UNBREATHABLE (15 page)

“Clear the room.” Her voice slices through the quiet.

The hall is empty in moments, leaving Chancellor Kole, Dena, Julian, Ilen, Rowan, the Queen, and me. She raises one eyebrow at me, recovering a fraction of herself. “Ilen, lead our guests away, please.”

Julian looks at me as they go, his eyes lit with concern.

“Have you now?” She asks me. I’m alone with her and Rowan. Fear edges into my mind, but I shove it away.

“When, dear Lissa?” Her voice is tight.

I glance over at Rowan. He looks so much like Julian, though they had two different mothers. But now, Rowan’s lips have paled. His dark eyes flicker in what I realize is fear. Julian is never this afraid.

Realization hits like a gust of dry wind. Rowan is afraid.

I want to laugh.

I shouldn’t have said we’ve met, not if I want to be on Rowan’s good side. Because Rowan is first in command.

Rowan holds answers.

I lick my lips and meet Queen Rhea's eyes. “At the Tower, when he came to pick up the body. The same day I met you.”

Was that yesterday? Two days ago?

She holds my gaze a moment longer. It’s hard to stay still beneath her unnerving stare. She’s exactly how Chancellor Kole was on the day of Gage’s death, digging through my thoughts, detecting my lies.

“So you know about the bodies,” she says finally, relief softening her voice. She picks up what she dropped.

“Just once then?”

I wonder if I imagine the undercurrent of desperation quickening her words. I don't hesitate before answering.

The lie is easy. “Yes.”

My answer echoes against the walls of this vast room, again and again. The walls are a witness to my lies. I resist the urge to flinch.

But why? Why does it matter when and where I've met Rowan?

I glance back at Rowan. His relief is replaced with another smirk when he catches me looking. This time, it’s knowing. He thinks he knows why I lied. But I acted on impulse. I don't think
I
even know why I lied. But I've said what he wanted.

He has more answers than we ever will. Answers that could save the human race, and maybe even me from whatever fate my mother has planned. I must get them, whatever the cost. This is what Gage turned me into, after all—a girl fueled by information and answers to questions that will never end.

“Now. You’re here for more than Rowan, though it was imperative that you meet him.” She pauses and I look up at her fully-recovered ease. “Tomorrow eve, you will be crowned Princess.”

I keep my expression carefully neutral, though the edge of my right eye twitches. Inside, my mind is running to catch up with my life that's happening before I can even comprehend.

“Of course, every Jute who matters will be here for the event, and you will need to make yourself presentable.” She scans my ensemble with a sour twist to her lips. “Most definitely not alone, you will have maids for preparing. And you must look stunning. It
is
a ceremony, after all.”

I nod, my breath coming out in short puffs of air. A ceremony. Maids. A crown.

It all suggests I will live here on Jutaire. But I know my mother has no intention of crowning me as heir. Slate said so.

“But that is tomorrow, darling,” she says, answering my thoughts. “Today, I have a much different task for you. Very different.”

She smiles. Rowan opens a side door.

Ilen and another soldier drag a bloody Chancellor Kole toward me, Dena and Julian wide-eyed and breathless behind them.

”What have you done?” I gasp. My hand instinctively goes for one of the daggers around my waist.

“Cooperation is imperative,” my mother says, her voice razor-sharp. Her lazy demeanor is now fierce, calculated. She doesn’t even glance at my dagger as she strolls down the platform, the white fur around her neck bright. “You, of all people know that, Kole.”

He hacks a cough in answer. His gray suit is stained red. The other soldier punches him in the stomach, a sick grin on his face. Dena whimpers and I feel my face pale.

I never thought I’d see Dena afraid.

“Did you retrieve the box from him?” the Queen asks. The soldier holds out a small metal box. I know what it is, but as I search through the pages in my mind, half of them have been replaced with new memories, rather than the facts I memorized over the years. But the box’s darkened exterior, few frayed wires and the rusted inscriptions tell me enough: it’s from Earth.

Chancellor Kole groans.

Blood trickles down a gash across his cheek.

“Leave him alone,” Dena hisses, her voice is thick with tears.

The Queen turns to me. “Do you know what this is, Lissa?”

I don’t answer.

“It’s a voice recorder, from Earth. Gage was a very interesting man, wasn’t he? He thought he could keep it from me, he thought he was smart.” She laughs. Irritation flashes in her eyes when Chancellor Kole’s cough cuts her short. “He’s dead.”

Julian silently passes the Queen and stands by my side.

“There’s a problem, you see,” she says. She speaks slowly, too slowly. Chancellor Kole is seeping blood, and if she drags on any longer, he’ll die. What does Chancellor Kole have to do with the recorder? And Gage?

“The recorder is locked, protected. Gage, idiot that he was, configured it to recognize one voice only.”

“My voice,” I whisper.

“Smart girl,” my mother says and strides toward me. I eagerly take the small box from her elegant fingers. I’m holding an artifact from Earth. At the thought, giddiness trembles through me.

Chancellor Kole is dying and I am thinking of Earth. My mother looks ready to rip off my head and I am thinking of Earth. I clench my jaw.

“Unlock it,” she says, her voice soft and commanding.

I force air through my nose. Jutaire air. Only Chancellor Kole and Dena wear masks, no one else. In White Plains, they are the ones who stand out, not us.
Us
.

I almost laugh. I have a place where I belong and I still don’t belong.

“No.”

The temperature drops. “What did you say?”

“I said no.” I meet her eyes as defiantly as I can. My daggers pulse against me—two around my waist, another hidden against my leg.

“Very well.” She turns to Rowan. Ilen and the other soldier hold Chancellor Kole by his arms as Rowan slides a sword out from the soldier’s sheath. He presses it against Chancellor Kole’s neck.

Chancellor Kole looks at me, his black eyes strangely focused. “Don’t,” he wheezes, “do it.”

Rowan presses the blade harder and Chancellor Kole shuts his eyes with a shuddering breath. Rowan glances at the Queen, and I catch a flicker of something in his eyes that makes me pause.

Remorse.

I look back at my mother, panic rising in my chest. “Leave him alone.”

“Why? Wouldn’t you want him dead? After what he did to your poor uncle?” She asks.

“No one deserves to die,” I say, my voice quiet.

“No,” she says with a humorless laugh. “No one deserves to die. Everyone is
destined
to. Unlock the box.”

“Lissa, please,” Dena begs. Julian remains silent.

Chancellor Kole doubles over. My breathing quickens. Rowan pulls the sword away, the tip wet with blood.

No.

“Stop!” My voice echoes. Hysteria taints my words. “How do I open it?”

“Flick the switch,” the Queen says smugly.

There’s a nauseating, sickening rolling in my stomach. Gage
was
smart. He wouldn't encrypt information in a precious artifact from Earth unless the situation was dire. Unless the information was of utmost importance.

My mother is right. My uncle was an idiot.

The box speaks through the three tiny slits on its side. The vibration of a voice I never thought I’d hear again tingles up my fingers.

Gage's voice. I thought I would no longer mourn him, now that I have my real father, now that I know what Gage would have done to me. But nothing can replace the years where I thought he was my father, always looking out for me.

“Lissa, if you’re hearing this, it means I have failed. Moreover, it means I am dead. You likely know the truth now and Slate must finally be reunited with his daughter. And Lissa”—he pauses—“I am sorry. Very and truly.”

If I ever had any doubts, I know now: Slate is my father.

The Queen scoffs, dragging me back to the reality before me.

“In this digital recorder, I've protected a file. It will open to your voice only, with a set of words I once told you. I know you more than you know yourself, Lissa. You will figure it out.”

“As for what lies in the file,” he trails off with a sigh laden in remorse. Julian’s fingers press against my arm.

“As for what lies in the file,” he starts again, “it is the truth. I would never lie to you. I've thoroughly tested what began as a theory, a speculation, and this is the conclusion.”

He clears his throat. And when he speaks again, his voice is constricted with emotion. “Unlock the file, Lissa, and decide what needs to be done.”

Silence. The large room is suddenly too small. I won’t decide what needs to be done.

My mother will.

“Password.” I flinch at the female monotone. I think of all the words Gage had told me. There are so many. Gage never said anything that didn’t need to be said. Every word was uttered for a reason.

“I don’t know what it is.”

“Neither do we, darling,” the Queen says. “But you’ll figure it out. Or they’ll die, one by one.”

As she says the words, more soldiers enter the room. Two of them grab Dena. She screeches and struggles against them. One of them slaps her across her cheek and she stops, stunned into obedience. When they come for Julian, he doesn’t even move a muscle as they pull him in front of me, where I can see him. He doesn’t react at all.

Fear rolls through me. No amount of training could have prepared me for this.

I stare at the recorder, as if that will make it spill its secrets. Chancellor Kole coughs again.

“You are you,” I say to it, remember Gage’s words on the hill when I took my first breath of the toxic air. Nothing happens. The light is still red. The Queen stares in silence, as does Rowan. And everyone else.

There are too many eyes on me, too many.

“Well, try another, we don’t have all day,” one of the soldiers whines. The Queen slants her gaze at him and he straightens.

Chancellor Kole is the only one moving. Heaving, because he is dying.

“Rowan,” the Queen says. I glance up and meet Rowan’s eyes as he draws more blood, deepening the gash across Chancellor Kole’s neck. A scream builds in the back of my throat.

“Lissa,” I hear Julian whisper.

I swivel my eyes to his, my movements are jittery, too much of a display of my fear. But when I meet his eyes, there’s no one but us. No blood. No death. No threat.

“You are running out of time,” the Queen says. Chancellor Kole cries out. He falls to the ground when the soldiers release him. He moans and heaves.

The man who had taken countless lives, who acted as the most hated man in human eyes to protect them all, is dying. Rowan drops the sword and pulls a small dagger from his waist.

I hold my breath as the clatter of the sword echoes into silence. Everyone does. Because suddenly, no one is breathing. Suddenly, every eye is on me. The room thickens with anticipation. Even the walls grasp their breath.

I close my eyes. And there, in the dark harshness of my breathing, I hear Gage’s voice on the threshold of death.

“You are not my daughter.”

The red light turns green.

And Rowan plunges his dagger through Chancellor Kole’s heart.

Dena screams and I nearly drop the recorder as my ears explode with her bloodcurdling cry.

“Dena,
shut up
,” Julian thunders. The walls yell back with his furious words. In swift movements, he kicks the soldiers away from him, twists their arms behind them until they themselves drop in pain. He’s by Chancellor Kole’s side in heartbeats.

“No,” I breathe. I press my fingers against the edges of the recorder, letting the pain of the metal edges bite into my skin.

Julian’s hands roam over Chancellor Kole’s chest, which is covered in blood. It covers the tile beneath our feet and pools around him. But there is no use. He’s dying.