Stitching Snow (32 page)

The scream of the lockdown siren pushed me back up.

Not yet!

My job was almost through. I took out my locket and retrieved the data-chip, loading it into a reader. All I had to do 305

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was add its fi les to those I’d just rounded up, compiling them all into one packet, and set up a broadcast for all available channels.

I got halfway through the fi rst part when something slammed into my side, knocking me to the ground.

Instinct rolled me into a crouch, facing the attack, despite the pain radiating through my ribs.

Olivia. She’d slipped in the direct entrance through the royal quarters.

Too slow, Essie!
I’d known she’d be on her way. Where else would she have gone?

“What have you done?” she demanded, advancing on me.

I didn’t bother with an answer. I was more concerned with the long rod in her hand. The police force in the Bands carried something similar to beat down kids who got in their way. The blazing siren drowned out the sound of her metal-encrusted boots on the hard fll oor.

She had the rage—that was clear on her face—but I knew she didn’t have training or practice. I could handle this.

I dodged her next swing, nearly fll attening myself on the ground, then grabbed the weapon before she could change direction. I tried to yank it away, but she pressed something on her end of the rod.

The invisible cage in the VT fi ght on Garam was nothing but a gentle breeze compared to the pain that charged through me. Every muscle went rigid. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t see.

I couldn’t even cry out.

Maybe this was death. So close, only to fail at the end.

But the pain stopped, leaving echoes twitching through me.

Still a chance, but I’d have to be sharp.

“You stupid, selfi sh little girl,” Olivia said, the rod poised 306

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for another strike. “Your father should be here by now. Where is he?”

I pushed myself off the fll oor, telling my ribs and head to shut it when they screamed. “Dead.”

The look in her eyes brought a pulse of satisfaction, dulling the pain. “You lie.”

“No. I watched him bleed to death.”

Her shriek might have held words, but I didn’t waste energy deciphering them. I scooted away from her wild swings, dodg-ing to avoid contact with the weapon.

Just a little space. Just enough room to move. Just enough to get to the console and enter the last few commands. But Olivia had always been driven, and now was no different. I kept from getting hit again but couldn’t even fi nd enough time to stand.

Finally I had an opening. I slammed my foot into her knee.

She cried out and stumbled back but didn’t fall. Still, it broke her rhythm, making her more wary.

She wasn’t used to pushing through pain.

I slipped my hand into my pocket, grasping the cylinder. I needed to move back, get just a few sniffs more space. A little stalling should give me time to do it.

“We both know you’re going to kill me,” I said. “Could you at least tell me why?”

“Because I’m tired of you getting in the way, wretched girl.

You’re just like your mother, bringing nothing but weakness to your father.”

I was in the way because I was in line to the throne, but I saw something else beneath the surface, shining in her eyes. The reason she hated
me
.

She knew what he’d done. She blamed me for that weakness.

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I almost threw the canister right then, but I was still too close. Before I could fi nd a way to continue stalling, she did it for me.

“I won’t make the same mistakes he did. I’ll destroy all the Exiles as we should have years ago. You’ll be the fi rst to go.” So she knew that, too. “You mean the second. My mother was the fi rst. Why didn’t you just tell my father what she was?”

“Because the fool loved her. He would have made her death too quick. You Exiles deserve to suffer.”
Exiles suffering . . . Dane . . .

I couldn’t afford the distraction. Not yet.

“Someone taught you that we deserve to suffer,” I said. “Who was it?”

The venom in her eyes could have turned a harri-harra in its tracks. “The Exile who killed my parents.” An unexpected fll icker of pity moved through me. I understood pain so deep it could steer the whole course of a life, change an identity.

But Theo and the soldiers at Saddlewood shouted the truth in my head. Father may have deserved to die, and whoever killed Olivia’s family, too. But
they
didn’t deserve it.

My mother didn’t.

Dane didn’t.

I didn’t.

Olivia came at me with the rod again, charged high enough I could see sparks crackling on its surface.

Please, Dimwit, if you’ve ever done anything right, let this be it.

I pulled the canister from my pocket, fll icked the release valve with my thumb, and threw it at her.

The chemicals reacted instantly. Blue fll ames blossomed 308

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around her legs, concentrated on the metalwork of her boots, which began to glow with heat.

Her screams melded with the siren. I rolled out of her path, but the heat followed my right foot. My boot had caught fi re where I’d kicked her, picking up some of the thederol. I yanked it off and threw it across the room. My foot still felt like fi re, but the burn wasn’t bad.

Olivia tried removing her boots as well, but they were too thoroughly engulfed to touch. She hopped in a strange sort of dance, stumbling toward the console.

My breath caught. She couldn’t destroy the computer. I braced myself to knock her out of the way if I had to, but she tumbled the other way into a wall.

Then the fll ames were everywhere.

I wrapped my arms around my head, trying to block out the sound. Nothing could block the smell—the acrid, putrid stench of burning death. I retched.

By the time the fi re control system recognized the unusual fll ame and released its extinguishing spray, it was too late. I tried not to look, but once I did, I couldn’t un-see it.
I did that to her.

If my stomach hadn’t already emptied itself, it would have at that moment. Then I remembered the man at Saddlewood who’d been blown apart in front of me.

I didn’t know how to feel.

Instead of deciding, I hauled myself off the fll oor and hob-bled to the console, my burned foot screaming every step. My hands couldn’t hold a tool steady enough for the sloppiest stitch, but it didn’t matter. The stitching was done. I tapped the last commands, and my recorded message was loaded into the 309

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communications network, moments away from going world-wide. System-wide.

The job was fi nished.

Dane . . .

My head ran the numbers automatically. The knife wound, the rate of blood loss, the time that had passed.

And that assumed he’d gotten clear of the security door.

I didn’t bother fi ghting the tears. There was no one left to hide them from. The siren silenced, and my own voice echoed through the room.

“I am Princess Snow, daughter of King Matthias. Many of you
remember my mother, Queen Alaina. When I hear you speak of her, I
know how loved she was by her people. But she had a secret. She was
not one of you. She was Candaran—an Exile.”
I had to get into the security hub. Had to see for myself. But it was still locked.

“Although I was young when she died, I know she regretted the
dishonesty. She did it because she believed she could make a difference
for this world, for this solar system. Because she knew that my father,
King Matthias, is an evil man.”

“Aye, he
was
,” I muttered, loading command codes onto my slate.

“Included with this broadcast are fi les detailing the crimes of Matthias and Olivia. I encourage you to examine them closely, confi rm that
there’s been no tampering. Above all else, I am here to inform you that
there is no war against the Exiles. The armies slaughtering the militia
in the outlands are controlled by the crown. As I speak, the true forces
of Candara are moving in to end the bloodshed. Do not fear them.”
Fear . . . every shambling step down the corridor toward the 310

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security hub amplifi ed the fear shuddering through me. But I didn’t stop.

“They are not here to take power. They are here for me. My true
name is Elurra. I am a daughter of both Windsong and Candara. And
I am asserting my right to the throne, but only if the people of Windsong will have me.”

Right then I didn’t want the throne. I wanted to see the night-mare awaiting me and let the world end.

The message fi nished, leaving me in silence at the security door. I entered a code from the slate and braced myself, imagining the worst so I couldn’t be surprised.

Surprise gave way to confusion.

The guard I’d killed lay just where I’d left him. The door on the opposite side of the hub was already open, a large pool of blood crossing its threshold.

So much blood.

But no body. No Dane. Just some very strange tracks trailing away from the blood.

Tracks that looked suspiciously like those of a four-legged mining drone.

311

29

I FOLLOWED THE BLOOD TRAIL

through the maze of cor-

ridors but quickly ran into a problem. The technicians fll ooded out of their labs and spotted me. I couldn’t run—not with one boot and a burned foot on top of what felt like badly bruised ribs and an overall aching body. But their approach didn’t seem violent. It seemed more . . . concerned.

“Princess, you have to get somewhere safe.”
What does safe have to do with anything?
“Have any of you seen a robot, about this tall?”

“What? They’ll know you’re down here. Come on.” A couple of them took my arms and hurried me along, taking most of the weight from my injured foot. My brain couldn’t process fast enough.

“Who are you talking about?” I asked. “Who’ll know I’m here?”

“The king and queen. Your broadcast.” I shook my head. “They’re both dead.” R.C. ll E WI S

The whole group of them paused. Then a man behind me gave a gentle shove. “It doesn’t matter. The Exiles have arrived and the Midnight Blade are resisting. Maybe the Golden Sword, too.”

“How do you know?”

“The networks are fll ooding with information now that the locks are off.”

But where’s Dane?

They didn’t know the answer to that, so I went with a different question. “Why are you helping me?” The woman holding my left arm replied. “We suspected what your father used our poisons for, but those who tried speaking up . . . nothing good happened.”

“And we
do
remember your mother,” added the man behind me. “Queen Alaina was a good woman.”

“But she was an Exile. I’m half Exile.” Someone in the group laughed. “Well, not doing a very good job possessing us, are you?”

They got me into the lift—no more unconscious guard inside—and things started to blur. Servants and technicians hurrying me to the private chamber behind the throne room.

Watching the networks as word spread that the king and queen were dead. A member of the Golden Sword arriving and swear-ing his loyalty to me, guarding the room.

Waiting. Worrying.
What happened to Dane?

After hours or days or only a lifetime of minutes, the door opened. I tried to stand, but my body refused.

Half the governing council of Candara entered, Stindu at the head. He wasn’t the one I wanted to see. “Where’s Kip?” I asked.

“Still seeing to the skirmishes in the outlands,” Stindu said.

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“The Midnight Blade have stood down, but more fi ghting of one kind or another could break out any time. You promised us a queen. Time to see if you can deliver.” I couldn’t. I’d planned everything up to this moment, but never imagined I’d live long enough to see the other side.

Not alone, anyway.

The door opened again.

“Dimwit! Where’s Dane?”

“Dane Dimwit call Dimwit.”

The wrist transmitter. Dane had been wearing it. “Report, Dimwit. Tell me what happened.”

“Dimwit door open. Dimwit medical protocols. Doctors Dane doctors.”

Something inside me exploded, like a ball of light fi lling me up. “You got him to a hospital? He’s alive?” A long beep. “Doctors critical critical critical! Dimwit Essie fi nd Essie.”

The light dimmed but didn’t go out. Dane had been alive when Dimwit got to him, but I’d seen the blood. It might have been too late.

Or it might not.

The council erupted around me, demanding to know what had happened, waiting for me to translate Dimwit’s broken speech patterns.

I held up my hand. I had to know how bad it was. “Shut it! Dimwit, you said you opened the door. Was it completely closed?”

One beep. That was no.

“What blocked it?”

“Legs . . . Dane legs.”

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Claiming the throne should have meant I could do what I wanted, but another lifetime passed before I left the palace and went to the hospital with a pair of Golden Sword guards. Madness ruled the hallways, doctors and medics rushing to treat casualties—some royal guards, some Candarans, and some citizens caught in the middle.

The hospital staff had better things to do than attend to royalty, so I was glad I’d wrapped my hair under a scarf and told the guards to act like we were just there to check on injured friends.

It helped that I was there to do exactly that. Dimwit tapped into the computer system to fi nd Dane’s room, leaving the doctors to do their healing.

The guards remained stationed in the hall when Dimwit and I went in. I stood just inside the door, motionless except for one hand pulling the scarf off my head. Dane lay on the bed, one arm dangling over the edge. The drone went straight to the medical readouts, but they were beyond me, so I stared at Dane’s chest until I saw it move at least twice. He was alive, but so pale. “Major blood loss and trauma.” That had been the doctors’ reply to the palace’s inquiry. “Recovery uncertain. Will continue to monitor.”