close enough to the same thing. You guys want to get back to the Umber Empire, and I want to get off this planet—doesn’t matter where I end up, as long as it’s out of Dago Korsa’s reach.”
“I’m listening,” Gal says.
“So we join the Archon resistance.”
The hunger and hope in Gal’s expression evaporates in an instant. My hands start to tremble. I try not to let it show, but Wen’s clued into something. Her confidence slips, and she blinks. “You’re going to have to explain exactly what that is,” Gal says, and I swear there’s an edge of menace in his voice.
“When the Archon Empire fell, people ran here. You know that, right?”
We nod. I remember the night after the surrender, when blockade-runners tried to escape Rana’s atmosphere and the guns of the dreadnoughts long enough to go superluminal. Few slipped past the cityships. The darkness shone with the rain of broken ships reentering, shredding as they fell, and the skies echoed with the distant thunderclap of heavy boltfire slamming into the atmosphere. There was no chance I’d go on one of them. I was stuck on Rana, doomed to the occupation along with most of the population. But that night, I looked up at the sky and wished that I could take the risk.
I glance at Gal. To him, those were his rightful subjects, mandated by the power of his blood, fleeing his eventual rule. I wonder if I’ll ever be able to tell him how much I wanted to be one of them.
It wouldn’t—shouldn’t—matter. I’m here now.
“The refugees organized with assistance from the Corinthian Empire. Our imperials have a vested interest in keeping Umber from overreaching again, after all, but an even more vested interest in appearing uninterested in conflict with the Umber Empire. They built camps for the Archon folks at first, spreading them across the borderworlds where we had the space and the resources. But after a few years, there was a shift in their priorities. Those who wanted to integrate peacefully into Corinthian society did just that. But those who wanted revenge—they have our emprex’s support. So much so that for the past five years, they’ve been operating a resistance movement out of a base right here on Delos. I don’t know exactly what they do over there, but if you’re deserters from a former Archon territory, they might welcome you. And me along with you. And maybe they could get all three of us where we need to go.”
Gal looks ashen. He grips his knees, staring at his knuckles, and his breaths are so measured that I know he must be counting. One, two, three, in. One, two, three, out.
A different sort of counting echoes in my heart, a steady rhythm I’ve known all my life. The beat Tatsun Seely tapped into my shoulder finds resonance in my bones. I push myself to my feet, trying not to look off-balance even as my mind reels. “Wen, could you give me and my, uh, boyfriend a second?”
I reach down and help Gal up. He shrugs out of his pack, and I loop an arm around his shoulders, shepherding him toward the edge of the roof. When I glance back at Wen, she’s sprawled on her back, her hands folded behind her head as she stares up at the late afternoon sky.
Gal’s tense under my touch, his eyes downcast. I glance at the city street beneath us, half expecting to see Cutters racing up on bikes, but instead I see the reason Wen knew for sure we’d be safe on top of this particular building.
“A police precinct,” Gal mutters. “Rut me sideways.”
“She’s…” I don’t know how that sentence ends. Part of me wants to call it cleverness. Part of me wants to call it luck. Most of me wants to get as far away from her as we can. And all of me knows that’s impossible now.
“She’s something,” Gal agrees.
I heave in a deep breath, staring out at Isla’s distant downtown. It shimmers and glitters in the haze, the sky above woven with the vectors of ship traffic. My old wounds ache, my old loyalties prickling at the back of