescue my father, it’ll be his to take, if he wants it.”

“I saw how the people there looked at you. Kids like Tatsa.

How they love you.”

His hand twitched on the controls. “Maybe. But they don’t need me. Not like your people need you.” He was so wrong. Not about what the people of Windsong needed, but about how this was going to play out. I couldn’t sit 266